History Shorts: snippets of local history

A striking monument built in the 1830s commemorated the son of a king and served as a tourist attraction. Inside, 168 narrow steps led upwards to a viewing gallery overlooking St James's Park and beyond. So why are there rumours that its doorway in fact leads down, underground to secret tunnels linking either Buckingham Palace or to Whitehall? For several decades in the 19th century, visitors to the Duke of York Column in London could ascend to the top for sweeping views across St James’s Park and Whitehall. Today the door at its base is closed, the viewing gallery long out of use. The column commemorates Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, second son of George III and heir presumptive, who died on 5 January 1827. Formerly Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, and sometimes linked to the “Grand Old Duke of York” nursery rhyme, he oversaw significant military reforms during his career. The Duke’s reputation was complicated and he resigned as Commander-in-Chief following a s...

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...