Not Just the Tudors
History Hit
300 episodes
Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks about everything from the Aztecs to witches, Velázquez to Shakespeare, Mughal India to the Mayflower. Not, in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors.
More about the show
Each episode Suzannah is joined by historians and experts to reveal incredible stories about one of the most fascinating periods in history, new releases every Wednesday and Sunday.
A podcast by History Hit, the world's best history channel and creators of award-winning podcasts Dan Snow's History Hit, The Ancients, and Betwixt the Sheets.
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Episodes page 1 of 6
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Witchfinder General
In the aftermath of the Civil War, a remote corner of Essex witnessed the most brutally devastating witch-hunt in English history. A dangerous maverick Matthew Hopkins - the 'Witchfinder General' - hunted down…
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How Persia Influenced Elizabeth I
Could an ancient Persian drama have stopped Mary, Queen of Scots from being executed? When Queen Elizabeth I faced an agonising dilemma over her captive cousin, a performance about Cyrus the Great offered her a…
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Thomas, Oliver and the Cromwell Dynasty
From Thomas Cromwell's rise under Henry VIII to Oliver Cromwell’s rule as Lord Protector, how did the faith, ambition, and power of one family shape the course of British history? Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined…
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Gulliver's Travels
Is Gulliver’s Travels just a whimsical children’s adventure story, or is it a scathing satire designed to expose political hypocrisy? From suppressed Irish resistance allegories to biting parodies of Whig corruption,…
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Dark Origins of Fairy Tales
What if the fairy tales you grew up with were never meant for children at all? Long before these stories were transformed into family-friendly animated films, they were forged in the gritty reality of Renaissance…
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How to Survive Henry VIII
How did one man survive serving Henry VIII as principal secretary when others lost their heads? Why is the mastermind behind the King’s final, most turbulent decade so often forgotten? Rising through sheer intellect…
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Britain's Slave Traders
How did a risky 16th-century venture evolve into a national enterprise that fuelled the rise of the British Empire? How did a vast network of royalty, politicians, cultural figures, and ordinary citizens finance human…
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John Dudley, The 'Wicked' Duke
How did the son of an executed traitor rise to become the power behind young Edward VI? Was John Dudley a visionary patriot saving England from crisis or a ruthless opportunist who risked everything for ultimate power?…
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How the Americas Transformed Tudor England
In 1588, mathematician Thomas Harriot mapped a doomed colony and drafted the playbook for English empire. But did Indigenous culture reshape Shakespeare's England just as profoundly? Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is…
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Earl of Essex: Rise & Fall of Elizabeth I's Favourite
How did a favourite of Elizabeth I go from royal darling to executed traitor? Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Dr. Alex Gajda and Dr. Will Tosh to explore the meteoric rise and catastrophic fall of Robert…
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Dutch Armada: The Last Invasion of England
Why did the Dutch Republic risk everything to launch one of the boldest seaborne invasions in English history and overthrow King James II? Why did England’s defences collapse so quickly? How close did the operation…
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Royal Favourites: The Filthy Earl of Rochester
**CONTAINS VERY STRONG LANGUAGE & ADULT THEMES** What really went on behind closed doors in the scandalous court of the "Merry Monarch"? What made John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, both Restoration England's most…
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The Rotten End of Henry VIII
Death, death, and more death surrounds Henry VIII's final years. What happens when a monarch is trapped by physical decay, paranoia, and lethal court factionalism? He may have secured an heir and severed ties with…
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Henry VIII's Reign of Terror
**Contains graphic description of execution** What happened when one monarch's personal obsession dismantled an entire international order? How did Henry VIII transform a marriage crisis into the English…
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Quest for an Heir: Henry VIII, Aragon and Boleyn
