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Stuart

A 'Thanksgiving Greetings' postcard. (Photo by K.J. Historical/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

A brief history of Thanksgiving

Charles I's great weakness was that he made a strict distinction between his role as king, in which he could not compromise, and his personal role, which was entirely pleasant and courteous, says Sean Lang. (Photo by Imagno/Getty Images)

8 of the nicest kings in history

Actress Sarah Bernhardt, who was personally invited by Oscar Wilde to play the title role in the upcoming London premiere of his play, 'Salomé'.

6 of London theatre’s most notable historical scandals

Sketch of Guy Fawkes with a lantern kneeling in front of barrels of gunpowder

Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot: everything you need to know

James VI and I depicted in Parliament, c1605

Queen Elizabeth I’s ‘Golden Speech’ and 5 more key moments in the history of crown and parliament

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

The Monteagle letter, which shares a warning about the Gunpowder Plot. (National Archives)

In their own words: 6 of history’s most fascinating letters

Illustration of pirate John Ward

Pirate John Ward: the real Captain Jack Sparrow

1651, Charles Prince of Wales (1630 - 1685) (later King Charles II of England) meets Sir Henry Lee near Oxford during the Civil War, while escaping after the Battle of Worcester.

How Charles II put Britain back together after the Civil War

5 reasons why the King James version of the Bible matters

The historical differences between Scottish and English Law, and what it means for Brexit

Suzannah Lipscomb on women’s lives in Reformation France

A 16th-century portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Mary, Queen of Scots: the real history behind the film

William of Orange at the battle of the Boyne

Q&AWhen was England last successfully invaded by a foreign power?

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?

Taxing the rich to feed the poor in the 17th century: the world's first welfare state

Q&A'God Save The Queen': how old is the British national anthem?

For our forebears, the secret to a good night's sleep lay in the contents of your gut. (Photo by Leemage/UIG via Getty Images)

6 sleeping tips and tricks from history

A portrait of 17th-century scholar John Wilkins

Ye final frontier: the 17th-century space race

Britain’s 7 most amazing stately homes

Illustrations by Ian Morris.

The Civil War cross-dressers: the women who swapped dresses for breeches

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

Charles I. (Photo by World History Archive/Alamy)

King killers in America

9 eccentric monarchs through history

Men enjoying a drink and a chat in a coffee house, 1674. Coffee houses became known as ‘schools of the wise’, where people would gossip, argue and discuss the breaking news of the day. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

A drink for the devil: 8 facts about the history of coffee

A 16th-century woodcut by Albrecht Dürer entitled 'The true and false apostles of Christ'. As the Reformation recast Europe's spiritual landscape, many believers fretted that their religion no longer felt true to them. (Photo by Alamy)

The fury that fuelled the rise of atheism

Scottish nobles gathering in the 17th century

Scotland on the brink: the nation's final years of independence

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

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