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When was the White House built – and why is it white?
How much do you know about the history of the White House in Washington, DC, which has been home to all US presidents since John Adams in 1800?
Inscribed on the stone fireplace of the State Dining Room of the White House are the words: “I pray to Heaven bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.” The blessing, which was engraved there in 1945, came from a letter written by John Adams to his wife Abigail in 1800. He was the second man to be president of the United States, but the first to reside in the world-famous home of the presidency at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, in Washington, DC. A decade earlier, there had been no such place as Washington, DC, on the Potomac River. Founded by the Residence Act of 1790, the new capital would be a modern metropolis laid out in a grid system and with grand boulevards and public spaces everywhere. In the short term, though, it was not a promising place to live: if not hectic with the constant building works, there was nothing around but forests and some wetlands, where sanitation was poor and conditions were cold to freezing. Still, this would be the home of the president. George Washington, the first man elected to the office, personally chose the site for what would be the White House along with city planner Pierre Charles L’Enfant, and launched a competition for the building’s design. When was the White House built? Construction of the White House got underway with the laying of the cornerstone on 13 October 1792. But the the so-called ‘Presidential Palace' would not be finished until after Washington had left office. Even by 1800, when Adams moved in, the building was far from complete. It would be added to, repaired and extended many times throughout the years, not least when it had to be reconstructed following the War of 1812. The photogenic South Portico was added in 1824, followed by the North Portico, completed in 1830. The West Wing was added in 1902 and within, in 1909, the first iteration of the Oval Office. The East Wing was developed in 1942 – it is the focus of a sweeping renovation by President Trump that will see a 90,000-square-foot ballroom added to the building. The White House currently boasts a total of 132 rooms. White House facts: seven things you need to know Here, White House historian Lindsay M Chervinsky explains everything you need to know about the home of the US president… Why is the White House called the White House? The home of the President of the United States is called the White House in reference to its covering with lime-based whitewash to protect the porous sandstone it is built from. By President Jimmy Carter’s administration (1977–81), the paint was so thick that visitors couldn’t see the carving details above the windows and doors, or any of the beautiful molding. The White House underwent a significant external renovation to strip the many layers of paint, which took 20 years and wasn’t completed until President Bill Clinton’s administration (1993–2001). When finished, over 45 coats of paint had been removed from the exterior walls. Read more: American history myths: 7 things people get wrong Who built the White House? The White House was designed by Irish-born architect, James Hoban – whose vision of a neoclassical mansion in the Palladian style won him Washington's competition – but it was built by hundreds of workers, including enslaved people. Over the next eight years, a mix of free African-American and white wage labourers, enslaved workers, and skilled craftsmen built the White House. They worked in a variety of positions, including basic labourers, overseers, sawyers, carpenters, stone workers, and bricklayers. Some of the enslaved workers were owned by the city commissioners charged with overseeing the project, or by Hoban himself. The vast majority, however, were hired out from their owners in Washington, DC, as well as Virginia, and Maryland, who then pocketed the enslaved peoples’ wages. The construction crews were often shuttled back and forth between the White House and the Capitol building sites (which were also built using enslaved labour), depending on which location needed labour or had available materials at any given moment. Was the White House set on fire by the British? Yes. In August 1814, British forces marched into Washington, DC and burned all public buildings in retaliation for the destruction of York [now Toronto, Canada], the year prior. After enjoying a lavish meal laid out by First Lady Dolley Madison, the British forces set fire to the White House. Urban legend suggests that a rain storm arrived and saved the White House. The truth, however, is that the rain actually made the damage worse. While the wet weather saved the surrounding buildings from catching fire, it nearly destroyed the walls of the White House. The stone walls were incredibly hot from the fire and the cold rain caused them to shrink rapidly and crack. Congress quickly appointed a commission to investigate the damage and rebuild the White House. The investigators discovered that almost everything inside had been destroyed except for a few pots and pans in the basement kitchens, but their report concealed the extent of the damage to get the rebuilding process started immediately. Read more: Why does the United States of America celebrate Independence Day on 4 July? Some officials wanted to move the capital to a more developed city – like Philadelphia, New York, or Charleston – because lodging, food, and entertainment options were still quite limited in DC. Furthermore, representatives from states far away from DC, like New Hampshire or Georgia, wanted to shorten their travelling time. They saw the destruction of the White House as an opportunity to move the capital. Eager to maintain a historic link with the earlier presidents, Presidents James Madison and James Monroe rushed to rebuild the White House exactly as before. They even hired the same architect, James Hoban, to complete the renovation. Boston Tea Party: Igniting a Revolution Member exclusive | Discover the causes, tensions, and violent origins of the Boston Tea Party. Join leading experts as they explain the key players involved in the plan – and why tea was so important to the story. Listen to all episodes now Many animals have lived at the White House Most people are familiar with the dogs that have lived in the White House – such as Bo and Sunny Obama, or President George W Bush and First Lady Laura Bush’s Scottish terriers, Barney and Miss Beazley. But there have been a menagerie of animals that have called the grounds home. President Woodrow Wilson welcomed a herd of sheep to the South Lawn and they donated their wool to the Red Cross to create uniforms for soldiers during the First World War. One particularly adventuresome ram named Hi caused a bit of trouble when he repeatedly broke into the Oval Office. John F Kennedy’s daughter, Caroline, had a pet pony named Macaroni; First Lady Grace Coolidge had a raccoon named Rebecca; and President William H Taft had a cow, Pauline Wayne, which roamed in front of the Old Executive Office Building. Perhaps best of all, Alice Roosevelt (Theodore Roosevelt’s daughter) had a garter snake named Emily Spinach that she carried around in her purse and pulled out as a conversation piece at parties. Anne Boleyn’s lapdog and John Quincy Adams’s alligator: 10 famous people in history and their bizarre pets The White House is bigger than you might think it is While the building appears to be two stories from the street, there are actually six floors. There are three floors above ground (the State Floor and two floors for the residence), and three floors below ground. While much of the State Floor and residence layout has remained the same since its construction, many other areas of the White House have changed dramatically. When you enter the White House today, you would probably enter on the Ground Floor, or the first of the basement floors. Until 1901, this floor was primarily a work space. Instead of the China Room, the Vermeil Room, the Library, and the Diplomatic Reception Room, there would have been a kitchen, a laundry room, a storage space for food and dishware, and sleeping spaces for the enslaved or free servants. The basement was notoriously damp and frequently infested with vermin and rodents. Read more: Life after the White House: what the US presidents did next There are other spaces that have been lost to history as well. The White House had a series of stables to house the president’s horses, carriages, coachmen, and grooms. The final and most elaborate stable was converted into a garage in 1909. The attic has also undergone many renovations. In its early years, it was used for storage, sleeping quarters for free or enslaved servants, and a hiding place for the presidents’ children. In 1913 First Lady Ellen Wilson added guestrooms and a painting studio for her own private use. During the Coolidge administration, engineers discovered problems with the roof structure. They installed a sunroom (now the solarium), larger guest and service rooms, and a new steel and concrete roof. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2019/11/WhiteHouseFloorPlanGettyImages-640477071-b94d8bf-e1761584579153.jpg" width="1500" height="1002" alt="Floor Plan of the second storey of the White House" title="A 1901 drawing by FD Owen of the floor plan of the second story in the White House, which was originally deisgned by architect James Hoban in 1792 (Photo by Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)" /> The White House grounds were once open to anyone When President John Adams moved into the White House on 1 November 1800, there was no fence or gate, and the grounds were open to pedestrians. President Thomas Jefferson added a fence that enclosed the grounds, but they remained open for common use. In 1873, President Ulysses S Grant began closing the grounds at sunset for additional security and in 1893, President Grover Cleveland closed the South Grounds, typically the first family’s garden, after strangers tried to take a picture of his young daughter, Esther. The North and South Grounds were closed permanently during Calvin Coolidge’s presidency at the recommendation of the United States Secret Service. The president’s cabinet hasn’t always had a home at the White House Every president has consulted a cabinet since President George Washington convened the first full cabinet meeting on 26 November 1791. While President John Adams was the first to live in the White House, President Thomas Jefferson was the first to meet with his cabinet in the White House and gathered the department secretaries in his private study on the first floor (now the State Dining Room). By the time of the Civil War, the president’s study had moved to the second floor and Abraham Lincoln met with the secretaries in his office in the south-east corner of the second floor (now the Lincoln Bedroom). Read more: American presidents: 9 things you (probably) didn’t know Theodore Roosevelt built the West Wing to provide more work space for his staff, and to give his large family more room on the second floor of the original building. In 1909, President Taft expanded the West Wing, added the Oval Office, and an official Cabinet room. The Oval Office was moved to its present location during President Franklin D Roosevelt’s presidency. Since then, most cabinets have used the Cabinet room for official cabinet meetings and elected to meet with individual department secretaries in the Oval Office. Lindsay M Chervinsky, PhD is White House Historian at the White House Historical Association, a non-profit dedicated to preserving and sharing the history of the White House. She is the author of The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution
Your history guide to Frogmore Cottage: who has lived there before?
