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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.
Nato is in crisis. Can history predict what happens next?
As tensions build between the US and its long-term allies, historian Sam Edwards examines how the international military organisation has withstood moments of turbulence in the past – and whether we can glean any lessons for the future
“If there's no response – or if it's a negative response – I think it will be very bad for the future of Nato.” So said US President Donald Trump in March 2026, after asking European allies for their help in securing the Strait of Hormuz. This primary export route for most of the world's largest oil and gas fields had lately been declared closed by Iran as a response to US-Israeli military operations. However, the response to the president’s call to aid to his European allies has, so far, been distinctly muted. No doubt this is in part because much of Europe is still reeling from the events at the start of the year. Back in January, the American-led alliance was thrown into disarray by the president’s desire to assert control over Greenland – a semi-autonomous territory of Nato member Denmark. At the height of the crisis, with Trump adamant that the US “needed” Greenland “very badly”, the Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen went so far as to say that "if the United States chooses to attack another Nato country militarily, then everything stops. That includes Nato, and thus the security that has been provided since the end of the Second World War." Now, amid renewed transatlantic tensions stemming from the US–Israeli war with Iran, those key questions provoked by the recent Greenland debacle have resurfaced again: is Nato in crisis, and can it endure? Read more | Winston Churchill created the special relationship. Could Donald Trump kill it? On the latter, history does at least provide some reassurance. In fact, surviving crises is something of a Nato speciality. Nato’s troubled origins The alliance initially coalesced in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, a period characterised by growing concern in the west about the expanding influence and power of the Soviet Union. In March 1946, Winston Churchill warned that an “Iron Curtain” had descended “from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic”. A year later, in an effort to “contain” the threat of Soviet expansion, President Harry Truman proclaimed the ‘Truman Doctrine’ asserting that the US would provide aid to democratic nations under threat from communist forces. East-West tensions ramped up still further during the Berlin Blockade of 1948–49, after which 12 nations decided to establish a formal military alliance. The result was the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which commits its signatories to the principle of collective defence. It wasn’t long, though, before internal tensions began to emerge. Nato from Suez to Iraq Among the first major challenges to internal Nato cohesion arose during the Suez Crisis in 1956. Built by the French, the Suez Canal – linking the Red Sea with the Mediterranean through Egypt – was a key strategic pipeline for trade, not unlike the Strait of Hormuz today. It was of particular importance to both the French and British empires because it drastically shortened the shipping route from Europe to Asia. Aware of its strategic significance and keen to remove European influence and control, the nationalist Egyptian government of Gamal Abdel Nasser ordered that the canal zone be nationalised. In response, the British and French (with Israeli support) launched a military operation to seize the canal – an action that caused consternation in Washington. Angered by the lack of prior consultation, President Dwight D Eisenhower ultimately forced an Anglo-French withdrawal by threatening dire economic consequences. Humiliated, the British prime minister Anthony Eden later resigned, while the French concluded that the Americans could not really be trusted. This was an “out of area” crisis because it occurred well away from the North Atlantic, but it still placed a significant strain on the Nato alliance. Further internal Nato strains appeared in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a nuclear standoff which pitted the US against the Soviet Union, with the former attempting to strongarm the latter into withdrawing its nuclear weapons from the communist Caribbean state. Read more | Have nuclear weapons helped to maintain global peace? This time, the roles were reversed and it was the Europeans who were angered by an apparent lack of consultation – an issue of real concern given how dangerously close the world came to potential Armageddon. The Cuban Missile Crisis: World on the Brink Member exclusive | In this HistoryExtra podcast series, we explore the roots of the Cold War standoff and meet the key players in the confrontation. We track the pivotal 13 days at its centre, and the Cold War alliances that saw diplomatic tensions escalate to breaking point Listen to all episodes now Similar European frustrations with US leadership later led to the alliance’s most significant crisis of the Cold War era. In 1966, unhappy with what he perceived as American influence in French foreign policy and the risk of being dragging into US-led conflict, President Charles de Gaulle removed the French military from Nato’s integrated military command. Rubbing salt in the wound, he also demanded that all US troops leave French soil. Read more | Who owns Greenland? Why the island's history is more complicated than you think Elsewhere, even the often-proclaimed US–UK ‘special relationship’, for so long a cornerstone of Nato, came under strain during the 1960s, largely because of the war in Vietnam. Harold Wilson’s government refused repeated American requests to send troops to south-east Asia in support of the US, which jaundiced President Johnson’s view of the British as an ally. However, despite their undoubted impact, none of these various Cold War crises led to Nato’s demise. The alliance survived and, indeed, played a key role during the heightened east–west rivalry of the 1980s. Internal tensions re-emerged following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. With the principal enemy now gone, the alliance found itself in uncharted waters. One consequence of this was transatlantic differences of opinion regarding Nato’s role and purpose. This later came to a head during the Global War on Terrorism, as it was labelled by the US. Following a significant show of unity after 9/11 – which saw Nato invoke Article 5 (the mutual defence clause) for the first and only time in its history– a key point of divergence subsequently emerged around the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The UK and Poland lent Washington support, including troops, but the French and Germans vocally opposed the action. As a result, one commentator declared that the debate on Iraq had “provoked one of the worst transatlantic crises – and one of the worst intra-European crises – of the entire post-Second World War period”. How Nato has endured Over its lifetime, Nato – which now comprises 32 members – has seen plenty of internal disagreement and, on occasion, full-blown crisis. But no dispute has so far fatally compromised the alliance. This is because, fundamentally, Nato members do seem aligned on two key ideas. First, the peace and prosperity of Europe and of the north Atlantic region is of the utmost importance. And second, Nato remains the best mechanism through which to defend the interests and security of all of its members – including its most powerful, the US. This is why the Trump administration stepped back from the brink after staking verbal claims Greenland. Read more | Nato, Russia, and the history of the post-WW2 tensions As in earlier instances of internal tension, transatlantic trust has certainly been damaged. Real ideological distance remains between the current US administration and many European allies. But the alliance endures because, beyond the disagreements, common interests remain strong. And as the history of Nato suggests, it’s often in those very moments of crisis that this inescapable fact returns to the fore. As Churchill famously observed in the 1940s, “there is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them.”
