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"Today, the defenders of the Enlightenment are in retreat"
Michael Wood on the evolution and erosion of universal human rights
I’ve just returned from a trip to Versailles. On a bitterly cold, end-of-winter afternoon, the great symbol of French monarchy, gilded anew for the 2024 Olympics, gleamed against a steel-blue sky. The crowds were huge: it’s one of the biggest tourist draws in France after Disneyland – which is somehow fitting, for Versailles is a fairytale palace, too. I walked the gardens, browsed the bookshop (stacked with books on Marie Antoinette, of course) and then strolled back through the town to the station. On the way, there was a surprise. In a side street, display boards along an old wall told the story of the National Assembly of the summer of 1789 – the very moment of revolution. Down a lane, a faded wooden sign over a crumbling gateway marked the site of the Hôtel des Menus-Plaisirs du Roi, where the scenery, costumes, instruments and props used in royal entertainments were stored; it’s now a centre of baroque music. Inside was a tree-lined courtyard and a rain-filled hollow marking the oval outline of the temporary auditorium where the National Assembly met. Here, affronted by the concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich and powerful, the representatives of the people voted to “abolish privilege” and create a Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Read more | How Napoleon (almost) destroyed the French Revolution The Rights of Man! Such were the ideals of the Enlightenment, the great 18th-century movement towards rational thought, equality before the law, freedom of conscience, human autonomy, secularism and democracy. That declaration in 1789 came hot on the heels of the American Revolution, whose 250th anniversary we celebrate this year. That, in turn, was inspired by English precedent: Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights 1689. These ideals have been upheld by western thinkers ever since, despite the horrendous deeds of imperialists across the world in the intervening time, colonising and enslaving other cultures, and fighting catastrophic internecine wars. It was the horrors of the Second World War that inspired the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, signed by all except Saudi Arabia, apartheid South Africa and the Soviet Bloc. Today, the defenders of the Enlightenment are in retreat. Liberal humanism, we are told, has had its day. In international affairs the rules-based order is gone. From Greenland to Iran there are no constraints on state action save self-interest. The same goes for internal governance. In the US, we’re seeing the tearing-up of the assumptions of American democracy, cherished since 1776. Hillary Clinton has said of President Trump: “He has betrayed the west, he’s betrayed human values… [and] the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” Read more | Your guide to the 1776 American Declaration of Independence Universal? Given the deeds of western colonialism over the past couple of centuries, it is not surprising that some have denied that they are. China, for example, now rejects Enlightenment ideas as non-Chinese. Yet many European observers in the 18th century saw the Qing state as a kind of Enlightenment society, with an (admittedly harsh) legal code, charitable institutions, scientific and literary clubs, poetry circles and even a measure of public opinion. Common human values in the Confucian and European traditions are evident in, for example, the beginnings of a human rights discourse in 17th and 18th-century China, and even discussion of the principle of the rule of law. As Huang Zongxi wrote in 1661, “You cannot have the rule of man without the rule of law.” Those 18th-century French intellectuals would have agreed. (China, incidentally, was one of the original signatories to the UN Declaration, and its constitution guarantees human rights, including of speech and religion – but only so far as they do not endanger the state. In China, the state has always come first.) But the ideals of the Enlightenment were European. Of course, they weren’t all created in the 18th century. Some go back to classical Greece and Rome, and some to the early medieval world of the great Carolingian thinkers; all three European renaissances played their part. The debate on universal human rights began in earnest in Europe in the mid-16th century. So these ideas are part of the European way of seeing the world – but they are surely also universal. On the train back into Paris, thinking on our troubled times, I was struck by the contrasts of Versailles. We walk the gilded halls of the king-emperor, but in the rain-filled hollow on the way to the station, history is still readable – the struggles of real people to make the real world a better place. This article was first published in the April 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine
Amy Boyington explores the art of hosting a dinner party in the Georgian period
A dinner party in a beautifully decorated Georgian dining room might sound sophisticated, even romantic – but planning such events was not for the faint-hearted. Amy Boyington advises Lauren Good on how to host a perfect dinner party during the period, from what to serve to how to serve it. What was the most peculiar Georgian dish? What was the ultimate faux pas? And why was public urination a more likely prospect than you might have thought?
Kavita Puri explores the rise, fall and enduring charm of a Suffolk village
Lavenham is one of Britain's best-preserved medieval and Tudor villages. Roaming its narrow streets, past crooked timber-framed houses with steep gables, you feel as if you’ve stepped back in time. Henry III gave this Suffolk settlement a market charter in 1257, stimulating the local economy, and Lavenham soon became a major hub for the wool trade. By the late 15th century, it was one of the richest towns in England, that status reflected in magnificent buildings built by prosperous merchant families. By 1524, it was the 14th-wealthiest place in the kingdom, paying more tax than large cities including Lincoln or York. The village was famed for its prestigious ‘Lavenham blue’ cloth. This was coloured at the raw wool stage using a natural dye from a plant called woad, then spun into yarn before being woven into fabric. Woollen cloth and raw wool were Britain’s most important exports during the Middle Ages. Continental Europe – especially towns such as Bruges and Ghent – depended on English wool to fuel their textile industries, and Lavenham was a significant contributor. Read more | Want to understand modern Britain? Look towards its villages However, the village’s fortunes declined precipitously during the 16th century. Flemish weavers arrived in nearby Colchester and began to weave cheaper, lighter and more fashionable cloth, with a greater variety of dye colours, using new techniques. Lavenham failed to adapt to these newer methods, or to diversify its industry beyond the wool trade. As that income dwindled, money was no longer available to update village houses in newer styles, and Lavenham essentially became preserved largely as it was five centuries ago. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/05/GettyImages-118386210-d2f0f3a-e1777621450819.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Two wooden wool carders with angled handles rest on a wooden surface; one has raw wool fibres caught on its metal teeth." title="Lavenham’s Guildhall is a precious survivor of the Tudor era, featuring relics reflecting the village’s wool-dyeing and weaving heyday (Image by Getty Images)" /> One building in particular reflects the changing fortunes of the village and wider society: the Guildhall. Five guildhalls are recorded as being built for wealthy cloth and wool merchants from Lavenham over the years, but only one survives to this day. When built in 1530, it was called the Guildhall of Corpus Christi. The religious guilds, which dated back to the 11th century, were originally associated with the monasteries. By the 14th century, though, as well as their role in raising funds for Catholic priests’ duties and celebrating patron saints, the guilds also took on community responsibilities that included repairing roads, and establishing schools and almshouses. After the Reformation, Protestants ensured that such guilds were abolished through acts of parliament in 1545 and 1547. Luckily, the Guildhall that still stands today in Lavenham was then repurposed for various uses. In later years, it operated as a workhouse to help the poor of the village and others who’d fallen on hard times. Up to 40 people lived and worked there, mostly spinning yarn, and were trained as housemaids or apprentices to help them find jobs. Read more | 5 things you (probably) didn't know about the Tudors From 1785, another part of the Guildhall was used as a ‘bridewell’, or jail. One moving story from the records of that time tells of a young girl called Ann Baker. Probably no more than 10 years old when she was apprehended, Ann was whipped and locked in the jail with others who had fallen foul of the often harsh laws of the time. Convicted of larceny, this “incorrigible rogue” was sentenced to seven years’ transportation to the penal colony in New South Wales (now in Australia). She survived the arduous seven-month voyage, arriving in June 1790, but died there at the age of just 29. Over time, the Guildhall also served as a Methodist chapel, a pub, a grain store and a social meeting place for US soldiers stationed nearby during the Second World War. Today, it’s one of the finest timber-framed buildings in England, managed by the National Trust. Unsurprisingly, given its exceptionally coherent medieval and Tudor architecture, Lavenham has featured in many film and television productions, perhaps most notably being transformed into the wizarding village of Godric’s Hollow for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. Lavenham has experienced both great fortune and sad decline – and the Guildhall reflects the many stages in its rich history. This article was first published in the April 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine
From ancient China to modern America: an astonishing history of censorship
A mistrust of ‘experts’ and ‘intellectuals’ has recently crystallised into US government interventions targeting academic institutions. Emily Knox and Joan Scott share their thoughts with Danny Bird about the troubling history of anti-intellectualism
Danny Bird: Anti-intellectualism can feel like quite a contemporary concern – but when did this phenomenon emerge? Joan Scott: It goes back a long way. In the case of the United States, a key reference is Anti-intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter, published in 1963 in the wake of the McCarthy anti-communist hearings. I return to it often. Hofstadter traces anti-intellectualism almost to the nation’s beginnings, particularly in debates over education. Attempts to centralise schooling repeatedly provoked hostile reactions from local communities determined to control what their children were taught. Hofstadter locates this strain chiefly among non-elite, less formally educated groups who are suspicious of expertise and claims to superior competence, and wary of those in elite positions. The US therefore has a long history of anti-intellectualism, though it also appears in different forms elsewhere. France may be something of an exception – as a historian, I have seen philosophical disputes conducted at every level of French society in a way quite unlike anything in the US. In any case, though the tradition of anti-intellectualism is long-standing, we may now be experiencing it at its most acute. Emily Knox: When I think about anti-intellectualism, I see a rift. There is a fear that, if someone becomes more educated or begins to listen to experts, a break opens within their community. This is especially visible with first-generation university students, who can feel pulled away from their families and local ties. In many cases, anti-intellectualism grows from that sense of separation. It is rooted less in abstract questions of trust than in fear of loss, distance and change. Viewing it in those terms helps us to understand it more clearly. Has it commonly been during times of upheaval – such as religious conflicts, revolutions and the rise of authoritarian and populist regimes – when academic freedom has been attacked? EK: Yes. One of the earliest and most well-known recorded instances of book burning occurred in 213 BC under China’s first imperial dynasty, when the emperor, Qin Shi Huang, suppressed dissent by executing scholars and destroying their texts. Scholars are often targeted during periods of unrest or reactionary upheaval. In moments of crisis, people look for someone to blame: where did these ideas come from? Suspicion frequently falls on education and on those who produce and transmit knowledge. Across history, intellectual life repeatedly becomes suspect when societies fracture. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/PA49MG-c6ca6cc-e1777451862538.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A traditional Chinese painting depicting figures in red and white robes burning books in the foreground while others in blue‑green robes are pushed into a pit beside an ornate building." title="An 18th-century illustration shows books burned and scholars buried on the orders of the first Chinese emperor, Qin Shi Huang, in 213 BC – an early example of the suppression of intellectual activity (Image by Alamy)" /> JS: I think it stems from the association between scholarship and criticism. From the outset, the scholar’s role has been to reflect on and critique the conditions in which people live. To pursue truth, however defined, is to question authority, and that questioning has long been linked to education. It is this critical function that makes scholars targets. As Immanuel Kant argued in The Conflict of the Faculties at the end of the 18th century, philosophers are uniquely placed to tell rulers what is wrong and what ought to be done. That task does not belong to theology or to the more practical disciplines. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-600033141-5864189-e1777451781506.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="An oval-framed painted portrait of an older individual with white curled hair, dressed in a brown coat with decorative buttons and a white cravat, set against a dark background." title="German philosopher Immanuel Kant, pictured in 1765, stated that philosophers are uniquely placed to tell rulers what is wrong, says Joan Scott (Image by Getty Images)" /> This year marks 250 years since the American Revolution, which was led by a group of individuals strongly influenced by Enlightenment ideals. But did any anti-intellectual responses emerge from that upheaval? EK: The American context is particularly difficult because the revolution was incomplete in many ways. The promises of the founding documents are continually invoked, yet often fall short. For black Americans, the original revolution did not apply; another, still ongoing struggle was necessary. The more approximate parallel is the Reconstruction era (1865–77) after the Civil War, when American society attempted to redefine the rights of black people – a process still unfinished today. Read more | Women in the American Revolution: what were their lives like? We are now a generation beyond the civil rights movement, which itself was incomplete. Today, we see reactionary efforts to undo its achievements: attacks on the Voting Rights Act, resistance to feminist advances, and hostility toward LGBTQIA+ rights. Understanding this requires grappling with history, which Americans often struggle to do. The controversy over the 1619 Project illustrates this: presenting American history from a non-triumphalist perspective, centring it beyond the founding fathers, provoked deep resistance. Nikole Hannah-Jones originally created it as a New York Times Magazine special, marking the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in Virginia as the starting point of American history. She produced a series of essays centring the experiences of enslaved people and their descendants across time. It represents Hannah-Jones’s effort to reframe American history through a new, often contested lens. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/2RXWT0B-faa6c5a-e1777451938667.