Early comic panel illustration

England

Amy Robsart and the Earl of Leicester

Amy Robsart: a Tudor tragedy

Portrait of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester (1532–88) an English nobleman. Dated 16th century. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

Robert Dudley: Queen Elizabeth I's great love

A mushroom cloud produced by the explosion of a hydrogen bomb during Operation Ivy, an American nuclear test that took place in 1952. (SSPL/Getty Images)

How have nuclear weapons shaped global politics? 10 key moments in the post-war atomic world

Crowds flock to the beach at Hastings in August 1938. (Photo by Photo12/UIG/Getty Images)

Summer holiday revolution: when were Britons first allowed to take paid holiday?

Bronze effigy of King Henry III on his tomb, Westminster Abbey, London (Photo by Alamy)

Henry III: inside the mind of a medieval king

Francis Drake portrait

Francis Drake’s forgotten role in the English slave trade

Britain and the slave trade

A police officer uses his baton on a protester in Glasgow, 1919

1919: Britain's red summer

Frank Gillard pictured during a 1944 rehearsal for battle reporting

History heroChris Mason chooses Frank Gillard (1908–98)

Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms, 1521. This was an assembly of the Holy Roman Empire called by King Charles V in Heylshof Garden, Worms, to address Martin Luther and the effects of the Protestant Reformation. (Photo by The Print Collector via Getty Images)

What was the Reformation?

A researcher examines the medieval Voynich Manuscript with a magnifying glass

The Voynich Manuscript: who wrote the mystery medieval codex and what is it trying to tell us?

Oliver Cromwell and King Charles I.

The Civil War: everything you wanted to know

Equestrian portrait of Geoffrey Chaucer from the Ellesmere manuscript of his Canterbury Tales (14th century). "The world in which Chaucer moved was very outward-looking," says Marion Turner. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

Cosmopolitan Chaucer: the 14th-century poet’s inventive, international life

An engraving depicting a scene of chaos at Bethlem Royal Hospital

Bethlem Royal Hospital: why did the infamous Bedlam asylum have such a fearsome reputation?

A scene from the Smithfield Decretals depicting a rabbit beheading a man. Rabbits seem to have a strange place in medieval imagery – and are depicted as having strangely violent tendencies. "It’s the sort of thing to give you nightmares," says David Musgrove. (Photo by Album/British Library/Alamy Stock Photo)

BlogMedieval(ish) matters #5: chivalry, medieval killer rabbits and prisoners of war in the 15th century

King Edward II

In profile: King Edward II

The British home has changed substantially in the past 300 years (Illustration by Ed Crooks)

The evolution of the British home: from the Georgian era to the present day

King John hunting on horseback

Was King John really that bad? Yes!

David Olusoga on A House Through Time

Annie Gray photographed at her home in East Anglia (Photo by Ian Farrell)

Cooking for Churchill

Illustration of King John ripping up Magna Carta

What if...Magna Carta hadn’t been written?

Books interview with Emma Griffin: "Looking at family life reveals a dark side to Victorian economic progress"

The English Reformation: everything you wanted to know

Surviving the Great Plague

Henry III during the Second Barons' War

Simon de Montfort and the barons’ crusade: why rebel lords waged holy war against Henry III

Dissection of human cadaver by physicians

Ask the medieval doctor: 6 ailments and their treatments

Why do brides wear white dresses? Plus the history behind 3 more wedding traditions

A medieval couple being married by a clergyman

Love and marriage in medieval England

Why Florence Nightingale was so much more than the ‘Lady with the Lamp’

Florence Nightingale

The life and legend of Florence Nightingale