Stuart

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

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

The would-be spaceman, John Wilkins, wearing his robes as the Bishop of Chester, c1670. (Image by Alamy)

Ye final frontier: the 17th-century space race

A joint Franco-Native Indian raid left 56 residents of Deerfield, a small township in north-western Massachusetts, dead. (Alamy)

America: Brave new world or accident?

This 16th-century woodcut depicts King James VI at the North Berwick witch trials, the case that first sparked his obsession with hunting. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

James VI and I: the king who hunted witches

Passengers reading a newspaper while waiting to disembark from the 'Empire Windrush' at Tilbury, having sailed from Jamaica, taken by an unknown photographer for the Daily Herald newspaper, 21 June 1948. "The Windrush scandal would have been inconceivable if we knew that those we are deporting not only helped to build the welfare state but were either born as, or to subjects of, the British state", says Professor Kehinde Andrews. (Photo by Daily Herald Archive/SSPL/Getty Images)

Do we need to decolonise history? And if so, how?

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

My history hero: Katie Derham chooses Lorenzo Da Ponte

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A portrait of Sir Walter Ralegh, a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I, c1588. (Photo by ACTIVE MUSEUM / Alamy Stock Photo)

“The rankest traitor in all England?” Walter Ralegh on trial

Mary, Queen of Scots (reigned 1542–67) was “absolutely useless as queen of Scotland”, says historian Sean Lang. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

9 of the worst monarchs in history

Is it true that an angry mob of Dutchmen killed and ate their own prime minister in 1672? (Illustration by Glen McBeth)

Is it true that an angry mob of Dutchmen killed and ate their own prime minister in 1672?

"For those of noble birth who were condemned to die, execution by beheading (which was considered the least brutal method of execution) was used until the 18th century," says criminologist and historian Lizzie Seal. This illustration depicts the execution of Charles I in January 1649. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

A brief history of capital punishment in Britain

Mary, Queen of Scots and her ladies in waiting. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Mary, Queen of Scots: what happened to her ladies-in-waiting?

A portrait of Queen Anne of Great Britain and Ireland.

Who was Queen Anne? Facts about her life, rule, marriage and children