HistoryExtra Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast 2026-08-20T12:02:04.000Z https://www.historyextra.com/people/richard-iii/feed/atom Sarah Gristwood <![CDATA[Royal rivalry: 10 monarchs whose fate was determined by their siblings]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/royal-sibling-rivalries/ 2026-08-20T12:02:04.000Z 2026-08-20T12:01:54.000Z In the bad old days of high infant mortality, any royal family needed an heir and several ‘spares’ – north of the border, James V and his daughter, Mary, Queen of Scots, are just two of the many British monarchs with elder brothers who died in infancy. William the Conqueror left England to his second son, another William, while the eldest son, Robert, inherited Normandy.
Since then, the history of these islands has been littered with famous second – or third, or fourth – royal siblings (or, more specifically, royal sons, since gender continued to trump age right into the 21st century), who for better or for worse have done much to shape the monarchy that we know today. Here are 10 of the most famous...
Richard I (1157–99)
It wasn’t Richard the Lionheart, but his elder brother, Henry, who was crowned ‘the Young King’ of England, unusually during their father’s lifetime. In the event Henry predeceased his father, but perhaps the fact Richard hadn’t been raised for the job explains why the crusader showed so little real enthusiasm for hands-on rule of England, spending only a few months in the country during his 10-year reign.
Richard was himself succeeded by his younger brother, John. Fairly or unfairly, King John has gone down in popular history as a disastrous monarch whose reign was epitomised by his losing the crown jewels in the Wash – but he did inadvertently help to give us Magna Carta.
- Read more | When and how did Richard the Lionheart die?
John of Gaunt (1340–99)
By contrast to John I, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster – fourth son of the prolific Edward III – has traditionally been accorded a good measure of respect for the steering hand he kept on the country during the minority of his nephew, Richard II.
His harsh fiscal policies, however, made him a particular target of the Peasants’ Revolt – while almost as soon as John himself died, Richard II was deposed by John’s exiled son, the Bolingbroke of Shakespeare’s plays, who took the throne as Henry IV. These were the family divisions that, half a century later, would produce the Wars of the Roses.
Richard III (1452–85)
The best-known casualty of those wars was of course Richard III, whose death at Bosworth ushered in the Tudor dynasty. Richard was only the fourth son of the York family, but by the time he seized the throne the first, second and third sons were all dead – Edmund killed by the Lancastrians, and George, Duke of Clarence (after plotting against Edward) drowned in the famous butt of malmsey.
The grounds upon which Richard took the throne in 1483 – chiefly the supposed invalidity of Edward’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville – are still debated today. So too, of course, is the fate of Edward IV’s sons, the princes in the Tower, and Richard’s role in their possible murder. Either way, Richard – his brother Edward’s most loyal supporter during his lifetime – provides the most dramatic prism through which to examine both the royal sibling bond, and the question of sibling rivalry.
Henry VIII (1491–1547)
It wasn’t Henry but his elder brother, Arthur, Prince of Wales, who was expected to lead the Tudor dynasty through the 16th century. But Arthur died in 1502 – and if anyone ever forgot that in the glorious early days of Henry VIII’s reign, they had ample cause to remember two decades later, when Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon was endlessly debated, and ultimately declared invalid, on the grounds that she had been his brother Arthur’s widow.
Indeed, there has been speculation that Henry’s position as a mere second son – reared with his mother and sisters, while Arthur was sent away to Ludlow – affected his later attitudes, and his infamous marital history.
Elizabeth I (1533–1603)
Elizabeth was Henry’s second surviving legitimate child; her sister, ‘Bloody’ Mary, Henry’s eldest. But both women accepted that first place in the succession went to their younger brother, Edward VI.
After Edward’s premature death in 1553, however, differences between the sisters led to Elizabeth being imprisoned in the Tower, in danger of her life. This was no simple case of sibling rivalry, of course, since religious differences led to real dispute as to whether the Catholic Mary or the Protestant Elizabeth had best claim to the throne. All the same, no one looking for the model of a happy family is ever going to pick the Tudors!
Read more | 7 things you (probably) didn’t know about Elizabeth I
Charles I (1600–49)
When James VI and I’s eldest son, Prince Henry, died in 1612 of what was probably typhoid, shock waves went through the country. At 18, the vibrant Henry was already the great hope of the Stuart dynasty. His brother Charles, by contrast, was a sickly 11-year-old considered unlikely to survive. Perhaps early insecurities left the adult Charles, as a monarch, particularly susceptible both to the influence of his favourite Buckingham [George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham] and his Catholic wife, Henrietta Maria, and to an inflated conception of the monarchy.
Elizabeth of Bohemia (1596–1662)
It may seem like cheating to list two siblings as separately important, but it’s the descendants of Elizabeth of Bohemia, not of her brother, Charles I, who sit on the British throne today. When Charles I’s eldest surviving son, Charles II, was succeeded by his own younger brother James, the latter’s unpopularity and Catholicism led to his deposition in 1688.
The ‘Glorious Revolution’ of that year brought in, instead, James’s Protestant daughter Mary and her husband, William of Orange, while the Catholic descendants of James’s second marriage dwindled to the status of pretenders.
Anne (1665–1714)
When William and Mary died without children, the crown passed to another younger sibling. Mary’s sister, Anne, came to the throne under the Act of Settlement of 1701, which effectively secured the throne to the Protestant Hanoverian dynasty, since it was already apparent that Anne too was unlikely to bear a surviving child, despite 18 pregnancies.
Upon Queen Anne’s death the throne was offered to the Elector of Hanover, a grandson of Elizabeth of Bohemia, who became Britain’s George I. He and his Hanoverian descendants would reign, however, on very different terms from those earlier rulers had enjoyed. The stage was set for a modern, ‘constitutional’, monarchy (a position confirmed more than a century later when George’s great-great grandson William IV – succeeding his elder brother George IV – ceded yet further royal powers).
George V (1865–1936)
You might think that in the modern age the importance of the royal second sibling is outdated – we are, after all, past the days of high infant mortality.
King George V was born the second son of the future Edward VII, but his elder brother, Albert Victor, known as Prince Eddy, died of pneumonia in his twenties, while his grandmother, Queen Victoria, was still on the throne. By that time Eddy had been linked to the Cleveland Street scandal, which involved a homosexual brothel, amid wider concerns over his character and abilities. (He has, however unconvincingly, even been identified as Jack the Ripper). His brother George, by contrast, was a formidable figure who, besides taking on Eddy’s engagement to Princess Mary of Teck in 1917, changed the name of the royal family from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor.
George VI (1895–1952)
The first half of the 20th century saw two second sons accede to the throne – both important in shaping the form of the present monarchy. George V was of course succeeded by his eldest son, Edward VIII, the future Duke of Windsor, but Edward’s reign lasted less than a year, and he was never crowned. When he abdicated in order to marry the divorced Wallis Simpson, his younger brother was forced to step up to the plate.
Diffident and reluctant – we’d come a long way from the power-hungry days of the medieval monarchy – George VI nonetheless saw the country through the dark days of Second World War. That example of dutiful service would model an ideal for his daughter, Elizabeth II.
A version of this article was first published by HistoryExtra in April 2018
]]> Tracy Borman <![CDATA[Think you know everything about the Tudors? Here are 15 facts that will prove you wrong]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/think-you-know-everything-about-the-tudors-here-are-15-facts-that-will-prove-you-wrong/ 2026-10-08T12:35:32.000Z 2026-04-12T15:00:00.000Z 1. The Tudors weren’t known as the Tudors
Although we use ‘Tudor’ as a nifty shorthand for both the era and the dynasty, it wasn’t used at the time either by the monarchs or their people. Neither did they see it as a distinct period: in fact, Henry VII went to great lengths to emphasise the continuity with his royal predecessors, even down to using the same tailor whom Edward IV had employed.
He also emphasised his Lancastrian roots and tried to downplay his Welsh origins, aware that his grandfather Owen Tudor had married well above him when he bagged Henry V’s widow Catherine of Valois as a bride. Throughout the period 1485–1603, the people identified as subjects of each successive king or queen, as well as taking pride in their local affiliations, rather than seeing themselves as ‘Tudor people’.
2. They had a pretty dodgy claim to the throne
When Henry Tudor won the crown from Richard III at the battle of Bosworth in 1485, he was quick to stress his legitimacy. But there was more than a hint of protesting too much. In fact, the Tudors were descended from Edward III’s fourth son, John of Gaunt, and his long-standing mistress, Katherine Swynford.
Moreover, Henry VII’s father Edmund was the child of Henry V’s widow, Catherine of Valois, by her Welsh attendant. With such a dubious bloodline, it’s little wonder that England’s first Tudor king wasted no time in marrying Elizabeth of York, the eldest child of Edward IV. Their marriage united the warring houses of York and Lancaster and, crucially, gave the Tudors some much-needed legitimacy.
3. Henry VII was no miser
The first Tudor king has a reputation for penny-pinching. But while he kept a close eye on his expenditure, he knew how to splash the cash when it was to his advantage.
In the early years of his reign, when he was under constant threat from rivals and pretenders and many of his subjects questioned his right to be king, he spent lavish sums on dressing the part. Just over a week after defeating Richard III at Bosworth, he ordered a set of new gowns fashioned from cloth of gold, satin and royal purple velvet at a cost of £336, which roughly equates to £225,000 in today’s money.
During the two years that followed, he spent an eye-watering £5,386 (£3.6 million) on his wardrobe. But his generosity had its limits. His wife, Elizabeth of York, struggled to make ends meet throughout their marriage.
4. You would smell Henry VIII before you saw him
For the last 20 years of his life, Henry was tormented by pain from a chronic leg ulcer, which was aggravated by a serious fall from his horse while jousting in 1536. The ulcer often became inflamed and – unsurprisingly – Henry was a difficult patient, refusing to rest for long enough for it to heal. At its worst, the suppurating wound could be smelt from three rooms away.
- Read more | Was this the moment Henry VIII became a tyrant?
5. Henry VIII’s love of hawking was almost the death of him
Henry’s love of sport was well known throughout the court. As a young king, he would spend hours hunting, jousting, shooting arrows and playing tennis. Hawking was another of his favourite sports and his private apartments contained an impressive array of falconry equipment.
But in 1525, Henry was almost killed while pursuing his hawk. Attempting to pole vault over a ditch, instead he fell headfirst into it and almost drowned. Thankfully, his quick-thinking footman, Edmund Moody, managed to pull him out in the nick of time.
6. Henry VIII was a bit of a prude
Contrary to popular belief, Tudor England’s most-married monarch wasn’t much of a lothario. In fact, he had twice as many wives as mistresses. There is only evidence of three extramarital affairs.
The women involved were Bessie Blount (the mother of Henry’s not-so-subtly-named illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy), Mary Boleyn (sister of his second wife Anne) and ‘Mistress Shelton’, who was either Margaret or Mary Shelton, both cousins of Anne Boleyn.
Although there was a rumour that he once had an affair with Anne’s mother Elizabeth, he stoutly denied it: “Never with the mother!”
7. Anne Boleyn did not have a sixth finger on one hand
This oft-repeated tale is based on scurrilous gossip written almost 50 years after Anne’s death. A host of hostile Catholic tracts about Anne appeared in the 1580s as part of a smear campaign against her ‘heretic’ daughter, Elizabeth I.
Nicholas Sander was one of the most influential and claimed that Anne had been Henry VIII’s daughter as well as his wife, the result of his clandestine affair with her mother. Feeding on the rumours of witchcraft that had circulated at the time of Anne’s demise, he asserted that she had a sixth finger on her right hand and a large ‘wen’ (a boil or mole) under her chin.
Such blemishes were commonly thought to be the ‘Devil’s Mark’ – a symbol of having made a pact with Satan. In fact, Anne was proud of her long, slender fingers and always took care to show them off to best effect… all 10 of them.
8. Anne of Cleves was not ugly
You may have heard the story: Henry VIII fell in love with Anne of Cleves’ portrait and immediately signed on the dotted line of the marriage contract. But when he met his bride in person, he was appalled that she was nothing like her profile picture. So, he had the marriage annulled before you could say ‘off with her head’.
In fact, Holbein’s portrait was faithful to Anne, and many contemporary accounts praise her beauty. If anyone had cause for complaint about their betrothed’s physical assets, it was Anne. Henry was no oil painting by the time she married him in January 1540. Pushing 50, he was bloated, ulcer-ridden and almost certainly impotent. It was with understandable haste that Anne agreed to an annulment just six months later.
9. Edward VI kept a diary
The boy king was the only Tudor monarch to leave behind a private journal. But if you’re expecting a tell-all exposé full of secretly expressed desires, grudges and hopes, you might be disappointed. In fact, it’s a rather dry summary of the events of his reign.
Even the execution of his once-cherished uncle is afforded only the following curt line: “The Duke of Somerset had his head cut off today.” Overall, the diary reveals a boy who was precociously intelligent, as might be expected for Henry VIII’s “precious jewel”, who had the best of everything growing up.
But he also appears cold, unfeeling and uncompromising – a dangerous blend of traits that might have made him an even greater tyrant than his father if he lived to maturity.
10. Lady Jane Grey was queen for 14 days, not nine
Jane has gone down in history as the ‘Nine Days’ Queen’. But while it’s true that she was proclaimed queen on 10 July 1553 and deposed by Mary Tudor on 19 July, her reign technically began as soon as Edward VI had breathed his last on 6 July.
On his deathbed, Edward changed the succession in favour of his Protestant cousin Jane to prevent his Catholic half-sister Mary claiming her right. He was heavily influenced by John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, who had married his son Guildford to Jane.
Even so, Edward’s ‘Device’ for the succession was legally-binding, so Jane was the rightful queen as soon as the young king died. Yet she is always referred to as ‘Lady’ rather than ‘Queen’ and is often omitted from the roll call of English monarchs altogether. That owes much to Mary Tudor’s propaganda: to seize the throne, she had to present Jane as a usurper.
11. ‘Bloody Mary’ wasn’t all that bloody
Mary I’s obsession with returning England to the Roman Catholic faith spurred her to have around 300 Protestant heretics burned at the stake. But while there is no doubting the horrific nature of their deaths, Mary acted out of conscience rather than brutality.
Blinded by her own faith, she genuinely believed that she was saving her subjects from eternal damnation by bringing them into the Roman Catholic fold. Furthermore, the number of people who died on Mary’s orders was just a fraction of those who suffered at the hands of her far bloodier father, Henry VIII.
He sent more men and women to their deaths than any other Tudor monarch. Anyone who refused to fall in with his will was sent to the block – commoners, statesmen and wives alike. It even became a crime to think differently from the king. Contemporary records are patchy and inconsistent, so it’s impossible to quantify exactly how many deaths Henry was responsible for. Estimates vary from a few thousand to as many as 72,000.
12. Mary Tudor was a bit of a party girl
Despite her reputation for sober-mindedness and piety, Mary loved to have fun. One of her favourite companions was Jane Fool, a female jester. The queen was also an avid gambler and loved to play cards and board games. She also entertained lavishly and spent huge sums on feasting and drinking.
A scandalised Spanish ambassador reported: “There is plenty of beer here, and they drink more than would fill the Valladolid river [known as the Pisuerga river today]… The ladies and gentlemen put sugar in their wine, with the result that there are great goings on in the palace.”
