HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2026-04-21T14:31:04.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Long to reign over us: how did Queen Elizabeth II survive seven decades of dizzying change?
items: What did Anne Boleyn REALLY look like? Our new research could change everything
items: The prince and the brothel: 6 scandals that rocked the British monarchy
items: How I uncovered Victoria's secret love: Historian Fern Riddell explains all
items: Charles and Diana: a history of their marriage
items: Pomp & power: royal ceremonies through the centuries
items: Princess Margaret’s final years
items: British royal family podcast episodes
items: In profile: Queen Consort Camilla
items: Charles and Camilla: a history of their romance

Long to reign over us: how did Queen Elizabeth II survive seven decades of dizzying change?
type: item
date: 2026-04-21T14:30:26.000Z
subject: 21st Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: British queens
subject: Historical events
subject: Royal children
subject: Royal weddings
subject: The British Empire
subject: The royal family
description: When Elizabeth II ascended the throne in 1952, she could barely have conceived the currents – imperial retreat, multiculturalism, de-industrialiation – that would transform the nation during her reign. On the centenary of the Queen’s birth, David Cannadine explores how she navigated seven decades of dizzying change
encoded: When I was born in September 1950, King George VI had just over a year to live. I have no memory of him or his reign, and my first royal recollection was of the coronation of the second Queen Elizabeth – or, more precisely, of images of her state coach and horses, which I cut out of a souvenir magazine. My parents did not own a television set, and did not know anyone who did, so it was only in 2012, the year of Elizabeth’s diamond jubilee, that I watched the remastered version of the original coronation broadcast from Westminster Abbey. Richard Dimbleby’s reverential commentary, suffused with ardour and optimism, did indeed belong to that earlier time. When the Queen celebrated her platinum jubilee in 2022, few people in the United Kingdom or the Commonwealth could remember when she had not been on the throne. Like Queen Victoria, Elizabeth II had become part of what Victoria’s biographer Lytton Strachey called the “indissoluble” scheme of things, which made it impossible for many people to imagine the world without her. Apart from just over a year at the beginning, and (thus far) four years at the end, my own life has coincided exactly with the 70 years of her reign. I was no part of her life, and never met her, but she was certainly a part of mine, as she was of millions of people in the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth and far beyond. Joining Shakespeare I never imagined it would one day fall to me to tell Queen Elizabeth’s life story, but in 2014 I was appointed editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and it seemed likely that the Queen would die on my watch. The convention established for the ODNB’s predecessor, the original Dictionary of National Biography, was that when the monarch died, the editor would contribute the entry on him or her, and it duly fell to me to write the life of Elizabeth II. I did so in two forms: as a short book of 50,000 words, published late in 2025 by Oxford University Press; and as her entry in the ODNB, available onl…

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What did Anne Boleyn REALLY look like? Our new research could change everything
type: item
date: 2026-03-13T17:30:55.000Z
creator: Dr Owen Emmerson
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Tudor
subject: British queens
subject: Henry VIII's wives
subject: Royal weddings
subject: Tudor kings and queens
description: Dark or brunette? Fair or swarthy? A paragon of beauty or a refined charmer? Our picture of Henry VIII’s ill-fated second queen has become distorted over five centuries – but new research by Owen Emmerson and others comes closer to revealing her true appearance
encoded: Close your eyes and picture Anne Boleyn. Chances are you can conjure up a pretty clear and detailed image in your imagination – because few figures in English history seem as visually familiar as Henry VIII’s second queen. Representations of her face appear everywhere: in films, television dramas and novels, in museum gift shops and digital reconstructions. She is often depicted in popular culture as an elegant brunette whose sophistication distinguishes her from others at court. Over time, this image has hardened into something close to fact. Anne Boleyn, we are told, was devastatingly beautiful. Yet this certainty is built on fragile foundations, and surviving evidence provides a less concrete understanding of Anne’s appearance. No formal painted portraits from life survive today, though images in a number of smaller, more intimate formats – particularly miniatures – are candidates for having captured her true likeness based on contemporary encounters. The more-familiar portraits featuring the now-iconic ‘B’ pendant necklace, meanwhile, were likely created decades later, influenced by politics, artistic convention and hindsight. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/DXFXNM-38bec64-e1773309603951.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A woman with long dark braids, wearing a white period-style gown, sits on a cushioned bed and gently holds a baby wrapped in richly patterned blue and gold fabric. Dark wooden furniture and white bedding frame the intimate, historical-feeling scene" title="Natalie Dormer played Anne Boleyn in the television series The Tudors, which perpetuated modern ideas of the ill-fated queen as a dark-haired beauty (Image by Alamy)" /> For generations, historians assumed that any accurate representations created during Anne’s life had been lost altogether, erased after her execution in 1536 on the orders of Henry VIII. That story is compelling, but it is wrong. My research – which underpins Capturing a Queen: T…

