Our Top Picks for Buckingham History Festival 2024

Buckingham is a pretty market town nestled close to the Buckinghamshire/Northamptonshire/Oxfordshire borders. Small in size for a former county town - despite the recent urban sprawl - it nevertheless has a big past. From unusual second-century Roman barrows, Royal Mints and submission of Danes, through to executed and murdered dukes (different iterations), raging fires and Civil War sieges, the town and its surroundings have seen a lot. It is only fitting, therefore, that this unassuming town is establishing a first-rate history festival.

Centred around the University of Buckingham - one of the UK's smallest, and privately funded, universities - the festival is featuring 26 different historians and specialists across three days, from 13 to 15 September 2024. Although it is 'entirely free of people in period costume, battle re-enactments, and morris dancers', it still offers a great range of speakers, new historical discoveries, and exciting ideas. So to help you make the most of the weekend, here are our top picks for the festival.

Friday, 13 September

Stephen Alford - Robert Cecil: Statesman and Spymaster of Tudor and Stuart England

Robert Cecil, statesman and spymaster, lived through a dramatic period in English history, where enemies both external and internal threatened to destroy England as a protestantSomeone following the western non-Catholic Christian belief systems inspired by the Protestant Reformation. state. Supremely skilled in the arts of power, he stood at the heart of this state, a vital figure in managing the succession from Elizabeth I to James I & VI, warding off military and religious threats, steering the decisions of two very different but equally wilful monarchs - and making many rivals and enemies along the way. Stephen Alford, Professor of Early Modern British History and author of the superb The Watchers and his newly published All His Spies: The Secret World of Robert Cecil, talks to us about this fascinating time and multi-faceted man.

Stephen Alford will be speaking at 10am on Friday.

Roger Moorhouse - The HolocaustThe mass murder of Jews and other minority groups under the Nazi regime.’s Most Audacious Rescue Operation

During the Second World WarA global war that lasted from 1939 until 1945., Jewish activists in Switzerland engaged in a wholly remarkable – and, until now, almost completely unknown – humanitarianSomeone or something concerned with human welfare. operation. Under the leadership of the Polish Ambassador, Aleksander Lados, they undertook a systematic programme of forging identity documents for Latin American countries, which were then smuggled into German-occupied Europe to save the lives of thousands of Jews facing extermination in the Holocaust. The Lados operation was one of the largest rescue missions of the entire war, and the always-engaging Roger Moorhouse reveals this extraordinary story for the first time. He follows the desperate bids of Jews to obtain these life-saving documents, and their painful uncertainty over whether they will be granted protection from the Nazis’ murderous fury. Above all, he tells the story of the quiet heroism of those who decided to act in an attempt to save thousands of lives.

Roger Moorhouse will be speaking at 2pm on Friday.

Alice Loxton - A History of Young People in 18 Lives

How was it possible to make a living in Georgian London with no arms or legs? How did young undergraduates cope when the outbreak of world war interrupted their university studies? From Elizabeth I to the future star of stage and screen Richard Burton, the social media phenomenon and bestselling author Alice Loxton considers 18 very different lives at the age of 18 and asks what they reveal to us about the very different – and sometimes similar – challenges that young people face today.

Alice Loxton will be speaking at 3.30pm on Friday.

Saturday, 14 September

Henry Jeffreys - Empire of Booze: An Alcoholic History of British Imperialism

Britain has had a long, and sometimes troubled, relationship with alcohol, but it can also lay claim to being the most inventive and creative nation of all when it comes to the arts of libation. Much of that is down to Britain’s global reach, which reached its peak in the first half of the twentieth century. Discover how we owe the champagne that is drunk today to seventeenth-century methods for making sparkling cider; how madeira and India Pale Ale became legendary for their ability to withstand the long, hot, often stormy journeys to Britain’s burgeoning overseas territories; why whisky became the familiar choice for weary empire-builders who longed for home; and the long, if sometimes contested, role that the great wines of France have played across the Channel. Taking us on this journey is wine expert and writer Henry Jeffreys, whose most recent book, Vines in a Cold Climate: The People Behind the English Wine Revolution, was published last year.