Why does Putin blame this infamous Russian revolutionary for Ukraine’s independence?
More than a century after the Russian Revolution, Vladimir Lenin’s decision to organise the Soviet state around national republics continues to shape political arguments about Ukraine
When Vladimir Putin speaks about the origins of the war in Ukraine, he often reaches back into history for his justifications. In speeches and essays, the Russian president has repeatedly argued that modern Ukraine is an artificial construct that was effectively created by the Bolsheviks after the Russian Revolution of 1917 – and above all by their leader, Vladimir Lenin. According to this interpretation, Ukraine has never been a serious, distinct nation from Russia, but a political idea that emerged when the new Soviet regime reorganised the territories of the former Russian Empire into a federation of republics. In Putin’s view, by granting Ukraine formal status as a Soviet republic, Lenin unintentionally laid the groundwork for Ukrainian independence decades later. It’s a disputed version of history, to say the least. Read more | Why does Putin think Ukraine should be Russian? It’s partly to do with the Vikings Many historians argue that Ukrainian cultural and political identity long predated the Soviet Union. Ideas of a distinct Ukrainian language, culture and political community had been developing since at least the 19th century, alongside nationalist movements across Europe. But it’s impossible to understand Putin’s version of history without coming back to Lenin. Historian Dr Lara Douds reflected on Lenin’s life and legacy on the HistoryExtra podcast – and explained how he’s become Putin’s bogeyman. Lenin’s revolution “The boy who would become Lenin was born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov in a provincial town in the Russian Empire,” explains Douds. The town was Simbirsk, about 400 miles east of Moscow on the Volga river. Simbirsk was a modest administrative town in the interior of the empire, far removed from the political centres of St Petersburg and Moscow. At the time of Lenin’s birth, the Russian Empire was one of the largest political entities in world history. It stretched from eastern Europe across Siberia to the Pacific Ocean. Its political system remained rigidly stuck in the past. Read more | The founding and fall of the USSR “The context he is born into is one of a Russian empire characterised by autocracy,” Douds says. The tsarist regime was “absolutist and repressive,” with political power concentrated in the hands of the emperor. The Romanov dynasty had ruled Russia since the early 17th century, and the tsar governed with barely any constitutional limits. Nevertheless, Russia had begun to reform in limited ways. “Economically, it’s coming out of serfdom, but very slowly,” Douds explains. A small noble elite controlled land and political power, while most of the population were peasants. By the late 19th century, these tensions were producing political opposition. “In the couple of decades before Lenin’s birth we see the development of a revolutionary movement in the Russian empire,” Douds says. When he was born in 1870, in many respects, Lenin’s upbringing was privileged. “It seems as though Lenin had a wonderful, almost idyllic childhood,” Douds explains. He grew up in a close-knit and intellectually engaged family. His father, Ilya Ulyanov, was a state official who had risen steadily through the imperial bureaucracy. Originally a teacher, he eventually became a school inspector. “He’s promoted to the point that by Lenin’s birth he has the right of hereditary nobility in the Russian empire,” Douds says. This status placed the family within the educated professional class rather than among Russia’s peasantry. The family was socially ambitious and culturally active. “It’s a family on the make in many ways.” The household included six children – three boys and three girls – with Vladimir in the middle. “They all play together. They are very cultured. They enjoy reading, music, painting, walking in nature,” Douds says. Lenin himself was an exceptional student. “He has glowing school reports.” The Ulyanov family tragedy In 1886 Lenin’s father died suddenly while still relatively young. The loss was devastating for the family. And an even greater shock followed the next year when Lenin’s older brother, Alexander Ulyanov, was arrested in St Petersburg. Alexander had become involved in an underground revolutionary organisation known as Narodnaya Volya – ‘The People’s Will’. This organisation had already gained notoriety for assassinating Tsar Alexander II in 1881. The group believed that eliminating key figures in the tsarist government could trigger a broader uprising. Their next target was Alexander III. Read more | Rasputin: the 'mad monk' who became a friend to the Romanovs After being identified as an involved member in this latest plot, “Alexander Ulyanov becomes one of the young people, aged about 20, to be hanged at the Peter and Paul Fortress,” Douds says. “It’s a hugely traumatic moment in the life of the young Vladimir Ulyanov,” she says. “The family is shunned by polite society, which they had been part of up until that point,” Douds says. Lenin himself rarely spoke publicly about his brother’s execution. In his writings he preferred to present his political commitments as the result of careful intellectual analysis rather than personal trauma. But many historians suspect the episode left a profound mark. “It is very much a moment that defines Lenin’s feelings about tsarism,” Douds explains. Beneath the rational framework of Marxist theory, she suggests, there may also have been “a lot of repressed anger that defines his career”. Whatever the exact psychological impact, Lenin immersed himself in revolutionary politics and socialist theory, which would eventually bring him to the leadership of the Bolshevik movement. The Bolsheviks were a radical faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party that advocated for a tightly organised revolutionary party to overthrow the tsarist regime. The making of a revolutionary icon After Lenin led the Bolsheviks to power during the Russian Revolution, his image was carefully cultivated by the new Soviet state. In November 1917, Bolshevik forces seized power in Petrograd, overthrowing the provisional government