Alex Burghart

What the Anglo-Saxons made of 1066 and all that followed

5 March 2022 9:00 am

By any yardstick, the Norman Conquest was a ghastly business. Within two decades, the English aristocracy had been more than…

The evolution of England — from ragbag kingdoms to a centralised state

15 May 2021 9:00 am

Alex Burghart describes England’s fitful development from a collection of warring kingdoms into a highly centralised state

Oswald of Northumbria – an Anglo-Saxon saint-king of the north for our time

12 October 2019 9:00 am

In Hamlet a gravedigger asks the riddle: ‘What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or…

When William I’s bloody conquest came to an end, it was his coronation in London, on Christmas Day 1066, that sealed it

What did the Romans ever do for London?

12 January 2019 9:00 am

When Bishop Guy of Amiens looked across the Channel in the 11th century he saw ‘teeming London [which] shines bright.…

For some soldiers, the VC was easier to win than to wear

24 March 2018 9:00 am

‘The Victoria Cross,’ gushed a mid-19th-century contributor to the Art Journal, ‘is thoroughly English in every particular. Given alike to…