HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2026-02-13T15:39:53.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Lonely hearts and holiday flings: a brief history of dating
items: What happened to Shakespeare's daughters? A guide to the playwright's family life and descendants
items: Your history guide to Frogmore Cottage: who has lived there before?
items: King Æthelstan: England's colossus
items: 9 things you might not know about Sherlock Holmes
items: Emma of Normandy: not just a two-time queen consort of England
items: Queen Victoria and John Brown: the controversial relationship between sovereign and servant
items: Master the art of procrastination, with the help of the Virgin Queen
items: Shakespeare’s 'lost years': what do we know about this secretive chapter of the bard's life?
items: What did Victorians do with their poo? The battle over the 19th-century excrement explosion

Lonely hearts and holiday flings: a brief history of dating
type: item
date: 2026-02-13T15:39:00.000Z
creator: Nichi Hodgson
subject: 20th Century
subject: General Modern
subject: Georgian
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Valentine's Day
description: From calling cards and corsets to 'the pill' and the sexual revolution, we have always found inventive ways to find and further love. Nichi Hodgson, author of The Curious History of Dating: From Jane Austen to Tinder, takes us on a whistle-stop tour of courtship through history
encoded: When I first began writing about the history of dating, what struck me most was how similar the problems of today are to the 1930s, the 1840s, and even the 1780s. From worrying about a partner’s financial standing, or whether someone was going to stick around long enough for you to have children with them, to persuading your parents they are indeed a good fit, the means by which we go about finding love may have changed, but not the hopes, dreams and anxieties we’ve had about discovering it. In the Georgian era, for example, the advice was clear: looks matter but value them at the peril of your long-term happiness: “She, who, intoxicated with flattery, protracts the triumphs of her beauty in youth, may live to lament the barren spoils of it in age.” Indeed, throughout history, grooming and dressing as well as you possibly can has always been a better strategy than ruminating on what you don’t have. Victorian women wore dresses cut just above the nipples, with pearl necklaces draped lasciviously in their décolletage, while some Edwardian men favoured wearing corsets and delighted in the sensation of tight lacing. When the mini skirt was invented in the early 1960s, some men even tried it out, including 16-year-old trainee brick layer Tony Liggard whom the Daily Mail reported was convinced it would catch on among men. It didn’t – but long hair, floral patterns, make-up and jewellery all eventually did. So much for the myth that male grooming is a recent phenomenon! <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2019/02/2GettyImages-559574483-24ee5fb-e1770990862524.jpg" width="1499" height="1000" alt="A Victorian advertisement showing black and white sketches of men wearing corsets. Across the top is an address and an advert for Madame Dowding" title="Some Victorian and Edwardian men experimented with wearing corsets, as this 1899 advertisement reveals (Image by Getty Images)" /> Once you were suitably styled, you needed to get a date’s attention.…

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What happened to Shakespeare's daughters? A guide to the playwright's family life and descendants
type: item
date: 2026-01-26T12:32:00.000Z
subject: Elizabethan
subject: Period
subject: Stuart
subject: Tudor
description: The story of the Shakespeares was one of social advancement, says Stanley Wells, reflected in dwellings that rose from rural farmstead to manorial splendour. Along the way were some family upsets: pregnant brides, lawsuits and excommunication. As a film adaptation of Maggie O'Farrell's novel Hamnet arrives on cinema screens, find out more about when William married Anne (Agnes) Hathaway, when their children were born, and what became of the Shakespeare family after the playwright's death…
encoded: He is one of the greatest writers of all time, and our longing to know as much as we can about him continues. We know that William Shakespeare was born in 1564 to John and Mary Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, and that he was their first child to survive past infancy. During the Elizabethan period, infant mortality was very high, and his parents had already lost two daughters before young William was born. The exact date of his birth is unknown, but his baptismal record survives, showing that Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakespeare (William, son of John Shakespeare) was baptised in Stratford-upon-Avon’s Holy Trinity Church on 26 April 1564. His birthday is now celebrated on 23 April, since it was common for baptisms to be held three days after a birth. As a film adaptation of Maggie O'Farrell's historical novel, Hamnet, starring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, is released, find out more about the playwright's home life and how his family influences shaped him – plus what happened to his daughters after the story of Hamnet concludes. William Shakespeare's birth family: who were his parents? The story of Shakespeare’s family – one of upward social mobility – is reflected in their homes. Start in the small village of Wilmcote, three miles north of Stratford-upon-Avon, where the playwright’s mother, Mary Arden, grew up in a small farmhouse built around 1514 by her father, Robert. Mary was the youngest of eight daughters by his first wife; his second, Agnes Hill, brought with her two sons and two daughters. When Robert made his will in 1556, he named young Mary as one of his two executors and left her a substantial amount of land and money, which suggests that she was a woman of exceptional ability. Mary Arden married the up-and-coming glover (and later wool dealer and money-lender) John Shakespeare, probably in 1557. Before long they moved into his substantial double-house in Henley Street, Stratford-upon-Avon, now known as Shakespeare’s Birthplace. Mary …

