Prince Rupert of the Rhine was an intrinsic part of the civil wars that devastated the three kingdoms of Stuart Britain. A nephew of King Charles I, Rupert was both the archetypical royalist hero and parliamentarian villain. In his lifetime, he accumulated at least nine derogatory pseudonyms – from ‘Duke of Plunderland’ to ‘The Diabolical […]
The women Prince Rupert loved
The two women Prince Rupert loved are thought of — if they’re thought of at all — as his mistresses. But, says Mark Turnbull, they were much more than the bed partners of Rupert the Devil. As the Prince’s biographer, he believes: “Knowing them is knowing him.” Think of the women linked to Prince Rupert […]
The Second World War crime boom
For criminals, 1939 to 1945 were “the golden years”, as a crime boom swept Britain, The blackout and the black market that rationing encouraged were a gift to them. Mark Ellis explains why law-breaking rose by 60 per cent during the Second World War. I am the author of a series of crime thrillers featuring […]
Tito: prisoner, partisan, president
Who was President Tito? A communist dictator who, against all odds, held the former Yugoslavia together, a partisan leader during the Second World War, a charismatic, but vain, man, says Hilary Green. She explains how she became interested in this man, who played such a large part in the history of the Balkan region. Until […]
Famine, clearance and the inspiration for a novel
It was over 50 years ago when Willie Orr found the seed of an idea for a novel about the Scottish potato famine and the Highland Clearances. He had a lot of living to do first, and the inspiration took root in a Scottish archive much later. Now the third of his series about Shiaba […]
Blitz Kids: celebrating the 80th anniversary of VE Day
On 8 May, 2025, it’s the 80th anniversary of VE Day. To mark the day, Duncan Barrett remembers the stories of the Blitz Kids, told to him by eyewitnesses who, as children, lived through the bombing of Britain’s cities during the Second World War. It’s 2012 and my partner Nuala and I are in the […]
The War of 1812: unexpectedly relevant
When Tom Williams decided to send his soldier/spy James Burke to North America for his next book, he wondered how European readers would respond to a rather obscure war that took place across the Atlantic while Napoleon was capturing most people’s attention. But as he was writing Burke and the War of 1812, that conflict […]
Blitz Kids by Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi
When the Second World War began, there were 10 million children living in Britain. Many were evacuated to the countryside, but others stayed behind and witnessed the Blitz close-up in cities around the UK. Blitz Kids tells the remarkable true stories of children who spent their nights in cold, cramped air-raid shelters, hearing the rumble […]