that had replaced the tsar earlier that year. In subsequent decades, Soviet propaganda presented him as the founding father of a new socialist society. Read more | The death of Lenin, a century on: the long afterlife of Russia’s pre-emiment revolutionary “The cult of Lenin had taken over Soviet society in many ways,” Douds explains. Schoolchildren learned stories about ‘Grandfather Lenin’, portrayed as wise, compassionate and morally flawless. “It reached a sickening degree.” It was only after many decades that that narrative began to change. “After the collapse of communism there was a great appetite to criticise him,” Douds says. His status as a leading figure of Russian political intellect had faded. Lenin’s political return Now, ire directed toward him has returned. “We can see Putin recently blaming Lenin for the creation of Ukraine,” Douds says. But why? Read more | Josef Stalin: the paranoid dictator who forged the Soviet Union into a superpower The Bolsheviks reorganised the former Russian empire into a federation of national republics after the revolution. In 1922 this structure became formalised as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), composed of multiple Soviet republics including Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. These republics – including the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic – were formally granted limited autonomy within the new Soviet system. In Putin’s interpretation, this arrangement artificially created Ukrainian statehood within the Soviet framework. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, those republics became independent states, including modern Ukraine. Lenin’s decision to structure the Soviet Union as a federation of republics did indeed shape the political map of eastern Europe for much of the 20th century. In that sense, it’s Putin’s stated view that Lenin bears much of the responsibility for the conflict between the two countries. Danny Bird was speaking to Laura Douds on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
One of medieval history’s biggest mysteries has just been solved – and it rewrites 1066
A fresh re-reading of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle suggests that King Harold Godwinson didn’t race south by land after Stamford Bridge, but instead used a coordinated naval strategy. What does that mean for how we should understand the events of 1066?
Alongside the Roman invasion of Britain in 43 AD, 1066 stands as one of the most pivotal years in British history. It marked the end of Anglo-Saxon rule and the ascendancy of the Normans under William the Conqueror. At the centre of this story is King Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king. In the space of just a few weeks, he fought two major battles at opposite ends of England. In September, he defeated the Viking king Harald Hardrada at the battle of Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire. He is then said to have rushed south, covering some 200 miles to confront William, Duke of Normandy, who had landed on the Sussex coast to attempt to take the throne. According to the traditional account, Harold and his army arrived exhausted – but just in time to fight at the battle of Hastings on 14 October, where he was killed. This dramatic forced march has been used to explain both the pace of events, and Harold’s eventual defeat: his troops, worn out from the journey, were at a disadvantage against William’s forces. But what if that version of the story is wrong? New research now suggests that one of the most famous – and decisive – military marches in English history may never have happened at all. A journey by land – or sea? In new research, Professor Tom Licence of the University of East Anglia argues that Harold didn’t lead a desperate overland march from Yorkshire to Sussex. Instead, much of the journey south may have been made by sea. The idea that the march itself may be implausible is not entirely new. “There’s an argument going back to the that this great heroic march is almost impossible,” he says, speaking to HistoryExtra. He explains that even when compared with the most demanding marching rates recorded in modern warfare (for example, in the American Civil War) the speed required to cover the distance simply doesn’t hold up. “To cover that distance in that period of time on foot is just unfeasible,” he says. Crucial to Licence’s argument, he says, is the finding that the long-assumed march is “nowhere mentioned” in the contemporary sources – and is rather a post-hoc interpretation. Previously, historians have offered explanations for this, saying that much of Harold’s army might have travelled on horseback, leaving slower troops behind. Partly, it’s interpretations such as this that have reinforced an image of Harold as a rash and desperate leader who rushed to confront William. 1066: The battle for England Member exclusive | The year 1066 is the most famous in English history, but there's a lot more to the story than one bloody battle at Hastings. In this four-part series, medievalist Marc Morris talks David Musgrove through the full story of the Norman Conquest. Watch all episodes now But what has been largely overlooked, Licence argues, is a far more practical option: the use of ships. Licence explains that his research centres on a reassessment of a key phrase in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, one of the key historical sources that tells this story. A long-standing Victorian interpretation claims that Harold’s ships “came home,” which has been taken to mean that he disbanded his fleet before the battle of Hastings. Licence argues this reading is mistaken. “One of the key breakthroughs in my research is that when it says that he “sent the fleet home” it’s actually referring to London,” he explains. “On previous occasions it refers to the fleet going homeward to London … so if we read it that way, which I think we must, then we see that Harold still had use of his fleet. If you’ve got good weather and you’ve got ships in which you can move your troops, you move them by sea,” he says. “That’s the pattern we see throughout the Chronicle.” Not all historians are convinced that the traditional account should be set aside. Stephen Morillo, emeritus professor of history at Wabash College, describes Licence’s argument as “an interesting