The 12th and 13th centuries were a time of personal monarchy, when the close friendship or petty feuding between kings and queens could determine the course of history. The Capetians of France and the Angevins of England waged war, made peace, and intermarried. The lands under the control of the English king once reached to […]
Mussolini meets the World’s Fair
While researching the Chicago World’s Fair of 1933 for her new novel, Anika Scott came across an episode of political public manipulation which took her aback – for its present-day resonances as well as its impact at the time. She tells Historia what happened when the Fascists flew to the Fair. Sometimes, a piece of […]
The ways of war at the time of King Alfred
What were battles like in the time of King Alfred? Organised shield walls or brutal melees? Did they use cavalry? And what about fights at sea? Chris Bishop examines the ways of war in the 9th century. As King Alfred spent so much of his reign at war with the Vikings (or with the Danes […]
The real Dracula: monster by nature – or nurture?
Dracula. Vlad the Impaler. Otherwise known as Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia. Ethan Bale, whose latest novel, The Lost Prince, features the historical figure, examines the man behind the legend and asks: was he a monster by nature? By nurture? Or both? Just a few weeks ago, King Charles undertook his annual pilgrimage to Transylvania, […]
The Honours of Scotland
On 5 July, 2023, King Charles and Queen Camilla will be in Scotland for a series of events to mark his coronation. At the high point he will be presented with the Honours of Scotland at a National Service of Thanksgiving and Dedication at St Giles’ Cathedral. The historian Maggie Craig looks back at the […]
Piccadilly: The Circus at the Heart of London by Midge Gillies
There’s nowhere quite like Piccadilly Circus. From the moment they emerge, blinking from the underground station, visitors to Piccadilly Circus face a sensory onslaught. Its streets and alleyways merge into an intoxicating thoroughfare, with the power to propel an individual onwards to adventure, romance, or something more sinister. Ever since its iconic Eros statue appeared […]
Sent away by sea: the forgotten history of WWII’s ‘seaevacuees’
Hazel Gaynor remembers the World War Two ‘seaevacuees’, the children sent away from Britain by sea to escape the bombings at home. This is an often-forgotten part of the history of the war, overshadowed by more familiar events, and it inspired Hazel to write her new novel, The Last Lifeboat. Operation Pied Piper, the British […]
Language and the Nazi propaganda machine
Catherine Hokin examines how the Nazi propaganda machine twisted language to hide mass murder, including their Aktion T4 euthanasia programme. Language and how it is used is particularly important to a writer. That might sound very obvious but it is a truism I have come back to again and again while writing fiction based around […]