England

Folio 153v of the Ellesmere Manuscript, illuminated manuscript of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, 1410. Wikimedia Commons

Origins and Originality

What does it mean to be happy? For poets, medieval and modern, joy comes in many forms.

Richard III, oil on panel, late 16th century. National Portrait Gallery

Was Richard III a Bad King?

Child-murderer, arch villain, failed monarch, ‘northern’. Have efforts to redeem Richard III succeeded or is he still one of history’s worst kings?

Othello weeping over Desdemona's body, by William Salter, c.1857

‘The Great White Bard’ and ‘Shakespeare Without a Life’ review

Two significant new publications push the parameters of how we engage with the most revered writer in the English language.

Visionary: Henry III and the facade of Westminster Abbey, from the Chronicle of England, by Peter Langtoft, 1307-27.

Crowning Triumph

Westminster Abbey was the focus of the world during the recent coronation. How and why was it built?

Sir Christopher Hatton, unknown artist, 17th century after a work from 1589

The Other Favourite

Christopher Hatton rose to great power as a favourite of Elizabeth I. Born in obscurity, why has he returned to it?

The Bull, etching by Paulus Potter, Dutch, 1650

Good for Nothing

As the 19th century wore on, social reformers campaigned for charitable modernisation. Their target: England’s most useless foundations.

‘The QUACKS’, etching, published by William Humphrey, 27 March 1783

A Cure for Wellness

Eminent doctors and notorious charlatans vied for sick patients to treat in the cut-throat medical marketplace of Georgian England.

Dividend Day at the Bank of England, 1770.

‘Virtuous Bankers’ by Anne L. Murphy review

‘A day in the life’ of the 18th-century Bank of England.

Jamaican men, many of them former RAF servicemen, disembark Empire Windrush at Tilbury Docks, 22 June 1948.

What Happens Back Home

The Windrush generation witnessed the Caribbean colonies from which they had emigrated achieve independence. Despite being an ocean away, they were not passive observers.

Winston Churchill speaking at the Royal Albert Hall, London, in front of a picture of Abraham Lincoln, 1944. Bridgeman Images.

Churchill Off Record

Once the war was won, Winston Churchill had two preoccupations: preserving his place in posterity and making lots of money. If they could be achieved at the same time, so much the better.