theory, and certainly possible,” but has reservations. Speaking to HistoryExtra about the research, he says that, in his view, the traditional account “is not just a Victorian invention.” He points instead to the 12th-century text The Chronicle of John of Worcester, written decades after 1066 that records that after Stamford Bridge, Harold, “at once, and in great haste, marched his army towards London,” before continuing south to face William. He also notes that “none of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle versions says how Harold got south,” despite the source elsewhere not being “shy about noting sea transport when it happened.” Harold’s coordinated campaign Nevertheless, rather than a frantic dash across England, Licence’s research creates an image of a potentially far more organised and flexible campaign than was previously assumed. Under appropriate conditions at sea, a journey from the Humber to London would have taken no more than four days – far quicker than the twelve or thirteen days required for even the most extreme forced march. Adding to this, Licence says the scale of Harold’s available fleet may also have been greater than previously assumed, because the king might have added to his number of ships with those taken from the freshly defeated Harald Hardrada. “The Chronicle says that the Vikings came with 300 ships and left in 24,” Licence points out. “No one has really asked what happened to the other 276.” Licence isn’t suggesting that all of these ships would now have been at the disposal of the Anglo-Saxon fleet. But a large number might have been. And, if captured and repurposed, these vessels could have significantly expanded Harold’s naval capacity. “This is a maritime world. Ships are power,” he says. “You cannot overcome an opponent, particularly a seaborne opponent, unless you have a fleet yourself.” England in the 11th century was not a landlocked kingdom scrambling to respond, but a naval power whose fleet was “the talk of northern Europe.” Campaigns in Wales and Scotland in the years before 1066 consistently involved coordinated use of ships and land forces. And the advantages of sea transport went beyond speed and logistics. When moving an army by sea, “you give them a chance to rest, and you contain them all,” Licence explains. “If they’re on the ships they can’t desert, which they can if they’re part of a large army on the march.” Still, Licence doesn’t entirely rule out some movement by land or horseback; something that Morillo asserts would have been possible. Covering roughly 200 miles in twelve to thirteen days would require “a pace of sixteen to seventeen miles a day,” he says. “[That’s] well within the realm of possibility for a small force of around 5,000 men, most of whom would have been riding horses on campaign, as Anglo-Saxon thegns and certainly the housecarls always did, before dismounting to fight battles on foot.” But, central to Licence’s research is the idea that if ships were available (and, he says, they were) then the main body of troops including Harold himself would have travelled by sea. “He wouldn’t have wasted twelve days marching when he could have got down to London in three days.” Within this context, Licence says, Harold’s actions in the days leading up to Hastings begin to look much more strategic. “He is no longer this valiant but desperate character dashing south,” he argues. “He is a much more sophisticated operator, using forces by land and sea in tandem, like his opponents.” This also paints Hastings as less predetermined, Licence says. “I think the battle could have gone either way. It could easily have been William who was killed that day.” On this, Morillo agrees. He says the battle of Hastings was “a very near run thing, far from predetermined even on the day.” He concludes that what Licence’s research demonstrates for certain is that “there is always more to learn about the Hastings campaign and the battle itself.” Rethinking the sources for 1066 Beyond changing the record on how Harold reached Hastings, the research also raises questions about how historians should interpret key sources, and challenge assumptions. The Bayeux Tapestry, a vast embroidery depicting the events surrounding the Norman Conquest, has long been used alongside the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to reconstruct 1066. But its selective narrative highlights the need to reassess familiar accounts. Dr David Musgrove, content director at HistoryExtra and co-author of The Story of the Bayeux Tapestry, notes that the tapestry itself omits Harold’s northern campaign entirely. “This discovery is particularly timely with the forthcoming arrival of the Bayeux Tapestry. It’s notable that the Tapestry completely ignores the fact that Harold fought a battle in the north before arriving to face Duke William in the south. The Tapestry’s narrative of the events of 1066 presents a very specific, and very partial account, of the conquest story. It focusses exclusively on southern England and northern France, and makes no reference at all to what happened in the north of England before the battle of Hastings.” He concludes, “research like this from Professor Licence is vital in helping to fill in gaps.” Unravelling The Bayeux Tapestry Member exclusive | Expert historians unpick some of the biggest questions surrounding the Bayeux Tapestry, from its creation and purpose, to the incomplete story it recounts and its modern-day legacy Listen to all episodes now Musgrove’s co-author, Professor Michael Lewis, curator of the Bayeux Tapestry exhibition at the British Museum, also relates the new research to the tapestry. He says, “with the Bayeux Tapestry coming to the British Museum later this year, Professor Tom Licence's research shows there is much still to be learned about the events of 1066. Hopefully this new research inspires people to also come and see the Tapestry whilst it is in London.” What the new research ultimately demonstrates is that the story of 1066 is far from settled. And, with the Bayeux Tapestry set to go on display in Britain, this reassessment arrives at a moment when the events of 1066 are returning to the forefront of public attention, inviting a fresh look at one of history’s most iconic narratives.
For decades, this prehistoric grave was a mystery. Have its dark secrets now been revealed?
