Following an individual’s death in Scotland, the civil courts had a process known as ‘confirmation’, the equivalent of ‘probate’ in England, Wales and Ireland, through which an executor could be appoi

JOHN DOWLAND IS MY NAME: musician, composer, greatest lute player of my age in Europe, some say, when in England Elizabeth and James were on the throne. I died in 1626 when I was 63 and was buried on

THE FATE OF MR WALLIAMS highlights a long-standing ...

Valerie Eliot and John Haffenden, editors The Letters of T. S. EliotVolume 10: 1942–19441,136pp. Faber. £60. During the Second World War, Shamley Wood House in Surrey was a place of refuge for T. S. E

You wouldn’t guess from the cover design—three songbirds silhouetted over swatches of picturesque Englishness—but Catherine Clarke’s A History of England in 25 Poems hits one of its sweet spots with a

Best books… Roy Foster The emeritus professor of ...