HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2026-02-20T15:31:03.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: 10 children and 12,000 pieces of art: the remarkable life of Lady Charlotte Schreiber
items: 7 remarkable women who shaped Welsh history
items: The forgotten years that forged Wales
items: Why does the Welsh flag feature a red dragon?
items: 1295: Edward I consolidates English rule
items: Medieval Wales: everything you wanted to know
items: Charles, The Prince of Wales’s 1969 investiture at Caernarfon Castle, 50 years on
items: NASA’s unknown Welsh hero: the story of Tecwyn Roberts
items: 4 historical cricketing curiosities
items: 9 of Britain’s best castles

10 children and 12,000 pieces of art: the remarkable life of Lady Charlotte Schreiber
type: item
date: 2026-02-20T15:30:55.000Z
subject: Georgian
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Amazing lives
description: She was a headstrong scholar who contributed hugely to the study of medieval literature and challenged the societal norms of the 19th century. So why isn’t she better known? Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth traces the adventures of an unsung heroine
encoded: While hunting for antiques in the Netherlands in the 1880s, the esteemed art dealer Joseph Joel Duveen received a tip-off that some “wonderful pieces of china” had come up for sale in a remote village. Getting there would involve a tediously long journey but, undeterred, Duveen set out. Several hours later, however, he spotted a carriage speeding past in the opposite direction, and was able to make out its passenger. Recognising the face of his great rival, Duveen promptly turned around, empty-handed, ruefully realising that she had beaten him to the village and “snatched the prize”. The victor on this occasion was Lady Charlotte Schreiber. Surprisingly, given her long life – she was 82 when she died, in 1895 – which included two marriages, 10 children, scandalous affairs and a celebrated translation of the medieval Welsh Mabinogion, Lady Charlotte remains relatively unknown today. Often erroneously dismissed as a mere magpie obsessed with trinkets, for decades her second husband and sons were credited for accumulating her great collection. Yet, shortly before her death, she donated a trove of some 5,000 pieces to the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) and the British Museum. Defiance and scandal Charlotte endured a difficult childhood. Born Lady Charlotte Elizabeth Bertie in 1812, she lost her father, the 9th Earl of Lindsey, when she was only six years old. Her mother remarried, and her new stepfather, the Reverend Peter Pegus, turned out to be a violent alcoholic; he once drank a whole mug of lamp oil, mistaking it for beer. Read more | 5 things you (probably) didn't know about Victorian Britain At the age of 10, Charlotte started keeping a diary, in which she wrote almost every day until she lost her eyesight in her late seventies. A true polymath, she gave herself “a man’s education”, studying history and literature, and learning Arabic and Farsi (Persian) as well as Greek, Latin, French, German, Italian and even Hebrew. She dedicated hours to her “oriental …

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7 remarkable women who shaped Welsh history
type: item
date: 2025-03-14T08:30:57.000Z
creator: Elin Tomos
subject: General History
subject: Period
description: From poets to pioneers, explore the lives and legacies of seven women who left their mark on Welsh history…
encoded: The 1888 edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica infamously declared, for: “Wales, see England.” This statement is just one symbol that many point to as evidence of how Welsh history has often been overlooked or merged with its closest neighbour. Within that history, the contributions of women have been even more obscured. For decades, Welsh historiography has reinforced the idea – as echoed in the national anthem – that Wales is primarily the ‘land of our fathers.’ Yet Wales has long been shaped by remarkable women whose stories deserve recognition. Here are seven trailblazing Victorian Welsh women you’ve (probably!) never heard of… Elen Egryn (1807–76) Poet Elen Egryn holds the distinction of being the first woman to publish a secular book in the Welsh language. Born as Elin or Elinor Evans, she grew up in Llanegryn, a rural parish in the historic county of Merionethshire, she developed her poetic skills from a young age. Her father, John Evans, the local schoolmaster, was a highly cultured man and firmly believed in the importance of providing girls with a well-rounded education. Evans also received some poetic instruction from Gwilym Cawrdaf (William Ellis Jones, 1795–1848) in the nearby town of Dolgellau. Published in 1850, her groundbreaking Telyn Egryn (Egryn’s Harp) is a refreshingly modern anthology of poems that explore challenging themes such as grief, depression, loneliness and companionship between women. They also cover the poignant notion of hiraeth – a Welsh word with no direct English translation that captures an indescribable longing for something, especially one’s home or family. Evans also composed some politically motivated material that opposed the findings published in The Reports of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of Education in Wales, a governmental investigation that publicly condemned the character and morals of Welsh women in 1847. The report, widely recognised in Wales as the Treachery of the Blue Books (due to the blue covers o…