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?
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 out to have a chat with an oak tree, apparently under the impression it was the King of Prussia. The royal couple had 15 children over the course of their marriage, and historian Helen Rappaport has suggested that Frogmore Cottage was designed to provide respite for the king’s family. “The king had episodes of frenzy. He was most likely very hard to live with and [Queen Charlotte] presumably utilised Frogmore Cottage as a retreat.” Who else has lived in Frogmore Cottage? Another famous resident of the cottage on the estate was Abdul Karim, an Indian Muslim clerk who became a close confidant and teacher to Queen Victoria. Karim was sent to England to wait at the queen’s table during the 1887 golden jubilee celebrations when the 68-year-old monarch wanted servants who reminded her of her status as Empress of India. She was taken by the handsome young man and Karim quickly rose within Victoria’s affections, as well as in status to the title of ‘Munshi’ (teacher or clerk), teaching the queen Hindustani and advising on all matters concerning India. The relationship between queen and clerk, recently explored in a book by historian Shrabani Basu and dramatised in the film Victoria and Abdul, is just one story of a steady stream of Indian migrants coming to Britain during the 19th century. As Basu told History Extra, “[it’s] fascinating that a young Indian Muslim man was at the centre of the royal court at a time when the British empire was at its height. It is a part of history that the royal family tried to destroy after Queen Victoria’s death.” Karim lived in Frogmore cottage with his family, and refurbished the property in 1893. The queen visited him at the house “each second day”, explains Basu. Yet following the queen’s death in 1901, Karim was forced to return to India by Victoria’s son and successor, Edward VII, who had “abhorred” his mother’s companion. Read more | Queen Victoria's Indian confidant: an interview with Shrabani Basu A home to royal refugees? In the early 20th century, the cottage also hosted royal refugees from Russia. Following the killing of Tsar Nicholas II and his family in July 1918, who were shot by their Bolshevik guards, some relatives of the tsar fled the country. One such royal group was offered sanctuary in Frogmore Cottage by King George V, and included the king's cousin Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna. The royal refugees' financial situation meant the cottage soon fell into disrepair, and when King Edward VIII offered Xenia and her family Wilderness House (in the grounds of Hampton Court to the south-west of London), the family left Frogmore. What else can be found on the Frogmore estate? Frogmore House itself dates from 1680–84, built by an architect of Charles II for the king’s nephew. It was later the home of Queen Victoria’s mother, the Duchess of Kent, for more than 20 years from 1840, and artworks by both the duchess and Queen Victoria are on display in the house. A teahouse built for Queen Victoria also remains on the estate, alongside a 18th-century summerhouse in the form of a Gothic ruin designed by English architect James Wyatt. The estate has long been a bolthole for the royal family. King George VI and his wife Elizabeth spent part of their honeymoon at Frogmore in 1923, and it’s reportedly where the late Queen Elizabeth II walked her beloved corgis. The house hosted the wedding reception of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in May 2018, as well as that of the Queen’s eldest grandchild, Peter Phillips, and Autumn Kelly in 2008. Read more | Retiring royals: 9 rulers and royals who stepped down through history The Frogmore estate is also the site of the Frogmore Mausoleum, the burial place of Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert. The mausoleum, not open to the public during tours of the estate, is currently undergoing restoration works to protect against ongoing damp problems due to its riverside location. The site on the west side of the gardens at Frogmore House was chosen by the queen just four days after Albert’s death at the age of 42 in 1861, and construction began three months later. Following her death at Osborne on the Isle of Wight and a state funeral, Queen Victoria was buried at Frogmore on 4 February 1901. King Edward VII and his grandson, the six-year-old future Edward VIII, knelt as the queen was slowly lowered in to the crypt to be laid to rest beside her beloved husband. View Green Video on the source website
November 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine out now!
Terror in the deep Did German U-boats fight fair or did they target the crews of ships they sank? Roger Moorhouse weighs the evidence Medieval medicine James Freeman explores how doctors and other healers diagnosed and treated disease during the Middle Ages Fake news and the Dreyfus affair Mike Rapport reveals how, after the wrongful exile of a Jewish army officer for treason, French media became a battlefield awash with bias and bile Spectral beasts and hounds from hell Why do ghostly dogs dominate tales of supernatural beasts roaming Britain’s landscapes? Karen R Jones tracks these creatures and their origins 1066: not all that Robert Blackmore questions whether our obsession with individual dates risks obscuring historical truths Star witness Louise Devoy explains how the Royal Observatory in Greenwich transformed our understanding of astronomy, navigation and time SUBSCRIBE TODAY to get our next issue: The December 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine is on sale from 30 October 2025. Look inside!
9 things you might not know about Sherlock Holmes
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...
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 oldest surviving film adaptations of Conan Doyle’s work dates to 1916 (William Gillette again) but it was the English duo of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce in the 1940s who for many years became identified in the public imagination as the Holmes and Watson. Rathbone and Bruce made 14 Sherlock Holmes films between 1939 and 1946 (and starred in more than 200 dramatisations for American radio), yet only the first two films were set in the Victorian period. The others had a contemporary setting, allowing Sherlock Holmes to pursue Nazi spies and to urge the purchase of war bonds. Bruce’s dim, bumbling Watson tends to infuriate Holmes purists. 5. He inspired hundreds of parodies The Adventures of ChubbLock Homes, an early comic strip, appeared in Comic Cuts magazine as early as 1893, and the urge to parody the great detective has never gone away. In 1901, while William Gillette’s official Holmes play was running in London, audiences at Terry’s Theatre were enjoying performances of the rather more frivolous Sheerluck Jones. The comic strip Sherlocko & Watso was hugely popular in the USA in the early 20th century, and silent film parodies abounded. Later in the century, Peter Cook and John Cleese both played comedy Sherlocks on film (Cleese's character was Arthur Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock’s grandson). Less well remembered, perhaps, is the 1976 TV film The Return of the World’s Greatest Detective, in which a youthful Larry Hagman (before his JR Ewing days) played a deluded motorcycle cop, Sherman Holmes. Read more | Women detectives: meet the Victorian female super sleuths 6. Tobacco, cereal and… mouthwash? Holmes has sold it all Even in his early days, Sherlock Holmes was helping manufacturers to sell their products. In the 1890s, the makers of Beecham’s Pills ran advertisements suggesting that the great detective was a devoted user. And as a smoker, Holmes was popular with the tobacco companies. Early cigarette advertisements using Holmes’ image included brands such as Lambert and Butler’s ‘Varsity’ mixture, Chesterfield, Ogden’s, Gallaher’s and Players. Since then, products as diverse as furniture cream, mouthwash, breakfast cereal and photocopiers have all benefited from association with the great man. 6. He debuted on TV to mixed reviews With the growth of television after the Second World War, the Baker Street detective was quick to adapt to the new medium. Alan Wheatley was the first actor to portray Holmes on British television – his 1951 series was broadcast live. But it seems Wheatley was not a fan of Holmes. When asked about Holmes’ character, he is said to have replied: “In my opinion he just seemed to be an insufferable prig”. 7. One actor played Holmes twice… and his brother Peter Cushing appeared as Holmes on the BBC in the 1960s. He had already played the detective in the 1959 Hammer film The Hound of the Baskervilles, alongside Christopher Lee as Sir Henry Baskerville. Lee was to play Holmes himself in a 1962 film; then, nearly 30 years later, he took up the pipe again, playing an ageing Sherlock in two TV films known together as Sherlock Holmes the Golden Years. Throw in an appearance as Mycroft Holmes in Billy Wilder’s The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, and Sir Christopher almost bagged the complete set. Alas, he never appeared on screen as Doctor Watson. 8. The most prolific Holmes For many people, the definitive portrayal of Sherlock Holmes was by Jeremy Brett, for Granada Television, in the 1980s and 1990s. Brett appeared in 41 episodes, including five feature-length productions. However, even that impressive achievement doesn’t make Brett the most prolific Holmes. That title must go to the British actor Clive Merrison, who played the detective on BBC Radio between 1989 and 1998, and who completed the full canon – dramatisations of all 60 of Conan Doyle’s Holmes stories and novels. 9. Holmes, The Avengers and Britain's most famous secret agent are forever linked on screen And so to Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock, in which Andrew Scott rose to prominence playing Moriarty. Scott has also appeared in the new James Bond film, Spectre, joining an illustrious club of actors who have performed alongside Britain’s most famous spy and Britain’s most famous detective. But only Sir Roger Moore has played both leading roles on film. Sadly his one appearance as Holmes – in the 1976 TV-film Sherlock Holmes in New York – is not, perhaps, his most memorable work. Sean Connery never played Holmes, but he did play the ultra-astute friar William of Baskerville in The Name of the Rose, so you might say that he came close. The actor playing Dr Watson to Roger Moore’s Holmes was Patrick Macnee, most famous as John Steed in The Avengers. Macnee played Watson again, 15 years later, alongside Christopher Lee’s Holmes. Then, in 1993, he donned the deerstalker himself in The Hound of London, thus becoming that very rare thing – an actor who has starred in films as both Holmes and Watson. But all these efforts to breathe new life into Sherlock Holmes might well have been greeted with bemusement by Holmes’ creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote in a letter in 1892: “Holmes is as inhuman as Babbage’s Calculating Machine.” Martin Davies is the author of Mrs Hudson and the Spirits’ Curse (Canelo, 2015)
Queen Victoria and John Brown: the controversial relationship between sovereign and servant
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?
