Charles was constitutionally incapable of being a constitutional monarch. — Simon Schama Copy Share Image
Loyal and substansial Catholic service on the battlefield undermined one of the most longstanding objections to emancipation: namely, that since Catholics owed… — Linda Colley Copy Share Image
Most Britons still lived and died without encountering anyone whose skin colour was different from their own. Slaves, in short, did not… — Linda Colley Copy Share Image
Human beings are many-layered creatures, and do not succumb to the hegemony of others as easily as historians and politicians sometimes imply.… — Linda Colley Copy Share Image
The strength and vitality of an empire is frequently due to the new aristocracy from the periphery. — Ronald Syme Copy Share Image
As well as might we say that a ship is built, loaded and manned for the sake of any particular pilot, instead… — Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke Copy Share Image
This book has been a catalogue of mistakes by politicians, moral and practical disasters which led to wars, enslavement and wretchedness on… — A. N. Wilson Copy Share Image
Prince Charles's concern for the underprivileged and disadvantaged has not exactly endeared him to the Conservative Central Office. As Norman Tebbit replied,… — David Cannadine Copy Share Image
There is no other Parliament like the English. For the ordinary man, elected to any senate, from Perisa to Peru, they may… — Josiah Wedgwood Copy Share Image
More attention should have been given to the fundamental transformation which took place during Queen Victoria's reign, from ruling sovereign to constitutional… — David Cannadine Copy Share Image
A fundamental reason why Britain was not torn apart by civil war after 1688 was that its inhabitants' aggression was channelled so… — Linda Colley Copy Share Image
Jews show so near an affinity to you... Where is your Christianity if you do not believe in their Judaism? — Benjamin Disraeli Copy Share Image
There was no more dangerous a time in a nation's life than the passing of a ruler when the succession was in… — Leanda de Lisle Copy Share Image
The pre-war empire had been sufficiently informal and sufficiently cheap for Parliament to claim authority over it without having to concern itself… — Linda Colley Copy Share Image
The unweary, unostentatious, and inglorious crusade of England against slavery may probably be regarded as among the three or four perfectly virtuous… — William Edward Hartpole Lecky Copy Share Image
“The Royal Navy had not built its magnificent reputation over the centuries by avoiding battle.” — Arthur Nicholson Copy Share Image
These men were very much in the minority, but of course, being the 'Elect', they expected to be in a minority -… — Simon Schama Copy Share Image
“[W]hen we kill people,’ a British sea-captain says in the Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies, ‘we feel compelled to pretend… — Shashi Tharoor Copy Share Image
Almost everywhere else in Europe, the more military the state, the stronger the king - except in Britain. Here it was parliament,… — Simon Schama Copy Share Image
Can it be entirely accidental that the most famous fictional spy of them all, James Bond, Number 007, deadly marksman, intriguer, the… — Linda Colley Copy Share Image
David Irving has consistenly applied an evidential double standard, demanding absolute documentary proof to convict the Germans (as when he sought to… — David Cannadine Copy Share Image
The male clerk with his quill pen and copper-plate handwriting had gone for good. The female short-hand typist took his place. It… — A. J. P. Taylor Copy Share Image
A country scratching a lazy irritation at sagging doorjambs and late trains, whose greatest attribute is a collective, smelly tolerance, where a… — A. A. Gill Copy Share Image
