Not Just the Tudors

What was everyday life like for an ordinary person in Tudor times? How did dramatic changes in population, climate, disease and the economy reshape villages across England?

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb steps beyond the royal palaces to discover the world most people actually knew. She is joined by Professor Andy Wood who reveals the resilience, relationships and realities that shaped the lives of normal folk.

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Normal Women with Philippa Gregory

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Tudors & Their Dogs

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How did a child written off by the Tudor court rise to become one of England's most iconic monarchs?

Before she became queen, Elizabeth Tudor was surrounded by scandal, suspicion and deadly intrigue. Born to Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII, Elizabeth was a princess by birth, until her mother was executed and her title revoked. Declared illegitimate and caught in a storm of politics, Elizabeth faced threats from all sides.

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Dr. Nicola Tallis to trace Elizabeth’s incredible transformation from disgraced daughter to Queen of England.

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How did Captain James Cook's scientific voyage of 1768 become a mission for the British empire?

While expanding knowledge of Pacific geography and natural history, Captain Cook was under secret orders to claim lands for Britain.

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and Dr Sarah Easterby-Smith explore this legendary expedition which combined science, commerce and colonial expansion.

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When Europeans reached Australia

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Magellan: The First Man to Sail the World

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Who were the scandalous, defiant couple on the margins of Dutch society who became part of the founding story of New York?

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Professor Alan Mikhail to uncover the extraordinary lives of Anthony “the Turk” and Grietje Reyniers, who arrived in 17th-century New Amsterdam and quickly became infamous. Their story reveals a forgotten, messy and multicultural origin story of New York City, one far stranger than the myths America later told about itself.

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The Birth of New York City

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Was James V of Scotland a beleaguered child king or a brilliant Renaissance ruler who mastered the performance of power?

Crowned before his second birthday, James curbed powerful magnates, strengthened royal authority and secured Scotland’s place in Europe, holding together a kingdom threatened by faction, England and religious upheaval.

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Dr Amy Blakeway to reassess a monarch who navigated politics, diplomacy and danger, while presiding over a dazzling court that embraced ceremony, humanist learning and spectacle.

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Rise & Fall of James IV of Sc...

How did a murderous, swaggering, wildly unreliable goldsmith become one of the most celebrated artists of the 16th century? Does genius excuse monstrous behaviour?

Benvenuto Cellini's story is as shocking as it is dazzling, taking him from the bloody streets of Florence to the Sack of Rome, papal prisons, accusations of sodomy, spectacular jailbreaks and timeless artistic masterpieces.

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Dr. Noah Charney to explore Cellini's outrageous life.

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Vasari: Inventor of Artistic Genius

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Why does C.S. Lewis's Narnia - with its images of winter, sacrifice, kingship and renewal - continue to resonate with generations of readers? How did Lewis weave Renaissance symbolism and Christian imagination into one of literature’s best-loved fantasy worlds?

Lewis’s deceptively simple children’s stories were shaped by his scholarship in classics, literature and theology. Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Professor Alister McGrath, to uncover the intellectual and historical influences behind these much-loved books.

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The Man who Wrote Robinson Crusoe

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What really happened inside England’s most feared court? Was the Star Chamber a sinister instrument of royal tyranny, or a vital route to justice for those ignored by ordinary law?

From its rise under Henry VII to its abolition in 1641, the Star Chamber heard cases involving murder, witchcraft, libel, corruption, riots, political dissent and scandalous family feuds.

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Dr. Daniel Gosling to explore the dramatic history of one of the most controversial institutions in Tudor and Stuart England.

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Ireland's Witchcraft Trials

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Who really ruled Elizabethan England?

For almost four decades, William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, guided Queen Elizabeth I through religious turmoil, assassination plots, the threat of the Spanish Armada, the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the unresolved question of succession.

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Jon Culverhouse to explore the life and legacy of the meticulous, fiercely Protestant statesman who became the indispensable power behind the Tudor throne.

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Royal Favourites: Hatton, Elizabeth I's Favourite

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What was the French Revolution like for those who lived through it? What can private journals reveal that speeches, pamphlets and official records cannot?

From the storming of the Bastille to the Terror and the guillotine, ordinary witnesses recorded the personal impact of 1789, political violence, revolutionary identity and everyday life in Paris.

In this final episode of our mini-series on the French Revolution, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb finds out more from historian Michaela Kalcher.

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French Revolution: Storming of the Bastille

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Was Elizabeth I really as angry and bad tempered as history has always claimed? How did some of her most secret state letters come to be penned by a Spaniard, while England was at war with Spain?

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb breaks the news of groundbreaking research that proves Elizabeth's secretaries - especially her 'spymaster' Francis Walsingham - put words into the Queen's mouth to amplify her tough image. Suzannah finds out more from Dr. Clodagh Murphy and Professor Nadine Akkerman.

