The court favourite who became the most hated man in England
Lucy Hughes-Hallett traces the brief, dramatic career of the handsome Duke of Buckingham – scapegoat for the early Stuarts’ extravagance and incompetence
The joy of hanging out with artists
Lynn Barber finds painters and sculptors easily the most congenial people to interview - despite having received a death threat from the Chapman brothers
The splendour and squalor of Venice
In his celebration of Venetian art, Martin Gayford is keenly alert to the city’s spectacular contradictions
Bullying on Twitter is nothing compared with what Charles II’s mistresses endured
Strolling through Whitehall Palace in the early years of the Restoration, Samuel Pepys was thrilled to spy a washing line…
Our gallant second world war pigeons have been unjustly ridiculed
Operation Columba was one of the most secretive arms of British Intelligence during the second world war. Between April 1941…
