Original subtitles

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the story of the kings and queens of

England is more surprising than you

might think it's a fine drama a thousand

years of tales of lust and betrayal of

heroism and cruelty of mysteries murders

tragedies and triumphs

if the Stuart is when you think about it

the most surprising of all it's the

story of a country deciding then it

should abolish the monarchy and become a

republic and then without any outside

force or pressure overthrowing the

Republic and making itself a monarchy

again that never happened anywhere else

why did it happen here James became King

of Scotland when his mother Mary fled to

England in 1567 he was one year old when

he was crowned James the sixth he grew

up learning how to steer a path between

religious fanatics and the violent

Scottish nobility and at the same time

acquired a serious scholarly education

he was very proud of that

he pleaded for his mother's life but

accepted the fact of her execution by

the English Queen Elizabeth business was

business and he had no memory of Mary

he'd been taught that she was a Scarlet

woman and she had after all murdered his

father and taken a lover he was the

recognised heir to the English crown and

he wasn't going to put that in danger

and so in 1603 when Elizabeth the Virgin

Queen eventually died

the oldest monarch England had ever had

he came from Edinburgh to London for his

coronation

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he was openly bisexual the word in

London was that Elizabeth had been a

king and now they had James the Queen in

Latin of course by the accident of

heredity England and Scotland were now

United in a single Kingdom Britain

everyone had high hopes of James

especially the Roman Catholics who

thought that his distaste for bossy

Scottish Presbyterians would encourage

him to lift Elizabeth's restraints on

their worship they were wrong about that

so a group of well-connected Roman

Catholic terrorists planned to blow up

the entire political structure at the

opening of parliament in 1605 they

brought over an explosives expert from

the Low Countries he organised placing

two and a half tons of gunpowder in a

cellar under the Palace of Westminster

it's a sign of how secure England became

but for the last 200 years November the

5th the anniversary of Guy Fawkes is

capture has been simply an excuse for a

fun night of pretty explosions today of

course in the shadow of 9/11 511 has a

more chilling resonance al-qaeda

terrorism has tainted many people's idea

of Muslims which perhaps makes it easier

to understand how Fox's terrorism

affected people's idea of Roman

Catholics actually James himself was

more sympathetic to high church than too

low because the followers of Protestant

sects did not want priests and bishops

to do religion on their behalf in the

Protestant view the godly man has his

own Bible the devil's agent is a priest

with a Catholic prayer book

James felt the people who didn't have

respect for hierarchy in church would be

equally disrespectful of authority in

general no bishop no King was his fear

and the authority of the King was very

dear to him he spelled out his ideology

in masks theatrical balls in his new

banqueting house in Whitehall his

intellectual take on the job was that he

was God's deputy and that he ruled by

divine right as the absolute sovereign

power in England having been raised in

Scotland he was rather baffled by the

idea of common law the notion that law

was in the hearts and minds of the

people expressed through the precedence

of the courts and their juries of

ordinary folk

but this was the essence of the English

system it had been essential for the

Normans to operate that way as foreign

rulers in a land they didn't know and it

had become embedded in the fabric of

English life Henry the eighth and

Elizabeth had the position of tyrants

but their tyranny required popular

consent they had to be popular in order

to rule James wasn't good at being

popular he was head of a court a place

of factions and favorites and was grand

in a very private way one example of his

sense of power and duty was in his

treatment of tobacco it had been

introduced from America by water Raleigh

and Elizabeth had felt rather alarmed by

it it made her feel ill she bet Raleigh

that he couldn't way the smoke that came

out of a pipe Raleigh knew how to

perform

he weighed an ounce of tobacco smoked it

weighed the ash and the missing weight

was the smoke

Elizabeth laughed and paid up saying

she'd seen men turn their gold into

smoke but this was the first time she'd

seen smoke turned to gold James's whole

approach was different he disliked

smoking and felt it was his duty to

protect his subjects but he was a

