Political

At one time a member of Charles II's notorious Cabal, Anthony Ashley Cooper later became the much maligned leader of the Protestant and Parliamentary opposition to the last two Stuart kings. By J.H. Plumb.

The crisis of 1909-11 involved two General Elections and a threat to flood the House of Lords with newly created Liberal peers. It ended, as Steven Watson notes here, in a triumph for the progenitors of the modern welfare state.

Peter Quennell says Hogarth’s great survey of the Humours of an Election is one of the masterpieces of English 18th century painting

The contemporary of Queen Elizabeth I, Ivan IV was the real founder of modern Russia, and, Jules Menken writes, the originator of the disciplinary system by means of which many Russian rulers since have held, their power.

The observations of Edmond Geraud, a schoolboy pursuing his studies in Paris, throw fresh light on the stormiest years of the French Revolution.

Allen Cabaniss investigates rumour, propaganda and freedom of thought in the ninth century life of the late Carolingian empire.

Accused of cowardice at the Battle of Minden, and often-cast for the role of villain when he was Colonial Secretary, Lord George Germain, writes Eric Robson, nevertheless had many of the qualities of a successful statesman.

Christopher Sykes revisits Compiègne during the hunting season, the scene of some of the most splendid and ostentatious diversions of the Second Empire.

For sixteen years a Congressman and Senator, John Randolph was the most gifted conservative spokesman of the American South. Russell Kirk charts his singular career.

‘If ever a house radiated cheerfulness, that house is Versailles.’ Nancy Mitford on the royal palace in the middle years of Louis XV.