Devastating illness wiped out a community in Iron Age Serbia – or so it was thought. New research suggests the real story behind a large prehistoric burial site might be much darker
As Europe progressed into the early Iron Age, it marked the beginning of a new chapter in prehistory. The Iron Age in Europe began roughly around 900 BC, when iron tools and weapons began to replace those made from bronze. The transition brought technological change, accompanied by major shifts in social organisation. Clan-based communities that had long relied on mixed economies of farming, herding and seasonal mobility began to organise themselves into static chiefdoms organised around powerful leaders. Settlements grew larger, and trade networks expanded across the continent, opening up new opportunities for cultural and economic exchange. It was a change that created new ways of living – and new ways of dying, too. Read more | A brief guide to the British Iron Age Across central and south-eastern Europe, landscapes appear to have been increasingly contested as communities vied for access to new trade routes and fertile land, clashing over opposing ideas, beliefs, territorial needs and resources. In some cases, these disputes descended into violent conflict. Archaeological evidence from this period includes fortified hilltop settlements, weapon deposits and graves showing signs of trauma, all suggesting that warfare and organised violence were becoming more common in parts of Iron Age Europe. The Carpathian Basin of south-eastern Europe – the vast region spanning parts of modern Hungary, Serbia, Croatia and Romania – forms a natural crossroads between central Europe, the Balkans and the eastern Mediterranean, making it an important corridor for trade, migration and cultural exchange during the prehistoric period. It was one of these dangerous zones of violent change. It was in this region, in 1954, that archaeologists first uncovered a site called Gomolava along the banks of the Sava River in northern Serbia, which dates to the earliest years of the Iron Age, around 2,800 years ago. Gomolava is a large archaeological mound known as a tell – a mound formed by centuries of repeated building in the same location. When archaeologists excavated the site in 1971, they found evidence of a mass burial that dated to this early Iron Age period of flux. New bioarchaeological research conducted on the human remains has revealed a plethora of unsettling mysteries. The mysterious mass grave at Gomolava Inside the burial – a shallow circular pit just three metres wide – were the remains of 77 humans. The bodies had been carefully placed together, and more than half of them were children under the age of 12. The grave appeared to represent the aftermath of a catastrophe such as disease or famine – something that might explain the disproportionate number of the young. Mass burials in archaeological contexts are often initially interpreted as the result of epidemics, starvation events or natural disasters, particularly when many children are present. But a new analysis of the skeletons, published in Nature Human Behaviour, paints a decidedly more disturbing picture. A team led by archaeologists and bioarchaeologists from several European institutions re-examined the bones, which have been stored for decades at the Museum of Vojvodina in Novi Sad, Serbia. Their initial expectation was to confirm the original interpretation: that this was a community burial following an epidemic. Instead, they found signs of extraordinary and calculated violence. Roughly one in five individuals displayed clear trauma injuries, including fractured skulls, cuts made by bladed weapons and damage consistent with arrow strikes. Because many lethal injuries – particularly those affecting soft tissue, such as cuts to the throat – leave no marks on bone, the researchers believe the true number of victims who died violently was probably far higher. The team concluded that the entire group had likely been deliberately killed. The first obvious question was: why? Rather than offering answers, further genetic testing only deepened the mystery. Apart from one mother buried with her two daughters, the individuals in the grave were not closely related to each other. Isotope analysis of their teeth – which preserves chemical signals from childhood diet and environment – revealed that many of them had grown up in different regions and eaten different kinds of food. The victims weren’t members of a single family group, or village. Instead, they appear to have come from multiple communities across a wider region – but they all died and were buried together in the same place. The burial also contained personal ornaments including brooches, bracelets and rings, suggesting the bodies hadn’t been looted. Unexpected animal bones found within the grave also hint that the burial may have involved offerings or feasting rituals (animal remains placed alongside human burials are often interpreted by archaeologists as evidence of ritual activity connected with death and commemoration). The final mystery offered by analysis of the mass burial was that this violence was targeted at women and girls. In total, over 60 per cent of the victims were children and, more than 70 per cent were female. Read more | Think men were always the hunters? Stone Age women took down mammoths too The picture that the archaeologists were uncovering began to look like a deliberate, possibly ritualistic, mass killing of women and children originating from the wider region. But what would that mean? And what, if anything, can it tell us about broader Iron Age societies? To begin answering these questions, it helps to place the findings within wider archaeological debates. Speaking to HistoryExtra about the research, Professor Penny Bickle, an expert in funerary archaeology at the University of York, says that it’s important to resist looking for single, decisive answers. She situates the findings within a broader shift in how archaeologists understand violence in prehistory. “In the past archaeologists have debated how violent prehistory was in depth, but had a tendency to treat violence as