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Your history guide to Frogmore Cottage: who has lived there before?
type: item
date: 2025-10-27T12:16:16.000Z
creator: Elinor Evans
subject: 20th Century
subject: Georgian
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: The royal family
description: How much do you know about the history of Frogmore Cottage, previously home to Prince Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex? Who has lived there before, and why was it built?
encoded: Where is Frogmore Cottage? Frogmore Cottage, set in the grounds of Frogmore House, is part of the Frogmore estate in Windsor, Berkshire. Frogmore is situated around half a mile south of Windsor Castle, within Home Park (the private estate of the castle). It’s close to the river Thames and built upon historically wet marsh ground, which led to the estate’s name; the low-lying plot attracts a high number of frogs from the nearby riverbank. Today the cottage, nestled in a quiet corner of the estate grounds, is a private residence, and served as the British home of Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, from 2019 when it was gifted to them by the late Queen Elizabeth II. Prince Harry and Meghan were requested to vacate their British base in March 2023, as they took an official step back from participation in royal duties. It is owned by the Crown Estate, though there are no current residents based at the house, royal or otherwise. It was reported in October 2025 that Prince Andrew, younger brother to King Charles III, is considering Frogmore as his residence after leaving Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park. Read more | Why has the British monarchy survived – and thrived? Can people visit Frogmore Cottage? The cottage is not open to the public, though Frogmore House and estate can be visited on a number of charity days held each year. When and why was Frogmore Cottage built? The cottage has served as a royal refuge since it was built in 1801. It was commissioned by Queen Charlotte, the wife of King George III, who bought the Frogmore estate as a country retreat for herself and her unmarried daughters in 1792. Her husband, often referred as ‘Mad King George’, ruled Great Britain and Ireland from 1760–1820 and suffered from an illness (sometimes attributed as porphyria, a rare hereditary disease) that prompted episodes of eccentric behaviour. Historian Sean Lang explains how the king once ordered his carriage to stop in Windsor Great Park while he popped o…

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King Æthelstan: England's colossus
type: item
date: 2025-09-04T11:00:16.000Z
subject: Anglo-Saxon
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Historical people
subject: Medieval kings and queens
description: The rise of Æthelstan was as important a moment in English history as 1066 and Magna Carta. On the 1,100th anniversary of his coronation, David Woodman salutes a king who forged a nation
encoded: It’s there beside the guildhall. A large grey stone surrounded by Victorian railings. Over the years, countless visitors to Kingston-upon-Thames have strolled past it, many barely registering its existence. Yet here, nestled at the heart of the London borough, is one of the most significant landmarks in the story of early England. For it was in Kingston, 1,100 years ago, that Æthelstan was presented with a ring, a sword, a sceptre and a rod – and proclaimed king. The early medieval leader was the first of, perhaps, seven rulers to be crowned in Kingston over the next five decades. Yet none would leave a legacy quite like his. Æthelstan’s investiture on 4 September 925 acted as the springboard for a reign that would redefine the parameters of early medieval kingship. The new king triggered a cultural and governmental revolution. He became the most feared and respected leader across the British Isles. He made waves across north-west Europe. Above all, he presided over the establishment of ‘England’. To tell his story is also to tell the story of the emergence of a nation. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/09/dreamstime122053861webready-a294964.jpg" width="1500" height="2250" alt="A large stone sitting on a stone base with inscriptions on it. Behind it, there is a blue fence and two stone turrets, and some green hedges" title="The Kingston-upon-Thames coronation stone where Æthelstan was proclaimed ‘king of the Anglo-Saxons’ in September 925 (Image by Dreamstime)" /> Whirlpools of cataclysms Although Æthelstan was formally invested in the autumn of 925, he had actually become king in the previous year, following the death of his father, Edward the Elder. That delay tells its own story. Æthelstan may now be remembered as one of the great early medieval kings. But his rise to power was anything but straightforward – and far from uncontested. There is evidence that one of his half-brothers, a man called Ælfweard, had also been recog…

