ENGINEERING THE END OF MEDIEVAL WARFARE

Sometimes, a single narrative comes to dominate how we remember a year. So it is with 1776. This, as every history lover knows, was the date that the American colonies declared their independence, beg

OLD FUSS & FEATHERS

Is this the age of dictators?” asked veteran journalist Sir Sidney Low. He was writing in September 1923, the month in which a military coup brought Miguel Primo de Rivera to power in Spain. At the sa

Alice Loxton EleanorA 200-mile walk in search of England’slost queen352pp. Pan Macmillan. £22. Many are commemorated in stone, but few so grandly as Eleanor of Castile (d. 1290). Following her unexpec

Although I realise that it is a favourite pastime among historians, particularly the British, to demonstrate that our idols have feet of clay, I must protest at the inclusion of Winston Churchill in t