13. Elizabeth I employed the original James Bond
The queen’s personal astrologer Dr John Dee was one of her closest advisers. She would regularly consult him about the most apposite moment to undertake key events, such as her coronation.
An astrologer, astronomer, mathematician and philosopher, Dee was one of the most learned men of the age. But he also carried out more covert assignments for his royal mistress. She employed Dee as a spy, and he would report on intrigues abroad using complex codes. He signed his letters with the numerals ‘007’.
14. Elizabeth I was (apparently) a man
The ‘Bisley Boy’ legend states that in 1542, the future Elizabeth I (then aged around nine) was sent to Overcourt House in the Cotswold village of Bisley to escape the plague in London. Whilst there, she sickened with a fever and died. Knowing that Henry VIII was on his way to visit his daughter, her panic-stricken governess searched the village in vain for a girl who resembled Elizabeth closely enough to fool the king.
The only child of the right age and colouring was a boy, so in desperation she dressed him in the princess’s clothes and the deception was complete. This unlikely tale dates from the 1800s and was made popular by Dracula author Bram Stoker in his book Famous Impostors.
There is no contemporary evidence to support it and more than a whiff of misogyny about the whole thing. How else could Elizabeth have ruled so successfully for so many years? She must have been a man.
15. Elizabeth I didn’t leave her throne to James VI
But as she lay dying at Richmond Palace in March 1603, she finally settled the matter, gasping that she would have none but “my nearest kinsman the King of Scots”.
This deathbed scene was recorded by the contemporary historian William Camden, who had been commissioned to write a biography of the celebrated queen during her lifetime. But dramatic new research by the British Library has proved that Camden was forced to rewrite it on the orders of the new king to make his accession look more predetermined than it had been.
Using transmitted light, the researchers found that in his original manuscript, written at the time of Elizabeth’s death, Camden had recorded that she died without naming a successor. But a few years later, his words were covered over with the lie that ushered the Stuarts to the Tudor throne.
]]> HistoryExtra <![CDATA[Who is the most overrated person in history? 9 experts reveal their choices]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/who-is-the-most-overrated-person-in-history-9-experts-reveal-their-choices/ 2026-02-09T15:30:05.000Z 2026-02-09T15:30:00.000Z Homer
Composite figment of imaginations
The writer credited with composing the Iliad and the Odyssey, and often regarded as one of the most important authors of all time, is to my mind the most overrated historical figure. That’s mostly because it’s likely that there was no one person called Homer.
Careful study of those works, as well as other surviving epic fragments, has shown that they weren’t written at a single time by one person. Instead, it is likely that the Iliad and Odyssey were composed over generations by poetry performers known as rhapsodes. Each of these improved on the work of their predecessors, curating these epics and honing them to a point of perfection. From that time, probably around 700 BC, these works started to be transmitted in a more stable format. By around 550–500 BC, they were written down for the first time.
By then, the belief was circulating that their genesis lay with one particular poet, Homer – not least because the idea of a single, genius author is simpler and more attractive than a slow process of evolution involving hundreds. A whole narrative was woven about the likely fictitious Homer: that he lived on Chios, that he was blind, even that he may have had some divine parentage.
In fact, the notional Homer became so popular that later rhapsodes, doing performances of these now ‘finished’, stable poems, liked to claim themselves as ‘sons of Homer’ to give themselves more gravitas and fame. Ancient historians even wrote biographies of Homer as a historical figure, and busts were created of him. Yet, as a single man, he probably never existed at all.
Michael Scott, professor in classics and ancient history at the University of Warwick
Charles Dickens
Verbose Victorian who distorted views of his era
At the risk of being tarred and feathered next time I show my face at a Victorian history conference, I’d have to say that Dickens is overrated.
It’s not that I dislike his work. Critics usually object to his long-winded prose, or baulk at the mawkish sentimentality of characters such as Little Nell, but I enjoy his writing. The callous way he treated his wife is harder to forgive – but his claim to greatness never rested on his qualities as a husband.
No, my objection to Dickens is one that he – always a relentless self-publicist – might actually enjoy. He is simply too famous. Dickens is often feted as the greatest English writer since Shakespeare. Great Expectations, Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol have been inflicted on generations of schoolchildren and adapted into endless period dramas (the best of which feature Muppets).
As a result, many people see the 19th century purely through a Dickensian lens: as a world of cruel workhouses, smoke-filled factories and desperate poverty. I’ve spent my career as a historian trying to reveal the lighter sides of Victorian life – to prove that things weren’t as miserable as some of Dickens’ more pointed critiques suggest.
Dickens was just one of many great writers who made their names in the Victorian era. I’m not suggesting that we consign him to the dustbin of history – but perhaps the time has come to stop him from hogging all of the limelight.
Bob Nicholson, writer, broadcaster and historian at Edge Hill University
Mary, Queen of Scots
Unwise architect of her own downfall
Some historical figures, such as Richard III and Anne Boleyn, attract a cult following. Mary is another. She’s typically presented as a tragic heroine: a woman of courage who battled against adversity throughout her life, only to have it savagely cut short by her cold-hearted cousin, Elizabeth I.
Yet the truth is far removed from this beguiling image. Yes, Mary was dogged by tragedy in her life, but much of it could have been avoided if she had shown greater wisdom and restraint. Instead, she made a series of catastrophic decisions that eventually lost her the crown – and her life.
After a pampered upbringing in France, Mary returned to her native Scotland in 1561, aged 18. She then married Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, one of the most unsuitable consorts in history, before eloping with the chief suspect in his murder, James Hepburn, Lord Bothwell.
Having lost all credibility, and been forced to abdicate in favour of her infant son, James, Mary fled to England, naively expecting that Elizabeth would help her regain her throne. She spent almost 19 years a prisoner there, during which time she was involved in numerous plots against the English queen, finally leaving a paper trail exposing her parts in conspiracies.
Mary’s execution in 1587 propelled her to the status of Catholic martyr and tragic heroine. In truth, she was not the hapless victim of circumstance but the architect of her own downfall.
Tracy Borman, author, historian and broadcaster
Petrarch
Painted a dim picture of the Middle Ages
The writing of early Italian Renaissance poet Francesco Petrarch (1304–74) is certainly not overrated. He was responsible for an exquisite body of lyric poetry, an extraordinary scholar who rediscovered the letters of Cicero, and one of the greatest contributors to the Italian language. Reading or listening to his poetry truly feeds the soul.
As a medieval historian, though, I am bound to take issue with Petrarch’s comments on the nature of history – because these truly are overrated. His remarks have long misled and deceived, producing a vision of world history that has become embedded in the European and American historiographical imagination.
It was Petrarch who came up with the idea of the ‘Dark Ages’. He described the Middle Ages as a period of intellectual obscurity in which the glories of the great Roman empire had been forgotten, inhabited by benighted and stupid people. “This sleep of forgetfulness will not last forever,” he opined. “When the darkness has been dispersed, our descendants can come again in the former pure radiance.”
This condemnation of 800 years of history was taken up by 16th-century Protestants and then 18th-century Enlightenment thinkers. It’s still common today, with the Middle Ages often dismissed as poorly documented, boring and dogmatic. It’s just not true! These were centuries of extraordinary intellectual discovery, of philosophical thinking about the nature of the self and society, of artistic vibrancy and sophisticated political theory. The Middle Ages matter: we study them to challenge our assumptions and better understand our common humanity.
Hannah Skoda, associate professor of medieval history at the University of Oxford
Cicero
Rome’s most shameless self-promoter
The first-century BC Roman statesman and writer is often hailed as the voice of Republican virtue and a defender of democracy, justice and reason in a corrupt age. But this reputation owes more to his own words than to his actual achievements. In truth, Marcus Tullius Cicero was one of history’s most successful self-publicists.
Cicero was elected consul in 63 BC. It was a remarkable achievement for a novus homo (‘new man’ without aristocratic ancestry) – and he never stopped reminding people of it. That same year, he crushed a conspiracy to overthrow the Republic, and had several citizens executed without trial – an act he later declared showed moral courage. In reality, it was a serious abuse of power, and deeply divisive.
Despite his modest background, Cicero consistently sided with Rome’s conservative elite, opposing reforms that might have redistributed wealth or power to the poor. He praised virtue, yet defended the clearly guilty Milo on a murder charge. He was undeniably a gifted speaker and writer, but as a statesman he was relatively irrelevant. He had no army, no loyal faction and little influence over the major figures of his time, such as Caesar, Pompey and Octavian (later Augustus).
More than 800 of his letters and 58 speeches survive, far more than those left by any contemporary, giving his version of events an over-amplified voice. Through them he cast himself as the Republic’s moral guardian – but without them he’d be remembered as what he truly was: a gifted lawyer with more bluster than power.
Jess Venner, ancient historian, presenter and author
Winston Churchill
A flawed leader who could never live up to his idealised image
Churchill is one of Britain’s greatest heroes. He’s the subject of countless movies and television shows. His statue stands in Parliament Square. In a nationwide poll in 2002, he was voted the greatest figure in British history. Ever.
Though I have great respect for Churchill as a symbol of British courage and determination during the Second World War, the man himself cannot possibly live up to this image. In many ways, he was a terrible politician. Even by the standards of the time, his views were objectionable. He actively opposed equal rights for women, and he frequently made racist comments – particularly about Indians, calling them a “beastly people with a beastly religion”. During most of the 1930s he was shunned by the political establishment, including many in his own party. He was often drunk on the job.
There is no question that Britain needed a leader with Churchill’s energy to see it through the war. Yet his own Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Alan Brooke, claimed that Churchill often made it impossible for the armed forces to do their work. He came up with ridiculous plans, then acted “like a spoilt child” when military experts pointed out that they were impossible.
Churchill was certainly a heroic figure. He was one of the very first to oppose Hitler, and his inspiring speeches galvanised the country in its hour of need. But can he live up to our idealised image of him? Of course not. How could anyone?
Keith Lowe, author of The Fear and the Freedom: How the Second World War Changed Us (Viking, 2017)
Erik Bloodaxe
Spectacular nickname, underwhelming legacy
I love a Viking-Age hero with a dramatic nickname as much as the next person, but let’s not kid ourselves: they were masters of their own propaganda. Look for the men behind the myths (and we are mostly talking men here) and the historical reality can be a little… underwhelming. Take Erik Bloodaxe, twice ruler of Northumbria in the mid-10th century. Most of what we think we know about his colourful life comes from the Old Norse-Icelandic sagas, recorded long after his lifetime.
In these, he’s portrayed as a larger-than-life character: favourite son of King Harald Fairhair, slayer of his own brothers, locked in a bitter feud with Icelandic poet Egill Skallagrimsson. His wife, Gunnhild, is depicted as a shapeshifting, murderous sorceress said to have commissioned another source for Erik’s life – or, rather, afterlife – the poem Eiríksmál (‘The Lay of Erik’), in which the god Odin orders his warriors and Valkyries to prepare Valhalla for the arrival of this great hero.
But beyond the vivid details of his legend, what do we know about the historical figure? Coins and chronicles tell us that he was a key political player in 10th-century Northumbria. But his brief reigns (947–48 and 952–54) were turbulent, to say the least, challenged by Anglo-Saxon Wessex to the south and Viking Dublin to the west. In 954, he came to a sticky end, driven from York and ambushed in the wilds of Cumbria. His death brought an end to Viking rule in the north of England. So, not a brilliant legacy. But still a great nickname.
Eleanor Barraclough, historian, broadcaster and author of Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age (Profile, 2024)
Ronald Reagan
Seemingly a candidate for sainthood – but with questionable principles
Making heroes out of historical figures requires some selective forgetting. In the US, where the cult of Ronald Reagan has many adherents, forgetting is almost an art form. Popular writing treats Reagan as a principled example of free-market rectitude who ended the Cold War and heralded morning in America. Critics of the contemporary Republican Party often invoke Reagan to signal how far his heirs have gone astray. The GOP is “no longer the party of Reagan”, critics lament in publications such as The Washington Post, Time or USA Today. Rhetorically, harking back to Reagan makes a claim of legitimacy and ideological fidelity. To invoke Reagan is to touch the hem of the saints.
This gives Reagan too much credit for accomplishments that were not his, and overlooks wrongdoing that was. Did Reagan end the Cold War? Many would argue that dynamics within the USSR – Mikhail Gorbachev’s embrace of democratic socialism, for example – sparked the transformation of the Soviet Union more than any external force did. Was Reagan’s administration principled? Anyone recalling the manipulative illegality of the Iran–Contra Affair might marvel at the question.
- Read more | Did Ronald Reagan 'Make America Great Again'?
Did Reagan mean “morning in America” to apply to all Americans? As candidate, he gave a speech celebrating “states’ rights” in Neshoba County, Mississippi near where three voting rights activists had been murdered in 1964. For years, he publicly ignored the decade-defining public health crisis that was the HIV epidemic. He scaled back on social programmes while intensifying the war on drugs. He busted unions while preaching ‘trickle-down’ economics.
Without selective forgetting, the Reagan era feels less like the antithesis of our present and more like its progenitor.
Adriane Lentz-Smith, associate professor of history at Duke University
Simon de Montfort
A history of violence
Some 760 years after his death, Simon de Montfort still enjoys a fairly sturdy reputation as a social reformer – the man who summoned what’s claimed to have been the first English parliament. A portrait of him is carved above the doors of the US House of Representatives, among a pantheon of democratic worthies. An English university was named after him as recently as 1992.
But this reputation rests almost entirely on modern myth. Kings of England had been summoning consultative assemblies for hundreds of years before Montfort did so in 1265, and were calling them parliaments as early as 1236. Montfort’s contribution was long reckoned to have been the introduction of representation by including knights and townsmen, but both these groups had already been attending parliaments for several decades.
Montfort was undoubtedly a skilled politician – clever, persuasive and quick-witted – but his preferred method of getting things done was usually violence. He had put himself into power in 1263 by leading attacks on the supporters of his brother-in-law, Henry III, and he reduced Henry to a puppet the following year by defeating him in battle.
Montfort was also a pioneering antisemite. As soon as he became Earl of Leicester in 1231, he expelled all of the Jews from that town – the first such expulsion in England – and in the 1260s he led violent massacres of other Jewish communities. A capable warrior and a charismatic leader, Montfort was expert at exploiting the grievances of others for his own ends. A founder of parliamentary democracy he was not.
Marc Morris, medieval historian, writer and broadcaster
This article was first published in the January 2026 issue of HistoryExtra magazine
]]> HistoryExtra <![CDATA[Married three times by the age of 15: Margaret Beaufort, the woman who birthed the Tudor Dynasty]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/married-three-times-by-the-age-of-15-margaret-beaufort-the-woman-who-birthed-the-tudor-dynasty/ 2026-10-20T12:50:46.000Z 2025-12-01T09:00:03.000Z In March 1457, a short, slight widow left Pembroke Castle to embark on a 100-mile journey across territories stalked by civil war and pestilence. Her husband had died only four months earlier, carried off by plague contracted during imprisonment at another Welsh castle during the spurts of Yorkist resistance that marked the early Wars of the Roses. It was just weeks since she had given birth – a traumatic labour, endured without her family or support network. But she set out now to Newport with a firm sense of purpose. She would protect herself in one of the only ways a woman could at that time: by finding another husband.
