Political

Henry V and the City of London

J.L. Kirby describes the reign of a sovereign with a ‘genius for popular kingship’; Henry V was probably the first English ruler to address his subjects in their native language.

Helena, Marchioness of Northampton

Helena Snakenborg came to London in the train of a visiting Swedish Princess. Appointed a Maid of Honour to Queen Elizabeth, writes Gunnar Sjögren, she married twice and lived in England for seventy years.

Great Strafford?

C.V. Wedgwood analyses the life, death, and influence of Thomas Wentworth, first earl of Strafford.

Alexander III of Russia

The calm and stability of the Tsar in 1881 meant no new dawn for Russia, but an era of Counter-Reform, writes W. Bruce Lincoln.

Adrian IV: England’s Only Pope

M. Foster Farley describes how, during his five years in the Vatican, Nicholas Breakspear had important dealings with the Holy Roman Empire, England and Ireland, and the Norman kingdom of Sicily.

A British Student Prince in Germany: 1913

John Wroughton describes how the Prince of Wales and his Oxford tutor paid two agreeable visits to Germany in 1913, from which he returned with a warm affection for the German people.

William Beaw: Bishop and Secret Agent

John R. Guy introduces the soldier, churchman, and Royalist Fellow of New College who served Russia and Sweden during Cromwell’s years of power, and who returned to post-Restoration Britain to become a prominent parson in the Church of Wales.

Vintage Liberals

David Hopkinson describes how the foundations of modern Britain were largely laid by Liberal intellectuals from 1906 onwards.