rational man a teacher so he wrote a

pamphlet counterblast to tobacco

explaining that it was loathsome to the

eye hateful to the nose harmful to the

brain dangerous to the lungs and in the

black stinking fume thereof nearest

resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of

the pit that is bottomless he wanted to

persuade people by the force of his

argument so he published it anonymously

of course no one took any notice

so as the wise and kindly father of his

people he banned the growing of tobacco

in England and increased the customs

duty on tobacco by four thousand one

hundred percent

and reissued the pamphlet with his name

on it

his whole approach was based on rational

thought not an English habit and what he

saw as the absolute authority of a king

also rather foreign to them and his

authority was not backed by any army and

his income was too small to run both the

court and the government the regular

royal income came from rents on lands

feudal Jews and customs duties

but the flood of gold and silver coming

to Europe from the New World had created

inflation reducing the real value of

that income

medieval government was designed for

rather static farming economies and vast

estates towns run by common folk with

special liberties granted in charges had

been useful little add-ons but now

international and intercontinental trade

had blossomed the nobles had declined

the towns had become major financial

centres inflation the growth of

Protestantism a lack of respect for

traditional authority the emergence of

assertive members of parliament none of

this was restricted to England but in

England it had a slightly different

flavour everywhere else the ruler made

the law he was the law but not in

England kingship existed under the law

James simply didn't understand this he

was certain that the job of King meant

being above the law and being James he

not only understood this was the problem

but said so as a matter of principle and

when the Lord Chief Justice disagreed

the Lord Chief Justice got the sack

James was people said the wisest fool in

Christendom he needed to raise taxes but

taxation was always regarded as a

special event taxes might be levied if

there was an emergency need for cash but

the law said that this could not be done

without the agreement of Parliament

which gave the Commons the chance to

present demands to him they expected

what was called redress of grievances

before granting him supplies and these

were exactly the kind of people who

tended to be Puritans low church with no

real sense of proper deference to people

better borne than themselves so he

avoided that as much as possible his way

of life didn't help either

his diversions were hunting an obsession

and pretty young men another obsession

right at the start of his reign he took

up with a pretty young Scot who'd been

his page Robert Carr was given the

estate of the executed Walter Raleigh

and quickly became a vacant and a privy

councillor when Carr decided to Wed the

married 17 year old Countess of Essex

who hated her husband James helped to

sort out the divorce the countess's

family the Howards detested car but

realised this was the best way to get

into favorite court cars close friend

Sir Thomas / burry tried to warn him off

that filthy base woman which annoyed the

countess so the sweet young couple

poisoned

Sir Thomas which opened the door

eventually to the Howards enemies who

exposed the murder plot to James while

providing him with another very

beautiful young man George Villiers to

take cars place car and his wife was

sentenced to death and Villiers whose

legs were wonderful became the Duke of

Buckingham and the murderous couple were

pardoned James wasn't exactly a Puritans

role model the time King James died aged

58 in 1625 the king of the Puritans were

set on course for a direct collision and

his son Charles wasn't going to change

direction the new king was 25 years old

Ghosh with a nervous stammer but deeply

conscious of his place as God's anointed

ruler of Britain the new father figure

and he played the part of absolute ruler

as well as he possibly could of course

it was not the part of the Puritan

merchants and Gentry wanted played they

refused to grant taxes without being

allowed a role in government so Charles

tried to manage on the sources of

revenue that didn't need parliamentary

approval the most celebrated example was

when he levied ship money an ancient law

was unearthed obliging seaports to

provide ships in times of war true there

was no war but there were pirates

weren't there in 1630 for Charles made

his demand and told the ports they could

pay cash instead ship money this

engraving was published to make people

proud of paying up and then the next

year he extended the demand to inland

