On a late spring night in 1732, a boisterous group of friends set out from their local pub. They are beginning a journey, a ‘peregrination’ that will take them through the gritty streets of Georgian London and along the River Thames as far as the Isle of Sheppey. And among them is an up-and-coming engraver […]
The true story of the man who broke the Monte Carlo bank: Joseph Hobson Jagger
When historian Anne Fletcher started looking into a family story about her great-great-great uncle, Joseph Hobson Jagger – that he’d gone from working in a Bradford woollen mill to breaking the bank at Monte Carlo – she found little evidence to back up the claim. But after ten years of research, she uncovered the true […]
At the heart of English history: the Warenne Earls of Surrey
The Warennes, Earls of Surrey from the Norman Conquest until 1347, may not be as familiar to us as some other great medieval families. But, as historian Sharon Bennett Connolly tells Historia, for three centuries they were at the heart of English power and had an important role in the politics of their day. As […]
Defenders of the Norman Crown by Sharon Bennett Connolly
In the reign of Edward I, when asked Quo Warranto – by what warrant he held his lands – John de Warenne, the sixth Earl of Surrey, is said to have drawn a rusty sword, claiming: “My ancestors came with William the Bastard, and conquered their lands with the sword, and I will defend them […]
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, mental health pioneer
It’s hard to be more historical and contemporary in these days of Covid jabs than this past month, when two important anniversaries in the history of immunisation against serious contagions have taken place. In April 1721 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu inoculated her daughter, Mary, with smallpox, but although the little girl survived, inoculation wasn’t widely […]
Mistresses by Linda Porter
According to the great diarist, John Evelyn, Charles II was ‘addicted to women’, and throughout his long reign a great many succumbed to his charms. Clever, urbane and handsome, Charles presided over a hedonistic court, in which licence and licentiousness prevailed. Mistresses is the story of the women who shared Charles’s bed, each of whom […]
Catherine of Braganza, the neglected Queen
“One of the greatest and most illustrious princesses in the world.” If contemporaries thought highly of Catherine of Braganza, why has history been so condescending to Charles II’s queen? Linda Porter believes it is high time the Merry Monarch’s Portuguese wife was given her due. Catherine of Braganza is one of our most overlooked queens, […]
Sex, swords and incest: the many scandals of ‘Mad Jack’ Byron
The poet Lord Byron wasn’t the only member of his family to be “mad, bad, and dangerous to know”, as Emily Brand found when she wrote The Fall of the House of Byron. She tells Historia about how she tried – but failed – to rehabilitate his notorious father. On 10 July 1823 the notorious […]