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9 things you might not know about Sherlock Holmes
type: item
date: 2025-09-04T08:35:03.000Z
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: TV interest
description: The fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, created by Arthur Conan Doyle, has for more than 130 years been a star of stage and screen, played by actors including Benedict Cumberbatch and Ian McKellen and serialised in countless books. But how much do you know about this famous crime-buster, who made his first appearance in 1887 in Beeton's Christmas Annual? Here, author Martin Davies shares 11 lesser-known facts about Sherlock Holmes...
encoded: 1. The first actor to play Sherlock Holmes was American… The first actor to take on the role of Sherlock Holmes in any official capacity was the American William Gillette. His 1899 stage play was adapted from a script by Arthur Conan Doyle himself. Opening six years after the author had attempted to kill off his creation at the Reichenbach Falls, the play was a huge success on both sides of the Atlantic: between 1899 and 1932, Gillette performed the role more than 1,000 times. Gillette is also credited with introducing the curved briar pipe that was to become synonymous with the great detective – possibly because a straight pipe obscured the actor’s face when he delivered his lines. On the podcast | Sherlock Holmes: the real history that inspired the detective stories On first meeting Sherlock Holmes’ creator, Gillette is said to have appeared in character, complete with deerstalker, and after examining Conan Doyle most minutely, to have opined: “Unquestionably an author!” 2. … who introduced a love interest Gillette was also one of the first to annoy the purists by introducing a love interest for Holmes. When he telegraphed Conan Doyle with the question “May I marry him?” the author is said to have replied: “You may marry him, or murder or do what you like with him!” It’s impossible to count the number of writers who, since then, have taken Doyle at his word. Read more | Real-life Sherlocks: the detectives of Scotland Yard and their curious cases 3. He defied death Holmes, having survived the Reichenbach Falls, refused to die with his creator. By the time of Conan Doyle’s death on 7 July 1930, Holmes was already a star of stage and screen. His film debut, Sherlock Holmes Baffled, came as early as 1900. Just a few seconds long, the film used stop-motion camerawork to show Holmes attempting to grapple with a burglar who repeatedly disappears, then reappears in a different part of the room. 4. A 1940s duo cemented Holmes and Watson's on screen personas One of the olde…

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Emma of Normandy: not just a two-time queen consort of England
type: item
date: 2025-08-24T20:02:16.000Z
subject: Anglo-Saxon
subject: Early medieval
subject: Period
subject: Viking
subject: Historical people
subject: Trends-Entertainment
subject: Viking Britain
description: Emma of Normandy was queen consort to two of England’s best known pre-Conquest kings, Æthelred the Unready and Cnut the Great. But she was also a savvy political player who came into her own as queen mother, writes Dr Cat Jarman
encoded: Emma of Normandy is best-known as being queen consort to two kings – Æthelred the Unready and Cnut the Great – and the mother of two more, Harthacnut and Edward the Confessor. She was the daughter of Richard I (the Fearless) of Normandy and the Danish-descended Gunnor. She is also a pivotal character in King and Conqueror, the BBC's Norman Conquest drama, which paints Emma as a dominating force over her son King Edward – which leads to a very ahistorical demise – and in Netflix's Vikings: Valhalla, where she is portrayed as a politically-savvy queen wielding quiet power in the English court, often working to subvert the machinations of the ever-grasping Earl Godwin. Who was Emma of Normandy? Emma was one of nine children and most likely born in the AD 980s. A daughter of the Norman dukes, she was the great-granddaughter of the Viking warrior Rollo, the founder of Normandy who hailed from either Norway or Denmark. This made her of Scandinavian ancestry on both sides of the family. She was also the great-aunt of William the Conqueror. In the words of Godfrey, prior of Winchester’s cathedral monastery, writing in the 11th century: “She had kings as sons and kings as husbands; she shone forth in the glory of her progeny of kings; she excelled in virtue even the ranks of her glorious ancestors.” Emma of Normandy's first marriage: Æthelred the Unready In 1002, probably aged in her late teens or early 20s, Emma was sent to England to marry King Æthelred, as his second wife. The marriage was clearly a strategic one, aiming to strengthen an alliance between England and Normandy in light of harrowing attacks on both English and Norman shores by Scandinavian raiders. Æthelred had apparently accused Emma’s brother, Duke Richard II, of harbouring the Vikings and enabling their attacks, and the marriage was designed to ensure his allegiance. Read more | Aethelflaed: who was the warrior queen who crushed the Vikings? Their union was an unusual one, as although several English prin…

