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Are the secrets of the Middle Ages' most mysterious manuscript hiding in plain sight?
This manuscript’s contents are a centuries-old mystery that still eludes scholars today. But is it really as cryptic as it seems, or are its answers hiding in plain sight?
At first glance, the Voynich manuscript doesn’t look like much. It’s an old book, about the size of a modern paperback, with colourful illustrations of plants and animals surrounding cursive handwritten script. But on closer inspection, there’s something strange about the plants and animals depicted in the pages. They don’t resemble anything real. And the script isn’t in any recognisable language. Called the ‘world's most mysterious manuscript,’ the Voynich manuscript has been eluding experts' attempts to decode or explain it for hundreds of years. What could it possibly mean? A medieval compendium on herbs, healing, and the stars? “We now know through radiocarbon dating that the Voynich manuscript was created during the early 15th century,” says author and journalist Garry J Shaw, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast. Specifically, the evidence suggests the manuscript was made between 1404 and 1438. As to where it was made, that’s less clear, though there are hints. “There are clues in the style of the illustrations – and little hints like the merlins and the fortifications of a little castle – that suggest Northern Italy as the location it was created,” he adds. Other than that, nothing is known about why the Voynich manuscript was made, who made it, or what purpose it serves. The ‘language’ it is written in isn’t any known language, so scholars have divided the book into sections based on the illustrations. “The first section is dedicated to plants,” Shaw says. “You'll see all these interesting plants, quite unusual ones, often with their roots included as well. There seems to be an emphasis on the roots, which may be a clue to what is going on here.” That part is known as the ‘herbal’ section. Read more | Unusual things found in medieval manuscripts After that come sections on astronomy or astrology with what look like zodiac signs and constellations; bathing, as shown by naked women in waters with unusual creatures around them; cosmology, with fold-out pages showing islands and castles; pharmacy, shown by bits of plants and apothecary jars; and, finally, full pages of text broken up into short paragraphs, which have been interpreted as recipes. All these things were “trendy” topics of interest for the elite at the time, Shaw notes. The book has passed through many different hands since the 15th century, and there was a 200-year period where there was no record of its whereabouts. It's named after Wilfrid Voynich, who bought it in 1912 and was the last person to try to decipher it before it was donated to the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University in 1969, where it has been held since. The language of the Voynich manuscript The language the manuscript is written in has come to be known as ‘Voynichese’. The text has some characteristics that suggest it is a ‘constructed language’ (a language intentionally created for a specific purpose such as to accompany a work of fiction, like Klingon in Star Trek) as opposed to a ‘natural’ language which develops naturally and changes over time. But Shaw doesn’t think the manuscript is a constructed language, because interest in them didn’t really arise until the 17th century, “when scholars started realising that Latin wasn't working for them anymore to communicate their discoveries,” he says. “It doesn’t fit the timeline of the artificial language craze.” Many people have assumed that it’s a code, or a cipher, for a natural language and therefore has some sort of meaning. There is some evidence that this is true. For example, there are ‘words’ that are overrepresented in each of the sections, which could be keywords relating to each section’s topic. And there are patterns of word lengths and frequencies, characters that appear more often which could be vowels, and words that commonly follow each other – all of which suggest a grammatical system. On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be any punctuation, and it has an incredibly regular structure, unlike most known languages. There are lots of words that have incredibly similar spellings or differ only by one letter, which would lead to nonsense if they could actually be ‘translated.’ Read more | What was life like in a medieval town? A historical A-Z And lots of people have tried deciphering the writing over the years, including comparing it to languages such as Ukrainian, Latin, Old Turkic, and Mandarin, with no success. Shaw thinks that the cipher explanation is unlikely. “Ciphers at this time were quite simple and weren't that hard to break. Yet even the great cryptological minds have not broken the Voynich cipher yet, even with the great computing power of today,” he says. The Black Death Member exclusive | Listen to our six-part podcast series on how the Black Death shook the Middle Ages Listen to all episodes now Is the Voynich manuscript a hoax? In a 2020 paper, medievalist and manuscript expert Lisa Fagin Davis wrote that she believes five different people worked on the Voynich script because of slight variations in the style of the handwriting throughout. But Shaw says that the “greatest cost of producing a manuscript – up to 75 per cent – was normally hiring the scribes,” so it is unlikely that five different people would be paid to create it. Instead, he suggests that “some enterprising scribes” made it to entice someone rich into spending money. “You see throughout history that people were just as interested in ripping people off in the past as they are today,” he says. Because it looks like a medical compendium, complete with herbal recipes and therapeutic bathing practices that were of interest at the time, Shaw says he can imagine someone rich buying it, believing they could crack it – and not realising that they couldn’t until it was already bought for a high price. Read more | 10 things you (probably) didn't know about the Middle Ages He adds, “this was also a time of a great explosion of interest in book collecting, particularly among the elite who were trying to create fabulous libraries.” People would be willing to cough up a lot of money for unique, special books to add to their libraries, no matter the contents or if they had even read them. He thinks this is the most probable explanation. “I love the Voynich mystery,” he concludes. “I would love it to be some ingenious cipher from the past that breaks all of our knowledge of that time, or an ingenious early created language and script before the craze for them. So I sincerely hope I’m wrong, but unfortunately, I think the evidence points towards this being a hoax.” Garry J Shaw was speaking to Emily Briffett on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
Was this the moment Henry VIII became a tyrant?
Before he was the monarch with six wives – two of whom he had beheaded – Henry VIII was a Tudor adonis: attractive and active. What happened?
