Political

For centuries before independence in 1877 the Romanian principalities led a precarious life of their own, writes Kenneth Johnstone.

A Genoese family ruled the Mediterranean principality for several centuries; Len Ortzen describes how, in 1715, the heiress married a Norman.

On his visit to England in 1768, the King of Denmark held an elaborate masked ball in London. By Aileen Ribeiro.

A.L. Rowse analyses the partnership of the Prime Minister and the chief commander in the field, during the long war of Queen Anne’s reign.

Michael Grant describes how the most essential single fact in the whole history of the Etruscans was their division into separate city states.

Duchess by bigamy, but a Countess by marriage, Elizabeth Chudleigh found refuge from her marital troubles in St Petersburg, writes Anthony Cross.

From A.D. 400, writes E.R. Chamberlin, imperial Rome was subject to pillage and plunder, but Popes in the Renaissance destroyed in order to rebuild.

Douglas Hilt describes how Privados - favoured courtiers in early modern Spain - often became figures of strength for the monarch and agents of stability in the peninsula.

Although he died six centuries ago, Robert the Bruce remains a symbol of Scotland’s identity.

Joanna Richardson describes how the prosaic alliance arranged between the middle-aged Duke of Clarence and Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen became at length an extremely happy marriage.