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The prince and the brothel: 6 scandals that rocked the British monarchy
type: item
date: 2026-02-02T15:30:45.000Z
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: British queens
subject: Georgian
subject: Historical people
subject: Royal children
subject: Royal weddings
subject: The royal family
description: At a time when the royal family is under significant strain, historians shine a spotlight on some of the biggest crises to have enveloped the British monarchy over the past three centuries
encoded: The prince, the brothel and a culture war Katie Hindmarch-Watson describes a sex scandal that consumed Queen Victoria’s grandson On 7 July 1889, a policeman arrested a sometime telegraph boy, Henry Newlove, at his mother’s house in Camden Town. Newlove had been recruiting younger telegraph boys at London’s Central Telegraph Office to provide sexual services for affluent male clients at a brothel on Cleveland Street. Defiant, Newlove said that he thought it “very hard that I should get into trouble while men in high position are allowed to walk around free… Why, Lord Arthur Somerset goes regularly to the house at Cleveland Street; so does the Earl of Euston and Colonel Jervois.” Within months, Newlove was in prison and Somerset was in exile. Yet Henry Fitzroy, Earl of Euston, triumphed in a libel suit that exonerated him from any “gross indecency”, and Colonel Jervois received no further mention in police records or the press. However, another man in high position became the focus of speculation. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/BAL11686324webready-dfc0737-e1770036564257.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A newspaper depicting several scenes of men in top hats and young boys standing in the street" title="The Cleveland Street Scandal, as reported in The Illustrated Police News on 25 January 1890. The affair – which embroiled Prince Albert Victor – “evolved into a morality tale about rich men’s predatory vices” (Image by Bridgeman Images)" /> We still don’t really know why Prince Albert Victor – or ‘Eddy’, grandson of Queen Victoria and oldest son of the Prince of Wales – became linked to the story. Arthur Somerset had been his father’s equerry, but there is no evidence that the two men associated with one another, and no proof has emerged one way or another about Eddy’s propensity for sex with teenage telegraph boys. The Cleveland Street Scandal evolved from Newlove’s revelations into a morality tale about rich men’s pred…