As a young man, Henry VIII loved jousting. He was very active, also spending his time wrestling, hunting, horse riding, and dancing. He was renowned for his stature and physical strength. But the king would never joust again after a serious accident in 1536. This accident didn’t only change Henry’s attitude toward jousting though – many historians suspect that it also changed his personality and brain function, leading him to become the despotic, aggressive leader that he is often remembered as today. Speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, Robert Liddiard, professor of history at the University of East Anglia, says that while there are other reasons Henry VIII may have changed so dramatically after 1536, “nonetheless it might be that his inability to stay on a horse did have some wider ramifications for his later reign.” Henry’s jousting tournament in 1536 Henry had been injured in jousting tournaments before, but the match he rode in on the 24 January 1536 was to be his last. His opponent is unknown, but both were knocked off their horses and Henry’s rolled on top of him. This would cause injury to anyone, but Henry’s jousting horses were famed for being incredibly large and strong, and they wore hundreds of kilograms of armour, too, making it much worse. Henry was left unconscious for two hours after the accident and suffered a gory wound to his leg – both of which, historians think, had long-term impacts on his health. Read more | Warhorses were one of the most deadly weapons on a medieval battlefield. But why didn’t they run away? After the leg injury, Henry developed ulcers, and his “sorre legges” caused him problems for the rest of his life. “It opened up an existing wound on his leg that subsequently, it seems, never healed properly. It caused the king a lot of discomfort and it smelled bad,” Liddiard says. And, since modern research shows that being unconscious for longer than 15 minutes can lead to moderate brain damage, many historians suspect that the accident may have had other, invisible effects on the king. Did Henry’s behaviour change after the accident? Many historians think there was a noticeable change between Henry’s character, behaviour, and way of ruling before and after 1536. In the 1510s and 1520s, he was thought of as fun, accomplished, and well-liked, but he quickly became a “suspicious, ruthless tyrant” after 1536, historian Suzannah Lipscomb writes in her book 1536: The Year that Changed Henry VIII. We can’t know for sure that these changes are solely due to brain injuries, but they do resonate with what is now known about the consequences of brain damage. Read more | Porpoise for breakfast and late night shenanigans: a day in the life of Henry VIII We know Henry experienced at least three major blows to the head in his years of jousting, horse-riding, pole-vaulting, and battle. And we also know that repeated impacts to the head can cause CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), which research suggests can lead to irritability, aggression, a lack of empathy, mood swings, impulsivity, and self-centredness. Richard M Waugaman, a professor of psychiatry, also suggests that Henry’s obesity could also be evidence of brain damage. While the monarch was obviously not a usual case (because he had access to all the luxurious food he wanted), his level of obesity was incredibly rare in Tudor times, and his doctors encouraged him to stop consuming so much wine and meat. Waugaman suggests Henry may have struggled with compulsive overeating, which has been recognised as a consequence of a traumatic brain injury. But these changes could have other contextual explanations. As with many things in history, there could also be a variety of other factors at play. Six Wives: A HistoryExtra podcast series Member exclusive | In this six-part podcast series, we’ll be peeling back the layers of mythmaking to take another look at these fascinating women, who shaped the course of Henry’s reign – and the history of England. Listen to all episodes now “You could say that 1536 was a big year anyway,” Liddiard says. “So, we shouldn't just necessarily focus on this one accident.” He points out that 1536 was the year that Anne Boleyn was tried and executed. Sources say that she also lost a baby boy during pregnancy after hearing about Henry’s accident, which “in the febrile Tudor court, is the sort of terrible event that then becomes the source of political rumour, intrigue, and so forth,” Liddiard says. Henry’s illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, who had been made Duke of Richmond and Somerset in a possible attempt to legitimise him, also died in 1536 at the age of 17. The stress of losing two possible male heirs – something we know he was desperate enough to spark the English Reformation to achieve – plus condemning his wife to death for rumoured adultery could have also contributed to Henry’s hardened attitudes. As could dealing with the political upheavals of the time. With the beginning of the dissolution of the monasteries, 1536 brought unrest and rebellions to England. Most notable were the 22,000-strong Lincolnshire Rising and 40,000-strong Pilgrimage of Grace in October that showed that Henry’s subjects were deeply unhappy with his recent taxation policies and the religious upheavals. Could the changes have been natural progressions in his character? Some historians have suggested that Henry’s personality changes started much earlier than 1536. Liddiard points out that “if you're looking for evidence for Henry VIII being a bit of a despot before this accident, you will certainly find it.” He gives the examples of Thomas More, Henry’s chief minister and friend who he had executed in 1535, and Edward Stafford, the 3rd Duke of Buckingham, a cousin of Henry’s whom he condemned to death in 1521. So it can be hard to pin Henry’s evolution to a specific event, considering that he may have naturally changed due to the unique stresses he experienced as a monarch. But the events of 1536, including the jousting accident, almost certainly expedited it. Robert Liddiard was speaking to Spencer Mizen on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
“Check your husband’s dunghill” – here’s why medieval society was obsessed with poo
In medieval societies, manure became a precious economic commodity. Here’s how – and why – it got put to use
When you think about the driving forces that contributed to progress in medieval Britain, you might think about the likes of mercantilism, war, and urbanisation. But there were other, less-obvious – and more grim – factors behind the development of the medieval economy too. Take poo, for example. “Manure underpinned the medieval economy,” says Dr Richard Jones, professor of landscape history at the University of Leicester, speaking on the Toilets Through Time series from the HistoryExtra podcast. Manure was key to the western medieval economy Most manure was made up of the excrement of animals, although Jones says that people “looked for fertilising material wherever they could find it.” Near the coast, for example, people might use sand and seaweed alongside farmyard manure. There was a “very long tradition which recognised the importance of returning nutrients to the soil,” Jones says, and manure helped farmers to keep their soil in as good a condition as possible to help “ensure good yields.” So, while manure was a waste product, it played an important role in the medieval economy, which revolved around growing crops and raising livestock. Read more | What was life like in a medieval town? A historical A-Z Some historians argue that manure was part of the reason Europe “came to economic dominance in the medieval period,” Jones says. In Asia, there weren’t as many large mammals, such as cows, sheep, and pigs, that produced manure to fuel farming, Jones explains. But Europe “had a lot of large domestic animals, which provided power and provided protein, but above all they provided manure in large quantities.” Attitudes towards manure reflected the feudal system of the Middle Ages “It was fairly commonplace practice for peasants’ animals to be ‘folded’ [penned in] on the lord’s fields, enabling him to capture the fertilising power of the community's herds and flocks,” Jones says. Peasants farmed particular strips of land owned by lords and would graze their animals on larger common areas – also owned by the lords – meaning that much animal waste would by default be created on the lord’s property. Peasants could collect their animals’ manure when they were elsewhere, but most benefits of manure would go to the lord’s fields. Because of its status as a valuable commodity, Jones says there’s evidence in court records of manure theft. Read more | 10 things you (probably) didn't know about the Middle Ages But there were differing attitudes to different types of manure. There was a distinction made between what Jones calls ‘wholesome manure’ – that is, fertilising material that was made up wholly of animal waste, plants, or soil from a lord’s land – and ‘tainted manure,’ which contained waste from peasants’ kitchens and