Without Bede, a monk living in Jarrow at the end of the 7th and beginning of the 8th centuries, there would be a huge gap in the early history of the English peoples. Indeed, it was Bede who first spoke of the separate tribes and kingdoms as ‘English’. That’s why, as his biographer Edoardo Albert […]
Bede: the man who invented England by Edoardo Albert
What is England, and who are the English? The man who first posed and answered these questions lived 1,200 years ago in Northumberland. The Venerable Bede spent almost his whole life in two monasteries looking over the North Sea, far from the centres of civilisation. Yet he became the foremost scholar of the first millennium, […]
The Rebel and the Peacemaker by Geraldine Roberts
When it came to Charles and Mary Bagot, the gossips of Regency England had more than their fill. The marriage, initially the toast of high society, was one marked with scandal and adultery. And when rumours of a particularly salacious affair broke through London, the couple were banished to the New World. Having sailed across […]
Regina by Kate Williams
Stories about royal women form some of our most foundational myths about femininity, and yet their legacies have been almost entirely constructed by the words and images created by men. This book leads us deep into a world of queens, empresses, princesses, mistresses and courtiers, uncovering how their ambitions were shaped, celebrated and often thwarted, […]
The joys and challenges of writing historical non-fiction
Geraldine Roberts considers her experience of researching her new book, The Rebel and the Peacemaker, and the joys and challenges that go with writing historical non-fiction. The Rebel and the Peacemaker is about the Regency power couple Mary and Charles Bagot, who were trailblazers on the diplomatic circuit and documented the highs and lows of […]
Sex and Sexuality in Ancient Greece by LJ Trafford
The debt to Ancient Greece owed by our own society has long been recognised. However, there is another side to the culture that bequeathed us such gifts as democracy, medicine, art and sports, one that does not glitter so much. Sex and Sexuality in Ancient Greece plunges headfirst into a society that holds very different […]
Sex in Ancient Greece
Sex in Ancient Greece is the subject of LJ Trafford’s new book. She found that the Greeks were much stranger, and much smuttier, than we might think, and shares some of her research with us. Back in 2020 I wrote a book called Sex and Sexuality in Ancient Rome, and tremendous fun it was too, […]
Historia interview: Claire Hobson
On 29 May, Oak Apple Day, it’ll be 396 years from Charles II’s birth in 1630 and 366 since his restoration. To mark the occasion, Historia spoke to Claire Hobson, whose biography marks those 30 turbulent years that formed the future king. Your book, Charles II: From the Cradle to the Crown, looks self-explanatory from […]