All language subtitles for Cunk on Britain s01e02 The Empire Strikes Back.eng

Today, Britain
stands at a fork in its crossroads.

And its people are asking
questions.

Now we've got our country back
what actually is it?

Who are we? And why?

The best way to find out where
Britain's heading is to

look behind us
into something called "history"

a sort of "rear view mirror"
for time.

So that's where I'm going.

Back there.

It's a journey that'll take me
the length

and width of the country,

from the white cliffs of Dovver
to the

Scottish high lands
of the Scottish Highlands.

On my odyssey, I'll be starting
sentences in one location,

and finishing them in another.

And looking at some of the biggest
faces in British history,

and asking other people's
faces about them.

Henry didn't get arrested after
he killed his first wife, did he?

What sort of mistakes did the Tudor
police make that led him

to kill again?

All of it taking place in this
skepterred isle we call home.

So join me, Philomena Cunk,
as I take you right up

the history of The United Britain
of Great Kingdom.

This...is Cunk On Britain.

Last week we discovered how God
invented Britain,

who the Romans were, and why
we went to war with the roses.

But that was just the beginning.

By the time the Wars of the Roses
ended, Britain was literally

on the map, somewhere near the top,
showing how important it was.

The British had a firm grasp
of the solid parts of the country,

like this rock, but there was a load
of stuff round the edges that

wouldn't do as it was told.

It was wet.

It was full of fish.

And it wouldn't make up its mind how
close to the rock it wanted to be.

In this episode, I'll discover how
Britain came to rule the waves

and invent the Umpire.

It's a story about events
beyond Britain's coastline.

So I'll be using the C-word a lot.

Sea.

HARPSICHORD MUSIC
This is Hampton Court Palace,

a building so impressive it has to
be accompanied by harpsichord music.

These days Hampton Court is open
10.00 till 4.30 in the winter,

10.00 till 6.00 in the summer,

with last entry to the maze
45 minutes before closing.

Prices start at £18.40 per adult
and £9.20 per child.

A family ticket will set you back at
least £32.30 - unless you're buying

that ticket in the 15th century,
and your family name is Tudor.

But what do we mean by the word
"Tudor"? Let's ask an expert.

What do we mean by the word "Tudor"?

Er... The word "Tudor"
is quite controversial

because the Tudors, at the time,
didn't call themselves "Tudor".

Tudor is the family name,
the Welsh family name,

of the ancestors on the father's
side of King Henry VII

but the only person who calls
Henry VII "Henry Tudor"

is Richard III when he's trying to
stop him becoming king.

And he uses the name "Tudor" just
to mean "this is some random Welsh

"person, rather than an appropriate
person to replace me as king".

So the Tudors don't use the name
Tudor very much at all.

Some people refer to it as being
their family name later on.

Sorry, I had that thing you know
where you just,

your brain stops listening?

If the Tudors were the Kardashians
of their time, this was their Kim -

Henry of Eight, the kingiest
king who ever kinged over Britain.

If you had to draw a king,
you'd definitely draw him.

Although maybe not as well as this,

unless you're a 16th century
portrait artist.

But what was
so great about Henry of Eight?

Why is he the king
we all still remember, unlike, say,

Richard V.

Well, for one thing he was fat, so
he takes up more room in the memory.

But Henry's also memorable
for his chronic wife addiction.

He had six wives -
all called Catherine.

He was a Catherine-aholic.

Or "Catholic" for short.

He got through so many Catherines
he actually got bored of killing

them, and had to invent a new way of
getting rid of them, called divorce.

The Pope hated divorce,
so Henry decided to divorce him.

He took back control, broke with
Europe, and made up a new religion,

which it turns out is easier to do
than Popes like to pretend.

Henry created the Church of England,
didn't he?

And did he have to find
a British Pope?

He didn't need to find
a British Pope.

You could just have bishops.

You can just use the bishops

and people that you've
got in there already.

