England

As forests and wild deer diminished in England, sportsmen took to the fox; Charles Chenevix Trench describes how hunting became the pastime of more varied social classes.

After a happy marriage, writes Joanna Richardson, the Heiress Apparent died, three years before her father became King George IV.

Joanna Richardson describes some French visitors to England, from Louis XVIII and Madame de Stael to Verlaine and Mallarme.

John Prest describes how the progressive Whig reformer of the 1830s became unpopular as Prime Minister after 1846.

‘If Napoleon had conducted the campaign of Java exactly as did Auchmuty, whole libraries would have been written in laudation of it. Yet this brilliant and sterling soldier has been forgotten.’ So wrote Sir John Fortescue in his History of the British Army. A loyalist, born in New York, Auchmuty served the British Crown in India, Egypt, Latin America and Java. By Bernard Pool.

A younger son of William IV and Mrs Jordan, writes Martin Murphy, had a natural vocation for the stage rather than the Church.

From 1504 to 1971, writes James O. Mays, the shilling has had a dramatic history.

Early associated with midland Collieries, writes E.M. Howe, the Beaumont family later became generous patrons of art.

W.G. Hoskins' study of English surnames shows that, even before the Industrial Revolution, country families were very often on the move.