Browsing Category
1400-1750
Frances Howard Carr, Countess and Killer
The popular history of Tudor England is all about the royal family - the dour tight-fisted Henry VII, the laughing murderous Henry VIII, the boy-king Edward, the bloody-handed Mary, the glorious asexual Elizabeth. Of course, that’s barely…
James Duport’s Guide to Surviving Freshers Week 1660
In 1660, James Duport, a fellow at Trinity College Cambridge compiled a list of 149 handwritten rules aimed at new students. In doing so he established a tradition of advice-giving that has endured over the centuries. Each new academic…
Queen Christina of Sweden, Lesbian Troublemaker
Christina of Sweden was trouble, right from the moment she was born. Her parents had no surviving children, and her mother Maria was desperate to give King Gustavus a son.
The only legitimate heirs to the throne of Sweden at the time…
Beatriz Kimpa Vita, African Prophet
Kimpa Vita was born in 1684 in the Kingdom of Kongo, which isn’t there any more. The kingdom had been founded some time in the 13th or 14th century and was located south to the Congo river on the western coast of Africa. In the…
Samuel Morland, Magister Mechanicorum
Samuel Morland was born in 1625 in Berkshire, the same year that Charles I ascended to the throne of England. His father was a parish rector. Young Samuel was smart enough to attend Cambridge University in 1644, but his father was too poor…
Giordano Bruno, Hell-raising Heretic
Giordano Bruno was born in 1548 in a small house next to Mount Vesuvius, and it’s tempting to imagine that the fiery unpredictable mountain influenced his temperament. The house was near Cicala Castle in the town of Nola just outside…
Mary Tudor, the Bloody Queen
England has had many monarchs - some lionized and almost deified, some derided as weak, or bad, or mad. Arguments over these kings rage still today - the verdict on Richard III, for example, has yet to be settled. But few have raised such…
Aphra Behn, Writer and Spy
Aphra Behn’s origins are mysterious, almost certainly because she wanted it that way. She was born around 1640, probably to parents of the professional class. Her father could have been a man named Cooper. Or he could have been a barber…
Lieutenant de Erauso, the Mercenary Nun
Catalina de Erauso was a real person, that much we can verify. The details of her life, however, are much harder to pin down. Partially this is because our main source is her “autobiography”, which reads like an adventure novel and probably…
Titus Oates, the Perjuring Priest
Titus Oates was a liar. But he was a special type of liar, the kind who told a lie that people desperately wanted to believe. If his lie was a spark, then it started an inferno - and that inferno would consume dozens of lives before it ran…