If you had to find a British Pope
now, who would you go for?

You couldn't use
the Archbishop of Canterbury?

No. You have to have someone else.

Someone from without the church.

Yeah, like Matt Baker,
off The One Show.

Erm...so that... So you...

Matt Baker off the One Show...
He's not an obvious choice, you see.

That's why I think he'd be good.

But the more you think about it,
the more it makes sense.

Henry of Eight kept having
a go on new wives

because he wanted a boy to pop
out of one of them.

And eventually one did -
called Edward.

When Henry died, Edward became king,
aged just nine years old.

Edward died aged 15 - the youngest
anyone had ever died of old age.

He was followed as king
by Lady Jane Grey.

She ruled for nine glorious days -
almost a week.

These were among the fastest
royals we've ever had.

After Jane came this woman -
Queen Mary.

And there really was
"something about Mary" - but not

something funny like Cameron Diaz
with all dried spunk in her hair.

Mary's something was religious
intolerance.

She had so many Protestants
burned at the stake

she became known as Bloody Mary.

Because, like the drink,
she was horrible.

The next Queen was Queen Elizabeth,
who, in the first of many

such coincidences, appeared just
in time for the Elizabethan era.

Queen Elizabeth One got her crown
screwed on here,

in West Minister Abbey.

Elizabeth One was a new sort
of king, in that she was a queen,

which meant she got paid less
and sat on horses sideways.

To stop persecution,
Elizabeth allowed her subjects to

practice whatever religion
they liked, as long as

they pretended to be Church
of England when asked, like middle

class people do when they want
their kids to go to a posh school.

During Elizabeth's reign British
culture flourished, especially

the world of theatre, which is
sadly still with us to this day.

The greatest playwrighter of the age
was Will.i.am Shakespeare.

It's often said
if Shakespeare were alive today,

he'd be sending his scripts to
television and film companies,

who wouldn't make them because
they were so long and boring.

But while audiences thrilled to the
tedious drama of Shakespeare's

terrible plays, some pioneering
Britons were experiencing

real drama - by going out exploring.

It was now the British got really
into boats -

by getting into boats.

Sailors of the time were
like spacemen,

but on water, exploring the unknown
armed only with an engineless

wooden car called a boat,

and a sort of basic paper sat nav
called a map,

which had hardly anything on it

because hardly anything had
been found yet.

On maps of the sea,
do they show the hills?

You know, the little moving hills
with the white bit on top?

The waves?

Is that what they call the moving
hills with the white bits on top?

I think, I think that's
what you mean.

Did an explorer ever try to
sail into the sky?

You know, find a bit of sea that's
sort of going up and...

No.

Despite the difficulty,
King Queen Elizabeth sent

a load of sailors over the sea to
nick treasure off the Spanish,

and then to nick whole countries
off whichever brown people were

standing on them at the time.

The first British explorer to do
this was Sir Walter Raleigh.

Sir Walter Raleigh was a great
sailor, wasn't he?

So why is it today
we only remember him for his bikes?

Well, there might have been
a connection between that

branch of the Raleigh family
and the later bike manufacturer,

but I very much doubt it.

People weren't using cycles of any
kind in Sir Walter Raleigh's days.

Oh, really?

I think we really have to accept
that Sir Walter Raleigh was

really just an expert sailor.

How did Sir Walter Raleigh
invent the potato?

Well, he didn't invent
the potato, in that

I don't think anyone actually has
ever invented a root vegetable.

Because they were obviously
being cultivated

and used by people living in the
Americas when he arrived there.

When Sir Walter Raleigh first saw
potatoes, was he scared of them?

I think that when Sir Walter Raleigh
first saw potatoes, not that

we've any documented records
on the moment when he first beheld

a potato or a field of potatoes, but
I don't think he was scared of them.

This is a buccaneering character.

And I think he probably was able
to take on and

manage his emotions whilst engaging
with potatoes at first sight.

