History Today

Anglo-Saxons: The Making of England

When did England become England? Was Alfred really the great ruler of all the English - or was it just a question of clever Wessex PR? Patrick Wormald investigates the myths and realities of unification in Anglo-Saxon England.

'Our Mr Sun' Religion and Science in 50s America

How did Hollywood screenwriter Frank Capra get involved in the sort of film projects that in his and other hands filled a generation of American servicemen with a fundamentalist world view? James Gilbert offers an explanation.

Commemorating Charles I - King and Martyr?

The way in which the church commemoration of King Charles I's 1649 execution became a potent instrument in the political war of words after the Restoration is examined, and the history of the king's execution and the clergy's promotion of the event are discussed.

Avebury

Peter Fowler looks at the varied spiritual and physical landscapes of a twenty-eight-and-a-half acre site in Wiltshire which contains one of the most important megalithic monuments in Europe

Penrhyn Castle

Alistair Hennessy on the Regency North Wales family whose country seat was built on the profits from the slave plantations of the Caribbean.

The Guildhall, Lavenham

Alec Betterton explains how a timber-framed hall opens a window onto the piety and economics of a Suffolk market town in the 1520s.

Hardwick Hall

Alice Friedman investigates a Derbyshire 'prodigy house' and its formidable progenitor, a much-married Elizabethan woman.