Not Just the Tudors

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 rose to become one of the most influential men in England. To some he was charismatic, brilliant, and irresistible; to others, he was reckless, arrogant, and dangerously powerful.

In the second episode of our series on Royal Favourites, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb explores the extraordinary rise and dramatic fall of George Villiers with his biographer Lucy Hughes-Hallett.

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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?

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Dr.Madeleine Pelling, co-host of History Hit’s After Dark podcast, to uncover the darker side of the Age of Enlightenment. Why was this period remembered for science, reason, and progress, also fascinated by hoaxes, imposters, fake identities, ghost stories, sensational crime and public spectacle?

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Murderous Women

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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 the start.

In the first of four episodes looking at royal favourites in the Tudor and Stuart courts, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and Dr. Joanne Paul unravel the complex tapestry of Robert Dudley's life, Elizabeth's devotion and the decades of political intrigue and personal heartbreak.

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Tudor True Crime: Murder of Amy Dudley

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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 book, a rare 200-page record of every pound, shilling and penny that reveals Anne’s queenship through spending, patronage and household life.

They discuss the “shadow” household retained after Jane Seymour, what the accounts do (and don’t) show about roles and wages, and the striking discovery that many servants were paid by the king—raising questions of loyalty once Henry turned against Anne.

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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 career officer shaped by the harsh realities of early modern warfare, surviving looting, imprisonment, betrayal, and a brutal overland escape through a hostile landscape. Cuéllar's journey became one of the most gripping survival stories to emerge from the Spanish Armada shipwrecks.

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Cuéllar's biographer Francis Kelly to explore a story of survival, imperial warfare, and one man...

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 Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Dr. Owen Emmerson to find out more about the magical place where Anne Boleyn grew up, how Hever shaped her early life, education, language skills, and future role at the courts of Europe and England.

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Cromwell, Boleyn & Aragon: A New Discovery

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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 power, Maria Theresa was a remarkable ruler driven by discipline, faith, dynastic ambition, and political will.

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Professor Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger to discover how Maria Theresa held together a fractured empire, confronted war and court politics, and reshaped Europe.

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Habsburg Women: Matriarchs of Power

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How did England’s earliest travellers to India try to win favour in a Mughal golden age that scarcely noticed them?

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb speaks with Dr Lubaaba Al-Azami about Tudor and early Stuart England’s turn to global trade after Elizabeth I’s break with Catholic Europe, and why Mughal India—vast, wealthy, and pragmatically governed—had little need for English wool or broadcloth.

They trace the first arrivals: from a Catholic refugee to an Englishman's Mughal courtly success and marriage, as well as the first English 'walking tourist'.

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What if becoming queen was the worst thing that could happen to you? What if the crown became your death sentence?

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb explores the tragic story of Lady Jane Grey, the brilliant, devout teenager, who was proclaimed queen of England against her will, reigned for less than two weeks, and was executed before her 17th birthday.

Drawing on insights from her new two-part History Hit documentary series, Suzannah is joined by Professor Anna Whitelock, Dr Joanne Paul, Verity Babbs, and Dr Nicola Tallis to uncover the story of a young girl caught in...

She cut off her hair to sail the seas. She divorced her husband by locking him out of his own castle. And when her son was killed by the occupying English, she sailed straight up the Thames to plead for help from Elizabeth I. Or did she?

Gráinne Ní Mháille, or Grace O'Malley, the legendary "Pirate Queen" of Ireland, was the head of a seafaring dynasty, while the Tudors tightened their grip, she commanded fleets, forged alliances, waged war, survived imprisonment, and outwitted some of the most ruthless men of her age.

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Why were Shakespeare’s greatest heroines played by teenage boys? How did they learn their craft? On the Elizabethan stage, highly trained young men progressed from minor parts to play some of the Bard's most famous heroines, including Juliet and Cleopatra.

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Professor Roberta Barker to uncover how these cross-dressing apprentices brought some of the Renaissance theatre's most memorable characters to life.

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Shakespeare's First Playhouse

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Girls on Stage and Page in the Elizabethan Ag...