We still celebrate potatoes to this
day - by buying and eating them.

It's amazing to think that
Queen Elizabeth was the first

British monarch to be
impressed by a baked potato.

And the last.

Walter Raleigh was big news

but he wasn't quite as big
news as Sir Francis Drake.

This is Drake's ship,
The Golden Hind, which is

Tudor for "Arse of Gold".

It was in this ship Drake became
the first person to circumcise the

globe, which is probably why this
sort of ship is called a "clipper".

Imagine being on deck in that
perilous age.

You're in the middle of the ocean.

A mighty thunderstorm's brewing.

There's a sailor over there.

Another one over there.

The king sailor turning
the...the steering wheel thing.

Potatoes and spare wooden legs
rolling around the deck.

A seagull up that, er...pole thing.

Someone reading a treasure map
through a telescope.

A bloke with a white beard carrying
a tray of fish fingers.

Pirates all laughing in that sort of
horrible throaty way that they do.

And, at any moment,

the prospect that you might just
sail off the edge of the world.

It's a sobering thought.

Which they'd have needed

because they were all
pissed to the bollocks on rum.

The British's
mastery of the oceans made

Catholic King Philip of Spain
furious, in Spanish.

So he sent his secret weapon to
attack England -

a woman called Spanish Amanda.

The story goes that Drake was
playing a leisurely

game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe
when the Spanish attacked.

But Drake didn't let the Spanish
attack put him off his stroke.

He just carried on playing
with his balls.

According to records,
when he'd finished,

Drake changed back into his normal
shoes, and thrashed the Spaniards.

At war, not bowling.

England was victorious.

Meanwhile in Scotland there was
another Mary on the scene -

Mary Queen Offscots.

Mary and Elizabeth were
rivals for the throne.

Catholics loved Mary, because
they go mad for anyone called Mary.

So Elizabeth cut her head off,
which made it harder for Mary to

take the throne, because she could
no longer see where it was.

Elizabeth had ended the rivalry.

The final score was one head,
to nil.

Elizabeth died without ever
marrying,

so has gone down in history
as the Vegan Queen.

She left no heirs, which was
the olden word for children,

making her the season
finale of the Tudors.

The next top Royal was
King James, who luckily

hadn't inherited his mum's
missing head,

and so could become King of Scotland
and England at the same time.

King James I of England was also
King James VI of Scotland,

wasn't he? He was.

Was he also the other five
King James' in between?

No, but he was rather conscious
of those other five James'.

Do you think he ever forgot
which James he was?

No, I'm pretty sure that he knew
there'd been all five before him

and they'd had rotten lives.

Oh. The first had been
murdered by his subjects,

the second killed by an exploding
cannon, the third was murdered

by his subjects after losing
a battle, the forth was killed in

battle and the fifth died of nervous
exhaustion after losing a battle.

So was it just bad luck being
called James then, do you think?

No, the Stuarts are an astonishingly
accident-prone family.

King James brought England, Scotland
and Wales together, didn't he?

King James brought
England, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall

and Ireland together.

So he brought all those together.
That's right.

Like Simon Cowell when he brought
together...

One Direction.

Yes, except it lasted a bit longer.

Which is your favourite?

Of the kingdoms?

No, of One Direction.

Er...I don't have one.

Yeah, very wise.

Thanks to King James,
Great Britain was born.

And with it came a new flag,
the Onion Jack -

a sort of megamix of the nations'
previous flags.

The Onion Jack has it all -
the white and red of England,

the blue of Scotland,

and from Wales, red again,
from the dragon,

but not the actual dragon

even though it's the best
bit of the flag.

Basically, whoever was doing this
probably just had a ruler

and couldn't face doing the dragon.

King James was Protestant,
and knew that Catholics wanted to

kill him, so he had all his clothes
padded in case he was stabbed.

Unfortunately, he didn't have the
Houses of Parliament padded,

and that's where the
Catholics chose to attack,

using explosions.

