Volume 27 Issue 11 November 1977

During the Mamluk Sultanate, writes P.M. Holt, men imported as slaves and trained as warriors became rulers of a great Islamic state.

Through the marriage of a baronet and a scrivener’s heiress, writes Francis Sheppard, the Grosvenors eventually became the wealthiest family in Europe.

H.J.K. Jenkins profiles a dictator and liberator in the West Indies under the first French Republic.

Rex Winsbury profiles a Soviet gunman and secret agent who assassinated the German Ambassador and was himself shot in 1929 after visiting Trotsky in exile.

Politically, Mayor Adenauer admitted, the British occupation was always scrupulously fair. By D.G. Williamson.

James Marshall-Cornwall describes a Tudor adventure, ultimately unsuccessful: Willoughby perished on the Kola peninsula; Chancellor reached Moscow and was received by Ivan the Terrible.