bodies. Manure was often stored in big piles called dunghills, “some of which could be quite large and prominent,” Jones explains. There’s not much archaeological evidence of them left, since they were made of organic materials, but there are references to dunghills going back to Anglo-Saxon charters, he says. In many of these charters, dunghills were used to identify the boundaries of estates, because they were very visible, semi-permanent features of the landscape. Manure and medieval social status Although the lords owned most of the manure, it was still largely associated with the lower classes – namely, peasants. “All of the literary references to dunghills tend to be negative, and manure is a material that is very much associated with the lower orders,” Jones says. Members of the upper classes, then, “shared the same kinds of disgust that we have for this material today.” Dunghills also had criminal connotations, because they could facilitate murder. “The dunghill provided a fantastic place to bury and hide bodies. So, it may well be that the dunghill itself wasn't an active participant in whatever nefarious crime had taken place, but it was a convenient place to hide the evidence,” Jones adds. Toilets through time Member exclusive | What was it like to do your business in a Roman communal toilet? Why was the devil thought to lurk in medieval privies? And did constipation turn Henry VIII into a tyrant? In this four-part mini-series, David Musgrove heads down the u-bend in the company of leading historical experts to see what we can learn from the most universal of all experiences: going to the loo. Listen to all episodes now But much of the literature condemning dunghills and manure would have been written by the upper echelons of medieval society, since peasants were much less likely to be literate, so these attitudes are mainly reflective of the privileged. Jones suspects “that for peasant communities, there was much less disgust for the material – indeed, it was seen as essential.” While dunghills would often be placed far away from the lord’s manor, on the edges of their estates, some peasants would pile dung by their front doors and were more comfortable living close to it. Read more | Married three times by the age of 15: Margaret Beaufort, the woman who birthed the Tudor Dynasty A large dunghill could actually be a positive thing. Being able to store large piles of manure meant that someone “was oversupplied with dung, and wasn’t using all of their stock,” signifying their farm was doing well. “The size of your dunghill is an indicator of your affluence: the more animals you have, the larger your dunghill,” Jones says. “So, if you're looking for a husband, you could look at the size of his dunghill to know whether you're marrying into a family that is well off.” Urbanisation changed people’s attitudes to manure After the medieval period, more people gradually began to move out of the countryside and into cities. At first – before sewer systems and while there were many animals remained in urban environments – the role of manure was still respected. “In the early modern period, we know that night soil [manure] is being collected in urban centres and recycled out in the surrounding fields,” Jones says. “There is this mutual relationship between town and country, with a virtuous cycle of return – products from the countryside are consumed by the town, turned into waste, and then are sent back to the fields.” But as cities grew exponentially and fewer people lived directly on the land, the relationships between town and country, and people and manure, changed. “Manure was seen as a problem rather than as an asset,” Jones says, so sewerage systems were introduced that kept waste physically separate from most people’s daily lives – as it is today. Dr David Musgrove was speaking to Richard Jones on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
The ancient Romans knew the power of entertainment as propaganda – here's the proof
In ancient Rome, putting on theatrical plays was not just a form of entertainment – it became a powerful tool of propaganda
Lysistrata by Aristophanes; Antigone by Sophocles; Medea by Euripides. Each is a play from ancient Greece, still performed on stages across the world today. Roman plays, on the other hand, are much less common. “We might think of theatre today as belonging to the cultural sphere, but in ancient Rome, it belonged to an incredibly political sphere,” says Dr Jessica Clarke, a research associate at the Institute of Classical Studies at the University of London and the author of A New History of Ancient Roman Theatre, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast. “Entertainment is never neutral,” she says, but in ancient Rome, the theatre was explicitly political. “In Rome they didn't have independent theatres, so they didn’t have shows put on outside of politically controlled events.” This fact, she says, means that plays from ancient Rome have failed to remain as relevant as their Greek equivalents. The history of ancient Roman theatre Roman theatre hadn’t always been so overtly political; early Roman theatre was a “hodgepodge” of traditions and practices from previous empires and different areas of modern-day Italy, Clarke says. The ancient historian Livy, who Clarke says is the main source of information we have on the origins of Roman theatre, draws a "very neat line from actors arriving from Etruria to Roman theatre," Clarke says. While Etruscan performances did influence what would become Roman theatre, there’s more likely a “complicated web” of things that became the Roman theatrical tradition, including Greek plays translated into Latin and farcical plays from Campania in southern Italy. Read more | Meet the people the ancient Romans and Greeks desperately tried to hide In general, “Rome tended to absorb cultural influences, rather than inventing its own,” she adds – but it certainly gave theatre its own cultural significance. Theatrical shows would be put on at all kinds of events in Roman culture, including religious festivals, the triumphant returns of Roman generals, and even highly organised aristocratic funerals. “Crucially though, all of these performances are put on by politicians, who would have overseen rehearsals and selected the plays,” Clarke says. “Potentially there may have been some censorship involved as well – we don't know for sure, but it's very likely within this context.” This meant that the politicians could choose plays that worked with whatever political narratives they wanted to put forward (or censor parts that didn’t). <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/GettyImages-122211671-b717d9b-e1760010634986.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="This 1st-century AD mosaic from the House of the Tragic Poet in Pompeii depicts the staging of a theatrical performance. Such scenes highlight the importance of theatre in Roman cultural life, blending entertainment with expressions of myth, satire, and social commentary." title="Roman civilization. Mosaic depicting staging of show in theatre. From House of Tragic Poet in Pompeii" /> The importance of theatre to the Roman political elite If audiences enjoyed the shows staged by politicians, this could have a hugely positive impact on their political careers, Clarke says. “It was an excellent opportunity to win popular favour, to entertain the people, to bring interest to your cause, and to get your name known in Rome,” Clarke says. For this reason, putting on shows was seen as an important thing for politicians to do as they advanced their careers and rose through the ranks. “In a traditional political career in Rome, you would work through the Cursus Honorum, which is essentially the political ladder, to get to the highest position,” Clarke says. “One of those early rungs of the ladder was something called the aedileship. That was the position as a magistrate where you were responsible for putting on games within the city. There were a couple of other responsibilities, but it was primarily putting on the shows.” Read more | The overshadowed ancient empire that rivalled Rome with maritime might and an iron fist The more spectacular a show, whether it was a play or a gladiatorial performance, the more popular a politician might be among voters. “Towards the end of the late Republic, we know that individuals were increasingly pouring huge amounts of their own money and resources into making these shows as splendid as possible, as it was a great opportunity,” Clarke says. The level of expense got so out of hand, that the senate eventually legislated a spending cap. This was brought in under the aedileship of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus in 182 BC, because his events had cost so much that it became "burdensome" to the state, its allies, and its provinces abroad. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/ancient-roman-theatre-mask-5dec20e.jpeg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="This 1st-century BC mosaic from the House of the Faun in Pompeii depicts a tragic dramatic mask, a powerful symbol of Roman theatrical culture. Masks like this were central to performances, allowing actors to embody gods, heroes, and emotions on stage." title="ancient-roman-theatre-mask" /> Different genres, different political messages “There's always something that you can say with a piece of entertainment,” Clarke says, making theatre a useful tool for “political manipulation.” “Tragedy seems to have had a place in high moments of political tension,” she says. For example, at the opening of the first permanent theatre in Rome in 55 BC, “Pompey chose to have two tragedies performed – Clytemnestra and The Trojan Horse – in Latin, translated from the Greek,” she says. “We also know that for Julius Caesar's funeral, again tragedies were chosen to present to the crowd.” Caesar: Death of a Dictator Member exclusive | On the Ides of March 44 BC, the most famous Roman in history was murdered. Julius Caesar's assassination transformed Rome forever, and the image of his bloody toga has haunted monarchs and tyrants ever since. Listen to all episodes now Comedies, on the other hand, helped to present and enforce the status quo that oppressed women and slaves. In Roman comedies, “violence towards women is expressed as a joke,” Clarke says. “It's seen as something that's amusing. Women are raped and that is often a plot point in the male characters' narratives, rather than having anything to do with the female character.” Similarly, slave and master dynamics would be reversed in comedies. “Often, the slave would seemingly be in a slightly more autonomous position within a comic plot,” Clarke says. “It's meant to be amusing that a slave could have a role where they are able to control their own destiny or the destiny of other characters in the play.” Some scholars disagree, interpreting the slave’s autonomous role as a challenge to the status quo with an emancipatory message, but that’s not Clarke’s view. “Whilst these comedies are bawdy, rowdy, and quite raucous, we do need to be aware that this is a form of theatre that comes from a society where slavery is institutionalised, and violence towards slaves and women is normalised as part of the comic narrative,” she says. This might be another reason why ancient Roman theatre hasn’t had the longevity that ancient Greek plays have had. “Greek theatre is still performed on the West End,” Clarke says. “But Roman theatre doesn't get performed today, primarily because the themes just aren't appropriate for a modern-day audience – with the slavery, with the depictions of violence. We just don't find that funny anymore.” Jessica Clarke was speaking to Emily Briffett on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
This ordinary ancient Roman object is still used today – and has hardly changed
From dealing with nits to learning the three Rs, ancient Roman childhood bore some striking similarities to the modern experience
Life for children in ancient Rome would have looked very different depending on where in the huge Roman empire you lived, what social class your family was from, and your gender. And while childhood in ancient Rome would have looked very different from the lives of children today, there were a few surprising similarities. Speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, Bettany Hughes, a historian and author of the children’s book There Was a Roman in Your Garden, explains that “there are strange things that connect the experience of being a child in ancient Rome with the experience of being a child in the 21st century.” One overlap between childhood today and in ancient Rome is the fine-toothed nit comb, designed to remove head lice. “Nit combs are exactly the same design as they were in the ancient world – this was obviously the perfect design because it hasn't changed over the millennia,” Hughes says. But while the nit combs of today tend to be made of plastic, the ancient Romans used a different material for theirs: boxwood, a type of wood commonly used for small, carved items. “Boxwood has slight antibacterial properties, which was probably a really good thing [because] if you have nits, you scratch. Boxwood would hopefully prevent the spread of bacterial infection,” Hughes says. “The Romans were very smart, and [people in] the ancient world were much better at understanding nature and us being a part of nature than we are today,” Hughes says. Boxwood wasn’t the only plant that the Romans used for medicinal purposes. According to writings by Dioscorides, a Greek physician who was considered to be an authority on plants and plant medicine in the Roman period, oil made from walnuts was also used on children’s heads – albeit to help with alopecia or baldness, and to make the hair “pleasing.” He also recommended the “scrapings” from various gourds or squashes to help with sunstroke in children, and said that if children ate peonies, it could help to prevent kidney stones. Familiar features of ancient Roman childhood When ancient Roman children weren’t busy catching nits from each other, they might have been playing. Ancient children were given miniature versions of adult items to play with, just like some kids are today. “If you were really wealthy, there were little mini chariots pulled by goats that you could have as a well-to-do Roman child – sort of like how really wealthy kids today get mini Bentleys and Rolls Royces,” Hughes says. Poorer children also play-acted adult actions. Lots of “young boys were given wooden daggers and swords to practice play fighting with,” Hughes explains. Read more | If ancient Romans didn't understand calories, how was their theory of nutrition so accurate? While children might play with swords today, play fighting was more likely to be inspired by the real thing for ancient Roman boys, because ancient Rome was a “very militaristic society.” Girls, on the other hand, might have played with jointed dolls. “We always do that thing of thinking we do things better than people in the past, but actually the dolls that [the ancient Romans] used were really sophisticated, with beautiful moving arms, moving legs, and moving necks,” Hughes says. With their jewellery and hairstyles, historian Fanny Dolansky suggests that these dolls were created as idealised figures of high-status Roman womanhood and meant to help wealthier girls prepare for their roles as wives and mothers. What about Roman education? The basics of ancient Roman education would be recognisable to many, too; focused on the three Rs – reading, writing, and arithmetic. There was no free public schooling, so any type of formal education had to be paid for, whether children were sent to schools or if parents hired personal tutors to teach them at home. Poorer children – if lucky – would be taught the basics at home by their parents. Roman Britain | A short course from HistoryExtra Academy Member exclusive | In this four-week course, discover everything you need to know about Roman Britain, guided by Rob Collins, professor of frontier archaeology at Newcastle University. Explore the course now While ancient Roman children didn’t use pens and paper, they did have the ancient equivalent of whiteboards. “You’d do your writing by scratching it into a wax tablet with a pointy stick, a stylus,” Hughes says. “And then you’d erase it at the end of the day just by melting the wax or using a kind of rubber, so you had your recyclable exercise-book-equivalent for the next day.” Read more | 6 ways people stayed healthy in ancient Rome And teachers have been exasperated at the quality of childrens’ work since ancient Roman times, too. The evidence for that was found at Vindolanda – a Roman archaeological site in modern-day Northumberland, England – where some organic remains have been well-preserved. On one tablet, someone has written out a line from the ancient epic the Aeneid – and someone else has added a comment. “The teacher has just written ‘seg,’ which is short for seguta, which means sloppy,” Hughes says. “You can so imagine this poor guy or girl, desperately trying to do their homework and get praised, but the teacher being very dismissive.” Roman schooling was much tougher But while there were some similarities, education has changed a lot in the last few millennia. How you were educated and how long you stayed in school depended on your social status and your gender. Read more | Rome's worst nightmare: the story of Spartacus “Boys were often taught things like arithmetic and rhetoric and lots of other disciplines, and girls pretty much were just taught reading and writing,” Hughes says. If your family couldn’t afford to pay for your schooling, your education would be entirely up to your family – and “as soon as you could walk, you would work as a child in the ancient world,” Hughes says, whether that was taking messages or helping out in the household. Children were generally treated much more strictly, too, Hughes says. “No doubt it was very tough. They were chastised with canes and whips.” Bettnay Hughes was speaking to Emily Briffett on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
The ancient Greeks had six essential tips for health. How many do you do?