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 to do anything, and Albert admired his "transparent honesty and straightforward, independent character". Other responsibilities included brewing the pot of tea that she took on picnics. She once told him he had given her the best cup she ever tasted, and he told her it should have been, as he put "a grand nip o’ whisky in it". The fact that Albert had always spoken and thought so highly of Brown meant that he remained high in her estimation after Albert, by then Prince Consort, died at Windsor Castle in 1861. In October 1863 the queen was returning from a carriage ride to Balmoral one evening when the driver, who was drunk, lost his way in the darkness and took the vehicle over some very rough ground. It overturned with the passengers inside, but Brown had had the foresight to leap clear once he saw an accident was about to happen. He rescued the queen and her ladies, cut the traces to release the frightened horses, and sent the driver on foot to fetch some ponies for them to ride back. The queen was badly shaken, bruised and had to have her head bandaged. Without his intervention her injuries would undoubtedly have been more severe. Why did Brown's closeness to Queen Victoria become so scandalous, and is there any truth in some of the more colourful rumours about them? The presence of Brown soon threatened to become a liability to the queen. In June 1866 he was thought responsible for delaying her return from Balmoral to London during a ministerial crisis. A few months later, a Swiss newspaper reported that she had cancelled appointments as she was expecting a child by Brown, to whom she had been morganatically married for "a long time". The British minister at Berne lodged a formal complaint against the newspaper for spreading misinformation, which only exacerbated the gossip. The British press, even the more radical journals, showed great restraint in ignoring the story. Rumours persisted that Brown had a hold on the queen because he had been endowed with unique psychic powers, and that she used him as a spiritualist medium to contact Albert in the spirit world. While newspapers may have ignored the speculation, some satirical journals, especially Punch and the short-lived Tomahawk, a Victorian forerunner of Private Eye, published lampoons and cartoons making fun of them. Some modern historians have suggested that in a more modern age, people might have accepted a widowed queen taking a lover, but for her to have done so would undoubtedly have embarrassed or distressed members of her own family. However, a liaison with a man who was socially inferior but without any political ambitions would have been preferable to an aristocrat or a member of a foreign royal family, who might have attempted to exert political influence over her. The generally accepted theory is that Queen Victoria – who had lost her father when she was only a few months old, and her husband when both were in their early forties – always desperately needed a strong supportive male figure in her life. Over the years, some researchers have claimed that the queen and her servant had a morganatic marriage and had a child, usually on the flimsiest of evidence from people who accepted unsubstantiated gossip as a case of ‘no smoke without fire’. Brown never married, although he was fond of his nephews and nieces. Read more | Queen Victoria and Prince Albert: what was their relationship like? What was Brown’s attitude towards Queen Victoria? Was it a normal servant-employer relationship, or did he try to take liberties that might have been considered unacceptable? Most of Queen Victoria’s staff were slightly in awe of her, or at least feared her explosive temper if anybody tried to thwart her, although they generally managed to learn how to manage her with a suitable degree of tact. Brown was the exception, and could be very rude to her on occasion. If he disapproved of her clothing, he would ask coldly, "What’s this you've got on today?" He was once heard scolding her as he fastened the cloak under her bonnet, "Hoots then, woman, can you not hold your head up?" When she complained about a sketching table that she disliked, he told her to stop, "for I cannot make one for you". Victoria seems to have accepted Brown's brusque, plain-speaking manner as a refreshing change from the obsequiousness of others, perhaps amused that someone dared to speak to her so forcefully, while she apparently never attempted to answer him back. Flattery was not part of his nature, but he regularly assured her of his devotion, saying she would "never have an honester servant" than him. In 1872 he acquitted himself well when a man pointed an unloaded pistol at her while she was on a carriage drive and came within inches of her face. Brown swiftly grabbed the man and held him until the police could come and arrest him. How well did Brown get on with Queen Victoria’s family and others around her? Most of them hated him for his uncouth manner, and the fact that she granted him privileges denied to them. When she was unwell in the summer of 1871, he had unrestricted access to her bedroom as he lifted her from her bed to her couch (something her sons were forbidden to do), while delivering her orders to the household in his customary tactless manner. The Prince of Wales was furious that she always accepted Brown’s judgment, saying there was "no male head" in the family after her husband’s death. His sister Alice, later Grand Duchess of Hesse, complained that he alone could discuss anything he wanted with her, "while we, her children, are restricted to speak on only those matters which may not excite her or which she chooses to talk about". On one visit to Balmoral their brother Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, pointedly shook hands with everyone on arrival except Brown, as they had previously had their differences. The prime minister William Gladstone once tried at a dinner party to explain to her in detail why he believed she was mistaken about something. Seeing how annoyed she was becoming, Brown tapped him sharply on the shoulder, telling him "You’ve said enough". He always got on well with Victoria's private secretary, Sir Henry Ponsonby, who admired his honesty and fearlessness, and sometimes covered up for him when he was absent from duty after sleeping off one dram too many. Did John Brown ever retire, or did he die in service? In later years he suffered from erysipelas, perhaps caused partly by heavy drinking. In March 1883 Brown caught a severe chill which rapidly worsened, sank into a coma and died without regaining consciousness. Victoria told Ponsonby that she felt "utterly crushed" after Brown’s death. To the end of her life, she wore his mother’s wedding ring that he had given her. Before her death, she asked her physician Sir James Reid to ensure that he would secretly place her favourite photograph of Brown and a lock of his hair inside her coffin with her before it was sealed, wishes that he faithfully carried out. John Van der Kiste has written extensively on British and European royal biography from the later Stuarts to the early 20th century.
