History Shorts: snippets of local history

Reconstruction of Georgian garden in Bath The British Regency period, usually dated from 1811 to 1820, is often imagined as a world of elegant drawing rooms, Jane Austen and, more recently, Bridgerton . Yet the term itself comes not from culture but an unusual constitutional arrangement. During these years King George III was alive but unable to rule, and his son, the Prince of Wales, governed as Prince Regent. George III had experienced serious illness earlier in his reign. In 1789 Parliament prepared legislation to appoint the Prince of Wales as regent, but the King recovered before it became law. When his health collapsed again in 1810, Parliament passed the Regency Act of 1811, formally transferring royal duties to the Prince.  Regencies were normally required when monarchs were minors, though substitutes had occasionally governed during long absences abroad in earlier centuries. A regency based on incapacity was highly unusual in British history. George III never recovered and...

Latest in History Shorts' occasional series of history and archaeology news from the wires... 6 Jan 2026 "These new-comers were from the three most formidable races of Germany, the Saxons, Angles, and Jutes...It was not long before such hordes of these alien peoples vied together to crowd into the island that the natives who had invited them began to live in terror." Bede,  A History of the English Church and People (translated by Leo Sherley-Price) Bede's account, written in the 8th century, of earlier mass migratory events by different 'races' into what is now England is not supported by modern scholarship. Most recently, in January 2026, a new study affirms that migration into England was a continuous process from the end of Roman rule through to the Norman Conquest, rather than a series of short, one-off events. Researchers from the Universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge analysed chemical signatures in the tooth enamel of more than 700 individuals burie...