David Starkey's Blog

The Union has had a narrow escape - but at the price of constitutional chaos. We must now revive our identity south of the border, says David Starkey

When I was 20, on the threshold of my academic career, I experienced a revelation. I was listening to a performance of Handel’s Messiah at King’s College, Cambridge. The great chapel, with its walls covered in crowns and coats of arms, is a shrine to monarchy. I suddenly realised that...

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Late one night, Winston Churchill and a young fellow MP were leaving the House of Commons when Churchill called his colleague back to have a final look at the debating chamber before they headed home.

Winston Churchill, who was himself half-American through his mother, the New York heiress Jennie Jerome, loved the United States and was a frequent and well-paid visitor there. But he was anything but starry-eyed about the state of American politics or the standing of its politicians.

The gay atheist and a historian has more than an academic interest in the debate about gay marriage – and he wants both sides to get their facts right

It was not going well. There had been a mix-up about the Queen’s favourite lunchtime tipple of gin and Dubonnet and – an unforgivable sin – she had been kept waiting for more than 20 minutes as a desperate SOS went out for the necessary ingredients.

Renowned historian and long-time Londoner David Starkey reveals his favourite places in London; from the Tower Of London and Somerset House, to his secret walks and local butcher.

The historian contemplates the remarkable stories of the Thames revealed in a National Maritime Museum exhibition he is curating for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

Three hundred and fifty years ago, on August 23, 1662, the River Thames disappeared.