Henry Jeffreys will be speaking at 2pm on Saturday.

Helen Castor - The Tragedies of Richard II and Henry IV

Richard of Bordeaux and Henry Bolingbroke were first cousins, born three months apart. Their lives were entwined from the beginning. When they were still children, Richard was crowned Richard II with Henry at his side, carrying the sword of state: a ten-year-old lord in the service of his ten-year-old king. They grew up to be opposites: Richard was the white hart, a thin-skinned narcissist, and Henry the eagle, a chivalric hero, a leader who inspired loyalty where Richard inspired only fear. Henry had all the qualities Richard lacked, all the qualities a sovereign needed, bar one: birthright. Prize-winning and bestselling author Helen Castor explains why Richard became consumed by the need for total power, and how, when he banished Henry into exile, the stage was set for a final confrontation.

Helen Castor will be speaking at 3.30pm on Saturday.

Oliver Soden - The Secret Lives of Noël Coward

Critically acclaimed author and broadcaster Oliver Soden returns to Buckingham History Festival with what was beyond doubt one of the highlights of the festival last year. As T.S. Eliot wrote, in 1954, ‘there are things you can learn from Noël Coward that you won’t learn from Shakespeare’. Coward wrote more than 50 plays and nine musicals, as well as revues, short stories, poetry, novel and screenplays to such classic films as Brief Encounter and In Which We Serve. Louis Mountbatten argued that, while there were greater comedians, novelists, composers, painters and so on, only ‘The Master’ had combined 14 talents in one. But perhaps the least known – and among the most important – of his talents was as a gatherer of information for British Intelligence during the Second World War, a role only recently revealed. Prepare to be amazed and amused in this brilliant talk.

Oliver Soden will be speaking at 5pm on Saturday.

Sunday, 15 September

Clare Mulley - Agent ZO: Poland’s Lost Resistance Fighter

An absolute hit on the festival circuit this year, Clare Mulley comes to Buckingham History Festival to talk about the life of the subject of her gripping new book, Agent Zo. Elżbieta Zawacka, also known as ‘Elizabeth Watson’ but more often as ‘Zo’, was the only woman to reach London as an emissary of the Polish Home Army command during the Second World War. In Britain she was trained and enlisted as the only female member of the Polish elite Special Forces, known as the ‘Silent Unseen’, before parachuting back behind enemy lines into Nazi-occupied Poland. There, while being hunted by the Gestapo, who arrested her entire family, Zo took a leading role in the largest organised act of defiance against Nazi Germany, the Warsaw Uprising, and in the liberation of her country. After the war, Zo was demobbed as one of the most highly decorated women in Polish history. Yet the Soviet-backed postwar CommunistSomeone who believes in the ideals of communism, where property is owned collectively and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs. regime not only imprisoned her, but also ensured that her remarkable story remained hidden for more than 40 years. This is tale of bravery, daring, and the indefatigable nature of the human spirit, expertly told.

Clare Mulley will be speaking at 11.30 on Sunday.

Dan Jones - Henry V: England’s Greatest Warrior

Henry V’s short but dramatic life, crowned by the victory against the French at Agincourt in 1415, is the stuff of legend. But what was the reality behind this near-mythical figure, and how did he achieve so much in so short a space of time? Dan Jones, one of Britain's favourite popular historians, bestselling author of both fiction and nonfiction, and TV personality talks to us about this fascinating king. You can read a bit about Dan Jones's new book on Henry V here.

Dan Jones will be speaking at 2pm on Sunday.

Richard J. Evans - Supping with the Devil: Hitler’s Domestic Allies

What made Adolf Hitler and his inner circle, including Göring, Goebbels, Eichmann and many other leading Nazis, act and behave in the way they did? And what made seemingly ‘ordinary’ people, many with potentially positive gifts and talents, succumb to a world of autocratic strongmen who would follow a path of evil and, ultimately, destruction? World-leading expert on modern Germany Richard J. Evans seeks to provide the answers to these difficult, and timely, questions.

Richard J. Evans will be speaking at 3.30pm on Sunday.

To find out more about Buckingham History Festival, and to purchase tickets, visit their website.

All pictures courtesy of Buckingham History Festival.