Category: history

Maria Branwell was born in Penzance, Cornwall, on 15th April 1783. She was the eighth of eleven children (only six survived to adulthood though) of Thomas Branwell, a successful merchant, and his wife Anne Carne. The family owned many properties in the town and was involved in local politics (her brother Benjamin became the town’s

When Marie Antoinette returned to the Conciergerie in the early hours of the morning of 16th October 1793, after being sentenced to death, she was allowed paper and ink. She used them to write a last farewell letter to her sister-in-law, Madame Elizabeth. The letter is very moving and in it Marie Antoinette expresses the

From The Rambler’s Magazine of 1823, the story of a duchess who cheats on her husband with her footman and, eventually, settles down with him.. THE DUKE SUPERSEDED BY HIS SERVANT A celebrated duchess long renowned for her meanness at home, and her husband’s arrogance abroad, has at length reached the final point of female

I was reading the 1823 issue of The Rambler’s Magazine, as you do (yes I’m weird but I can’t be the only one who enjoys old mags more than modern ones, or am I? Mmmm), and came across a couple of nice little pieces in the Anecdotes section that made me smile and decided to

Anne Boleyn is one of the most famous figures in history, yet we don’t know much about her. One of the things we still ignore is her date of birth and how old she was when she was executed. Historians have been debating about it for ages and have put forward two dates: 1501 and

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, is a very important and famous historical figure of the eighteenth century. We all know her story. She entered into an unhappy and loveless marriage with a man she had nothing in common with, became the queen of fashion and of the ton, was an important figure in the Whig Party,

Clara Fisher was a British child prodigy. Born in London on 14th July 1811, she was the fourth daughter of Frederick George Fisher, a librarian and, later, an auctioneer in King-Street, Covent Garden. She was a clever girl, with good memory and a musical ear: from a very early age, she could learn any air

Emily, the fifth child of Reverend Patrick Bronte and his wife Maria, was born on July 30th 1818 at Thornton, Bradford in Yorkshire. Her mother died of cancer in 1824, shortly after the family had moved to Haworth. Her father, struggling to bring up his family, decided to send her, together with her sisters Maria,

We all know the sad story of Anne Boleyn. Lots of books have been written and films made about this unfortunate Queen and her tragic fall and execution. But we too often forget that Anne wasn’t the only victim in the coup that took her down. Five men, including her own brother, were found guilty

Before her marriage to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Princess Charlotte of Wales, the heiress to the British throne was betrothed to Prince William, the Hereditary Prince Of Orange. That was an union the Princess, much to her father’s chagrin, had never been too keen on. Both her mother’s hatred for the Orange family, and her