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A historical photograph shows children and adults gathered in front of a log building with a sign reading “Freedmen’s School,” surrounded by trees." title="A freedmen’s school in the US, c1868. “After the Civil War, American society attempted to redefine the rights of black people – a process still unfinished today,” says Emily Knox (Image by Alamy)" /> The project later expanded into a full book and a children’s edition, and quickly became a lightning rod, particularly among critics of what is called ‘critical race theory’. Similarly, images from the civil rights movement can unsettle people because they expose their own families’ histories, which remain raw for those who lived through it. Coming to terms with these histories is a profoundly difficult, ongoing challenge in the US. JS: Many of the critics of the 1619 Project who saw themselves as progressive or left-leaning attacked it not for ideological reasons but by accusing it of factual errors. In doing so, I believe some of them may have been denying the underlying biases they bring to the study of history themselves: a commitment to a triumphalist, progressivist vision of America. It illustrates how historians can obscure the assumptions that shape their own work while critiquing others. Why have books so often been targeted during waves of anti-intellectualism? EK: I am fascinated by the book as a technology: it collapses time and space, allowing us to access what people thought centuries ago. Books are particularly powerful in the Global North, shaped by the influence of Christianity, especially Protestantism. In my work on the Reformation, I emphasise two doctrines: sola scriptura, the idea that one can save one’s soul through reading [scripture]; and the ‘priesthood of all believers’ – the principle that no intermediary is required between God and people, reader and text. Books occupy a unique place in our lives. I often ask students if they break the bindings of their books; some are horrified by the idea while others are indifferent. Unlike other objects, the way we engage with texts shapes how we understand ourselves. That is why books are frequently banned: they are among the most powerful tools for shaping thought and identity. Control over knowledge has always been exercised through text, because this is how ideas are communicated, shared and contested. Censorship is another method often deployed to actively police the public understanding of reality. Where does this practice originate? EK: The origin of the term stretches back to the ancient Roman censor – the magistrate responsible for overseeing public morality. Authorised knowledge has always been central not only to authoritarian control but even to self-identifying democratic governments when they define what information is sanctioned and what is forbidden. Historically, this is seen in the ‘king’s imprimatur’ – the official seal approving a text. Today, the same principle appears in cases such the Epstein files: redactions signal what the government deems authorised for public access versus knowledge it withholds. Often, authorised knowledge focuses on victims, while information about perpetrators is restricted. This illustrates how governments generally manage and control knowledge. JS: Historically, almost every authoritarian regime has relied on censorship to impose its will. This illustrates how law can both censor knowledge and impose a singular view of human identity. Similar patterns appear throughout history: during the French Revolution, the Jacobins dictated what could be taught about society, politics and relationships; Maoist China imposed its ideological framework on education. Censorship has consistently been a key tool of authoritarian regimes for controlling thought, knowledge and social norms. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-2232572087-2c6c79f-e1777452592240.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A marcher holds a large orange sign that says “Why We March: Freedom Fairness Security,” while others behind them carry signs that read “Fighting for a Better Future.”" title="A participant in the 28 August 2025 March on Wall Street, a rally protesting against US government policies towards Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programmes (Image by Getty Images)" /> The study of history itself has often been at the forefront of anti-intellectual crusades. How can our comprehension of the past be sanitised or distorted by political pressures – and what are the consequences? JS: This raises a complex question, because I don’t believe in a single, objective truth of history. The history we write always reflects the ethical positions and values we bring to it. For example, the 1619 Project cannot be told without addressing both the history of slavery and its ongoing legacy of racism. My choices in research and teaching are guided by these values. There is no history without values – not in the sense of imposing an ‘official’ version but in recognising that the questions we ask about the past are shaped by the present. This is why it is crucial that the stories we teach, whether to children or the wider public, acknowledge the contemporary concerns that motivate them. Criticisms framed as objections to ‘presentism’ misunderstand this: the past exists only as we interpret it. So, in response to critics of undertakings such as the 1619 Project, the debate should centre not on alleged factual errors but on the values and principles that inform one’s approach to history. That is the lens through which I, as a professional historian, understand the importance of my work. Read more | "Violence and American politics have gone hand in hand right from the beginning": a history of political violence EK: My work focuses on very recent history. For example, I’m interested in how the Covid-19 pandemic will be presented to children today. The youngest kids who truly remember it are now around eight to 10 years old. For many in school, the pre-pandemic world is already history. Recent events, such as the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol [by supporters of Donald Trump who believed the 2020 presidential election was ‘stolen’], illustrate how contested history can be. Even when reported widely, narratives vary: should words such as ‘insurrection’ be used to describe that episode? How do we interpret the actions of those involved, and the political consequences? These debates will eventually filter down into schoolbooks and children’s literature, and that is where history becomes contested at the community level, not just among scholars. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-1230460050-19b9753-e1777452378158.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A dense crowd at an outdoor political rally holds numerous flags and banners while a row of helmeted police officers in high‑visibility jackets forms a barrier in front of them." title="Supporters of Donald Trump storm the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, aiming to overturn Joe Biden’s election win. Such events demonstrate just how contested even recent history can be, says Emily Knox (Image by Getty Images)" /> Many students note that history covered in formal lessons in the US often stops at 9/11, leaving everything since then largely unexamined. My work explores how recent events are already history, how their presentation is debated, and how these debates shape what children and the public understand about our shared past. JS: Statues are often used to memorialise figures as heroes of the nation, state or community. For example, Donald Trump has proposed marking the country’s 250th anniversary with a National Garden of American Heroes featuring 250 statues of people he considers important in US history. Meanwhile, statues depicting historical figures such as Christopher Columbus are being restored, alongside some of Confederate generals that had been removed or relocated to museums. In my view, plaques in such institutions explaining those people’s actions are far more appropriate than central heroic displays. The controversy over Columbus illustrates how historical narratives shift: he was once taught as the discoverer of America, but recognition of Native American perspectives has reshaped that story. President Trump’s recognition of Columbus Day, while not acknowledging Indigenous Peoples’ Day, reflects the politics of history. Television documentaries such as Ken Burns’ The American Revolution (2025) show how historical scholarship can reshape public understanding. Burns highlights slavery, Native American displacement and figures including Crispus Attucks, the first casualty of the revolution, who happened to be of African and Native American heritage – a critical intervention that revises the traditional triumphalist narrative. Why and when do anti-intellectual movements demonise scholars and experts as ‘out-of-touch’ elites? Is it specifically during times of economic or other social crises? EK: You can’t discuss anti-intellectualism without considering class. The intellectual class is rarely working class; it is defined less by economics and more by markers of middle or upper-middle-class life. Intellectuals work with their minds rather than their hands, spend years in study – a luxury that many cannot afford – and are often associated with habits such as publishing, reading and other cultural signifiers. These markers set them apart. My father, for example, was the first in our family to earn a PhD in mathematics, and for years he was told he was ‘wasting his time’ instead of getting a job. Anti-intellectualism is often rooted in the perception of these class-based privileges, yet that dimension is not always acknowledged in discussions of the phenomenon. JS: Anti-intellectualism can emerge during times of crisis, but not always. Sometimes it is used opportunistically to advance a political agenda. Take the McCarthy era: the Cold War generated anxieties about communism, but it was Joseph McCarthy who manufactured a crisis, investigating and summoning individuals, ruining careers and dominating public attention for a decade. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-515468158-20125d2-e1777452445708.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Two individuals sit at a table with microphones in a formal indoor setting; the person in the foreground holds up several sheets of paper while speaking." title="Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist crusade was, says Emily Knox, driven as much by personal opportunism as genuine political crisis (Image by Getty Images)" /> A similar pattern exists in higher education today. The sector has long faced structural challenges, including reduced state and federal funding, a shift to student debt, and widespread financial insecurity. However the Trump administration’s higher education interventions have transformed these ongoing difficulties into what I believe is a full-blown crisis. Political opportunism, layered onto long-term structural pressures, plays a crucial role in the rise of anti-intellectualism. The internet was once hailed as a means of democratising access to information. However, in recent years it has gained a reputation for transmitting disinformation and conspiracy theories. How has this enabled anti-intellectualism to amplify distrust of expertise? EK: A good example comes from Reddit, where the AskHistorians subreddit is highly regulated: answers require citations and are usually provided by professional historians. It allows people to ask complex questions and ensures careful, informed responses. Yet Reddit also hosts substantial misinformation, especially on health topics, making it a fascinating place to observe how knowledge and misunderstanding can coexist. Read more | "Forget AI – never has the role of the historian been more urgent" Subreddits that encourage questions – for example, NoStupidQuestions and explainlikeimfive [years old] – provide spaces for people to seek understanding in a non-judgmental way. These forums highlight the importance of proactive, clear communication, rather than leaving people to rely solely on news or social media snippets. Is there a consistent thread that unites all of the anti-intellectual movements throughout history? EK: It’s largely about control. Take the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Index of Forbidden Books) compiled by the Catholic church, for example. It was created in response to Protestantism, to assert authority over ideas that the Catholic church could no longer directly control. The logic was simple: if people couldn’t read certain texts, they wouldn’t question doctrine, and the church’s authority would remain intact. In practice, this often backfired. Listing a book could make it more appealing. Even in the medieval period, putting a book on the Index often simply drew attention to it, making people want to read it. Attempts to control thought through banning texts rarely work as intended. Emily JM Knox is a professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. The second edition of Book Banning in 21st-century America was published by Bloomsbury in January 2026 Joan Wallach Scott is professor emerita in the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University. Her books include Knowledge, Power, and Academic Freedom (Columbia University Press, 2019) This article was first published in the April 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine
How did the world change during Queen Elizabeth II's reign?
Throughout her reign, Queen Elizabeth II remained a constant presence in an era of vast social, technological and geopolitical transformation. Anna Whitelock charts an era in which Britain, but not its queen, changed beyond recognition
Never before has Britain changed so dramatically during the reign of one monarch. The second Elizabethan age was defined by unprecedented transformations in every facet of life, the effects of which rivalled those of the industrial revolution more than two centuries earlier. Queen Elizabeth II witnessed significant changes in society, technology, transport and geopolitics, which created what most people would recognise today as the modern British state. The very fact that the monarchy has survived and, indeed, thrived against this backdrop owes much to the late Queen and her constant, unchanging presence over 70 years. Before the Queen’s coronation on 2 June 1953, few people owned a television. The decision to broadcast the ceremony live prompted many to buy their first set, and well over 20 million people in the UK watched Queen Elizabeth II being crowned at Westminster Abbey in London. The BBC, then the only national broadcaster, transmitted on just one (black-and-white) television channel and three radio stations. It approached the coronation filming with reverence and deference. The director general’s views were clear: “There ought to be an absolutely rigid policy that so far as the BBC is concerned [the royal family] can be guaranteed complete privacy.” Royal Women with Kate Williams Join Professor Kate Williams for a six-part HistoryExtra series uncovering the little-known stories behind some of history’s most famous queens. From Cleopatra to Elizabeth II, we’ll explore how royal women navigated power, politics, and expectation and how their legacies were shaped long after their deaths. Watch now Over the following 69 years, the media changed beyond recognition. Countless terrestrial television channels are now available, plus many more via streaming subscriptions. At the same time, the media industry has become global, with rolling 24-hour news channels, newspapers viewed online, and social media posts visible almost anywhere on the globe. Much of this was made possible by the world wide web, just one key innovation in an age marked by rapid changes in communication. At the start of the Queen’s reign, communication was primarily via letters, telegrams and newspapers. Just two and a half decades later, in 1976, she sent her first email; she uploaded her first YouTube video in 2008, sent her first tweet in 2014, and uploaded her first Instagram post in 2019. By 2022, print newspapers reached just 24 per cent of the British public, down from 40 per cent just four years previously. Also by 2022, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube had all overtaken the BBC as the prime source of news for British teenagers. Appliances of science It’s not just in the realm of computer science that Britain has witnessed immense technological change over the past 70 years. In 1952, when Elizabeth came to the throne, only a small minority of homes had central heating, fridges, washing machines or telephones. There were just 2.5 million cars on the roads, and for most people owning such a vehicle was a distant aspiration. Today, most households own at least one car – there are 32.9 million on the roads. The young Queen ruled over a less-populous, younger country. Of the UK’s 50.6 million people in 1953, 21.6 million were under the age of 30, and 8 million were 60 or older – a ratio of 2.7 to 1. The population has since grown to more than 68 million and also aged. The ratio of young to old is 1.4 to 1 and falling. This ageing society is another feature of the second Elizabethan age that increasingly puts pressure on the celebrated National Health Service (NHS) – which was just four years old in 1952. Part of the explanation for the rise in life expectancy in the UK has been local scientific excellence. The discovery of the double helix structure of DNA in 1953 by James Watson, Francis Crick and Rosalind Franklin, together with Robert Edwards’ IVF (in vitro fertilisation) revolution, which led to the birth of the first “test-tube baby” in 1978, played their part in changing the face of science, medicine, education and preventative treatments. The importance of these advances will never be forgotten, and these individuals proved themselves pioneers comparable to the great explorers and inventors of the Victorian period. Read more | In pictures: Queen Elizabeth II through the decades UK society has also become vastly more diverse year on year since 1952, when few Britons would have seen a non-white face in their daily life. Over the past seven decades, immigration has created a multi-faith and multi-ethnic society, and “Britishness” has declined concurrently as the default national identity. The instinctive, 1950s sense of British nationhood – forged through two world wars, a Protestant faith and an imperial project that elided any sense of internal UK differentiation – has come to an end. Now identities are more fragmented or multiple: many people in the UK consider themselves primarily Scottish, Welsh, English or even European. