October 9, 2023
Precisely ten years ago my dad and I stood outside Liverpool Street Station, London by Frank Meisler’s “The Arrival” memorial for the 75th anniversary of the Kindertransport. I had just… READ MORE
June 6, 2023
Representations of women’s education in the eighteenth century always depict it as “superficial”. I had long imagined writing a book based on my research into this topic that would tell… READ MORE
April 19, 2023
When I’m turning pages of faded ink, written by people who died a long time ago, “time” starts to jump around. They died a long time ago—but they lived. They… READ MORE
March 20, 2023
Why did the years of the Civil Wars and Interregnum, some of the most turbulent decades of English history, also produce so many crucial works in the study of early… READ MORE
October 7, 2022
In 1548, the castle was granted to Edward duke of Somerset, Protector of the young Edward VI. He was executed in 1552, but his heirs retained the estates, and it… READ MORE
October 5, 2022
Why write a book about the history of uninhabited spaces, the mountains, moorlands, wetlands and heaths that lay beyond the fields, in between settlements? Many of these open spaces were… READ MORE
September 28, 2022
Within months of the Battle of Hastings, the Norman armies came to Marlborough, and – though we have no positive physical evidence to prove this, they created a rough fortification… READ MORE
September 16, 2022
Invocations of peace and justice pervaded the enforcement of law and order in medieval and early modern Europe. As one example, a judge speaking to a Yorkshire jury in 1620… READ MORE
September 6, 2022
Marlborough Mound is one of the least visible of the great monuments of England, and almost unknown except to local historians and specialists. It stands in the middle of Marlborough… READ MORE
June 8, 2022
When Pirates became media sensations In April 1828, the pirate attack on the brig Morning Star became the first truly global pirate story. Of course, back then there was no… READ MORE
Finding the Meaning of Music and Morality