This widow and mother was Margaret Beaufort. She was 13 years old.
The newborn she left at Pembroke would, in 1485, become King Henry VII, the first Tudor monarch. Reading history backwards, it has become fashionable to portray Margaret as an obsessive, Machiavellian mother so consumed by the idea of her son’s divine right to the throne that she would commit child murder to bring it about. She, it is insinuated, was the true assassin of the princes in the Tower who threatened the claim of her “good and gracious prince, king and only beloved son”. But this interpretation is entirely fictional, and mired in misogynist oversimplification. Margaret did not aspire to a crown, either for her son or herself, until the unprecedented events of the Wars of the Roses made it essential for their survival.
Child bride
The notion that Margaret’s child might inherit the throne would have been laughable in 1457. The king then was Henry VI (a Lancastrian), who had a healthy son and myriad cousins sharing his royal blood. In contrast, the Beauforts were products of an illicit liaison generations back between a Lancastrian prince and his children’s governess. And, though in later life Margaret and her son were close both personally and politically, for much of Henry’s youth her maternal style can best be described as ‘hands off’ – arguably, emotionally neglectful. Little wonder, given the circumstances of Henry’s birth.
Today we would consider Margaret a victim of child abuse. Her marriage to Henry’s father, Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, took place when she was about 12 – the age of consent for medieval girls (for boys it was 14). This was her second marriage, her first having been dissolved in 1453, during a period of political turmoil.
Even in the 15th century, when marriages were arranged for cradle-bound babies, it was highly unusual for unions to be consummated before a bride was 16, and 20 was the average age of first pregnancy for most noblewomen. For good reason: medieval women’s bodies were still developing until then, and early childbirth was far likelier to end in stillbirth, maternal death or physically damaging complications. In later life, Margaret’s confessor, John Fisher, alluded to how underdeveloped Margaret had been when she gave birth, writing: “She is… a woman not of a great stature, but at that time it is said she was much smaller still, to such a degree that it almost seemed a miracle at her age that so little a body could bring forth a child at all.”
Margaret was forced into motherhood so that her husband could claim her considerable inheritance. Her father had died before her first birthday, leaving her an heiress worth, in modern terms, hundreds of thousands of pounds a year – and with a distant royal claim that had seen her welcomed to court as the king’s “right well-beloved cousin”. Ironically, Edmund Tudor died before his child was born, leaving Margaret to face childbirth alone, half a kingdom away from her family, whose main seat was in Lincolnshire.
- Read more | The rise of Henry VII: how a life of cheating death prepared him for the throne as the first Tudor king
Given the trauma of this experience, it is understandable that Margaret left her baby as soon as was physically possible and set out to regain control of her life. Barely three months after leaving Pembroke Castle, she was betrothed again; before her son’s first birthday, Margaret remarried and moved back to Lincolnshire. Henry’s wardship was granted to his uncle, Jasper Tudor, and later to the Yorkist William Herbert. Henry would remain in the care of these Welsh lords, 300 miles from his mother, until he was 14.
Meanwhile, Margaret – still not yet 15 – was on her third marriage. She had reasserted the security torn from her by the marriage to Edmund Tudor. Her new husband, Sir Harry Stafford, was at least a decade older than her, but respectful and affectionate. Their household accounts show the couple working and travelling together, with thoughtful exchanges of anniversary and New Year gifts. In his will, Harry called Margaret his “best beloved wife”.
Margaret was welcomed with open arms by the Stafford clan, especially Harry’s politically astute mother, Anne, Duchess of Buckingham, who took “my daughter Richmond” under her wing and protected her interests at court. Most happily of all for Margaret, the Stafford marriage brought her back to her own adored mother and half-siblings, close to the estates where she had grown up. It must almost have felt to Margaret as if the last few terrible years – encompassing marriage, widowhood and childbirth – had never happened.
Distant mother
It was not unusual for medieval children to grow up apart from their parents, but it is noteworthy – given that both Margaret and Henry grew up without fathers – that, whereas she lived with her mother until adolescence, she left her son shortly after birth. And though there is little surviving evidence for the first decade of Henry’s life, it is unclear if mother and son were in contact. Margaret did not return to Wales for almost a decade. Perhaps she rationalised that she was acting in her son’s interests; he was a boy, in need of male role models. Given the violent turbulence of this period, though, it is significant that Margaret kept her distance.
She had chosen her alliance with the Staffords because, with civil war looming, they represented a dominant, stabilising force. But even they could not keep the incompetent Henry VI on his throne. In March 1461, he was deposed in favour of his charismatic young kinsman, Edward of York.
Margaret and her relatives quickly came to terms with the new king, Edward IV, but her brother-in-law, Jasper Tudor, was a diehard Lancastrian whose rebellions incited Yorkist reprisals. Pembroke Castle was besieged, with Margaret’s son, Henry, inside. Fortunately, as titular Earl of Richmond, Henry was a valuable commodity. His life was spared and his wardship granted to a leading Welsh Yorkist, William Herbert. There is no sign that Margaret protested; perhaps she could not cope emotionally with the responsibility of mothering a child after enduring so much at such a young age.
Mother and son would not meet again until Henry was 10. The causes of their parting and ultimate reunion probably stemmed from the same root: Margaret hoped that she and Harry Stafford would have children of their own. But Henry’s birth had scarred her physically and psychologically, and as years passed it became clear that he would be her only child. Only when confronted with this realisation did Margaret belatedly seek to re-establish a relationship with her son. In September 1467, she returned to Wales for the first time since her remarriage, spending a week with Henry at Raglan Castle. He had grown tall and serious, with her capacity for quick learning. Perhaps she saw in his appearance and character glimpses of herself or her half-siblings – and perhaps, less comfortably, of Edmund Tudor.
The visit to Raglan marked the beginning of Margaret’s self-identity as Henry’s mother, but she was no closer to taking physical possession of her child. Two years later, after another outbreak of civil war, she attempted to regain legal control of her son. When William Herbert was executed after the battle of Edgecote in 1469, Margaret struggled to assemble lost legal documents; to reassert her guardianship of Henry, she convened assignations in the manor houses of aristocrats, and with lawyers in alehouses. Mother and son were reunited briefly in 1470, touring London and Surrey together, indulging their shared love of hunting. Presumably they discussed Margaret’s hope of regaining Henry’s birthright, which had been stripped from him and parcelled out to leading Yorkists – not the crown, which was still entirely outside her aspirations, but the earldom of Richmond.
Dangerous blood
The same forces that reunited Margaret and Henry also drove them apart. The internecine chaos unleashed on England in 1469 was finally resolved in 1471, when Edward IV conclusively vanquished his rivals in battle. Henry VI and his teenage son were killed. So, too, were several of Margaret’s Beaufort cousins and, within a few years, even Edward’s Lancastrian former brother-in-law, the Duke of Exeter. Suddenly, the possession of Lancastrian blood, no matter how thin, was dangerous. According to the Tudor poet Bernard André, Margaret advised Henry to flee into exile with his uncle Jasper: “Unless my imagination or maternal instinct deceives me… [Henry’s] life will be safer on the ocean’s waves than in this tempest on land.”
In September 1471, Henry and Jasper sought asylum in Brittany, where they remained until 1483. Meanwhile, Margaret was left in limbo. Alive to the dangers inherent in Henry’s distant royal claim and traditional family loyalties, she warned him not to return to England until she had assurances for his safety. Mother and son could communicate only through intermediaries, trusted servants who braved the Channel crossing.
Margaret demonstrated a profound sense of responsibility to Henry. The rightful Earl of Richmond was heir to a proud inheritance and, as any medieval aristocrat would, she fervently believed that her son should claim it.
But it wasn’t until 1482, when Henry was 25, that making such a claim seemed possible. The death of her mother, and the ensuing business of settling her estate, enabled Margaret to cut a deal with Edward IV to bring Henry home safely. On 3 June 1482, Edward and Margaret publicly agreed that, if Henry returned “in the grace and favour of the king’s highness”, he could claim his grandmother’s substantial West Country estates. An undated pardon now in the archives of Westminster Abbey suggests that this may have been a precursor to the restoration of Henry’s earldom.
More privately – though loud enough that several leading courtiers later reported it – Margaret and Edward discussed how they were “related in the fourth… degrees of kindred”. This was almost certainly the first step in arranging a marriage between Henry and one of Edward’s daughters which, because of their relation, would demand a papal dispensation. Margaret, always less risk-averse than the men in her life, was willing to gamble her son’s life for this bright future. Unfortunately, 11 years of political exile had left Henry paranoid, and even these substantial guarantees did not convince him that he would be safe. He refused to return.
Then political upheaval simultaneously dashed Margaret’s careful plans and enabled her to contemplate a future for her son that would have previously been inconceivable.
Maternal kingmaker
Margaret’s hopes of regaining Henry’s Richmond inheritance were thwarted when, in April 1483, Edward IV died unexpectedly. With two adolescent sons, Edward’s dynasty should have been assured. Instead, his brother Richard detained those young princes and claimed the throne himself. A contemporary eyewitness reported that the princes “were withdrawn into the inner apartments of the Tower proper, and day by day began to be seen more rarely behind the bars and windows, until at length they ceased to appear altogether”. It was rumoured that Richard had murdered them.
For Margaret, like much of the English nobility, Richard’s accession was an unanticipated complication. Her hoped-for marriage between Henry and a Yorkist princess was dead in the water, and the princesses had fled into sanctuary. Moreover, after Harry Stafford’s death in 1471, Margaret had remarried the northern lord Thomas Stanley, whose family were stalwarts of the regimes of Edward IV and his son. Over the years, the Stanleys had had several ugly confrontations with Richard. Indeed, Stanley was briefly arrested during Richard’s coup.
A pragmatist above all else, Stanley soon came to terms with Richard and so, apparently, did Margaret. But the circumstances of Richard’s accession had entirely changed the political landscape. Disaffected opponents plotted rebellion, and Margaret – whose territories stretched from Flintshire to Lincolnshire, Surrey to Devon – had myriad connections through whom she gained intelligence about these nascent conspiracies.
The anti-Ricardians were a disparate band. There were servants of Edward IV who hated his queen’s Woodville relatives; the Woodvilles themselves, fearing reprisals; attendants of the lost princes, jealous of missed opportunities or genuinely concerned for their charges; even Lancastrian stalwarts who wanted rid of the Yorkists altogether.
Their very heterogeneity was a boon to Margaret. If the princes were dead – and by August it seemed they must be – then the rebellion needed a new figurehead. It needed to be an adult with royal blood and no loyalty to Richard – and, because they would have to fight for the crown, a male. Most of all, it needed to be someone impartial enough to unify these factions. In short: Henry Tudor. The exceptional circumstances of summer 1483 made it possible for the first time for Margaret to hope not merely for her son’s return but for his accession as king.
A lifetime of political and economic activity had readied her for this moment. Even the collapse of their first rebellion in autumn 1483, which left Margaret under house arrest and deprived of her fortune, could not cow her. She was linked by blood, marriage and loyalty not only to most of the nobility of the realm but also to the working men and women who served them. Her vast network of connections can be read in her memberships of religious guilds, gifts and letters exchanged with neighbours, favours recorded in her household accounts, payments to merchants and craftsmen who provided for her husbands and family, and in many more ways – scarcely tangible then and almost entirely lost now.
The loyalty of these associates to Margaret was longer-standing, and more immediately beneficial, than their allegiance to Richard III. When Margaret mobilised her network, she was able to gather considerable sums of money – and money meant weapons and manpower for Henry, which he used to invade and then defeat Richard in battle at Bosworth.
Thus the mother who had been absent from her son’s life for so long was essential to the success of the campaign that won him the throne. Margaret enabled Henry to be crowned Henry VII in 1485 – and so to re-enter her life and build a close, lasting relationship. In an undated letter as king, son told mother: “I am as much bound [to you] as any creature living, for the great and singular motherly love and affection that it hath pleased you at all times to bear towards me.”
Perhaps Margaret had not shown that affection “at all times” – mother and son both had a habit of rewriting their pasts to better suit their present circumstances. But, after a long, difficult journey, they ultimately built a relationship that proved unbreakable.
Lauren Johnson is a historian specialising in the 15th and early 16th centuries. Her new book is Margaret Beaufort: Survivor, Rebel, Kingmaker (Apollo, 2025)
This article was first published in the December 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
]]> HistoryExtra <![CDATA[5 things you (probably) didn't know about the Tudors]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/5-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-the-tudors/ 2025-10-20T11:36:46.000Z 2025-10-20T08:00:29.000Z 1. The Tudors brought peace and prosperity to England
Bringing peace was probably the most important thing the Tudors did for us. The British countryside is littered with the sites of medieval battles – places where opposing forces stomped over crops, burned barns and rounded up people’s sons. For centuries, rival aristocrats made and broke alliances, and killed those who got in their way. Henry Tudor took the throne in exactly this way at Bosworth in 1485, when he persuaded a number of warlords to desert their king, Richard III. But there it stopped. Intrigue and power politics were thenceforth undertaken by more covert means. Everyone became a bit safer, the day-to-day became a bit more predictable, and lots of people got a little bit richer. Less war meant that more crops made it to market, more young men were available for work, and there was less damage done to buildings, less thievery with menaces and safer travel. In turn, this meant more trade and a greater willingness to invest. The peace the Tudors brought to their lands benefited all – rich and poor alike.
2. Henry VIII was a reluctant reformer
When the Tudors came to power, the Catholic church was already struggling to maintain its grip upon the minds and souls of Europe. New ideas about the nature of God and the state of Christianity were circulating. So when Henry VIII lost patience with the pope, there were plenty of people delighted by the opportunity to rethink England’s official religious position.
Henry himself seems to have been happy to leave the religion as was. He just wanted the power and money the pope had been leveraging from his kingdom. He was quickly convinced, though, that he should also have the money and assets of the monasteries. A significant number of influential and vocal people wanted much more, however, pushing for a ‘purer’ form of Christianity that did away with priests entirely and abandoned the rituals and traditions of Catholicism. Others, of course, wholeheartedly defended the time-honoured form of faith.
The result was a fracturing of society. Hundreds, both Protestant and Catholic, were executed for refusing to change their form of faith and follow the state-sponsored format – one that changed radically several times. But for all the death and fear, the upset and soul-searching, a new freedom of thought also emerged.
3. The Tudor era brought a rise in literacy
A few years before Henry Tudor took the throne, in 1476, William Caxton printed his first book on English soil. As printing presses became established and the price of books plummeted, reading became affordable to many more people. There was also more choice. Alongside religious texts, books of popular stories, advice manuals, joke books, medical texts and scandal sheets were published. At the same time, there was a new religious pressure for Britons to learn to read. The Protestant faith required its adherents to stop relying on priests and to read the Bible for themselves. This applied to everyone: shepherds and ploughmen as well as nobles and merchants – even women. Teaching people to read became a new religious duty and literacy rates started to climb.
4. They drove the expansion of industry
The Tudor monarchs – Elizabeth, in particular – were very keen to kickstart new industries and update old ones. In order to do this, specialist workers from Europe were encouraged to resettle on these shores. Some came as refugees fleeing religious persecution in France and the Low Countries, bringing new textile-making skills. Others were purely economic migrants with mining expertise or knowledge of new glassblowing and brass-founding techniques. The strategy worked – and these new arrivals provided the core of know-how and experience around which English industry could grow.