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How I uncovered Victoria's secret love: Historian Fern Riddell explains all
type: item
date: 2025-08-01T08:00:40.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: British queens
subject: Historical people
subject: Royal weddings
description: There have long been whispers of a romance between the queen and her Scottish servant John Brown, but nothing concrete to support them. Now Fern Riddell, author of an explosive new book, reveals how she turned sleuth to track down evidence of their secret passion
encoded: The story that’s consumed my life for much of the past few years has it all: family dysfunction, political intrigue, royalty, the rewriting of our national history. A secret hidden for generations. These are the sort of things historians can get carried away by. When we’re undertaking historical research, it often becomes clear that the relationship between fact and fiction can be a murky one. There’s often a gap between what we want the truth to be and the reality of the lives that have been lived. So it was with my latest project. After four months of research, I couldn’t quite believe what I’d uncovered. I’d been tracing the footsteps of both historians and historical people, and I was finally convinced that what I’d found came close to representing irrefutable proof of a remarkable secret – one offering an answer to a 160-year-old question. But making the breakthrough didn’t come without risk – one faced by nearly every historian who had got so far before me, and who turned back at the final hurdle, unable to bring their research to light. WATCH | Fern Riddell on her quest to discover the secrets of Victoria's later love life View Green Video on the source website So, before I pushed ahead, I called a trusted friend and mentor to discuss what I thought I’d discovered. “I’ve found it,” I exclaimed. “I’ve found the lost archive of Queen Victoria and John Brown.” Royal inspiration Towards the end of 2021, my agent, Kirsty McLachlan, had set me a challenge. “You need a new project,” she declared. “What can you say about Queen Victoria?” “I don’t do the royals,” I retorted, instantly rejecting the suggestion. “Anyway, most royal historians face censorship the moment they find anything interesting.” My focus has always been on the stories of ordinary people – what we call ‘history from below’. These are the lives that fascinate me, not those of the wealthy and powerful. Victoria felt like a lost cause. After all, what could be left to discover about one of history’s m…

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Charles and Diana: a history of their marriage
type: item
date: 2023-11-14T12:10:09.000Z
creator: Emma Mason
subject: 20th Century
subject: Period
subject: Royal weddings
subject: The Crown
subject: The royal family
subject: TV interest
description: Their 15-year marriage began with a fairy tale wedding and saw the birth of two princes, but ended in a public and acrimonious divorce involving infidelity that threatened to rock the monarchy. But what was the real nature of Prince Charles and Diana’s relationship: how did they meet, when did cracks first appear, were they in love, and was Diana really the wronged party? We asked royal biographer Penny Junor to tell us the real story of Charles and Diana…
encoded: Who was Diana, Princess of Wales? Maiden name: Diana Frances Spencer Born: 1 July 1961 at Park House, the home that her parents rented on Queen Elizabeth II’s estate at Sandringham Died: 31 August 1997, in a car accident in Paris (aged 36) Married to: Prince Charles (m. 1981–96) Height: 1.78 m Children: Prince William (born 1982) and Prince Harry (born 1984) Grandchildren: Prince George (born 2013); Princess Charlotte (born 2015); Prince Louis (born 2018); Archie Mountbatten-Windsor (born 2019) Parents: John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer & Frances Roche Siblings: Lady Sarah McCorquodale (1955–present); Jane Fellowes, Baroness Fellowes (1957–present); John Spencer, died within 10 hours of his birth on 12 January 1960; Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer (1964–present) Educated: Silfield Private School in Gayton, Norfolk; Riddlesworth Hall School near Thetford; West Heath Girls’ School in Sevenoaks, Kent; Institut Alpin Videmanette in Rougemont, Switzerland View Green Video on the source website When did Diana Spencer meet Prince Charles? It was in the summer of 1980, at a house party hosted by Diana’s friend Philip de Pass in New Grove, near Petworth, that Prince Charles first saw Diana Spencer as a potential girlfriend. Sitting next to each other on a bale of hay at a post-polo barbecue, an 19-year-old Diana expressed her sympathy for Charles over the loss of his beloved great-uncle, Lord Mountbatten, who had been murdered by the IRA a year earlier. “My heart bled for you when I watched the funeral; I thought, ‘It’s wrong, you’re lonely – you should be with somebody to look after you’,” said Diana. This, says Penny Junor, was exactly what Charles needed to hear. “Mountbatten was a very important figure in Charles’s life and he was in a fragile state at that point,” says Junor. “Diana really touched a nerve in Charles, she said just the right thing to him, at the right moment, and he was moved by her.” This encounter was not, however, the first time Charles and Diana had m…

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Pomp & power: royal ceremonies through the centuries
type: item
date: 2023-05-02T06:45:20.000Z
creator: Ellie Cawthorne
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Royal weddings
description: Ahead of King Charles’ coronation, Dr Alice Hunt explores how British royals have long used pomp and pageantry to reinforce their power and popularity
encoded: Later this week, royal ceremony and spectacle will be deployed in full force for the coronation of King Charles III. But this latest lavish display is nothing new – British monarchs have long used pomp and pageantry to reinforce their power and popularity. Dr Alice Hunt speaks to Ellie Cawthorne about how monarchs down the centuries have used ceremony and ritual – and how it’s gone down with the public.

