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Mistresses: Sex and Scandal at the Court of Charles II by Linda Porter

16 April 2020 By Editor

According to the great diarist, John Evelyn, Charles II was ‘addicted to women’, and throughout his long reign a great many succumbed to his charms. Clever, urbane and handsome, Charles presided over a hedonistic court, in which licence and licentiousness prevailed. Mistresses is the story of the women who shared Charles’s bed, each of whom wielded […]

Charles II’s last mistress

16 April 2020 By Linda Porter

Linda Porter, author of Mistresses: Sex and Scandal at the Court of Charles II, writes about Hortense Mancini, the beautiful but unconventional niece of Cardinal Mazarin who became the king’s last mistress. Everyone knows that Charles II was an amorous king. The Restoration court was renowned for glamorous women parading their charms in the latest […]

The monarch with the magic touch

4 April 2019 By Andrew Taylor

Charles II touching for the King's Evil

Author Andrew Taylor writes for Historia about the King’s Evil and the royal ritual surrounding this disease.

Raise your Teacup for Catherine of Braganza!

20 April 2018 By Isabel Stilwell

For National Tea Day, Isabel Stilwell investigates the story of Catherine of Braganza, the queen who popularised Britain’s favourite drink. In 1777 a Frenchman came to Portugal as a spy, and to prove his point that the country was utterly under British influence, he wrote: “The Portuguese copy the English to such an extent, that they […]

Thomas Blood and the Theft of the Crown Jewels

4 October 2017 By Angus Donald

On May 9, 1671, at a little before 7am on a chilly spring morning, a tall, handsome, middle-aged man calling himself Thomas Ayliffe, and dressed in the severe black gown and square white collar of a humble country parson, presented himself at the door of the Irish Tower in the northeast corner of the Tower of London. He […]

Escaping the Tudors

29 September 2016 By Linda Porter

Linda Porter on why she’s happy to leave the sixteenth century behind. Last year I appeared in two programmes in the Channel Five ‘Last Days’ series, talking about Mary Queen of Scots and Charles I.  Much of my contribution on Mary was eventually edited out because it did not fit the overall ‘well, she was […]

The Libertine, Theatre Royal Bath

13 September 2016 By Jason Hewitt

Poor old Charles II. These days he’s playing second fiddle to almost everything. If it’s not last week’s 350th anniversary of the Great Fire of London, it’s Gemma Arterton’s recent portrayal of his famous mistress Nell Gwynn. Jasper Britton brings our most debauched monarch wonderfully to life in Stephen Jeffrey’s The Libertine, but poor Charlie […]

The Last Royal Rebel by Anna Keay

1 September 2016 By Jane Harlond

During the horrific, botched execution of James, Duke of Monmouth, in 1685, the crowd remained silent and ‘many cried’, until, incensed by the ‘barbarous usage’ of the duke, they surged forward and would have torn the executioner to pieces had soldiers not prevented it. Yet the label on Monmouth’s portrait in the National Gallery reads: […]

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7 January 2021

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Entrance to Auschwitz

Torn from home

27 January 2019

Mutiny on the Bounty

10 January 2018

Three White Pebbles

18 January 2017

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Historia Magazine is published by the Historical Writers’ Association. We are authors, publishers and agents of historical writing, both fiction and non-fiction. For information about membership and profiles of our member authors, please visit our website.

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