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Queen Victoria and John Brown: the controversial relationship between sovereign and servant
type: item
date: 2025-07-31T15:00:46.000Z
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
description: How did John Brown become Queen Victoria’s favourite Highland servant, why was he so disliked by some but admired by others, and is there any foundation to the rumours about their personal connection?
encoded: John Brown (1826-83) was born near in Crathie, a village close to Balmoral. He entered royal service as a young man soon after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert acquired Balmoral Castle, their Highland property. He worked for the Queen for more than 30 years, his presence in her household sometimes leading to controversy and speculation that their relationship went beyond that of employer and servant. John Brown: key dates Born: 8 December 1826 (Crathie, Aberdeenshire) Died: 27 March 1883 (Windsor Castle) Parents: John and Margaret (nee Leys) Brown What was John Brown’s background, childhood and early life like, and how did he enter royal employment? John Brown was born into a farming family at Crathie, near Balmoral, the second of eleven children. His father was a former schoolmaster who later took up farming. Once John the younger was old enough to find a job, he worked at a local coaching inn looking after guests’ horses, then as a pony herder on the Balmoral estate leased by Sir Robert Gordon, who lived there until his death in 1847. He retained his post after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert leased the property. In September 1849, Albert decided that for safety reasons they needed someone to ride on the box of their carriage on some of their more narrow mountain journeys, and Brown was chosen as one of the youngest and sturdiest of the servants. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2022/12/GettyImages-3431677-a08b539-e1753977399856.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Portrait of John Brown" title="John Brown (1826-83) was born near in Crathie, a village close to Balmoral. He entered royal service as a young man soon after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert acquired Balmoral Castle, their Highland property. (Photo by Getty Images)" /> What duties did his role in the royal household involve? Within two years he was also asked to lead Queen Victoria’s pony on their Highland expeditions. He was conscientious, hardworking, always ready …

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Master the art of procrastination, with the help of the Virgin Queen
type: item
date: 2025-06-23T09:22:20.000Z
creator: Dr David Musgrove, FSA
subject: Elizabethan
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: Elizabeth I knew that delaying decisions was her secret superpower, Professor Tracy Borman tells Dr David Musgrove, and it's a technique we could all learn something from
encoded: I’ve been putting off writing this piece for quite a while. Not because I’m plain lazy, but because I’m channelling my inner Tudor queen. My Life Lesson from History this week, as proposed by Professor Tracy Borman, is that we should master the art of procrastination. Helping us in this endeavour will be Elizabeth I, the procrastinator par excellence. I know what you’re thinking. Procrastination is a bad thing. It’s what you do when you can’t make a decision, or you’re unwilling to knuckle down to a task. This is the territory of urgently needing to tidy up your bedroom when you should be revising for your exams. We’re not talking avoidance procrastination here though – we are looking at deliberate, strategic procrastination. For Elizabeth, it was a case of good things coming to those who wait. “Elizabeth was the absolute master of procrastination, or at least that’s how it appeared. So really her strategy was to resist the pressure that she was constantly under from her male advisors, her parliaments, her people even, to do things like marry, have an heir and go to war,” says Borman. “She played the procrastination card brilliantly because instead of being pressured into making a decision, she would say, ‘Hang on, I just need a bit of time. I’m only a woman: what do I know?’” Avoiding the altar Let’s have a quick recap of who Elizabeth I was. She was queen of England from 1558 to 1603, and daughter of King Henry VIII. She was Good Queen Bess and Gloriana, the virgin queen who never married, and who navigated a half century of rule as a woman in a man’s world. Part of her success and longevity as a monarch was because she was slow to play her hand. The way she managed the pressure to marry is a case in point. “When she comes to the throne, she’s single, she’s 25 years old. Of course, the first thing everybody expects her to do is to take a husband and thus secure the dynasty, the succession. It’s the right thing to do, not just for a queen, but for any woman,” expla…

