From the Wolfson Prize-winning author of God's Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain Between the fall of the Bastille in 1789 and the opening of the Great Exhibition in 1851, history changed. The grand narratives of the Enlightenment, concerned with kings and statesmen, gave way to a new interest in the lives of ordinary people. Oral history, costume history, the history of food and furniture, of Gothic architecture, theatre and much else were explored as never before. Antiquarianism, the study of the material remains of the past, was not new, but now hundreds of men - and some women - became antiquaries and set about rediscovering their national history, in Britain, France and Germany. The Romantic age valued facts, but it also valued imagination and it brought both to the study of history. Among its achievements were the preservation of the Bayeux Tapestry, the analysis and dating of Gothic architecture, and the first publication of Beowulf. It dispelled old myths, and gave us new ones: Shakespeare's birthplace, clan tartans and the arrow in Harold's eye are among their legacies. From scholars to imposters the dozen or so antiquaries at the heart of this book show us history in the making.

Born in the 1700s, John Lingard was an English historian, best known for his 8 volume series, The History of England: From the First Invasion by the Romans to the revolution in 1688. Most previously published biographies about Lingard present a fairly standard portrait of the historian as an unbiased filter of primary historical sources that are somehow allowed to speak for themselves. Thereby it is argued in these previous works that Lingard was a balanced historian.The aim of John Lingard: The Historian as Apologist however is to demonstrate that Lingard was a far more complicated author and character who, while he may have appeared unbiased to the Protestant and Catholic establishments, worked tirelessly to promote the acceptableness of Roman Catholics in the politically reforming climate of the early 19th century – without appearing to do so.Dr. Cattermole’s carefully researched biography will appeal to scholars and general readers who are interested in Roman Catholicism and the history of the 19th century.

A ship's captain intends to help friends reclaim their land but gets distracted by a marooned yacht and the married woman on board. "Absorbingly interesting: dramatic, subtle, fascinating." — The New York Times.