The Cult of St Edward the Confessor
The last truly Anglo-Saxon King was remembered with such affection he became a sainted embodiment of a pacific and idealistic form of kingship under Henry III.
Feature
How the Miners’ Strike Was Lost
Was Margaret Thatcher’s government close to defeat during the dark days of the miners’ strike of 1984-85?
Coming to Terms with the Past: Northern Ireland
Richard English argues that historians have a practical and constructive role to play in today’s Ulster.
History With the Boring Bits Put Back
Terry Jones, former Python, describes how a perverse fascination with the boring bits of Chaucer converted him from being a clown into a historian of the 14th century.
The Meaning of Magna Carta since 1215
Ralph V. Turner considers how and why Magna Carta became a beacon of liberty in Britain and, increasingly, in the United States.
Britons in the Great Fire of Moscow
Some British and Irish-born Muscovites waited out Napoleon’s invasion of 1812, surviving both the French army and the five-day inferno.
The Great Smog
Devra Davis looks at the London Smog disaster of 1952-53.
Corn, Catholics and the Constitution: The Tory Crisis of 1827-30
Graham Goodlad considers the reasons for the disintegration of the early nineteenth-century Tory Party, which had dominated British politics for more than four decades.
Sir John Simon
David Dutton asks whether Simon was the 'Worst Foreign Secretary since Ethelred the Unready'.
The History of Deforestation
Michael Williams continues our series on History and the Environment by considering how long humans have been making ever-growing inroads into forests.