Is Oppenheimer a true story? Meet the real Robert Oppenheimer, ‘father of the atomic bomb’
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer tells the story of the creation of the atomic bomb, a weapon so powerful that it redefined the world order. And at the centre of its development was of the first nuclear weapon, and the paradoxes and moral questions that dogged him for the rest of his life
Few famous scientists have left quite as complex a legacy as J Robert Oppenheimer, the 'father of the atomic bomb' who reflected, in aftermath watching the raw power of the first ever nuclear test in 1945, "I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." Oppenheimer's moral quandaries and personal demons nestled alongside his scientific brilliance, and all are explored in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, which tells the story of the Manhattan Project during the Second World War. Starring Cillian Murphy ( perhaps known to history fans for his role in Peaky Blinders) in the title role, the film follows Oppenheimer’s journey from acclaimed theoretical physicist to director of the top-secret Los Alamos laboratory, where he led team of brilliant minds in a race to unlock the destructive power of the atom. The star cast also includes Emily Blunt as Kitty Oppenheimer, Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock, Robert Downey Jr as Lewis Strauss, and Matt Damon as General Leslie Groves. But is any of what we see in the film true? Read on for a full breakdown of the real history in Oppenheimer. Is Oppenheimer a true story? Yes, Oppenheimer is based on true events. The film tells the story of J Robert Oppenheimer, a real-life American physicist who played a central role in the Manhattan Project, the United States’ secret programme to develop the first atomic bomb, which began in 1942. Kitty Oppenheimer, Lewis Strauss, Jean Tatlock, General Leslie Groves – they were all real historical figures who shaped Oppenheimer's life and work. So too were the questions around his political leanings, and the intense scrutiny he endured during the post-war era. Briefed with weaponising atomic energy, the 38-year-old Oppenheimer was chosen by General Leslie Groves to head up the project’s secret research laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and oversaw the development of the world’s first atomic weapons between 1943-45. Prior to taking up the post, he had carried out research into the quantity of radioactive material that would be required to make an atomic weapon, and how destructive it might be. Such insight proved indispensable to the project’s ultimate success. “Everyone we interviewed about his years in Los Alamos always mentioned that the atomic bomb would never have been produced in two and a half years if they had chosen anyone other than Oppenheimer. It turned out that he was a brilliant administrator, and was very persuasive at getting all these large-ego minded scientists to work together.” That was Kai Bird, co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning 2005 biography American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, speaking to us on this episode of the HistoryExtra podcast about the physicist’s life and unique value to the project. Oppenheimer was anti-fascist in his political leanings, explains Bird, and this was his major motivation for building what he called “the gadget”. He knew from the physics that such a weapon was possible; it was simply a large engineering problem. He feared that the German physicists with whom he had studied in the 1920s were just as capable of building this weapon, and believed that they would gift it to Adolf Hitler and Germany would win the war. “He was very fearful that they were way too far behind,” says Bird. “And this gave him the motivation to work hard and to inspire other physicists and scientists at Los Alamos to build the gadget.” An important part of his brilliance, says Bird, is that he was a polymath. “He loved quantum physics, but he also loved the deserts of New Mexico. He first went to New Mexico when he was an 18-year-old, and he fell in love with horseback riding and the very spartan cowboy existence out there.” Oppenheimer also loved French poetry and the novels of Ernest Hemingway, and he also acquired an interest in Hindu mysticism and read the Hindu scriptures, the Bhagavad Gita. “He taught himself Sanskrit so he could read it in the original,” says Bird. It was this multifaceted brilliance that was part of his appeal, says Bird. He differed from other theoretical physicists as he was able to explain concepts in “plain English” and was also a charismatic speaker, though Bird notes that he could also be shy and reticent. He was “very complicated”, says Bird. “He could be sweet and patient with his students, and then in the presence of authority figures, he could suddenly become brusque and even rude. And, of course, this was part of his downfall later.” Watch now: Is Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer guilty of perpetuating a historical myth? View Green Video on the source website Kitty Oppenheimer: who was Robert Oppenheimer married to? J Robert Oppenheimer was married to Kitty Oppenheimer (formerly Kitty Puening). A German American biologist and botanist, Puening studied mathematics, biology, and chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh in the late 1920s, and in the early 1930s became a member of the Communist Party of the America (CPA). Prior to meeting Oppenheimer in 1939, Kitty had been married three times, and was married to her third husband, Richard Stewart Harrison, when her relationship with the physicist began. Kitty became pregnant with their first child in the autumn of 1940, and soon afterwards she obtained a divorce from Harrison, which left Robert and Kitty free to marry in November 1940. A keen horsewoman and lover of the outdoors, Kitty joined Oppenheimer to live in the desert town in Los Alamos, where she worked as a biologist on the health group of the Manhattan Project, conducting blood tests to assess the danger of radiation, before she became pregnant again. During this period, she also suffered with depression and alcohol issues, in part due to the isolation of the military facility. She survived Oppenheimer by four years, dying of an embolism in 1972. What was Oppenheimer’s relationship with Jean Tatlock? Oppenheimer also had an enduring relationship with Jean Tatlock, a woman whom he met in the early 1930s. She was a psychiatrist and also a member of the Communist Part of America, and is often credited with introducing Oppenheimer to radical politics. Some historians have suggested that Oppenheimer and Tatlock were romantically involved following Oppenheimer’s marriage to Kitty in 1940; though their relationship had broken off in 1939, Oppenheimer continued to visit Tatlock in San Francisco until 1943. Tatlock suffered from clinical depression and died by suicide in 1944. Was Oppenheimer a communist? There is no direct evidence that Robert Oppenheimer was a communist, but many people close to the physicist were either members of the party – including Kitty, Jean, and his brother Frank Oppenheimer – or had links to its activity. “Any attempt to label Robert Oppenheimer a party member is a futile exercise,” wrote Kai Bird and the late Martin Sherwin in their 2005 biography, “as the FBI learned to its frustration over many years.” Though Sherwin and Bird concluded that Oppenheimer didn’t join the party himself, he did contribute to Communist Party activities, including an effort to desegregate a public swimming pool in California, and a fund to buy an ambulance to ship it to the Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War. These associations would “haunt him with the American political authorities and the FBI”, explains Bird. “He fell under FBI surveillance as early as 1940. And by 1954, his FBI file had grown to be about 8,000 pages.” Did Oppenheimer really say, “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”? The line is often associated with Oppenheimer, who quoted “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds” from the Hindu Bhagavad Gita, after the successful detonation of the Trinity nuclear weapon in July 1945. He did say it, but not right away. Immediately afterwards, explains Bird, the physicist turned to his brother Frank and simply said: “It worked.” It wasn’t until a few days later, when he was interviewed by the New York Times, that Oppenheimer quoted the Hindu scripture. “He had a very theatrical sense to him,” says Bird. “He knew how to get up on the stage and perform.” Oppenheimer himself later spoke of the moment in a 1965 NBC documentary: “We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture.” The Trinity bomb was successfully tested on 16 July, producing the estimated equivalent of 20,000 tonnes of TNT. German-born Rudolf Peierls recalled that the brilliant blinding flash “told us… we had done our job”. Yet by that time, the war with Nazi Germany was over and so Japan instead became the target. Some Los Alamos staff expressed concern that, as Japan had no bomb project, why should the operation go ahead? Though Oppenheimer grappled with the huge moral weight of deploying such a weapon, he was influenced by Danish physicist Niels Bohr who, upon a visit to the project in 1943 had asked Oppenheimer: “Robert, can you tell me, is it big enough?” – meaning, will it be significant enough to change the nature of warfare? Did Oppenheimer regret the atomic bomb? Though conflicted, Oppenheimer’s position in August 1945 was that the bomb would ignite with such explosive power that it could persuade all of humanity that the world should never again fight total warfare like the Second World War. There is evidence that the decision undoubtedly weighed heavy on Oppenheimer. Bird interviewed Anne Wilson Marks, Oppenheimer’s secretary. She recalled that one day, in the intervening three weeks between the Trinity test and the use of the bomb on Japan, Oppenheimer was muttering under his breath as they walked to work: “Those poor little people, those poor little people.” “Anne stopped him and said, ‘Robert, what are you talking about?’ And he said, ‘Well, the Trinity test shows that the gadget has worked, and now it's going to be used on a large target in Japan, meaning a city. And there are going to be innocents, thousands of innocents killed. Those poor little people.’” This shows, explains Bird, that he was painfully aware of the tragic implications of the gadget. And yet, as Bird and Martin Sherwin considered Anne Wilson Marks’s testimony when writing American Prometheus, “Marty pointed out that, chronologically, that [conversation with Anne Wilson Marks] is the same week that [Oppenheimer] was briefing some of the bombardiers who were going to be on the aeroplane that was going to drop the bomb. And he instructed them exactly at what altitude they should detonate the weapon to have the maximum destructive power, and [said] that it should be dropped on the centre of the city for to have the most destructive implications.” At 2.45am on 6 August 1945, the crew of the Enola Gay aircraft dropped a bomb named Little Boy on Hiroshima, a 4.8-tonne device that detonated with the power of 15,000 tonnes of TNT. Authorities estimated the number of deaths by December 1945 to be around 140,000 (since then, deaths from radiation-related diseases have added to the toll). Japan surrendered on 14 August 1945, five days after a second bomb devastated Nagasaki. Read more | Was the US justified in dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War? What happened to Oppenheimer after the atomic bomb? After the detonation of the two atomic bombs in August 1945, Oppenheimer never worked on weapons again. Kitty Oppenheimer’s letters to friends tell of how in the days following the bombs, he plunged into a deep depression, and she feared for his life. As journalist Lincoln Barnett wrote in Life magazine in 1949: “Oppenheimer knew that he and his coworkers had acquired a promethian [sic] burden they could never shed.” Once somewhat recovered, Oppenheimer headed to Washington, DC for briefings on the end of the war, and in October 1945 he met with US President Harry Truman. “By this time, Oppenheimer was determined to try to persuade the president and the policy makers that they needed to understand that this is a weapon that cannot be used defensively, and that we shouldn't rely on it,” says Bird. He believed “that we should try to find some way to impose international regulations, and maybe ban it and control the technology”. President Truman didn’t respond favourably to Oppenheimer’s pro-regulation position or the suggestion that the US had blood on its hands. In response to Truman’s belief that the Russians would never be able to match the technology, Oppenheimer strongly felt that “there were no secrets to this weapon,” says Bird. “The physics was known.” Just a few weeks later in November 1945, Oppenheimer delivered a speech in Philadelphia to the American Philosophical Society, in which he said: “We have made a thing, a most terrible weapon, that has altered abruptly and profoundly the nature of the world. We have made a thing that, by all standards of the world we grew up in, is an evil thing. By so doing, by our participation in making it possible to make these things, we have raised again the question of whether science is good for man, of whether it is good to learn about the world, to try to understand it, to try to control it, to help gift to the world of men increased insight, increased power.” Read more | How have nuclear weapons shaped global politics? 10 key moments in the post-war atomic world Why is Oppenheimer known as the father of the atomic bomb? By the autumn of 1945, the Manhattan Project was public knowledge, and Oppenheimer’s position on the development of the world-changing weapons had caused him to become a household name. He was described by Life magazine as “one of the most famous men in the world, one of the most admired, quoted, photographed, consulted, glorified, well-nigh deified as the fabulous and fascinating archetype of a brand new kind of hero, the hero of science and intellect, originator and living symbol of the new atomic age." What was Oppenheimer’s relationship with Albert Einstein? In 1947, Oppenheimer took up a position as Director at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey, where faculty members included one Albert Einstein. The pair later became close colleagues, and were united in their desire to highlight the dangers posed by nuclear weapons. Both were against the development of more destructive weapons such as the hydrogen bomb (H-Bomb). Such a weapon “will be 2,500 times as powerful as that which destroyed Hiroshima”, warned a 1955 manifesto by Einstein and philosopher Bertrand Russell, adding that “the best authorities are unanimous in saying that a war with H-bombs might possibly put an end to the human race.” While Oppenheimer didn’t sign the Einstein-Russell manifesto, as part of the Atomic Energy Commission (an agency founded to foster and control the peacetime development of atomic science and technology) he frequently worked with Einstein and other eminent scientists to advocate for peaceful use of nuclear fission for energy production. Who was Lewis Strauss – and how did he cause Oppenheimer’s downfall? Lewis Strauss was appointed to the position of chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1953 and quickly formed a rivalry with Oppenheimer so antagonistic that it would lead Strauss to publicly challenge his character, ultimately ending in Oppenheimer's security clearance being revoked. Strauss and Oppenheimer were “like oil and water”, says Bird. “They had bad chemistry. Strauss, although he only had a high school education, prided himself on his knowledge of science and things atomic. Oppenheimer was rather dismissive of these pretensions, and he made it clear what he thought of Strauss. “Famously, he testified at the Senate in the presence of Lewis Strauss and made fun of something that Strauss had just testified to, disparaging his scientific knowledge. So Strauss acquired a deep sort of animosity for Oppenheimer.” In Strauss’s capacity as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, he had access to Oppenheimer’s FBI file – which had been open since March 1941. “Strauss got it into his head, looking at these files, that perhaps Oppenheimer was a security risk. He orchestrated a complicated series of charges against Oppenheimer, and announced that Oppenheimer either had to go through a security hearing and defend himself, or give up his security clearance altogether.” As it happened, Oppenheimer’s security clearance was set to expire in June 1954. Oppenheimer sought the opinion of his friend Einstein, who advised Oppenheimer to walk away, explains Bird, telling him that he shouldn’t have anything to do with the “witch hunt”. So why did Oppenheimer choose to fight the hearing rather than walk away? Oppenheimer felt that he needed to use his celebrity status as a scientist to inform the public and the politicians in Washington about the dangers of nuclear weapons, explains Bird. “He wanted to use his expertise for the public good and participate in the policy debates. And to do so, he needed a security clearance and otherwise he wouldn't be able to brief the president. “And, truth be known, Oppenheimer by this time had fallen in love with the status that he had, his access to the establishment and to power, to be able to walk the halls of Congress and talk to congressmen and senators and the president. There was something attractive about all this that he didn't want to give up. And in this, he was certainly politically naïve.” In the spring of 1954, Strauss orchestrated a hearing that went on for weeks, exposing many private details about Oppenheimer, his political associations and intimate life – details which were later leaked to the New York Times and other newspapers. When was Oppenheimer’s security clearance revoked? On 12 June 1954, it was recommended that Oppenheimer's security clearance not be reinstated, bringing to an end any influence he could have in government or policy. “The result was a public humiliation of America's greatest working scientist, and Oppenheimer never really recovered from it,” says Bird. “He became a public nonentity for the rest of his life.” “It was a terrible black mark on American history,” says Bird. “And Oppenheimer became essentially the sort of chief celebrity victim of the entire McCarthy era.” Oppenheimer held the position of director at the Institute for Advanced Study until 1966, a year before his death from advanced throat cancer in 1967, at the age of 62. Kai Bird is the co-author, with the late Martin Sherwin, of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2005, Alfred A. Knopf). This article includes quotes from Bird, who was speaking with Elinor Evans on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full episode now.
The Bayeux Tapestry is finally coming home to Britain – and you can see it next year
With the loan of the Bayeux Tapestry to the UK confirmed, David Musgrove explains the historical significance of the embroidery’s potential arrival on British soil…
The Bayeux Tapestry – the near 70-metre long, 11th-century embroidery that tells the story of the Norman Conquest – looks set to be finally coming to Britain, loaned from France in exchange for a loan of the Lewis Chessmen and the treasures of Sutton Hoo. The embroidery is expected to be displayed in the British Museum between September 2026 and July 2027, and holds the promise of being one of the biggest historical exhibitions ever staged on these shores, rivalling the blockbuster Tutankhamun show at the British Museum in 1972. Many scholars are in agreement that the Tapestry was originally made in the 11th century, not too long after the Norman Conquest in 1066, in England, and likely by English seamstresses in Canterbury. It has, however, been in Bayeux since at least the 15th century. Today, the artefact is the property of the French state. The news that British and French authorities had agreed that the Tapestry would come to the UK was initially made public in January 2018, and, speaking on 5 May 2025, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer told HistoryExtra and BBC History Magazine that civil servants were still working on the loan. "The Bayeux Tapestry is a unique treasure,” said the Prime Minister, “and a symbol of the deep ties between Britain and France." "The conservation and protection of it is obviously crucial, and I know that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport continues to work closely with their counterparts in France on the planned loan." The loan coincides with the temporary closure of the Bayeux Tapestry's permanent home in Normandy, the Bayeux Tapestry Museum, while it undergoes refurbishment. That work includes an exciting plan to add an extension to the current 17th-century seminary building in which the Tapestry has been housed since 1983, and is scheduled to be completed by autumn 2027 – in time for the millennial commemorations of the birth of William the Conqueror. Following the announcement of the loan, the director of the British Museum, Nicholas Cullinan, added: “The Bayeux Tapestry is one of the most important and unique cultural artefacts in the world, which illustrates the deep ties between Britain and France and has fascinated people across geographies and generations. It is hard to overstate the significance of this extraordinary opportunity of displaying it at the British Museum." Three requests were made for the Bayeux Tapestry to be loaned to Britain in the 20th century: first in 1931, for an exhibition on French art at Burlington House in London, then in 1953 for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation and finally in 1966 on the 900th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings, when both the Victoria and Albert Museum and Westminster Abbey hoped to display the Tapestry. None of the requests were granted. 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