an either/or scenario. Either prehistory was totally peaceful and harmonious or violent and dangerous. Over recent years, as a discipline we've come to understand that this binary is not very helpful. Violence is present in all societies, and the interesting questions are: when and why did it take place, and who was it targeted at?” Power, symbolism and the limits of the evidence One possible way to interpret the evidence is through the lens of power and display. The researchers themselves note that the victims in the burial were most likely deliberately selected. Instead of killing enemy warriors – the most immediate threat – the perpetrators targeted women and children: the people who, in a biological sense, would represent the future of their communities. Professor Bickle confirms that this is certainly noteworthy. She points out how unusual the demographic profile of the burial is compared to other mass graves: “Often in cases of mass burial, young women are less well represented, but there are a mix of genders and age. The mass burial at Gomolava does stand out as the deliberate targeting of females.” One interpretation of the killing of these people, then, could be that this was a carefully orchestrated public display of dominance and power by one group over other regional groups by the symbolic killing of their women and children. The implication from whoever led the killing may have been: ‘during this period of change, we’re in charge’. Adding to this idea is that the burial itself sits atop a prominent settlement mound that overlooks the surrounding landscape. It’s a visible landmark for all who were local to it. By placing the victims in this place, accompanied by animal offerings and valuable personal items, the people behind the killings could have been creating a highly visible statement of dominance over the present – and the future. The act may have functioned in much the same way as the ritual destruction of weapons or treasure hoards found elsewhere in Bronze Age Europe. Across prehistoric Europe, archaeologists have discovered numerous hoards of deliberately buried weapons, tools and valuables, which are often interpreted as ritual deposits meant to display wealth, reinforce authority or communicate religious or political messages. In those cases, valuable objects were deliberately sacrificed to demonstrate authority and power. It’s an idea that there are echoes of in this mass burial – albeit with valuable humans being sacrificed, rather than valuable goods. That’s one interpretation – and it might seem like the only interpretation that makes sense of all the various strands of evidence when put together. However, this interpretation is far from definitive. Experts argue that, sometimes, the attempt to extract grand conclusions from single sites is inherently problematic. Professor Bickle stresses that such acts are often rooted in specific local circumstances rather than broad, universal patterns: “My sense is that these acts of violence are often bound up in local or regional events, rather than having an underpinning evolutionary development. While projects like this give us insight into how mass violence took place, they do not give us definitive answers as to why these events took place. This will take careful regional analysis of a broader range of archaeological and environmental data.” Professor Howard Williams, an archaeologist at the University of Chester, is an expert on the study of death and burial. Speaking to HistoryExtra, he agrees on the importance of understanding the local context. “I would emphasise the need for further fieldwork in the locality to help understand their relationship with contemporary mortuary practices and settlement patterns to help provide context. Exceptional mass graves hit the headlines, but we often lack the fine-grained understanding of the specific time and locality to extrapolate out to broader patterns of violence.” In other words, without a deep understanding of that local context, the evidence presented by the new research arguably leaves more questions than answers. The victims’ diverse origins suggest they may have been refugees, captives or displaced people moving through the region during a time of upheaval. They might have been intercepted by a rival group while journeying along the Sava River corridor. Pointing to this ambiguity, Professor Williams highlights the range of plausible scenarios that still fit the evidence: “It isn’t clear to me we can rule out the wholesale massacre of one population who had themselves disparate origins, or hostages or captives brought from far-and-wide to represent a wider population.” Read more | 4,500 years ago, Arctic Greenland's Paleo-Inuit made terrifying ocean voyages. Why did they risk it? Continuing to highlight the other potential explanations, he says that even the meaning of the burial itself remains open to interpretation: “regarding the mass grave itself, it might have been created by the survivors to honour loved ones and remembered as a focus of veneration, remembrance and resistance to the perpetrators – or a mass grave created to perpetuate intimidation and hegemony by the perpetrators.” Without written records, the motivations behind the massacre can only be inferred indirectly – it can only be guesswork, based on the site itself, and knowledge of the broader context. What the new research does demonstrate, however, is that large-scale violence in prehistoric Europe might not have been confined to battles between groups over land and resource, or beliefs and ideology. Some episodes of violence may have been deliberately staged acts to communicate power, intimidation and control. The challenge for historians and archaeologists is how to unpick the context of this violence: who it targeted, how it was carried out, and what it was intended to communicate – if anything at all.
What did Elizabeth I really think about Anne Boleyn? These secret symbols might unlock the truth
Anne Boleyn was Henry VIII’s second wife, and the first to be executed. She was also the mother of Queen Elizabeth I. But how did the longest reigning Tudor monarch remember her ill-fated mother?