5. The health of the nation improved
Rates of fatal illness fell during the Tudor period – though this was the result of sheer luck, as certain major diseases mutated into less virulent forms. When a new, often lethal form of the plague arrived in England in 1348 – the Black Death – it killed around a third of the population, suddenly and catastrophically. Plague returned to Britain many times over the centuries that followed but, by the start of the Tudor era, the outbreaks were becoming smaller and more people were surviving. Meanwhile, another major killer known as the sweating sickness – a mysterious disease causing rapidly developing symptoms including shivers, headaches, dizziness, pains and, soon afterwards, sweating and commonly death – came and went. The first epidemic broke out in 1485, just as the Tudor era was beginning, and the last came in 1551, after which it apparently vanished completely. With both of these big killers in retreat, the population began to grow.
Ruth Goodman is a social and domestic historian and broadcaster. Her books include How to Be a Tudor (Viking, 2015)
This article was first published in the December 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
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]]> HistoryExtra <![CDATA[Medieval warhorses: 5 moments horsepower changed the course of history]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/medieval-warhorses-5-moments-horsepower-changed-the-course-of-history/ 2026-09-03T19:08:04.000Z 2025-08-20T08:00:44.000Z 1. 1066 and all that
Horses were involved in King Harold’s defeat at Hastings – but also in the demise of his Norman conqueror
It’s one of the most famous of all medieval images. Harold II stands upon the battlefield at Hastings, desperately grasping at an arrow lodged in his eye. This incident – depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry – is credited with ending the English king’s life and extinguishing centuries of Anglo-Saxon rule. Yet look to the right of Harold and you’ll find an image that arguably goes even further in explaining his defeat: it depicts a sword-wielding warrior mounted upon a horse.
The Norman conquest of England in 1066 was an era-defining event – and its centrepiece was the battle of Hastings. That clash is graphically represented on the Bayeux Tapestry, most memorably in the image of mounted Norman knights charging the line of Anglo-Saxon warriors on foot. It’s a powerful rendition of horses making history – and for William, Duke of Normandy, those animals proved critical in securing his victory.
William began the day of the pivotal action, 14 October, by ordering reconnaissance missions, receiving intelligence from returning mounted scouts on the whereabouts of Harold’s forces. When the two armies later closed in to do battle, the Bayeux Tapestry shows us, the duke mounted his warhorse and exhorted his knights to “prepare themselves manfully and wisely” as they cantered towards the forthcoming engagement. During the nine-hour struggle, William was in the thick of the fighting – and two, or possibly three, of his horses were killed beneath him.
The crucial part of the battle came when a rumour spread among the Normans that their commander had been killed. The duke hurriedly rode among his now-fleeing troops, his helmet raised to prove that he was alive, so preventing a rout. At this key moment it was the mobility provided by his mount that allowed William to be in the right place at the right time, averting disaster (for him).
Despite the oft-repeated tale of the ‘arrow in the eye’, Harold’s death probably came after a group of mounted Norman knights broke through his bodyguard and cut him down. On this most dramatic of days, it was the horse that was William’s enabler – for intelligence-gathering, command and control, helping save his army from defeat by allowing him to visibly lead from the front.
Yet though the horse helped cement the success of the Conqueror’s military career, it also played a part in its end. In 1087, the now-overweight William was characteristically urging on his troops as they set fire to the town of Mantes in France when his horse jumped a ditch – and “his stomach projected over the forward part of the saddle”, resulting in the rupture of the king’s internal organs. He died of his injuries some weeks later, his otherwise anonymous horse an unwitting participant in the death of one of England’s greatest warrior kings.
2. The Bruce's canny cavalry gambit
Faced with a mighty English mounted army, the Scottish king used both horsemanship and cunning strategy to rout the invaders
Robert the Bruce’s famous victory at the battle of Bannockburn, fought over two bloody days on 23–24 June 1314, was a landmark in the history of the British Isles, paving the way for Scottish independence from English rule. That outcome hinged on the inability of the English to effectively use their heavy cavalry in the face of tactics masterminded by the Scottish king.
Edward II had invaded Scotland with a vast army, aiming to raise the siege of the strategically vital castle of Stirling. The core of his army comprised men at arms – professional soldiers, knights and nobles – on warhorses that were the embodiment of English military power. Heavily armoured and emblazoned with arms, these were elite steeds, expensively bred and trained in a royal stud network. The English army of around 13,000 substantially outnumbered Robert’s force of perhaps 6,000.
A prelude to the battle known to every Scottish schoolchild proved an ill omen for the English. In a scene echoing the age-old clash of military champions in single combat, on the first day of action the English knight Sir Henry de Bohun spotted Robert the Bruce in front of his troops, and aimed to strike a decisive early blow by charging at the Scottish leader on his warhorse, lance in hand. Mounted on a smaller and more nimble mount, Robert skilfully manoeuvred to dodge his opponent and, standing up in his stirrups, in the words of the epic medieval poem The Brus, “Struck him such a great blow, That neither hat or helmet could stop”, cleaving Sir Henry’s “head to the brains” and smashing his battleaxe in the process.
In preparation for the main action the following day, the Scots devised tactics to negate English cavalry strength. They chose for the battlefield a site where heavy horsemen could not operate easily – the area was marshy and intersected by a network of streams – and pockmarked the landscape with a minefield-like network of covered pits or ‘pots’ designed to trap horses. Fighting in compact formations known as schiltrons, the Bruce’s pike-armed foot soldiers were able to resist the disordered attacks of the English cavalry, which eventually disintegrated and broke.
As King Edward was led away from the field towards the security of Stirling, Scottish soldiers were able to get close enough to grab at the caparison (cloth covering) of his horse, which was wounded beneath him, forcing the king to remount in his humiliating flight.
3. Under his dead body
English rule in France was brought to a violent end when a renowned commander became trapped beneath the corpse of his own horse
In the summer of 1453, with the tide of the Hundred Years’ War having turned in France’s favour, the veteran English commander Sir John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, found himself at the head of an army attempting to relieve the beleaguered garrison at Castillon in Aquitaine. His target was the besieging French army’s fortified encampment outside the town and, encouraged by dust clouds from what he believed were retreating soldiers, he ordered his own troops to attack. Talbot was the only Englishman to remain mounted – on a white riding horse – and went into battle without armour, honouring a vow he had made to the French king while a prisoner some years earlier.
It soon transpired, though, that the French were not retreating – in fact, the dust had simply been raised by horses leaving the camp – and that Talbot’s men were facing the whole French army, dug in behind their fortifications and ready to fire more than 200 guns. Talbot, against the advice of some of his subordinates, pressed on with the assault, possibly because he believed that “his name alone would cause the enemy to flee”.
What followed was a disaster for his forces: they were cut down by swathes of cannon fire, with every shot from the French artillery taking out up to six English soldiers. After two hours of fighting, the English army was attacked in the flank by a group of Bretons – and, as Talbot sought to deal with the threat, the whole French army sallied out from their camp to complete the rout.
While attempting to steady his retreating forces, Talbot’s horse was struck by a cannonball. As the earl lay powerless beneath his steed, a French soldier dispatched him with an axe blow. Talbot’s smashed body was identified by his herald the following day, the telltale feature being a missing tooth in his lower jaw. An examination of his skeleton in the 19th century found evidence of a 7 x 1.6cm hole in his skull, confirming the violent manner of his death.
Though described by his adversaries at the time as France’s “dread and terror”, the old earl was held in such respect by the French commanders that they founded a chapel on the spot where he had been killed – a fitting tribute to a veteran campaigner of the chivalric age. His horse received no such monument, though it had played a vital part in the first battle in which artillery proved to be the decisive weapon – and which was also the clash that ultimately led to the end of English rule in France.
4. Did a lost horse doom a dynasty?
As the battle of Bosworth raged, Richard III launched a cavalry charge at Henry Tudor but ended up losing the throne – and his life
“A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” Richard III’s final words before his death at the battle of Bosworth, as imagined by Shakespeare, have a special place in English memory. Tudor propaganda has, famously, coloured popular views of that king’s character and reign, but we have a good understanding of the demise of England’s last Yorkist king – and it was an event in which horses played a central role, if not quite as portrayed by Shakespeare.
On 22 August 1485, Richard’s army clashed with the forces of Henry Tudor in the Leicestershire countryside in what’s often considered to have been the final battle in the Wars of the Roses. Following an infantry engagement between the vanguards of the opposing forces, Richard – spotting that his rival was protected by only a small lifeguard – mounted a heavy cavalry charge at Henry. This was not necessarily the desperate act of a doomed monarch, as has been argued; it could have been a carefully calculated attempted decapitation of the rebel leader that would end the battle there and then.
In the words of the prime Tudor source for the battle, Polydore Vergil, the king “strick his horse with the spurres” and charged, accompanied by a small body of capable and loyal knights. The gambit almost succeeded: Henry’s standard bearer was killed in the melee, but the charge was stopped and driven towards a marshy area.
Richard’s actions were all the more remarkable given that previous battles in the Wars of the Roses had seen little in the way of cavalry action; most of the clashes had been brutal slugfests in which leaders as well as soldiers fought mainly on foot. The king’s attack ultimately proved to be a brief last hurrah for the fabled heavy cavalry charge by medieval knights.
The grim reality of exactly how Richard met his end has become clearer since his remains, discovered beneath a Leicester car park in 2012, were subjected to scientific analysis. The concentration of multiple wounds on his head shows that he wasn’t wearing a helmet, and must have been dismounted when he suffered these blows. This accords with the account of Molinet, the only contemporary source detailing Richard’s final moments, who said that the king was killed by a Welsh halberdier after his horse became stuck in marshy ground.
In a final indignity, Richard’s dead, naked body was hung over a horse to be taken back to Leicester for burial. A wound through the buttocks, revealed by analysis of the skeleton, suggests this was when a “humiliation injury” was inflicted on the royal corpse.
What might have happened had Richard’s cavalry charge broken through and killed Henry Tudor? This is one of the great ‘what ifs’ of English history. In the event, that failure of horse-powered warfare proved the turning point of the battle that heralded the end of the Middle Ages – and tipped England into a new Tudor future.
5. How the mighty have fallen
When Henry VIII took a tumble during a joust, he suffered an injury that may have transformed the Tudor dynasty
Bosworth may have witnessed the last hurrah for the mounted knight charging across the battlefield, but the knightly tournament lost none of its importance. It remained the pre-eminent vehicle for displays of aristocratic masculinity well into the 16th century.
Henry VIII took particular enjoyment in jousting, and constructed a series of purpose-built tiltyards at his lavish homes. It was at his palace and equestrian centre at Greenwich on 24 January 1536 that the 44-year-old Henry suffered a famous accident while jousting with his courtier and friend Sir Henry Norris. During a tilt, Henry’s lance hit Norris’s saddle – and the force of the impact toppled the king from his own saddle, with his horse landing on top of him.
Some accounts detailing the severity of Henry’s injuries state that he was knocked unconscious for two hours. Others glossed over the episode, but there seems little doubt that the incident was serious. At the very least, the fall seems to have opened up an older leg injury that plagued the king for the rest of his life, and which also curtailed his ability to take part in hunting. Certainly, Henry never jousted again, and historians have speculated that this accident sparked a turning point in his reign and character. Over the years that followed, the once-athletic king became an increasingly unhealthy, unpredictable and despotic tyrant.
While the horse in question may not have been wholly responsible for a sea change in the personality of the king, it may unwittingly have had a hand in the royal succession.
Not long after Henry’s fall, Anne Boleyn miscarried his unborn son – a misfortune that, the queen and others believed, had been brought on by worry following the king’s accident. The exact cause of that tragic episode remains unknowable, of course – but if the pregnancy had gone to full term, and if Anne had given birth to a male heir, then the history of the Tudor dynasty could have been very different.
Oliver H Creighton is professor of archaeology at the University of Exeter. Robert Liddiard is professor of history at the University of East Anglia. They are co-editors of Medieval Warhorse: Equestrian Landscapes, Material Culture and Zooarchaeology in Britain, AD 800–1550 (Liverpool University Press, 2025)
This article was first published in the August 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
]]> HistoryExtra <![CDATA[Reshaping narratives, repatriation and Richard III : 25 lessons we've learnt from history in the last 25 years]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/a-quarter-century-of-bbc-history-magazine-25-lessons-weve-learnt-from-history-in-the-last-25-years/ 2025-06-16T15:26:32.000Z 2025-06-18T08:00:37.000Z 1. Women played major roles in the Viking Age
Just 25 years ago, there seemed to be little new to say about the Vikings – and that was particularly the case for Viking women. The centuries-old consensus was that Viking wives and daughters stayed at home, passively watching as the Viking Age unfolded around them.
New technologies have forced a rethink, though, completely revolutionising what we know about Viking women. The first significant discovery came from a systematic survey of a nationwide database of metal-detected female dress jewellery. This demonstrated for the first time that Scandinavian women migrated to England in substantial numbers. Next, isotope analysis of teeth from the graves of Viking women showed that they had formed a key part of the migration process elsewhere, too, moving across the Viking world alongside their families.
The most dramatic and most debated discovery, however, came through analysis of ancient DNA. In Birka, Sweden, an individual buried in a high-status warrior grave turned out to be biologically female. This led to a worldwide discussion of the roles of Viking women: we now agree that, though many certainly did stay at home, some played active roles in trade, craft and manufacturing processes, and even held military positions.
Cat Jarman is an archaeologist, author and TV presenter. Her books include The Bone Chests: Unlocking the Secrets of the Anglo-Saxons (William Collins, 2023)
2. Britain has been culturally diverse for far longer than most believed
The murder of George Floyd by white police officer Derek Chauvin in 2020 signalled a turning point in the way the histories of people of African descent were taught and perceived across Europe. From that moment, the British press and institutions felt that they had to engage better with narratives about minority ethnic communities.
A renewed interest in personal histories and trajectories of people of African descent in Britain showcased stories about their links to major events – from the celebrated story of the British-Jamaican nurse Mary Seacole during the Crimean War to the experiences of black British football player Walter Tull and other soldiers of Caribbean and African descent who fought for Britain during the world wars.
We also saw a number of new black history courses launched in UK universities, and school classes featuring black, Asian and minority ethnic histories. Uncovering these multiple trajectories further highlights how culturally diverse Britain has been over many centuries, and why sharing stories about a common past can bring communities together.
Olivette Otele is a distinguished research professor at SOAS University of London. Her books include African Europeans: An Untold History (Hurst, 2020)
3. The Tudors got Richard III wrong
We learned many things from the discovery of Richard III’s skeleton beneath a Leicester car park 13 years ago. We learned about the king’s physique, his diet and the injuries he sustained while fighting for crown and country at Bosworth against a foreign-backed invader.
But, for me, two lessons in particular stand out from the discovery. The first is that history can make no progress unless it’s ready to test and deconstruct generally held traditions and assumptions – even those held by historians and archaeologists. Those of us working on the Looking for Richard Project trusted only our own painstaking, personal research in primary sources.
