Episodes

  • #124 Columbus was invented in 1777 - Ep 1 Columbus - legend and loser

    #124 Columbus was invented in 1777 - Ep 1 Columbus - legend and loser
    Jul 22 2026
    Columbus the romantic hero is a myth created in 1777 by the Scottish historian Revd William Robertson. It hit the big time with Washington Irving’s biography 50 years later. Tales of lone scientific geniuses were becoming popular and Columbus had been snapped up by rebellious American colonists waving their newly minted Declaration of Independence. But the historical research was hopelessly flawed. Columbus had been wrong about pretty much everything.

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    30 mins
  • # 40 Henry VIII: Pope Clement, Katherine, Anne and Florence

    # 40 Henry VIII: Pope Clement, Katherine, Anne and Florence
    Jul 15 2026
    After years of negotiation and confrontation, Pope Clement VII was heard swearing unpapally over Henry VIII’s divorce. And no wonder. The history of Henry’s pope is a murky tale of code-breaking and ruthless sieges that involves Michelangelo and Machiavelli and a great deal of double-dealing. Pope Clement was trapped between a rock and a hard place: the only way to save his Medici family’s city of Florence was to refuse Henry his divorce and split Christendom.

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    37 mins
  • # 52 Anne Boleyn - Henry VIII's MacGuffin

    # 52 Anne Boleyn - Henry VIII's MacGuffin
    Jul 8 2026
    Most of what we think we know about Anne Boleyn turns out to be later invention, with no historical basis. We argue that she was a MacGuffin: she was necessary to the way things turned out for Henry, but unimportant in herself. We’re not even sure he was in love with her.

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    45 mins
  • # 51 Marrying Anne Boleyn, the best of a bad job - Ep 6 Henry VIII: the king, his wife, his lover, the French

    # 51 Marrying Anne Boleyn, the best of a bad job - Ep 6 Henry VIII: the king, his wife, his lover, the French
    Jul 1 2026
    The Ambassadors painting by Hans Holbein reveals the French horror at Henry’s decision in January 1533 to defy the pope and get remarried to a pregnant Anne Boleyn. But since Henry couldn't get an annulment he had no choice. No big-time European princess would marry him. With the Spanish seriously weakened by war, Turkish invasion and protestant revolt in Germany, and Henry’s French allies now needing him more than he does them, Henry’s long game to get the Pope on side against the Spanish is now in extra time. Henry is free to make himself head of the Church in England. See the painting at the National Gallery, London.

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    30 mins
  • # 50 No more menage à trois - Ep 5 Henry VIII: the king, his wife, his lover, the French

    # 50 No more menage à trois - Ep 5 Henry VIII: the king, his wife, his lover, the French
    Jun 24 2026
    In a dynamite French document from August 1530, still overlooked by historians, the King of France offers to send troops to England to defend Henry VIII against the Spanish. No French government before or since has ever promised to send troops to defend England. Does this explain Henry’s sudden move in August 1530 to go on the offensive against Rome and the clergy in England?

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    29 mins
  • # 46 Missions Impossible - Ep 3 Henry VIII: the king, his wife, his lover, the French

    # 46 Missions Impossible - Ep 3 Henry VIII: the king, his wife, his lover, the French
    Jun 10 2026
    1527: The pope is a prisoner of the marauding Spanish in Rome and yet Henry sends his man Knight on a madcap mission to ask Pope Clement VII for permission to marry a young woman he is already sleeping with. It’s the first of a whole series of crazy errands, asking the pope for the impossible. Does Henry have a hidden agenda?

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    32 mins
  • # 45 The Jilting of Princess Mary - Ep 2 Henry VIII: the king, his wife, his lover, the French

    # 45 The Jilting of Princess Mary - Ep 2 Henry VIII: the king, his wife, his lover, the French
    Jun 3 2026
    Did Henry break with Rome in order to seize power over the wealthy, ubiquitous church in England? We find that the dates don’t add up. Instead we look at why in June 1525 Henry promoted his illegitimate son Henry Fitzroy over the head of his heir Mary. And why Charles V broke off his engagement with 9 year old Mary to marry a Portuguese princess instead.

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    32 mins