The king of folly

Strange murder mysterie s from times gone by

That threatened thrones

It’s there beside the guildhall. A large grey stone surrounded by Victorian railings. Over the years, countless visitors to Kingston-upon-Thames have strolled past it, many barely registering its exis

One of our most treasured landmarks, the Tower of London, represents 1,000 years of history. Almost three million visitors last year testify to the fact this is a universally loved destination – in th

In AD 897, Pope Formosus was put on trial for the crimes of perjury, coveting the papacy and violating canon law by holding more than one bishopric at a time. In truth, the whole thing was a spectacle

FT has covered these a number of times, with one of the earliest and most disastrous examples taking place in Hammersmith in 1804 (see FT296:42-45, 310:30-35, 452:16-18). Then a semi-rural village on