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Shakespeare’s 'lost years': what do we know about this secretive chapter of the bard's life?
type: item
date: 2025-06-13T14:20:38.000Z
subject: Elizabethan
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: Shakespeare's 'lost years' refers to an undocumented period in his life, during which little is known about his activities or whereabouts. So what, exactly, could he have been up to? Daniel Swift explores this secretive chapter in the famous playwright's story
encoded: The idea that William Shakespeare’s life contains a stretch of “lost years” is a minor ghost that haunts popular biographies and discussion of his poems and plays. Those missing years are conventionally taken to begin in February 1585, when Shakespeare’s children – twins Judith and Hamnet – were baptised at Stratford upon Avon, and to end in September 1592, when he was described as being “an upstart Crow” in a gossipy pamphlet in London. Between these dates, we have no reliable record that ties Shakespeare to any particular location, or reveals what he was doing. Shakespeare was 20 when his lost years began, and 28 when they ended. Those seven-and-a-half lost years belong in a wider landscape in which we know remarkably little about the playwright. We know virtually nothing for sure about Shakespeare’s schooling, which he probably completed in 1578 or so; nor what he did until he married Anne Hathaway in November 1582. Listen on the podcast | What happened in Shakespeare's lost years? This is not only the case for Shakespeare: scholars may hate to admit it, but our ignorance of so much of this period is vast. Almost 60 per cent of the 3,000 different plays written between 1570 and 1642 are lost. While some titles survive, there could be some lost plays that we have never even heard of at all. It is a safe guess, but a guess nonetheless, that plays by Shakespeare are among these wholly lost plays. We are uncertain of even the most basic things. Until the remains of the Elizabethan Curtain playhouse in Shoreditch, London, were discovered in 2012, theatre historians assumed that it was round; it turned out to be rectangular. Why the lost years matter Shakespeare’s undocumented years have a special quality: enigmatic, evocative and instructive. As those years began, Shakespeare was a young man in a provincial town who had written nothing and had few prospects. When they ended, he was celebrated enough as a playwright to be worth attacking. The lost years are exactly the…

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What did Victorians do with their poo? The battle over the 19th-century excrement explosion
type: item
date: 2025-06-06T14:10:23.000Z
creator: Dr David Musgrove, FSA
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Life in Victorian Britain
description: The industrial revolution caused huge growth in the urban population – and with it, a rising tide of human waste. Find out how the leaders of Victorian cities tried to cope with the excrement explosion that came hand-in-hand with the 19th century’s boom in industry
encoded: In the 1890s, Manchester’s civic leaders faced a mounting crisis. The city’s population had exploded, its industries were booming, and with them came an ever-growing tide of human waste. By the later decades of the 19th century, Victorian Britain’s sanitation revolution was well underway, but as historian Richard Jones explains in an April 2025 article from the Environment and History journal, ‘Excremental Flows: Manchester Corporation’s ‘Dung Hill Scheme’ and the Rampton Manor Estate, Nottinghamshire, 1892’ (available to purchase or access via a subscriber login), the transition from solid waste systems to water-borne sewage was anything but smooth. By the late Victorian era, Manchester’s “existing waste removal infrastructure – designed to deal with the much smaller volumes and narrower range of waste materials of the pre-industrial age – had begun to struggle with the prodigious quantities of polluting waste its people and factories now generated,” says Jones. The sanitary reformer Dr Southwood Smith vividly described a scene he was greeted with upon a visit to a Manchester privy in 1860: “The floor… is completely covered, several inches deep, with ashes and night-soil, so that it is impossible to get to the seat itself without being over shoes in abominable filth. The seat itself is, in every part, besmeared, and in some parts covered several inches deep, with the same filth.” By the mid-19th century, Manchester was already producing more than 100,000 tons of ‘night-soil’ (a euphemism for human excrement) annually. This waste was collected from thousands of ash-pits – an open pit into which all domestic waste and excrement was disposed, partially dried and deodorised by adding ashes from hearths and ovens – and privies. Then, it was often transported by rail to distant farming regions in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire. But this system was expensive and increasingly unpopular. In one step to cope with the growing burden, Manchester introduced pail-cl…

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