Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchBy What Authority - The Fortunate Revolution.
Season 7 Episode 8
The Dominion of New England did not fall because the colonies resisted it. It fell because the king who built it lost his throne in a single winter. …
4 years, 3 months ago
By What Authority - Holy Experiment
Season 7 Episode 7
In 1670 a London jury was locked up without food, water, or heat and ordered to convict a young Quaker named William Penn. They refused — and the rul…
4 years, 6 months ago
By What Authority - The Inner Light
Season 7 Episode 6
In 1659 a woman stood on the gallows on Boston Common with a rope around her neck — and was cut down alive at the last moment, by a reprieve her son …
4 years, 6 months ago
By What Authority - The Dominion
Season 7 Episode 5
In 1683, in a colony that had never held an election, under an Irish Catholic governor appointed by a Catholic duke, New York — of all colonies — wro…
4 years, 6 months ago
By What Authority - The King's Diagnosis
Season 7 Episode 4
For six years Edward Randolph tried to collect the king's customs in Boston, and for six years the city beat him — every ship he seized returned by a…
4 years, 6 months ago
By What Authority - Accounting Empire
Season 7 Episode 3
There was a man in London who knew more about America than almost anyone alive, and who never crossed the ocean to see it. William Blathwayt sat in t…
4 years, 6 months ago
By What Authority - The Duke's Colony
Season 7 Episode 2
In 1681, the king's own customs collector stood trial for treason in New York — charged by the colony's merchants with levying war on free Englishmen…
4 years, 6 months ago
By What Authority - The Dutch Problem
Season 7 Episode 1
England planted the colonies. The Dutch carried the goods — and kept the profit. By 1640 Dutch trade was double England's, run on three inventions no…
4 years, 6 months ago
The Grand Model - Ungovernable
Season 6 Episode 8
In 1690 a man stepped off a ship in Charles Town and made himself governor of Carolina by overthrowing the governor — and the strangest part was that…
4 years, 6 months ago
The Grand Model - Flesh and Deerskin
Season 6 Episode 7
Before Carolina grew rich on rice, it grew rich on a commodity pulled out of the southern interior: people. Deerskins were the steady business, but s…
5 years ago