Liam Byrne

a full-scale constitutional revolution was in progress as the group of English leaders known as the ‘Immortal Seven’ invited James’s Dutch son-in-law (and nephew) William of Orange to intervene to restore England’s ‘ancient laws and liberties’.*12 William landed at Brixham on 5 November 1688, with a fleet four times the size of the Spanish Armada, James’s cause melted away, and the old king fled abroad.
A ‘Convention Parliament’ deemed James to have abdicated, and William was crowned in April 1689. The ‘Glorious Revolution’ was complete; it marked a new relationship between sovereign and subjects

From the eighth century, the most active traders with England were probably the Frisians of the northern Germanic coast, who bought and sold wine, timber, grain and fish from towns like London and York and, from at least the late seventh century, traded a certain amount of English cloth, known, appropriately, as Frisian.

the colossus of trading London, Sir Thomas Smythe, in the first great corporate battle of Stuart England

the period that followed, Warwick emerged as one of the key figures around the group of contemporaries called ‘the Junto’ – ‘the great contrivers and designers’ at the sharp end of the struggles, that would see the triumph of the traders over their king

In the period that followed, Warwick emerged as one of the key figures around the group of contemporaries called ‘the Junto’ – ‘the great contrivers and designers’ at the sharp end of the struggles, that would see the triumph of the traders over their king

Around the docks were the coffee houses – some 124 within the City walls alone, home to the auctions where goods were ‘sold by the candle’, company offices, reading rooms and listening posts

Parliament appointed the Earl of Warwick as Lord High Admiral in December 1643

Sparkling in the Louvre’s Galerie d’Apollon is what many consider the finest diamond in the world. Weighing in at over 140 carats, the Regent diamond is not the world’s largest, but its perfect white brilliance ‘of the first water’ and its unparalleled cut, mark it out as truly unique

Thomas Pitt’s family was not poor – his father’s income was £100 a year – but it was large. Five siblings survived childhood, and Pitt’s elder brother stood to inherit what the family had. As such, when Pitt’s father passed away in 1672, Pitt had little choice but to seek his fortune elsewhere

Why pick Matthew Boulton and not Richard Arkwright as an exemplar of the early Industrial Revolution?