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2022/11/GettyImages-912522140-1a7c000-e1776764601902.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black-and-white photograph shows children playing together in a playground at a junior school in north London. Several children are captured mid-jump while others follow behind in a line drawn on the ground. Low school buildings frame the open play area." title="Children play in a north London junior school in 1971. Britain has evolved into a multi-faith and multi-ethnic society over the past seven decades (Photo by Getty Images)" /> The fact that London has a Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan, is indicative of the scale of change. None of this was a possibility in 1952. Then, women comprised just 32 per cent of the employed population. By 2022, they made up 48 per cent of the workforce. The Queen joined that workforce herself during the Second World War when employed as a truck mechanic in the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service. More than 70 years later, in 2015, she noted the great strides that women have taken over the course of her reign during a speech to mark the centenary of the Women’s Institute. “In the modern world, the opportunities for women to give something of value to society are greater than ever, because, through their own efforts, they now play a much greater part in all areas of public life,” she observed. Freedom and failure The hierarchy and deference of the 1950s has given way to a more liberal or “permissive” society. Birth control, abortion reform and the Equal Pay Act 1970 all helped combat the gender inequality of the 1950s. The Sexual Offences Act 1967 decriminalised homosexual acts between men; 46 years later, gay individuals won the right to marry in England, Scotland and Wales (though not until 2020 in Northern Ireland). Notwithstanding, gender equality and the battle for LGBTQ rights became huge issues in the latter years of the Queen’s reign. Despite the optimism that bloomed at the time of the coronation, the past 70 years have been characterised by the relative decline of the UK, perhaps most markedly in its economy. “There is a lot of talk about the new Elizabethan age, but whether it will be implemented will depend on all ranks in industry,” Brigadier Ralph Rayner told parliament in 1952. “The British industrialist and merchant, if given half a chance, will wipe the floor with any other industrialist in the world. The British working man, if given a good lead, will certainly beat any other working man in the world.” Yet, misogyny aside, that wasn’t to be. British business failed repeatedly to invest in infrastructure, or to innovate or market at the same rate as their American, Japanese or European competitors. So the “never had it so good” coronation boom years of full employment, high growth and low inflation could not be sustained. UK industry, management and labour relations have proved increasingly uncompetitive on a global stage, despite political rhetoric advocating, both politically and economically, “Global Britain”. The Elizabethan era has, overall, been defined by deindustrialisation and economic decline – though, of course, some individuals have become super rich. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2022/11/GettyImages-639614552-e1776764655267.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black-and-white photograph shows members of the Blyth miners’ wives support group marching with adults and children through a residential street. A large banner reading “COAL NOT DOLE” is held at the front of the procession. The image documents community protest during the UK miners’ strike." title="A sponsored walk to raise money for families affected by the miners’ strike, Northumberland, 1984. Postwar Britain witnessed dramatic industrial decline (Photo by Getty Images)" /> In 1952, the UK was the world’s second-biggest economy, behind only the US, with a GDP of £247bn. At the start of September 2022, it was the world’s sixth biggest after the US, China, Japan, Germany and India. At the same time, the economies of continental Europe have grown from their low postwar base at a much faster pace than that of the UK. When Elizabeth II assumed the throne, Winston Churchill was UK prime minister, Josef Stalin was leader of the Soviet Union, Harry Truman was US president, and Mao Zedong was the mainland Chinese leader. The Korean War was still being fought, and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was little over two years old. The UK was just about to join the US and the Soviet Union as a nuclear power, with Churchill announcing the atomic bomb project a week after the coronation. Today the PRC is an emerging superpower with the second-largest economy in the world; the Soviet Union long ago disappeared from the geopolitical landscape; and the UK has transitioned to a “lesser power”. To many, the UK’s global reputation was indelibly tarnished in the bloody aftermath of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But fantasies about a second Elizabethan age were already fading long before then. It’s hard to overstate the humiliation generated by the Suez crisis of 1956, when Britain, France and Israel conspired together in an unsuccessful attempt to wrench back control of the Suez Canal from Egypt. The evolving empire During her Christmas Day broadcast from 1953, Elizabeth II declared: “The Commonwealth bears no resemblance to the empires of the past. It is an entirely new conception built on the highest qualities of the spirit of man: friendship, loyalty and the desire for freedom and peace.” A month earlier, the Queen had set off with her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, on a marathon tour of the Commonwealth nations lasting five-and-a-half months. Pathé newsreels back home showed the scenes of wild enthusiasm that greeted the royal couple wherever they went, from Bermuda to Gibraltar by way of Jamaica, New Zealand, Australia and Uganda. But the world was changing fast, and nowhere more obviously than in the empire. That process had begun in earnest when India became independent in 1947, five years before Elizabeth took the throne, but accelerated rapidly during the 1950s and 1960s. In the first two decades of Elizabeth’s reign, 32 countries achieved independence from Britain. Hong Kong, the last major holding of the empire, was given back to China in 1997. Read more | The Queen and the Commonwealth: a force for international change? As the empire fractured, the Commonwealth rose. Under the Queen’s leadership, this global alliance grew from a group of eight founding nations in 1952 into a voluntary association of 56 independent countries comprising 2.5 billion people. However, some commentators have argued that the benign face of the Queen disguised Britain’s complicated history of violence and bloody conflict, citing, for example, the brutal counterinsurgencies in what are now Kenya, Malaysia, Yemen and Cyprus in the latter days of the British empire. These imperial misdeeds have only belatedly led to a reckoning in the UK, with the government paying compensation to some victims of its colonial policies. The push by activists for the removal of statues, the revision of school curriculums glorifying Britain’s empire, and further calls for apologies and reparations demonstrates how the consequences of the rapid decolonisation of the first decades of the Elizabethan era are still reverberating. Apologies and reparations That said, the break-up of the empire could have been more rancorous without the Queen’s presence. Throughout Britain’s transition from an empire to post-imperial power, she made it clear that she was determined to build a new relationship with Britain’s old imperial possessions – based on friendship rather than post-imperial bitterness. In 1961 she visited Ghana and danced with President Kwame Nkrumah, who had been one of Africa’s most prominent anti-colonial leaders and had been briefly imprisoned by the British. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2022/11/GettyImages-613471398-8d02775-e1776764717315.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A colour photograph shows Queen Elizabeth II walking past troops of the Nigeria Regiment lined up at attention. The soldiers wear coordinated uniforms and stand in two rows, while accompanying officers walk nearby. The scene takes place outdoors during a formal military inspection." title="During her Commonwealth tour of 1956, Queen Elizabeth II inspects the men of the newly renamed Queen’s Own Nigeria Regiment of the Royal West African Frontier Force (Photo by Getty Images)" /> Certainly, Elizabeth defined this era of unprecedented global transformation by becoming a rare unifying figure; notably, she retained the affection of Commonwealth leaders even when they were hotly opposed to her government’s policies. As long as she was alive, many knotty issues were shelved; now she has died there will be much to reappraise. The Commonwealth must plot a new path and decide where its future lies. The organisation has grown of late, welcoming countries that had never actually been under British rule. It’s one of the few groups in which mature and emerging economies come together with a common agenda. And there are obvious issues in which it could still play a part – climate change and vaccine diplomacy being two examples. The final years of the new Elizabethan age saw a movement among Caribbean nations to remove the Queen as the titular head of state and to press for reparations for the abuses of the colonial era. The process was accelerated when Barbados became a republic in 2021. Belize has announced a constitutional review of the question, while Jamaica and Antigua & Barbuda have both indicated their intentions to become a republic. Confused identities A defining characteristic of the United Kingdom, throughout Elizabeth’s reign and today, remains the need to accept and define its changed position in the world. Back in 1962, former US secretary of state Dean Acheson noted in a speech, to the anger of the British press, that “Great Britain has lost an empire and has not yet found a role”. He suggested that the country was confused about its future identity – focused on its “special relationship” with the US one moment, then looking toward Europe or the Commonwealth to give it greater meaning and influence the next. These words ring as true today as they did then. Now, Britain is acutely uncertain about its place in the world and facing the repercussions of the scale and pace of change that has defined the second Elizabethan era. Read more | Queen Elizabeth's relationships with US presidents As much as the Queen was a stabilising force for many people, the UK appears to be increasingly divided on geographic lines. Doubts have been growing about whether its four nations can hold together as a United Kingdom. There are growing calls for political change in Northern Ireland, and increased pressure post-Brexit for independence in Scotland, reflected in The Herald on Sunday’s headline above a picture of Charles: “Union’s Saviour or Last King of Scotland?” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2022/11/GettyImages-539560540-d80d116-e1776764820433.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A colour photograph shows Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip standing in an open-top vehicle as it travels along the Mall. Union flags line the avenue, with large crowds gathered behind barriers on both sides and Buckingham Palace visible in the distance. The image reflects a ceremonial procession during a public celebration." title="The Queen greets well-wishers gathered on the Mall in London to celebrate her 90th birthday, 2016. She has left behind a nation profoundly uncertain about its place in the world (Photo by Getty Images)" /> Elizabeth II’s reign encompassed the transformation of culture and class; rapid technological expansion and socio-political change; the end of deference and a distinctive sense of Britishness. Yet the Queen was successfully able to navigate these changes – embracing advances in technology and communication, while also representing a reassuring bastion of tradition and age old values and virtues. She was in the world of change but somehow at once apart from that world. US President Joe Biden described her as “a stateswoman of unmatched dignity and constancy”. That constancy belied the epochal shift experienced by her country – the consequences of which are, with her death, only now coming into full view. This article first appeared in the December 2022 issue of BBC History Magazine
Medieval family planning: meet the strong-willed women who redefined motherhood in the Middle Ages
In the Middle Ages, the bearing and raising of children defined women’s lives. But as Elinor Cleghorn explains, there were women who had other ideas and boldly challenged attitudes towards motherhood
In the winter of 841, a Frankish noblewoman named Dhuoda decided to compose a book of life advice for William, her eldest child. Since 824, when she married, Dhuoda had been living in Uzès, a town in southern France. Her husband, Bernard of Septimania, was a duke and military guard with family ties to the ruling dynasty of the first Carolingian emperor, Charlemagne. Almost two and a half years after their marriage, they welcomed their “most dearly desired first-born son”. As Dhuoda began writing to William, she pictured how he would hold her book when it was finished, how he would touch and turn its pages. Fifteen years earlier, William had issued “forth out of [her body] into the world”. Now, as he was leaving childhood behind, the lessons issued from her hand to his, from her body to his, would guide him towards adulthood. Dhuoda named her book Liber Manualis, Latin for handbook – literally translated as ‘hand-held book’ – and she hoped William would keep it with him always. As well as a collection of advice about how he should serve God, live virtuously, overcome hardships and be an honourable man, the Liber Manualis was a channel through which she hoped they would remain connected. For Dhuoda would not be there in person to care for William as he grew up. The Carolingian empire, as Dhuoda noted, was “in the midst of much agitation and discord”. Charles the Bald, son of Emperor Louis the Pious, and his half-brothers had been embroiled in civil wars over lands and succession for years. In June 841, after Charles won a bloody battle, Bernard, who fought against him, appeased Charles by offering his son William as vassal. Back in the spring of 841, Dhuoda had given birth to their second child, a boy. Bernard was a contentious figure with many enemies so, for his newborn son’s protection, he had him removed from his family home and taken to Aquitaine. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/0752743-354aa37-e1776414834828.