Queens, Kings, and Dastardly Things

Did Queen Victoria find love again and become more powerful than ever? Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams explore the extraordinary second act of Victoria’s reign: a story of grief, scandal, royal gossip and an unlikely new man in the Queen’s life. After the death of her beloved Prince Albert, the 42-year-old Victoria retreats into mourning and largely disappears from public view. Her popu...

A passionate marriage. Nine children. Assassination attempts, and the monarchy is threatened with a scandal. In the second part of our deep dive into Queen Victoria, Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams explore Victoria as wife, mother, monarch and increasingly formidable stateswoman. Her marriage to Prince Albert begins as an intense love affair, but behind the carefully cultivated image of...

Queen Victoria would give her name to an age, but she was never really supposed to be Queen at all. Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams go back to the chaotic royal family of George III and the unexpected death that triggered a desperate race to produce an heir, a contest that eventually produced the baby Alexandrina Victoria. Her childhood at Kensington Palace was anything but happy. Contr...

An unusual Royal connection to the Nuremberg Trials that prosecuted members of the Nazi leadership. Eighty years after the trials, we know the names of the Nazi leaders in the dock and the MEN who prosecuted them. But what about the extraordinary women who helped bring them to justice? Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams are joined by Natalie Livingstone, author of The Nuremberg Women, to u...

Grace Kelly had it all: beauty, an Oscar, Hollywood stardom and a glittering career ahead of her. Then she married a prince. Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams revisit one of the great celebrity fairy tales of the 20th century: the marriage of Grace Kelly to Prince Rainier of Monaco. But behind the wedding-of-the-century photographs lay a rather more complicated story. From Grace’s battles...

The Bayeux Tapestry is one of the most famous works of art in the world: nearly 70 metres of kings, battles, betrayals and bloodshed. But how much of the story it tells can we actually believe? Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams unravel the extraordinary 11th-century embroidery that turned the Norman Conquest into a medieval propaganda epic. Who commissioned it? Why was it probably made by...

We’ve had the Boleyn girls. Now meet the Aragon girls: two sisters born into perhaps the most powerful royal family in Europe, whose lives would take very different but equally extraordinary turns. Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams head to Renaissance Spain to meet their formidable mother, Isabella of Castile: warrior queen, patron of Christopher Columbus and, with Ferdinand of Aragon, ar...

Wives, bloodshed, war: the end is approaching for Henry VIII, but England’s most notorious king is not going quietly. In the final part of our epic journey through Henry’s life, Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams meet his doomed fifth wife, Catherine Howard, and discover how a convenient change in the law helped send another queen to the scaffold. Then comes wife number six: the clever, gl...

Henry VIII finally has his longed-for son. So why isn't he happy? Continuing our Tudor season, Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams explore one of the most dramatic chapters of Henry's reign. Within days of Anne Boleyn's execution, he's married Jane Seymour. At last, the Tudor dynasty has its male heir, but the triumph is heartbreakingly short-lived. Then comes Henry's next great gamble: the...

He broke with Rome. He defied the Pope. He turned England upside down to marry Anne Boleyn. Just three years later... he sent her to the executioner's block. In this gripping third episode of our Henry VIII series, Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams unravel the extraordinary rise and devastating fall of England's most fascinating queen, Anne Boleyn. From the birth of the future Elizabeth I...

One king. One controversial romance. One decision that would change England forever. In the second episode of our Henry VIII series, Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams chart the extraordinary rise of Anne Boleyn, the brilliant, charismatic courtier who refused to become the king's mistress and instead demanded a crown. As Henry's obsession deepens, Catherine of Aragon fights to save her ma...

Six wives. Beheadings. A tyrant on the throne. You think you know Henry VIII... but that's not where this story begins. In the first episode of our Tudor season, Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams go back to the making of England's most infamous king. Discover why Henry was never supposed to wear the crown, how the death of his older brother changed history forever, and why Catherine of Ar...

Kidnapped, blindfolded, locked in a cupboard for weeks and then caught on camera during a bank robbery. In the second part of our look at America's closest thing to a royal dynasty, Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams unravel the astonishing story of Patty Hearst, the newspaper heiress whose abduction by a revolutionary gang became one of the most sensational crimes of the twentieth century...

