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The British Empire on trial
Article
In the light of present-day concerns about the place, in a modern world, of statues commemorating figures whose roles in history are of debatable merit, Dr Gregory Gifford puts the British Empire on trial, presenting a balanced case both for and against.
In June 2020 when the statue of slave-trader Edward Colston...
The British Empire on trial
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The Eighteenth Century in Britain: Long or Short?
Article
W. A. Speck reviews an historical debate central to the interpretation of the eighteenth century in Britain. Few British historians treat the eighteenth century as consisting simply of the hundred years from 1701 to 1800. Until recently political historians tended to end it in 1783. Many textbooks reflect this treatment...
The Eighteenth Century in Britain: Long or Short?
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HA Podcast Series: James VI & I to Anne
James VI & I to Anne
In this series of podcasts we look at British and Irish History from the Union of the Crowns to Queen Anne.
This series features: Mr Simon Healy, Dr Frank Tallett, Professor Jackie Eales, Dr Andrew Hopper, Professor Michael Braddick, Dr Jason Peacey, Professor Peter Gaunt, Professor Barry Coward, Professor John...
HA Podcast Series: James VI & I to Anne
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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
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Podcast Series: The Tudors
Multipage Article
An HA Podcasted History of the Tudors featuring Dr Sue Doran, Dr Steven Gunn, Dr Michael Everett & Dr Anna Whitelock.
Podcast Series: The Tudors
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Why did the prosecution of witches cease in England?
Pamphlet
This lucid survey of the history of witch trials in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth century focuses on the question of ‘why did the formal prosecution of witches cease?' Accusations of witchcraft can be found throughout the nineteenth century yet the last conviction was in 1712. Clive Holmes explores...
Why did the prosecution of witches cease in England?
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Film: Elizabeth I - Interpretations
Article
Film: Elizabeth I - Interpretations
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Film: Tudor Royal Authority - Interpretations
Article
Film: Tudor Royal Authority - Interpretations
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An English Absolutism?
Classic Pamphlet
The term 'Absolutism' was coined in France in the 1790s, but the concept which described it was familiar to many Englishmen in the late seventeenth century. They talked of 'absolute monarchy', 'tyranny', 'despotism' and above all 'arbitrary government'. Their use of such terns were pejorative: they described political regimes of...
An English Absolutism?
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King Charles II
Classic Pamphlet
The conclusions of historians change over the years, not only as a result of the discovery of new evidence, but as a result of the changing times in which historians themselves live and work. We have become familiar with the notion that each generation of historians may have its own...
King Charles II
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The nature of Charles I’s government
Historian article
Charlotte Brownhill explores the nature of Charles I’s government. Rather than dismissing this as a disaster, she argues that there were many positive features of his government before the outbreak of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and suggests that we should consider the difficulties caused by the complexities of...
The nature of Charles I’s government
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Recycling the Monastic building: The Dissolution in Southern England
Historian article
The dissolution of the monasteries was one of the most dramatic developments in English History. In 1536, the religious orders had owned about a fifth of the lands of England. Within four years the monasteries had been abolished and their possessions nationalised by Henry VIII. Within another ten years, most...
Recycling the Monastic building: The Dissolution in Southern England
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The Pilgrimage of Grace: Reactions, Responses and Revisions
Article
Dr Michael Bush investigates the interpretations of the pilgrimage of grace. Our perception of the pilgrimage of grace has been largely created by Madeleine and Ruth Dodds and their magnificent book The Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536-7, and the Exeter Conspiracy, 1538 (Cambridge). Published in 1915, it has dominated the subject...
The Pilgrimage of Grace: Reactions, Responses and Revisions
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Reinventing the Charter: from Sir Edward Coke to 'freeborn John'
Historian article
When was Magna Carta launched on its modern career as a symbol of freedom and liberty? Justin Champion looks at the role of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century lawyers and politicians in shaping how we see the Charter today.
‘For every person who knows what the contents of Magna Carta actually...