This photo from the time shows
the Gunpowder plotters,

in the hats and false beards
they used to hide their identities.

What they didn't know is that
someone had written

their names on the wall behind -
which is why they all got caught.

But one man was about to cause even
more explosive changes to Britain -

Oliver Cromwell.

Some of Cromwell's fellow Puritans
had sailed away from Britain's

shores, hoping to forge a new
life of Spartan misery in the

new-found land of America.

But Cromwell stayed behind to fall
out with King Charles One.

He wanted Parliament dissolved,
but nobody could find a glass big

enough, so they decided to have a
civil war instead.

They called it a Civil War
because there was a swear jar,

and people apologised after
killing each other, like in tennis.

The Civil War was a clash of styles.

The King's Cavaliers had panache,
and weird outfits,

while Cromwell's Roundheads were
basic, brutish little bulldog men.

It was like a fight between
Wayne Rooney and Noel Fielding.

But not as funny.

Eventually, after many
re-enactments just like this,

the Roundheads won, 1-0.

Charles was caught in a big
king net,

and executed here, in Whitehall.

A proud man to the last, he wore two
shirts so no-one could see him

shiver,
to preserve his regal dignity.

And according to witnesses
it worked.

His severed head rolled
regally along the ground,

pumping blood everywhere
and getting covered in hay and dirt

and dried-up
flecks of dignified fox shit,

and no-one mentioned the rest of him
shivering at all.

Under Cromwell, Britain became
less fun than ever before,

including when it was just rocks.

As a Puritan, Cromwell outlawed
popular entertainment -

effectively turning the entire
country into BBC FOUR.

Little wonder that after
Cromwell died,

everyone decided it would fun
having a king once more.

Charles II came down from the tree
he'd been hiding in and everyone

was happy again until suddenly,
in 1665, the plague happened.

Again.

Why did they decide to have the
plague twice?

More than anything it must
have just been boring.

Well, they had many, many more
times than twice.

Did we get the plague because of the
European free movement of rats

and fleas and our inability to
control our borders?

It certainly looks as though the
epidemic came to England by ship.

Mmm.

So in that sense, yes,
it's imported.

They are immigrant rats and fleas.

And they wouldn't integrate,
except when they bit us.

The Great Plague of London finally
petered out in 1666 - just in time

for The Great Fire of London which
started here, in Pudding Lane.

It was a hot, dry summer

when a thatched wooden bakery
full of highly combustible flour

and flaming ovens inexplicably
caught fire for some reason.

How hot was The Great Fire
of London?

Could you, like, stand in
somewhere like Maidenhead

and sort of warm your hands
on it like that?

You couldn't warm your hands
but you probably could see it.

How many other cities did
The Great Fire of London burn down?

No other cities,
it was The Great Fire of London.

But lots of other places were
affected.

But how do we know no other
cities burnt down

because it would have burnt
them down?

Yes, but we know that London was
burnt, even though

it was burnt down.

So we would have the same
sorts of information about other

places that didn't burn down.

But there might have been another
place burnt down,

that just burnt down completely.

And now we don't know cos it's
not there cos it was burnt down.

But then that wouldn't be part of
The Great Fire of London, would it?

No, it would be outside,
wouldn't it? Yes.

So were there any others
that burnt down?

There don't seem to have been
any other fires at the same time.

Although we don't know
cos they burnt down.

Well, that's one way
of looking at it.

We know a lot about the plague

and the Fire of London from the
diaries of this man - Samuel Pepys.

Samuel Pepys is probably the most
famous diarist in the world.

Apart from Anne Frank, but no-one
knows what happened to her.

We do know what happened to Pepys,
because he put it in his diary.

Pepys was brave, wasn't he,

writing his diary at the time of
The Great Fire of London?

You know, all that paper.

He risked his life for us
really, didn't he?

I don't think
he risked his life for us.

It was for himself.

If Pepys was alive today,
do you think he'd be doing Snapchat?