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Princess Margaret’s final years
type: item
date: 2022-11-07T12:18:14.000Z
subject: 20th Century
subject: Period
subject: Royal children
subject: Royal weddings
subject: The Crown
subject: The royal family
description: Seasons 5 and 6 of The Crown, beginning in the early 1990s, depict the gradual decline of one of its most vibrant and controversial characters, charting the failing health of Princess Margaret, once a dazzling beauty and staple of the gossip columns. Anne de Courcy maps Princess Margaret’s life and final years, and considers what might have led to her early death…
encoded: In February 1999, the 68-year-old Princess Margaret was holidaying on Mustique, in her private villa Les Jolies Eaux. One morning, she went into the bathroom to wash her hair. Stepping into the bath, she inadvertently turned on the bath taps instead of those of the overhead shower. The water that gushed out of them was, thanks to a faulty thermostat, near-boiling. Janie Stevens, lady-in-waiting and friend to the princess, became alarmed by Margaret’s non-appearance and went into the bathroom, where she found the Princess sitting dazed on the edge of the bath, her feet appallingly scalded and in great pain. The incident, which left Margaret hospitalised, was a well-publicised episode in a broader period of declining health and spirit, a sorry trajectory for the Queen’s sister, once the sparkling face of the royal family. Princess Margaret’s early life <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2022/11/GettyImages-1036124564-1b5671e-e1667818467197.jpg" width="619" height="412" alt="Princess Margaret, future Countess of Snowden, 1930 - 2002. Younger daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom and sister of Queen Elizabeth II. From The Coronation Book of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, published 1937.(Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)" title="Princess Margaret, future Countess of Snowden, 1930 - 2002. Younger daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom and sister of Queen Elizabeth II. From The Coronation Book of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, published 1937.(Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)" /> Princess Margaret was born at her mother’s home, Glamis Castle, on 21 August 1930. She was four years younger than her sister, the then Princess Elizabeth. At the time, their parents, the Duke and Duchess of York, had no idea of the future that awaited them. On the podcast | British royal family podcast episod…

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British royal family podcast episodes
type: item
subject: General Modern
subject: Period
subject: British queens
subject: Royal children
subject: Royal weddings
description: Browse our archive of podcasts, from the royal family's residences to how they survived the First World War...