communities otherwise it would be unfair

it was obvious that if he got away with

this he'd have reinvented taxation under

another name and would never need

Parliament at all the entire nation had

steam coming out of its ears one wealthy

Buckinghamshire man John handin MP

refused to pay and was hauled into the

court of Exchequer hundreds of people

tried to jam into the court to watch of

the 12 judges seven found for the king

and five for Hamden since the King had

thought he controlled the judiciary this

was a moral victory for Hamden things

were made worse by Charles's actions as

head of the church he regarded

Puritanism as fundamentally seditious

which made many people think he was

really at closeted Roman Catholic he

wasn't but he was determined to impose a

uniform system of worship which was

decidedly high church and that simply

added to the anger of a growing Puritan

class

Scotland it was met by direct rebellion

without the money to hire reliable

troops and with popular hostility in

London making life positively dangerous

Charles had to accept restrictions on

his power which were to him intolerable

in 1641 he agreed acts at Parliament

which took many powers from him

including the right to dissolve

Parliament and the right to raise

customs duties without its consent in

January 1642 in a state of confused

desperation he tried to arrest five

members of the Commons by actually

turning up there with armed guards he

failed and faced with violent anger in

the streets he fled from London in

November the now inevitable civil war

began people were called upon to choose

between their Kings determination to

break the pretensions of Parliament and

Parliament's determination to limit the

power of the King most people actually

didn't think they wanted to get involved

but the war grew with a murderous logic

of its own and gradually became more

bitter and more inescapable it's now

reckoned that possibly a quarter of a

million people died in battle of

starvation of disease as a result of the

fighting out of a population of about 5

million that's a far higher death rate

than in the First World War

when the war ended in 1646 with the

defeat of Charles's forces an attempt

was made to negotiate a settlement but

Charles was a dishonest negotiator

simply using this opportunity to try and

organize the conquest of England from

Ireland and Scotland and then something

quite new happened in the brief and

decisive second war the parliamentary

army developed a revolutionary will of

its own when Charles was recaptured in

1647 Parliament tried to disband its

forces but general Fairfax and his men

proclaimed that they were not a mere

mercenary army and flatly refused to go

home their job wasn't finished the

revolution had to be completed they said

it had to be established that the House

of Commons was the supreme authority of

England and the king was but at the most

the chief public officer of this kingdom

and accountable to this house that was

in September 1648 the common said to be

so silly

you are exceedingly deceived for God

gives the king his authority the army

wasn't happy with that so it crushed

Parliament it occupied London you

suppose as the cavalry stables and

looted the Treasury

45 MPs were arrested a hundred and

forty-six were barred the romp that

remained were in effect the members

chosen by the Army who would do what it

wanted which was to put Charles on trial

for treason for levying war against the

Parliament in kingdom of England the

rump Parliament as people called it

resolved that they could make laws

without the consent of the king or of

the House of Lords and then passed a law

setting up a court to try the King

Charles Ed that he didn't recognize the

court but someone needed to explain to

him what authority a possessed on the

27th of January 1649 this court

condemned him to death Charles was taken

to the banqueting house that theatrical

set built by his father for dramatic

presentations in which the scripts were

all about the glory of royal power it

was no longer used for those masks

Charles had commissioned Rubens to make

paintings for the ceilings and they were

too precious to be damaged by candle

smoke the ideology of the performances

had now been put on permanent display by

Rubens the painting celebrated James's

absolute rule casting out war and

discord bringing peace harmony order and

prosperity to a grateful people

Charles the small dignified stuttering

man who'd commissioned the work and

presided over the reality that flowed

from it was marched out through a window

onto a specially constructed platform he

wore a thick vest so that he would not

shiver with cold which might be mistaken

for terror and on that stage he knelt

with calm dignity and his head was cut

