Coffee & Tobacco
When tobacco arrived in Britain in the 1560s, it was hailed as a "holy herb", a miracle cure to improve health and a catalyst for wit and creativity. The coming of coffee - "black as hell, strong as d...
1 Heinä 202141min
Heywood: The Catholic Satirist who Kept his Head
Playwright and musician John Heywood was a devout Catholic humanist and biting satirist - married to Sir Thomas Moore's niece - who managed to survive life as a courtier through the Catholic and Prote...
28 Kesä 202156min
Hampton Court: Gold & Glory
On 7 June 1520, Henry VIII of England and François I of France met at the Field of Cloth of Gold. For three weeks on English soil in Northern France, the two Kings - and the 12,000 who accompanied the...
24 Kesä 202147min
Charles V: Holy Roman Emperor
Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Professor Geoffrey Parker to explore the extraordinary life and career of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1500–1558), who ruled Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, and much o...
21 Kesä 202147min
Louis XIV and his Mistresses
Louis XIV ruled France for more than 72 years, the longest recorded reign of any monarch of any sovereign country in history. Despite the devotion of his wife Maria Theresa of Spain, Louis took a seri...
17 Kesä 202151min
Mary, Queen of Scots
Mary, Queen of Scots, returned to the news headlines when the rosary she carried to her execution in 1587, was recently stolen from Arundel Castle. It's the latest chapter in the enduring story of thi...
14 Kesä 202150min
Japan's Edo Period
After a century of Civil War, changes in the way Japan was ruled from 1600 onwards meant that Europeans and Christianity made few inroads into Japanese society. Shogun Tokugawa organised Japan into a ...
10 Kesä 202155min
The French Historie: A Gory Poem
In 1589, Anne Dowriche, the wife of a Puritan minister from Devon, wrote a long and gory poem about the bloody, ongoing conflict between Catholics and Huguenots in France. Dowriche's The French Histor...
7 Kesä 202140min
