German admiral, Secretary of State for the Navy, philosopher, organiser and devoted enemy of Britain, Alfred was born in 1849 and lived to the age of eighty. All…
Category: French History
French ‘salons’ in the 17th century
Aristocratic French ladies presided over salons invariably held in their extensive drawing rooms in the capital or at Versailles. Though all these ladies shared homes(with their husbands and…
The Thirty Years War
The British were involved in this nasty episode, though only on the margins. All wars are horribly wasting, but this one could be taken as the best example….
Reflections on Bosworth Field
Five hundred and twenty-eight years ago, almost to the day, the Wars of the Roses came to an end in beautiful countryside near the town of Market Bosworth…
Reginald Cardinal Pole
Pole is one of those ancient English surnames that appear in various forms throughout the history of the British Isles. Reginald, born 1500 rose rapidly from being an…
The Treaties of Paris (May 1814 & November 1815)
Just eighteen months separate two important agreements reached in the city of Paris. After the Allies (Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia) had at last defeated Napoleon, a pact…
The ‘White’ Terror
In my fifty years in education I have found little evidence of this historical peculiarity being taught in schools and universities. Teachers have even put on a blank…
Count Cavour
Camilo Benso Cavour was born in 1810, a Piedmontese aristocrat whose name and mother language were French. It is interesting to note that both Cavour and Garibaldi (q.v.)…
‘The most terrible of all my battles’ Napoleon Bonaparte
Perhaps one of the least documented pitched battles of the Napoleonic Wars was fought on 7th September 1812. It was called Borodino and took place in Russia, some…