Early comic panel illustration

England

Knole, a house on an epic scale that's now run by the National Trust.

ExploreKnole: the grandest of family homes. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Nicola Tallis photographed by David Hampton in October 2019

Nicola Tallis on Margaret Beaufort, mother of the Tudors. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Hallie Rubenhold photographed in London. "In the 19th century, being both poor and a woman was a terrible combination. The cards were stacked against them," she says. (Photography by Fran Monks)

Hallie Rubenhold: “To most people, the women killed by the Ripper are just corpses. I want to tell a different story”. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The 1969 documentary was made amid a feeling that there was an increasing awareness of a need to ‘sell’ the monarchy to the people, writes historian Sarah Gristwood. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

‘Royal Family’: the fly-on-the-wall documentary the Palace doesn’t want you to see

The War of the Worlds. (Photo by BBC/© Mammoth Screen)

Days of future past: how the new BBC TV series The War of the Worlds reinvented the sci-fi classic

Actress Sarah Bernhardt, who was personally invited by Oscar Wilde to play the title role in the upcoming London premiere of his play, 'Salomé'.

6 of London theatre’s most notable historical scandals

A scene from 'They Shall Not Grow Old', showing how film director Peter Jackson digitally remastered footage of the First World War. (Photo courtesy of THEY SHALL NOT GROW OLD/ WingNut Films/ Peter Jackson. Original black and white film © IWM)

"There was no feeling sorry for themselves": director Peter Jackson on the soldiers of the First World War. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Marshal Foch and his accompaniment leaving Compiègne in order to inform the French government in Paris about the Armistice agreement with Germany. (Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

First World War

Where was the Armistice signed?

Timothée Chalamet as Prince Hal

“It’s hard to square Prince Hal’s pacifism with what we know about Henry V”: a historian’s review of The King

Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II) and her fiance, Philip Mountbatten at Buckingham Palace, after their engagement was announced, 10th July 1947. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Prince Philip as consort: a life of duty and devotion

A portrait of Henry V of England. The Treaty if Troyes, signed in 1420, saw Henry named Charles's regent; by marrying the latter's daughter, Katherine, Henry secured his position as heir to the throne. (Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

A wayward prince? King Henry V's misspent youth

Portrait of Henry V

Q&AWhy is Henry V's portrait in profile?

The footprint of Old Sarum cathedral

ExploreOld Sarum: the regal and the rotten. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

King John out hunting

8 things you (probably) didn’t know about medieval elections

A depiction of a 13th-century parliament, sitting under Edward I. The Good Parliament of 1376, during the reign of Edward III, sowed the seeds for discontent that was to come.

The Good Parliament of 1376: Crown v Commons

Princess Margaret and her husband, Lord Snowdon, in San Francisco during a visit to America, November 1965. (Photo by Harry Benson/Express/Getty Images)

“Cheap men and expensive bottles”: Princess Margaret’s love affairs

Extinction Rebellion take over Trafalgar Square, London, in protest on 16 October 2019. (Photo by Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images)

From William Wordsworth to Extinction Rebellion: a history of Britain's green activists

Gin Lane, a print issued in 1751 by painter and printmaker William Hogarth. It depicts the perceived evils of the consumption of gin. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

The 18th-century craze for gin

Inside the fort was a famous spring, St Helen’s Well, today Robin Hood’s Well. (© Bill Henderson)

Brunanburh: Where did the battle that saved England take place?

Peter Hennessy on Britain in transition. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A scene from the Bayeux Tapestry depicting the death of King Harold II during the battle of Hastings in 1066. (Photo by Getty Images)

Where did the battle of Hastings actually take place? 8 facts about the 1066 battle

Illustration of pirate John Ward

Pirate John Ward: the real Captain Jack Sparrow

The trial of Lady Chatterley’s Lover: how the 'obscene' book caused a moral storm

1651, Charles Prince of Wales (1630 - 1685) (later King Charles II of England) meets Sir Henry Lee near Oxford during the Civil War, while escaping after the Battle of Worcester.

How Charles II put Britain back together after the Civil War

Billy Fullerton, gang chief of the Glasgow gang the Billy Boys

Who were the real Billy Boys, the Glasgow gang in Peaky Blinders?

War criminal? William the Conqueror shown on horseback in the Bayeux Tapestry. The king's Harrying of the North was a military success but a human catastrophe – one that even appalled chroniclers traditionally sympathetic to the Norman regime. (Photo by Bridgeman)

Was William the Conqueror a war criminal? The brutal story of the Harrying of the North

Giant of literature: A page from the 'Beowulf' manuscript. The story is fictional but some of the characters within it were real people, and others were believed to be the ancestors of Anglo-Saxon and Danish kings. (Photo by Alamy)

Beowulf: The Anglo-Saxons' action hero

Half-timbered medieval cottages, Water Street, Lavenham, Suffolk, England, (Photo by Getty Images)

History explorerA wealth of history: Laversham, Sulfolk

William Dalrymple is an award-winning writer and historian based in India. (Photo by Bikramjt Bose)

“This was a corporation that could topple kings”: William Dalrymple on the East India Company. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

British journalist Tom Wintringham (1898–1949), the candidate for the Christian Socialist Commonwealth Party. (Photo by Haywood Magee/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

History heroPeter Tatchell chooses Tom Wintringham (1898–1949). This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.