The History of England Magazine

Margery Kempe must have cut quite a figure on the pilgrimage circuits of Medieval Europe: a married woman dressed in white, weeping incessantly, and holding court with some of the greatest religious figures of her time. She leaves her life story with us in “The Book”, often thought of as the oldest example of an autobiography in the English language.

The planning of the D Day landings was almost complete – what could possibly go wrong?…

The St Brice’s Day Massacre earned King Aethelred the nickname Aethelred the Unready (or ill advised), and took place on 13th November 1002. It resulted in widespread violence, upheaval and invasion…

The first part of the ceremony of the State Opening of Parliament takes place out of public sight, when the cellars beneath the Palace of Westminster are searched by the Yeomen of the Guard, resplendent in their Tudor-style uniforms…

For over 300 years, the coastlines of the English Channel and south west of England were at the mercy of Barbary pirates. Men, women and children were kidnapped to be sold as slaves…

Divorced, Beheaded, Died, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived; the tale of Henry VIII and his six wives. The rhyme suggests that his final wife, Catherine Parr was the survivor of the notorious womanizer, but is that really true? What of his fourth wife, his ‘belov’d sister’ Anne of Cleeves?….

In Early Modern England, the deathbed was a spiritual drama, a battle for the dying individual’s soul between the forces of God and the demons of Satan. If the individual died well, peacefully, with family and priest, then salvation was assumed to be theirs. A bad death, alone or in agony or without a holy man’s sacrament, was to be avoided at all cost…

Samuel Pepys is best known for his diaries, written between 1660 and 1671, and his eyewitness accounts of major events such as the coronation of Charles II, the Great Fire of London and the Great Plague…