With conflicting advice and endless new trends, it can feel hard to keep up with the modern health and wellness space. But ideas about how to live a healthy life are nothing new. Thousands of years ago, the ancient Greeks had their own list of requirements
Wellness might feel like a modern concept, attached to health-tracker apps, screen time, and green smoothies. But the concept of actively trying to lead a healthy life while keeping the body in a good state isn’t new. In fact, systems of preventative health stretch back more than 2,000 years to the medical traditions of the ancient Mediterranean world. Speaking on the Life Lessons from History series from the HistoryExtra podcast, Sasha Handley, a professor of early modern history at the University of Manchester, says there used to be a “fantastic preventative healthcare culture” based on advice that dates back to ancient Greece. As she sets out, there was a list of six lifestyle factors and behaviours that physicians, medical practitioners, and ordinary people alike knew they had to take care of for their long-term health. These were the ‘six non-naturals’ and the ancient Greeks believed that “temperance of all of those six things was key to long-term good health, according to the wisdom of the time” says Handley. The term “non-naturals” described factors external to the body that could be managed or regulated, as opposed to “naturals,” which were the body’s innate characteristics So what were these six factors, and how much do they align with modern thinking? Fresh air The first non-natural to look after was fresh air – that is, “getting enough of it and making sure that you were not taking in fetid or corrupt air,” Handley says. The Greeks thought that ‘bad air’ could cause disease and advocated for good airflow within houses to lessen exposure to stagnant air. Read more | Meet the people the ancient Romans and Greeks desperately tried to hide Today, we know there is no singular concept of ‘bad air’. But there are pollutants in the air that can be hazardous to people, and we do know that some diseases are airborne. Food and drink It was considered important that a person was “eating and drinking the right kinds of things for [their] bodily constitution, but also at the right times of day,” Handley says. Theories about what was good to eat and when were based on the four humours: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. Different foods being either cold or hot, or wet or dry, affected the balances of the four humours in the body, which led to different outcomes for people’s health and constitutions. For example, someone believed to have an excess of “heat” might be prescribed cooling foods such as cucumber or lettuce. Galen, a Greek physician and philosopher whom the idea of the six non-naturals is attributed to, thought that warm food led to the production of yellow bile, while cold food led to the production of phlegm. Galen practised in the second century AD and became one of the most influential medical authorities in history. Read more | If ancient Romans didn't understand calories, how was their theory of nutrition so accurate? Now, our understanding of food and diet is more scientific. But we do know that some specific nutrients have particular health benefits; protein helps to contribute to maintaining muscle mass, while vegetables can be a source of different micronutrients and vitamins. Exercise and rest Getting enough exercise and rest was also believed to be important. Exercise was seen as having a drying effect on the humours, and physicians recommended exercises to patients both to prevent and treat disease. The body, in humoural thought, was constantly shifting in balance; movement was one of the tools available to correct excess moisture or sluggishness. Galen thought work and exercise were equal, defining them as vigorous movements that made you out of breath. The exercises that he prescribed to his patients, though, were more moderate. He recommended exercises that involved a small ball. Watch now | Why the Ancient Egyptians WEREN'T ancient Massage and baths were also seen as having a similar effect to exercise, something that would be echoed in wellness modern wellness trends centred around saunas, sports massage, and cold plunges. Sleep and waking Sleep and dreams were important parts of ancient Greek philosophy as well as their medical knowledge. Dreams were deemed to be evidence of the state of the body, and therefore were helpful in diagnosing medical issues. But they were also important within ancient Greek religion. The ancient Greeks believed that the gods could communicate via dreams and that sleep had healing properties through its link with the gods. We might not bring up our dreams in doctors’ offices these days, but research increasingly shows the powerful health impact of sleep on physical, cognitive, and emotional health. Recent studies show that getting enough sleep can be associated with lower rates of chronic diseases such as dementia, diabetes, and heart disease. Excretion and retention The fifth non-natural “sounds fairly graphic, but it’s excretion and retention,” Handley says. “This refers to bowel habits, but also to things like sweating appropriately and keeping the body at the right temperature.” It was thought that excretion, in all its forms, helped keep the four humours balanced. If one humour accumulated excessively, it could be expelled through sweating, urination, bleeding, or purging. Bloodletting in particular became a standard treatment in later medical traditions influenced by humoural theory. Read more | Blood, guts and spectacle: 6 shocking events from the history of ancient Roman gladiators Although we don’t think about regulating our excretions in terms of bloodletting and purging like the Greeks did, the increasing awareness of gut health – and therefore its impact on the bowel – is perhaps a modern descendant of this idea. Passions of the mind “The very last one is usually called the passions of the mind, which we read today as emotions,” Handley says. “So emotional health, making sure that you were not getting too angry, too sad, and keeping your mind and body in a good balance.” Different emotions were associated with excesses of the four humours, so keeping your emotions in check contributed to your humoural balance. Too much blood might make you too happy and too much phlegm might make you too reserved, while too much black bile might make you melancholic and too much yellow bile might make you angry. Read more | Give away your worries, like an ancient Mesopotamian Clearly this idea links to our modern understanding of mental health – especially now we know that physical health and exercise are linked to mental health. How similar are the non-naturals to ‘wellness’ today? Nowadays, we think of ‘wellness’ as separate from ‘health’. Where health is the absence of disease, and wellness is a more general emotional and physical wellbeing that we can influence via lifestyle factors. The ancient Greeks thought the same. Health was seen as the responsibility of individuals to regulate their non-naturals to look after their own health, and maybe even avoid having to see a doctor. Read more | Are you healthier than a Roman? These ancient secrets for longevity are still shockingly relevant There was an element of taking personal responsibility for good health, leading to the idea that bad habits could cause certain diseases. But the six non-naturals also worked in tandem with the ‘naturals’ – or the innate factors that we have no control over that also cause disease. Today, we see things similarly: some diseases and conditions are caused by lifestyle factors, whereas others develop independently of how we live. And just like modern ‘wellness,’ ancient Greek health was about more than just the body, too. Medical knowledge was intertwined with ethics, morality, politics, and philosophy – which is why many of the most famous Greek physicians, such as Galen and Hippocrates, were also philosophers, and many philosophers also mused on issues of the body. The ancient Greeks actually thought that achieving perfect health was essentially impossible since it required a precise balance of the humours, which changed every day. Instead, a ‘neutral’ body was the goal – something that doesn’t necessarily align with modern ideas on health optimisation and biohacking. Dr David Musgrove was speaking to Sasha Handley on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
Over 70 observers watched this Stuart queen give birth. Why did they still doubt the baby was real?
