Manpower for sea power
Life at sea may not have been a particularly attractive prospect for a man in Georgian England, but it was...
08/01/2015
HISTORY
The changing faces of Santa Claus
On 23 December 1951, the Catholic clergy at Dijon organised an execution of Santa Claus. An image of him was...
24/12/2014
The short history of banishment
Even in primitive societies, the threat of exile struck terror into people’s hearts and minds. A savage punishment, it snatched...
18/12/2014
The Venerable Bede
Bede was a Northumbrian, born in 673 on the lands of the monastery of St Peter at Wearmouth. At the...
15/12/2014
William Marshal: The archetypal knight
A younger son of a minor nobleman who became a notable tourneyer and warrior, a comrade to princes and kings,...
22/11/2014
Delphi: The end of the gods
The Apollo of Delphi was the god of black jokes. Herodotus says that Croesus, legendarily wealthy king of Lydia, feared...
02/11/2014
Oldest children rarely succeed
Monarchy is very much a family business. According to the law of primogeniture, the eldest son should follow his father...
23/10/2014
Spencer Perceval’s assassination
All that is generally remembered about Spencer Perceval is that he was the only British prime minister ever to be...
06/09/2014
5 royal births that rocked England
Victoria was born into a family that rather resented her, and her cousin Charlotte was the product of a failed...
12/08/2014
Becoming a knight
The three main strands of the chivalric ethos – warrior, courtier and Christian – might throw up some contradictions, but...
04/08/2014