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Queen Victoria attends to matters of state. Illustration from 'The Life and Times of Queen Victoria' by Robert Wilson, (1900). (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

What was it like meeting Queen Victoria? 6 royal encounters as told by famous Victorians

How the Voynich manuscript hit the headlines

The Library Pliny’s Rome: Vesuvius, vice and vestal virgins

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British writer Hilary Mantel photographed at home. (Photo by Lionel Derimais/Corbis Documentary/Getty Images)

Hilary Mantel on the secrets of successful historical fiction

Latest articles

Happy Birthday, Queen Victoria!

Friday 24th May marks the bicentenary of Queen Victoria's birth. Here's everything you need to know about her life, death, marriage and children...

7 things you (probably) didn’t know about Queen Victoria

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The Library The mourning of Queen Victoria

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Queen Victoria of Great Britain with her husband, Prince Albert, and their nine children. (Photo by Rischgitz/Getty Images)

Queen Victoria’s children

Franz Xaver Winterhalter’s painting 'The Royal Family' in 1846 shows Victoria and Albert with their children (from left to right): Alfred, Edward, Alice, Helena and Vicky. Sadly, inter-family relations weren’t always as blissful as this idealised portrait suggests. (Bridgeman)

The Library Victoria and Albert: a marriage of misery?

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Most widely seen photographs of Queen Victoria, pictured here in c1870, depict a short, stony-faced and humourless matriarch dressed in black, but this does the queen a disservice, says Helen Rappaport. (Photo by The Royal Photographic Society Collection/Victoria and Albert Museum, London/Getty Images)

‘Dumpy’ dowager or vibrant beauty: what did Queen Victoria really look like?

Queen Victoria, who “displayed a healthy enjoyment of food and drink throughout her life”, says food historian Rebecca Earle. (Getty Images)

Queen Victoria’s voracious appetite for food and sex

More on Queen Victoria

Hilary Mantel's The Mirror & the Light

As the final novel of Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy is announced…

British writer Hilary Mantel photographed at home. (Photo by Lionel Derimais/Corbis Documentary/Getty Images)

Hilary Mantel on the secrets of successful historical fiction

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Wolf Hall: a look at Thomas Cromwell on screen

Thomas Cromwell (Illustrated by Sarah Young)

Thomas Cromwell reconsidered

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The Library Wolf Hall: author Hilary Mantel talks Tudors, historical accuracy and winning the Man Booker Prize

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Thomas Cromwell: The rise and fall of Henry VIII’s henchman

In c1500, the young Thomas Cromwell travelled from his humble Putney home to the great cities of Italy, as shown in our illustration. The connections he established on the Italian peninsula would prove key to his meteoric rise to power back in England. (Illustration by Sarah Young for BBC History Magazine)

The Library Thomas Cromwell: the best Italian in all England

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In the news

Today’s events in historical context…

One of the earliest and most famous examples of extremism comes from ancient Rome. Starting in 264 BC and continuing for more than a century, Rome engaged in a series of wars with neighbouring Carthage. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

A brief history of extremism – from ancient Rome to al Qaeda

A historical image from the iron and steel industry in Teeside

Industrial revolution

175 years of iron and steel

3822353 Anne Lister of Shibden Hall (oil on canvas) by Horner, Joshua (1812-84) (attr.to); 74x61 cm; Calderdale Museums Service, West Yorkshire, UK; (add.info.: Anne Lister (1791‚Äì1840) was a diarist, mountaineer, traveller and wealthy landowner of Shibden Hall, Yorkshire. ); British, out of copyright.

The real ‘Gentleman Jack’: the secret life of Anne Lister, Britain’s ‘first modern lesbian’

The food served at the wedding of Joffrey Baratheon and Margaery Tyrell may be inspired by accounts of ancient Roman excess, says Ayelet Haimson Lushkov. (© Home Box Office, Inc/Sky Atlantic)

Power plays and scheming queens: the ancient history behind Game of Thrones

The Spanish Princess

As a new drama about Catherine of Aragon continues, read about the real stories of the Tudor royals featured in the series…

A portrait of Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII's first wife. Henry and Catherine's marriage was a happy one, until their failure to produce a male heir began to cast a long shadow. (Photo by The Print Collector/Getty Images)