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A medieval illuminated manuscript shows a veiled religious woman with a halo seated and writing in a book. She wears blue and brown robes against a gold background, with decorative blue-and-white border patterns on the left." title="A 13th-century depiction of Hildegard of Bingen. Though she never had children of her own, the German abbess took on the role of mother to her spiritual community (Image by Topfoto)" /> Dhuoda, under Bernard’s orders, remained at home in Uzès. She was lonely and fearful for her children, but there was nothing she could do. Bernard, as father and patriarch, determined the fates of his sons. Dhuoda, as a woman, a mother, had no such right. Composing her handbook, which she hoped William would show to his younger brother one day, was a way for Dhuoda to process her grief by mothering from afar. “I am somewhat ill at ease and eager to be useful to you,” she explained as her handbook began. Through the act of writing, she was sustaining her bond with the children she had birthed and nurtured. “Even though I am absent in body, this little book will be present,” she wrote. Little is known about Dhuoda’s life other than the details she gives in her handbook. But like so many medieval women, her existence was defined by bearing and raising children. As a woman of noble birth who married into aristocracy, Dhuoda’s principal duty was to provide her husband with heirs. But, regardless of class or circumstance, womanhood in medieval Europe was synonymous with motherhood. Carrying, birthing and caring for children was viewed as a woman’s natural purpose. By virtue of the female body’s reproductive biology, mothering was assumed to be irrefutably inscribed into a woman’s being. Marrying a man and bearing his children was often the only way for women to ensure their safety and security. In addition, at least for those who were married, becoming a mother garnered respect, both from women’s families and wider society. A perilous undertaking But while motherhood did afford many women status and stability, it could leave them vulnerable. Children were assumed to be the legal property of their fathers, and mothers such as Dhuoda had few parental rights. To become a mother in the first place, women also had to navigate the dangers of pregnancy and birth. Pregnancy losses and stillbirths were sadly commonplace, and 15–30 per cent of babies died before their first birthdays. Childbirth was a leading cause of women’s deaths. Much of what we know about the experiences of medieval mothers is gleaned from records of childbirth rituals, medical texts detailing midwifery practices, and even in accounts of life-saving miracles that reportedly happened during dangerous births after a would-be mother or her caregivers prayed to a saint for protection. Of course, medieval motherhood went beyond giving birth. But there are few sources available today that reveal what caring for and raising children, through infancy and beyond, felt like and meant to women themselves. Dhuoda’s Liber Manualis, intimately addressed in her first-person voice to her beloved son, is one of the only surviving texts from the early Middle Ages to describe the duties of mothering and the emotions of motherhood in a woman’s own words. As well as their many domestic duties running households and tending to their families, mothers were recognised in medieval culture as being responsible for nurturing their children’s souls and spirits. For Dhuoda, the responsibility she held for guiding William’s faith was sacred, and she was determined to do her duty to him regardless of the distance between them. Dhuoda was educated and literate, and she wove her knowledge of scripture, Christian doctrine, natural science and ancient philosophy into her lessons. Read more | Marvellous medieval medicine: why their curious cures were better than you think Medieval women were expected to remain modest, and Dhuoda admonished her thoughts as those of an “unworthy woman”, a “frail vessel” and a “feeble... shadow”. But she was steadfast in her belief that, as a loving mother, no one was better qualified to teach her child how to become a good man. “My son, you will have learned doctors to teach you,” she wrote, at the end of the first chapter of Liber Manualis. “[But] they are not of equal status with me, nor do they have a heart more ardent than I, your mother, have for you.” Dhuoda saw herself as “twice a mother to [William], both in soul and in body”. Mothers’ ability to serve as their children’s moral and religious guardians was certainly related to their intimate physical connection. Parallels were drawn between the bodily nourishment a mother provided during pregnancy and while breastfeeding, and the spiritual nourishment of her tutelage and guidance. But while women were respected for creating and sustaining new lives, their reproductive bodies were still believed to be steeped in shame. The Bible decreed that Eve, the first woman, was responsible for unleashing sin into the world. To atone for her wrongdoings God commanded that all women suffer in childbearing and maternity. Women existed to ‘go forth and multiply’, but the agonies they endured while doing so were punishments for their inherent sinfulness. Through the model of Mary, motherhood become associated with salvation. Yet Mary was exceptional because, unlike all other mothers, she became pregnant and gave birth without any of the corruptions of sex, blood or pain. Spiritual motherhood The highest state of womanhood, according to medieval clerics, was achieved not by biological mothers, but by those who committed to lifelong ‘virginity’ and devoted themselves to God as nuns and abbesses. The religious culture of the Middle Ages denigrated the physical processes of childbearing and held biological mothers to strict moral standards. But, by elevating the significance of motherhood beyond the body, it also enabled women to be mothers in ways that were not confined to marriage or tethered to domesticity. By adopting the role of spiritual mothers, some medieval women gained rare opportunities to lead, think, create and write. Three centuries after Dhuoda wrote her handbook, Hildegard, a German abbess of the Benedictine order, established a new women’s monastery, the Rupertsberg, on top of a hill near the town of Bingen in the Rhineland. Hildegard was born in 1098 as the youngest of 10 children. She was tithed to the church by her noble parents. Aged just 14, she became a nun and retreated into a cloistered cell in the Disibodenberg monastery in Germany’s Rhineland-Palatinate region, which later expanded into a convent. In 1136, she was appointed magistra, or mother superior, at Disibodenberg, and 14 years later she moved with the nuns over whom she presided to the Rupertsberg. Hildegard’s life was full of hardships and privations, but she was devoted to guiding and teaching her spiritual family. “I exercised the care of my daughters in all things necessary for their bodies and souls,” she wrote. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/default-9ed4fca-e1776350598918.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="An old woodcut-style illustration showing a woman in labour seated in a small room, supported by one woman standing behind her while another kneels in front as a midwife. All three wear early modern European clothing." title="A medieval woodcut shows a mother-to-be on an obstetrical chair. Hildegard of Bingen celebrated women’s role in childbearing and motherhood (Image by Wellcome Images)" /> In her work as the primary caregiver of her community, Hildegard showed how the strongest maternal bonds could be forged beyond biology. As she guided her daughters in prayer and taught them scripture, she also showed that the work of mothering was as much about the cultivation of minds as the nurturance of bodies. Hildegard claimed to have experienced visions from God since childhood, but she kept them secret for fear of being branded a heretic. When she was 42 and suffering with illness, she was called by a “voice from heaven” to reveal what she had seen and heard. Alongside running her monastery and tending to her daughters in spirit, Hildegard began to write about her visions. The year after she moved to the Rupertsberg she completed Scivias, the first of three illustrated volumes of her theological insights, and soon she became a prolific composer of hymns, poems and music. It was also at the Rupertsberg that Hildegard wrote two medical treatises. Causes and Cures dealt with the creation of the world and the human body’s place within it, while Physica described the healing properties of plants, herbs, animal substances and earthly elements. In medieval Europe, monasteries often provided healthcare to people in need. At Disibodenberg, Hildegard tended to medicinal plants in the gardens and assisted in the infirmary. In the library, she immersed herself in Latin translations of Greek, Roman and Arabic medical and botanical discourse. Although she had never experienced biological motherhood, her role as a caregiver to women’s bodies and souls inspired her to think compassionately about their physical experiences as child-bearers and infant nurturers. Read more | Medieval influencers: 4 women who brought change to the Middle Ages While she believed that women who didn’t devote themselves to God were created to be subject to men and to mother their children, she also countered some of the more misogynistic ideas promoted by Christian doctrine, and concerned with women’s reproductive, maternal and sexual bodies. She wrote of Eve as the “first mother” rather than a tempted deceiver. She described menstrual blood as the “vital force” through which women brought forth offspring as trees bear fruit. She honoured the work women’s bodies did to sustain the growth of a foetus, give birth and produce milk to nourish infants. She even celebrated women’s sexual pleasure and wrote one of the earliest descriptions of the female orgasm. The monastic sphere was one of the few places where medieval women were afforded the time, space and resources to cultivate their own communal, creative and intellectual lives. But Hildegard’s extraordinary contributions to religious culture, medicine, science and art, which she achieved because of her role as a maternal caregiver, mark her out as a truly path-breaking medieval mother. The privileged few The breadth of education Hildegard received as a nun and abbess was only available to a privileged few. Most medieval women received no education beyond domestic skills, basic literacy, and religious instruction when they were young, and many were not granted opportunities to pursue lives of the mind as they grew up. Once they married and became mothers, the burden of their household and care-giving duties rarely allowed them to read and study. Among the vast numbers of women who needed to provide for their children and families, it was rarer still for mothers to sustain their livings as writers and thinkers. But after being widowed in 1389 and becoming the sole provider for her children, Christine de Pizan, an Italian-French writer, found a way to do just that. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/gr0029518H-02fbea9-e1776350670610.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A medieval illustration showing a robed figure in a tall white headdress gesturing toward an armoured person holding a staff. Between them is a table with an open book, a closed red book, and a small writing box, set in a room with a lattice window and decorative arches." title="The writer Christine de Pizan – shown (left) in a 15th-century manuscript illumination – was a source of inspiration for mothers across France (Image by Topfoto)" /> Born in Venice in 1364, Christine wanted to pursue learning from childhood. She was encouraged in this by her father, a physician and astrologer who served in the royal court of Charles V in France. When she was 15, she was married to Etienne du Castel, a secretary and notary to Charles V, and they went on to have three children. After Etienne died of plague, Christine faced financial strife because of complications with the sales of her late husband’s estate. Instead of opting to remarry to ensure her and her family’s security, she decided to support her children, along with her own mother and a niece for whom she was also responsible, on her own. She began her career by writing lyric poems, and soon she was composing ballads and poetic narratives for wealthy patrons in the royal court. In the 10 years after her husband’s death, Christine became France’s first professional woman of letters. As a working mother, she studied independently and wrote prolifically. In 1405, she wrote the book that has assured her legacy as one of history’s most important proto-feminist thinkers. The Book of the City of Ladies celebrated notable historical women and countered centuries of ingrained misogynistic arguments claiming women were weak, incapable of thought, prone to vice and dependent on men. That same year, Christine also wrote The Treasure of the City of Ladies, in which she advised women of all social classes and circumstances – from peasants to royalty – on how to become fulfilled, resilient and useful in their roles as wives and as mothers. Christine wished for the text to be read and shared widely by “valiant ladies and women of authority” the world over. She achieved this dream decades after her death when the advent of print meant her books were published and distributed widely. Read more | From Joan of Arc to Brigitte Bardot: meet the trailblazing women who shaped French history During her lifetime Christine gained unprecedented recognition and her influence continued for centuries. For some mothers, her work also became a guiding light. Anne de Beaujeu, Princess of France and elder daughter of Louis XI, owned a copy of Christine’s Treasure, and it inspired her to write a book of lessons for her own daughter Suzanne, who was born in 1491. About 25 years earlier, The Book of the City of Ladies graced the birthing chamber of Elizabeth of York, Duchess of Suffolk, at the Oxfordshire home of her mother-in-law, Alice Chaucer. This was because Chaucer made sure the room where Elizabeth would give birth to her third child contained books that reflected her and Elizabeth’s maternal expertise as teachers and guides. Women lost to history Though the majority of medieval women were mothers, few had the ability or opportunity to reflect on their mothering lives in writing. The voices of the many who lacked the privilege of education and literacy are lost to history. But, through the writings that survive, we can see that motherhood was then as nuanced and multifaceted as it is today. Dhuoda, Hildegard of Bingen and Christine de Pizan represent the breadth of those meanings and experiences. Even in their socially and biologically ordained roles, women still found ways to take control of their lives. And they achieved this in a male-dominated world where women, as mothers, often had little freedom to determine their destinies. Dhuoda continued to be a mother despite being separated from her children. In doing so, she left a moving, curious and revealing account of her relationship with her son – and with herself. Hildegard’s awesome achievements showed what was possible when the work of mothering transcended biology. Christine proved that motherhood was no impediment to women becoming providers and independent thinkers. All three of these women created their own concepts of motherhood. Despite social, financial and ideological barriers, they mothered on their own terms. Elinor Cleghorn is a feminist cultural historian, writer and researcher. Her latest book is A Woman’s Work: Reclaiming the Radical History of Mothering (W&N, 2026) This article was first published in the April 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine
Friends, Romans, citizens: why Rome opened its doors to people across the empire
From Romulus’s open-city policy to Claudius’s reforms, citizenship was used by Rome as both a reward and a weapon. And, as Shushma Malik explains, it enabled the burgeoning empire to build power and define identity
What made Rome so powerful? Writing in the early 16th century in his Discourses on Livy, Niccolò Machiavelli (best known for The Prince) argued that the secret lay not in geography or luck, but in people – and in a ruthless flexibility in acquiring them. “Those who design a city to create a great empire must strive with great diligence to fill it full of inhabitants,” he wrote (as translated in 1997 by JC and P Bondanella). “This may be done in two ways: either through love or through force. It is done through love by keeping the pathways open and safe for foreigners who wish to come there to live… it is done through force, after nearby cities are destroyed, by sending their inhabitants to live in your city.” Rome enlarged its population through both of those two methods, enabling it to build enormous fighting forces – Machiavelli cited a figure of 80,000 men, compared with just 20,000 for Athens or Sparta at their peak. Rome flourished, said Machiavelli, not because it had an advantageous location but because of one simple but powerful policy: it made outsiders into Romans. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-113636408-4087aad-e1776332738730.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A bronze sculpture shows a she‑wolf standing alert with her head turned, while two human infants beneath her reach toward her teats." title="A bronze statue shows Romulus and Remus suckled by a she-wolf. According to legend the twins, who founded Rome in 753 BC, were themselves refugees (Image by Getty Images)" /> This concept was integral to the city’s founding story. Romans were not from Rome – as Athenians were thought to be born from the earth of Athens – but travelled and settled there as refugees. According to myth – specifically, Virgil’s epic Aeneid – Aeneas came to Italy after fleeing from a burning Troy. Romulus and Remus, twins supposedly descended from the line of kings that traced back to Aeneas’s son Ascanius, were rescued from certain death at the hands of their great uncle, and sent floating down the Tiber in a basket. Rescued and suckled by a she-wolf, they were then raised by the herdsman Faustulus and his wife, Acca Larentia. Read more | Roman gods and goddesses: 17 of the most important deities of ancient Rome The twins founded Rome but, after an episode of brutal fratricide, Romulus became the sole ruler. One of his first acts, according to the historian Livy, was to offer asylum to all those – free or enslaved – from surrounding areas who wanted a fresh start, recruiting them to join his new city. The first Roman senators were selected from among these early Romans. Becoming Roman This origin myth was created in part to highlight the fact that citizenship could be transferred: you did not need to be born a Roman to become a Roman. As Machiavelli observed, this was also a deeply pragmatic strategy for accumulating the manpower needed to build an empire. However, it is not the case that all of those who entered into the empire – in particular, those conquered by the Romans – became citizens. Rome’s was an empire of citizens – but not necessarily Roman citizens. When Rome was expanding into Italy, especially in the fourth and third centuries BC, grants of citizenship could be offered as reward or imposed as punishment for those unwilling to comply with its demands. Gifts of citizenship could also, on occasion, be refused if the proposed grantees did not see the benefits. This was the case for a group of soldiers from Praeneste – now Palestrina in central Italy – who helped the Romans to defend Casilinum (now part of Capua) from attack by the Carthaginian general Hannibal. Livy describes how the soldiers were rewarded with double pay and an extraordinary five-year exemption from military service. However, when they were offered citizenship, the men refused, preferring instead to keep their status as citizens of Praeneste. This story reminds us that we should not take for granted the desirability of Roman citizenship over others when Rome was expanding as a Republic or, later, when it was under the control of emperors. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-122315896-4dbdc3a-e1776333226539.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A stone relief shows a seated figure behind a table with small rounded objects on its surface, reaching toward a standing figure who holds a staff and raises one hand in gesture." title="A third-century AD Gallo-Roman relief depicts the payment of tax – one of the responsibilities that came with Roman citizenship, along with undertaking military service (Image by Getty Images)" /> During the Republic, citizenship was technically in the gift of the Roman citizen body. However, this changed in the late Republic, when generals such as Pompey and Caesar – and, later, Octavian and Antony – could grant citizenship on the basis of military merit. One such law that allowed this was the lex Gellia Cornelia of 72 BC, which we know about because a political opponent of Pompey’s tried to attack him by claiming that he had no right to grant citizenship, which he had offered to one Lucius Cornelius Balbus. Balbus, born in Gades (now Cádiz in Spain), had fought with the Romans in various battles against the rebel general Sertorius. Cicero, one of Balbus’s team of defenders, had a seemingly clear-cut case that not only did Balbus deserve citizenship but that Pompey unquestionably had the authority to grant it. What the trial reveals, however, are the political stakes of citizenship grants in the changing landscape of the Roman Republic. In the later period of the first century BC, citizenship – like many other aspects of a Roman’s status – had become a tool of political attack. Rights and responsibilities What did citizenship get you? The first thing to remember is that both men and women were Roman citizens. This is underlined by the right of conubium – of Roman women and men to marry and have citizen children. Roman citizens also had the right of commercium: to enter into contracts, such as trade, with other Romans and with the protection of the Roman courts. In addition, Romans had the right to appeal if they were being mistreated. Perhaps the most famous example of this is an episode in the New Testament book of Acts (22:25), in which Paul – affirming his status as a Roman citizen – insisted on being taken to Rome. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-520718047-5537cc1-e1776333432689.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A mosaic made of small coloured tiles shows a bearded, bald man with a golden halo behind his head." title="An 11th-century mosaic of Saint Paul in St Sophia’s Cathedral, Kyiv. As a Roman citizen, he was entitled to appeal to the emperor in Rome to hear the case against him (Image by Getty Images)" /> The story goes that the apostle was arrested in Jerusalem for creating a disturbance. The barracks commander ordered him to be flogged, but the centurion had to stop when Paul declared himself a Roman citizen. Even more pointedly, it’s observed that Paul had been born a Roman citizen, whereas the centurion had bought his citizenship. Ultimately, Paul declared to Festus, the procurator of Judaea, his right to go to Rome to plead his case. “You have appealed to Caesar. To Caesar you will go!” was Festus’s response, recounted in Acts 25:12. In political terms, during the Republic and early imperial period, men who held Roman citizenship had the right to vote in Rome’s assemblies and to run for magistracies if they could afford it. But this did not extend to women or, in the main, to citizens who had been manumitted from enslavement. It also did not extend to men from communities who had been granted civitas sine suffragio – citizenship without voting rights, a status first recorded in the fourth century BC. As well as rights, citizens also had duties, which included taxation and military service. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/L.CassiusLonginusdenarius63BCRRC413-1reverse-26a0f50-e1776332982945.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A silver Roman coin shows a robed figure standing and holding a small object, with a rectangular chest or altar in front of them. The inscription “LONGIN III V” runs along the right edge." title="A voter casts a ballot on a Roman denarius coin issued in 63 BC. At that time, during the Republic, male Roman citizens had the right to vote in assemblies (Image by CNG Coins)" /> There were a number of ways to become a Roman citizen, other than being born to parents who possessed the right of conubium. If an enslaved person was manumitted by a Roman citizen in one of the three legally defined ways, that person would be granted citizenship. Those who held a magistracy (political office) in a Latin community – a colony that was subject to Latin law, with some of the rights of Roman citizenship, but not all – were granted the status. Citizenship could also be granted to individuals or groups by the senate and people of Rome or, later, by the emperor for extraordinary activity or by serving in the Roman army as an auxiliary (non-citizen soldier) for 25 years. Read more | Have archaeologists just found proof of ancient Carthage's legendary anti-Roman war weapon? Positions of power There were periods in Rome’s history when citizenship expanded particularly rapidly. One was during the Social War (91–88 BC), the result of which was the extension of citizenship to more or less all free Italians. This had been a long time in coming: Italian allies had been fighting in Rome’s wars and striving for political inclusion, but had not received any formal political rights. Eventually, Rome recognised the value of other Italians to its continued imperial success. The Social War was followed by lengthy periods of military activity by Pompey in the east and by Caesar in Gaul, and individual or group grants of citizenship were made in those places. Gaul makes a particularly interesting case study. In AD 48, some 100 years after those campaigns, the question was raised whether some of those Gauls conquered by Caesar should be let into the senate. Notably, the then-emperor Claudius (ruled AD 41–54) was himself born in Lyon while his father Drusus held a post in Gaul. Claudius argued – in the face of senatorial opposition – that the Gallo-Romans had become so interchangeable with Italian Romans in their manners and characteristics that they deserved to sit in the empire’s most prestigious political body. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/ClaudiantableIMG1073-black-1e4b98f-e1776333719521.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A large bronze tablet divided into two panels shows rows of engraved Latin text in capital letters, with a vertical crack running between the panels." title="A bronze tablet of AD 48 inscribed with a speech given by the emperor Claudius – himself born in Gaul – championing the right of Gallo-Romans to sit in the senate (Image by Rama Wikipedia Commons)" /> Two copies of Claudius’s speech survive: one in the Annals of Tacitus, writing in the early second century AD, and another as an inscription in Lyon from AD 48 recording Claudius’s success. Tacitus gives us some sense of the senators’ objections: how can the same people who were once such fierce enemies now be put in a position of such power? In reply, Claudius contended (as translated by AJ Woodman in 2004): “Our founder Romulus… was so effective in his wisdom that he regarded many peoples as enemies and then as citizens on the same day! Immigrants have reigned over us… [no other war] was concluded in a shorter space of time than against the Gauls. Thereafter there has been a constant and trusting peace. Now, merged as they are with us by conventions, attainments, and relationships, let them bring in their gold and wealth rather than keep them to themselves.” Claudius made a winning case for the ease with which the Gauls conquered by Caesar had embraced the elements of Roman citizenship, observing that this prepared them for leading roles in the Roman government. However, from the same emperor’s reign, we also see the other side of this approach. Claudius is recorded by another ancient historian – Cassius Dio, writing in the early third century AD – as having stripped someone of their citizenship for not behaving in a way that the emperor considered appropriate for a person who had been granted that status. As Earnest Cary’s 1924 translation has it: “[Claudius] reduced the Lycians to servitude because they had revolted and slain some Romans… During the investigation of this affair, which was conducted in the senate, he put a question in Latin to one of the envoys who had originally been a Lycian, but had been made a Roman citizen; and when the man failed to understand what was said, he took away his citizenship, saying that it was not proper for a man to be a Roman who had no knowledge of the Romans’ language.” This story highlights an important aspect of citizenship. Acting like a citizen seems, for some emperors at least, to have been as important as the grant itself. Acting Roman Roman identity was performed in several ways. Speaking Latin was one of them; another was donning the correct attire. In the second century AD, Pliny the Younger wrote a letter recounting the story of Valerius Licinianus, who was exiled by the emperor Domitian for raping the chief priest of Vesta, Cornelia. (She, in contrast, was sentenced to burial while still alive – a punishment available to the emperor for a Vestal who had ‘committed’ incestum, a violation of a religious law.) Exile included a loss of citizen status, which meant losing the right to wear elite male Roman dress – the toga. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-1162718076-f5245e6-e1776333502161.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A marble statue shows a standing figure in a long, draped garment, with one arm extended and the other holding part of the fabric at the waist." title="A statue of a Vestal virgin wearing a stola – a long, pleated, sleeveless robe – and palla (cloak), the garb of respectable adult women in ancient Rome (Image by Getty Images)" /> “Have you heard that Valerius Licinianus is teaching rhetoric in Sicily?” wrote Pliny, as translated by Betty Radice in 1969. “It is not long since this senator of praetorian rank was considered one of the best advocates in Rome. Now he has sunk to his present position – the senator is an exile and the orator a teacher of rhetoric… Then, when he had made his entry [into his new classroom] clad in a Greek cloak (those who have been ritually banished are not allowed to wear the toga), he made himself ready, looked down at his dress, and announced that he would deliver his speech in Latin.” Licinianus attempted to cling onto Latin, despite the fact that as a non-citizen he was strictly prohibited from wearing Roman dress. In a similar way, the stola – a garment worn by Roman citizen women – was strictly reserved for respectable daughters of Rome. Read more | You've been getting Roman togas wrong your whole life - here's why During most of the Republic, it wasn’t possible to hold more than one citizenship at one time – becoming Roman meant losing something else. However, in the last years of the Republic, that changed, even if extant sources do not provide many examples. A grant of Roman citizenship then did not automatically mean relinquishing local citizenship – both could be held at once. For some people, Roman citizenship would have held little value in day-to-day life. Working on a local farm or operating in local trade networks did not necessarily require access to the grand operating mechanisms of empire. And a local politician with his own established networks and elite status in his community did not invariably need to be eligible for the senate in Rome to fulfil his own ambitions. In AD 212, the emperor Caracalla extended Roman citizenship to almost all of the free population of the Roman empire. However, scholars suggest that before Caracalla made the grant, no more than 33 per cent of the inhabitants of empire held Roman citizenship. Previously, the majority had operated for centuries without it. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/ali016338-2-0f52d48-e1776333597701.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A marble bust shows a man with short, curly hair and a full beard, his head slightly turned and his expression stern. He wears a draped cloak fastened with a round clasp." title="A bust of the emperor Caracalla, who in AD 212 extended Roman citizenship to almost all free inhabitants of the empire (Image by Topfoto)" /> Later in history, Roman citizenship was held up as a model to be studied and in some ways emulated. During the Victorian and Edwardian periods, children of wealthy and prominent Britons – future leaders in the British empire – were educated in the citizenship strategies of ancient Greek states and Rome. However, newer ideas – of nationality, for example – made the transferral of ancient models difficult, as the debates of the era show. Principles of jus soli – the idea that British people are subjects by virtue of where they are born – or jus sanguinis (nationality by right of bloodline) play with ideas of antiquity, but are fundamentally different, adapted and readapted for new national and imperial contexts. Carrot and stick Returning to Machiavelli, his model obscures the number of people who lived under Roman control without assuming citizenship. What an analysis of Rome’s tactics also reveals is the extent to which citizenship could be used as either the carrot or the stick – reward or punishment. But what of the Lycian who was stripped of his citizenship simply because his language skills weren’t deemed up to scratch? What does it mean not to be a Roman citizen in the Roman empire? In practice, the man probably reverted back to the citizenship he had held in Lycia (now south-west Anatolia) before Roman annexation. As we’ve already seen, many regional citizenships existed – and continued to exist – within the Roman empire at the same time. Rome provides a variety of examples, lessons, and warnings about attitudes to and mechanisms of citizenship. A state that pins its own history on inclusivity can, at the same time, punish and restrict. In other words, the long history of the Roman empire tells many stories of multiple and varied citizenships. This article was first published in the April 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine
At the end of the 19th century, the law-abiding citizens of Birmingham were terrorised by a new breed of gang member with two defining passions: natty streetwear and extreme violence. Andrew Davies reveals why so many young, working-class men were drawn to the brutal glamour of the peaky blinders
"Surely all respectable and law-abiding citizens are sick of the very name of ruffianism in Birmingham and assaults on police. No matter what part of the city one walks, gangs of 'peaky blinders' are to be seen, who ofttimes think nothing of grossly insulting passers by, be it a man, woman or child. I venture to say that 99 times out of 100, they are not even brought to justice." This anguished letter, signed "Workman", was published in the Birmingham Daily Mail on 21 July 1898. Who were Birmingham's real Peaky Blinders? ‘Peaky blinders’ were easily recognised. Contrary to the myth that grew in later decades – and the BBC drama series – they did not wear caps lined with razors. In fact, they wore ‘billycock’ or bowler-style hats, made of hard felt, with a rakish, curved rim, two-and-a-half inches wide. They moulded the brims of their hats into a point, worn tilted over one eye – hence their nickname. They did not belong to a single gang. Quite the reverse: opposing gangs, all sharing this outlandish style, sought each other out on the streets of Birmingham and in late-night confrontations outside the city’s music halls. The term peaky blinder, adopted in the 1890s, was distinctive to Birmingham. In Manchester and neighbouring Salford, gang members were known as ‘scuttlers’. In London, they became known by the more enduring label ‘hooligan’. How violent were real gangs like the Peaky Blinders? The frustration of ‘Workman’ was understandable. Three days earlier, Police Constable George Snipe had been fatally injured in a disturbance that shocked the city. PC Snipe and a fellow constable named Mead were patrolling a poor district to the north of the city centre between 9.30pm and 10pm when they ‘moved on’ a group of six or seven young ‘roughs’ who had gathered outside the Tram Stores pub in Hockley Hill. As one member of the group later admitted, the men had spent the day, a Sunday, on a spree, “drinking all the day, and fighting all the evening”. The constables followed the men to the junction of Bridge Street West, where PC Snipe arrested 23-year-old William Colerain for using vile language. When the two constables tried to take Colerain in, he kicked out and the prisoner’s friends attempted to rescue him. A crowd gathered. In the ensuing melee, someone hurled a brick at PC Snipe’s head with such force that it knocked his helmet off. The stricken constable was taken by cab to the city’s General Hospital, where he died in the early hours of the following morning. A post-mortem revealed that his skull had been fractured in two places. On the podcast | Historian Andrew Davies on the real Birmingham gangsters who inspired Peaky Blinders The death of PC Snipe caused an outcry. Editorial commentaries in the Birmingham press railed against the brutality, violence and degradation that confronted the city's magistrates on a daily basis. According to the