Were ancient Ireland’s ‘incestuous elites’ just a myth? A tomb older than Stonehenge has new answers
In 2020, analysis of a skull fragment discovered at Newgrange, County Meath, led to sensational claims of royal incest within the region’s prehistoric ruling dynasties. But new research suggests that Neolithic Ireland may have been far more socially equal – and more complex – than originally assumed
In the Boyne Valley of eastern Ireland stands one of the world’s most fascinating prehistoric monuments: Newgrange. Centuries older than the Pyramids of Giza or Stonehenge, Newgrange is a large passage tomb, and a 5,000-year-old marvel of ancient engineering. It’s also one of the best windows that researchers have into the ancient society that constructed it: how it functioned, what it valued, and who held power. That final question has been the source of stunning theories with incredible implications. For years, many archaeologists and geneticists believed that a small, powerful elite ruled over Neolithic Ireland and commissioned monuments like Newgrange as a reflection of their social dominance. That theory gained momentum in 2020, when DNA analysis of a skull fragment discovered in the tomb revealed that the buried individual – referred to by researchers as NG10 – was the product of an incestuous union between two siblings, or a parent and child. Some experts interpreted this as compelling evidence of a dynastic elite that practised incest to preserve a sacred bloodline – not unlike royal traditions in ancient Egypt. This, in turn, painted a picture of Neolithic Ireland as a deeply hierarchical society ruled by a tightly knit, closely related few. So, did a sacred royal family, buried at Newgrange, really rule over Neolithic Ireland? Or might the evidence have been misinterpreted? That is the conclusion of new research led by scholars from the University of York and University College Dublin – ‘The ‘king’ of Newgrange? A critical analysis of a Neolithic petrous fragment from the passage tomb chamber’ – published in the journal Antiquity. Their findings cast serious doubt on these earlier assumptions and instead paint a very different picture of the society that built this monument. The cosmic history of Newgrange Newgrange is one of several monumental passage tombs built during the Neolithic period (c4000–2500 BC) across Ireland and western Britain. Located in County Meath, the monument consists of a circular mound around 85 metres in diameter, ringed with standing stones and containing a narrow interior passage that aligns precisely with the rising sun on the winter solstice. Each year, on or around the winter solstice, the rising sun illuminates the chamber at the heart of the tomb for a few minutes via a precision-engineered ‘roof-box’ above the entrance. It’s an astonishing feat of prehistoric engineering that reflects both a deep understanding of astronomy, and a symbolic reverence for cosmic cycles of light and dark. Read more | “Graves are like time capsules – little microcosms of prehistoric culture”: Alice Roberts on what bones and burials can tell us about early Britain And Newgrange isn’t alone. Across Neolithic Europe, other monuments reveal similar concerns: Bryn Celli Ddu in Wales aligns with the summer solstice sunrise; Maeshowe in Orkney aligns with the winter solstice sunset; and Stonehenge captures both summer and winter solstice points. For much of the 20th century, these Neolithic feats were seen as evidence of powerful and centralised leadership: they were thought to point to a social elite that wielded enough power to be capable of coordinating complex constructions and mustering vast amounts of labour. The theory of Newgrange’s incestuous elites In 2020, the NG10 DNA discovery appeared to add even more credence to that view. The rarity of such incestuous unions in ancient and modern populations led to comparisons with the Egyptian pharaohs and Inca royalty, both of whom famously practised incest as a tool to preserve divine bloodlines. NG10’s relationship to the other occupants of the tomb seemed to support the idea of a ruling family, possibly dynastic in nature, whose status was maintained through carefully guarded lineage. It was a powerful theory, selling Newgrange as a royal tomb that served as the resting place of Ireland’s earliest sacred elites. New research at Newgrange reaches different conclusions However, the new study challenges that interpretation, arguing that it dramatically stretches what the evidence can tell us. Can we really know that a powerful, incestuous elite ruled Ireland with an iron fist? “The evidence all points to a much more collective ethos,” says Professor Penny Bickle, from the University of York’s Department of Archaeology. “There are not wide disparities in diet, houses are relatively flimsy, and they are all similar to each other. There are no large settlement systems or trade mechanisms, and we also don’t see production of craft on the scale that we see in other ancient societies such as in ancient Egypt, where incest was thought to be practised by the ruling elite.” So, according to Bickle and her colleagues, the archaeological evidence around Newgrange tells a different story. Nearby homes were modest and uniform. There is no evidence of grand residences, no wealth concentration and no consistent pattern of close-relative burials across Neolithic Ireland. This all points to a much more equal social structure than previously assumed. And, Bickle adds, it’s not necessarily certain that NG10 had specific links to Newgrange. “It is by no means clear that the monument was the first burial site of NG10 and the tomb grew in stages, so tracing who this individual was is a very difficult task indeed,” Bickle explains. “As it stands, the incestuous origins of NG10 are a one-off compared to all of the DNA data we have for Neolithic Ireland.” In other words, NG10 could be a genetic anomaly, rather than evidence of an all-powerful ruling dynasty. Prehistoric Irish burial practices If NG10 wasn’t a king, then who did get buried in monuments like Newgrange? “People were definitely being selected for burial in passage tombs – the whole community does not end up in these monuments,” says Associate Professor Jessica Smyth, of University College Dublin. “However, we don’t know the reasons behind this selection, and why they were thought to be special.” What’s also clear is that burial practices in Neolithic Ireland differed sharply from those in modern times, so applying 21st-century expectations to the past can be misleading. “Unlike today, bodies don’t tend to be buried ‘whole’ or ‘intact’ in this time period,” Smyth adds. “Before they end up in megalithic monuments, bodies are broken down, sometimes cremated and even circulated around their communities.” WATCH | Prehistoric stone circles: Everything you wanted to know View Green Video on the source website This process of disarticulation and redistribution means that the people who placed the bones into tombs like Newgrange may not have known – or even cared – about the biological identity of the individuals involved. In NG10’s case, the community may have had no knowledge of their parentage at all. A new interpretation of Newgrange and Neolithic Ireland Rather than a symbol of elite power and dynastic control, Newgrange might instead reflect the ritual and cooperative culture of a Neolithic society bound by shared beliefs, agricultural rhythms and ancestral commemoration. Its solstice alignment still speaks to an extraordinary grasp of time and the cosmos, and its scale still demands coordination. But the latest research suggests these achievements were communal, rather than commanded. “There are still many questions to solve here,” says Bickle. “But building this picture means looking at the monument together with the society that was built up around it.”
Master the art of procrastination, with the help of the Virgin Queen
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
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,” explains Borman. “But she famously declares to her first parliament that she will live and die a virgin and that she wasn’t going to marry. So you might say she didn’t procrastinate: she made a decision.” That’s true, but it was the delivery of that decision over several decades that required a long-running masterclass in misdirection, time-wasting and delay. “She showed herself willing to entertain foreign suitors and indeed homegrown ones as well. She lent them a willing ear. She entered into negotiations. She delayed, she put off. There was this wonderful phrase that her counsellors used about Elizabeth that she ‘gave answers answerless’,” says Borman. “She plays this game for a good 20 or 30 years. Her last serious suitor is the Duke of Anjou in the early 1580s, by which time Elizabeth can no longer have children. Nobody really believes she’s ever going to marry, but she still makes a good go at it and strings it out a bit and flirts with him and calls him her little frog. And then eventually he goes back to France and the whole thing is forgotten. But she’s brilliant at just playing for time.” Smallpox, strategy and succession The fact that Elizabeth didn’t marry meant that she didn’t have an obvious heir, so the next matter on which she procrastinated at length was the vexed question of who would succeed her. Everybody in her court and realm wanted to know who was next in line to the throne, particularly when it looked like she was going to die. “In 1562 she’s staying at Hampton Court and she falls ill with smallpox. This is one of the most deadly diseases of the age. Everybody thinks she’s about to die. Indeed Elizabeth herself thinks she’s about to die, and it brings this question of the succession right to the fore. From that moment on, even though Elizabeth survives, it never goes away.” As Borman explains, after the smallpox incident, she is under constant pressure to name her heir – to make a choice from Mary, Queen of Scots, or Lady Katherine Grey, or even Philip II of Spain. “This really is Elizabeth procrastinating par excellence because she manages it for 40 years,” says Borman. “She just keeps putting them off”. The queen either just doesn’t answer or offers gnomic utterances like “when I am dead, he shall succeed that has the most right”. That sort of response left a wide open goal for interpretation, but importantly made sure that Elizabeth did not have to stay on the defensive throughout her reign. Watch now View Green Video on the source website “ It was a master stroke because she knew from direct experience that the minute she named her heir, she was in trouble. The same had happened during her sister Mary’s reign, where it was very obvious that Elizabeth was