off

Britain no longer had the king a week

after the execution charles ii was

proclaimed king in scotland but charles

the first eighteen year old son wasn't

there he was in the netherlands he'd

fled to france with a group of

supporters four years earlier and his

one brief attempt to provide military

help to his father in the second civil

war had been a failure

his object now was to find a way of

recovering his Father's throne and to

hell with that stuff about being an

absolute monarch he landed in Scotland

in 1651 and was prepared to sign up to

whatever was asked of him including

agreeing to his father's blood guilt and

his mother's idolatry and becoming

Presbyterian if that's what it took to

be proclaimed king do it the new English

public wasn't going to stand for this of

course the army commanded by Cromwell

took over Scotland Charles's forces were

finally defeated at Worcester if he'd

been caught he would probably have been

killed the story of his escape

disguised as a Worcestershire yokel

became a famous legend at one point he

spent all day hiding with a companion in

an oak tree while the Roundheads

searched for him below it became a

celebrated story in a way that didn't

bode well for the Republic Charles

looked dashing and daring while the

Roundheads looked ridiculous incompetent

in heavy-handed throughout his six weeks

flight he remained cheery polite and

very resourceful ending up in the George

Inn at Brighton it's interesting that

none of the three or four dozen people

who recognized him were moved to betray

him either by the potential death

penalty they faced or the thousand pound

reward they could collect he got away to

France then to Germany and Brussels

living in a kind of limbo short of money

and with no coherent plan of return

so how did he do it after the execution

of Charles the first England was a

republic look at what happened to the

design of the Great Seal the official

mark on statutes and proclamations

here's Charles's seal the seal of a king

he Canter's on horseback with his

greyhound running alongside and the

Latin motto means Charles by the grace

of God King of Great Britain France and

Scotland defender of the faith after his

execution the New Republic was in theory

ruled by the House of Commons so instead

of a king's seal the Great Seal was the

seal of the House of Commons

it shows the Commonwealth a map of

Britain and on the other side are the

Commons themselves and the motto simply

says 1651 in the third year of freedom

by God's blessing restored in English

didn't last though because the real

power wasn't the House of Commons it was

the army for a while the army was too

busy to take much notice of England it

was occupied with the destruction of

Ireland where a large part of the

population were irredeemably loyal to

Catholicism and the monarchy but when it

finally turned round and looked at

England it found that there still hadn't

been a thoroughgoing Puritan revolution

so in 1653 Cromwell the Army's most

powerful general cleared the Commons of

swordpoint and installed a new

parliament which he thought would be

more capable of bringing about a

revolutionary transformation of society

his own chamber of righteous Puritans

the so-called nominated Parliament

turned out to be no more to his liking

and he dismissed that to installing

himself as the Lord Protector

and the Great Seal was now his own

it shows Oliver Cromwell on horseback

just like Charles but stepping out very

stately rather than cantering with a

gray hand and the motto says by the

grace of God the Republic of England

Scotland and Ireland and the protector

Oliver in Latin in what sense was this a

republic

however unwillingly and he kept

protesting his unwillingness Cromwell

was driven by his own belief in the

divine right of revolution to run the

country as a militarized kingdom for

Puritan Saints there were now 11

districts each run not by the people but

by major generals these military

ayatollahs collected taxes ran the

courts and controlled public morality

theaters were closed along with brothels

and gambling dens horse racing and

fights were banned everyone had to go to

church stay sober and morally upright

pagan festivities like Christmas were

banned mince pies were forbidden oh it

must have been great in 1656 a newly

elected parliament made it clear they

wanted to return to the old constitution

they reopened the House of Lords and

offered Cromwell the title of king

he seriously considered it and although

he turned it down

perhaps because the army would have

turned against him two years later on

his deathbed he nominated his eldest

surviving son as his successor like any

other king

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very few people cheered Lord Protector