The struggle between Catholicism and Protestantism came to a head in England when Maria of Modena gave birth to an heir with a claim to two crowns
On 10 June 1688, Maria of Modena, queen to King James II of England and VII of Scotland, gave birth to a son who was heir to both kingdoms. More than 70 observers watched it happen. But while that baby – James Francis Edward Stuart, would grow to adulthood – he would never wear either crown. Instead, scurrilous questions about the birth itself played a pivotal role in the eventual toppling of James’s rule in England. Speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, Breeze Barrington, a cultural historian specialising in women’s history and the 17th century, explained why Maria of Modena’s labour was so closely witnessed and how it became key in ending her husband’s reign. The pressure was on Maria to produce an heir The most important job of a queen was to produce heirs. But there was extra political and religious pressure for Maria to give birth. Maria and James were Catholic, and they needed to produce a Catholic heir if they wanted to keep the ruling of England out of Protestant hands. Otherwise, the throne would go to Mary, James’ oldest legitimate child from his previous marriage, who had been brought up Protestant. Protestant factions at the English court, and in government, hoped that Maria wouldn’t have any sons who could prevent Mary from claiming the throne. “There was constant worry about England going back to Catholicism if there was a Catholic heir,” Barrington says. Read more | Your guide to the Glorious Revolution Maria had been pregnant many times before 1688, but many of those had ended in miscarriage or stillbirth; the few that survived died in infancy. “Maria was really concerned that she needed to have a son in order to secure the line of succession, so she went to Bath to take the waters in the hope that it would help her to become pregnant,” Barrington says. The reproductive health of the queen was in the interest of the nation, and so even Maria’s attempts to improve her fertility were of public concern. Members of the public went to watch her sitting in the waters at Bath from the balconies in August 1687. By December of the same year, Maria was pregnant. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/GettyImages-113494156-4056867-e1768555127208.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="This later portrait depicts James II and VII (1633–1701), whose reign was defined by religious tension and political crisis. His marriage to the Catholic princess Maria of Modena proved pivotal: the birth of their son in 1688 raised the prospect of a Catholic dynasty and helped trigger the Glorious Revolution, forcing James and Maria into exile and ending his rule." title="James II and VII (1633 - 1701)." /> People questioned whether Maria was really pregnant “Almost straight away, there were whispers that this wasn't true, or that there was something wrong,” Barrington says. People questioned that she could get pregnant at her age (she was 29), after so many years of difficult pregnancies, and even whether any of her previous pregnancies and miscarriages had been real. She was constantly observed, scrutinised, and assessed during the pregnancy. “Understandably, it's extremely upsetting and distressing when you're heavily pregnant and everyone just wants to gawp at you,” Barrington says. “So she refuses to let lots of people see her when she's changing. At this time, it was quite normal for lots of members of the court to be there in the morning when she was getting up, for what was called ‘levée’ [a formal royal morning reception] and she tried to make this more private.” But this only fuelled rumours that the pregnancy was fake. “These foundations had already been laid. The rumours were already there that there was going to be an attempt to smuggle a different child in,” Barrington says. Read more | A king without a crown: James VII and II’s years in exile Any doubt about the legitimacy of an heir could help to fuel plots against their rule – and because of this it was usual for royal births to be observed. And because of the rumours and political tension, Maria’s labour was witnessed by an unusually high number of people – more than 70 people gave testimonies that they saw it happen, which James later published in a book of depositions. “By the time she goes into labour, the room is filled up. There is something like 80 people there, most of them men, being herded to the end of the bed to have a good look,” Barrington says. If that sounds horribly intrusive, it’s because it was. “Maria says to James, ‘I can't bear to do this with so many men looking at me.’ And he covers her face with his wig so that she can't see them,” Barrington says. When James Francis Edward Stuart was born, he was taken to another room to be cleaned and swaddled, and James made sure people followed him there, too. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/GettyImages-463990175-f376b31-e1768555382384.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="This portrait shows Mary of Modena (1658–1718), the Italian-born princess who became queen consort of James II after their marriage in 1673. A devout Catholic, her presence at court — and the birth of her son in 1688 — intensified fears of a Catholic succession, helping to spark the Glorious Revolution that ended her husband’s reign." title="Mary of Modena, Queen Consort of King James II of Great Britain.Artist: S Audran" /> 80 witnesses weren’t enough to quell suspicions But the rumours didn't end just because people saw the birth. A new rumour started to circulate at court: that the baby had been stillborn and switched out for a baby smuggled in a bedpan brought in to heat the bed. “There were witnesses that said they'd seen the pan full of hot coals, and a bedpan isn't anything like big enough to put a baby in anyway,” Barrington says. Nonetheless, it took root. Historians today do generally agree that James Francis Edward was the legitimate child. But at the time, there were multiple reasons it was believed he was an imposter. Firstly, James’s choices of witnesses weren't the most astute. Most of the people who saw the birth were Catholics or otherwise sympathetic to their cause, so it was in their interest to say that he was legitimate whether it was true or not. Secondly, the new heir posed a threat to Protestantism. The majority of people in England were Protestant and viewed James VII and II as a brief Catholic blip in the line of succession – as long as he didn’t have any Catholic sons. Read more | When was England last successfully invaded by a foreign power? But the birth of James Francis Edward changed this. Now there was both motivation for pro-Protestant factions to take action – to stop the cementing of a Catholic dynasty – and a reason why. “The rumour is the pretext for seven politicians and aristocrats to send a letter over to William of Orange, inviting him to invade England and to usurp James from the throne,” Barrington says. Not only was William of Orange James’ nephew, but he was also married to the king’s daughter, Mary. Most importantly, they were both Protestant. And so invade William did, landing in England on 5 November 1688. James fled to France, which Parliament interpreted as him abdicating, and William and Mary were declared joint rulers. “So, it is the birth of this longed-for boy,” Barrington says, “who they had so hoped for, who they thought would cement their future, who would fulfil Maria’s obligations to the Pope, which is their downfall.” James Francis Edward Stuart spent most of his life in exile and became known to his supporters as the Old Pretender, the focus of repeated but ultimately unsuccessful Jacobite attempts to reclaim the throne. Breeze Barrington was speaking to Elinor Evans on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
In post-medieval Scotland, two specific crimes reveal the challenges faced by ordinary women
What do the crimes that women were charged with in a post-medieval Scotland reveal about the lives they lived?
In the court records of post-medieval Scotland, women appear for a strikingly limited range of crimes. While men were prosecuted for theft, violence and disorder, women were charged with offences that spoke directly to their bodies and behaviour. As Dr Allan Kennedy, a historian of early modern Scottish history, explains on an episode of the HistoryExtra podcast, “understanding what kinds of crimes are committed and how they are responded to gives you a really good understanding of the ordering assumptions of any given society”. In early modern Scotland, those assumptions produced a sharp gender divide in the law. “There’s a very strong split between what women were being prosecuted for and what men were being prosecuted for” in Scottish courts, Kennedy says. Women were accused overwhelmingly of two crimes: witchcraft and infanticide. Both were profoundly gendered offences, shaped by contemporary anxieties about women’s morality and place within the social order. And, both crimes expose the pressures faced by ordinary women in Scotland as the country stepped into the early modern era, and the reign of the Stuarts. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/GettyImages-463928361-1-1ef1f6e-e1768479587395.jpg" width="1498" height="1000" alt="Painted in 1621 by Daniel Mytens, this portrait shows James VI and I (1566–1625), a monarch deeply preoccupied with the threat of witchcraft. Convinced that witches were agents of the Devil, James personally oversaw trials in Scotland and authored 'Daemonologie' (1597), a treatise that fuelled persecution across Britain." title="James I, King of England and Scotland, 1621. Artist: Daniel Mytens" /> Witchcraft in early modern Scotaland One of the most common crime committed by women in 1600s Scotland was witchcraft. Between 1560 and 1706, approximately 6,000 people were tried for the crime in Scotland – three times the number tried in England, even though Scotland’s population was a quarter of the size of England’s. The witchcraft craze was encouraged by King James VI and I, Elizabeth I's successor, who set up royal commissions to hunt witches. He also wrote a book about black magic, called Dæmonologie, which was inspired by his involvement in the infamous North Berwick witch trials of 1590. Read more | Tracy Borman explains why King James VI and I was obsessed with witch hunts The majority of people accused of witchcraft were women; estimates say between 75 to 84 per cent. They were accused of renouncing God and their Christian faith, and using powers received from the devil to cause harm – that could be anything from blighting crops and causing storms, to making their neighbours ill. Many of the women accused had acted in a way that disrupted the established social order and gender – behaviours that went against the meek, subservient role expected of women at the time. Witchcraft was suspected as the reason why they were so deviant. Some historians also link the trend to the changing relationship between religion and government. “Scotland had a distinctive reformation in 1559, producing a Calvinist church, which is quite an austere form of Protestantism – much more rigid than the Anglicanism of the Church of England – and a very dense system of church courts,” Kennedy says. “What that means is that religion was very central to pretty much every aspect of Scottish life, and importantly, Scottish governance and administration – much more so compared to England.” Read more | James VI and I and his favourites: what were their relationships like? This could explain why witchcraft, which was a renunciation of Christianity, was seen as so threatening in Scotland at the time, compared to England. