By Dr Michelle Clement, Researcher in Residence at No.10 Downing Street Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-reigning monarch in British history, celebrates her Platinum Jubilee this week. Festivities will be held across the country to mark the Queen’s incredible …
When governments communicate, the medium can be as valuable as the message - and this post shows how official letters demonstrate this - dating from as early as 1258.
Edward the Confessor, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, died on 5 January 1066 – 950 years ago. The Confessor’s modern-day reputation (shaped by medieval monks writing after his death) is that of a gentle and peaceable man. Yet his …
“Everything is but discourse until his Majesty gives his consent”: this statement made by Sir Thomas Roe, an English diplomat in 1636 [1], may seem a little tongue in cheek but it provides some truth as to how the Privy …
...the Queen did not find Macmillan easy to deal with. He was unsure whether the Prime Minister’s annual visit to Balmoral was a social occasion, with ‘talking shop’ relegated to...
This year marks the 800th anniversary of the granting of Magna Carta by King John. Today, the Great Charter is viewed as the foundation of many of our rights and liberties and throughout the year there are commemorations, exhibitions and …
The British Civil Wars has always interested me and International Women's Day prompted me to focus my blog post on a crucial, controversial, yet often overlooked, figure in British history, Henrietta Maria. I came across little, other than biographical histories, …
...Edmund Spenser’s romantic tribute to Elizabeth I in his sixteenth-century poem of the same name, and allowed the septuagenarian Disraeli to pose as a chivalrous knight in Victoria’s service. Victoria...
...both to play a leading political role himself and to distance himself from the ministers of his grandfather, George II. It was not until 1770 that George found a satisfactory...
...the newly formed BBC, wrote to the King in 1923 to inquire whether he would be interested in ‘delivering a message to his people’ on a significant holiday such as...