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The forgotten years that forged Wales
type: item
date: 2023-02-01T09:20:22.000Z
creator: Elinor Evans
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Tudor
description: Lloyd Bowen describes the ambiguities in Welsh identity and nationhood that arose in the decades following the Acts of Union in the early 16th century
encoded: In Welsh history, the period that lies between the medieval era of resistance to English occupation, and the rapid industrialisation of the 18th and 19th centuries, is often forgotten. Yet, there was much more going on in Wales in the early modern period than might initially meet the eye. Speaking with Elinor Evans, Lloyd Bowen describes the ambiguities in Welsh identity and nationhood that arose in the decades following the Acts of Union in the early 16th century, including the impact of the Reformation on the Welsh language, and Wales’s changing relationship with the monarchy. Lloyd Bowen is the author of Early Modern Wales c.1536–c.1689: Ambiguous Nationhood (University of Wales Press, 2022) Buy now on Bookshop.org Buy now on Amazon Buy now on Waterstones

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Why does the Welsh flag feature a red dragon?
type: item
date: 2022-02-24T06:05:00.000Z
subject: Period
subject: Roman
description: It might be synonymous with Wales now – you'll always see people dressed up as them at rugby matches as well as the daffodils and leeks – but the red dragon has much more distant roots...
encoded: The red dragon of Wales dates back to Roman times. Roman cavalry units carried a standard known as the ‘draco’, or dragon. This took the form of a metal dragon’s head with an open mouth, through which the wind would blow. The body of the dragon was made up of a tube of fabric, rather like a modern wind sock. The banners were used to serve as markers on which the riders formed into different formations, and to give orders by means of some vigorous waving. More Welsh history: 16 things you (probably) didn't know about St David’s Day traditions Q&A: Why is the leek associated with Wales? History explorer: the conquest of Wales Charles, The Prince of Wales’s investiture at Caernarfon Castle, 50 years on The British militias adopted many aspects of Roman military gear, and the impressive looking draco was among those taken up. Following the fall of Rome, British princes continued to use Roman-style dracos as battle standards. The last recorded use of the draco by a British army wasn’t until about 1250, after which the red dragon of Wales began to be embroidered onto a flag as if it were a heraldic device. The green and white background, incidentally, comes from the family colours of the Tudor dynasty and was added in 1959. Answered by one of our Q&A experts, historian and author Rupert Matthews. This article was taken from BBC History Revealed magazine

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1295: Edward I consolidates English rule
type: item
date: 2021-12-27T07:06:15.000Z
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Turning points in British history
description: Part six in our 20-part series looking at decisive moments of the last 1,000 years in British history explores 1250–1299, Here, Michael Prestwich looks at the year that Edward I of Englandasserted his power on three fronts – and persuaded the taxpayer to fund it all
encoded: As the year 1295 opened, England’s King Edward I and his troops were wintering in Conwy castle, besieged by Welsh rebels. Food was running low; all the drink that remained was one small barrel of wine, left for the king’s personal use. Edward had this distributed among his men, the action of a good commander. Wales had been in rebellion since the previous autumn; the Welsh had taken advantage of English pre-occupation with the war which had just started with France. The rising was a national one, headed by a then obscure figure, Madog ap Llywelyn. Wales had seemed conquered by 1283; now, the whole English achievement was under threat. Edward led a rapid raid from Conwy to the west, into the Lleyn peninsula, but it was elsewhere that the war was won. In March Madog was defeated in mid-Wales by forces under the earl of Warwick, at Maes Moydog. There, an English commentator noted that Madog’s forces were “the best and bravest Welsh that anyone has seen”. They met the English head on, but to no avail. English archers and men-at-arms were too powerful. Madog himself escaped. Edward went on a triumphant tour of Wales, receiving submissions from a defeated people. Eventually Madog was captured, and led to miserable captivity in the Tower of London. The end of the Welsh rebellion was marked by the start of the building of a great new castle, Beaumaris, in Anglesey, the last of the magnificent series of castles which marked Edward’s conquest. It was characterised by concentric lines of defences, two great twin-towered gatehouses, and a dock so ships could supply the fortress. Edward’s great mason from Savoy, Master James of St George, was in charge of the project. In July the king returned from his circuit of Wales to see the work under way; accounts show that one evening there he enjoyed entertainment provided by an English harpist, Adam of Clitheroe. Wales was but one of the immense problems that Edward faced. England’s war with France was another. In the previous year the…

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Medieval Wales: everything you wanted to know
type: item
date: 2021-09-26T12:10:39.000Z
creator: Elinor Evans
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Everything you wanted to know about history (podcast series)
description: Matthew Stevens tackles listener questions on the history of the Welsh regions during the Middle Ages
encoded: Matthew Stevens tackles listener questions and popular search queries on the history of Wales and the Welsh regions during the Middle Ages, from the Norman invasion and Edward I’s conquest to the Welsh roots of the Tudor dynasty.