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In profile: Queen Consort Camilla
type: item
date: 2022-02-06T09:55:16.000Z
creator: Emma Mason
subject: 20th Century
subject: Period
subject: Royal weddings
subject: The Crown
subject: Trends-Entertainment
subject: TV interest
description: Camilla Parker Bowles was ‘the other woman’ in the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer and played a central role in the couple’s split, in what royal biographer Penny Junor describes as the darkest days of the modern monarchy. Here, we explore the life of Camilla, Queen Consort to King Charles III, and her portrayal in the epic royal drama The Crown…
encoded: Camilla, Queen Consort to King Charles III, was born Camilla Rosemary Shand on 17 July 1947 at King's College Hospital, London. Born into a well-to-do family, Camilla grew up on a sprawling country estate in Plumpton, Sussex. Her father, Major Bruce Shand, was Vice Lord Lieutenant of East Sussex, while her mother, Rosalind, came from the aristocratic and wealthy Cubitt family – her ancestor Thomas Cubitt made his fortune as a property developer in the 19th century. Her father’s rank meant Camilla and her family lived somewhat regally and socialised with Britain's high society. Camilla Parker Bowles: a biography Maiden name: Camilla Rosemary Shand Born: 17 July 1947, at King's College Hospital, London Married to: King Charles III (m. 2005–present); Andrew Parker Bowles (m. 1973–95) Children: Thomas Henry (born 1974) and Laura Rose (Lopes) (born 1978) Grandchildren: Eliza Lopes (born 2008); Louis Lopes (born 2009); Gus Lopes (born 2009); Lola Parker Bowles (born 2007) and Freddy Parker Bowles (born 2010) Parents: Major Bruce Middleton Hope Shand and The Hon Rosalind Maud Shand (née Cubitt) Siblings: Annabel Elliot (born 1949) and Mark Shand (1951–2014) Educated: Dumbrells School in Sussex; Queen’s Gate School in South Kensington; Mon Fertile School in Switzerland and the Institut Britannique in Paris Camilla, the eldest of three children, was first educated at Dumbrells School, a co-ed school in Sussex, and later attended the fashionable independent all-girls boarding school Queen’s Gate School in South Kensington. There she acquired the nickname ‘Milla’ and, according to the journalist and author Christopher Andersen, was known to boast about the fact her great-grandmother, Alice Keppel, was the mistress of King Edward VII. “Fellow pupils remember 10-year-old ‘Milla’ waltzing into class and grandly ordering the other children to bow before her. ‘My great-grandmother was the lover of the King,’ she proclaimed. ‘We’re practically royalty’”, writes Andersen in his 2016 …

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Charles and Camilla: a history of their romance
type: item
date: 2022-02-06T09:45:00.000Z
subject: 20th Century
subject: General Modern
subject: Period
subject: Royal children
subject: Royal weddings
subject: The Crown
subject: The royal family
subject: Trends-Entertainment
subject: TV interest
description: They met and fell in love in their early twenties, enjoying a “blissful” 18-month romance in which the young Prince Charles pursued Camilla with elaborately worded love notes and late-night telephone chats. Why, then, did he end up marrying Lady Diana Spencer instead? Royal expert Marlene Koenig explores the history of Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall’s love affair...
encoded: Thirty-four years after their first meeting, the Prince of Wales and Camilla Parker Bowles were finally married on 9 April 2005. Their long-term relationship as friends and lovers was summed up in The Sunday Telegraph's headline: “Husband and wife – at last.” At the reception at Windsor Castle, Prince Charles's mother, Queen Elizabeth II, in front of 800 guests, offered a toast to the newlyweds. “They have overcome Becher's Brook and The Chair and all kinds of other terrible obstacles. They have come through and I'm very proud and wish them well. My son is home and dry with the woman he loves.” Queen Elizabeth II | 50+ surprising facts about her life and reign Not surprisingly, the Queen, a lover of horses and horse racing, used racing references as she welcomed Camilla into the family: Becher's Brook and The Chair are fences at the Aintree Racecourse, where the Grand National takes place. It was in the summer of 1971, when Prince Charles, then 22, first met Camilla Rosemary Shand, who was 24. A legend has been fostered that the couple were introduced at a polo match at Smith's Lawn in Windsor, but, according to Jonathan Dimbleby's authorised biography, The Prince of Wales (1994), the introduction was in fact made by a mutual friend, Lucia Santa Cruz, daughter of the Chilean ambassador to the United Kingdom, whom Charles had met when he was a student at Cambridge. Who is Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall? | Everything you need to know about Prince Charles’s wife “Instant attraction” It was reportedly an “instant attraction” between Charles and Camilla. During an 18-month period their friendship blossomed into a love affair. They shared a lot in common, including an appreciation for the comedy of The Goon Show, a BBC radio series devised by Spike Milligan. Charles also liked that Camilla was very much at home in “the country with horses and hunting.” Camilla had been involved in an on-and-off relationship with Andrew Parker Bowles, an officer in the Royal Horse Guard, tha…

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