What happens when a fleeing armada meets an unforgiving coast? Shipwreck, slaughter and survival collide as Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and Michael B. Barry uncover the untold Irish chapter of the Spanish Armada. From shattered galleons and mass executions to lost princes and lingering myths on wild Atlantic shores, this is a storm‑lashed saga where the real battle begins after the guns fall silent.

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The Spanish Armada

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Mary Rose and the Battle of The Solent

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Assassination plots, Venetian stand‑offs and a diplomat in disguise: how did one maverick change the course of history?

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and Professor Carol Chillington Rutter uncovers the spy‑thriller life of Henry Wotton, the “honest man sent to lie abroad” for his country. From foiling an attempt on King James VI’s life to pulling Europe back from the brink of war during a showdown between Venice and the papacy, they discover how this scoundrel‑ambassador helped invent modern diplomacy.

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Private Life of King James VI & I

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Was Captain William Kidd a ruthless pirate or a pawn in a royal gamble gone wrong? Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and Debbie Kilroy trace his meteoric rise from privateer to pariah, backed by a secret syndicate of powerful men, including the king. Mutiny, murder, and betrayal follow as power and politics turn Kidd’s royal commission into one of history’s most dramatic downfalls.

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Women Pirates of the Caribbean

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Pirates of the Pacific & the Spanish Empire

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Who had a stronger claim to the English throne than Henry VII? When Henry Tudor took the crown on the battlefield at Bosworth, his hereditary claim was fragile. Eighteen Plantagenet descendants had a more legitimate right to rule, while pretenders Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck kept the Tudor court under constant threat.

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Gone Medieval host Matt Lewis to unravel one of the great mysteries of history: if not Henry VII, then who was the rightful king of England?

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Henry VII: Reign of Jeopardy

Was there really a 17th century Italian woman who helped hundreds of wives murder their husbands, or is her story a myth born of fear and gossip?

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb investigates the legend of Giulia Tofana, the so-called criminal mastermind behind a secret poison network. With historical novelist Cathryn Kemp, she uncovers the blurred line between truth and terror, reveals how the Pope hunted down a group of women who were not only independent businesswomen but who were striking back at abusive husbands across Italy.

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Tudor True Crime: Murder in Renaissance...

Who wanted Elizabeth I dead, and how close did they come to removing her? Who were the conspirators and rebels who plotted to put Mary, Queen of Scots on the throne?

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Professor Jonathan McGovern to unravel the Northern Rebellion, the Ridolfi and Throckmorton conspiracies, the chilling Babington Plot, and the shadowy intrigues of spies, traitors, and foreign powers who tried to topple the Tudor queen.

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Tudor True Crime: Who Murdered Lord Darnley?

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Warning: This episode contains references to sexual abuse

What became of the women whose worlds collapsed when the Spanish arrived in Mesoamerica? Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Mexican author Sofia Robleda to uncover the lives of the women who navigated conquest, faith, and colonial law with resilience and strategy.

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The Caribbean, Colonisers & Christianity

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Cortés and the Aztecs

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Who would rule Britain after the childless Queen Anne died in 1714? Why was a distant German Protestant dynasty chosen over closer claimants to the throne?

In the final part of our series on the Restoration monarchs, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Dr. Brent Sirota, to explore what the Hanoverian succession settled and what it left unresolved, defining modern Britain beyond just the crown.

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Queen Mary II & the Glorious Revolution

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James II: The Restoration's Last Catholic KIng

Was Henry Tudor a tyrant obsessed with control, or a visionary who created peace and prosperity? How did a penniless exile with a tenuous claim to the crown found a dynasty that reshaped the nation? How did he fight off pretenders to the throne?

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Dr. Sean Cunningham to explore how Henry VII, from unlikely beginnings, stabilized a kingdom torn apart by decades of civil war and laid the foundations of the Tudor age.

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The Last Plantagenets in Tudor England

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Has history been unfair to Queen Anne, the last Stuart monarch? Was she weak and easily led, or one of Britain’s most determined and underestimated monarchs?

In this episode of our Restoration series, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and Queen Anne's biographer Lady Anne Somerset examine a queen whose reputation has long been shaped by caricature.