Richard Cromwell who was he not proud

not acclaimed not the leader of an army

people called him tumbledown dick and

that's pretty much what happened early

in 1660 one of his father's commanders

general monk seized London and summoned

a special Parliament to invite Charles

the second to return to the throne if

you're going to have a king it might as

well be one with the right credentials

tumbledown dick became a private citizen

he changed his name and became a lodger

in Cheshire 30 years later he wrote to

his daughter that his safety was to be

retired quiet and silent he would have

made a good constitutional monarch but

while the English may not have been

quite sure what they did want they now

knew exactly what they didn't want

anything run by soldiers or Puritans

no matter what else would happen in the

world England would never again let a

military man have any political power

and a deep and abiding suspicion had

been created of anyone who looks like a

revolutionary or a religious enthusiast

actually this explains a lot about

English history most countries were at

some time in the last 300 years infected

by revolutionary fervor or ideological

passion but England it seems has been

vaccinated it's been pretty much immune

to political feverishness still is I

think Charles was really a very popular

King his manner was light and easy his

court dissolute and cheerful his sexual

enthusiasm generous and very very unpure

Aten as those great historians sellers

in Yeatman put it in 1066 and all that

not so much a king or a monarch the year

since his father's execution were called

the interregnum and the idea was to

pretend that nothing much had really

happened

the parliamentary records for those

years were torn up an act of Parliament

gave the new king control of the Armed

Forces and Parliament agreed to give him

an inadequate annual revenue ten of the

people who'd been involved in the

execution and trial of Charles the first

were themselves put on trial and then

hanged drawn and quartered Cromwell and

three other military commanders of the

parliamentary army were also put on

trial they didn't put up a very

convincing defence being dead their

bodies were dug up and hung in chains at

Tyburn it was all good popular

entertainment and theatres reopened the

may polls were back in business

Mary England had been restored Charles

had given a written promise of pardons

arrears of Army pay and what was called

liberty of tender consciences in

religious matters he also confirmed land

purchases made during the interregnum

which helped maintain stability but was

a bit of a blow to Cavaliers who'd lost

their wealth of their land by being on

the wrong side in a way the sense of a

new beginning was strengthened by the

destruction of the capital by plague and

Fire

plague was a swift and grotesque disease

which had erupted frequently before but

in 1665 it took a firm grip and killed

about 20% of the city's population

London was largely turned into a ghost

city as the survivors fled

the King who'd moved to Hampton Court

gave a thousand pounds a week to London

charity and then London began to burn

the king returned to the city with his

brother James the Duke of York to take

personal charge of firefighting in the

streets everyone knew that the mayor had

been too timid to pull down houses that

might have created fire breaks until he

was directly ordered to do so by Charles

it certainly helped the Royal image

though it didn't help

London much the old rotting diseased

structure was purified by an inferno

that simply burned the place away as

thoroughly as if it had been blasted by

a nuclear weapon and a lot more cleanly

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and the new city that arose was a

classic image of the political

settlement of the restored monarchy the

old medieval structures had gone but

Christopher Wren's planned for a brand

new city of piazzas and arcades was

rejected that was the sort of

Renaissance princely city that existed

on the continent they were the stages on

which state ceremonies could be

impressively performed by grand leaders

not needed yet Wren was allowed to build

a new modern cathedral and a swathe of

churches in which altar pulpit and

congregation are positioned to be

equally important not to Roman Catholic

not to Puritan

but the old street plan was retained

everyone could rebuild their own place

on their own plot and the narrow streets

and little alleys of medieval London

that still existed in everyone's

memories re grew from the ashes even now

neither German bombs nor modern

developers have quite destroyed them

there mustn't be another fire laws would

insist on flat fronts no overhangs more

brick but the old city that had no

overall plan not even a basic map

reappeared with modern improvements

designed not for a new life but for a

better continuation of the old one

exactly there was a general desire to

better continue things as they had once

been rather than invent something new or

imitate something foreign there was one

other marker in the rebuilt London that

showed what kind of country this now was

this fine column it marks the site where

the fire had begun it shows the

destruction of the city there's Charles

surrounded by liberty genius and science

giving directions for its restoration

and there was originally an inscription

explaining that the fire had been

deliberately begun by Papists in order

to the carrying on their horrid plot for

extirpating the protestant religion and

our english Liberty and the introducing

potpourri and slavery it was nonsense

but a French watchmaker was hanged for

his part in the non-existent plot Robert

boo-bear

he wasn't in London when it happened

there was a pathological fear of papists

awkward Charles had a pension from the

King of France given when he'd promised

to convert to Roman Catholicism the

trick to being a king in this situation

was Charles understood very well not to

say exactly what his job was there was a

parliament and it was beginning to form

parties one pro monarch one ante but

Parliament didn't actually rule the

country that was done by the Kings

ministers a kind of cabinet government

referred to as a cabal which meant that

Charles wasn't seen as entirely

responsible for things going wrong which

they quite often did the Earl of

Rochester wrote a mock epitaph on

Charles's bedchamber door here lies our

Sovereign Lord the king whose words no

man relies on who never said a foolish

thing nor ever did a wise one Charles

saw it next morning and said quite right

my words are my own but my acts are the

acts of my ministers Charles died in

1685 54 years old on his deathbed he

converted to Roman Catholicism

he had no legitimate child left alive

the next in line to the throne was his

brother James who was already a Roman

Catholic this really wasn't going him ii

was only three years younger than

charles ii he was the oldest man ever to

have succeeded to the throne to start

with nothing much seemed to have changed

both brothers had led quite similar

lives both were enthusiastic womanisers

both seemed reasonably pragmatic but the

way James handled his first big crisis

began to create alarm

[Music]

