Georgian

A late 19th or early 20th-century painting entitled 'Mother and Child'. As fertility rates fell, sentimental idealisations of mothers and babies developed. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

The motherhood revolution: how the great fertility decline affected the lives of women

Chatsworth House, where Elizabeth I ordered for Mary, Queen of Scots to be imprisoned after she abdicated and fled from Scotland to England in 1567. (Photo by Chatsworth House Trust)

Britain’s 7 most amazing stately homes

Battle of Culloden. (Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

7 myths about the battle of Culloden busted

Blenheim Palace in a c1880 print from ‘A Series of Picturesque Views of Seats of the Noblemen and Gentlemen of Great Britain and Ireland’, edited by Reverend FO Morris, Volume I, William Mackenzie, London. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

10 things you might not know about Blenheim Palace – ‘the real Downton Abbey’

The ruins of Dunluce Castle, which sit on the coastal cliffs of North Antrim in Northern Ireland. They are thought to have been the inspiration for CS Lewis’s castle Cair Paravel in ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ (1950–56). (Photo by Andrea Ricordi/Contributor/Getty Images)

9 of Britain’s best castles

Bonnie-Prince-Charlie-2-5c30fcf

10 things you (probably) didn’t know about Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites

A portrait of three of the children of Henry VII: Prince Henry; Arthur Prince of Wales and Princess Margaret. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Royal sibling rivalry: Henry VIII, Richard III and other monarchs whose fate was determined by their brothers and sisters

The origins of the Conservative Party can be traced to the ‘Tory’ group in parliament which emerged in the last quarter of the 17th century and, led by Lord Bolingbroke (pictured) and Robert Harley, held power during the final years of Queen Anne’s reign. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)

A brief history of the Conservative Party

Gerald Heard had a peculiar idea that the UFOs then being sighted all across the globe, as such as this ‘sighting’ in Sicily, were piloted not by humanoid ETs, as you may have presumed, but by alien super-bees from Mars. (Photo by Bettmann/Getty Images)

6 of history’s strangest ever theories about outer space

Lady Sarah Frances Elizabeth Armstrong-Jones (centre) – the daughter of Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones, Earl of Snowdon – was born seventh in line to the throne. (Photo by Terry Fincher/Daily Express/Getty Images)

7 royal babies who were once seventh in line to the throne

Perkin Warbeck, an imposter and pretender to the English throne, being humiliated in the stocks before his execution in 1499. Warbeck was used by Henry VII’s Yorkist enemies in an unsuccessful plot to threaten the new Tudor dynasty. (Getty Images)

Imposters in history: 16 famous con-artists and pretenders

Falkner Street, Liverpool in the 1960s. A house on this road was the star of a 2018 BBC series. (Image by Nick Hedges)

The Library David Olusoga on house histories: “Our homes are often the sites of great dramas and tragedies”

Subscribe for unlimited access to The Library

A c1830 portrait of the scandalous but sublimely talented Lorenzo da Ponte. (Photo by Alamy)

My history hero: Katie Derham chooses Lorenzo Da Ponte

Subscribe for unlimited access to The Library

The leader of the Luddites, 1812. Found in the collection of British Museum. Anonymous artist. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

5 of the worst years in British history