Mail, "A large percentage of the rising generation are emerging from boyhood into manhood without acknowledging any authority whatever, and with all the instincts of the savage brute implanted in them." The Mail was not alone in demanding the introduction of flogging for crimes of violence. As it pointed out, a public meeting in St George's Ward, attended by a large number of working people – many of whom lived locally, close to the scene where PC Snipe had been assaulted – "enthusiastically applauded" calls for brutal street ruffians to be flogged. "Public feeling has reached a white heat," the Mail commented, "and very properly so." A local woman named Polly Mullins identified the brick-thrower as James Franklin. Aged 19, Franklin worked as a file-cutter. He stood trial at the Birmingham Assizes on 16 December 1897, but the case against him collapsed when defence witnesses testified that the brick had been thrown not by Franklin, but by 19-year-old George ‘Cloggy’ Williams. Franklin was found not guilty. Williams went on the run as soon as he heard that PC Snipe had died. He evaded arrest until 9 January 1898. When he made his first appearance before the city’s stipendiary magistrate, reporters noted that, “his hair, which is of a light colour, was dressed in the approved ‘peaky blinder’ style, short at the back, and pulled down in a fringe over his forehead”. His former employer testified that Williams had worked as a glass-beveller for four years before leaving abruptly, without drawing his wages, on the day of Snipe’s death. Contrary to the prevailing depiction of peaky blinders as workshy, the employer said Williams had been “very industrious”. Williams in turn stood trial at Birmingham Assizes on 17 March 1898. After just two days of hearings, he was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to penal servitude for life. Passing sentence, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Russell, described the crime as "atrocious", noting that it was "thinly removed" from murder. The judge evidently thought the jury had been unduly lenient in finding Williams guilty only of manslaughter. The local newspapers applauded the sentence. As the Birmingham Daily Post put it: "We hope that every rowdy in Birmingham will take the lesson to heart." If the term peaky blinder was new in the 1890s, concern at violence among youths in Birmingham’s industrial districts was not. As historian Barbara Weinberger notes, clashes between rival youth gangs were first reported in the city during the early 1870s, their origins in territorial wars fought between English and Irish street gangs. Hostility towards Birmingham’s Irish-Catholic population had intensified during the previous decade. In June 1867, Park Street in the city’s Irish quarter had been largely demolished during the Murphy riots, provoked by an anti-Catholic tirade by the militant Protestant orator William Murphy. Anti-Irish feeling was subsequently inflamed by reports of ‘Fenian’ activity. During the 1870s, according to Weinberger, anti-Irish sentiment “offered a focus and a target for the frustrations of inner city youths which… became institutionalised in gang warfare”. Why did people join gangs like the Peaky Blinders? Weinberger offers two further explanations for a reported upsurge in street disturbances and gang warfare in Birmingham from around 1873–74. The recession that followed the boom of the early 1870s threw thousands of unemployed and disenfranchised youths onto the streets. At the same time, police clampdowns on drunkenness and street gambling were resented in working-class districts. Young men featured prominently in the disturbances that ensued. Weinberger contrasted the vigour of campaigns to reform “public manners” with the indifference shown by the civic authorities to the “welfare or rights of a section of the community who had no power or votes… and for whose behaviour they had nothing but disdain”. Youthful members of Birmingham’s street gangs described themselves as ‘sloggers’. According to historian Philip Gooderson, the ethnic hostility that sparked gang conflict in the 1870s was later eclipsed by narrower, territorial loyalties. Most of the feuds reported in the press during the 1880s and 1890s involved gangs from adjacent districts. Conflicts spread across the Birmingham conurbation, extending from the central ‘slums’ to Aston, Perry Barr and Balsall Heath, all of which lay outside the jurisdiction of the Birmingham police in 1890. Street gangs also confronted each other at music halls. On 23 December 1893, John Metcalfe, aged 20, was fatally stabbed in the neck during a fight between rival gangs from Park Street and Barford Street. The gangs clashed outside ‘the Mucker’, the concert hall in Digbeth, fighting with the buckle ends of their belts as well as knives. Thomas Cherry, a 19-year-old nailmaker, was subsequently convicted of manslaughter. He was sentenced to five years’ penal servitude. By the 1890s, Birmingham’s sloggers had adopted a distinctive uniform. One of the witnesses at Cherry’s trial, William Bond, sported a “cropped head and bell-bottomed trousers”. It was a style shared by the sloggers’ counterparts in Manchester and London, the scuttler and the hooligan. What did the real Peaky Blinders wear? The Birmingham paint and varnish manufacturer Arthur Matthison saw the city’s warring youths at close quarters when his family moved to Summer Lane, close to the spot where PC Snipe was fatally injured and notorious as a rendezvous of the ‘peakies’. In his memoirs, Matthison painted the peaky blinder as intensely style-conscious: “He took pride in his personal appearance and dressed the part with skill. Bell-bottomed trousers secured by a buckle belt, hob-nailed boots, a jacket of sorts, a gaudy scarf and a billy-cock hat with a long elongated brim. This hat was worn well over one eye, hence the name ‘peaky blinder’. His hair was prison cropped all over his head, except for a quiff in front which was grown long and plastered down obliquely on his forehead.” Read more | In pictures: what did the real Peaky Blinders look like? As Matthison pointed out, most peakies belonged to a slogging gang. He saw these youths as “the product of poverty, squalor and slum environment”. To Matthison, living in Summer Lane with “slums abounding all around”, it was all too apparent that youth violence was the by-product of harsh social and economic conditions. Historian Philip Gooderson qualifies this assessment, pointing out that gang conflicts not only extended beyond the city’s slums but also drew in many youths in full-time work. The occupations of the sloggers who appeared in droves before the magistrates, according to Gooderson, read like “a roll-call” of Birmingham’s industrial workforce: “brass caster, iron caster, fender maker, striker, hinge maker, filer, stamper, chandelier maker, gun polisher, coach builder, spectacle maker, glass blower”. Half of them worked in the iron or the brass industries, the dominant sectors of the local economy. None of them, however, could be described as middle-class. Slogging, like scuttling in Manchester and Salford, was a working-class pastime, reflecting the kudos attached to displays of fighting prowess and toughness in working-class neighbourhoods. Middle-class youths, with greater opportunities and better prospects, had no incentive to risk injury and imprisonment. The Mail dispatched a reporter to Summer Lane, where Matthison lived in the early 1890s, and the correspondent relayed an encounter with a peakie's 'moll'. She too was easily identified by her appearance, since it mirrored those of the peaky blinder himself: "There was the same lavish display of pearl buttons, the well-developed fringe obscuring the whole of the forehead and descending nearly to her eyes, and the characteristic gaudy-coloured silk neckerchief covering her throat. Her head was hidden beneath an elaborate hat of considerable dimensions and decorated with feathers and poppies." (Interestingly, by the late 1890s, the peaky blinder's uniform incorporated the pearl buttons typically associated with the London costermonger.) The reporter concluded, ruefully, that Summer Lane's molls were a "long-suffering lot". When did the real Peaky Blinders disappear? In the years before the First World War, Birmingham’s peaky blinders faded from view. Gooderson attributes the decline of slogging gangs and the concomitant disappearance of the peakies to a number of factors, ranging from the growth of football as an alternative source of excitement for working-class youths to a belated clampdown by the police and judiciary. Like all youth fashions, peaky blinder style had a limited shelf-life. In the early decades of the 20th century, young people in Birmingham, as elsewhere across Britain, began to look to Hollywood for a new sense of glamour. Had a youth dressed as a peaky blinder made an appearance in Birmingham in the 1920s he would have been greeted with astonishment, although middle-aged passers-by might have chuckled in recognition. In 1936, nearly 40 years after their demise, memories of the peaky blinders were stirred by a series of letters published in the "Notes and Queries" column of the Birmingham Weekly Post. One reader had seen "many a policeman" and civilians alike "laid out" by them. In reply, "Bred and Born Brum" insisted that the peaky blinder was "just an ordinary working man… He could always be found at work during the day in some brass foundry, doing his bit at the lathe or vice or perhaps as a polisher or in the casting shop." Read more | Who were the real Billy Boys, the Glasgow gang in Peaky Blinders S5? Another correspondent, F Atkins, was adamant that “a good many readers have a wrong conception” of peaky blinders: “Their actions were mostly restrained to rival gangs and the police. The general public was seldom interfered with unless they interfered.” Mr Atkins also revealed how the hat that gave the peakie his name was fashioned. It was a “Bowler hat with the brim made to fit the sides, the front of the brim came to a point almost like the spout of a jug. This was done by wetting the brim, warming it by the fire, them making it the shape required. This was worn on the side of the head to show the hair on the other side done in a ‘quiff’.” The peaky blinders had long ceased to stalk Birmingham’s toughest streets. But their fashion sense and penchant for violence had guaranteed their spot in the second city’s collective memory. Andrew Davies is the author of City of Gangs: Glasgow and the Rise of the British Gangster (Hodder & Stoughton, 2013). He discussed the real peaky blinders on the HistoryExtra podcast This article was first published in the September 2019 edition of BBC History Magazine
What are history's biggest misconceptions? 9 experts reveal what we get wrong about the past
Our team of historians, broadcasters and authors take aim at the most egregious fallacies about the past
Ancient Athenian democracy was democratic There’s plenty to criticise about that ancient approach We wouldn’t recognise the system practised in ancient Athens as democracy in the sense we understand it today. Women did not have the vote, and the entire society depended on a massive slave population to be able to function. Yet in other ways it was also more democratic than our democracies today. Every (male) citizen took an active role in governing the city, and every major decision was taken by a vote involving every citizen who attended. An even more egregious misconception is the idea there is an unbroken link between ancient and modern democracy. Athenian democracy lasted for only around 200 years; since then, through most of the rest of antiquity, the Middle Ages and more modern historical periods, democracy has not been practised. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-1155876683wbebready-ecda02a-e1775040845111.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="An illustration of an ancient Greek orator standing on a raised platform, wearing a robe and laurel wreath, gesturing toward a crowd of citizens and soldiers gathered below. Classical buildings and hills appear in the background" title="Demosthenes, a defender of Athenian democracy in the fourth century BC, pictured in a c1880s illustration (Image by Getty Images)" /> In more recent times, Athenian democracy has been held up as a system to avoid rather than imitate. During debates between the founding fathers about the Constitution of the United States in the 1780s, many argued that “even if every Athenian had been a Socrates [ie very intelligent], Athenian democracy would have been little more than mob rule”. It is only very recently that we have come (again) to admire Athenian democracy, and want to link our own system of government to that ancient ideal. Michael Scott, professor in classics and ancient history at the University of Warwick Most people in the past had much shorter lifespans Many people died very young – but many others lived long lives On paper, this seems to be true: today, the average global life expectancy is around 72, whereas for much of the medieval and early modern periods the figure hovered around 30–35. You might think, then, that modern medicine, public health initiatives and better nutrition have all combined to help us live longer than our ancestors. In fact, though there has been a significant improvement in living conditions, the idea that there has been a corresponding increase in lifespan over the centuries is incorrect. The overall life expectancy has risen simply because more of us are living to older ages. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-1691539942wbebready-f6db793-e1775040973181.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A seated adult in dark clothing cradles a young child dressed in pale yellow, who leans against them as if unwell. A bowl and spoon sit on a nearby table, with a chair draped in green fabric to the right." title="A 17th-century Dutch painting depicts a mother with her sick child. Though infant mortality was high in pre-modern eras, many people who survived childhood lived long lives (Image by Getty Images)" /> It’s important to understand the difference between life expectancy and lifespan. The former is an average – so, for example, if two people are born on the same day and one lives to the age of 80 but the other gets ill and dies before their first birthday, their average life expectancy is 40. Although that is statistically correct, we should be wary of drawing conclusions about typical lifespans. Using such figures doesn’t tell us that all (or even most) people in the past lived shorter lives. For most of the medieval and early modern periods, infant mortality was high due to the prevalence of disease, the lack of vaccines and medical knowledge, poor hygiene and sanitation, and complications from childbirth. But if you made it through childhood, you had a fair chance of living for almost as long as the average person today. There are plenty of historical examples of people living well into their seventies, eighties and beyond. Elizabeth I was in her 70th year when she died, and the Roman author and scientist Pliny the Elder recorded one musician who enjoyed good health until his death at the age of 105. Tracy Borman, author, historian and broadcaster Every war ends at a single moment The consequences of conflict can drag on for years The greatest historical misconception is that wars come to an end neatly, on a specific date, with the signing of an armistice or surrender agreement. No war in history has ever ended happily-ever-after with a sudden return to normality. The consequences of war – famine, displacement, lawlessness and political violence – often last longer than the conflict itself. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-514079642wbebready-6a2479b-e1775041054396.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="“A group of people gather with copies of The Washington Times, holding up front pages with bold headlines such as ‘GERMANY SURRENDERS’ and ‘WAR IS OVER,’ reacting to news of the First World War’s end" title="Jubilant Americans celebrate German defeat in 1918. As Keith Lowe points out, though, the end of a world war has never resulted in a world fully at peace (Image by Getty Images)" /> The First World War is a perfect example. In our popular imagination, especially in the west, it came to an abrupt end on 11 November 1918. But the guns did not fall silent for long. Popular revolutions soon broke out in Germany, Austria, Hungary and many other places. Turkey was consumed by ethnic and religious violence, and vast battles took place between Poland, Ukraine and the new Soviet Union. Such events created an atmosphere of chaos that lasted well into the 1920s. The same thing happened after the Second World War. Ceasefires in 1945 did not bring immediate peace. Instead, armed groups rushed to fill the power vacuum left by the defeat of Germany and Japan. Political violence became the norm, and full-blown civil wars erupted in Greece, Poland, China and Indonesia, among other places. That period of chaos lasted at least until the end of the 1940s. War is sometimes unavoidable. But if we had a better historical understanding of the long-term consequences, perhaps we would prepare a little better for the period of instability that always comes afterwards. And maybe we would be less eager to embark on war in the first place. Keith Lowe, author of The Fear and the Freedom: How the Second World War Changed Us (Viking, 2017) Read more | Is the Eastern Front the forgotten theatre of World War One? History is written by the victors Voices of the defeated often resonate the loudest “History will be kind to me,” said Winston Churchill, “for I intend to write it.” Or such, at least, is the popular paraphrase of a line that Churchill trotted out on numerous occasions, always in jest. In reality, as he must have appreciated, no one gets to dictate how they are viewed by posterity. Nevertheless, the notion that ‘history is written by the victors’ is a persistent one. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-1175727472wbebready-4a19229-e1775041240806.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black‑and‑white engraving showing a hooded, monk‑like figure offering a bowl and cross to an injured man supported by another. A fourth man in a helmet and holding a spear watches beside a forest stream and small waterfall" title="Welsh leader Llywelyn ap Gruffudd dies, 1282 (Image by Getty Images)" /> Consider a few counter-examples from the broad sweep of British history. Our only narrative source for Britain at the time of the Anglo-Saxon invasions is Gildas, a British monk lamenting the arrival of the invaders. Similarly, when the Vikings were ravaging Europe in the ninth century, the tale of their bloody progress was recorded by their monastic victims. Even the Normans, who produced an abundance of propaganda to justify their conquest of England in 1066, did not get to control the narrative. One of the most insightful portraits of William the Conqueror is the obituary of him penned by an English monk. The king, we are told, “was stern beyond measure to those who opposed his will… In his time people suffered grievous oppression and manifold injuries.” When Edward I conquered Wales in the late 13th century, no one (insofar as we know) celebrated his victory in verse, but Welsh poets did lament the passing of his vanquished opponent, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd. The voices of the defeated are often the ones that resonate the loudest across the centuries. Marc Morris, medieval historian, writer and broadcaster Vikings drank from their enemies’ skulls Those horned helmets are hooey, too Lurid myths swirl around the Vikings: that they wore horned helmets, drank from the skulls of vanquished foes, and tortured and dispatched enemies by splaying their ribs in the gruesome ‘blood eagle’. It’s all nonsense. We can blame the 19th century for the horned helmets. When translations of the Old Norse-Icelandic sagas were published, that headwear started to sneak into the illustrations. Wagner didn’t help. In 1876, for the first performances of his Ring cycle, costume designer Carl Doepler decided that horned helmets would be just the thing. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-542363271wbebready-344c1a7-e1775041336198.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black‑and‑white photograph of three people dressed in Viking‑style outfits, wearing horned helmets and fur garments, each holding a spear and a decorated round shield" title="Warriors don horned helmets in a Wagner opera (Image by Getty Images)" /> The idea of drinking from the skulls of enemies comes from a misreading of an Old Norse verse. That’s easily done, because the Norse wrote fiendishly complicated poetry that was deliberately difficult to unpick. One ode, Krákumál (‘The Lay of Kraka’), features a line about heroes drinking from the “curved branches of skulls”. It’s actually a poetic reference to animal horns, but 17th-century antiquarian Ole Worm translated it as heroes quaffing “from the skulls of those they had killed”. The ‘blood eagle’ is trickier to unpick, but again Old Norse poetry might be the source. The sons of Ragnar Lodbrok (‘Hairy-Breeches’), it was written, murdered the king of Northumbria by cutting his ribs from his spine and drawing out his lungs so that they looked like gory wings. It has been argued that this is a misunderstanding rooted in knottily obscure Old Norse verse, and that no such form of torture was ever perpetrated. The moral of the story? If in doubt, blame poets and costume designers. Eleanor Barraclough, historian, broadcaster and author of Embers of the Hands (Profile, 2024) Pompeii was ‘frozen in time’ Most citizens of the Roman town escaped a violent volcanic demise The eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79 didn’t happen in an instant. Nor was Pompeii buried in one swift sweep by lava. In fact, there was no lava at all. On the morning of the eruption, a thin curl of smoke rose from Vesuvius. By midday, the volcano had erupted, sending a vast column of smoke, ash and pumice 16 miles into the sky. Pumice rained onto the surrounding towns, and over the next few hours many of their inhabitants started to flee. Sometime after 7pm, the column – now too heavy to support itself – collapsed. This sent a scorching gush of pumice, gas and ash known as a pyroclastic flow hurtling towards Herculaneum. The city was buried beneath 20 metres of volcanic material. There were no survivors. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-918985082wbebready-dc62e0f-e1775041410267.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Two plaster casts of human bodies lie on a bed of light gravel, one smaller figure close beside a larger one, set against a stone wall" title="Casts of a mother and child lie in the ruins of Pompeii – two of an estimated 2,000 victims there (Image by Getty Images)" /> It wasn’t until 6.30am the following day that the first pyroclastic surge reached Pompeii’s northern walls, sweeping about 200 metres into the city before losing momentum. Then, between 7.30 and 8am, the column above Vesuvius collapsed again – and Pompeii was engulfed. Any people remaining in the city were killed instantly, their bodies locked in a rigid ‘boxer pose’ as their muscles contracted rapidly in the fierce heat. Though many died beneath collapsing structures or from suffocation during the first parts of the eruption, most residents escaped before the final lethal surges; the death rate in Pompeii may have been as low as 10 per cent. The eruption didn’t happen in an instant – and the destruction it wreaked took place over the course of some 24 hours. Jess Venner, ancient historian, presenter and author of The Lost Voices of Pompeii Read more | Your ultimate guide to Pompeii, plus 8 fascinating facts about the ancient Roman city The North won the American Civil War White racial democracy was not displaced even after Confederate defeat Southern planters lost much when the American Civil War ended in 1865. The North’s victory in that conflict ensured that the Confederacy would never establish a global empire of cotton, and paved the way for emancipation, citizenship for freed people, and the franchise for black American men. Yet white racial democracy was not displaced, even if the slaveocracy was somewhat diminished. For the remainder of the 19th century, white people mounted deadly battles against black voters, business owners and politicians. They raged against the short-lived experiment in full democracy known as Reconstruction until they struck a deal with the federal government to end it. By 1877, the rest of the country had left black southerners and their few allies to defend democracy alone. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-1329737646wbebready-3d4918b-e1775041532812.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A rectangular metal sign with white lettering on a dark background that reads ‘WAITING ROOM FOR WHITES ONLY BY ORDER OF POLICE DEPT" title="A Jim Crow-era sign enforcing racial segregation at a railway station in the US South (Image by Getty Images)" /> Even more strikingly, white southern elites won a narrative war that changed Americans’ sense of what happened. Historians call it the myth of the ‘Lost Cause’: an understanding shaped in schoolbooks, monuments and popular media that the antebellum South was a place of romance, not horror, and that there was something noble in the region’s last stand. Secessionists were understood as rebels, not traitors, and freed people as, in the words of future president Woodrow Wilson, “dusky children untimely put out of school”. “Whoever tells the best story wins,” it’s been said. The white South told such a compelling story that they secured Jim Crow segregation by 1900, bringing themselves back into the union on their own terms – and at the expense of black Americans. Adriane Lentz-Smith, associate professor of history at Duke University The Victorians were po-faced prudes The queen herself loved to laugh "We are not amused.” These words, supposedly uttered by Queen Victoria, have burdened the 19th century with an unfair reputation for prudishness and humourlessness. Many still characterise the Victorian era as a stiff and solemn time when fun and pleasure were suffocated under a cloud of self-discipline and respectability. This, quite frankly, is nonsense. Fun was a vital part of Victorian culture. Celebrity comedians packed music halls every night, the country’s most popular newspapers brimmed with jokes, and the saying “laugh and grow fat” – the belief that cheerfulness promoted health – was a familiar household phrase. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-3321199wbebready-60feebc-e1775041641325.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A person poses in a theatrical costume: a plaid jacket with large buttons and a wide collar, checkered trousers, a tall tilted hat, and exaggerated facial makeup, set against a plain background." title="Music-hall star Dan Leno poses in a ludicrously mismatched outfit c1890s, illustrating Bob Nicholson’s point that “fun was a vital part of Victorian culture” (Image by Getty Images)" /> Victoria herself was no exception. Her diaries are packed with things that made her laugh. At one dinner party, she found herself talking to an elderly admiral who bored her with a story about a damaged ship. Hoping to change the subject, she asked after his sister’s health. Mishearing her, the admiral replied: “She’ll be fine, ma’am, when we turn her over and scrape the barnacles off her bottom.” Victoria shook with uncontrollable laughter until tears ran down her face. It’s true that Victorian humour was less coarse than that of earlier generations. Jokes about sex, farts and other bodily functions fell out of favour – in respectable circles, at least – but puns became a national obsession, and the era’s comedians produced plenty of books, cartoons and one-liners that still have the power to amuse. It’s high time we stopped treating the Victorians as solemn bores, and started laughing with them instead of at them. Bob Nicholson, writer, broadcaster and historian at Edge Hill University Read more | Think the Victorians were prudes? Their filthiest jokes will shock you The Middle Ages were dismal The Renaissance starts here I am continually astonished by how often I hear the medieval period in Europe called the ‘dark ages’. One thousand years of history cannot be dismissed so quickly. This was a period of seminal political developments – of genuine statecraft. It was a period of architectural and visual glories. It was a period of outstandingly rich intellectual achievement. It encompassed the Carolingian Renaissance in the eighth and ninth centuries; the so-called 12th-century Renaissance, another period of great cultural revival and vibrancy; and the late 14th and 15th-century Renaissance. (Indeed, we can blame those latter Renaissance thinkers for the denigration of the earlier Middle Ages: they had a vested interest in making out their immediate predecessors to have been benighted and stupidly dogmatic.) <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-526750990webready-9c11477-e1775041787316.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A large circular stained‑glass rose window composed of vivid blue, red, and yellow panels depicting religious figures, framed by Gothic stone tracery and pointed arches." title="he c1220 Dean’s Eye rose window of Lincoln Cathedral, a wonder of the Middle Ages (Image by Getty Images)" /> Modern intellectual approaches were developed in the 12th century, pioneered by the scholar Peter Abelard in his dialectical text Sic et non (‘Yes and no’). Abelard also wrote a text called the Ethics, which set the tone for many centuries of ethical thinking; he foregrounded the idea of intention, too, and promoted the dictum ‘Know thyself’. On a more everyday note, the Middle Ages were also not as filthy as often assumed. By the later part of the period, urban authorities in particular were deeply concerned about hygiene, and regulated extensively. The metaphor “standing on the shoulders of giants” is often attributed to Newton, but he was merely quoting a 12th-century philosopher, Bernard of Chartres: “We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants.” We should, like Bernard, acknowledge our intellectual debts to our medieval predecessors. Hannah Skoda, associate professor of medieval history at the University of Oxford This article was first published in the March 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine
Famous last words: what did Winston Churchill, Walt Disney and Marie Antoinette say on their deathbeds?
The parting comments of some of history's most famous figures have been recorded for posterity. Here, Jonny Wilkes reveals a selection of the most noteworthy examples – from dying presidents to condemned prisoners
<img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/Oscar-WildeGettyImages-2207162542-7ce61a2-e1775118534122.jpg" width="1500" height="1003" alt="A colourised print of Oscar Wilde, 1882. His unique sense of humour lasted until his death (Image by Getty Images)" title="A colourised print of Oscar Wilde, 1882. His unique sense of humour lasted until his death (Image by Getty Images)" /> 1. “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go” Oscar Wilde The Irish author and playwright – best known for The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) – is an enduring source of witty, pithy adages, such as “I can resist everything except temptation” and “always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much”. Oscar Wilde kept that unique brand of humour until the end: on his deathbed, in a Paris hotel room, he reportedly quipped about the dingy wallpaper. Evidently, the wallpaper won the duel, since 46-year-old Wilde passed away of meningitis shortly afterwards, on 30 November 1900. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/ChurchillGettyImages-106756722-ecd2b88-e1775118778678.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="An elderly person lies on a stretcher and raises two fingers in a V‑sign while uniformed officers and suited men stand around them" title="Winston Churchill giving the ‘V’ sign as he’s transported to hospital, 1962. Three years later, he would succumb to complications from his eighth stroke (Image by Getty Images)" /> 2. “I’m bored with it all” Winston Churchill Winston Churchill suffered his eighth stroke on 15 January 1965, after a decade and a half of failing health. All the cigars, booze and rich meals had caught up with him. He had been the prime minister who led Britain through the Second World War with impassioned oratory and declarations of “We shall never surrender”, but, if his last words are anything to go by, his battle was fought. With his son-in-law Christopher Soames by his side, Churchill muttered, “I’m bored with it all,” before slipping into a coma. Nine days later, on 24 January, he died at the age of 90. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/Jean-Philippe-Rameau-GettyImages-113442113-ebfa171-e1775118867229.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="“A seated figure in 18th‑century dress holds a violin, looking toward the viewer against a dark background." title="A c1728 painting of Jean-Philippe Rameau, who described music as “the language of the heart” (Image by Getty Images)" /> 3. “What the devil do you mean to sing to me, priest? You are out of tune!” Jean-Philippe Rameau Having described music as “the language of the heart”, the French composer and music theorist Jean-Philippe Rameau was a major force of the Baroque period of the 18th century, and remained active until his dying day, 12 September 1764. Indeed, the last contribution he made to music was a critique of the quality of religious singing being performed in his room. Perhaps he was already hearing the choirs of angels, and so earthly melodies no longer enthralled him the way that they had during his long career. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/William-Henry-SewardGettyImages-3229805-a8b20b7-e1775118995911.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A man in 19th‑century formal dress sits at a desk covered with books and papers, with more sheets scattered on the floor" title="William Henry Seward, c1870. As Lincoln’s secretary of state, he narrowly escaped death in 1865 thanks to a jaw splint (Image by Getty Images)" /> 4. “Nothing, only ‘love one another’” William Henry Seward The death of Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of state was also intended on that fateful night in 1865. At the same time that the US president was shot, one of John Wilkes Booth’s fellow conspirators stabbed Seward in the neck and face multiple times. In a bizarre twist of fortune, it was a splint on his jaw, the result of a stagecoach accident several days earlier, that saved his life. His death actually came on 10 October 1872. Sensing the end, his family gathered around and asked if he had any last things to say. His response was simply to “love one another”. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/Marie-AntoinetteGettyImages-533483497-62f200a-e1775119058184.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A woman in a white gown stands with her hands bound as soldiers in uniform surround her, while a crowd reacts nearby in a tense outdoor scene." title="A 1794 painting depicts Marie Antoinette being taken to her execution the previous year. She is better-known for the phrase “let them eat cake” – which she never said (Image by Getty Images)" /> 5. “Pardon me, sir. I did not do it on purpose” Marie Antoinette King Louis XVI lost his head in the French Revolution and his queen, Marie Antoinette, would follow him to the guillotine. She had become so hated among her people as the epitome of extravagance (that said, she never uttered “let them eat cake”) that all efforts were made to make her execution as humiliating as possible. On 16 October 1793, she was forced to dress in front of her guards, had her hair chopped off and hands bound behind her back, and was taken through the streets on the back of a cart, jeered all the way. Yet Antoinette maintained her composure, even apologising politely when she accidentally stepped on the executioner’s foot. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/HitchcockGettyImages-108962593-0c6f17d-e1775119404822.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A person’s face is lit from below in a black‑and‑white portrait, framed by two upright hands on either side" title="Alfred Hitchcock frames a shot, 1964. The ‘master of suspense’ was a meticulous director, but even he didn’t know what would happen after death (Image by Getty Images)" /> 6. “One never knows the ending. One has to die to know exactly what happens after death, although Catholics have their hopes” Alfred Hitchcock Alfred Hitchcock is rightly celebrated as one of the most important filmmakers in the history of cinema, directing dozens of iconic movies like Rear Window, Vertigo and Psycho. Dubbed the ‘master of suspense’, he meticulously crafted every scene and knew exactly where the plot was going. His Hitchcockian style and immense talent for storytelling could not be called upon, however, when it came to the grand denouement of his life, as his last words illustrate. He died from kidney failure, aged 80, on 29 April 1980, relying not on plot but his Catholic hopes. Read more | Ninety years of horror: nine films that reflect society’s changing anxieties <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/John-SedgwickGettyImages-50801826-1c34bd4-e1775119480133.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Union soldiers engage in battle as a mounted figure lifts a hat, surrounded by riflemen, flags, artillery, and fallen men" title="Union General John Sedgwick tempted fate when he claimed that Confederate sharpshooters “couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance”; he was fatally shot shortly after (Image by Getty Images)" /> 7. “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance” John Sedgwick On the morning of 9 May 1864, John Sedgwick set about inspecting the line at the battle of Spotsylvania Court House. A general in the Union Army during the American Civil War, he had been wounded at Antietam in 1862 but did not share his men’s concerns about Confederate sharpshooters that began to make their presence known. He scolded his staff, stating that the enemy “couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance” – right before being felled by a bullet under his left eye. 8. “How’s this for your headline: French Fries!” James Donald French How did murderer James Donald French react as he was taken to the electric chair on 10 August 1966? He made a pun for the press. Far from fearing death, the 30-year-old American had been longing for it for years. Following his first murder in 1958, he requested execution and was disappointed to receive a life sentence. So, in 1961, he strangled his cellmate and again demanded the death penalty. It took three separate trials, and French’s constant pleas not to accept any appeals, before he finally got his wish and went out with a gag. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/Che-Guevara2WK4HM7-9dfede5-e1775119748933.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black‑and‑white portrait shows a person wearing a beret with a star emblem and a military‑style jacket, gazing slightly upward." title="Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara, pictured in 1960. Shot dead by a CIA-backed soldier, Guevara became an icon of revolution (Image by Alamy)" /> 9. “I know you are here to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man” Che Guevara The man from all those posters and T-shirts, Che Guevara became a globally recognised name for his role in putting Fidel Castro in power in Cuba. But it was in a doomed insurgency in Bolivia that the Marxist revolutionary had his final fight. Captured by CIA-backed soldiers, he was held in a mud schoolhouse deep in the jungle when the decision was made to have him executed. When, on 9 October 1967, a soldier entered his rudimentary cell, Guevara barked out his final words before being shot. He may have been only a man, but his face became a ubiquitous and enduring icon of revolution. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/Emily-DickinsonM989TW-5731e61-e1775119856837.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="American poet Emily Dickinson, c1846. Before her own passing in 1886, she had endured the deaths of many close friends and family members (Image by Alamy)" title="American poet Emily Dickinson, c1846. Before her own passing in 1886, she had endured the deaths of many close friends and family members (Image by Alamy)" /> 10. “I must go in, for the fog is rising” Emily Dickinson By the time that Emily Dickinson – little known in her lifetime but now regarded as the influential and ever-popular American poet of the 19th century – died, it is fair to say that her spirit had been broken. In the preceding years, she endured numerous deaths of family and friends, most traumatically her young, favourite nephew, and her health collapsed. “The Crisis of the sorrow of so many years is all that tires me,” she wrote in a letter. Dickinson passed away at 55 on 15 May 1886, shortly after penning one last verse that ended, “I must go in, for the fog is rising”. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/Lawrence-of-RomeGettyImages-2188110193-2f9fd45-e1775120079143.jpg" width="1498" height="1000" alt="A medieval manuscript painting shows a haloed figure lying on a patterned bed while several people stand around, and angels descend from above" title="The Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence by Pacino di Bonaguida depicts the brutal execution of Lawrence of Rome, during which he allegedly uttered his comical last words (Image by Getty Images)" /> 11. “Turn me over. I’m done on this side” Lawrence of Rome Lawrence served as one of the seven deacons of Rome in the third century; this was not a good time to be a Christian as, in AD 258, Emperor Valerian ordered that the pope and clergy be put to death. According to the legend, Lawrence’s method of execution was being burned alive on a gridiron, similar to cooking meat on a barbecue. Lawrence saw the funny side of this image, it seems, since during his martyrdom he supposedly joked that his tormentors should turn him over to ensure he cooked fully. These last words may be apocryphal, but Lawrence is still honoured as patron saint of comedians. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/Walt-DisneyGettyImages-2192286936-450aa4b-e1775120152808.jpg" width="1495" height="1000" alt="A man in a dark suit stands beside a large Mickey Mouse figure behind a wooden desk with a globe and a rotary telephone" title="Walt Disney poses for a portrait with Mickey Mouse, c1955. Working right up until the end, it seems Disney wanted to plan teen star Kurt Russell’s next acting project before his death (Image by Getty Images)" /> 12. “Kurt Russell” Walt Disney After Walt Disney’s death from lung cancer on 15 December 1966, his body was not cryogenically frozen, as the urban myth goes. Yet the death of Mickey Mouse’s creator comes with another oddity: the mystery of his final written note. While the meanings of “Ron Miller”, “Way Down Cellar” and “CIA – Mobley” remain unknown, Disney also wrote the name Kurt Russell (misspelled as “Kirt”). The teen actor had signed a 10-year contract with Disney, and it seems that the ailing businessman wanted to plot out the young star’s next project before the end. Even without it, though, Kurt Russell became one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. Read more | Cartoon century: a history of 100 years of Disney <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/John-AdamsGettyImages-513681337-ac501d0-e1775120307259.jpg" width="1495" height="1000" alt="Three men in 18th‑century clothing gather around a table covered with papers and books, reading and discussing documents in a sunlit room." title="A c1921 depiction of the writing of the Declaration of Independence, 1776. On his deathbed, John Adams wrongly believed Thomas Jefferson was still alive (Image by Getty Images)" /> 13. “Thomas Jefferson survives” John Adams On 4 July 1826, exactly 50 years after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, a 90-year-old John Adams lay dying. Three decades earlier, he had been elected as the second president of the United States, and his final thoughts were with the man who succeeded him. Adams’ last reported words were “Thomas Jefferson survives”. While the two men had fallen out over how their new country should be governed, they renewed their friendship in their later years, so maybe Adams was hopeful at the end that one of the Founding Fathers remained. Unfortunately, he was wrong: Jefferson, aged 83, had actually died just a few hours before Adams. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/Joe-DiMaggioGettyImages-517367946-1a23a02-e1775120392952.jpg" width="1498" height="1000" alt="A black‑and‑white photo shows two people sitting together, smiling and talking, with a bookshelf full of volumes behind them." title="Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio had a tumultuous and short marriage – but DiMaggio remained devoted to the movie star until his dying day (Image by Getty Images)" /> 14. “I’ll finally get to see Marilyn” Joe DiMaggio The retired baseball great Joe DiMaggio may have been married to the glamourous movie star Marilyn Monroe for less than a year, but he remained devoted to her for the rest of his life. He took the lead in arranging the funeral after Monroe was found dead in 1962, and for the next 20 years he sent roses to her grave every week. DiMaggio never remarried and as he lay dying on 8 March 1999, aged 84, he clung on to one hope: that he and Monroe would finally be reunited. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/Jane-AustenGettyImages-3248276-0b6a9ca-e1775120465354.jpg" width="1497" height="1000" alt="An engraving of a young woman in a light blue dress with a ruffled collar and a ruffled bonnet" title="An engraving of Jane Austen, c1790. Plagued by illness for a long time, Austen allegedly welcomed death when it came (Image by Getty Images)" /> 15. “Nothing but death” Jane Austen The beloved author of Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion and Emma died at the age of 41 on 18 July 1817. The cause remains a matter of debate, although it is known that she suffered with pains and illnesses for at least a year, which may explain her last sentiments, expressed by her sister Cassandra in a letter to Austen’s niece, Fanny. “When I asked her if there was anything she wanted, her answer was she wanted nothing but death,” it read. These were probably not her final words, however, as Cassandra also refers to Austen saying, “God grant me patience, pray for me, oh, pray for me.” 16. “I did not get my SpaghettiOs, I got spaghetti. I want the press to know this” Thomas J Grasso With his execution by lethal injection scheduled for 20 March 1995, convicted murderer Thomas J Grasso put in a rather elaborate request for his final meal. It included two dozen steamed mussels, two dozen steamed clams, six barbecued spareribs, a Burger King double cheeseburger, a can of SpaghettiOs with meatballs, half a pumpkin pie with whipped cream, and strawberries. He clearly was not fully satisfied, since he wanted his last statement to be a complaint to the chef that he received spaghetti instead of the canned version he asked for. 17. “More weight” Giles Corey During the Salem Witch Trials, hundreds were accused of witchcraft in the small Massachusetts village, resulting in 19 hangings, at least five deaths in prison, and one man – a farmer in his 80s named Giles Corey – being pressed to death. Having refused to enter a plea, he was stripped and laid on the floor with a wooden board across his body, on which heavy stones were gradually put on top. The torture lasted days and was expected to end in confession; instead, Corey kept crying out for “more weight”. He finally succumbed on 19 September 1692. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/Horatio-NelsonGettyImages-629450219-92f15ba-e1775120767821.jpg" width="1498" height="1000" alt="A wounded officer lies on the floor of a ship’s cabin as several men in naval uniforms gather around him in lantern light" title="The fatal wounding of Admiral Nelson, depicted by Arthur William Devis, c1807. Nelson’s body was preserved in brandy for the journey back to England (Image by Getty Images)" /> 18. “Thanks be to God. I have but lived this day and now I die content” Horatio Nelson It is a well-worn story that when Lord Nelson was shot at the battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805, he asked of his friend, and flag captain of HMS Victory, “Kiss me, Hardy”. They were not the great admiral’s last words, though. Taken belowdecks, Nelson continued to issue orders and lived long enough to receive word that several French ships had surrendered. Only then did he say, “Thanks be to God. I have but lived this day and now I die content.” After the battle, his body was placed in a cask of brandy to keep it preserved for its voyage back to England. Read more | “A monster of egotism”: Dominic Sandbrook reveals the secret to Admiral Nelson’s unstoppable success <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/Hannie-SchaftPDFJCA-672d548-e1775120840316.jpg" width="1500" height="1003" alt="A black‑and‑white portrait shows a person with medium‑length wavy hair wearing a dark top, posed against a plain dark background" title="Defiant until the end, Dutch resistance member Hannie Schaft claimed she shot better than her executioner (Image by Alamy)" /> 19. “I shoot better” Hannie Schaft During the Second World War, a young woman named Jannetje Johanna Schaft signed up to fight for the Dutch resistance. To them, she became ‘Hannie’, but to the Nazis, who came to fear her marksmanship, she was ‘the girl with red hair’. After carrying out numerous assassinations, Schaft was finally captured in 1945 and executed just three weeks before the end of the war. Although, according to her legend, she did not go down easily: the first shot only grazed her, leading Schaft to yell out, “I shoot better!” The executioner did not make the same mistake again. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/Lawrence-OatesGettyImages-964820416-bc1e26a-e1775120989211.jpg" width="1498" height="1000" alt="Four explorers in heavy cold‑weather gear stand around a small tent on a snow‑covered landscape, with a flagpole rising from the tent" title="The Terra Nova expedition team find Roald Amundsen’s tent, signifying their failure to reach the South Pole first. All five explorers would die on the trek back (Image by Getty Images)" /> 20. “I am just going outside and may be some time” Lawrence Oates Captain Robert Falcon Scott and four other men – Dr Edward Wilson, Captain Lawrence Oates, Lieutenant Henry ‘Birdie’ Bowers and Petty Officer Edgar Evans – had set out to be the very first to reach the South Pole, but on reaching it in January 1912 they discovered that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had just beaten them. Defeated and demoralised, they began the 800-mile trek back to base camp. None of them survived. Oates, suffering from frostbite and gangrene, made the ultimate sacrifice by leaving the tent in a blizzard with the now-immortalised words, “I am just going outside and may be some time.” His body was never found. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/Henry-Ward-BeecherGettyImages-929102448-704c81c-e1775121078941.jpg" width="1495" height="1000" alt="A sepia‑toned studio portrait shows one person seated holding a hat and umbrella, with another standing beside them in a dress and bonnet" title="Henry Ward Beecher and his sister Harriet, 1885. The most famous preacher in the United States philosophically considered what awaited him after death (Image by Getty Images)" /> 21. “Now comes the mystery” Henry Ward Beecher In life, Henry Ward Beecher was the most famous preacher in the United States: a passionate minister in Congregational Protestantism, a gifted orator, and a social reformer calling for women’s suffrage and the abolition of slavery. His works had a profound influence on American Christianity in the 19th century and beyond. As he faced the end of his mortal life, having suffered a stroke in early March 1887, his last words were filled with the philosophical curiosity and hopefulness that permeated much of his preaching, as he pondered what awaited him: “Now comes the mystery.”