England

The aim of Charles I’s foreign policy was to restore his nephew’s lands in the Rhineland. France, he thought, was the key to success. 

The correspondence between Mary Hamilton and the future George IV is often seen as evidence of a harmless crush in the Georgian court. It was nothing of the sort. 

The House of Lords, often in the shadow of the Commons, asserted its power during the reigns of James I and his son, Charles I. But it would be eclipsed by civil war. 

It is often claimed that press censorship came to an end in England at the close of the 17th century. But it persisted, thanks to an unsavoury network of government spies.

The image of Roman Bath was the creation of 18th- and 19th-century archaeologists. Only now are new perspectives revealing a more complex and accurate history of the city. 

The medieval approach to emergency planning may offer lessons for the 21st century.

William Chester Jordan’s study of one of medieval Europe’s great monastic rivalries suggests that social mobility may have been more common in the Middle Ages than historians previously thought.

Brutality, corruption and abuses of power in the Metropolitan Police at the turn of the 20th century led to an inquiry – but no reform.

On 27 November 1809, a bet between two friends brought a large part of London to a standstill.