And it's best to say yes

because we're trying to attract
younger viewers.

Yes, I'm sure he would be.
Yeah. Definitely, yeah.

After the fire was blown out
by the King, London was extensively

rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren -

the most significant bird in British
history since Francis Drake.

This is his finest achievement.

Sir Paul's Cathedral -

built on a site of spiritual
significance near the

Sainsbury's Local and the restaurant
where they do First Dates.

As well as being big,

the Cathedral was the first
building in the world with a hat.

It would get ten out of ten
in Cathedral Review Monthly,

if that magazine existed,
which it doesn't.

Meanwhile, London wasn't the only
thing that was being burned -

witches were too.

People genuinely believed witches
were amongst them,

their fear fuelled by
leaked photos like this.

There wasn't a clear-cut
way of telling

whether someone was a witch if they
weren't wearing their pointy hat.

So Britain appointed its first
and only Witchfinder General.

Who was the Witchfinder General?

The Witchfinder General was a young
man called Matthew Hopkins.

Matthew Hopkins?!
He went to my school.

This was a different
Matthew Hopkins, I hope.

How'd you know?
He's an IT consultant now.

Well, the Matthew Hopkins I'm
talking about died 350 years ago.

He went on a witch hunt which
covered the whole of East Anglia

and resulted in the death
of about 100 women.

Yeah, it's not
the same Matthew Hopkins.

No. My Matthew Hopkins is going
through a divorce.

Well, I think that's
pretty harrowing,

but compared with stringing up
aged women upon scaffolds

and torturing them into confession,
it's probably fairly minor.

Yeah, puts everything
in perspective, doesn't it?

That's the great
thing about history. Mmm.

Matthew Hopkins devised a method to
test if a woman was a witch.

Hopkins' method was absolutely
fool-proof.

Which was handy, because it had
to be done by village idiots.

The accused woman was
lowered into water.

If they floated they were a witch
and were killed.

If they drowned they were innocent,

and could go on living
a normal life,

underwater, for two to
three seconds.

But the irrational world of witches

and wizards was about to be blown
away by the rational

world of science -
and geniuses like Sir Isaac Newton.

In 1665, Newton ran away from London
because the plague was after him.

So he came here, to Woolsthorpe
Manor in Lincolnshire -

a National Trust property that he
was allowed to live in

because he was famous.

The story goes that an apple
fell from this tree

and landed on Newton's head.

Despite his amazing hair,

the force of the fruity blow caused
several of his brain cells to

rub together - and just
like that he invented gravity.

What was the world like before
Isaac Newton discovered gravity?

Was everything just floating
up to the sky?

Well, gravity was always there
so it just took...

But he just took the credit for it.

Because he had come up with
laws of motion and things like that,

gravity was a major part
of his understanding of the world.

If gravity's real,
as you seem to be claiming,

how come it doesn't work on kites?

In all things there's a balance
of forces, and so a kite stays

in the air because of forces that
are keeping the kite in the air.

Would you say the best example
of gravity today is the game show

Tipping Point,

cos without gravity that
wouldn't work, would it?

For sure. Mmm.

But I wouldn't say it's the best
example of gravity.

There's way more exciting
examples than that.

Go on. Tell me.

Well, there's flight
and...there's walking on the moon.

Oh, I thought you meant "what's the
best game show version of gravity".

Oh, erm...

Deal or No Deal?

It doesn't really use gravity.

Well, I thought you said
everything uses gravity. Erm...

Cos Noel Edmonds would be up
in the roof otherwise, wouldn't he?

That's true.

We're all subject to gravity
without realising it. Mmm.

But the game would still go on...
Mmm.

...even without gravity.

Or maybe not actually.

I've thrown you now, haven't I?

You have.

Made you think.

But gravity had a dark side.

While everyone in Britain was busy
thinking about why things fall,

across the Atlantic an entire nation
was about to tumble,

just like an apple,

onto Britain's head.