Reinventing the Charter: from Sir Edward Coke to 'freeborn John'
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Empires of Gold
Historian article
In 1660, the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading to Africa was established under the leadership of Charles II's brother James, the Duke of York. Founded as a slaving company, the Royal African Company, as it became known, also traded in gold. African gold was mined in the interior before being...
Empires of Gold
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Benjamin Jesty: Grandfather of Vaccination
Historian article
Commonly hailed as a discovery or a ‘medical breakthrough', vaccination against smallpox with cowpox exudate was a development of variolation i.e. inoculation with live smallpox matter - a technique popularised amongst the gentry in the early eighteenth century by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu who had observed the procedure in Turkey...
Benjamin Jesty: Grandfather of Vaccination
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Schools of Vice: how a medical scandal led to the dismantling of Britain’s last prison hulks
Historian article
Hulks – former naval ships used as prisons for those convicted of serious crime and sentenced to transportation – were intended to be a temporary solution to a penal crisis caused by the American Revolutionary Wars. These ‘schools of vice’, or ‘floating hells’ lasted 80 years, casting a shadow over...
Schools of Vice: how a medical scandal led to the dismantling of Britain’s last prison hulks
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Aristotle and Dudley: what can books tell us about their owners?
Historian article
Books as evidence
The study of books as objects can reveal a great deal about their owners and the society in which they lived. By examining why the books were printed in the first place, and by whom; why they were acquired and for what purpose; how they were bound;...
Aristotle and Dudley: what can books tell us about their owners?
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The London Charterhouse
Historian article
Four hundred years ago, in 1611, Thomas Sutton was reputed to be the wealthiest commoner in England but he was nearing the end of his life. He had been a financier and he was formerly the Master of Ordnance in the Northern Parts. He decided to take up good works...
The London Charterhouse
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A Tale of Two Chancellors: The Ineffectual Reformation in Elizabethan Staffordshire
Historian article
The Elizabethan Reformation in Staffordshire had a shallow seedbed. The radical reformers of the 1540s had greeted the conversion of the county with a mixture of high hopes and hyperbole. The East Anglian preacher and disciple of Latimer, Thomas Becon, wrote a treatise The Iewel of Ioye urging that itinerant...
A Tale of Two Chancellors: The Ineffectual Reformation in Elizabethan Staffordshire
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James Macpherson: a Scottish Robin Hood
Historian article
James Macpherson led a notorious gang of robbers in late seventeenth-century Scotland, and he became infamous for robbing rich lairds to give to the poor. Anne-Marie Kilday explains how his notoriety is also significant for revealing how people in early modern Scotland could hold complex attitudes towards the Gypsy Roma...
James Macpherson: a Scottish Robin Hood
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Out and About: Locating the Local Lockup
Historian feature
If you are arrested for a crime today, you will very likely be taken to a police station and locked in a cell while officers decide if they have enough evidence to charge you. But have you ever wondered what happened to criminals and other disorderly folk – roughs, drunks...
Out and About: Locating the Local Lockup
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Charles I in objects and architecture
Historian article
We asked some of Britain’s leading museums and archives what object in their collections best exemplifies the reign of Charles I and why. Join Alden Gregory, Jessica Evershed, Mike Webb, Denise Greany, Glyn Hughes and Kevin Winter as they discuss some prominent objects and places in their collections and the...
Charles I in objects and architecture
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Lord Rochester's Grand Tour 1661 - 1664
Historian article
The late Frank Ellis was working on a full biography of John Wilmot, earl of Rochester, at the time of his death in 2007. He had contributed a life of Wilmot to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography which appeared in 2004. In it he wrote that ‘on 21 November...
Lord Rochester's Grand Tour 1661 - 1664
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Joan Vaux: a remarkable Tudor lady
Historian article
Joanna Hickson is a hugely successful novelist, specialising in historical fiction, and she describes herself as feeling that she actually lives in the fifteenth century. For readers of The Historian she explores and explains how she developed her understanding and knowledge of a highly significant Tudor woman who is a central figure in two of...
Joan Vaux: a remarkable Tudor lady
