England

How accurate are Shakespeare’s historical plays? Harold F. Hutchison compares the dramatist’s account of Richard’s downfall with the actual course of events.

“Bleak indeed, but blazing,” Prynne was one of the martyrs of the seventeenth-century Puritan movement. Yet, as William M. Lamont notes, even in his own party, his fiercely uncompromising character often aroused hatred and contempt.

J.B. Morrall explains the first hundred years in the history of the French Calvinists, whose loyalty to their faith led to civil turmoil in France.

L.R. Betcherman describes how, early in the seventeenth century, an English royal favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, despatched his Dutch agent to Italy to form a sumptuous art-collection.

Was King Harold slain by a Norman arrow that pierced his eye? Charles H. Gibbs-Smith adduces a powerful argument for correcting the traditional story. 

The year 1265 marked the climax in the fortunes of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester. Having defeated the forces of King Henry III during the previous summer, and captured his son and heir, Prince Edward, the Earl was the effective master of baronial England. But his dominance did not endure for long. In May, Prince Edward escaped from his guards and, on August 4th, he overwhelmed Montfort's army at the Battle of Evesham; the Earl himself was killed in the engagement. For six months of this period, the Montfort household rolls have survived. Originally compiled for his wife, the Princess Eleanor, sister of Henry III, they present a remarkably intimate picture of domestic and social life in a powerful thirteenth-century nobleman's family, writes Margaret Wade Labarge.

Though he was a less inspired architect than Wren or Vanbrugh, writes Tudor Edwards, Hawksmoor’s life and work are inextricably interwoven with theirs and he contributed largely to their great achievement.

Lawrence Stone describes how, towards the close of Queen Elizabeth's reign, a young nobleman laid violent and successful suit to the only daughter of a wealthy merchant and money-lender, whose will he is thought to have advantageously suppressed.

Much of the history of any English district is recorded in its farmhouses. This, writes W.G. Hoskins, is particularly true of Devon; where, at some places, “farming has been carried out without a break since Romano-British times,” and possibly from the prehistoric period.

John Gage gauges the impact of Italian influences trickling through to Britain until the 17th century.