On 4th July, 1776,

America officially declared a war
of independence from the British.

It was a brutal conflict,

with the British eventually
suffering a humiliating defeat

a mere 210 years before the premiere
of the BBC sitcom Brush Strokes.

Because of you, these things I do

Because of you

Because of you, oh...

Losing America was a real
knee in the balls for Britain,

but fortunately for national pride,

one great British hero
was about to rise -

Vice Admiral Viscount Lord
Horrorshow Nelson.

What was Lord Nelson all about?

Why did his parents call him
Horrorshow?

Well, I think they probably intended
it to be pronounced Horatio.

But it just got mish-mashed up
and became Horrorshow?

No, I think that most people still
know him as Horatio Nelson.

As well as being a sailor,
Nelson found time to

star in lots of old paintings,
doing his weird signature pose.

Why did Nelson always have one
hand up his jumper?

What was he doing up there?

He'd lost most of his right arm,
so it wasn't really trying to

conceal his hand,
he was actually missing an arm.

Oh, God.

How do we know that
that's true, though?

Cos, you know, Rod Hull,

he used to have his arm round
an emu, didn't he?

It might have just been that.

He didn't have it blown off at all.

He was just trying to
make his story more interesting.

Well, I don't see why
he would bother to do that.

He was already a heroic figure,

so I don't think he needed to
sort of feign, you know,

serious injury to, if you
like, deepen his growing legend.

So I think we can probably say that,
unlike some things, this is true.

Yeah, and the eye was true.

The eye was true as well,
yes, he wore a patch.

So he was like a pirate,
but like a boring one.

Not being able to clap wasn't
the most annoying

thing in Nelson's life,
he had an arch-enemy -

the annoyingly similar French pirate
Napoleon Cumberbatch.

The fearsome French Emperor had
conquered most of Europe

and was on the verge of having
a conquer at Britain.

But before he could,

he had to have a
Battle of Trafalgar against Nelson.

The Battle of Trafalgar was
one of the most famous water

fights in British history.

And it took place, of course,
here in Trafalgar Square.

It's amazing to think that
back then,

all of this would have been
under water.

Only the top of the column would
have been visible.

On this side,
Nelson's English ships.

On this side, by the Pret A Manger,
the French fleet.

And overseeing it all was Nelson,

stranded on top of his stone stick -
where he remains to this day.

If Nelson was such a hero, why did
we banish him up that big pole?

Well, it's not a banishment,
this was a national celebration.

So this was very much, if you like,
a symbol of British victory

and pride, and honouring of
the man who had been

so intimately associated with
delivering victory at Trafalgar.

But he's so high up, isn't he?

He's sort of out of eye shot.

Well...
And he's getting shat on by birds.

Yeah, I mean, it's...it's a....

Couldn't we have had him
a little bit lower

so that we can have a look at him?

Well, it's a fair point, I mean...
It's just like a joke.

Yeah.

Nelson's great victory at Trafalgar
was sadly spoiled for him

when he was shot by a French sniper.

Taken below decks, he was comforted
by his Naval colleague Hardy,

who kissed him to death.

If Hardy was kissing Nelson
at the exact moment he was dying,

to what extent would that make him
a necrophile?

Cos that's a serious offence.

Well, it took him three or four
hours to die, and this particular

famous moment took place when Nelson
was still very much alive.

So there was nothing dodgy about it?

Nothing dodgy at all.

Nelson may have died,

but a whole new chapter of British
history was about to be born.

And it was all thanks to one woman.

Queen Victorian Era.

But that's a story for another
time and place -

next week and here.

Next time, I'll be
looking at the 19th century

and asking the big questions.

Who was Albert Hall?

Why did Oliver Twist?

And what are Words Worth?

Wordsworth wrote
"I wandered lonely as a cloud",

but clouds don't have legs, do they?

No.

So how was he allowed to get away
with that kind of stuff?

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