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Sister Queens: Mary II and Anne

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How to Run a Stuart Household

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In the mist‑shrouded Highlands, a quiet minister dared to trespass into forbidden realms. Convinced that fairies were not mere fables but a hidden nation with laws and lives of their own, Robert Kirk set out to reveal their secrets, and paid a terrible price. When Kirk died suddenly in 1692, locals whispered he had not died at all, but been taken alive into the Fairy Commonwealth for his betrayal.

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and historian Rachel Morris journey into Kirk’s haunted world, an age when science and sorcery, angels and spirits, coexisted in a twilight of wonder and...

What does it take to rule as an equal in a man's world? How did a quiet, devout queen help reshape Britain’s monarchy forever?

All this month, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is exploring the Restoration monarchs. In this episode, she focuses on Queen Mary II, England’s first and only joint sovereign, who ruled alongside her husband William of Orange. Far from being a passive partner, Mary was politically astute, deeply devout, and a formidable cultural influence, playing a pivotal role in forging Britain’s constitutional monarchy. Dr Holly Marsden joins Suzannah to examine Mary II’s reign an...

This episode contains discussions of sexual assault, violence and child abuse. Listener discretion is advised.

How did the mob lynching of a notorious astrologer and occultist in June 1628 act as a grim prelude to the demise of King Charles I? Why did John Lambe - accused of witchcraft, sorcery, and moral corruption - become the target for popular anger at a monarchy seen as distant, corrupt, and unaccountable?

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Professor Alastair Bellany to uncover how witchcraft accusations became political weapons, and how the killing of one man revealed a...

A king with unyielding faith. A nation on the brink. A crown lost to revolution.

King James II is often dismissed as the unfortunate monarch swept aside by William and Mary. But behind the Glorious Revolution lies a story of ambition, devotion, and downfall more dramatic than legend would suggest.

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb joins Dr. Breeze Barrington to uncover the man behind the myth. Was James a tyrant blinded by belief, or a visionary undone by his own time?

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The Restoration Queen: Maria of Modena

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Was Henry VIII's fifth wife a promiscuous teenager and then heartless adulteress and schemer? Celebrated, scrutinised, and endlessly talked about at court, Katherine Howard’s reign was dazzlingly brief; within two years of marrying the king, she was accused of adultery and treason and executed.

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Gareth Russell and Dr Nicola Clark to get to know the real young woman who was plucked from obscurity, whose life was cut short by the unforgiving power politics of Tudor England.

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Anne Boleyn’s Final Year

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From clinging to a tree while evading capture, his face blackened with soot, to triumphantly sailing home to reclaim his crown — the story of Charles II is one of survival, spectacle, and transformation. 

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb guides us through the Restoration, tracing life in England from the shadow of civil war to the glittering courts of Restoration London, and discovers how intrigue, scandal, plague, and fire gave rise to an age of theatre, science, and unfettered pleasure. 

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Nell Gwyn: Actress and Royal Mistress

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After the execution of King Charles I, England became a Republic for the only time in its history. Yet why was this revolutionary moment so short-lived? Why did Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth collapse?

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb explores its rise and demise with a panel of expert historians: Professor Ronald Hutton, Dr. Jonathan Healey and Dr. Miranda Malins. Together they discuss what the Republic's failure reveals about authority, popular consent, and the enduring pull of monarchy in 17th-century Britain.

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The English Civil War

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Was Mary Tudor truly “Bloody Mary”? Has England’s first reigning queen been misunderstood for centuries? Determined to restore Roman Catholicism, her reign became forever associated with the burning of Protestants. But was she really a religious tyrant, or a trailblazer trapped by Europe's violent politics?

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Professor Anna Whitelock to put the record straight on the remarkable reign of Mary I, five turbulent years which shaped the future of England in profound, and often misrepresented, ways.

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Mary I: What if She'd Lived?

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What impact did the Tudors have on Ireland, not just in the councils of kings and earls, but in the rhythms of ordinary life? What were the consequences for ordinary citizens when English power was asserted through martial law, low-level coercion and the constant threat of punishment?

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Dr David Edwards to discuss how communities were reshaped from the ground up.

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Ireland's Witchcraft Trials

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Tudor Conquest of Ireland

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Why was a Portuguese-born Jewish doctor, who rose to become Elizabeth I’s chief physician, brutally executed for treason in a scandal that shocked England? Was Dr. Rodrigo Lopes truly guilty, or simply caught in the crossfire of anti-Semitism, court rivalries, and empire?