On 19 May 1536, Anne Boleyn was executed inside the Tower of London. The charges against her – adultery, treason and incest with her own brother – were sensational by any standard. Within days of her arrest, she had been beheaded on the orders of her husband, Henry VIII. Anne Boleyn had been one of the most powerful figures at the English court during the early 1530s, and her supporters, including reform-minded clergy and courtiers, lost influence rapidly after her death. Her demise also had immense consequences for her daughter, Elizabeth, who wasn’t yet three years old. In the years that followed her execution, Anne’s marriage to Henry VIII was declared invalid, and her daughter was denounced as illegitimate. But Elizabeth would, of course, eventually come to rule England for four and a half decades, becoming the longest reigning Tudor monarch. In this position of power, how did she look back on the death of her mother? Speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, Tudor historian Dr Nicola Tallis explains the clues she left behind that help to answer that question – and why it’s essential to first understand the context around Elizabeth’s ascent to power. Henry VIII’s great disappointment Elizabeth Tudor was born in 1533, during a moment of extraordinary political upheaval. The Tudor monarchy itself was relatively new, having been established only in 1485 after decades of the Wars of the Roses. Ensuring a clear male succession was therefore considered essential to the continuation of the Tudor line, and the country’s stability. So, Elizabeth’s birth had been eagerly anticipated. Henry VIII had spent years attempting to secure a male heir to guarantee the future of the Tudor dynasty – and it was expected that Anne Boleyn would deliver. As Dr Tallis explains, “all of the astrologers that Henry VIII had employed to predict the gender of his child, except one, had said that this child was going to be a boy”. His first marriage, to Catherine of Aragon, had produced only one surviving child – the princess Mary. Read more | Porpoise for breakfast and late night visits: Henry VIII's life in a day When Henry fell for Anne Boleyn, he began a dramatic effort to end his marriage to Catherine. The king sought an annulment from the pope, arguing that his union with Catherine had been invalid. When Rome refused, Henry broke with the Roman Catholic Church and declared himself supreme head of the newly independent Church of England. This break with Rome – the Protestant Reformation – permanently reshaped England’s religious and political landscape. All this upheaval had been undertaken largely in the hope that Anne would produce a male heir. 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 “He had pinned all of his hopes on Elizabeth being a boy,” Tallis says. “So, you can imagine his disappointment when Elizabeth is a girl.” The failure was especially frustrating given the enormous political effort that Henry had expended to marry Anne. At the same time, England remained bitterly divided about the change. Catherine of Aragon still enjoyed deep sympathy among many. “This is a very tumultuous and uncertain time in England’s history, rife with factions,” Tallis says. Anne herself was widely disliked. Many traditional Catholics viewed her as responsible for England’s break with Rome, while others resented her rapid rise to power at court. “So there is a great deal of uncertainty and hostility at the time of Elizabeth’s birth.” From Tudor princess to illegitimate child Three years later, the situation deteriorated dramatically. In May 1536 Anne Boleyn was arrested and spuriously accused of treason, with the allegations levelled against her being likely fabricated as part of a political process designed to replace her. Read more | What did Anne Boleyn REALLY look like? Our new research could change everything After a brief trial she was condemned and executed. “Anne Boleyn’s execution effectively means that Elizabeth is no longer the most important royal child in the country,” Tallis explains. Henry’s marriage to Anne was declared invalid, and Elizabeth, who had been recognised as princess, was officially reclassified. “She is declared illegitimate and deprived of her place in the line of succession,” Tallis says. “She is still the king’s daughter, but she is no longer deemed worthy of succeeding to England’s crown. “In political terms all of Elizabeth’s value has vanished at the stroke of the sword that severed her mother’s head.” Two decades later, Elizabeth did eventually rise to the throne as the last surviving child of Henry VIII – under the laws of the Act of Succession. Now, she had the chance to either condemn her mother herself or rehabilitate her. She did neither. Elizabeth didn’t speak publicly about her mother, choosing not to reignite old conflicts. But, says Dr Tallis, she did leave behind clues which hint at where her loyalties may have laid. “I think we have to think less about what Elizabeth said and more about what Elizabeth did,” Tallis explains. “There are some subtle indications as to what she felt about her mother.” A court full of Boleyns “I think she did feel a resonance with her and a warmth for her mother,” Tallis says. One indicator of this is that, in her court, “she promoted her mother’s relatives. When she became queen she was surrounded by Boleyns and by Careys,” Tallis explains. “She kept those who were linked with Anne very close to her.” The Careys were descendants of Anne’s sister, Mary Boleyn. By maintaining close relationships with them, Elizabeth ensured that the maternal side of her family remained close to the heart of Tudor politics. Read more | The Virgin Queen? Elizabeth I's forbidden love Elizabeth also revived one of Anne Boleyn’s most distinctive personal emblems. During her time as queen, Anne had adopted the falcon badge as part of her heraldic identity. After her execution the symbol largely disappeared from royal imagery. Under Elizabeth, however, it returned. The emblem appeared on some of Elizabeth’s personal possessions and decorative objects connected with her court. A ring with two portraits Arguably the most pointed piece of evidence of Elizabeth’s feelings toward her mother was the smallest. Among the queen’s personal possessions was a ring containing two miniature portraits concealed under a hinged cover. “Perhaps most touchingly, we know that at the end of her life Elizabeth had a beautiful ring that contained two hidden portraits. One of them was the queen herself, Elizabeth, and the other was a woman who was almost certainly Anne,” Tallis explains. The portraits weren’t meant for public display, but for the queen’s eyes alone. “This was probably a very personal keepsake that reminded Elizabeth of her mother and ensured that she was always close at hand.” Nicola Tallis was speaking to Rachel Dinning on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
Winston Churchill created the special relationship. Could Donald Trump kill it?
