Miranda Malins, author of The Puritan Princess, writes for Historia about the extraordinary life of Oliver Cromwell’s youngest daughter, Frances, and how we need to forget everything we thought we knew about the Lord Protector’s rule. The caricature of Oliver Cromwell’s protectorate is that it was a joyless, masculine, military dictatorship presided over by a […]
Merkins and masochists: a brief history of sex
Sex was just as naughty and inventive in previous centuries as in our lifetimes, despite our perceptions of the past as often prudish, writes author Jemahl Evans. It’s just public attitudes that have changed
Mr Beeston and the Cockpit
Jemahl Evans brings us a brief history of London’s first West End theatre. The Cockpit Theatre in Drury Lane was initially, as its name suggests, a venue for cockfights and animal baiting on the east side of Drury Lane with an entrance in Cockpit Alley. As such it was the first playhouse in the West […]