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Spycraft: From the Elizabethans to the Restoration

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How did the French Revolution, built on liberty, become ruled by fear? And how did Robespierre - the man who had sent kings, nobles and priests to their deaths - himself end up beneath the blade of the guillotine?

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and Professor Marisa Linton explore the rise and fall of the lawyer, revolutionary, and architect of the Reign of Terror,

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Marguerite de Navarre: Mother of Renaissance France

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True Crime: Medici Murder at the Louvre

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Was the Protestant Reformation ever truly global? How did radical theology, empire, slavery and missionary ambition collide across the early modern world?

The global spread of Christianity was marked by failure, compromise and moral evasion.

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Dr. Alec Ryrie to uncover the forgotten history of Protestant missions beyond Europe: from Lapland to Chile, from Barbados to Taiwan.

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What did Henry VIII Believe?

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Dissolution of the Monasteries

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What drove a hungry city to storm a fortress? How did the fall of the Bastille become the defining symbol of the French Revolution?

In this second episode of our series, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and Professor Marisa Linton visit Paris on the verge of revolt. Together they explore the build-up to the storming of the Bastille, one dramatic day which changed the heartbeat of the French Revolution.

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Who Lit the French Revolution?

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Marie Antoinette

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Was a London magistrate, found dead in a ditch in 1678, the victim of a Catholic conspiracy, political convenience, or secrets too dangerous to survive? Why did Edmund Berry Godfrey's murder send England into hysteria?

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Dr. Andrea McKenzie to reopen the case. Drawing on newly deciphered letters, secret correspondence and neglected archives, they uncover a murky world of espionage, faction, coded messages and lethal knowledge, where truth itself became dangerously unstable.

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Charles II: Restoration of the Monarchy

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How did a kingdom of palaces, privilege and powdered wigs collapse into revolution? What turned hunger into uprising?

In this first episode of our series on the French Revolution, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and Dr. Charles Walton discuss the slow-burning crisis that transformed frustration into revolt. Together they explore life in Paris in 1789, where soaring bread prices, royal debt and radical new ideas pushed ordinary people to imagine a different world.

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Montaigne: Philosopher of the French Renaissance

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Molière: S...

How did a Derbyshire gentlewoman become England’s richest woman after Elizabeth I? Why does she still fascinate us as her 500th anniversary approaches?

From four marriages and vast wealth to Hardwick Hall, Chatsworth and the Cavendish dynasty, Bess of Hardwick turned survival into power.

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Professor Lisa Hopkins to discover a gripping story of female ambition, marriage, captivity, betrayal and court politics.

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Bess's Hardwick Hall

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Mary, Queen of Scots: The Ma...

How did our understanding of the universe begin in a London coffee house? How did a man who had a comet named after him change science forever?

From his youthful voyage to St Helena to chart the southern skies, to his pioneering studies of navigation, longitude, gravity, and the Earth’s atmosphere, Edmund Halley’s curiosity knew no bounds.

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by David K. Love to explore the remarkable life of one of the great figures of the Scientific Revolution.

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Isaac Newton: The Man at the...

Why did the Pilgrims risk everything in search of a new life and religious freedom? Why does their contested history still matter ahead of the 250th anniversary of American independence?

In 1620, the Mayflower carried English religious separatists, across the Atlantic to found Plymouth Colony.

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb speaks with Professor John G. Turner about their dangerous Atlantic crossing, and the human stories behind the legendary Pilgrim Fathers.

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The Bible

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Walter Raleigh’s Quest for El Dorado

**This episode contains graphic explorations of starvation and cannibalism**

What happens when a colony reaches the edge of survival?

In this third episode leading up to the 250th anniversary of American independence,

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and Dr Rachel Winchcombe examine the so-called Starving Time of 1609-1610, when Jamestown settlers faced famine, desperation and cannibalism. Together they reveal the complex human story behind early colonial America’s most infamous crisis.

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Raleigh and the Lost Colony of Roanoke

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How did one woman scandalise sixteenth century London by refusing to live by its rules?

Mary Frith - aka Moll Cutpurse - rejected the expectations of respectable womanhood, wore men’s clothes, smoked a pipe, carried weapons, and frequented London’s taverns, theatres, prisons and courtrooms.

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and Dr. Holly Marsden explore the extraordinary life and afterlife of Moll - pickpocket, performer, and notorious Roaring Girl of Elizabethan and Jacobean England.

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Murderous Women

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How did the Stuarts turn fragile American outposts into an empire? How did English settlers, Native peoples - including Pocahontas - and London investors shape 17th-century Virginia, and why do these early colonial encounters still matter as the 250th anniversary of American independence approaches?

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined again by Distinguished Professor Peter C. Mancall to discuss Stuart America, the Virginia Company and the founding of Jamestown.

