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jonathanhealey.bsky.social
Historian and Occasional Book-writer (https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/blazing-world-9781526621696/) Works at Oxford University. Next book, The Blood in Winter, out 2025. ‘This isn’t the Eighties, Pat!’
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Football, eh. What a sport.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

trade secret: historians actually include all years in the history books

submitted 4 days ago • 6 comments

Still on special offer today!

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

St Martin’s On The Walls, a 1020s pre-conquest stunner, built on the Saxon ramparts that surround the wonderful pre-Saxon town of Wareham, on the south coast of England. The tall, narrow nave and chancel is typically Saxon in style.

submitted 5 days ago • 2 comments

My new book is on special offer for pre-order this weekend through Waterstones, do have a look! (I didn't design the cover, but it's great isn't it?) www.waterstones.com/book/the-blo...

submitted 6 days ago • 3 comments

I believe that reading fiction makes us more empathetic by teaching us how to imagine our fellow humans; to fully inhabit lives other than our own. Which brings me to my next point: do non-fiction readers even have souls? I say no

submitted 12 days ago • 4 comments

Sin of Achan latest.

submitted 7 days ago • 2 comments

Spotted on Facebook. They’re gonna have fun when they learn which country came up with the Common Law.

submitted 7 days ago • 12 comments

Happy Publication Day to me! 🎉😱🥹🧿 Between Two Rivers: Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History is officially out! It’s a history of the region through objects found in an ancient museum in Princess Ennigaldi-Nanna’s palace, and I hope you all like it 💛 lnk.to/BetweenTwoRi...

submitted 8 days ago • 119 comments

The act itself: 16 Charles 1 c.1: An Act for the preventing of inconveniencies happening by the long intermission.of Parliaments. www.british-history.ac.uk/statutes-rea... #History 🗃️

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

Today is the anniversary of the English Triennial Act, passed 15 February 1641 to great rejoicing. It established the principle - never since abandoned - that Parliament existed as a permanent fixture, and did not need the monarch to agree to its calling.

submitted 12 days ago • 1 comment

In 1617, James I stayed at Hoghton Tower and was shown a traditional 'rushbearing'. Told by local gentry that some Lancashire JPs were trying to clamp down on such festivities, the king decided to issue a 'Declaration of Sports' for the county, which eventually became the 1633 'Book of Sports'.

submitted 14 days ago • 2 comments

Sorted. 😉😎

submitted 15 days ago • 577 comments

Vi et Armis

submitted 14 days ago • 2 comments

'Whenever possible, as when the royalists had encroached upon the law, they had rested their own case upon it; but when they themselves had encroached upon the king's legal powers, they turned to the political argument that they were responsible to the nation at large for its welfare.'

submitted 15 days ago • 2 comments

today in Star Chamber bits wot made me laugh: according to the plaintiff, one Roger Hindle was served with a warrant of the peace, and responded “cast it under my foot”. STAC 5/G10/37 (1575)

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

'The two basic ingredients of modern democracy, consent of the governed and constitutional guarantees for certain rights, owe much to a group of determined leaders in the English House of Commons who challenged their king on the basis of their rights and in the name of their nation.'

submitted 17 days ago • 1 comment

If you're based near Oxford and want to support an indie bookshop, you can reserve a signed copy of my book with a dedication (in "Order Notes) to you or a loved one who loves ancient history 🥰 Daunt Books in Summertown is one of my faves. Here's the link summertown.dauntbooks.co.uk/books/betwee...

submitted 17 days ago • 1 comment

Hugely enjoyed this one. Really refreshing to see lawyers take centre stage in a history of the Civil War. www.penguin.co.uk/books/306111...

submitted 17 days ago • 1 comment

📅#OTD 1642. #London. After refusing 4 times, the House of Lords agrees with the Commons that the King should be pushed to remove royalist Sir John Byron from the post of Lieutenant of the Tower. Byron declines 'to be thrust out by them' & proffers his resignation.

submitted 19 days ago • 0 comments

So looking forward to contributing to this plenary, and also to speaking about women in the 1990s-2000s alongside Eve Worth, @lottelydia.bsky.social, and @agnesjuliet.bsky.social later in the conference. Our panel will be chaired by the wonderful @hannahcharnock.bsky.social

submitted 19 days ago • 0 comments