Mark Bostridge

Monmouth’s charm and dark, mesmerising beauty made him an object of international fascination

James Duke of Monmouth: perhaps the best king we never had

4 June 2016 9:00 am

In Pepys’s famous words, James, Duke of Monmouth was ‘the most skittish, leaping gallant that ever I saw, always in…

Charlotte Brontë, as she appears in Branwell’s famous group portrait of his sisters (detail)

Charlotte Brontë: Cinderella or ugly sister?

24 October 2015 9:00 am

Preparations for next year’s bicentennial celebrations of the birth of Charlotte Brontë haven’t exactly got off to a flying start.…