Louis XIV: Sun King and Propagandist
How did Louis XIV use his day-to-day life, especially his marriage, to help create the mythology of the Sun King as semi-divine, radiant and unrivalled?In 17th-century France, monarchy was performed, ...
14 Maj 47min
Royal Favourites: James I and George Villiers
How did a relatively humble gentleman become the most powerful man in Stuart England?Few figures embodied the glamour and instability of the Jacobean court more completely than George Villiers, who ro...
11 Maj 1h 3min
Hoaxes and Lies in the Enlightenment
How did a ghost story bring London to a standstill? Was it a haunting, a fraud, or something even more revealing about Georgian society? Why did rational, educated people fall for elaborate hoaxes?Pro...
7 Maj 56min
Royal Favourites: Robert Dudley, Elizabeth I's Forbidden Love
Passion, scandal, and power collided in the tumultuous relationship between Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley. Rumours of secret trysts between them set the court ablaze, but their love was doomed from th...
4 Maj 43min
Anne of Cleves: New Discoveries
What if Henry VIII’s “discarded bride” actually showed real promise as queen?Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Dr James Taffe to discuss new discoveries about Anne of Cleves’ surviving account ...
30 Apr 46min
Francisco de Cuéllar: Spanish Armada Captain
How did a condemned Spanish Armada captain survive shipwreck, betrayal, and war to leave behind one of the most extraordinary first-person accounts of the 16th century?Francisco de Cuéllar was a caree...
27 Apr 48min
Anne Boleyn at Hever Castle
What was Anne Boleyn like before she became the most controversial queen in English history? Can the rooms and gardens at her childhood home reveal more about the world that shaped her?Professor Suzan...
23 Apr 53min
Maria Theresa, Habsburg Empress
How did a woman rise to power, and keep it, in the fiercely male-dominated Habsburg Empire?From her distrust of the Enlightenment to her religious intolerance, and from family strategy to imperial pow...
20 Apr 50min
