This interview with Dr Owen Emmerson, Assistant Curator at Hever Castle, about the 'Two Anne's of Hever', Anne Boleyn and Anne of Cleves was recorded in 2021 but has been available to members only, up until now.

Dr Emmerson is a historian, author and broadcaster and can be found on his Instagram page @DrOwenEmmerson

This is also available, along with almost 50 other historian interviews, at Youtube.com/@BritishHistory - look for the "Historian Interviews' playlist.

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Luke Pepera, historian, anthropologist, broadcaster and author of the brilliant new book ‘Motherland: A Journey through 500,000 years of African Culture and Identity' joined me at the Gloucester History Festival Spring Weekend for a fascinating chat!

You can find the video version on Youtube.com/BritishHistory

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Edward II was murdered at Berkeley Castle in 1327 and buried in Gloucester Abbey (now Cathedral), and the only area of debate so far has been how he was murdered; smothered or red hot poker? Ian Mortimer has gathered compelling evidence that Edward wasn't actually murdered at all!

Welcome to this interview with historian and author Ian Mortimer in which Ian does not only challenge that Edward II was murdered but what he sees as the reasons the compelling evidence has been ignored by academics for so long.

Ian is the author of multiple history books and is perhaps most famous for his 'Time travellers Guides.' Buy Ian's book, shipped worldwide from Blackwells.

(This is an affiliate link. I get a commission on books sold via this link but they are at no extra cost to you).

This is 1 of 5 interviews I recorded at the Gloucester History Festival Spring Weekend. Tickets for the weekend’s live-streamed talks are available until 25th May. Click Here

British History is a reader-supported publication. To support my work and help me develop new projects, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

See you next time!

Philippa 💜

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19 years of Civil War, known as the Anarchy, was between first cousins King Stephen and Empress Matilda, but Sharon Bennett Connolly persuasively argues that it could be more accurately be thought of as a conflict between Queen Matilda, Stephen's wife and the Empress Matilda.

I caught up with Sharon for her second interview with me, and oour first in person, at the Gloucester History Festival Spring Weekend.

British History is a reader-supported publication. To support my work and help me continue to get more brilliant interviews with fascinating historians, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Until next time, Philippa 💜

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Hi and welcome my interview with historian and author Max Adams about his new book ‘The ‘Mercian Chronicles’ (In the USA, ‘The Birth of the Anglo Saxons’) out now in hardback.

Buy Max's book, shipped worldwide from Blackwells (This is an affiliate link. I get a commission on books sold via this link but they are at no extra cost to you).

This is 1 of 5 interviews I recorded at the Gloucester History Festival Spring Weekend. The talks from all of my interviewees were streamed online and you can still get hold of them until 25th May! For a 10% discount on tickets or a digital weekend pass head over to my Patreon, or just go straight to the Gloucester History Festival website by clicking the button below.

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Hi and welcome my interview with historian and author Hallie Rubenhold about her new book 'Story of a Murder. The Wives, The Mistress and Dr Crippen' out now in hardback, and her approach to the ethics of true crime history.

Buy Hallie's book, shipped worldwide from Blackwells (This is an affiliate link. I get a commission on books sold via this link but they are at no extra cost to you).

This is 1 of 5 interviews I recorded at the Gloucester History Festival Spring Weekend. The talks from all of my interviewees were streamed online and you can still get hold of them until 25th May! For a 10% discount on tickets or a digital weekend pass head over to my Patreon, or just go straight to the Gloucester History Festival website by clicking the button below.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gloucester Cathedral, St Peter’s Abbey before the dissolution in 1540, was founded in 1541. The ‘Deed of Endowment’, one of three documents created for the occasion features in this video complete with flattering portrait of King Henry VIII, a Garter Badge, badge of the Prince of Wales and the original green and white (the Tudor colours) silk cord which once held the great seal.

The oldest items in the archive are pages from Aelfric's The Lives of Saints which had been reused as decorative pages in a later book binding. They are around 1000 years old and look as fresh as the day they were written!

The most significant item to the Cathedral is its ‘Historia,’ created by monks at the Abbey in the 1390s and recording as much of the Abbey’s history as they were able to. Archivist Rebecca Phillips is fairly confident that they didn’t have written records from which to source information and so this is the first time the oral history of the abbey had been written down. It would then have been copied and distributed to daughter houses of the Abbey to share their story and engender a sense of belonging.

British History is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

We get to see these items up close in this video plus an exquisitely embroidered King James Bible, the first Chapter Book of the Cathedral containing the signature of William Laud, and an ironic reliquary. The reliquary is thought to contain a fragment of the stake on which Bishop Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester, was burned during Mary I’s reign. It’s a beautifully carved and decorated box, the irony being in that Hopper was opposed to the use of relics.

I hope you enjoy this video. If you do please consider subscribing to my Youtube channel and, if you can afford it, becoming a paid subscriber here as it helps me continue creating informative and fun content like this.

Wishing you a fabulous day!

Philippa 💜

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Hello fellow history lover!

Instead of my live this week I am publishing a brand new ‘on-location’ interview. This, the first one in this ongoing series, was recorded inside the Library of Gloucester Cathedral, where the Cathedral’s 6000 precious documents and books are stored, overseen and looked after by Cathedral Archivist Rebecca Phillips.

The full video is out later today here, and on Youtube, but here is a little preview.

British History is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

The full video is out at 6:30pm UK time today (15th April 2025), I hope you enjoy it.

See you all in a short while!

Philippa 💜

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