the only viable successor and everybody started to gather around her and turn against Mary, and Elizabeth became the focus of rebellions against her sister,” notes Borman. “Elizabeth was absolutely determined that wasn’t going to happen to her. The only way of holding onto her power was not to give somebody else the power of knowing they were going to succeed her and certainly not the likes of Mary, Queen of Scots – her deadliest rival. “So it was politically expedient not to name an heir, although admittedly you’ve got to take your hat off to her for still refusing to do so on her deathbed when you kind of think she’s got nothing to lose. She just continues to her last breath to keep the focus entirely on herself.” You’ll want to have a read of Borman’s new book The Stolen Crown (Hodder & Stoughton, out September 2025) to find out the latest thinking on how James VI and I did eventually succeed, and why Elizabeth never did actually name him as her heir. A war of wits Elizabeth had really good reasons to prevaricate on these decisions then, and a lot of her problems boiled down to the fact that she was a woman. “She played her quite chauvinistic male courtiers at their own game because of course she was a weak and feeble woman. ‘What am I going do? I can’t make decisions. I don’t understand weighty matters. I need time to think about it’. “She does this again and again, and she employs that language to make sure that people are aware that it is just her womanly weakness. All the time it’s a very clever ploy of buying herself that precious time, particularly when it came to war. “This was one realm that was very male-dominated, and Elizabeth made no secret of the fact she hated wars. They had uncertain outcomes. They were expensive. She was much more like her grandfather, Henry VII, than her warmongering father Henry VIII. She tried to buy time with diplomacy by using her hand in marriage as a bait to keep the great superpowers of Europe on side. It was only when forced that she really had to rally and take action, notably in 1588 when Philip II launched his Armada against England, and then she did finally agree to go to war.” Even though her procrastination was probably intensely annoying for those around her, it did provide a certain predictability. Her courtiers probably knew that they didn’t need to worry about snap decisions or being caught off guard by sudden changes of plan (though she could be very mercurial about her favourites). Should any of our modern global leaders take heed of this? I wouldn’t like to say, but it’s food for thought, certainly when you consider that Elizabeth did navigate a huge international crisis in the form of the religious settlement over the bloody rift between Catholicism and Protestantism. Some would argue that her religious compromise simply laid the foundations for future strife, but as Borman notes, “ It did at least bring much needed security and peace after 30 years of religious turmoil”. You shouldn’t take from this that Elizabeth didn’t make decisions or get stuff done – quite the opposite. According to Borman, she was one of the hardest-working monarchs ever to sit on the throne of England. She procrastinated because that was the best tool in her armoury to stay in power. The power of procrastination If you’re interested in becoming a productive procrastinator like Elizabeth, might I suggest an amusing and informative little book by the philosopher Professor John Perry. It’s called The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing (Workman Publishing, 2012). Perry argues for a policy of structured procrastination, whereby you get lots of things done by not doing other things. You accomplish stuff and deliver projects by actively avoiding other things that you think you should be working on. It’s a mind-trick of self-deception, via clever manipulation of your internal to-do list, according to Perry. Queen Elizabeth was actively not doing things too, but perhaps without that slice of self-deception. If I’m hearing Borman correctly, the Tudor queen knew exactly what she was doing with her delaying techniques, because she was operating in a very fraught power-play at home and abroad. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/06/GettyImages-601100326-85a48a1.jpg" width="5109" height="4105" alt="Queen Elizabeth I in the Armada Portrait, painted by George Gower, which marked the failed Spanish invasion of England. (Photo by Getty Images)" title="Queen Elizabeth I in the Armada Portrait, painted by George Gower, which marked the failed Spanish invasion of England. (Photo by Getty Images)" /> Given that you’re probably not a global leader struggling with geo-political challenges, what’s the lesson that we can take from Elizabeth’s reign? I guess it’s that procrastination has its place in life, if you’re using it strategically rather than as an excuse. Personally, I have found once or twice that problems that seemed somewhat insurmountable one day just resolved themselves quite nicely the next, because some external circumstance had shifted. Sometimes, it’s best to just do nothing, deliberately, to see where the pieces land. As Borman says, “ I often channel my inner Elizabeth when faced with a dilemma and I think, you know what? I'm going to do absolutely nothing and just see what happens”. Procrastination doesn’t necessarily mean an absence of decision either – it could be that you just need a bit of thinking time. Elizabeth I was a great one for going for walks in her palaces and gardens early in the morning, presumably to free up her mind for whatever the day held. So again, we can take a prompt from her that you don’t have to rush into decisions. Take your time, go for a walk, think before you leap in. That’s what Good Queen Bess would have done, and, as Borman concludes, “if it was good enough for Queen Bess, I think it’s good enough for us”.
Are Bertha and George Russell real? Inside the real Vanderbilt divorces that rocked the Gilded Age
Julian Fellowes, the creator behind HBO’s The Gilded Age, has taken plenty of cues from real history for the characters of Bertha and George Russell, seemingly turning to the lives of Alva and William K Vanderbilt in plotting much of their story. Discover the real history, and what this could mean for everyone’s favourite power couple in series three
Bertha Russell is the undisputed queen of Julian Fellowes’s drama The Gilded Age. In the story so far, glamorous ‘new money’ socialite Bertha (played by Carrie Coon) has conquered New York society through means both fair and foul, and risen to the top of the so-called ‘Four Hundred’. And she’s done it all while holding the steady hand of her husband, ruthless ‘robber-baron-with-a-conscience’ George (played by Morgan Spector). To date, her plot has mirrored many key moments in the life of a real historical figure in New York’s Gilded Age history: Alva Vanderbilt. In the show, Bertha has befriended Ward McAllister (who was a real contemporary of Alva); thrown a grand ball in her Fifth Avenue mansion to signal to Mrs Caroline Astor and the Four Hundred that she means business (as Alva did in 1883); and she has triumphed in the War of the Operas (as Alva claimed victory too). For Bertha, life is perfect, right? <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2023/12/0750TheGildedAgeS02-1-3c0deb0-e1702915513531.jpg" width="620" height="412" alt="Taissa Farmiga as Gladys Russell & Carrie Coon as Bertha Russell. Bertha is thought to be based on Alva Vanderbilt, who secured the marriage of her daughter, Consuelo, to the 9th Duke of Marlborough." title="Taissa Farmiga as Gladys Russell & Carrie Coon as Bertha Russell. Bertha is thought to be based on Alva Vanderbilt, who secured the marriage of her daughter, Consuelo, to the 9th Duke of Marlborough." /> Far from it. When we left the Russells in season two, Bertha had successfully courted the Duke of Buckingham, a British aristocrat visiting New York, and welcomed him publicly as her guest to the opera, evidence that she had finally been accepted by the highest echelons of society. But beneath the surface, all is not well, with others speculating over the lengths to which she had gone in securing the Duke’s alliance. Meanwhile, she and George were at loggerheads over the marital prospects of their daughter Gladys. If show creator Julian Fellowes means to trace real history further in The Gilded Age drama, here’s what that means for Bertha, George, and the rest of the Russell family… Who was Alva Vanderbilt, the inspiration for Bertha Russell? Alva Vanderbilt (née Alva Erskine Smith) was born in January 1853, in Mobile, Alabama, into a wealthy Southern family. Their fortune came from cotton – and as such, their riches were inextricably tied to the trade of enslaved people. When victory for the Union in the American Civil War in 1865 brought about the end of slavery as an economic institution, the Smith family relocated permanently to New York City. Here, Alva soon realised that admittance into the entrenched social circles of Manhattan’s elite would be more difficult than anticipated. She had spent much of her early life in Paris and New York, receiving an education that emphasised language, arts and European manners, but even such a prestigious background would not be enough. Ambitious and socially strategic, Alva sought to change that. In 1875, at 22 years old, she married William Kissam Vanderbilt, grandson of railroad magnate Cornelius ‘Commodore’ Vanderbilt. As evidence of the family’s vast wealth, when Cornelius died in 1877, William Henry – William K’s father – became the richest American. Though William K (or ‘Willie’ as he was known) is described in many sources as personally shy and somewhat passive, particularly in contrast to the manoeuvrings of Alva, he was immensely wealthy – in 1885, he in turn inherited $55m from his father. Read more | Who were the tycoons of the Gilded Age? Meet the ruthless 'robber barons' who made millions Willie and Alva’s union was seen as mutually advantageous: Alva brought charm, social intelligence, and aspirations to elevate the Vanderbilt name into the old-money elite, while William offered vast fortune and access to society’s upper echelons. Amid Alva’s ruthless mission to engineer the Vanderbilts’ social ascent, the legendary 1883 costume ball at the newly completed Vanderbilt mansion on Fifth Avenue is regarded by many as her crowning achievement. The ball, attended by over 1,000 guests, effectively forced Mrs Caroline Astor, gatekeeper of New York’s elite, to formally acknowledge the Vanderbilts as ‘society’. By the 1880s, despite her Southern roots, Alva had positioned herself as a major figure in the social scene of the Gilded Age. Today, physical evidence of her social triumph survives in the form of the Marble House, an opulent mansion in Newport, Rhode Island, gifted by Willie to his wife on her 39th birthday. The Vanderbilt couple commissioned society architect Richard Morris Hunt (who had