Elizabeth I

This August marked the 400th anniversary of the Pendle witch trials. In August 1612, eight women and two men from Pendle were found guilty of the charge of murdering ten people by witchcraft. They were hung after a trial at the Lancaster Assizes. Four hundred years later, the Pendle witches continue to attract considerable attention, interest and debate and a decent tourist trade in East Lancashire. […]

Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster

Queen Elizabeth I spoke, read and wrote in French, Flemish, Italian, Latin and Greek. She was a passionate reader of history and won widespread acclaim for her education and erudition. Was the Virgin Queen England’s most learned monarch? There is no doubt that Princess Elizabeth, the future Queen of England, benefited from a true Renaissance education. She was lucky to have three excellent and sympathetic tutors […]

Was Elizabeth I England’s cleverest monarch?

In a perfect monarchical system, the king or queen will be the personal embodiment of a country’s sense of identity. If monarchy stands for anything, it is tradition and history – a personal and unbroken link to centuries past. Of course, the reality is often quite different. The House of Windsor has a quintessentially English ring to it, but this was the intentional First World War […]