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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 Last Protector by Andrew Taylor

2 April 2020 By Editor

A dangerous secret lies beneath Whitehall Palace… Brother against brother. Father against son. Friends turned into enemies. No one in England wants a return to the bloody days of the Civil War. But Oliver Cromwell’s son, Richard, has abandoned his exile and slipped back into England. The consequences could be catastrophic. James Marwood, a traitor’s […]

And so to bed – a goodbye to Pepys’s diary

31 May 2019 By Deborah Swift

Exactly 350 years ago, on 31 May, 1669, Samuel Pepys stopped writing his diary and our intimate view of life in London in the 17th century was suddenly cut short, writes novelist Deborah Swift. She tells Historia what we’re missing as a result.

Review: The Fire Court by Andrew Taylor

25 February 2019 By Frances Owen

The Fire Court

“All lines converged on the Dragon Yard case and the Fire Court at Clifford’s Inn.” But in Andrew Taylor’s second book in the James Marwood and Cat Lovett series, set in London just after the Great Fire, those lines tangle and twist fiendishly before coming together, writes Frances Owen. It’s 1667. James Marwood, son of […]

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 […]

Animating Pepys’ Women

21 September 2017 By Deborah Swift

Four of my novels have been set in the seventeenth century, and for all of them I have used Pepys’ Diary as an integral part of my research process. In the process, I became fascinated by the women who appear as vague figures in the background, between the lines, always overshadowed by Pepys’ ebullient presence. […]

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The Mystery of the Hawke Sapphires by JC Briggs

26 January 2021

Shake Loose the Border by Robert Low

25 January 2021

The Straits of Treachery by Richard Hopton

21 January 2021

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Editor’s Picks

Concentration camps and the politics of memory

26 May 2020

An appearance of serenity: the French fashion industry in WWII

16 April 2019

Entrance to Auschwitz

Torn from home

27 January 2019

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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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ISSN 2515-2254

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