Charles I
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
How weird was Oliver Cromwell?
The pious people’s champion was not only a sadist and ruthless self-promoter; he could also indulge in infantile horseplay during the pressurised period leading up to the regicide
What makes MPs special
On Monday, the House of Commons passed, by one vote, a motion to allow MPs to be suspended from parliament…
Why was Henrietta Maria, Charles I’s beautiful wife, so reviled?
On 15 June 1645, as Thomas Fairfax’s soldiers picked over the scattered debris on the Naseby battlefield, they made a…
Why Merseyside is the natural home for a Shakespearean theatre
A neglected little town in Merseyside is the natural home for Shakespeare North, says Robert Gore-Langton
Brother against brother in the English civil war
‘The Wars of the Three Kingdoms’ is the best description of the devastating conflict that erupted in England, Ireland and…
With Elizabeth Stuart as monarch, might the English civil war have been avoided?
Many girls dream about their favourite princesses. Elizabeth Stuart, a princess herself, took this fantasy a step further and modelled…
A sumptuous feast of an exhibition: Charles I at the Royal Academy reviewed
Peter Paul Rubens thought highly of Charles I’s art collection. ‘When it comes to fine pictures by the hands of…
Power slips from Gloriana’s jewelled fingers
If you’ve been watching Game of Thrones recently, you’ll have seen an old folkloric fantasy in which a bewitching young…
A.C. Grayling reduces history to a game of quidditch
The 17th century scores highly — especially England’s part in it — in A.C. Grayling’s ‘points system’ of history. If only the study of the past were that simple, says Ruth Scurr
Velázquez’s vanishing act
This is an extraordinary story. In 1845 John Snare, an unremarkable Reading bookseller, goes to an auction in a defunct…
How will the British public take to Rubens’s fatties?
Are Rubens’s figures too fat for the British to appreciate them? Martin Gayford investigates
Game of thrones: five kings spanning five centuries launch a new series on royalty
Nigel Jones reviews the first five titles to appear in a new series on British monarchs
Charles III is made for numbskulls by numbskulls
Suppose Charles were to reign as a meddlesome, self-pitying, indecisive plonker. It’s a thought. It’s now a play, too, by…
Rebellion without a cause: Peter Ackroyd's curious Civil War
How our perceptions of 17th-century England are dominated by the convulsions of the two decades at its centre! Peter Ackroyd’s…
Music at Midnight, by John Drury - review
When John Drury, himself an Anglican divine, told James Fenton (the son of a canon of Christ Church) that he…
