Royalty
Monarchy
Dynamic timeline charts how England evolved from a land of warlords to one where dynasties could be built. It illuminates the lives of the men and women who held the throne and the powerful individuals who supported and sometimes fought them.
Queen Victoria’s Grandchildren
Biographies of eight of the queen’s grandchildren who, after her death, occupied European thrones, particularly George V of England, Nicholas II of Russia and Wilhelm II of Germany.
- Britain's Real Monarch
Was the 15th-century English monarch Edward IV illegitimate? Check out our royal family tree to see who should have been occupying the British throne since Henry VI. - Edward
VII
Both his parents instilled in Edward a conviction that he was irredeemably frivolous and unworthy to be king. He devoted most of his life to living up to the first judgement, and the last nine years of it to disproving the second. - Elizabeth: Apprenticeship
An extract from Dr David Starkey's biography of the young Elizabeth. - Elizabeth's
Pirates
How the Virgin Queen turned to her privateers to raise money and wage war. - Elizabeth I
The dilemmas involved in portraying such an extraordinary historical figure. - The First Emperor
The story of the ruler who unified China in the 3rd century BC, built the Great Wall and left us the Terracotta Army in his necropolis. - George
V
The king who created an image of the royal family as ordinary people. - Henry
VIII
Henry's real achievement was the creation of an England that, in terms of kingship and religion, endured for centuries after his death. - Kings
and Conquerors
An investigation into the invasion of England, the battle of Hastings and the Norman conquest, as well as the motives, role and impact of William the Conqueror. - The monarchs we never had
The death of the heir to the throne has had important consequences throughout British history – sometimes immediately, sometimes obvious only in retrospect. - Perkin Warbeck: The great
pretender
What is known about the mysterious young man who claimed to be one of the ‘princes in the Tower’, having escaped to Europe and gone into hiding, only to re-emerge in 1491 as a serious thorn in Henry VII’s side? - The Prince Regent and His
Circle: In their own words
The history, the scandals and the gossip of the Prince Regent, his friends and his foes. - Queen Victoria’s Grandchildren
Biographies of eight of the queen’s grandchildren who, after her death, occupied European thrones, particularly George V of England, Nicholas II of Russia and Wilhelm II of Germany. - The
Real Crawfie
The story of Marion Crawford, the royal governess who was ostracised by her former charges after publishing a book about her experiences. - The Real Prince Charles
The heavily marketed royal figurehead, sidelined by a new generation of celebrity royals. - The Real Prince Philip
The man who always has to walk two steps behind the queen. - Royal Deaths and Diseases
More madness, decadence, bad blood, horrific deliveries and deaths by violence among the crowned heads of Europe and elsewhere. - Saladin, Richard the Lionheart
and the Legacy of the Crusades
How Saladin and Richard I are being invoked by those involved in today's conflict in the Middle East. - The
Science of Secrecy: The Babington plot
How the life of Mary Queen of Scots hung on the strength of a substitution cipher. - Six
Wives of Henry VIII
The key events and players in the life of each wife and a comparison of women then and now. - The Tower
Historical nuggets from some of the curators of the Tower of London, many of which feature British crowned heads. - Wallis
Simpson: The demonised duchess
A strong-willed woman, hungry for independence but caught up in a situation she could not control.
