Illustrated Medieval scene from the Romance of Lancelot

Medieval

Queen Victoria with Prince Albert and their children in 1846. After a painting by F Winterhalter. Victoria’s husband, Albert, “carved out for the crown a moral kind of authority as the nation’s first and model family,” says Sarah Gristwood. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)

Retaining the royals: why has the British monarchy survived – and thrived?

Pope John XVII

Has there ever been a married Pope?

The filthy Middle Ages?

William the Conqueror (1027–87), king of England from 1066 when he beat Harold II at the battle of Hastings. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

9 surprising facts about William the Conqueror and the Norman conquest

Jumping beans, throwing shoes and weather forecasting: medieval ways to look ahead to the New Year

Westminster Abbey, London

A brief history of Westminster Abbey

Eleanor of Aquitaine: myth and reality

A medieval new England: the Anglo-Saxons’ eastern odyssey

A c1880 Christmas card shows a frog committing murder

Carrots, goblins and killer frogs: an unexpected history of Christmas

A portrait of Isabella I of Castile. (Photo by PHAS/UIG via Getty Images)

Isabella I of Castile: Europe’s greatest queen?

The newly crowned Queen Elizabeth II

Why has the British monarchy survived?

Is the world still living in the shadow of the crusades?

The King: Henry V on film

The Crown of Thorns allegedly worn by Christ during the Passion. It was one of the prized possessions in Notre-Dame Cathedral until April 2019 – when it was rescued by the inferno that gutted the building. (Photo by: Godong/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Father, son and holy goat? The dark side of medieval relics

A detail from the Bayeux tapestry depicting the conquest of England by the Normans. (Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty images)

9 medieval battles more significant than Agincourt

Agincourt was one of the major battles of the Hundred Years' War.

Agincourt: what really happened

Timothée Chalamet as Prince Hal

“It’s hard to square Prince Hal’s pacifism with what we know about Henry V”: a historian’s review of The King

A portrait of Henry V of England. The Treaty if Troyes, signed in 1420, saw Henry named Charles's regent; by marrying the latter's daughter, Katherine, Henry secured his position as heir to the throne. (Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

A wayward prince? King Henry V's misspent youth

Portrait of Henry V

Q&AWhy is Henry V's portrait in profile?

Portrait of King Henry V. (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

Henry V: 5 facts you might not know about the king's softer side

The footprint of Old Sarum cathedral

ExploreOld Sarum: the regal and the rotten

King John out hunting

8 things you (probably) didn’t know about medieval elections

A depiction of a 13th-century parliament, sitting under Edward I. The Good Parliament of 1376, during the reign of Edward III, sowed the seeds for discontent that was to come.

The Good Parliament of 1376: Crown v Commons

A scene from the Bayeux Tapestry depicting the Norman invasion of 1066. The tapestry was most likely embroidered by women in Norman England in a workshop setting using four embroidery stitches – stem stitch; split stitch; chain stitch; and laid work, sometimes called ‘Bayeux Stitch’, says Dr Alexandra Lester-Makin. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The making of the Bayeux Tapestry: who made it, how long did it take, and how has it survived?

Being invited to become a 'guest' of the Tower of London in medieval England meant, more often than not, that you would soon be food for the crows. (Image by Getty Images/RM Creative)

10 historical haunted sites across Britain

A scene from the Bayeux Tapestry depicting the death of King Harold II during the battle of Hastings in 1066. (Photo by Getty Images)

Where did the battle of Hastings actually take place? 8 facts about the 1066 battle

War criminal? William the Conqueror shown on horseback in the Bayeux Tapestry. The king's Harrying of the North was a military success but a human catastrophe – one that even appalled chroniclers traditionally sympathetic to the Norman regime. (Photo by Bridgeman)

Was William the Conqueror a war criminal? The brutal story of the Harrying of the North

Cardinal John Henry Newman

How to become a saint

The murder of Thomas Becket

Q&A: What happened to the assassins who killed Thomas Becket?

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