Britain

Welcome to BRITAIN’s spring issue, in which we bring you a host of features to put a spring in your step. We wander the charming villages and windmill-dotted waterways of Norfolk (Big sky country, p14) and tour mystical Snowdonia, where tales of ancient kings and giants linger from ages past (Here be Dragons, p66). And if you’ve ever fancied sailing round our shores, we take you from Cornish coves to Scottish islands in Coast along (p46), a round-up of the best British Isles cruises for 2023. There’s plenty for history-lovers too. We delve into the story of Queen Charlotte, long-suffering wife of George III and the star of a new Netflix series (Ahead of her time, p23) and step into the hallowed halls of Hatfield House, which has a long association with Elizabeth…

STAR LETTER THE COTSWOLDS IN THE FRAME The lyrical descriptions in your article on the Cotswolds [Vol 91 Issue 1] of “honeycombed hamlets, cobblestone streets and tinkling streams” is a perfect inspiration for my favourite medieval English village: Castle Combe in the Cotswolds. Painting each detail warmed my memory of this endearing quaint village. Thank you again for my cosy corner of Britain. Katherine S. Brown, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Our star letter wins a copy of The Road: A Story of Romans and Ways to the Past by Christopher Hadley, an evocative account of the author’s search for an elusive Roman road – and a fascinating journey back in time (£20, William Collins). GUARDS ON PARADE I recently purchased a subscription to BRITAIN. I’m enjoying it very much! During the…

THE ROYAL FAMILY Coronation countdown Buckingham Palace has released details about the plans for King Charles III’s coronation, which will take place on Saturday May 6. The King and Queen will travel to Westminster Abbey in the Gold State Coach, which was restored for last year’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations. The service, conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, will last up to two hours (an hour shorter than that of the late Queen Elizabeth II), and in a break with tradition the Queen will be crowned alongside the King. The King has also opted to wear military uniform instead of silk stockings and breeches, which were the coronation attire of previous kings. A large-scale ceremonial procession will follow the service, and, according to tradition, other members of the Royal Family will…

Katherine Parr: Opportunist, Queen, Reformer by Don Matzat (£10.99, Amberley Publishing). Matzat offers up a new perspective on Henry VIII’s sixth wife, suggesting she married the King for his sumptuous lifestyle, rather than to obey a divine imperative. Jerusalem: The Story of a Song by Edwin John Lerner (£14.99, John Hunt Publishing). This fascinating book tells the story of how sixteen lines by an obscure poet and painter, written two hundred years ago, was set to music and became England’s unofficial national anthem. One Thousand Shades of Green by Mike Dilger (£17.99, Bloomsbury). An insightful delve into the nation’s flora, this book follows ecologist and BBC wildlife presenter Mike Dilger on his quest to find 1,000 British plant species over the course of a year.…

Approached from any direction, Norfolk’s capital announces itself with a sign that says, Norwich: A Fine City. The phrase is a quote from the 1851 book Lavengro by Norfolk author George Borrow, in which he describes Norwich as being ‘a fine old city’. It’s a simple appraisal that is hard to disagree with. Because the city lies out on a limb, some way east of England’s main transport routes, Norwich is often overlooked by visitors. This is a pity because it can compare favourably with more popular destinations like Cambridge, York and Durham. Although relatively small with just 144,000 inhabitants, Norwich was England’s second-largest city during the medieval period. Originally an Anglo-Saxon settlement, the Normans developed the city at the end of the 11th century by building the castle and…

Late on the sultry evening of the 8 September 1761, a crowd of chattering courtiers squeezed into the Chapel Royal at St James’s Palace to witness a royal wedding. In the capital city of a country she had never set foot in before, a 17-year-old Princess, struggling with a gown too big and too heavily bejewelled for her slender frame, married a man she had only set eyes on for the first time six hours earlier, Britain’s new King, George III. It was the beginning of one of royal history’s longest and most eventful unions. What happened to the bridegroom is, of course, a well-known story: countless plays, books and TV shows have chronicled George’s descent into the so-called ‘madness’ which eventually necessitated his retirement from public life. Yet the…