-
The Duchy of Courland and a Baltic colonial venture across the ocean
Historian article
The Duchy of Courland’s attempts to establish outposts in the Caribbean and Africa were not the only Baltic ventures across the Atlantic during the seventeenth century. However, the expeditions of the small vassal dukedom were possibly the most unlikely. The article introduces the motivations behind the Couronian colonial project, as...
The Duchy of Courland and a Baltic colonial venture across the ocean
-
Secular acts and sacred practices in the Italian Renaissance church interior
Historian article
Joanne Allen reveals a fundamental structural and architectural development in Italian churches in the Renaissance era, demonstrating that careful observation of structures and archives can substantially inform our appreciation of all church buildings.
In the opening to The Decameron (c. 1350), Boccaccio described how the ten young people who would become storytellers...
Secular acts and sacred practices in the Italian Renaissance church interior
-
Elizabeth I: ‘less than a woman’?
Historian article
Tracy Borman examines the femininity of the Virgin Queen.
Elizabeth I is often hailed as a feminist icon. Despite being the younger, forgotten daughter of Henry VIII with little hope of ever inheriting the throne, she became his longest-reigning and most successful heir by a country mile. In an age when...
Elizabeth I: ‘less than a woman’?
-
Taj ul-Alam Safiatuddin Syah: a trailblazing Islamic queen
Historian article
Khadija Tauseef introduces the first of four successive sultanahs of Aceh during the seventeenth century.
As the sun sets on the glorious reign of Queen Elizabeth II, we pause and look back at the many queens that have contributed greatly to our historical heritage. While female sovereigns in Islamic kingdoms were a...
Taj ul-Alam Safiatuddin Syah: a trailblazing Islamic queen
-
Out and About in Madagascar
Historian feature
Madagascar is one of the world’s more intriguing destinations. If it is famous for anything – apart from sharing a name with a truly terrible film franchise – it is probably for its wildlife, much of which is found nowhere else. But whereas most people have at least an idea of...
Out and About in Madagascar
-
Robespierre: a reluctant terrorist?
Article
After a revolution to remove the monarchy did the French revolutionaries create another leadership of power over ideals? William Doyle re-evaluates the reputation of the so-called architect of terror during the French Revolutionary years.
Two recent books reflect a seemingly endless fascination with the man whose downfall brought the end...
Robespierre: a reluctant terrorist?
-
The throne and the fairy tellers
Historian article
Fairy tale princesses and mysterious castles are just part of the way that historically story tellers have been connected to royalty. In this article some of the most famous story tellers are discussed with their royal patronage and experiences.
Hans Christian Andersen couldn’t believe his luck. In 1854, he was...
The throne and the fairy tellers
-
After the revolution: did Cromwell, Washington and Bonaparte betray revolutionary principles?
Historian article
This article examines the aftermath of three epoch-making periods of change – the English, American, and French Revolutions. A comparison of the trio of military commanders who gained power as a direct consequence of these upheavals reveals how the very political radicalism which brought them to power also threatened to...
After the revolution: did Cromwell, Washington and Bonaparte betray revolutionary principles?
-
History Abridged: Language and the African continent
Historian feature
History Abridged: This feature seeks to take a person, event or period and abridge, or focus on, an important event or detail that can get lost in the big picture. Think Horrible Histories for grownups (without the songs and music). See all History Abridged articles
Africa is a huge continent...
History Abridged: Language and the African continent
-
Eyam: the plague village 1665-66
Historian article
Richard Stone explores the self-sacrifice of a Seventeenth Century village during an epidemic.
History shows us these ‘unprecedented times’ are not that far from previous historical experiences. Lockdown, quarantine, self-isolation, ‘second wave’, ‘third wave’, airborne disease, churches closed; the Covid-19 experience resonates with the plight of the villagers of Eyam, three-and-a-half centuries...
Eyam: the plague village 1665-66
-
History Abridged: The census
Historian feature
History Abridged: This feature seeks to take a person, event or period and abridge, or focus on, an important event or detail that can get lost in the big picture. Think Horrible Histories for grownups (without the songs and music). See all History Abridged articles
Most of us are aware...
History Abridged: The census
-
Britain: the regional battlefields that helped to create a nation
Historian article
In this article Geoffrey Carter will be taking a look at battlefields as key elements in British history and how these can be incorporated into the study of history at various levels and in various periods. The regional nature of many historic conflicts is sometimes forgotten but this is an...