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/GettyImages-924761818-b2bfc16-e1768479906280.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="This mid-16th-century German engraving depicts the ordeal of water, a brutal method used to test suspected witches. Thrown into a river, the accused was judged innocent if she drowned and guilty if she floated — a reflection of how religious belief shaped the persecution of alleged witches in early modern Europe." title="Witch Hunting" /> By the end of the 17th century, a hundred years after the publication of Dæmonologie, the bulk of the Scottish witch hunts were over, and there weren't as many women being accused of witchcraft as there were earlier in the 1600s. Now, the most common crime among women was infanticide. The crime of infanticide Infanticide today is understood as the intentional killing of a child. But in Scotland in the late 17th century, the definition was more expansive. “A law passed by the Scottish Parliament in 1690 made it so that if a woman concealed a pregnancy and the child later died, then it will be assumed in law that she murdered the child, even if there's no hard evidence that she actually did,” Kennedy says. “So, in other words, if you had a stillborn child but you had concealed the pregnancy, the law would assume that you murdered the child.” The practical effect of this law was that there was an upsurge in the number of women prosecuted for infanticide in the 1690s, Kennedy says. “There were a few older women who were prosecuted for having assisted in the murder of a child, such as elderly midwives or elderly relatives,” Kennedy says. Read more | 10 things you (probably) didn’t know about Scottish history But the majority of the people accused of infanticide were younger women, usually of a lower social status – like farm workers or domestic servants – who actually bore the children. “Very often the father of the child was their master or a family member of the master,” Kennedy says. “It's implied in a lot of these cases, and sometimes more than implied, that the father of the child attacked the woman and committed sexual assault, leaving her with a child who was going to be illegitimate.” In 17th century Scotland, there was a hugely significant social stigma against illegitimacy. “Often, it was said explicitly in women's confessions that if they concealed their pregnancy and murdered the child, they did so because they couldn't bear the shame or the very significant practical and reputational ramifications that come with having an illegitimate child,” Kennedy says. Meanwhile, the men who fathered these children seldom faced any consequences because they didn’t bear the children. “This tells us some very important things about the particular constraints and social pressures that women were forced to deal with – not just the women who are caught up in the courts, but just women generally,” Kennedy says. Dr Allan Kennedy was speaking to Emily Briffett on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
He was ancient Rome’s mightiest figure – and rumours said he had a secret affair with Julius Caesar
Did Octavian, later known as the Roman emperor Augustus, have an affair with Julius Caesar? That’s precisely what Mark Antony’s propaganda wanted you to think
Politicians’ intimate lives have been used against them as far back as antiquity. In the first century BC, in the midst of a power struggle between Julius Caesar’s potential successors, the suggestion of a salacious scandal was wielded as a potent weapon. Caesar had unexpectedly named his 18-year-old great-nephew Octavian as his heir in his will – much to the chagrin of the older, more experienced, and much more powerful Mark Antony. And, as Octavian and Antony men fought for public approval and political power, theories about why Caesar had chosen Octavian ahead of all others were spread with great interest. One was the “slanderous” rumour, says Edward J Watts – professor of history at the University of California, San Dieg, who was speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, that suggested Caesar and Octavian had been in a sexual relationship. The rumour was started by Mark Antony. Although it’s not true, it illustrates the length to which he was willing to go to discredit his rival, as well as contemporary attitudes towards homosexuality. How Octavian being named heir sparked a slanderous Roman rumour “When Caesar is assassinated, everybody in Rome assumes that his heir is going to be Mark Antony,” says Watts. “So, when they open the will, they're shocked that Octavian – this kid that nobody's aware of – has been named the heir of Caesar. “Caesar had been preparing him and giving him training in Roman politics, probably because he recognised how naturally talented Octavian was. Read more | Step inside a Roman home, and you might be surprised by what you find “We don't have any idea about when or what it was that tipped Caesar off to the fact that his nephew would be a world class historical figure of incredible significance. But something did.” Octavian would later go on to become Augustus, the founder of the Roman empire, one of the most powerful Roman emperors in history, and the namesake of the month of August. While Caesar likely wasn’t expecting Octavian to take his place as soon as he did – it’s unlikely he was anticipating his own assassination – says Watts that even at Octavian’s young age, Caesar “recognised that Octavian could be a very real heir, someone who could take his project and continue it”. There weren’t many figures in Rome who were seriously aware of Octavian’s presence and position, because he was so young and inexperienced. He seemed a strange choice compared to Antony, who had been elected consul alongside Caesar, who was incredibly close and loyal to him, and had had a long military and political career. “Nobody understands why Caesar would make this choice,” says Watts. Read more | The death of Caesar: do we know the whole story? Nor did anyone seem to know much about the nature of the relationship between Caesar and Octavian or how it came about. “Mark Antony capitalises on this idea by saying that the explanation is sexual: Octavian actually prostituted himself to Caesar, and that's why he became the heir,” says Watts. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/GettyImages-517424240-11a5384-e1768319256718.jpg" width="1498" height="1000" alt="This bust depicts Mark Antony, the Roman general and politician whose alliance with Cleopatra reshaped the politics of the late Republic. A rival of Octavian, Antony’s defeat at Actium in 31 BC marked the end of Rome’s civil wars and paved the way for imperial rule." title="Bust of Marc Anthony" /> Roman attitudes towards homosexuality The Romans had a very different attitude towards what we would call homosexuality today. Although same-sex relationships weren’t socially accepted, the act of sex between two men wasn’t always defined in terms of a specific sexuality. The Romans saw sexuality in terms of roles: one more dominant, active, and masculine, and the other more submissive, passive, and feminine. Read more | In bed with the Romans Roman law prohibited sexual crimes against freeborn Roman boys but didn’t forbid all homosexual acts altogether. It wasn’t overtly encouraged, but a male Roman citizen could have sex with another man without it impacting his masculinity, if he took the active role with a man of lower social status – like an enslaved servant. The practice, called pederasty, was inherited from Greek customs, in which adult men would have sexual relationships with upper-class adolescent boys. But where these relationships between older and younger men were part of the rite of passage for high-born Greek boys, the same wasn’t true of a freeborn Roman boy – which is why Antony wanted to suggest Octavian had done just that. The rumour died, and Octavian eventually gets his own back Despite Antony’s best efforts, the rumour didn’t catch hold. Not only had Caesar named Octavian as his heir, but he had also legally adopted him, meaning that he passed on his property and name. This gave Octavian a “significant political advantage that would allow him to launch his political career,” says Watts. It also clearly showed that Octavian and Caesar’s relationship was not a sexual one. Caesar: Death of a Dictator Member exclusive | On the Ides of March 44 BC, the most famous Roman in history was murdered. Julius Caesar's assassination transformed Rome forever, and the image of his bloody toga has haunted monarchs and tyrants ever since. Listen to all episodes now Octavian was able to use the situation to his benefit. Alongside starting the rumour, Antony also tried to block Octavian from inheriting Caesar’s property or accepting the adoption, depriving him of the legitimacy he needed to take power. This was a misstep. Pointing to Antony’s actions, Octavian was able to use this against his rival – demonstrating that Antony was trying to go against Caesar’s wishes and prevent Caesar’s desired heir from taking over. Read more | If ancient Romans didn't understand calories, how was their theory of nutrition so accurate? “Octavian makes it clear to everybody in Rome that's what's happened, and so he turns the people who were pro-Caesar against Antony,” says Watts. Years later, Octavian would get his own back. The two men made a fraught alliance, solidified by Antony’s marriage to Octavian’s sister (who was confusingly named Octavia). Antony then famously fell in love with Cleopatra, the ruler of Egypt, with whom he had a highly public affair and whom he divorced Octavia for. “Octavia gets to be the pious wife who's raising their children and his children with his previous wife in Rome,” says Watts, while Anthony’s libertine behaviour spoke for him. This, in turn, strengthened Octavian. “For most of the 30s BC, there was propaganda bouncing back and forth where Antony is trying to undermine Octavian, and Octavian is trying to undermine Antony – but Octavian was just simply better at it.” Edward J Watts was speaking to Spencer Mizen on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
Buckingham Palace was the height of royal power – so why did Queen Victoria and Albert hate it?
