Queens, Kings, and Dastardly Things

Expert history with a wicked twist: Queens, Kings and Dastardly Things is the podcast that goes behind palace doors and beyond the balcony smiles, to uncover the stories that the history books have politely skipped.

Queens, Kings & Dastardly Things reveals the schemers, lovers, plotters and even the pets who’ve made the British monarchy the world’s longest-running reality show.

Hosts, Royal biographers Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams trace how power, passion and paranoia have shaped every crown. There are queens who ruled better than their husbands, and princes who partied harder than their people. We meet saints, sinners and those hovering somewhere in between – from the man formerly known as Prince Andrew to the less-vilified Richard III.

Sometimes we get reflective: how monarchy survives scandal, how image-making began long before Instagram, and why royal women have always been the best crisis managers in the room. Other times we’re just here for the gossip: who wore what, who slept where, and who accidentally started a war over breakfast.

Think of it as history with its crown slightly askew. If you like your royal stories with equal parts grandeur and chaos, step into the world of Queens, Kings & Dastardly Things because behind every coronation lies a cover-up, behind every portrait a scandal, and behind every great monarch… a very patient servant wondering how to get the blood out of the carpet.

New episodes out every MONDAY, wherever you get your podcasts.

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Episoder(102)

Christmas Special: What was the Worst Royal Christmas Ever?

Robert and Kate are back with a dastardly Christmas Special in which they are exploring royal Christmases from yesteryear... did Queen Victoria really invent Christmas? Were Tudor children whipped on ...

23 Des 202426min

10: The Princes in the Tower

This week – in the final episode of Season One – Robert and Kate tackle one of history's most scandalous, unsolved mysteries: what on earth happened to the Princes in the Tower? The disappearance of E...

2 Okt 202438min

9: The Royal massacre you've never heard of

The Nepalese Massacre was one of the most dramatic, bloody royal events to ever happen – and the chances are that most listeners won’t have heard of it. On a summer’s evening in Kathmandu in 2001, Nep...

25 Sep 202431min

8: The Duke of Cumberland and the slit throat mystery!

On 31st May 1810, the Duke of Cumberland – George III’s fifth child, and notorious 19th Century wrong’un – was attacked while asleep in his apartments in St James’ Palace. And, hours later, one of the...

18 Sep 202424min

7: Was Anne Boleyn unfaithful?

This week Robert and Kate tackle one of history's biggest questions: was Anne Boleyn guilty of everything that Henry VIII accused her of? Over the centuries, historians have spilt vast quantities of i...

11 Sep 202439min

6: Did Rasputin really cause the Russian Revolution?

Despite being immortalised in the iconic song by Boney M, the life and death of Grigory Rasputin remains shrouded in mythology and mystery. A mystic healer, political saboteur, and renegade monk, Rasp...

4 Sep 202440min

5: Charles II: Britain’s sex-mad monarch?

Charles II's sexual appetite was infamously compared to a racehorse, and he revelled in reversing the social strictures that Oliver Cromwell had strictly enforced during the Interregnum. Unsurprisingl...

28 Aug 202437min

4: Did a diamond necklace end the French monarchy?

What do you get when you mix a $20 million diamond necklace; a sycophantic cardinal; a con-artist; and Marie Antoinette? Only one of French history’s biggest royal scandals – a scandal that, arguably,...

21 Aug 202443min