Catherine of Aragon: Henry’s greatest queen

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The Library Elizabeth of York: a Tudor of rare talent

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The Spanish Princess, starring Charlotte Hope as Catherine of Aragon, charts the story of the woman who married into the Tudor dynasty. (Image credit: Starz)

The real history behind The Spanish Princess

Katherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII. National Portrait Gallery, London. (Photo by PHAS/UIG via Getty Images)

The lost heirs of Henry VIII: Alison Weir on Katherine of Aragon’s failed pregnancies

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Black Tudors

Henry VIII's first wife, Catherine of Aragon, c1502. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty images)

Catherine of Aragon: Spain’s Virgin queen?

Read more about Catherine of Aragon

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A c1750 watercolour shows workers "mixing the powder" at Woolwich Arsenal. "The institutions that made up the 18th-century British 'state' existed entirely to provide the resources for war," argues Priya Satia. (Photo by Bridgeman Art Library)

Industrial revolution

The Library How war sparked the industrial revolution

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The Library The Tudor guide to colonising the world

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"It was in Ireland that King John revealed himself as a monster," writes Nicholas Vincent. (Image by Alamy)

The Library King John: the making of a medieval monster

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A 16th-century woodcut by Albrecht Dürer entitled 'The true and false apostles of Christ'. As the Reformation recast Europe's spiritual landscape, many believers fretted that their religion no longer felt true to them. (Photo by Alamy)

The Library The fury that fuelled the rise of atheism

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Gentleman Jack, Suranne Jones as Anne Lister (Photo by BBC/Lookout Point/Jay Brooks)

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After her recovery from smallpox, Queen Elizabeth I started using a ceruse foundation on her face, neck and chest. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

5 weird habits of royals through history

Henry VIII's first wife, Catherine of Aragon, c1502. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty images)

Catherine of Aragon: Spain’s Virgin queen?

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The Library Prince Albert: the death that rocked the monarchy

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Gentleman Jack, Suranne Jones as Anne Lister (Photo by BBC/Lookout Point/Jay Brooks)

Gentleman Jack

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Brexit

The history behind Britain’s decision to leave the European Union…

Treaty Of Paris, 1783, by Benjamin West (Photo by Granger/REX/Shutterstock)

Brexit and American independence

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The Library Why has Britain decided to leave the EU?

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A cartoon from 'Punch' magazine (1903) titled 'Fidgety Joe', by Edward Linley Sambourne, depicting two parents representing the Duke of Devonshire and Arthur Balfour (centre), respective leaders of the Liberal Unionist and Conservative parties, trying to control their son, Joseph Chamberlain. In 1903, Joseph Chamberlain began his famous crusade for Imperial Preference – an issue which caused deep divisions in the government and ultimately paved the way for the Liberal Party's return to power in the 1906 general election. (Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Brexit, the Corn Laws and the Common Market: a brief history of Britain’s trade deals

The Library Brexit lessons from history

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“The anglocentric view we have of British history is unsustainable,” says Misha Glenny

The Library The reluctant Europeans

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Latest articles

Henry VI of England. (Photo by iStock/Getty Images)

Henry VI may have had a “sex coach” – plus 4 more curious facts about his life

In 1937, Amelia Earhart, one of the world’s most famous aviators, apparently disappeared without a trace during an attempt to circumnavigate the globe. (Photo by SSPL/Getty Images)

From Jack the Ripper to Amelia Earhart: 17 unsolved historical mysteries

US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and British prime minister Sir Winston Churchill, meeting during the Casablanca conference in 1943. (Photo by AFP/Getty Images)

Second World War

Churchill and D-Day: did the prime minister oppose the Normandy landings?

Princess Margaret attends the premiere of Captain Horatio Hornblower, Leicester Square, 1951. (Photo by Ron Burton/Keystone/Getty Images)

The Queen’s “rebel sister”: 8 facts about Princess Margaret

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People praying for relief from the bubonic plague, circa 1350. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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A depiction of a witch on a broomstick. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

History quiz – Halloween

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The results of the poll: 100 women who changed the world. (Photos by Getty Images/Alamy)

Quiz: 100 Women Who Changed The World

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Great Fire of London quiz – how much do you know?

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