WRITER & HISTORIAN
Napoleon loved his bath. Sometimes he lay in it for an hour or two, holding meetings or listening while an aide read him his correspondence. “One hour in the bath is worth four hours of sleep,” he said. Afterwards came the frictions, a cleansing ritual of his own devising. He stood naked and poured a... Continue Reading →
Life in the England of AD1000 was grim. About 10 per cent of the population were slaves; in the South West 20 per cent. The punishment for a male slave accused of theft was to be stoned to death by his fellow slaves. Men would club together to buy a female slave to gang rape;... Continue Reading →
Tutankhamun was first autopsied in November 1925, three years after the sensational discovery of his tomb in the Valley of the Kings. It proved impossible to remove him whole from his coffin. Resin-based unguents, in which the linen bandages wrapping his body had been steeped during mummification 3,000 years previously, now glued the mummy to... Continue Reading →
On September 8, 1549, the 11-year-old Edward VI stood on the roof of the Palace of Westminster and looked down on ten bedraggled, weary West Country men, made to stand where he might see them. A few short weeks before they had led a rebellion that exploded out of Devon and Cornwall and threatened to... Continue Reading →
Mathew Lyons 