also designed their Fifth Avenue mansion) to create a ‘summer cottage’ on the coast. Though the name evoked the modest wooden houses that had edged the Rhode Island clifftops years before, the new stretch of mansions on Bellevue Avenue that included the Marble House were modelled more closely on the Palace of Versailles. The Vanderbilts’ summer retreat featured rooms gilded with 22 carat gold, with marble balconies, electric interior lights and hand-carved detail throughout. It survives amid other palaces on the coast, including The Breakers (owned by William K’s brother Cornelius Vanderbilt II) and Beechwood (which belonged to the Astors). When and why did the Vanderbilts divorce? “I always do everything first,” Alva reportedly once boasted. “I blaze the trail for the rest to walk in.” Blaze a new trail Alva did. At a time when divorce among the American elite was still rare and highly stigmatised, Alva, increasingly frustrated with Willie’s infidelity and detachment, sought a legal separation from her husband in 1895. “I was the first girl of my ‘set’ to marry a Vanderbilt,” Alva proclaimed. “Then I was the first society woman to ask for a divorce, and within a year ever so many others had followed my example. They had been wanting divorce all the time, but they had not dared to do it until I showed them the way.” Alva’s case was that Willie had reportedly spent increasing amounts of time away from her, often travelling in Europe and maintaining romantic liaisons with other women. Alva tolerated his behaviour for years, in part because divorce was considered socially damaging, particularly for women. However, by the early 1890s, their marriage had grown cold and emotionally estranged. Alva is reported to have said that she was unwilling to continue living with a man who flaunted his disinterest and infidelity so openly. The couple formally divorced in March 1895, with Alva citing adultery, which was at the time one of the few legally permissible grounds for divorce in New York. Watch | The Gilded Age: Everything you wanted to know View Green Video on the source website The proceedings were handled discreetly, but the implications were significant. Alva retained custody of their three children, including their daughter, Consuelo, and received a settlement reportedly worth $10m (equivalent to around $380m, today). Concerning such high-profile individuals, their divorce was a prominent example of the shifting norms of the Gilded Age, especially regarding women’s agency within marriage. Alva’s radical decision to pursue divorce, despite the potential social backlash, is evidence of both the changing social mores of the time, and Alva’s own indomitable pride and ambition. Consuelo Vanderbilt: the real Gladys Russell? If The Gilded Age's Bertha and George are inspired by Alva and Willie, the latter couple’s daughter Consuelo Vanderbilt is surely the real historical parallel for the character Gladys Russell (played by Taissa Farmiga). Throughout The Gilded Age so far, Gladys has suffered the strict attentions of her mother, in turn restrained or deployed as society currency to assist Bertha’s ambitions. But while Bertha is portrayed as domineering though ultimately acting out of love in the series, the real treatment of Alva’s own daughter is much more severe, to say the least. Born to Alva and Willie in 1877, Consuelo was named after Alva’s close friend, Consuelo Yznaga (a Cuban-American heiress who later became the Duchess of Manchester), which many have interpreted as a signal of Alva’s aim from the beginning: that nothing but the highest status, security and power would do for the Vanderbilt daughter. Consuelo Vanderbilt’s early life was ruled by her mother’s aspirations. There are reports of Alva forcing her young daughter to sit with iron rods inside her corset while she was studying, to encourage good posture, and she was drilled by multiple governesses in etiquette lessons, French and German from an early age. Some sources even have Alva whipping Consuelo with a riding crop when she was disobedient. As Consuelo grew up, she was forced to abide by Alva’s every rule. She was reportedly once told by her mother: “I don’t ask you to think, I do the thinking, you do as you are told.” To Consuelo, summers in Alva’s opulent Marble House felt like a prison. Read more | The Gilded Age: “Entry into a world that really hasn't been covered on television before” Meanwhile, in Gilded Age society a curious pattern was emerging: that of the ‘Dollar Princess’. The somewhat cruel nickname was given to daughters of nouveau riche American families who had wealth and were schooled in social graces – but crucially, had no titles. Many such women were targeted and courted by British aristocrats who needed money to shore up their vast but crumbling estates. Amid this phenomenon, Consuelo was the ultimate prize. By the time she was of an age to marry, the Vanderbilt daughter was one of the most sought-after heiresses of the time. Regarded as delicately pretty and famed for her long, swan-like neck, she also promised access to a vast Vanderbilt fortune (and was worth an estimated $4bn in today’s currency). Alva matched her daughter to Charles Richard John Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough (cousin of Winston Churchill) – but Consuleo’s affections were already engaged elsewhere. She was in love with an American called Winthrop Rutherfurd. Alva shut down the relationship, resorting to emotional blackmail of her daughter – she claimed Consuelo’s defiance had caused her to suffer a near-fatal heart attack – and she even reportedly threatened to shoot Rutherfurd if Consuelo married him. Consuelo later recorded one of her mother’s attempts at diplomacy: “Of course, I’m not forcing you to marry the Duke of Marlborough. You have alternatives, you can marry his cousin, the Duke of Roxburghe instead.” Consuelo Vanderbilt’s wedding: an unhappy match The 18-year-old Consuelo was married to the 9th Duke of Marlborough on 6 November 1895, in St Thomas's Episcopal Church on Fifth Avenue, Manhattan. The wedding was a spectacle that attracted thousands who gathered to witness the prestigious match. But contemporary accounts of the wedding commented not on what the bride was wearing – a cream satin gown with a five-foot long train trimmed with lace, and a wreath of orange blossoms – but her red-rimmed eyes beneath her veil. By some accounts, the duke told Consuelo shortly after the ceremony that he was in love with another woman, and that he “despised anything that was not British”. He had also negotiated $2.5m in railroad stock from the Vanderbilts, plus an annual allowance of $100,000. Alva had secured a socially successful match for her daughter – at a price. Despite the poor match, Consuelo went on to have great success in her British life, acquitting herself well enough in social circles across the Atlantic that she was chosen in 1902 as one of four duchesses to bear the canopy of Queen Alexandra at the coronation of Edward VII. Blenheim Palace, the duke’s country estate in Oxfordshire, was also transformed by both Consuelo’s dowry and sense of style, undergoing a combination of modernisation and renovation at the turn of the 20th century that is often credited with securing its survival into the present day. Consuelo and her family – she and the duke had two sons – were also painted by famed artist John Singer Sargent in 1905, further enshrining their status among the pantheon of 1900s fashionable society. But the couple continued to live largely separate lives, with extramarital affairs on both sides, and by 1906, when Consuelo was 29 years old, the Marlboroughs had separated. They formally divorced in 1921, and later the same year Consuelo married French aviator Jacques Balsan (whom she had first met more than 25 years earlier at her debutante ball). Though she found happiness in her later years, Consuelo wrote poignantly in her 1952 memoir The Glitter and the Gold of the long shadows cast by her earliest years. “It is a melancholy fact that childhood, so short when compared with the average span of life, should exert such a strong and permanent influence on character that no amount of self-training afterwards can ever completely counter it.” What will happen in The Gilded Age season three? While the real Alva and Willie K were separated by March 1895, half a year before their daughter Consuelo’s marriage to the Duke of Marlborough, in The Gilded Age on screen, George and Bertha have yet to mirror their historical counterparts in ending their marriage. Meanwhile, as per the cliffhanger of season two, it seems that Gladys has been unknowingly promised by her mother to the Duke of Buckingham – and viewers will find out in season 3 if she is forced to go through with the union. In real history, Willie remarried in 1903 to heiress Anne Harriman, and established a base in France from where he bred racehorses. He was frequently seen at French race days accompanied by his daughter Consuelo. He died in Paris in 1920. Alva too married quickly after her divorce, to family friend Oliver Belmont in 1896. Belmont died in 1908, and it was around that time that Alva forged a more political path. She became a prominent figure in the fight for women’s suffrage in the USA, gifting both money and prestige to the movement. Turning her indomitable nature towards the political fight, she opened the Marble House for symposiums and charitable events, and in 1912, she led the Political Equality division of the Women’s Vote Parade in New York City. Alva relocated to France from the early 1920s onwards to be closer to Consuelo, and offered some small recompense when the Duke of Marlborough later sought a Catholic annulment from Consuelo, in order to convert to Catholicism. Alva gave testimony in 1926 accepting some culpability (if not regret) for her daughter’s unhappy marriage: “I forced my daughter to marry the Duke. I have always had absolute power over my daughter. When I issued an order nobody discussed it. I therefore did not beg, but ordered her to marry the Duke.” Alva’s funeral in 1933 took place in St Thomas’s Episcopal Church on Fifth Avenue, Manhattan (the same church where her daughter had begun her unhappy union nearly 40 years earlier) and the occasion was a rallying moment for the women’s suffrage cause. Female pallbearers carried her casket, and a banner featuring an embroidered quote from women’s rights activist Susan B Anthony – “Failure is Impossible” – was draped on it. Despite no shortage of wounds inflicted and grudges spawned along the way, Alva had certainly proved anything but a failure in all the goals she had set for herself. Alva is buried with Oliver Belmont at Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx. Who knows where Julian Fellowes’ drama will take Bertha, George, and the wider Russell family tree next. But one thing’s for sure, if their story continues to trace the same tracks as the real Vanderbilts, it’s a rocky road ahead…