England

Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots

Deadly rivals: Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots

Queen Victoria, c1860s. Victoria attended her son's wedding in March 1863 wearing full mourning dress – her husband, Prince Albert, had died some 15 months earlier. (Photo by © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

Troublesome royal in-laws through history

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A view from the Choir of Canterbury Cathedral looking towards Trinity Chapel, which was built in the 12th century to house the remains of Thomas Becket. (Photo by Alamy)

History explorer The wonder of medieval cathedrals . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The Spanish Armada defeated in the English Channel in July 1588, by Hendrick Cornelis Vroom, c1600. (Picture by DEA PICTURE LIBRARY/Getty Images)

10 things you (probably) didn’t know about the Spanish Armada

Mike Leigh at the 67th Cannes Film Festival in 2014. (Photo by dpa picture alliance / Alamy Stock Photo)

“Peterloo felt relevant, given all the crazy and chaotic things that are happening now”: Mike Leigh on a massacre

A wooden cross marks the spot, just over 20 miles west of Newcastle, where Oswald apparently raised his own cross before ambushing Cadwallon. If the Anglo-Saxon warlord's attack had failed, writes Edoardo Albert, England might now be a lot smaller. (Photo by Getty Images)

Hell in Heavenfield: the Anglo-Saxon battle “as important as Hastings”

Sir Walter Ralegh (c1554–1618, shown here in a painting attributed to William Segar) is often remembered as a favourite of Elizabeth I and an adventurer, yet he was also one of the most influential political philosophers of his era. (Photo by Alamy)

Walter Ralegh: the traitor who inspired Cromwell

The remarkable Codex Amiatinus, a

Watch: Highlights from the British Library’s new Anglo-Saxon exhibition

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18th August 1819: 'The Massacre of Peterloo or Britons Strike Home', by George Cruikshank (Photo by Spencer Arnold/Getty Images)

The Peterloo Massacre . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII, c1507-1536. (Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Guilty or not guilty: why did Anne Boleyn have to die?

Pit Brow Lasses from an unknown colliery in Wigan, Lancashire, c1887. (Photograph by Herbert Wragg. Courtesy of the Trustees of the National Coal Mining Museum for England)

The ‘Pit Brow Lasses’ of 19th-century coal mines

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Thomas Cromwell (Illustrated by Sarah Young)

Thomas Cromwell reconsidered . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

York History Weekend 2017.

York History Weekend: Last-minute tickets and venue information

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Director Peter Jackson in 2015 in Beijing, China (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

Peter Jackson on the First World War . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A detail from the Bayeux Tapestry depicting the death of Harold Godwinson at the battle of Hastings, 1066. Victory at Hastings did not make Duke William of Normandy king of England – at least, not immediately. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)

Q&A What happened after the Battle of Hastings?