From the Suez Crisis and Vietnam, to 21st-century political tensions, the alliance between Britain and the United States has been declared dead – or dying – many times
Few diplomatic partnerships have been declared to be on life support quite as often as the so-called ‘special relationship’ between the United Kingdom and the United States. The phrase refers to the theoretically unique presumption of shared understanding and cooperation that has existed between the two countries in the decades since the Second World War. But did the special relationship ever actually exist? And if it does, what exactly does it mean in the cold light of day? “This is a perennial subject of discussion,” says historian Sam Edwards, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast. “You could probably go back to the 1960s to find the first obituary of the special relationship – the first moment where commentators were asking the question: is the special relationship done and dusted, or can it survive?” Those debates have resurfaced repeatedly whenever London and Washington DC have had public differences over foreign policy or military strategy. It’s a question that has arisen once again in March 2026, as President Trump has instigated a new wave of military operations in the Middle East, albeit without Downing Street’s unconditional support. Winston Churchill coins the phrase The term ‘special relationship’ has been in the political vocabulary for 80 years, making an entrance in the early days of the Cold War. In March 1946, Winston Churchill travelled to Fulton, Missouri to deliver a speech formally titled Sinews of Peace. Churchill was no longer the UK’s prime minister at the time – he had lost the 1945 British general election – but he remained one of the most influential political figures of the era. The Second World War had ended less than a year earlier, but tensions between the Soviet Union and western powers were already hardening along ideological faultlines. Churchill used the speech to warn about Soviet expansion across eastern Europe, and what he saw as the impending threat of communism. As Sam Edwards explains, the speech is “famous for two evocative phrases: one is ‘iron curtain’, the other is ‘special relationship’.” The phrase “iron curtain” described the emerging division of Europe between communist east and democratic west. The “special relationship,” meanwhile, referred to the close partnership that Churchill believed should bind Great Britain and the United States together in the postwar world. Read more | Before the Nuremberg Trials, this was Winston Churchill’s shocking plan for Nazi war criminals Churchill imagined this alliance resting on shared language, political traditions and deep military cooperation. The two countries had fought closely together during the Second World War, sharing intelligence, coordinating military planning and collaborating on technological projects such as nuclear weapons research. In reality, however, the concept was always more complicated than the rhetoric suggested. What does the “special relationship” mean? “Ever since Churchill articulated it in 1946, there have been questions about what it looks like, what it involves, what examples there are of it in action,” Edwards says. At certain moments, the alliance has appeared exceptionally close, especially during joint military operations or intelligence cooperation, as with the 2003 invasion of Iraq. At other times, it’s seemed less certain. Indeed, the first major test arrived surprisingly quickly. In 1956, Gamal Abdel Nasser, president of Egypt, nationalised the Suez Canal, which had long been controlled by British and French interests. The canal was one of the most important shipping routes in the world, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea and providing a crucial link between Europe and Asia. Britain and France responded by secretly coordinating a military intervention with Israel in an attempt to regain control of the waterway. The Cuban Missile Crisis: World on the Brink Member exclusive | In this HistoryExtra podcast series, we explore the roots of the Cold War standoff and meet the key players in the confrontation. We track the pivotal 13 days at its centre, and the Cold War alliances that saw diplomatic tensions escalate to breaking point Listen to all episodes now The United States strongly opposed the invasion. “In 1956, the Suez Crisis was a first big crisis in the US–UK relationship,” Edwards explains. Washington applied intense financial and diplomatic pressure on Britain to withdraw its forces. The administration of US president Dwight D Eisenhower feared that the invasion would destabilise the Middle East and push newly independent states toward the Soviet Union. “The Americans were quite forceful in demanding that the British army withdraw from the Suez Canal after the nationalisation of the canal zone,” he says. The crisis is often interpreted by historians as a symbol of Britain’s declining global power in the postwar era. “In the aftermath there were discussions: what does the special relationship look like now?” Edwards says. “Is it going to survive any longer?” It did. But the crisis made one thing clear. In this relationship, the United States had become the dominant partner. How Vietnam became another test Questions about the alliance resurfaced again in the 1960s during the Vietnam War. The United States, then led by President Lyndon B Johnson, sought international support for its expanding military intervention in southeast Asia. Britain’s Labour government, headed by Harold Wilson, came under pressure to demonstrate solidarity with military backing. “However, Harold Wilson persistently refused to send British troops to Southeast Asia,” says Edwards, “despite the fact that Lyndon B Johnson asked on various occasions.” The decision created yet further diplomatic tension between London and Washington. But, Edwards argues, part of the reason the relationship has survived repeated crises is that it operates on along two distinct axes. “One is a description of a functional relationship, especially between US and UK intelligence agencies and their militaries.” For example, the two countries are central members of the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence alliance, which also includes Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In this sense, the phrase refers to concrete cooperation: shared intelligence networks, joint military planning and close defence collaboration. The two countries coordinate on nuclear strategy, share classified information and frequently operate together in military coalitions. But there’s also a second dimension. “The other part is that it’s an idea, an image, a discursive construct,” Edwards says. Politicians often invoke the phrase symbolically to signal shared democratic values and cultural ties. This rhetorical layer can survive, even when foreign and military policy disagreements spill over into the public sphere. “The interesting thing about what we’re witnessing right now is the erosion of both of those [dimensions of the special relationship],” Edwards says. Recent debates about the use of British military assets by the American military have raised questions about the functional side of the alliance. At the same time, political rhetoric has begun to harden. President Trump appeared to criticise UK prime minister Keir Starmer in March 2026, saying: “This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.” “The irony within all of this is that the person driving what looks like the erosion of the special relationship is himself a contemporary of that relationship,” Edwards says of Trump. Churchill delivered his Fulton speech in March 1946. “Trump goes back to June 1946.” In other words, both the concept and one of its most recent critics were born in the same year. That’s not the only irony. Edwards also notes that the current US president is the first since Woodrow Wilson to have a British mother. Still, after eight decades, the special relationship has survived multiple crises – all of which seemed like they might bring it to an end. As to whether the current tensions will prove more serious, Edwards is uncertain. “Can it outlast this? We shall see. I think it will, in some form or shape, but I think it is going to look different in the years to come.” Matt Elton was speaking to Sam Edwards on the HistoryExtra podcast series History Behind the Headlines. 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.