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Catherine de' Medici and the French Wars of Religion
Article
R. J. Knecht suggests that the 'Black Legend' may not be quite as unfair to Catherine as her defenders have argued. Few historical figures have aroused as much passionate controversy as Catherine de’ Medici who was queen of France from 1547 until 1559 and several times regent before her death...
Catherine de' Medici and the French Wars of Religion
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Philip II of Spain: The Prudent King
Article
On the eve of the 400th anniversary of Philip II’s death James Casey rejects the traditional portrayal of the Spanish ruler as a cruel despot and argues his achievements were more the result of an extraordinary sense of duty fully in tune with the hopes and aspirations of his people....
Philip II of Spain: The Prudent King
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Podcast Series: The Spanish Golden Age
Multipage Article
An HA Podcasted History of the Spanish Golden Age featuring Dr Glyn Redworth of Manchester University and Dr Francois Soyer of the University of Southampton.
Podcast Series: The Spanish Golden Age
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Podcast Series: The Reformation
Multipage Article
An HA Podcasted History of the Reformation featuring Professor Peter Marshall, Dr Henry Cohn, Dr Penny Robert and Professor Beat Kümin of Warwick University.
Podcast Series: The Reformation
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The role of Devon's militia during the Spanish Armada crisis
Historian article
The precise role of Devon's militia during summer 1588 has, until recently, been shrouded by the recurrent tendency of historians to misinterpret the primary function of the militias in the southern maritime counties. The basic idea put forward has been that their main role during the Armada crisis was to...
The role of Devon's militia during the Spanish Armada crisis
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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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Varieties of Reformation
Classic Pamphlet
The most significant change to have occurred in our view of the Reformation in recent years is the growing acknowledgement of historians that it was no unitary phenomenon whose triumph was assured and inevitable. What we refer to in short-hand as ‘the' Reformation was a many-sided affair which began with...
Varieties of Reformation
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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
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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
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What did it mean to be a city in early modern Germany?
Historian article
Alexander Collin examines the significance of cities within the Holy Roman Empire in early modern times. With a strong political identity of their own, cities were at the heart of the Empire’s economy and, also, centres of theological and social change.
If you have ever read a description of a...
What did it mean to be a city in early modern Germany?
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Napoleon: First Consul and Emperor of the French
Classic Pamphlet
Four years after the battle of Waterloo, Richard Whately publicised a philosophical essay in which he argued that there was no real proof of Napoleon's existence. The deeds attributed to him were either so wondrously good or so amazingly bad that they far outran the evidence available to support them:...
Napoleon: First Consul and Emperor of the French
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The Monarchies of Ferdinand and Isabella
Classic Pamphlet
On 12 December 1474, the news reached the Castillian city of Segovia, north-west of Madrid, that Henry IV, king of Castile, had died. After the proper ceremonies had been conducted in memory of the deceased monarch, his sister, Isabella, was proclaimed queen of Castile in that place. There was much...
The Monarchies of Ferdinand and Isabella
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Wellington's Soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars
Article
Wellington's Soldiers in the Napoleonic WarsThe war with France, which began in 1793, had moved to the Iberian Peninsula by 1808. This year is therefore the two-hundredth anniversary of the commencement of the Peninsular War campaigns. War on the Peninsula demanded huge resources of manpower in order to defeat Napoleon....
Wellington's Soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars
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Podcast Series: The Renaissance
The Renaissance
In this podcast Dr Gabriele Neher of the University of Nottingham provides an introduction to the Renaissance.
Podcast Series: The Renaissance
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The Spanish Collection
Article
For the art historian, a thorough study of works of art, their creators and the environment in which they were produced, as well as their significance then and now, is a specialised endeavour. This, nevertheless, does not exhaust the presentation of art to contemporaries, least of all in the context...
The Spanish Collection
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William the Silent: the first tolerant Prince
Historian article
There will be many readers of The Historian whose knowledge of the 16th Century is wide and deep. This article is designed to fill in some of the corners to the map of that warravaged century, and to focus on a man, William of Nassau, who fought the battle of...
William the Silent: the first tolerant Prince
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The Spanish Armada of...1597?
Article
Graham Darby gives an anniversary account of the later Spanish Armadas, long forgotten, but comparable in size and as threatening to contemporaries as the more famous Armada of 1588. As every schoolboy and schoolgirl should know, the Spanish Armada set sail in 1588: ‘God blew and they were scattered.’ However,...
The Spanish Armada of...1597?
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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
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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
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Scottish Diplomatists 1689-1789
Classic Pamphlet
The object of this pamphlet is to show the gradual penetration of Scotsmen after the Union into a particular branch of the public service - what may be conveniently though not very accurately described as the diplomatic service.
This essay makes a study of the actual negotiations conducted by Scottish...
Scottish Diplomatists 1689-1789
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Podcast Series: Thomas Paine
Multipage Article
In this set of podcasts Emeritus Professor W. A. Speck of the University of Leeds looks at the life and ideas of Thomas Paine.
Podcast Series: Thomas Paine
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Podcast Series: Origins of the European Financial Markets
Multipage Article
In this podcast Dr Anne Murphy of the University of Hertfordshire looks at the early origins of the European financial markets from the Italian Renaissance to the present day. Dr Murphy also provides a useful introduction to finance, the stock market and the bond market.
Podcast Series: Origins of the European Financial Markets
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Ulrich Zwingli
Classic Pamphlet
The Reformation of the sixteenth century has many sides, and not the least significant of these is the contribution from Switzerland. How under the leadership of Zwingli, Zurich, Berne, Basle and St Gall broke away from Rome, how this led to civil war, how and why agreement with the German...
Ulrich Zwingli
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A Commercial Revolution
Classic Pamphlet
The pattern of overseas trade is always in movement: new commodities are constantly appearing, old ones fading into unimportance, different trading partners coming to the fore-front. But between the latter end of the sixteenth and the second half of the eighteenth century, change took specially far reaching forms. In 1570...
A Commercial Revolution
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The Enlightenment
Classic Pamphlet
Can a movement as varied and diffuse as the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century be contained within the covers of a short pamphlet? The problem would certainly have appealed to the intellectuals of that time. Generalists rather than specialists, citizens of the whole world of knowledge, they relished the challenge...
The Enlightenment
