The Years Before the Stock Exchange
Nicholas Lane examines how, during the century before the London Stock Exchange acquired a building of its own in 1773, brokers met and transacted business in the coffee houses of Exchange Alley
Feature
The Foundation of the Bank of England
Nicholas Lane discusses the reasons of business and war that led to the establishment of a national bank in London in 1694.
The Politics of Wine in 18th-century England
After the upheavals of 1688, England’s shifting social order needed new ways to define itself. A taste for fine claret became one such marker of wealth and power, as Charles Ludington explains.
Rodrigo de Vivero: A Spaniard Shipwrecked in Japan
Shipwrecked in 1609, Spanish administrator Rodrigo de Vivero y Velasco became a guest of the shogun and wrote a detailed account of his 10 months in Japan.
Normans and Slavery: Breaking the Bonds
Whilst many Anglo-Saxons suffered under the Norman yoke, the Conquest came with the promise of freedom for England’s slaves.
Drake’s Progress
For all its faults C.E Hamshere’s account of Francis Drake’s 16th-century circumnavigation, published in History Today in 1967, applies a historical imagination lacking in more recent studies, argues Hugh Bicheno.
London Gentlemen’s Clubs and Victorian Politics
How Victorian gentlemen’s clubs in London’s West End played a role in oiling the nation’s political wheels.
The Causes of the English Civil War: A New Analysis
Charles I had ‘the authority to plan and initiate a policy, but he had not the power to enforce it.’
British Towns and Cities: Birmingham
Michael Rix takes an historical and architectural look at England's second city.
Captain Kidd: Privateer, Pirate and Agent of Empire?
The trial of Captain William Kidd raised uncomfortable questions for the state about the pirate’s role in the consolidation of England’s early overseas empire.