Political

From her post as governess to a prosperous middle-class Russian family, writes Stephen Usherwood, a gifted young Englishwoman watched the gradual development of the Revolution.

On March 8th, 1894, Lord Rosebery took office as Prime Minister. John Raymond describes his fifteen difficult months in power.

Barrington’s admiration for the humanity, wit and decisiveness of his chief are affectionately apparent in this portrait of the great Whig Prime Minister at the height of his powers.

A further selection from a memoir Barrington composed towards the close of his life and transmitted to his kinsman, the third Earl of Durham. Through his connections with leading political families, and official appointments he held at 10 Downing Street and the Treasury, Barrington was in an excellent position from which to observe and comment on the personalities of the nineteenth century including Brougham, Melbourne, Peel and Gladstone.

Because of his vision of New Amsterdam as the most important city on the Atlantic seaboard, writes Arnold Whitridge, Stuyvesant stands out in American history as the most memorable of the colonial governors.

For some sixty years during the eighteenth century, writes Sarah Searight, Louisiana was a colony owing allegiance to the King of France.

Napoleon’s attempt to form a second and more liberal empire was, like Waterloo, a close-run thing and “came nearer to success than is usually allowed.”

Joanna Richardson describes how the last Emperor of the French died at Chislehurst, Kent; his son was killed in the British Zulu war.

William Allan introduces the Napoleonic military genius; in Napier’s words, ‘the best loved Frenchman England ever fought’.

After the dismissal of popular ministers in 1792, writes M.J. Sydenham, a widespread conviction that the King was bent on thwarting the Revolution led to the invasion of his palace by the Parisian mob.