In the 1520s, a dynastic crisis loomed behind the brilliance of Henry VIII's court. Desperate for a male heir after Catherine of Aragon's string of tragic pregnancies, Henry's frustration mounted as his foreign…
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Henry VIII: From Cradle to Crown
How did a dazzling young Tudor prince become one of history's most notorious kings? How much of Henry VIII’s later tyranny was shaped by the world into which he was born? Long before the six wives, the Reformation and…
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How to Survive as a Tudor Peasant
What was everyday life like for an ordinary person in Tudor times? How did dramatic changes in population, climate, disease and the economy reshape villages across England? Professor Suzannah Lipscomb steps beyond the…
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Young Elizabeth I: Princess & Prisoner
How did a child written off by the Tudor court rise to become one of England's most iconic monarchs? Before she became queen, Elizabeth Tudor was surrounded by scandal, suspicion and deadly intrigue. Born to Anne…
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Captain Cook: The Voyage that Changed the World
How did Captain James Cook's scientific voyage of 1768 become a mission for the British empire? While expanding knowledge of Pacific geography and natural history, Captain Cook was under secret orders to claim lands…
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Manhattan’s Most Notorious Couple
Who were the scandalous, defiant couple on the margins of Dutch society who became part of the founding story of New York? Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Professor Alan Mikhail to uncover the extraordinary…
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James V: Scotland's Ambitious Renaissance King
Was James V of Scotland a beleaguered child king or a brilliant Renaissance ruler who mastered the performance of power? Crowned before his second birthday, James curbed powerful magnates, strengthened royal authority…
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True Crime: Mass Murderering Artist Cellini
How did a murderous, swaggering, wildly unreliable goldsmith become one of the most celebrated artists of the 16th century? Does genius excuse monstrous behaviour? Benvenuto Cellini's story is as shocking as it is…
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C.S. Lewis & Narnia: Renaissance Origins
Why does C.S. Lewis's Narnia - with its images of winter, sacrifice, kingship and renewal - continue to resonate with generations of readers? How did Lewis weave Renaissance symbolism and Christian imagination into one…
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The Star Chamber: Murder, Witch & Libel Trials
What really happened inside England’s most feared court? Was the Star Chamber a sinister instrument of royal tyranny, or a vital route to justice for those ignored by ordinary law? From its rise under Henry VII to its…
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William Cecil: The Power Behind Elizabeth I
Who really ruled Elizabethan England? For almost four decades, William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, guided Queen Elizabeth I through religious turmoil, assassination plots, the threat of the Spanish Armada, the…
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Witnesses to the French Revolution
What was the French Revolution like for those who lived through it? What can private journals reveal that speeches, pamphlets and official records cannot? From the storming of the Bastille to the Terror and the…
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New Discovery: Who Really Wrote Elizabeth I's Letters?
Was Elizabeth I really as angry and bad tempered as history has always claimed? How did some of her most secret state letters come to be penned by a Spaniard, while England was at war with Spain? Professor Suzannah…
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Robespierre & Revolutionary Terror
How did the French Revolution, built on liberty, become ruled by fear? And how did Robespierre - the man who had sent kings, nobles and priests to their deaths - himself end up beneath the blade of the guillotine?…
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How Protestants Justified Slavery
Was the Protestant Reformation ever truly global? How did radical theology, empire, slavery and missionary ambition collide across the early modern world? The global spread of Christianity was marked by failure,…
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French Revolution: Storming of the Bastille
What drove a hungry city to storm a fortress? How did the fall of the Bastille become the defining symbol of the French Revolution? In this second episode of our series, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and Professor…
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True Crime: Murder & the Popish Plot
Was a London magistrate, found dead in a ditch in 1678, the victim of a Catholic conspiracy, political convenience, or secrets too dangerous to survive? Why did Edmund Berry Godfrey's murder send England into hysteria?…
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Who Lit the French Revolution?