the restoration of the monarchy had

obviously not been welcomed by everyone

in the southwest especially Puritan

religious feeling remained strong and

suspicious especially with a Roman

Catholic King Charles a second had an

illegitimate son the Duke of Monmouth

who was a Protestant rumors began to

spread that he was actually legitimate

the true heir to the throne

mammoth came over from the Low Countries

and began a rising in the southwest

where he was proclaimed king mammoth the

rebellion was crushed

James determined to make an example of

the rebels ordered the arrest and

punishment of everyone involved at each

centre Dorchester Taunton Exeter Bristol

Wells people were rounded up for a

special court known as the bloodiest

sighs punishing not just rebels but

anyone who was accused of even helping

the wounded

around 230 people were executed some

hanged drawn and quartered and about 850

were sent to labor in the West Indies

for 10 years and many more of course

were fined and had property confiscated

and James did not disband the army that

had been formed to put down the rebels

England had a standing army again just

as it had under Cromwell and he

appointed Roman Catholic officers to run

it people began to murmur and when the

House of Lords expressed discontent he

dissolved parliament

and as he continued to appoint Roman

Catholics to public and church offices

public support began to ebb away from

him at his instigation for instance all

the fellows of maudling College Oxford

were dismissed and the college was

turned into a Catholic seminary James

had two daughters who were both

Protestants the elder girl Mary was

married to William of Orange ruler of

the Dutch a Protestant head of state the

heir to the throne would reverse James's

whole policy but early in 1688 James's

Queen gave birth to a son who would be

raised as a Catholic this was he thought

excellent news it made him more secure

he was wrong it sealed his fate well

that and the fact that he seemed to be

preparing for a joint war with Catholic

France against the Protestant Dutch and

now it became evident that the civil war

really had changed the place of the king

in England he ruled by permission of

Parliament and Parliament wasn't going

to put up with this one a group of

leading members of parliament sent a

secret invitation to William of Orange

to save the country from a Catholic

takeover by bringing the military

assistance

William brought over a fleet carrying a

large professional army James tried to

block it with his own fleet but the

winds were against him and William

landed unopposed in November 1688 at

Torbay the West Country had its own

score to settle with James and James

simply panicked

the army wasn't behind him Parliament

wasn't London wasn't he was going the

same way as tumbled and dick in the

middle of the night he scurried out of

Whitehall palace by a secret passage he

got down to Sheerness throwing the Great

Seal into the Thames on the way ha that

wolf oxen didn't Fox anyone he was

captured by local fishermen eventually

William gave him permission to go to

France and no one had the faintest idea

what to do next

William hadn't come to depose James but

to give military backing to Parliament

in their quarrel with him James had

quite obviously quit abdicated gone

taking his son with him England having

failed to be a republic at failed to be

a monarchy it was a bit of a puzzler

perhaps William should declare himself

king by right of conquest he didn't

think so Parliament wanted Mary to take

the crown James's daughter after all but

she insisted that her husband was boss

and he didn't intend to play the Duke of

Edinburgh role two paces behind the

ruling raid this short stooping

asthmatic man with bad teeth was tough

and shrewd he was himself a grandson of

Charles the first and wouldn't make a

humble consort in the end a deal was

struck they would both be sovereigns mr.

