History Today

Eighteenth-century men of taste had begun to build themselves mock-medieval houses. Tudor Edwards writes how their descendants carried on the vogue by constructing a series of impressive castles.

Despite sneers and some natural forebodings, writes Joanna Richardson, this brief alliance proved extremely happy.

Widespread fever followed military sloth, writes Antony Brett-James, and the fiasco on Walcheren brought down the tottering British Government.

Dufferin urged upon an unresponsive government in London moderate proposals for representative reform in India. In fact, writes Briton Martin Jnr., reform was carried out twenty years later; too late, in the light of history.

Briton Martin Jnr. describes how Lord Dufferin set out for India, intending his rule to be a period of conservative calm, but found himself involved in the anxieties of “The Burmese Adventure”.

Adam Zamoyski describes how the Poles under German occupation were experts in subversion.

During the years that led up to the Anglo-American Treaty of 1842, writes Henry I. Kurtz, both countries played a dangerous game of “brinksmanship” along the Canadian border.

Court-martialled in 1760 for disobeying military orders, Sackville rose to the office of Secretary of State for War, writes David Fraser.

As wealthy Russians continue to take up residence in London’s smartest districts, Helen Szamuely reflects on the contributions to Anglo-Russian relations of those diplomats who paved the way from the 18th century onwards.

Though he didn't invent it, the guillotine was named for a French doctor, who died on 26 March 1814.