Second, we learned that Shakespeare’s hunchback and withered arm never existed. Analysis of Richard’s skeleton – which had lain underfoot and peacefully undisturbed for 500 years – revealed that his limbs were sound, and that his spine showed a scoliosis that was invisible to onlookers. Richard’s makeshift burial in the wake of his defeat at Bosworth, in a grave cut too short, was hugely revealing. It speaks across the centuries of a victor’s disrespect for a fallen king.
Philippa Langley is a historian, author and producer. Her latest book is The Princes in the Tower: Solving History’s Greatest Cold Case (The History Press, 2023)
- Read more | The final mystery of Richard III: how 21st-century science cracked a 500-year-old cold case
4. Magna Carta was only part of a truly revolutionary settlement
King John’s Magna Carta is perhaps the best-known document in world history, generally regarded as the first attempt to place kingship itself under the rule of law. Not surprisingly, it has been much studied. Yet a torrent of new evidence has been brought to light over the past 20 years, transforming understanding of both the document and its wider context.
We now know of many more ‘original’ Magna Cartas (from its subsequent reissues) than were previously dreamed of. And incidental discoveries in archives from Paris to New England have reshaped our appreciation of what actually happened in 1215.
A fortuitous discovery in Lambeth Palace Library, for example, reveals that the charter was part of a truly revolutionary settlement, with the barons briefly permitted dual control of local government in tandem with the king. We know, too, that John himself made no attempt to publish the charter. On the contrary, it was the bishops who ensured its distribution, preservation and even, in some cases, its physical copying.
The archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, is unmasked not so much as an honest broker between king and barons but as an ideologically committed adherent of the anti-royal party. By such means can new evidence help us rewrite the past – even for the oldest and best-known stories.
Nicholas Vincent is professor of medieval history at the University of East Anglia. His books include John (Allen Lane, 2020)
5. We ignore the past at our peril
Most compellingly, the past 25 years have reminded us that history matters. Every life-sapping conflict since the millennium – Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Ukraine, Gaza – has its roots deep in the past.
Of course, the past does not determine the future, but the future is shaped by the past. Merely railing against adversaries or shouting ‘victory’ from the rooftops may make for good headlines but, in the absence of some understanding of ‘how we got from there to here’, such indulgence is vacuous grandstanding.
The past has never been ‘another country’. This is especially true of Europe, where the tectonic plates did not stop shifting with the end of the Second World War in 1945 or the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The events of the past 25 years have demonstrated only too cruelly that our continent is inherently, and sometimes alarmingly, unstable.
All leaders claim to act in what they believe to be the national interest. The. less they make ill-judged declaratory statements of intent and the more they demonstrate a realistic vision of the future, based on a clear awareness of the past, the better it will be for all of us. History is a great mentor.
Jonathan Dimbleby is a historian, biographer and broadcaster. His latest book is Endgame 1944: How Stalin Won the War (Viking, 2024)
6. Hitler tapped into hard-wired emotions to stir up hatred
For my new book, I found it tremendously helpful to talk to academic psychologists and neuroscientists about the insights we can gain, in general terms, from their disciplines. For instance, I learned how Hitler – without knowing the science behind his actions – tapped into a profound truth about the way the brain works.
In stirring up hatred against Jews and Bolsheviks, Hitler targeted the amygdala – the part of the brain that immediately processes feelings of anxiety, fear and anger. These powerful emotions are produced almost instantly, because it’s the amygdala that helps us avoid sudden danger. It’s a survival mechanism that, as the neuroscientist Professor Robert Sapolsky explained to me, is “hard-wired into us… and we’ll never get rid of it”.
Hitler capitalised on this neurobiological tendency, and in the process did his best to subdue the parts of the brain that offer a more logical analysis. Indeed, he seemed to confirm that he was well aware of the immense power of this approach when he remarked, during a private speech to the Hamburger Nationalklub in 1926, that “the only stable emotion is hate”.
Laurence Rees is a historian, author and documentary film-maker. His new book is The Nazi Mind: Twelve Warnings From History (Viking, 2025)
7. Hunter-gatherers and farmers joined in wild rituals 12,000 years ago
Around the turn of this millennium, in a remote south-eastern corner of Turkey, an astonishing discovery was being made – one that stretched the story of humanity back more than 12,000 years.
Still today, only about 5 per cent of the archaeological site known as Karahantepe has been excavated – but even that tiny fraction is changing our understanding of the beginning of society as we know it. Emerging from the earth is a giant chamber with 11 huge stone phallus columns, overlooked by the face of a man with a splendid handlebar moustache and the body of a snake. The head of a big cat is visible in the centre, and carvings on 250 obelisks in the area could be mistaken for gargoyles on any medieval cathedral.We expect the female equivalent of the chamber to be unearthed soon.
Karahantepe, it turns out, is just one site in a constellation of a hundred or so – the Taş Tepeler – which together are rewriting the story of human collaboration. The orthodoxy used to be that hunter-gatherers invented farming, then settled down, then manifested religion to establish common mores to live by. But the discoveries seem to show that hunter-gatherers and the very first farmers gathered together in huge, collective spaces for wild ritual parties to share know-how and ideas.
This is one of the joys of history: it is constantly protean. Every year, new finds reveal earlier and earlier evidence of human achievement and sophistication.
Bettany Hughes is a historian, author and broadcaster. Her latest book is The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (W&N, 2024)
8. Returning stolen artefacts to Africa is no longer a naive dream
Some 25 years ago, when I was starting my career in museums, a sense of optimism and renewal imbued the sector – yet the restitution of stolen African objects did not seem a realistic possibility. Today, the culture has changed profoundly. My old employer, the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington, DC, has returned its contested Benin plaques; the Dutch, Germans and French have either begun programmes of return or discussed the possibility. In Britain, the Horniman has returned ownership of its Benin plaques, and the V&A and the British Museum (both restricted by law from giving collections permanently) have entered into long-term loan agreements with the Asante royal family in Ghana.
Conversations that were inconceivable a generation ago – about ethics, about custodianship, about narrative, about ghosts – have begun to happen. We have to find ways to tell complex stories of empire, enslavement and colonialism more effectively and inclusively. It’s important that museums can craft their curatorial narratives with moral confidence, and the resolution of such thorny, long-term issues is vital.
There is still much to do. Our museums must go further in building partnerships and programmes with museums across the African continent. We need to learn from African expertise – and in turn we must share our resources and expertise to improve the telling of these rich and amazing histories everywhere.
Gus Casely-Hayford is a curator, historian and broadcaster. His books include The Lost Kingdoms of Africa (Bantam, 2012)
9. Anne Boleyn was a proto-feminist heroine
Anne Boleyn is unique among English queens, and her story is remarkable, but much of the modern fascination with that tale lies in perceptions of her fuelled by films and novels. She is now revered as a feminist heroine – a concept I would once have dismissed as anachronistic. When I said as much to the historian Sarah Gristwood, she replied: “Well, actually…” and very generously allowed me a preview of her research for her marvellous book Game of Queens (Oneworld, 2016), which inspired me to find out more.
Feminism was unknown in Tudor England. But in early 16th-century Europe, where Anne spent her formative years, there was an intellectual debate that questioned traditional attitudes to women, and looked forward to an era – the ‘reign of virtue’ – in which they would enjoy more power and equality.
In this age of female rulers, Anne had two shining examples to study: Margaret of Austria and Marguerite of Valois, both of whom she served or knew. We have to study her in this European context in order to understand the cultural influences to which she was exposed, giving her the confidence to pursue her brilliant career.
Alison Weir is an author and historian. Her latest book is The Cardinal: The Secret Life of Thomas Wolsey (Headline, 2025)
10. Mary Seacole was a true heroine of the Crimean War
One of the most significant changes over the past 25 years is the extent to which researching and writing black history has opened up. This is partly down to the dedication of historians determined to extend knowledge of the black experience by digging deeply and stubbornly into little-consulted sources.
In my own case, 20 years of concerted searching across digitised newspapers and in genealogical archives gave the lie to the till-then widely perpetuated view that Mary Seacole had been wildly overrated and undeserving of the ‘Greatest Black Briton’ sobriquet awarded her in 2004.
For decades, detractors dismissed her as a colourful but largely irrelevant presence who had done little more than ‘sell tea and buns’ to the soldiers in Crimea. But my searches, enabled by digitisation of sources, brought me to a more complete view of a woman who deserves to be viewed as a heroine. She journeyed 1,600 miles to Crimea under her own steam and at her own expense to set up shop in the middle of a war zone – a lone black woman facing prejudice and risking her own safety to help the wounded, sick and dying.
Delving into previously unseen sources over an extended period enabled me to challenge the conventional sanctification of ‘the black Florence Nightingale’ and present
a fully rounded personality.
Helen Rappaport is an author and historian. Her latest book is The Rebel Romanov (Simon & Schuster, 2025)
11. Public history can play a major role in understanding the past
One great change over the last 25 years has been the huge growth in public history – not just as an academic discipline, though of course it rests on the work of professional historians, archivists and museum workers.
Public history is the product of us all. It is about public interaction with the past, its interpretation and popularisation – changing our understanding not only of the past but also of our own times. It’s about the link between historians and the general public. Films, podcasts, radio, heritage societies, living archaeologists, local history and re-enactment groups – even readers of this magazine – are all part of it.
Good popularisation is the necessary link between professionals and the population at large, without which history becomes a closed debate between historians. And in a democracy, that link is vital: it’s part of a healthy information ecosystem, our reality check in the face of the tide of fake history on social media. Perhaps not surprisingly, in Trump’s America the US National Council on Public History is becoming more important in keeping minds open. When I hear people argue that you can’t rewrite history – though that is our actual collective job as makers of history! – it makes me think that perhaps we should have one here, too.
Michael Wood is professor of public history at the University of Manchester. Read his column from the May 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine here
12. Charles I wasn’t so very chaste
Traditional accounts of Charles I, the so-called ‘martyr king’, have always presented him as a grave, austere and chaste figure – the very opposite of his indecorous, bawdy father, James VI & I, and his dissipated, promiscuous son, Charles II. Charles’s marriage to his wife, Henrietta Maria, was undoubtedly a happy one and, until the royal couple were torn apart during the Civil War, he does indeed appear to have remained true to her alone.
However, in an article published in 2006, the historian Sarah Poynting revisited a series of encrypted letters written by Charles in late 1647 and 1648, while he was imprisoned in Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight after his defeat by the parliamentarians. Previous attempts to decipher these letters had not been entirely accurate, Poynting showed, and in fact one of them revealed that Charles had been attempting to inveigle the royalist agent Jane Whorwood into his bed.
Using the frankest language, Charles went so far as to suggest to Jane that she should secretly conceal herself in the ‘stool-room’ adjoining his chamber while he was out on his daily walk so that, after his return, he could dally with her at length. It was a remarkable discovery – and one that suggested previous characterisations of the king as “blamelessly uxorious” may well have been a little wide of the mark.
Mark Stoyle is professor of history at the University of Southampton. His latest book is A Murderous Midsummer: The Western Rising of 1549 (Yale University Press, 2022)
13. Mesolithic Europeans had dark skin and blue eyes
One of the major scientific advances in archaeology over the past 25 years has been the ability to extract and analyse DNA from the remains of long-dead people from the distant past. Such ancient DNA can shed light on how people were related to one another, on a family or population scale, and provide insights into the migration and movement of people over time. It can also tell us what diseases they had and – perhaps most compelling – what they looked like.
In 2018, researchers at the Natural History Museum revealed that one of the inhabitants of Mesolithic Britain, a man who lived around 10,000 years ago, had dark skin and blue eyes. This individual – known as ‘Cheddar Man’, because his remains were discovered in a cave in Cheddar Gorge in Somerset – is represented by one of the oldest complete skeletons ever identified in Britain. Earlier results from remains found from Spain, Luxembourg and Hungary confirm that most hunter-gatherers in Mesolithic Europe looked this way.
The genes for lighter skin pigmentation arrived thousands of years later, in waves of migration from the east during the Neolithic and Bronze Age. In addition, natural selection over time favoured lighter tones that allow more Vitamin D synthesis in the skin, essential in northerly climes.
Susan Greaney is a lecturer in archaeology at the University of Exeter
14. Premodern Japan was surprisingly progressive
One of the most fascinating and dynamic periods of Japanese history was the Meiji Restoration, which began with the overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1868 and ended with the death of the Meiji Emperor in 1912. Japan opened up as never before to diplomatic and trading relationships with the west and, over little more than four decades, modernised its economy and society at an astonishing rate. By 1912, it had become one of the world’s great powers.
For a long time, this explosion of activity was contrasted with the preceding 250 years of the Tokugawa shogunate. That system was regarded as feudal, backward and badly out of date, requiring rescue at the hands of modernising and westernising reformers. Much though this view of history suited western historians across the 20th century, and flattering as it was to western modernity, since 2000 historians have increasingly been exploring the myriad achievements of the shogunate.
Across two and a half centuries of peace, Japanese commerce, intellectual life and the arts enjoyed extraordinary growth and creativity, from theatre through to a tourism industry and a publishing boom. Without the commercial and technical expertise, high literacy rates and great bustling cities that developed under the shogunate, the Meiji Restoration could not have happened in the way that it did.
Christopher Harding is senior lecturer in Asian history at the University of Edinburgh and creator of the IlluminAsia newsletter and podcast (illuminasia.org). His latest book is The Light of Asia: A History of Western Fascination with the East (Allen Lane, 2024)
15. Egypt’s great pyramids at Giza weren’t built by foreign slaves
Dominating the Giza Plateau for almost five millennia, the great pyramids still capture imaginations around the world. For centuries, archaeologists and historians have tried to determine how these magnificent monuments, including the only surviving Wonder of the Ancient World, were created – and now we know who built them.
Contrary to popular depictions, construction wasn’t completed by foreign slaves but by Egyptian employees. Excavations of a workers’ village over the past couple of decades, and the discovery of builders’ tombs in 2009, have transformed the narrative.
The village, dating from the Fourth Dynasty (starting c4,600 years ago), boasted bakeries, breweries, butchers and a hospital. In the burial sites, skeletons show signs of hard labour, as one might expect, but they’re also accompanied by jars of bread and beer, ready for the afterlife. There are female skeletons, too, confirming that women played roles in building the pyramids.
Hieroglyphs suggest a system of skilled labourers and artisans, from “overseer of the side of the pyramid” to “inspector of the craftsmen”. It’s also clear that villagers from surrounding areas came here to work in construction, usually in three-month stints. Their graffiti indicates that each cadre might associate themselves with one particular pharaoh or pyramid: the “friends of Khufu”, for example, or “drunkards of Menkaure”.
The inscriptions confirm that the pyramid builders were Egyptian. And the manner and location of the burials, in the shadow of the great pharaohs, puts the slave myth to bed.
Islam Issa is professor of literature and history at Birmingham City University. His latest book is Alexandria: The City that Changed the World (Sceptre, 2023)
16. Personal links to empire can reshape old narratives
Astonishingly, I completed my entire education without learning about the British empire. I don’t even have a recollection of hearing the world ‘empire’ mentioned at school – and I studied History A-level! I now know that my experience is not unique.
In the past 10 years or so, though, I have gained a growing understanding of not only what happened and how it shaped Britain today, but also of my own personal connection to empire and its tumultuous end. I feel lucky to be making programmes and writing books at a time when there is a greater interest in knowing about Britain’s imperial past – not that it is without complications or controversies.