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Dr. Samia Errazouki to reexamine Lopes’s fall, tracing a web of diplomacy, espionage, and identity that stretched from London to Lisbon to Marrakesh.

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Elizabeth I & the Sultan of Morocco

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Could one of art’s greatest mysteries at last be solved? Who was the luminous girl with a pearl earring in Vermeer's iconic painting? Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Andrew Graham-Dixon who believes he's finally identified her.

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Shakespeare's Male Muse: A Mystery Solved?

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A Tudor Mystery: The Girl Who Could Be Queen

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Presented by Professor Suzannah Lipscomb. Edited and produced by Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is...

The Pilgrimage of Grace sounds calm, but was in reality a major uprising in the north of England against Henry VIII’s religious and political reforms, including the dissolution of monasteries.

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Professor Andy Wood to retell the legend of when tens of thousands of rebels risked their lives to try to restore Catholic practices and influence government policy, rocking the very seat of the King.

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Dissolution of the Monasteries

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The Rebellions of 1549

How much do we really know about William Shakespeare, his wife Anne Hathaway, and the family tragedies that may have shaped the bard's greatest work? This is the premise of Maggie O'Farrell's luminous novel Hamnet, now adapted into a major film starring Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley.

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks to Maggie O'Farrell about transforming Shakespearean history into unforgettable fiction, and reviews the film with Dr Will Tosh from Shakespeare's Globe.

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Shakespeare's Family: New Discoveries

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Shakespeare's Daughter...

This episode contains discussions of incest and sexual assault.

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by historical novelist Elizabeth Fremantle to explore the harrowing story of Beatrice Cenci, a young woman executed in Rome in 1599. They discuss how Beatrice survived an abusive upbringing and her eventual participation in the murder of her father, highlighting the brutal realities faced by women of the 16th century.

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Who Murdered Lord Darnley?

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Same-Sex Marriages in Renaissance Rome

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What happens when a Queen refuses to name her heir? How does she hold her kingdom together when every courtier is secretly preparing for her death? What really unfolded in Elizabeth I’s glittering court as her long reign drew to an end?

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb explores the unspoken crisis at the heart of Elizabeth I’s rule with Dr. Tracy Borman. Together they discuss how the hidden struggle for succession became one of the most precarious moments in English history.

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From Tudor to Stuart: Regime Change

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Was Christopher Marlowe a rebel, a genius, or a heretic ahead of his time? From his plays that shocked Elizabethan England to his brutal murder, Marlowe's short, dazzling life was defined by rivalry, scandals and secrets.

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and Professor Stephen Greenblatt delve into Marlowe's provocative ideas, his rumoured queerness, and the dangerous brilliance that left an indelible mark on English literature.

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Marlowe & Shakespeare: Rivals or Collaborators?

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Tudor True Crime: Murder of Christopher Marlowe

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In the early modern period, belief in fairies was quite commonplace. But put all thoughts of Tinkerbell aside! Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Professor Diane Purkiss to find out how these fairies were altogether more dangerous beings - troublemakers, child-snatchers, seducers and changelings.

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Transgender Fairies in Early Modern Literature

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Practical Magic: Spells, Prayers & Cunning Folk

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Why are diamonds black, and how does a triangle show power in Tudor portraits? From Henry VII’s shrewd statecraft to the glittering reign of Elizabeth I, the Tudors projected their power not just through politics, but through visual propaganda, art and objects.

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Dr Christina Faraday, who ventures beyond the Tudor rose and the famous faces painted by Holbein to take us deeper, uncovering how art and objects shaped the ambitions and identities of people at every level of Tudor society.

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Fig Leaves & A Grumpy Je...

The unsolved mystery of what happened to the Princes in the Tower - Edward V and Richard, Duke of York - is possibly English history’s greatest cold case. Were they murdered by their paternal uncle Richard III?

Recent findings have raised new questions about the 540-year-old mystery. Professor Suzannah Lipscomb explores the evidence with Nathen Amin and Matt Lewis.

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Henry VII: Rise of the Medieval Tudors

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Tudor True Crime: Murder in the Stuart Court

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