and mrs. King and Queen by the

invitation of parliament

[Music]

and they had to sign up to some basic

rules no standing army and less

Parliament agreed to it no raising of

money without Parliament's approval no

royal power to lay down the law the king

and queen couldn't appoint or punish

judges they couldn't make war without

Parliament's consent and Parliament

would decide who could have the crown

and he wouldn't be a Roman Catholic all

the questions posed by the Civil War

were finally answered and it was called

the Glorious Revolution because in the

end the whole basis of royal power was

redefined without anyone being killed at

all except in Ireland of course James

with French backing decided to make a

comeback through Ireland it was after

all one part of Britain where a Catholic

King could expect some enthusiasm

Protestant settlers had been brought

into Ulster and they held Londonderry

and Enniskillen

against the Catholic regiments

eventually in 1690 there was a showdown

between Williams anglo-dutch Danish army

and James's Franco Irish one at the

River Boyne James was beaten in a battle

which has cast a grotesquely long shadow

over Ulster the annual celebration there

of the Protestant victory has never lost

its 17th century passion the irony is

that this was not a religious war at all

it was a war to contain the ambitions of

France and the Pope was actually firmly

on the side of William of Orange the

Vatican was more anti French than it was

anti Protestant the orange men at the

Battle of the Boyne were actually

fighting for the Pope as well as King

Billy and Billy of course was not

exactly English his native tongue was

Dutch William a serious man ended up

spending much of his time on the

continent so in effect Mary did become

the sovereign of England but at the end

of 1694 she died of smallpox

[Music]

England was now in effect ruled by an

oligarchy through Parliament the king

had a role but by no means a commanding

one part of that role as he saw it was

to push forward religious tolerance in a

fundamentally intolerant

Florence does have its limits at his

death in 1702 the question of the

succession had already been agreed and

settled the crown passed to Mary's

sister Anne Anne was married as Mary had

been to a foreign prince but her husband

Prince George of Denmark was no William

of Orange he was a lazy alcoholic and

while Anne was willing to let him be

naturalized as an Englishman and

notional head of the Army and Navy she

was queen and he was a subject no

married queen had ever ruled alone

before Anne and she played it very

weakly

she was very keen on the ceremonial and

quasi magical position of royalty

holding ceremonies where she touched

people with scrofula swollen neck lands

from tuberculosis it was called the

Kings evil and the power to cure it was

supposedly the magical sign of true

royalty she was the last monarch to try

it

Kings had male favorites and had female

favorites the first and closest was

Sarah Churchill the wife of the Duke of

Marlborough they called each other by

pet names the Queen was mrs. Freeman

Sarah was mrs. Morley mrs. mollies

husband was England's leading military

commander and the architect of a

stunning victory at the Battle of

Blenheim that placed England in a

dominant position in Europe but

England's Queen did not decide who to

fight or when to fight or how to fight

politics was no longer really her

business even when in 1707 England and

Scotland were formally and permanently

united by the Act of Union it was not

Anne's doing but Parliament's

and did it was true refused to sign one

act of parliament at around that time

but it was a really minor technical

issue not a real challenge to the power

of the politicians her life was spent

more playing cards

chatting being ill and having nineteen

pregnancies these pregnancies were

watched with fascination by an elderly

lady in Hanover Sofia the Electress

Duchess of brunswick-lüneburg she was

James the first granddaughter and

because there were so few Protestants of

the blood royal left alive she was by

Act of Parliament next in line to the

throne if and died childless and if she

lived off one by one

Anne's pregnancies came and went 14

miscarriages and stillbirths five live

births but by the time and was widowed

in 1708 all of them were dead Sofia aged

78 now just had to outlive the 43 year

old and to become Queen of England and

was a sick woman Sofia was tough as an

old boot she knew she could do it but in

1714 Sofia received an outrageous letter

from an and had somehow got the

impression that Sofia was going to

secretly send her son George to England

in some kind of plot and she told Sofia

that would not be allowed Sofia now 84

was shocked and the shock killed her

just nine weeks before Queen Anne died

Sofia had failed but her son George

would now be king in theory a very weak

constitutional monarch but that hardly

explains why 65 years later English men

launched a new war against royal tyranny

and thousands were killed

England's royalty hadn't exactly packed

up and disappeared but the story of what

they had done we'll have to wait for the

next episode

[Music]

lust and madness loom large in the

colorful reigns of the Georgians tonight

at 10 o'clock and to do a quick

historical quiz about the Stuart's sky

digital viewers press red hardware

coming up on UK TV history

the Hawker hurricane and the aircraft

carrier decisive weapons