The Monarchs’ History Men: What Has Changed over Three Centuries?

Abstract Since its foundation in 1724, the regius chair has been held by twenty-two men. In this study, I consider a small selection of them, using a range of sources including a guard book in Cambridge University’s archives and portraits in order to reflect on their lives, works, and reputations and on ways of analysing the history of one specific post. The central role of the university’s registrary and the scope of incumbents’ intellectual concerns are also discussed. Implicit is a measure of scepticism about ‘professionalization’ as an explanation for the nature of historical practice over three hundred years and about existing interpretations of past claims that history is a science.