The story of the 1882 Palmer Sinai Expedition, a spying and terrorist mission that ended in the murder of its participants and was one of the great cause célèbre of the nineteenth century. Just before sunset on August 8th 1882 HMS Cockatrice, a small paddle wheel gunboat, appeared off the Egyptian shore. A rowing boat was lowered down its side and slowly moved towards the beach. On its arrival, six men and a teenage boy alighted. Three of the group were British, all dressed as Arabs, two were Bedouin tribesmen, one a Jew and one a Syrian. The following morning, this mismatched party set off for the desert, taking with them two boxes of dynamite and £3,000 in gold coin. Five of them were never seen again. An historical ‘who-done-it’, an adventure story, a history of the Anglo-Egyptian War and a biography of those involved in the controversy, /These Chivalrous Brothers/ explores the gulf between the Imperial ideal and reality and provides an insight into the character of the men who built the Empire. Through the biographies, it also throws light on such disparate topics as the early history of spying, spiritualism, female hysteria, biblical archaeology, various African uprisings, the Boer War and the hunt for ‘Jack the Ripper’.

George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire has sparked a renewed interest in things medieval. The pseudo-historical world of Westeros delights casual fans while offering a rich new perspective for medievalists and scholars. This study explores how Martin crafts a chivalric code that intersects with and illuminates well known medieval texts, including both romance and heroic epics. Through characters such as Brienne of Tarth, Sandor Clegane and Jaime Lannister, Martin variously challenges, upholds and deconstructs chivalry as depicted in the literature of the Middle Ages.

A weekly review of politics, literature, theology, and art.

A comprehensive study of every aspect of chivalry and chivalric culture.

The conventional view of Richard III's defeat at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 is that it was due to a loss of support for him after his usurpation of the throne. However, David Hipshon argues that the result might very well have been in his favour, had not his support for James Harrington in a long-running family feud with Thomas, Lord Stanley led to the latter betraying him. Bosworth was the last English battle in which the monarch relied on feudal retainers: at Stoke two years later professional mercenaries were the key to Henry VII's victory. The author examines how the power politics of the conflict between the Stanleys and the Harringtons, and Richard's motives in supprting the latter, led to the king's death on the battlefield, the succession of the Tudors to the throne of England, the 'death of chivalry' and the end of the Middle Ages.