Medieval

In 1992, Betty Boothroyd was voted in as Speaker of the House of Commons, with cross-party support by 372 votes to 238, asking the House “to elect me for what I am, not for what I was born”. (Photo by Tom Stoddart/Getty Images)

A brief history of the Speakers of the House of Commons

A memorial tomb to King Æthelstan, the first Saxon king of all England, in Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire. (Photo by Geography Photos/UIG via Getty Images)

A brief history of England

Elizabeth of York has been overshadowed by more vigorous, proactive queens – unfairly so, in the eyes of Alison Weir. (Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Elizabeth of York: a Tudor of rare talent

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Heck cows, the result of Nazi breeding experiments. Seven Heck cows had to be put down in January 2015 after they tried, on multiple occasions, to attack Devon farmer Derek Gow. (Photo by Jim Wileman/Alamy Stock Photo)

Nazi super-cows and defamed Gods: 7 strange and forgotten moments in history

A 19th-century illustration showing interior of the House of Commons while in session. (Photo by Time Life Pictures/Mansell/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

9 things you didn’t know about the history of parliament

Engraved portrait of Empress Matilda of Flanders, wearing a crown and holding a scepter, c1100. (Photo by Kean Collection/Archive Photos/Getty Images)

Speaker Q&A Catherine Hanley on Matilda

Max Adams. (Photo by Kona Macphee/Royal Literary Fund)

Remarkable women through history

c60 AD, Queen Boudica of the Iceni holding a spear. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

8 things you may not know about British history

"As for the accusation that he killed the princes in the Tower, I think he was framed," says Robert Lindsay of Richard III, shown in a 16th-century portrait. (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

My history hero: Robert Lindsay chooses Richard III

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Historian Nick Barratt.

Medieval civil war

Portrait of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII, who was born in around 1501 in Norfolk and executed by decapitation at Tower Green on 19 May 1536. (Photo by The Print Collector/Alamy Stock Photo)

The New Year’s resolutions Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth I and Josef Stalin should have made…

Edward the Confessor, the penultimate Anglo-Saxon king of England, depicted here in a scene from the Bayeux Tapestry. (Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

10 things you (probably) didn’t know about the Anglo-Saxons

'The Young Princes in the Tower', 1831. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Anne Boleyn, Beefeaters, Guy Fawkes and the princes: a brief history of the Tower of London

A still from the 2018 film 'Robin hood', in which actor Taron Egerton plays the legendary English archer. (Photo by Alamy)

Robin Hood: how the legendary figure has been portrayed across the centuries