And things continue changing: a new generation of historians is exploring archives and asking different questions. Teachers are choosing to explore empire in all its complexity, and conversations are being had between people in the diaspora and their family members about a time when they were subjects of empire. I am learning that, just because an area of history is overlooked or not spoken of, it doesn’t always have to be that way.
Kavita Puri is a journalist and broadcaster for BBC Radio 4. Read her Hidden Histories column from the May 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine here
17. Stonehenge was built in an already sacred area
The past two and a half decades have seen a transformation in our understanding of one of the most iconic ancient monuments in Britain and, indeed, the world: Stonehenge.
Archaeological research has revealed that the 4,500-year-old prehistoric ‘temple’ stood at the heart of a sacred landscape infinitely richer than previously thought. Scores of ritual monuments have been discovered in a vast halo scattered across the countryside around the monument.
Even more extraordinarily, tests have revealed that one of Stonehenge’s most important stones was transported all the way from what’s now northern Scotland – and that a large number of the smaller stones had probably originally formed part of another stone circle in south-west Wales before being brought here. And research shows that some of the Neolithic people buried at Stonehenge did not come from the area but from western Britain, possibly from modern-day Wales – significant, given the origins of many of its smaller stones.
We now know, too, that Mesolithic hunter-gatherers were active in the Stonehenge area some 5,000 years before the monument existed. This remarkable new information, together with earlier evidence that a series of Mesolithic wooden obelisks may have stood adjacent to the site of Stonehenge, suggests that the area had been sacred for millennia.
David Keys is the archaeological correspondent for The Independent
18. The tide seems to have turned against the British empire
By the year 2000, the British empire – formerly a global superpower – had been transformed into an organisation with entirely voluntary membership, the Commonwealth. At the time, academic assessment of this extraordinary transformation resulted in a number of books – including my own – which concluded that British imperialism had been overall, and in a remarkable variety of ways, both a blessing and a curse.
In the 25 years since that relatively benign consensus, however, there has been a profound anti-imperial swing resulting in a wholesale condemnation of British imperial history – shifting the dial remarkably.
It is, however, vital to understand that, even at its Victorian zenith, the empire faced trenchant criticism from within. Anti-imperial attitudes were commonplace on the left wing of the Liberal Party, the infant Labour Party and the generally hostile Irish Nationalist Party. Nonconformist churches – Methodists, Congregationalists and, above all, Quakers – voiced criticisms of imperial aims and methods. Internal opposition, from resentful Afrikaners, French Canadians and diverse displaced and conquered Indigenous peoples, also inevitably arose.
To cope with such internal opposition, and to prolong its existence, the imperial system undertook much self-correction – a process that led to mass devolution, the end of empire and the birth of today’s Commonwealth. In short, we are now keenly aware that there is no neat and fireproof analysis of the nature, governance and purpose of the British empire. It was such a huge, complex and long-lived organisation that almost every criticism, as well as almost every justification, has some validity somewhere and at some time.
Denis Judd is professor emeritus of imperial and Commonwealth history at London Metropolitan University, and author of Empire (IB Tauris revised paperback edition, 2012)
19. The world is in danger of reverting to its darkest days
After the collapse of Soviet-style communism in Russia and eastern Europe in 1989–91, the American political scientist Francis Fukuyama wrote a book called The End of History and the Last Man. In it, he predicted optimistically that the demise of the Soviet system meant that western liberalism would roll out across the world, and that the future belonged to progressive democracy, with no rivals to challenge it.
In fact, since the first issue of BBC History Magazine was published in 2000, history has evolved along a drastically different path to the one that Fukuyama predicted. So far, the 21st century has belonged to resurgent strongmen. In country after country, authoritarian regimes led by dictatorial rulers have come to power – and stayed there, with scant regard for democracy. Putin’s Russia, Xi’s China, Erdogan’s Turkey, Kim’s North Korea and Sisi’s Egypt are leading examples of a worldwide trend that shows no sign of ending.
So what we have learned from history in this century is a rather troubling lesson. After the terrors of the 20th century, the world is not moving into broad, sunlit uplands but is in danger of reverting to the darkest days of the past.
Nigel Jones is a historian, journalist and former reviews editor of BBC History Magazine. His latest book is Kitty’s Salon: Sex, Spying and Surveillance in the Third Reich (John Blake, 2023)
20. Technology enables deep-sea shipwreck discoveries – but we should beware hubris
In recent years, sophisticated modern technologies have allowed humans to dive deeper, explore the seabed autonomously, and locate shipwrecks. Lost in 1915 in the Weddell Sea, Sir Ernest Shackleton’s polar vessel Endurance made headlines when its wreck was rediscovered in 2022. Recovering or even visiting the wreck, which lies at a depth of 3,000 metres, are major challenges. But submersible robots were able to photograph the Endurance from every angle, enabling scientists to create a digital model of the whole vessel as well as many artefacts preserved just as they were when the crew abandoned ship.
The wreck of the Gloucester, lost in 1682 after hitting a sandbank while transporting James, Duke of York and his court, was discovered in 2007. Future excavation of the site could provide an unprecedented opportunity to explore a Restoration royal court frozen in time. Just as the Mary Rose Museum has captured the public imagination, making Henry VIII’s warship part of British national conversations, telling the Gloucester’s stories could transform public understanding of a historical period that laid the constitutional foundations of modern Britain.
In 2025, mid-point in the United Nations ‘Ocean Decade’, a key task is to meaningfully integrate Britain’s remarkable maritime cultural heritage into ocean governance to help create a sustainable blue economy.
Nonetheless, humanity should remain humble in the face of the ocean’s uncontrollable forces. The implosion in 2023 of the submersible Titan on its expedition to the wreck of the Titanic – resulting in the death of all on board – is a cautionary tale. Some 3 million shipwrecks around the world prove that the sea – so elemental, so powerful – shouldn’t be disrespected.
Claire Jowitt is professor of Renaissance studies at the University of East Anglia
21. We now know how many enslaved African people were trafficked across the Atlantic
The transatlantic slave trade was one of the largest forced movements of people in world history – yet for decades it was difficult to quantify. Then, in the early 1990s, an international team came together to solve this problem. The result was the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, which showed that 12.5 million people were transported. Of those, 10.7 million survived the journey and arrived in the Americas.
Many people, particularly in the US and the UK, assumed that most enslaved people were trafficked to the United States. In fact, the database showed that fewer than 400,000 Africans were forcibly taken directly to mainland North America; about 4.8 million arrived in South America and 4.7 million in the Caribbean.
First published as a CD-ROM in 1999, the database was greatly expanded in the early 2000s to include the Portuguese trade in the South Atlantic. Re-released as an open-access website in 2008, including details of an additional 7,000 journeys, it has been described as one of the greatest historical achievements of the 21st century. Though the database does not give us a rich picture of the experiences of enslaved peoples, it has been critical to understanding the scale of one of the world’s worst human-rights violations.
Hannah Cusworth is a historian, curator and history education consultant
22. Richard III was behind the disappearance of the princes in the Tower… probably
It’s history’s most compelling missing persons case: what happened to Edward V and his younger brother, Richard, after they were placed in the Tower in 1483 on the orders of their uncle, who soon afterwards seized the throne as Richard III?
The mystery has been the subject of intense debate ever since. Some three decades later, Thomas More had established the narrative that Richard had his nephews murdered with the help of his henchman, James Tyrell. There was no shortage of other suspects but, though every scrap of evidence has been pored over by generations of historians since, the trail was already cold.
Recently, Tim Thornton, professor of history at the University of Huddersfield, took a novel approach. Rather than researching the events leading up to the princes’ disappearance, he traced the lives of those involved in the years that followed – and found links between Thomas More and the two men he claimed had carried out the murder for Tyrell. Then, last year, Thornton came across a book of wills in the National Archives that included one made in 1516 by a wealthy London widow, Margaret Capel, half sister-in-law of Sir James Tyrell. Among her chattels listed in the will was “the chain of Edward V” – the only one of the boys’ possessions referenced in sources after their disappearance. The fact that it turned up in the family of the prime suspect makes it close to a ‘smoking gun’.
Tracy Borman is a historian, author and broadcaster. Her documentary The Princes in the Tower: A Damning Discovery is on My5
23. History can help veterans cope with PTSD
A remarkable discovery made this century is that history can be hugely therapeutic for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It might seem deeply counterintuitive but when veterans undertake top-level archaeological research on battlefields, rather than re-igniting their traumas it often tends to work in positive ways for them psychologically, and can be a useful step on their road to recovery.
The work done by the organisation Waterloo Uncovered, founded in 2015 by former Coldstream Guards captain (and PTSD sufferer) Mark Evans, has been instrumental in this regard. Its mental-health experts found that, after helping to discover facts that are useful to military historians – the musket-ball scatter-pattern outside the orchard at the Hougoumont farmhouse in a key sector of the Waterloo battlefield, for example – veterans often saw improvements in their mental conditions.
There are various theories about the mechanisms of this effect. Perhaps such work reminds veterans that their predecessors two centuries ago encountered much the same kind of perils they did themselves in war zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Evans also noted that the project provided a safe and structured environment in which veterans with shared experiences could start to open up to one another about the challenges they faced. Whatever the reason, history is helping in a tangible way today.
Andrew Roberts’ latest book, with General David Petraeus, is Conflict: The Evolution of War-fare from 1945 to Gaza (William Collins, 2024)
24. Technology has revolutionised how historians work and collaborate
One of the great things about historical research is that it keeps on moving.
When I was a young historian, looking back in time required me to handle complex written materials and work out how to supplement them with reference material culture, to archaeology or to finds such as coins and lead seals.
The past quarter-century has revolutionised the tools available to historians. Huge advances in the sciences, combined with plunging costs, mean that we now have access to data sources that don’t just provide new insights into topics such as human migration or the spread and lethality of pandemic diseases, but also enable us to do so with increasing accuracy. These are tools we must learn to rely on.
Many of these new materials are related to climate archives, enabling historians to reconstruct past periods of environmental change – or even, in some cases, to better understand the effects of single, one-off extreme events such as floods, storms or volcanic eruptions.
That, in turn, has changed how historians work, not least in the ways we can collaborate more often and more meaningfully with colleagues across research groups. It’s an incredibly exciting time to be a historian – to be part of the community of people interested in the past.
Peter Frankopan is professor of global history at Oxford University. His latest book is The Earth Transformed: An Untold History (Bloomsbury, 2023)
25. Powerful female leaders weren’t the sex-crazed failures of (manmade) myth
Our understanding of queenship has, thankfully, moved forward in the past 25 years – just as women’s history has also moved forward.
Female rulers such as Cleopatra and Mary, Queen of Scots have all too frequently been cited as cautionary tales about what follows when you give women power: sex and death. But in recent years, revisionist historians such as Kara Cooney, Joyce Tyldesley and Joann Fletcher have written brilliant accounts of Cleopatra, challenging the perception of her as a sex-mad failure.
Mary, Queen of Scots was surrounded by men attempting to seize her power – and, when she had a son, she was set on a course that led to her being deposed in favour of him. Lord Bothwell made her go back to his castle, where he assaulted her in an attempt to force her to marry. Past historians framed her for setting up this event. Today, though, we understand that a woman who had been seized and sexually assaulted was expected to agree to marry the man who attacked her. In Mary’s case, all of the lords were in agreement with that course of action – so what choice did Mary have?
As we are increasingly coming to understand, female rulers need to be seen in context. If they lost to the powerful men of the time or, indeed, the Roman empire, we need to grasp why that happened. Such insights can shape perceptions of the past – and a future with women in power.
Kate Williams is professor of public engagement with history at the University of Reading. Her latest book is The Royal Palaces: Secrets and Scandals (Frances Lincoln, 2024)
This article was first published in the June 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
]]> HistoryExtra <![CDATA[The final mystery of Richard III: how 21st-century science cracked a 500-year-old cold case]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/richard-iii-science/ 2025-04-16T09:38:17.000Z 2025-04-11T11:43:50.000Z History isn't often made in car parks. Yet in the early autumn of 2012, something remarkable was in the air – or, should I say, under the ground. On Wednesday 5 September, 13 years ago, an archaeologist and osteologist called Jo Appleby could be found crouching over a skeleton in what had once been the medieval church of the Greyfriars in Leicester – now an unremarkable car park.
Jo was clad head-to-toe in white overalls, wearing a face mask, and giving the human remains below her every last drop of her attention. The reasons for Jo’s great care would soon become all-too evident. The skeleton over which she crouched had lain under the soil for more than 500 years – and it would yield one of the most remarkable historical discoveries of the 21st century.
Jo could tell a few things about the skeleton as she, bone by bone, brought it into the light. This appeared to be a male, with injuries incurred at or around the time of death – injuries that could have been sustained in battle. He was aged in his twenties or thirties.
Yet it was when Jo uncovered the spine – and noticed that it was curved – that, as she later told me, the hairs on the back of her neck began to stand on end. Could this skeleton be the remains of Richard III, the monarch so famously described by Shakespeare as a “bunch-back’d toad”? It looked promising. But we had to prove it.
Our first priority was to lift the skeleton and bring it back to the University of Leicester for more extensive analysis. All the while, the media interest in the project to find Richard III was picking up pace – the press and public were captivated by the possibility of medieval England’s most controversial king residing in a car park. What we were about to announce at a joint press conference by the University of Leicester and the Richard III Society would send this fascination into overdrive.
Yet we couldn’t let the media feeding frenzy distract us. While newspapers waxed lyrical about the sensational discovery of the ‘king in the car park’, we knew we just had to get our heads down and quietly and calmly get on with a rigorous investigation.
Missing for centuries
So how did we go about identifying these remains as Richard III? Well, let’s back up a bit. If you were to go missing, how would your family and friends describe you to a search team? Your loved ones would probably provide them with information such as your last known location, what you were wearing when you left home in the morning, your age, and your hair colour. The Richard III project was essentially doing the same thing – only it was attempting to solve one of history’s most famous missing person cases, and that person had been dead for more than five centuries.
As in a modern case, we had a list of what was known about Richard that would help us identify him. The king’s last known location, as evidenced by historical documents, was in the church of the Greyfriars friary in Leicester, where he was buried after his death in 1485, having been defeated by Henry Tudor at the battle of Bosworth. More specifically, Richard was known to be buried in the choir, a high-status part of the church.
However, more than 50 years later, the friary had been torn down during Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries, and the land had been sold off more than once and built upon. We knew the location of the friary precinct, but the precise whereabouts of Richard’s grave had been lost to history.
Being a king, Richard’s birth and death dates were well known, so we knew he was 32 years old when he died. Shakespeare, in his plays, famously made him out to be a ‘hunchback’ with a limp and a withered arm. But Shakespeare wrote his play Richard III in the early 1590s, more than a hundred years after Richard’s death, so can only have been drawing on previous accounts of the king’s appearance, quite possibly tinged with Tudor propaganda.
Only two of these accounts were from people who, it seems, had actually met Richard III: one of these, John Rous’s renowned Historia Regum Angliae, described Richard as having one shoulder higher than the other. So Richard having a spinal abnormality was a possibility.
