England

Connoisseur and Diplomat

C.V. Wedgwood recounts the circumstances the Earl of Arundel’s Embassy to Germany in 1636 as recounted in William Crowne’s Diary, the Earl’s letters and other contemporary sources.

Samuel Pepys and Navy Contracts

Bernard Pool describes how the diarist was determined, in the interests of the Navy and for his own satisfaction, to strike the best possible bargain for the Crown.

How Soapy was Sam? A Study of Samuel Wilberforce

Despite being denounced by Huxley as a man who used high gifts to discredit humble seekers after truth, David Newsome writes of how this Victorian prelate has also been acclaimed as the greatest bishop of his age.

Lower Classes in Regency England

R.J. White describes how all sorts and conditions of men, at every stage of transition of a rapidly changing society, crowded the early-nineteenth-century scene.

The Convocation of 1563

J.C. Barry looks at how the Thirty-Nine Articles, defining the doctrine of the Church of England, were drawn up by a Convocation that met in London in the 16th century.

Surnames of Occupation

By the close of the fourteenth century the English system of surnames had come into general use, many of them deriving from the trades and crafts followed by their bearers.

The Birth of the Old Pretender

J.P. Kenyon describes how, in 1688, there were weighty reasons to suppose that the new royal heir was a changeling, smuggled to the Palace in a warming pan.

The Architecture of Dissent

Esther Moir brings us on a visit to the Nonconformist chapels of England, products of a long tradition in vernacular architecture, and well adapted to the needs of local worshippers.

The Exclusion Crisis, Part I

J.P. Kenyon describes how the childlessness of the Queen, and the conversion of James, Duke of York, to Roman Catholicism, produced a febrile state of opinion in Restoration London, out of which rumours of a “Popish Plot” naturally arose.

Frederick, Prince of Wales

During his lifetime, George II's son accomplished little of note. However, writes Romney Sedgwick, Frederick's propaganda in his own political interests left behind two fictions that profoundly influenced later historians.