How did a kingdom of palaces, privilege and powdered wigs collapse into revolution? What turned hunger into uprising? In this first episode of our series on the French Revolution, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and Dr.…
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Bess of Hardwick: Elizabethan England's Richest Woman
How did a Derbyshire gentlewoman become England’s richest woman after Elizabeth I? Why does she still fascinate us as her 500th anniversary approaches? From four marriages and vast wealth to Hardwick Hall, Chatsworth…
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Edmund Halley & His Comet
How did our understanding of the universe begin in a London coffee house? How did a man who had a comet named after him change science forever? From his youthful voyage to St Helena to chart the southern skies, to his…
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The Mayflower and its Pilgrims
Why did the Pilgrims risk everything in search of a new life and religious freedom? Why does their contested history still matter ahead of the 250th anniversary of American independence? In 1620, the Mayflower carried…
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Jamestown: From Colony to Cannibalism
**This episode contains graphic explorations of starvation and cannibalism** What happens when a colony reaches the edge of survival? In this third episode leading up to the 250th anniversary of American…
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True Crime: Moll Cutpurse - London's Cross-Dressing Criminal
How did one woman scandalise sixteenth century London by refusing to live by its rules? Mary Frith - aka Moll Cutpurse - rejected the expectations of respectable womanhood, wore men’s clothes, smoked a pipe, carried…
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Pocahontas & the Virginian Venture
How did the Stuarts turn fragile American outposts into an empire? How did English settlers, Native peoples - including Pocahontas - and London investors shape 17th-century Virginia, and why do these early colonial…
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How Guns Changed the World
How did the gun become a fashion item in Renaissance Italy? Why do debates over firearms, self-defence and public safety sound so familiar today? Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and historian Catherine Fletcher trace the…
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Elizabethans in America
How did two Indigenous men help shape Elizabethan England's dreams of empire? What do these early encounters tell us about the contested beginnings of colonial America? In the 1580s, English explorers ventured west in…
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Great Plague of London
What effect did the Great Plague have on Londoners, their society and the wider state? Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and Rebecca Rideal revisit the summer of 1665, as a few suspicious deaths grew into a crisis that…
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Anne Boleyn: Ambition or Faith?
Was Anne Boleyn a seductress, a schemer, or something far more radical? What happens when we look at Anne not through the lens of sex and scandal, but through religion? From Tudor observers to Six the Musical, Anne…
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Rise & Fall of James IV of Scotland
How did a teenage rebel become Scotland’s king, and rule a realm riven by feuds and shifting loyalties? James IV balanced chivalry, diplomacy, and danger, yet led his country to catastrophe. Professor Suzannah…
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True Crime: Medici Murder at the Louvre
**Warning: Contains graphic description of the mutilation of corpses** In April 1617, Concino Concini, Marshal of France, was shot dead as he entered the Louvre. But his murder was only the beginning of a terrifying…
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The Tudors Abroad
What did it mean to be English when merchants, sailors, captives, diplomats, and migrants were constantly crossing borders? Pirates, a Kentish man becoming a Samurai and a king on the warpath; Professor Suzannah…
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Royal Favourites: Hatton, Elizabeth I's Favourite
How did Sir Christopher Hatton became one of Elizabeth I’s favourites? How true were the rumours that they were lovers? After catching the Queen's eye in 1561, Hatton was quickly promoted to the Privy Council, making…
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Battle of the Eras: Medieval v. Early Modern
What if the medieval world did not end with a bang, but with a messy argument over who gets to define history itself? Professor Suzannah Lipscomb spars with Gone Medieval's host Matt Lewis over Gutenberg, the…
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Royal Favourites: Queen Anne & Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough
How did Sarah Churchill become the most powerful woman in Queen Anne’s court? What happens when a royal friendship turns into a political battlefield? How did one absent set of jewels signal the beginning of the end?…
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Louis XIV: Sun King and Propagandist
How did Louis XIV use his day-to-day life, especially his marriage, to help create the mythology of the Sun King as semi-divine, radiant and unrivalled? In 17th-century France, monarchy was performed, witnessed, and…
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Royal Favourites: James I and George Villiers
How did a relatively humble gentleman become the most powerful man in Stuart England? Few figures embodied the glamour and instability of the Jacobean court more completely than George Villiers, who rose to become one…
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