Category Archives: The First Georgians
Why do the Georgians matter?
Today I have a LONG READ for you. It’s an essay I wrote for May’s BBC History Magazine … and even though it’s Midsummer’s Day already there’s lots of time left to see our 2014 ‘Glorious Georges’ displays at Hampton Court Palace, Kensington Palace and Kew Palace too. ‘Sometimes it’s a depressing business being a
Continue ReadingA recipe for some highly destructive Georgian sugar-plums
If you’re watching The First Georgians tonight (9pm, BBC Four), look out for the bit where I get to destroy a sugar model of the city of Carlisle by bombarding it with sugar plums! This week my colleague Christopher Boreham, our researcher on this series, has kindly written a post for you to explain how
Continue ReadingPoor Queen Caroline and her horrible death…
This week on The First Georgians (Thursday, 9pm, BBC Four) we are covering the life and the horrible death of the wonderful queen Caroline. So here’s an extract from my book Courtiers. It’s part of the chapter about Caroline’s death, which was absolutely my favourite to write. You can also see a video of me reading
Continue ReadingNew TV series The First Georgians: what it’s all about
My article from the paper today tells you roughly what it’s all about… ‘Our most calamitous Kings, the troubled lives of our Hanoverian monarchs are revealed in a fascinating new series. – a new series will explore the lives of the British Hanoverian monarchs – it marks the 300 years since George I ascended the
Continue ReadingIn which I bid a fond farewell to the Georgians
Today, for me, marked if not the ‘beginning of the end’, then the ‘end of the beginning’ for the Georgian tercentenary. The three-hundredth anniversary of the start of the Georgian age in 1714/2014 was something we started thinking about five years ago or more. In fact, when I started researching and writing my book about
Continue ReadingBritain’s funniest, cleverest and fattest queen ever: Queen Caroline
Hello! I’ve been a bit quiet for a fortnight because I have busy hurling myself round the globe: in last two weeks I have laid my head in Istanbul, Northern Ireland, Ludlow and Oxford. While I’ve been away, though I gather that trailers have been spotted for the BBC’s eighteenth century season, including my own
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