Podcast Episodes
Back to Search
Dutch Golden Age: 'The Goldfinch' and its Painter
Episode 249
On the morning of 12 October 1654, in the Dutch city of Delft, a sudden explosion was followed by a thunderclap that could be heard more than 70 mile…
2 years, 8 months ago
Henry VIII's Billionaire Wardrobe
Episode 248
Henry VIII was described as the 'best dressed sovereign in the world' by the Venetian ambassador Sebastian Giustinian. The Tudor King spent the equiv…
2 years, 8 months ago
Girls on Stage and Page in the Elizabethan Age
Episode 247
Contrary to the idea that the early modern stage was male-dominated, girls actually played an active part in religious dramas, civic pageants, Elizab…
2 years, 8 months ago
Stealing the Crown Jewels with Al Murray
Episode 246
In 1671, an Anglo-Irish officer, the self-styled Colonel Blood attempted to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London. The thwarted crime broug…
2 years, 8 months ago
Elizabeth I's Censored Annals: A Major Discovery
Episode 245
Did King James VI of Scotland plot to assassinate Elizabeth I? Did she name him as her successor? For centuries, dozens of pasted-over passages in th…
2 years, 8 months ago
Christopher Wren
Episode 244
Best known for St. Paul’s Cathedral, Christopher Wren was the greatest architect Britain has ever known. But he was so much more: he applied his mind…
2 years, 8 months ago
Treasures of Lambeth Palace
Episode 243
Books belonging to Henry VIII, Richard III, Mary I and Edward VI are among the treasures in the historic library of the Archbishops of Canterbury, on…
2 years, 9 months ago
Seymour, Dudley & Parr Families: Forgotten Tudor Women
Episode 242
Seymour, Dudley and Parr are all well-known Tudor names. But often, behind the more famous men in those families, there were women who had a much gre…
2 years, 9 months ago
The African Samurai
Episode 241
How did an enslaved East African man become Japan’s first foreign samurai, and the only ever samurai of African descent? How did Yasuke catch the att…
2 years, 9 months ago
Gentileschi: Greatest Female Artist of the Baroque Age
Episode 240
Artemisia Gentileschi was the most celebrated female painter of the 17th century, as famous in her lifetime as Reubens or Van Dyke. But the events of…
2 years, 9 months ago