England

By challenging and destroying the system of General Warrants, John Wilkes struck an important blow for civil liberty in England, writes George Rudé.

M.F. Bond recounts the historical and legislative passage of an Act of Parliament.

E.H. Dance

Cross-Channel relations were cordial during the reign of the Emperor Napoleon III, writes Joanna Richardson.

Charles Chevenix Trench describes how a political crisis of the first magnitude arose when George III succumbed to a psychotic disorder that baffled his physicians.

Dorothy Margaret Stuart describes how the earliest English printed book was issued from William Caxton’s press at Westminster in 1477, under the patronage of the ruling House of York.

The battle over the Middlesex Election of 1769, writes George Rude, raised the constitutional question of the voters’ right to return a member of their own choice to Parliament.

Essentially a plain man, neither a visionary nor a revolutionary, William Cobbett, rustic tribune of the people, was first and foremost a gifted writer 'who happened to write about politics'.

Englishmen, during the reign of George III, loved every form of festivity and show. In 1775, a courageous attempt was made to hold a magnificent London regatta. But, as F.H.W. Sheppard writes, there were the usual delays and misunderstandings; ladies fell into the Thames-side mud; and, naturally, the weather changed.

One of Nelson’s proteges, William Hoste, patrolled the Adriatic Sea at a time when its coasts were largely under Napoleon’s control, as P.C. McFarlan writes.