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Stuart

Keith Thomas. (Photo by Fran Monks)

Books interview with Keith Thomas: “The world was divided into the ‘civil’ and the ‘barbarous’”

Scene depicting rural life in Stuart Britain. (via Getty Images)

Stuart Britain: what was life like for ordinary people?

The remarkable history of the Netherlands

A portrait of actress Nell Gwynn, longtime mistress to King Charles II.

From Nell to Meghan: 10 romances between actors and royals

A painting depicting the battle of the White Mountain

Europe’s apocalypse: the Thirty Years' War

11 shocking moments in history

8 of Britain’s best historical houses and gardens

Shackles that were used to tether slaves, on display at the International Slavery Museum. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

History explorer: the British slave trade

An engraving from Ulrich Molitor’s ‘On witches and female soothsayers’, depicting witches bringing down the rain. Germany, 15th century. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

A spell-binding history of witches

The execution of Charles I. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

Murder, conspiracy and execution: six centuries of scandalous royal deaths

Actresses in historical drama Jamestown

Transported to 17th-century Virginia: an interview with the women of 'Jamestown'

A painting of Charles I on horseback.

The art of a king

The Charles II Royal Oak

ExploreCharles II's great escape

Charles II on the run

The Gunpowder Plot

A deadly royal favourite?

Vaux-le-Vicomte: the inspiration for Louis XIV’s Versailles

Woodcut of a meal shared at a witches' Sabbath. (Photo by Time Life Pictures/Mansell/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

Ronald Hutton on the Witch

The Six-Day War and the Great Fire of London

Video: Historian Dan Jones on the Great Fire of London 1666

Civil wars and Restoration England

Scandal, conspiracy and the affair of the poisons: inside the court of Louis XIV

Procession of Charles II between the Tower of London and Westminster on the eve of his coronation, 1661. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

1660: The year that changed everything

Terracotta vicar and Moses, c1770, in the Victoria And Albert Museum, London. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

Vicars on the liquor

Bribes, gifts and scandal: 7 stories of corruption that shocked Britain

King James II of England and VII of Scotland (1633 - 1701), c. 1680. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

A king without a crown: James VII and II’s years in exile

View of Algiers with mediterranean galleys, published in Johannes van Keulen's Dutch Atlas, 1709. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)

When Britons were slaves in Africa

19 November 1620, the Pilgrim Fathers arriving on the Mayflower and landing in New England, where they founded the Plymouth Colony. Original artwork: painting by Charles Lucy. (Photo by Three Lions/Getty Images)

It is claimed that the Pilgrim Fathers set sail from Plymouth but I’ve also heard that they started in Boston, Lincolnshire. Which is correct?

Lady Hall launches the British India Company passenger liner SS Uganda in Clydeside docks with the traditional bottle of champagne, 1952. The first time champagne was used to launch a ship was when Queen Victoria launched HMS Royal Arthur in 1891. (Photo by George Douglas/Getty Images)

Q&AWhy do we smash champagne bottles against new ships?

Black British history and Charles I’s children