This gave us our list of characteristics to look for when identifying Richard. Crucially, we also had to put a number on how likely it was that the skeleton belonged to the king.
We started by sexing and ageing the skeleton. This can be achieved by examining the bones. For example, men’s pelvises are shaped differently to women’s. And while it’s not possible to precisely determine age at death, an examination of the teeth, skull and ends of bones allows an age range to be specified. From this, Jo Appleby and the team determined that the skeleton belonged to a man, aged 30–34 years when he died. The fact that he was male was also supported by the presence of a Y chromosome, which is inherited down the male line.
By examining the bones by eye – as well as using computed tomography (CT) X-ray scanning technology – the team, including forensic engineer Sarah Hainsworth, was also able to detect and examine 11 perimortem injuries (those sustained at or around the time of death). All of these were consistent with being made by weapons from the medieval period. Scans and a reconstruction of the skeleton confirmed the curvature of the spine and suggested that the right shoulder would have been slightly higher than the left.
Something fishy
What we eat and drink affects the make-up of the chemical elements contained within our bones and teeth. The study of this chemical mix is known as stable isotope analysis, and in this case showed that the individual had a high-status diet that had a strong marine (fish) component to it. Meanwhile, radiocarbon dating delivered a 95.4 per cent probability that the subject died between 1456 and 1530, bracketing the date of Richard’s death in 1485.
While Jo and the team studied the individual’s bones, I carried out the genetic analysis of the remains. DNA testing has the potential to unlock the secrets of a skeleton, but there’s absolutely no guarantees: DNA degrades following death, and what remains is often too fragmented and damaged to analyse. Fortunately, with our Greyfriars skeleton, this proved not to be the case.
So how exactly did we use DNA to link this particular skeleton to Richard III? DNA testing for identification purposes in this sort of case involves analysing the DNA from the remains and comparing it with that of a known, usually close, relative. But there was a problem: we didn’t have the remains of any of Richard’s close relatives to hand. The solution was to test against living relatives of the medieval king.
Yet this approach threw up a further complication: Richard himself left no known living descendants. That meant that the DNA we needed would have to come from descendants of other members of his family. And, as mitochondrial DNA is found in the eggs that mothers generate to produce offspring, we required a relative whose relationship to Richard III was by an entirely female line.
Fortunately, we already knew of one such person. His name was Michael Ibsen, and he was descended from one of Richard III’s sisters, Anne of York. Soon our researchers had traced another female-line descendant of Anne, a woman called Wendy Duldig, who also happened to be Michael’s 14th cousin, twice removed. We had our mitochondrial DNA comparators at the ready.
Then came a breakthrough moment: those comparators showed a match with the Greyfriars skeleton. Interestingly, analysis of the Y chromosome, which is passed down through the male line, didn’t show a match to the living relatives we tested.
However, I knew from my years of research in this field, that we might find what’s known as a false paternity, where the biological father is not the recorded father somewhere on the family tree: the genealogy says one thing, but the DNA tells you some- thing else has gone on!
Picking a winner
It was now time to put that all-important statistical number on the likelihood of the skeleton being Richard. And to do that we turned to a method that’s widely deployed in forensic cases such as this: Bayesian statistics.
Bayesian statistics is a way of calculating the probability of something, and updating that probability by bringing in various sources of data or knowledge. An example that’s often used is horse racing. Say you have two horses, A and B, racing one another. If you don’t know anything about either horse, you might conclude that the chance of horse A winning is 50/50.
But what if we could add some more information here by counting how many times each horse has won when they’d been in a race against each other previously? What if you knew that, out of the 12 times these two horses have raced against one another before, horse A has won eight times (67 per cent of the time)? Well, knowing that, you’d say the probability of horse A winning is higher and the chance of horse B winning is only 33 per cent. Each new piece of information you add will change the likelihood of each horse being the winner.
The beauty of the Bayesian method is that it allows us to combine all the evidence together into one calculation to get a statistical number of the likelihood of the skeleton belonging to Richard III. In that, we have only two possibilities: hypothesis 1 is that this is Richard III; the second is that it’s not Richard III.
Remember we had our list of features to look for? Well each one gives us a new bit of evidence we can add to the mix and allows us to calculate what’s known as a likelihood ratio for hypothesis 1 (it’s Richard) versus hypothesis 2 (it’s not Richard).
The first count was: how often do you find skeletons from individuals in high-status parts of churches who are male and aged between 26 and 35? It’s about 18 per cent of the time, if you want to know. We did the same for each category. We looked at the counts of how often you find skeletons with scoliosis in the medieval period, how often you find skeletons with perimortem injuries in high-status parts of churches, and the likelihood of the radiocarbon date (given that we knew the friary was built in the 13th century and closed in 1538).
One piece of evidence that we didn’t throw into the mix was the stable isotope data that showed that this was a person with a high-status diet. We would expect anyone buried in a high-status part of the church to eat better than the vast majority of the population, so adding this to our calculations would, we reasoned, have unduly biased the statistics towards the skeleton being Richard. We also included the fact that the Y chromosome didn’t match.
So, what did it all show? We were lucky enough to have David Balding, a world-famous forensic statistician, on the team calculating the likelihood ratio for us. And the results David produced were, I think it’s fair to say, pretty conclusive. Even with our conservative approach, the likelihood ratio was 6.7 million to 1 in favour of hypothesis 1. That translates to a probability of between 99.999 and 99.99999 per cent that these were indeed the remains of King Richard III. We were pretty excited with the results – and, I would argue, with good reason.
Talk of the nation
We all know what happened next. Media attention intensified further still. Richard III could soon be seen staring back at readers from the pages of some of our most successful tabloids. He was name-checked in Prime Ministers Questions. Rumour has it that he even became a popular topic of conversation in the nation’s pubs! Then, on 26 March 2015, the medieval king was reinterred in Leicester Cathedral in an extraordinary ceremony that was televised around the world.
Yet not everyone was convinced. A handful of people (not one of them, it has to be said, a statistician or geneticist) still didn’t believe we’d found him. Quite often they would pick one bit of evidence (often the DNA) and say it wasn’t robust enough on its own. Or they would claim that the skeleton could have been one of Richard III’s female-line relatives.
As part of our analysis, we constructed a family tree, tracing his female-line relatives going back several generations, out sideways and back down to Richard’s generation. By comparing this with historical information, we were able to show that these known relatives were either female (and so could be ruled out), or either too young, too old or too dead to have fought at Bosworth. Or they were recorded as not being at the battle.
So the only person on that tree who could have been at Bosworth was Richard himself. Beyond this, given the rarity of the mitochondrial type, the chances of someone carrying it being alive around the right time, in the right age range, known to be killed in battle, have a spinal abnormality and be buried in the choir of Leicester’s church of the Greyfriars were vanishingly small.
Our critics also seemingly didn’t realise that the beauty – indeed the entire point – of Bayesian analysis is that it allows you to combine all the strands to come up with a likelihood. To put it another way, if you were to go missing, people would describe you by such factors as your age, your height, your build and what you were last wearing. The police wouldn’t go on just one distinguishing characteristic, such as brown hair or blue eyes. Just as we did, they would identify you based on all the strands of evidence together. And the evidence was overwhelming that these were the remains of King Richard III.
Ten years on, I confess I still have to pinch myself that I was even involved in the project. I’m so proud of all that was achieved. The team that carried out the planning, the excavation and the enormous amount of post-excavation work comprised a huge number of academics and non-academics all bringing their own expertise to the table to make the project the tremendous success it was. No one person could have carried out the project on their own. The whole was greater than the sum of its parts as we came together to solve this 500-year-old cold case.
A blonde bombshell?
What did Richard III really look like? Analysis of his DNA threw up some interesting possibilities, writes Turi King
As someone who studied art history at university, I’ve long been aware that none of the portraits of Richard III date from his lifetime. In fact, the two earliest portraits left to us today weren’t produced until the early part of the 16th century, a generation after his death. One of these is now in the Royal Collection; the other, an arched-frame portrait, is in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries of London. What’s interesting is that, though they were produced at roughly the same time, the portraits differ from one another. The Royal Collection painting shows the king with dark-brown hair (it’s thought that, at some point, the portrait was altered to change Richard’s eye colour from brown to grey). The arched-frame portrait, on the other hand, shows Richard with lighter-brown hair and blue eyes. I was intrigued to know whether science could help give us an indication of which of the two portraits most closely fit what the DNA could tell us. A former colleague of mine, Manfred Kayser, had developed forensic tests to predict someone’s hair and eye colour based on known variants in genes associated with pigmentation. While not an exact science, and certainly not something that could be used as part of the identification, I was curious as to what genetic analysis of these variants in Richard III’s DNA could tell us. After carrying out the sequencing, we compared Richard’s genetic makeup with a database that Manfred had compiled. This indicated a 96 per cent chance of Richard having blue eyes and a 77 per cent chance of him having blond hair. A word of caution: this would have been a childhood hair colour – and, as many people will have experienced themselves, hair can darken with age. However, our investigations do suggest that the arched-frame portrait in the Society of Antiquaries of London is likely to be the most faithful representation of the medieval king.
Turi King is director of the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath. In 2012, she led the verification team during the exhumation and reburial of Richard III.
This article was first published in the April 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
]]> Ellie Cawthorne <![CDATA[Have we finally unmasked the killer of the Princes in the Tower?]]> https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/princes-tower-killer-revealed-james-tyrrell/ 2024-12-03T16:26:44.000Z 2024-12-03T16:16:16.000Z Ellie Cawthorne: The fate of the princes in the Tower is one of the most controversial episodes in British history. And, Tim, you’ve made some discoveries that could potentially give us a new understanding of what happened to the princes more than five centuries ago. So what initially drew you to this story?
- Listen to the full conversation on the HistoryExtra podcast
Tim Thornton: You’re right: the princes’ fate is one of the greatest of all historical mysteries, and I’ve been investigating it all of my career, which I’m terrified to admit is now about 30 years!
Previous attempts to resolve the mystery have focused on the period leading up to the moment the princes vanished after being moved to the Tower of London by Richard III. For most historians, the summer of 1483 – when they disappeared from view – is when this story ends. But five or six years ago, I began to look at the case through a different lens – to see that summer not as where the story ends, but where it begins.
One of the key sources we have on the disappearance is a detailed account written around 30 years later by Thomas More. He will be a familiar name to people interested in the Tudor era, and his account is the first that identifies how the deed was done and who was to blame. More claims that two individuals – Miles Forest and John Dighton – carried out the murder for an agent of Richard III called Sir James Tyrrell.
When I began looking at More’s account, I was working against a background of very great scepticism about his story. Many people believed it was a simple exercise in propaganda on behalf of the Tudors – Richard’s enemies who were on the throne at the time. Other people have suggested that More was more interested in literary flair and political philosophy than historical accuracy; he was writing an abstract account of how a country can fall into tyranny.
But a couple of years ago, I produced a paper which suggested that, far from being imaginary individuals or random characters drawn into the story willy-nilly by More, Miles Forest and John Dighton were real people. Most compellingly, I found that when Thomas More was likely preparing his account of this period, he was on embassy in Bruges. And the man carrying messages from that embassy back to England was one Miles Forest – son of the man More implicated in the murders, who shared his name. There is even a 1515 letter that has Thomas More’s signature at the foot, and Miles Forest’s name at the head. Now that is an extraordinary connection.
More’s story had previously been dismissed as propaganda or abstract literature. But my research started to connect More very directly to people who’d been around at the time of the disappearance of the princes.
IN CONTEXT: THE MYSTERY OF THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER
The princes in the Tower were the young sons and heirs of King Edward IV: Edward V and his younger brother, Richard, Duke of York. At the time of his death in April 1483, Edward IV’s sons were aged 12 and 9. As Edward V was too young to rule, his uncle Richard of Gloucester was appointed Lord Protector, to take the reins until his nephew was old enough. Shortly afterwards, Richard placed the boys in the Tower of London. At first this didn’t seem overly suspicious, but over the summer of 1483 they were seen less and less. By the end of that summer, they were never seen again. At the time it was assumed that the boys had been quietly murdered on the orders of their uncle, who had by then declared them illegitimate and made himself King Richard III. But nobody knew for sure. A couple of hundred years later, in 1674, the skeletons of two children were discovered underneath a staircase in the Tower, close to where the princes had been kept. These bones were reburied by Charles II in Westminster Abbey, where they remain to this day. They were briefly exhumed in the 1930s, but the analysis was not conclusive. And so the mystery has continued.
- Read more about the mystery of the Princes in the Tower
Tell us about your recent discovery and what it adds to this picture
TT: One of the things that makes this story so compelling is that the princes really did disappear without a trace. Until the discovery of bones in 1674, there were no meaningful traces of the boys. No clothing is reputed to survive from them, nor any weapons, jewellery or other possessions.
But I’ve discovered a will from 1516 – around the time that Thomas More was writing – which mentions a gold chain that belonged to Edward V, the elder of the two princes. In this period, chains were very valuable and significant items. They would be made of precious metal and jewels, and usually incorporated badges or symbols to express the owner’s identity and loyalties.
What makes this really exciting is who the chain belonged to. The will shows that the chain was in the hands of Lady Margaret Capell – a wealthy and influential woman, and widow of a former Lord Mayor of London. But most significantly, Margaret was also the sister-in-law of Sir James Tyrrell, the man identified by Thomas More as the orchestrator of the princes’ murder.
Can you tell us more about Sir James Tyrrell?
Tracy Borman: For many years Tyrrell has been seen as a bit of a pantomime villain. But first and foremost, he was Richard III’s right-hand man – an enforcer, if you like. He had a military background and was an influential figure at court. What also comes across very clearly from the records is that he was a man of ambition, but also intense loyalty.
The other notable thing about Tyrrell is that he was later implicated in a treasonous plot against the Tudors and placed in the Tower. And according to More, during his imprisonment, Tyrrell actually confessed to the murders of the princes.
One explanation for this new discovery could be that Tyrrell had the princes killed, took Edward’s chain and passed it on to his relative. But are there any other explanations for how this chain could have ended up in his sister-in-law’s possession?
TT: I absolutely acknowledge that there are other ways that this chain might have reached Margaret Capell. I think the likelihood of it simply being discarded somewhere and then picked up by the Capells is very small. But it’s entirely credible that the princes’ possessions were dispersed in a more neutral way. It might have been that, in the aftermath of Edward V’s deposition, his most valuable possessions were sold off to wealthy Londoners like Margaret’s husband, Sir William Capell.
But for me, the possession of the chain by a connection of James Tyrrell does add to the suspicions around what had happened to the boys before the chain changed hands.
It’s also worth noting that the Capells’ lawyer in the 1510s was a man called John More – the father of (you guessed it) Thomas More. So not only have we identified a physical object from the princes that survived in the hands of the sister-in-law of the man that More says organised the murders, but we’ve also established another connection with More himself.
People have spent years poring over every single detail of this case. Why do you think that nobody has come across this before?
TT: My suspicion is that, because of the scepticism around the credibility of More’s account, the incentives to explore his claims were diminished. What I’ve done is not particularly revolutionary. In exploring members of Tyrrell’s family, all I’ve done is take a closer look at the connections of one of the prime suspects.