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Charles, The Prince of Wales’s 1969 investiture at Caernarfon Castle, 50 years on
type: item
date: 2019-11-18T17:05:00.000Z
subject: 20th Century
subject: Period
subject: Royal children
subject: The Crown
subject: The royal family
description: Half a century ago, in July 1969, Queen Elizabeth II invested her son Charles as the Prince of Wales in an elaborate ceremony at Caernarfon Castle. Ahead of the third season of The Crown, which dramatises the investiture, Dr Carolyn Harris explores the events of the ceremony and reveals how it was not without controversy, taking place amid the rapid social change of the 1960s and protest from a growing Welsh nationalist movement...
encoded: “I, Charles, Prince of Wales, do become your liege man of life and limb and of earthly worship and faith and truth I will bear unto thee to live and die against all manner of folks.” These words, spoken by a son to his mother, may evoke a sense of the medieval, but they were in fact part of a ceremony that was very much a product of the 20th century. On 1 July 1969, Queen Elizabeth II invested her eldest son, Prince Charles, as Prince of Wales, a title that she had first conferred upon him in July 1958, when he was just nine years old. Prince Charles and Camilla: a history of their romance The Queen's "rebel sister": 8 facts about Princess Margaret Charles’s 1969 investiture ceremony took place in Caernarfon Castle, which had been commissioned by King Edward I of England in 1283 after his conquest of Wales and was the birthplace of the first English Prince of Wales, the future King Edward II, in 1284. According to legend, Edward I had promised the Welsh a prince who could speak no English and presented them with his infant son – and so began a tradition for English kings to bestow their heir with the title ‘Prince of Wales’. But while Charles’s 1969 investiture ceremony appeared to be steeped in medieval royal history, it was actually intended to address very contemporary concerns, including the increased visibility of the royal family on television; the relevance of the royal family in the modern age; and the objections of Welsh nationalists to the investiture of a Prince of Wales who seemed to have little personal connection to Wales. It was a time of political fervour stoked by events including a 1957 act of parliament that had sanctioned the flooding of the Tryweryn Valley. The inhabitants of the village of Capel Celyn were forced to move in 1965 to make way for a reservoir to supply Liverpool with water, and the 1969 investiture became a rallying cry for Welsh nationalism. During the 1969 investiture ceremony, the letters patent were read aloud in Welsh and sta…

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NASA’s unknown Welsh hero: the story of Tecwyn Roberts
type: item
date: 2019-07-18T14:32:41.000Z
creator: Elinor Evans
subject: 20th Century
subject: Period
subject: Space
description: Few watching NASA’s achievement in July 1969, and even fewer today, might know that at the centre of the successful flight team was a “genius” engineer from rural north Wales. Tudur Owen, the presenter of new BBC programme Rocket Man, tells History Extra about Tec Roberts, a “humble and inspiring” man who earned the love and respect of NASA’s greats…
encoded: The remarkable achievement of putting the first man on the moon is often framed as an all-American enterprise. First announced as the brainchild of President John F Kennedy in 1961, the mission aimed to score a point against America’s Cold War foe, the Soviet Union, in the famous ‘Space Race’. So, few people might know that at the centre of the mission was a "genius" engineer from Anglesey, north Wales. Tecwyn ‘Tec’ Roberts (1925–88) joined NASA’s space programme in 1959, following an early career as an aircraft engineer. He was the first ever Flight Dynamics Officer on the Mercury project, which sent the first American man into space, and an instrumental figure in the Apollo missions. For Tudur Owen, the presenter of a new BBC documentary about Roberts’s life, he was a true pioneer. The history of the moon landing: everything you need to know Back down to Earth: the legacy of the 1969 moon landing Was the Moon landing really a great leap for mankind? “Nobody had ever done that job before,” says Owen, who followed in the engineer’s footsteps to mission control in Cape Canaveral, Florida. “As [retired NASA engineer and Mission Control manager] Christopher Columbus Kraft says in the programme, Tec was writing the instruction manual about it.” Roberts was part of an era that saw huge change and “massive technological leaps”, says Owen. When looking at the advancements that had been made within the century – from the “first powered flight by the Wright brothers in 1903, to the 1960s when they began sending men into space” – his achievements are “all the more impressive”. Roberts is all the more remarkable, says Owen, considering his modest start in life. “He was brought up in a little cottage which we visited, absolutely in the middle of nowhere and with no running water or electricity.” Listen | Kendrick Oliver explores the space race that led to the 1969 moon landing and considers the legacy of the momentous events of July 1969 Though a childhood in rural Anglesey mig…