Britain: the regional battlefields that helped to create a nation
-
The changing convict experience: forced migration to Australia
Historian article
Edward Washington explores the story of William Noah who was sentenced to death for burglary in 1797 at the age of 43. He, and two others, were found guilty of breaking and entering the dwelling-house of Cuthbert Hilton, on the night of the 13 February. From Newgate Prison he was...
The changing convict experience: forced migration to Australia
-
Bristol and the Slave Trade
Classic Pamphlet
Captain Thomas Wyndham of Marshfield Park in Somerset was on voyage to Barbary where he sailed from Kingroad, near Bristol, with three ships full of goods and slaves thus beginning the association of African Trade and Bristol. In the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Bristol was not a place of...
Bristol and the Slave Trade
-
Ferninando Gorges and New England
Classic Pamphlet
Sir Ferdinando Gorges (July 1565 - May 24, 1647), by some considered the "Father of English Colonization in North America", was an early English colonial entrepreneur and founder of the Province of Maine in 1622, although Gorges himself never set foot in the New World.
Sir Ferdinando Gorges was born...
Ferninando Gorges and New England
-
The Journey to Icarie and Reunion: A Romance of Socialism on the Texas Frontier
Historian article
The viewer of the internationally popular television show Dallas was routinely treated to an aerial tour that skimmed across the open prairie over the distinctive skyscrapers across the fifty-yard line of Texas Stadium and up the manicured pastures of South Fork.
This façade of larger-than-life Texana reflects an urban reality...
The Journey to Icarie and Reunion: A Romance of Socialism on the Texas Frontier
-
Film: Tudor Royal Authority - Interpretations
Article
Film: Tudor Royal Authority - Interpretations
-
Film: Elizabeth I - Interpretations
Article
Film: Elizabeth I - Interpretations
-
Queen Anne
Classic Pamphlet
In this pamphlet, James Anderson Winn, author of a recent biography of Queen Anne, recommends a new approach to historians writing about this successful and popular queen. Female, overweight, and reticent, Anne has long been underestimated. Her letters, however, show how well she understood the motives of her ministers, and...
Queen Anne
-
Joseph Banks and his travelling plants, 1787-1810
Historian article
Jordan Goodman takes us on a botanical journey to the ends of the earth.
Joseph Banks never commanded a ship. In 1773, aged 30, he went on his last voyage, a short crossing from Hellevoetsluis, south Holland, to Harwich. Yet not only was the sea always at the centre of his...
Joseph Banks and his travelling plants, 1787-1810
-
The Flight to Varennes
Historian article
On the night of 20 June 1791 a portly middle-aged man, dressed inconspicuously in brown, with a dark green overcoat and his hair covered by a grey wig, walked out of the Tuileries palace past the guards. For the past 12 nights the Chevalier de Coigny, dressed in a similar...
The Flight to Varennes
-
Interpretations of the French Revolution
Classic Pamphlet
The French Revolution raises many questions not least: What sort of Revolution was it - one of "poverty" or "prosperity" ? a bourgeois revolution that overthrew feudalism? A national struggle for liberty, democracy, or "eternal Justice" ? or, again, a criminal conspiracy against the old social order? What did it...
Interpretations of the French Revolution
-
Penruddock's Rising 1655
Classic Pamphlet
Three hundred years ago John Penruddock of Compton Chamberlayne and a dozen other brave men paid with their lives for their failure to raise the West Country in the name of King Charles II against the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. They had been in arms barely four days, and their...
Penruddock's Rising 1655
-
Religion and Politics 1559-1642
Classic Pamphlet
It is a truism to say that religion and politics were inextricably mixed in the seventeenth century.
"So natural" wrote Richard Hooker,"is the union of religion with Justice, that we may boldly deem there is neither where both are not" Sir John Eliot observed that in the House of Commons...
Religion and Politics 1559-1642
-
Radicalism and its Results, 1760-1837
Classic Pamphlet
Radicalism with a large "R", unlike Conservatism with a large "C" and Liberalism with a large "L", is not a historical term of even proximate precision. There was never a Radical Party with a national organization, local associations, or a treasury. But there were, and there are, "Radicals", generally qualified...
Radicalism and its Results, 1760-1837