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Elizabethans in America

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Raleigh and the Lost Colony of...

How did the gun become a fashion item in Renaissance Italy? Why do debates over firearms, self-defence and public safety sound so familiar today?

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and historian Catherine Fletcher trace the rise of guns from battlefield technology to coveted courtly accessory. Together they discover how firearms transformed warfare, society and empire-building, and why the history of gun regulation five centuries ago still echoes in modern politics today worldwide.

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Henry VIII's Brothers in Armour

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Henry VIII At...

How did two Indigenous men help shape Elizabethan England's dreams of empire? What do these early encounters tell us about the contested beginnings of colonial America?

In the 1580s, English explorers ventured west in search of land, influence and advantage. But this was not an inevitable march toward empire.

As the 250th anniversary of American independence approaches, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and Distinguished Professor Peter C. Mancall explore a story of uncertainty, encounter and conflict.

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Raleigh and the Lost Colony of Roanoke

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What effect did the Great Plague have on Londoners, their society and the wider state?

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and Rebecca Rideal revisit the summer of 1665, as a few suspicious deaths grew into a crisis that swept through the city with devastating speed. Entire households vanished, fear curdled into suspicion, outsiders were written out of the official record - and Restoration England was reshaped forever.

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Great Fire of London

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Diary of Samuel Pepys

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Was Anne Boleyn a seductress, a schemer, or something far more radical? What happens when we look at Anne not through the lens of sex and scandal, but through religion?

From Tudor observers to Six the Musical, Anne Boleyn has been labelled the woman who tempted, manipulated and overreached. But Professor Suzannah Lipscomb's guest Reverend Canon Martha Tatarnic, an Anglican priest, instead offers new insights into Anne’s faith, agency and historical significance.

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Anne Boleyn at Hever Castle

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How did a teenage rebel become Scotland’s king, and rule a realm riven by feuds and shifting loyalties? James IV balanced chivalry, diplomacy, and danger, yet led his country to catastrophe.

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and Prof. Michael Brown explore how James transformed himself into the most remarkable Renaissance monarch.

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Henry VIII's Sister, Margaret Queen of Scots

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How to Kill a Scottish Witch

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**Warning: Contains graphic description of the mutilation of corpses**

In April 1617, Concino Concini, Marshal of France, was shot dead as he entered the Louvre. But his murder was only the beginning of a terrifying chain of events.

How did the assassination of this hated royal favourite unleash mob violence, propaganda and a new political order? And what fate awaited the woman blamed for bending France to a foreigner’s will?

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and Dr Una McIlvenna explore scandal, misogyny and print culture in a moment when violence remade the French monarchy.

What did it mean to be English when merchants, sailors, captives, diplomats, and migrants were constantly crossing borders?

Pirates, a Kentish man becoming a Samurai and a king on the warpath; Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and Professor Nandini Das trace tales of reinvention, danger and belonging in this exciting, hugely changing world.

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England’s First Ambassador to India: Thomas Roe

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Giordano Bruno: Mystic, Heretic, Spy

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How did Sir Christopher Hatton became one of Elizabeth I’s favourites?  How true were the rumours that they were lovers?

After catching the Queen's eye in 1561, Hatton was quickly promoted to the Privy Council, making a significant impact on Elizabeth's complex religious policy. Yet he has often been overshadowed by her other favourites like Dudley, Cecil and Walsingham.

In the final episode of our series on Royal Favourites, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb finds out more about Hatton’s rise from minor gentry to Elizabeth I's closest aide from Dr. Neil Younger.

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What if the medieval world did not end with a bang, but with a messy argument over who gets to define history itself? Professor Suzannah Lipscomb spars with Gone Medieval's host Matt Lewis over Gutenberg, the Reformation, witchcraft, plague, the Renaissance, and the Wars of the Roses to ask where medieval ends and early modern begins. The result is a lively, surprising fight over power, change, and the making of the modern world.

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Mother of All Tudors: Margaret Beaufort

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How did Sarah Churchill become the most powerful woman in Queen Anne’s court? What happens when a royal friendship turns into a political battlefield? How did one absent set of jewels signal the beginning of the end?

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb continues her series on royal favourites with biographer Ophelia Field. Together they explore the extraordinary story of Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough — the intimate friend, political operator and fierce chronicler whose influence shaped Queen Anne’s reign and who refused to go quietly.

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Queen Anne: The Last Stuart Monarch

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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, witnessed, and widely circulated. Using portraits, medals, sculptures and official pamphlets, Louis XIV meticulously constructed his own image, appearing as Apollo, Jupiter, Hercules, Neptune, a Roman emperor, and even as the sun itself. Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and Dr. Abby Zanger explore the Sun King's carefully staged world.

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Marie Antoinette

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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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Private...

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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