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4 historical cricketing curiosities
type: item
date: 2019-07-15T10:15:35.000Z
subject: General Modern
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Cricket
description: Which player was 'kinapped' as he was about to open the batting at Lords? And which item of clothing was 'unsporting' when women began playing the game? We revisit an article from Oxford historian Dr Benjamin Mountford, who shares some historical cricketing curiosities...
encoded: Bodyline and 'kidnapping': it’s just not cricket! Cricket contests between England and Australia have resulted in a number of controversies, most notoriously when, during their 1932–33 tour to Australia, England deployed the infamous ‘bodyline’ technique to counter the batting of Donald Bradman. The tactic saw bowlers bowling the ball directly at the batsman's body. “When Douglas Jardine unleashed his hostile fast attack of Harold Larwood and Bill Voce, who bowled short on and outside the line of the leg stump, there was outrage… The cost to England's image was catastrophic,” says ESPN. One of the great controversies of the Victorian age was the ‘kidnapping’ of the Australian player Billy Midwinter by WG Grace. About to open the batting for Australia at Lords, Midwinter was bundled into a cab by Grace and taken to play for Gloucestershire at the Oval. When his Australian teammates hopped into their own cab and set off in pursuit, an unseemly argument took place outside the ground, with Grace branding the Australians “a nasty lot of sneaks”. After several heated letters had bounced back and forth, Grace eventually issued a written plea to “let bygones be bygones” and apologised for his “unparliamentarily language”. Read more about cricket history: Cricket, curry and cups of tea: India's influence on Victorian Britain From bats and brawls to new links between colonies: the origins of Australian cricket In pictures: the history of the Ashes The gentleman’s game? In Australia, as in England, cricket was often depicted as an exclusively male preserve during the 19th century. Yet by 1874, women in Australia had begun to play. The first match between Victoria and New South Wales took place in Sydney in 1890, and in 1891 Rosalie Dean made an impressive 195 and 104 in a match at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Early female players were advised to secure their hats tightly so that both hands would be free to take catches, while stopping the ball with one’s petticoats was considere…

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9 of Britain’s best castles
type: item
date: 2019-07-10T06:55:00.000Z
creator: Emma Mason
subject: General Modern
subject: Georgian
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Stuart
subject: Tudor
subject: Victorian
subject: Castles
subject: Medieval battles
subject: Where history happened
description: From medieval fortresses to dramatic clifftop ruins, Britain boasts countless awe-inspiring castles. Here we round up nine of the best and explore their fascinating histories...
encoded: Tintagel Castle Named by 12th-century writer Geoffrey of Monmouth as the place where King Arthur was conceived, Tintagel Castle in Cornwall is one of the most famous castles in Britain. The site of Tintagel Castle has been inhabited at least since the late Roman period, and in the fifth to seventh centuries was “economically one of the most important sites in the whole of Britain, closely involved in trade with the eastern Mediterranean”, says English Heritage. Interestingly, after the mid-seventh century there is little evidence of activity on Tintagel for more than 500 years. It wasn’t until around 1138 that Tintagel was made famous, when it was named in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain as the place where King Arthur was magically conceived. 10 things you (probably) didn’t know about Scottish history The surprising place where Henry VIII is buried 8 amazing Tudor castles According to Monmouth’s book, an ancient king of Britain, Uther Pendragon, lusts after Ygerna, the wife of one of his barons, Gorlois of Cornwall. The ‘prophet’ Merlin administers a magic potion to transform Pendragon into the exact likeness of Ygerna’s absent husband and that night at Tintagel the pair conceive King Arthur. This legendary fame is thought to have inspired Richard, Earl of Cornwall, brother of Henry III, to build his castle at Tintagel some 100 years later, in 1233. “A cultured and literary man who would have known these legends extremely well, the overwhelming likelihood is that [Richard] built the castle at Tintagel to recreate the scene from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s story and, in so doing, write himself into the mythology of King Arthur,” says English Heritage. Today the ruins of the 13th-century castle offer dramatic views and you can visit the nearby Merlin's Cave. A bronze sculpture of King Arthur was recently unveiled at the site and the head of Merlin was carved into the rock face beneath the castle. Please note that Tintagel Castle is closed for the con…

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