English history

• 
• 1/31/2021
  

  Poverty, Politics and Pandemic: The Plague and the English Peasant's Revolt of 1381

  by Alfred Thomas and Peter Rutland

  Seen in a historical context of pandemic-induced paranoia, antisemitic conspiracy, and broad-based resentment, the English rebels start to look less like the innocent victims of tyranny and more like the Trump supporters who invaded the Capitol.

• 
• 10/25/2020
  

  The Queen's Two Bodies

  by Ed Simon

  Queen Elizabeth's speech to English soliders in anticipation of the Spanish invasion of 1588 rallied the troops for a battle that never happened. But it anticipated today's cultural battle over the stability of gender categories. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Times
  4/6/2020
  

  If You Thought Byron Was Bad You Should Have Met His Family

  The scandal-prone poet came from a family mired in cuckoldry, cowardice and killing.

• 
• 12/19/19
  

  Reform or Revolution: England’s Lessons of 1688 for Today and Tonight's Democratic Debate

  by David Walter Leinweber

  As we go forward into the holidays, and then a contentious election, the English example in 1688 continues to provide an important lesson. We can cherish our history and institutions, while still being clear-eyed about necessary changes.  

• 
• SOURCE: History.com
  11/15/19
  

  The 1969 Documentary That Tried to Humanize Queen Elizabeth II and The Royal Family

  The idea was to show the royal family in their day-to-day lives. The results were mixed.

• 
• 10/20/19
  

  Trump and the Divine Rights of Kings

  by Ed Simon

  Nobody feels sorrier for themselves than a monarch who discovers that their divine right is an illusion; nobody is more liable to lash out and project the blame for their predicament.

• 
• SOURCE: The Conversation
  

  Why the queen said yes to Boris Johnson’s request to suspend parliament

  by Laura Beers

  So why isn’t the Queen taking more criticism for giving Johnson what he wanted? One answer is that she had no choice.

• 
• 8/25/19
  

  Chocolate and the History Behind Historical Fiction

  by Karen Brooks

  The history of chocolate in England and how a 17th century diary and a chance encounter with public history inspired The Chocolate Maker's Wife. 

• 
• August 4, 2019
  

  How Two Regicides Escaped to America and Became Folk Heroes

  by Matthew Jenkinson

  How Edward Whalley and William Goffe went from household names to forgotten historical figures. 

• 
• 7/28/19
  

  Is Stonehenge a Tourist Rip-Off?

  by Ken West

  If Stonehenge is to be restored to its rightful heritage then it must be reengaged with the River Avon and its tribal lands. Only then can we interpret the astounding achievement of these prehistoric people.   

• 
• 6/30/19
  

  The Declassified History of Hitler's British Traitors

  by Tim Tate

  For all the genuine unity and determination of the vast majority of the British population to defeat Hitler, there was also a small – but dangerous – sub-stratum which yearned for the day when his troops could goose-step down Whitehall amid an orgy of swastika flags.

• 
• 3/10/19
  

  Robinson Crusoe’s Wall

  by Geoffrey Sill

  We can look to history, especially literary and cultural history, to explain the passionate desire of many Americans to build a wall.

• 
• 3/3/19
  

  The English Diggers, the "Commons," and the Green New Deal

  by Ed Simon

  The idea of the “commons” as a space of collective ownership, responsibility, engagement, and possibility must be a metaphor that the left draws from rhetorically. 

• 
• 1/13/19
  

  A Tyrant's Temper Tantrum

  by Ed Simon

  How the History of England's 17th Century Civil War, the American Revolution, and the American Civil War Shows the Shutdown's Potential to Spur Radical Change

• SOURCE: Telegraph (UK)
  1-13-13
  

  Experts still fighting over the site of the Battle of Hastings

  It is the most famous battle in British history, fought, as every schoolboy knows, in 1066 at a site now marked by Battle Abbey, near the town of Hastings.But while the date of the Battle of Hastings might still be universally accepted, the location has been called into question, with two experts proposing not one but two different sites for where the fighting actually took place.They believe that for almost a 1,000 years, the battle has been commemorated at the wrong spot, with one historian claiming the fighting actually occurred a mile to the north, on Caldbec Hill, and another stating it was two miles away, to the south, at a place called Crowhurst....