How do you think people are going to react to this discovery? Especially those who believe Richard was not responsible for his nephews’ disappearance
TB: As someone who has followed the story of the princes so closely throughout my whole career, I would say that this is undoubtedly the most significant discovery, not just in recent years, but in my entire tenure as a historian. I haven’t heard anything more compelling in this case than Tim’s latest discovery. This is the next chapter and it’s a hugely significant one.
That said, I know how emotive this subject is. It’s a deeply divisive issue. Richard still has an army of loyal supporters today, who may question this discovery and stick with their original beliefs. I have always kept an open mind on this, but it’s a shame that there are these two camps and you can’t just be somewhere in the middle. I’m chief curator at Historic Royal Palaces, and we will absolutely continue to encourage visitors to the Tower of London to make up their own minds about what happened. But for me as a historian, this has really changed my perception.
TT: I absolutely respect the views of those who passionately defend Richard. I understand why they do it. But I think this is a good test case for the way that historians work.
One of the things that people often say to me is that we have not proven this case beyond reasonable doubt. They apply the same standards of proof that you would expect in a court of law today. But as historians, I think we need to try and explain that when you’re working on a topic like this, it’s almost impossible to achieve levels of proof beyond reasonable doubt.
We can’t interview suspects. We can’t undertake forensic investigations at crime scenes. We have to work with the limited body of evidence that remains. What historians must do instead is to work on a balance of probabilities, and I think that’s entirely reasonable. It recognises that, on most historical topics, we almost inevitably have imperfect evidence.
Why is there so little evidence to draw on in this case?
TT: There were a lot of people at the time and immediately afterwards who didn’t want there to be any evidence of the events in question. You’ve got to remember that Tudor England was full of people who were deeply compromised by their involvement in horrific crimes in the previous decades of civil conflict. I draw parallels with Europe after 1945. And in situations like that, there isn’t always an incentive for people to pick over the past in huge detail.
The Princes in the Tower: A Medieval Murder Mystery
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So where do you think this latest discovery leaves us?
TT: I think the balance of probabilities is shifting quite significantly to suggest that Richard was responsible for the boys’ deaths, and that we have likely murderers in Tyrrell, Forest and Dighton.
TB: I agree. When added up with the other elements of this case, I think that Tim’s research – particularly this latest discovery – brings us quite significantly closer to what really happened to the princes in the Tower.
Tracy Borman is an author and chief curator of Historic Royal Palaces. Tim Thornton is professor of history and deputy vice-chancellor of the University of Huddersfield. Read his new research in full
Tim Thornton has revealed his discoveries in a Channel 5 documentary, Princes in the Tower: A Damning Discovery. Catch up with that on My5
]]> HistoryExtra <![CDATA[The other prince in the Tower: the tragedy of Edward of Warwick]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/edward-of-warwick-other-prince-in-the-tower-wars-of-the-roses-henry-vii-execution-why/ 2024-11-21T15:01:48.000Z 2024-11-21T15:01:48.000Z On 28 November 1499, Edward of Warwick – the 24-year-old heir to the House of York – finally left the Tower of London. It was only the third time in 14 years that he’d been outside the infamous Norman fortress – but he wasn’t able to appreciate the moment.
He was not striding out towards freedom but instead, flanked by two men, being marched the short distance to Tower Hill, where an executioner waited on a temporary wooden scaffold. Between two and three o’clock in the afternoon, Warwick was beheaded for treason.
His execution marked the culmination of years of political instability. For much of the 15th century, England had been embroiled in civil war as the houses of York and Lancaster vied for the throne. After Henry Tudor took the crown from Richard III in 1485, Warwick was taken to the Tower, aged just 10.
He was not the first Yorkist prince to meet this fate, of course. His cousins, the better-known princes in the Tower, had been similarly imprisoned here in 1483 – and their subsequent disappearance remains the most infamous cold case in medieval and early modern English history.
- Listen | All eight episodes of our podcast series, The Princes in the Tower: a Medieval Murder Mystery
In comparison, the story of Edward of Warwick has been largely overlooked – perhaps because of the absence of mystery and conspiracy in his tale, which is no less tragic. The “unhappy boy”, as he was called by contemporary Italian scholar and diplomat Polydore Vergil, was one of the longest-standing residents in the Tower’s near-thousand-year history.
So how did this third prince come to be in the Tower? To understand, we must go back to the beginning of his tale – because his execution brought to an end a lifetime of tumult. His story reflects the turbulent times through which he lived, when brother fought brother and cousin met cousin in battle.
Edward of Warwick: early life in the Wars of the Roses
On his birth in February 1475, Warwick was fourth in line to the throne. He was orphaned just days before his third birthday, when his father, George, Duke of Clarence, was executed for treason. Relations between George and his brother, Edward IV, had long been fraught. George had rebelled against the king once already, in 1470; though forgiven, he was never again fully trusted by that monarch.
Following his wife’s death in December 1476, several weeks after giving birth, George became convinced that she had been murdered by one of her ladies-in-waiting, Ankarette Twynho. Next April he had Ankarette abducted, tried and unlawfully executed – thereby infringing upon the rights of the king in exacting justice.
- Read more | The Wars of the Roses: the 15th-century clash of kings that heralded the dawn of the Tudor dynasty
George’s error was compounded weeks later when one of his retainers, Thomas Burdett, was arrested for necromancy and, despite his denials, was executed. The following day, George burst into the king’s council chamber to protest – which was the last straw in the brothers’ relationship.
Edward was in no mood to forgive George another transgression and, in a grim precursor to his son’s fate, George was arrested and kept in the Tower awaiting trial, at which he was found guilty of high treason. He was executed on 18 February 1478.
An act of attainder against Clarence stripped Warwick of his inheritance, and he was tainted by his father’s crime for the rest of his days, “barred from all right and claim to the crown”.
In 1480, care of the boy was given over to the king’s stepson, Thomas Grey, Marquess of Dorset, who paid £2,000 for Warwick’s wardship. Edward may have lived at the Tower during this time – Dorset was constable there for a period – but, if he did, it was certainly not as a prisoner.
He seems to have been cared for reasonably well despite his father’s treason: Edward IV’s wardrobe accounts show that the boy was given costly gifts. In summer 1481, he received “for his wear and use” nine pairs of shoes – four of the expensive, higher-quality double-soled kind – and a pair of “tawny Spanish leather” boots.
Was Edward of Warwick a threat to Richard III?
However, 15th-century English politics were nothing if not unpredictable. In April 1483, Edward IV died suddenly. His heir was Warwick’s cousin, the 12-year-old prince set to become King Edward V – but the boys’ uncle Richard moved to seize power.
In June, Edward IV’s children were declared illegitimate and, with Warwick also ineligible, Richard was next in line. Edward V, who was at the Tower while ostensibly preparing for his coronation, was joined there by his brother, Richard of York. They were never again seen beyond its walls.
- Read more | Philippa Langley on the Princes in the Tower: “It was clear we had to consider the possibility that they survived”
Though legally invalid, Warwick’s claim to the throne was stronger than his uncle’s, and an act of parliament could easily have reversed George’s attainder. But, rather than joining his cousins in the Tower, Warwick was moved to the royal household. He even attended Richard’s coronation on 6 July 1483.
The new king did not seem to view Warwick as a threat; indeed, Richard even seems to have begun planning for his future. Knighted in York that September, the boy was then moved to Sheriff Hutton in north Yorkshire. This was not a quiet, remote estate where he and other royal children lived in obscurity. On the contrary: in 1484, it was one of two administrative centres for Richard’s Council of the North, a body established to give subjects in that region access to the king’s justice, and one on which Warwick was even given a position.
The castle was essential for the running of the council and, though Warwick’s role was minimal – he was only nine years old – it was no doubt expected that it would increase as he grew older. Richard was clearly setting up his nephew for a position of importance in the north, and for a while Warwick’s future seemed bright.
What happened to Warwick under the Tudors?
That all changed when, in August 1485, Henry Tudor landed at Milford Haven on the Pembrokeshire coast. With an army of mercenaries and Lancastrians at his back, Henry made his way into England, meeting the king in battle at Bosworth Field.
Richard III was killed and, as the sun set on 22 August, the crown that – according to legend – had been found by the victor in a hawthorn bush now belonged to Henry VII.
Though still only 10 years old, Warwick represented one of the most significant threats to the new king. Despite the attainder, with the princes in the Tower missing, presumed dead, Warwick was next in line. He was taken into custody almost immediately and, as London prepared for another coronation, he was incarcerated in the Tower – for no crime save his royal blood.
Little is known about where Warwick was kept in the Tower, but chronicler Edward Hall wrote that he was kept “out of all company of men and sight of beasts”. Whereas the other princes in the Tower had been seen roaming the grounds and “taking the air” during the early stages of their stay in 1483, Warwick was not granted this liberty. Indeed, he would never taste true freedom again.
What did Warwick have to do with Lambert Simnel?
It is testament to the security under which he was kept that the first pretender to Henry VII’s throne initially claimed to be Warwick, escaped from captivity. That boy, later identified as Lambert Simnel, was also about 10 years old, and was guided by Richard Simons, an Oxford priest. Simons took the boy to Ireland, where Yorkist support could still be found and where, in May 1487, Simnel was crowned king at Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin.
Clearly, the real Warwick was so well sequestered that Simnel’s supporters had no trouble believing – or claiming to believe – that he was not imprisoned at all. But the episode also demonstrated that significant support could still be amassed for a Yorkist heir – even one whose claim was void. This was exactly why Warwick was being held in the Tower: even as a child with no legal right to the crown, his very existence threatened Henry VII.
To put to bed the “foolish notion that the boy was in Ireland”, Henry had the real Warwick paraded through London to St Paul’s Cathedral along a route lined with citizens. After hearing a sermon and – on Henry’s instruction – speaking to several men, Warwick then returned to the Tower.
This demonstration of his real location did not stop Simnel, though, who invaded England, reinforced by prominent Yorkists such as Warwick’s cousin John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln. The matter came to a head in June 1487 at the battle of Stoke Field, where it is thought that as many as 7,000 died, Lincoln among them.
Simnel was captured and, having received a pardon in recognition of his young age, was sent to work in the royal kitchens. Warwick, however, remained in the Tower despite his innocence.
Perkin Warbeck, another princely pretender
In 1490, another pretender to Henry’s throne burst onto the political scene overseas. This was Perkin Warbeck, born in Tournai (today in Belgium), who claimed to be Richard of York, the younger of the princes in the Tower. He was endorsed by Charles VIII of France, James IV of Scotland, and Warwick’s aunt, Margaret of Burgundy.
Like Simnel before him, Warbeck tried to take the crown, invading England several times after 1491 – always unsuccessfully. In 1497, he landed in Cornwall and, though he was declared King Richard IV at Bodmin Moor, he was soon captured by the king’s forces and taken to the Tower.
After confessing that he was not really the son of Edward IV, Warbeck was – like Simnel – treated remarkably fairly by Henry VII. Not only was he moved to the royal household, he was even allowed to attend banquets. It was captivity of a different kind, yet one much more lenient than Warwick’s.
The contrast is stark: the latter had been imprisoned for over a decade, whereas those who had actively attempted to usurp the crown lived far more comfortably. Their lack of royal blood meant that, though Simnel and Warbeck had raised armies and invaded, Warwick remained the biggest threat to Henry’s security.
It was only when Warbeck tried to escape in 1498 that he was taken back to the Tower. Here his story intersects with Warwick’s, putting them both on a path to destruction.
In a rare glimpse of the latter’s character, he reportedly spoke to Warbeck through a hole in the ceiling, urging him to “be of good cheer and comfort”. In the event, he would have neither; within months, a plot was uncovered to break out both men, involving stealing from the treasury and blowing up the Tower’s gunpowder store.
On trial, Warwick reportedly confessed that he “consented to break prison and depart out of the realm with Perkin” – though, Hall noted, “because of his innocence... many men” doubted Warwick had agreed to the plot “of his own free will”.
Indeed, a life in seclusion may have led to naivety on Warwick’s part, and he may not have understood the full extent of what he was agreeing to when he was “made privy [to] the enterprise”.
Why was Edward of Warwick sentenced to death?
Both men were tried for treason, and Warwick was found guilty on 12 November 1499. The trial records state that he was to be “drawn and hanged” – the most brutal method of execution, reserved for traitors. Warbeck had been similarly sentenced. This did not come as a surprise. Some believed that the scheme had been “the king’s device” – that “Perkin was but his bait to entrap the Earl of Warwick”.
Though there is no evidence that the plot was fabricated, it is not outside the realms of possibility. At the time, Henry was negotiating the marriage of his eldest son, Arthur, to the Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon, whose parents were hesitant.
Francis Bacon later claimed that her father, Ferdinand II of Aragon, “had written to the king in plain terms, that he saw no assurance of [Arthur’s] succession as long as the Earl of Warwick lived; and that he was loth to send his daughter to troubles and dangers”. Hall, too, noted that Ferdinand “imagined that as long as any Earl of Warwick lived, England should never be cleansed or purged of civil war”.
To secure the alliance with Spain, Warwick had to die.
Why isn’t Warwick as well remembered as the Princes in the Tower?
On 23 November, Warbeck suffered a traitor’s death at Tyburn, and his head was set on a spike on London Bridge; Warwick’s nobility spared him this grisliest of punishments. Instead, his sentence was commuted to beheading on Tower Hill. Afterwards his body, “with the head laid into a coffin”, was taken for burial at Bisham Priory, the resting place of his Neville ancestors.
“The entire population mourned the death of the handsome youth,” Vergil wrote later, “who was committed to prison not for any fault of his own but because of his family’s offences.”
Despite reported public grief, there were no reprisals for Henry VII. Richard III had been maligned for the alleged murder of the other young royals, but there was no great uproar at the death of this third prince. It is impossible to say why, but perhaps it was because of his age. At 24, his death was tragic – but much less shocking than those of the princes in the Tower who, if they did indeed die in 1483, had been just 12 and 9 years old.
Perhaps, too, it was also because there were few left who could take up the Yorkist mantle. Though John de la Pole’s brothers Edmund (nicknamed the ‘White Rose’) and Richard (the ‘Last White Rose’) both tried, neither succeeded in raising the same kind of Yorkist spirit that tormented Henry VII in the latter years of the 15th century.
And though the Tudor quest for security would spill more Yorkist blood in the years to come, the direct male line of the House of York died with Warwick. In Vergil’s words, “Edward had to perish in this fashion in order that there should be no surviving male heir to his family”.
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A life without freedom
Henry VII had paid for the Spanish alliance with Warwick’s blood – and it proved to be a poor investment. Arthur died in 1502, and in 1509 Catherine of Aragon married Henry VIII. But when Henry’s plan to divorce her was revealed, Catherine “used some words that she had not offended, but it was a judgment of God, for her former marriage was made in blood; meaning that of the Earl of Warwick”.
Though she argued that her marriage remained valid, Warwick’s death clearly lay heavy on her mind. Henry VII had justified the young man’s execution with the accusation of treason, but there remained some – like Catherine – who saw the tragedy in it.
For the sole reason that he was Clarence’s son, Warwick was forced to live a life without freedom – and, just like the thousands who died during the Wars of the Roses, ultimately lost it.
Sarah Norton is a historian specialising in kingship in the late Middle Ages and Tudor period
This article was first published in the November 2024 issue of BBC History Magazine
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