Featured Documentaries
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Katherine Howard: Vixen or Victim?
1 season
Katherine Howard, executed in 1542 for adultery and treason, has long polarised opinion - portrayed either as a promiscuous good-time-girl or an abused young woman.
Prof. Suzannah Lipscomb investigates the truth behind Henry VIII's fifth wife.
In the first episode, Suzannah visits Chesworth H...
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A World Torn Apart: The Dissolution of the Monasteries
1 season
Professor Suzannah Lipscomb unravels one of the most profound transformations in Tudor society, when faith and politics collided: the dissolution of the monasteries. Over just four years in the 1530s, Henry VIII dismantled the spiritual and cultural bedrock of medieval England. This was the most ...
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Bannockburn: The Battle for Scotland
Helen Carr takes a deep dive into the story of one of the most decisive battles in medieval history.
In 1314, a massive English army headed into Scotland, led by King Edward II. He was on a mission to crush his arch enemy, the Scottish King, Robert the Bruce.
The battle that followed, by the Ba...
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Queen Jane: The Extraordinary Life of Lady Jane Grey
1 season
Professor Suzannah Lipscomb goes in search of the truth about Lady Jane Grey, the young Tudor claimant who was Queen of England for less than 2 weeks. Moving beyond the popular image of Jane as a hapless victim placed on the throne by her cousin Edward VI and her manipulative father-in-law the Du...
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The Copper Scroll: Dead Sea Scrolls Mystery
The Dead Sea Scrolls regularly rank amongst the most significant archaeological discoveries of recent decades. Over 900 papyrus documents, discovered in caves near the site of Qumran, that date to the century before Jesus and include the oldest surviving manuscripts from the Hebrew Bible.
But am...
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The Face of Anne Boleyn: Capturing a Queen
What did Anne Boleyn look like? We know the famous portraits, but do they capture the real woman?
Prof. Suzannah Lipscomb joins the curators of Hever Castle, Anne’s childhood home, where they have gathered together more paintings of Anne than ever before for a special exhibition. At its heart i...
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A Very Victorian Scandal: The Trials of Oscar Wilde
In 1895, the world's first celebrity trial challenged the creaking moral core of the British Empire. Dr Anthony Delaney traces the extraordinary trajectory of Oscar Wilde—from the toast of London’s West End, a shining star on both sides of the Atlantic, to the disgraced accused standing before th...
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Witchmen: Witch Trials in the Land of Fire & Ice
17th century Iceland was a remote place. But its isolation didn’t stop it getting caught in one of the most horrifying crazes of the time, the witch hunts. But in the breathtaking landscape of Iceland something was different. In Iceland 93% of witches killed were men. Dr Kate Lister is on a missi...
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Edward II: Worst King of England?
Dr Helen Carr explores the extraordinary and chaotic reign of Edward II, a king with a reputation as a disastrous ruler. But how much of that is true?
Edward's accession as king of England in 1307 led almost immediately to conflict as he favoured close friends, and maybe lovers, like Piers Gaves...
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The Galloway Hoard
A real treat for History Hit, this is an exceptional private view of a unique discovery, a glittering hoard of beautifully crafted objects in silver, gold and crystal, buried in the ground and forgotten 1100 years ago.
The Galloway Hoard opens an extraordinary window into the Viking Age, a time...