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had to battle to turn Buckingham Palace into the iconic royal residency that it serves as today
For most young married couples, moving into a new house represents an exciting new start. But for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, their newlywed bliss was marred by their cold, smelly, disorganised new home: Buckingham Palace. Today Buckingham Palace is synonymous with the British monarchy, but this was not always the case. “It’s only in the 20th century [that we get] Buckingham Palace as we know it today,” says Kate Williams, speaking on an episode of her HistoryExtra Academy series: Royal Residences: Secrets and Scandals. Victoria and Albert were the first monarchs to use it as their primary residence, and it took substantial work to turn it into a home fit for a queen. Before Victoria, Buckingham Palace wasn’t an official royal residence Buckingham House first passed into the royal family’s ownership in 1761. It was originally intended only to be a retreat for Queen Victoria’s grandmother, Queen Charlotte, who loved the house and raised 14 of her 15 children there, including Victoria’s father. It officially became known as a palace from the 1790s, but St James’ Palace continued to be the main royal residence. The royal family steadily began to spend more and more time at Buckingham Palace, though it would never become the official residence of George IV and William IV – Victoria’s uncles – either. In fact, William IV thought of it as “something of a white elephant” that he was “stuck with”, Williams says. He tried to pass it on by offering it as a new Parliament building when the Palace of Westminster burned down in 1834, but MPs rejected it as too dingy. Nevertheless, work was slowly being done on the palace to expand and renovate it. The main phase of this work was finally finished in May 1837. By this time, St James’s Palace had become increasingly less desirable. The area around the main residence had been built up, so there was less privacy available for royals living there, and its Tudor architecture and fire damage meant it was no longer a comfortable place to live. So, after her coronation in 1837, Queen Victoria moved into the refreshed Buckingham Palace as her primary residence. The Palace wasn’t fit for purpose at first However, Buckingham Palace wasn’t thought of as a “suitable” residence for monarchs even once one was living there, Williams says. The palace was a labyrinth at this time, with lots of dark rooms and corridors with unclear uses. This meant that security was lax, and it proved easy for determined intruders to gain entry to the palace. “It wasn't really surprising that one of Victoria's fans and stalkers known as ‘the boy Jones’ managed to live in the palace for ages, eating a few crumbs of bread and drinking wine, until he was found under the queen's chair by the queen's maternity nurse,” Williams says. In addition to its lacklustre security, it was infamously cold, especially in the winter, because the chimneys smoked so much that the fires couldn’t be properly lit. Read more | Queen Victoria's unhappy childhood: life under the 'Kensington System' The sewer system wasn’t fit for purpose, either, and the palace was badly ventilated and smelly. Commissioners who inspected the palace soon after Victoria moved in found that the rooms weren’t cleaned or dusted often, and that the windows were kept closed, allowing unpleasant smells from decaying food and garden waste to spread. The house was also generally mismanaged, with staff badly organised and a general lack of discipline. For example, in great houses the housework was usually finished by 10am, but the domestic workers in Buckingham Palace didn’t finish their tasks until the early afternoon. “One team washed the outside of the windows, and another team washed the inside of the windows, so the windows were never perfectly clean,” Williams says, in one example of the inadequate standards. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/GettyImages-2193298415-a175ee7-e1766491233251.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="This 1920 postcard shows Buckingham Palace with the Victoria Memorial dominating the foreground, a monument to Queen Victoria unveiled in 1911. Set amid early motor cars and pedestrians, the scene reflects how the late queen’s legacy continued to shape the ceremonial heart of London in the decades after her reign." title="Buckingham Palace Postcard" /> Prince Albert's renovations Clearly, there was a lot to be done to make Buckingham Palace fit for a queen, but Prince Albert was willing to take on the job when he arrived in England. “Albert, with his customary German efficiency, set about looking at the workings of the palace and he was very disappointed. It was a total disaster, so he looked into making the palaces much more efficient,” Williams says. Previously, different parts of household tasks were under the jurisdiction of different people, so that, for example, different people were in charge of the laying of a fire and the lighting of it, and six different people had to sign off on simple repairs like fixing a broken window. Prince Albert changed this. He gathered most of the responsibility for the upkeep of the palace into one role: the Master of the Household, who was to permanently live in the Palace. Steadily, with its flaws identified, the state of the building was wrested into better condition. But the royal couple still weren’t satisfied just yet. The royal couple continued to improve the Palace Victoria and Albert also moved Marble Arch from its original position just outside Buckingham Palace to where it sits today, in Hyde Park. There are rumours that they did this because the Arch wasn’t wide enough for Victoria’s state coach to pass through. But that’s proven to be untrue. Instead, it was moved to make room for Buckingham Palace to expand, because by 1847, it was seen as too small to comfortably house her courtiers and ever-expanding family. Read more | Queen Victoria and Prince Albert: what was their relationship like? This expansion was done by Edward Blore, an architect who had previously worked on Westminster Abbey and Lambeth Palace. He built the East Wing, which incorporates the front façade and the famous central balcony still used on important royal occasions. This balcony was Prince Albert’s suggestion, and has played an important role in allowing members of the royal family to be increasingly visible to their subjects ever since. Even once the East Wing was built, the palace wasn’t perfect. Victoria complained of a lack of a space relative to any of her present apartments, so work on a new ballroom began. That was completed in May 1856, nearly a century after Buckingham Palace first came under royal ownership. The history of Buckingham Palace serves as a reminder not to be too jealous of people with bigger houses than you: the bigger the house, the bigger the potential problems that come with it. Kate Williams was speaking on her HistoryExtra Academy series, Royal residences: secrets and scandals. All episodes are available now ad-free on the HistoryExtra app. Start watching today.