It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a woman in possession of a love of history, must be in want of a blog.
By the time of his death in 1830, Thomas Lawrence was the most sought-after and celebrated English portraitist of his age. He had painted everyone who was anyone, establishing his own distinct artistic style, and has been labelled in retrospect the visual chronicler of the Regency. For such a supremely successful artist, however, Lawrence came …
Continue reading Sir Thomas Lawrence and the Romantic portrait
Perhaps the most calamitous chapter in all Scottish history was opened when Charles Edward Stuart, more commonly referred to as 'Bonnie Prince Charlie', decided to invade Scotland in 1745 in hopes of regaining the British crown. Charles Stuart was either the 'Young Pretender' or the legitimate heir to the British throne, depending on whether one's sympathies lay with …
Continue reading ‘Butcher Cumberland’ and the smashing of the Highland clans
Francia was the largest and most sophisticated kingdom in early medieval Europe, lasting from the 5th to 9th centuries. At it greatest extent, Francia was twice as large as modern France, stretching from the Pyrenees to Bavaria, from Rome to Saxony. It was huge and unwieldy. Given this, how was a Frankish king supposed to …