America's newspaper magnate who built himself a palace worthy of a king! In this episode of Queens, Kings and Dastardly Things, Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams explore the extraordinary world of William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper titan whose vast fortune, political ambition and spectacular California castle earned him a reputation as America's uncrowned monarch. At the heart of the...

What do Royals and hot dogs have in common? Both are part of the most remarkable diplomatic relationships in modern history. In this special Independence Day episode of Queens, Kings and Dastardly Things, Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams mark America's 250th birthday by exploring the often surprising story of the relationship between the British monarchy and the United States. From King...

A wonderfully strange-but-true episode of Queens, Kings and Dastardly Things with Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams. From a mysterious sighting over Lord Mountbatten's estate at Broadlands to Prince Philip's fascination with UFO reports, the story takes in royal astronomers, Victorian visions of life on other worlds, Cromwell-era plans for a gunpowder-powered "space chariot", and the curi...

Secrets hidden behind the walls of one of England's greatest country houses! In this special episode, Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams step inside Badminton House with its chatelaine, the Duchess of Beaufort, to uncover the extraordinary royal and historical stories that lie beyond the immaculate lawns. Spoiler alert: Prince Harry once demonstrated some very poor judgment after a party t...

Love and death: Queen Cleopatra, Mark Antony, and the truth about that asp. In this second episode on Cleopatra, Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams follow the Egyptian queen through the final and most famous chapter of her life. After the assassination of Julius Caesar, Cleopatra found herself navigating a dangerous new world of Roman power struggles. Her alliance with Mark Antony would be...

The Queen who captivated Rome and changed the course of ancient history: Cleopatra. In this episode, Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams begin a two-part exploration of Cleopatra, separating the woman from the myth, and tracing her rise in one of history’s most dangerous political worlds. Born into the turbulent Ptolemaic dynasty, Cleopatra inherited a kingdom rich in power but riddled with...

Celebrating the extraordinary Roman legacy that continues to shape Britain. In this episode, Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams explore the final centuries of Roman Britain, from the construction of Hadrian’s ( Game of Thrones style) Wall to the collapse of imperial control in AD 410. As Roman rule matured, Britain became one of the empire’s most important frontier provinces. Emperors came...

Celebrating Britain’s warrior queen who led a revolt against Rome. In this episode, Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams examine the uprising of Boudicca in AD 60–61 — why it began, how it unfolded, and what it reveals about life under Roman rule. After the death of her husband, the Romans annexed his kingdom, publicly flogged Boudicca, and assaulted her daughters. In response, she united se...

Did Julius Caesar really conquer Britain — or did he simply say he did? In this opening chapter of our Romans in Britain trilogy, Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams step back to the edge of the known world: Iron Age Britain. A land of tribal rivalries, painted warriors, and swirling myths — and, to Roman eyes, a place as strange and distant as the moon. Twice, Caesar crossed the Channel in...

Henry VIII’s fifth wife - was she a reckless flirt or a tragic pawn in Tudor history? In this episode of Queens, Kings and Dastardly Things, Professor Kate Williams is joined by the brilliant historian Professor Suzannah Lipscomb to unravel one of Tudor history’s most debated figures. Was Catherine a naïve teenager caught up in deadly court politics, or a young woman who made all the wrong choices...

Frogs, foxes, fossils—and four generations of royalty. In part two of this special celebration, we continue our exploration of the remarkable parallel lives of Queen Elizabeth II and Sir David Attenborough—two figures born just weeks apart in 1926 who went on to shape how we see the modern world. From wartime childhoods to global influence, we trace how both became defining voices of the 20th and...

What do Queen Elizabeth II and Sir David Attenborough have in common? More than you might imagine. In this third episode, celebrating the Centenary of Queen Elizabeth, we explore the remarkable parallel lives of two icons born just weeks apart in 1926 — figures who would go on to shape not just Britain, but the very way we see the world. One inherited a throne; the other helped invent television a...