James Gillray: life of the week

The era of the Spanish Inquisition is most commonly remembered as a period of widespread fear and paranoia, where communities turned on each other and torture was rife. But how true is this popular pe...

20 Jul 202442min

1217 is not one of the most famous years in English history. But with a major French invasion looming and a brutal war that wracked both towns and the countryside, this was a year that could have alte...

18 Jul 202439min

After an escalating campaign of bombing and arson attacks, the suffragette movement was brought to a sudden halt on the outbreak of war in 1914. In the final episode of our new series Deeds not words:...

17 Jul 202434min

Before and during the Second World War, Britain provided a safe haven for thousands of people fleeing Nazi persecution. But, as the author Paul Dowswell argues, this is not an entirely heroic story. I...

16 Jul 202433min

Catherine de' Medici has gone down in history as the sinister 'serpent queen', who had a troop of female spies in her court and may have instigated the deadly St Bartholomew's Day massacre. But is thi...

15 Jul 202449min

Evelina Haverfield and Vera Holme, known as Jack, were in love. Not only were they in love, but they also worked together – as suffragette protestors, during prison sentences, and on the wards of mili...

14 Jul 202432min

What was it like to be a servant in one of Britain's grand stately homes? How much were domestic staff paid? And what made maids revolt against wearing mopcaps? From daily drudgery to stories of scand...

13 Jul 202438min

The Edwardian era is sometimes regarded as an uneventful stopgap between the cultural and technological innovations of the Victorian period and the seismic shifts brought about by the First World War....

11 Jul 202438min