Edward II and his cronies were the original thugs and gangsters, apparently. How did he come to run his kingdom this way, and why did his wife help oust him? We talk all this and more about England’s maybe murdered, maybe not murdered Edward.
Harold Godwinson dies on the battlefield in Hastings and a Norman rules England. How does it get to that end? This episode, we talk about Edward the Confessor, William the Conqueror, and Harold, and how you can’t really have one without the other.
The last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, and his family were famously killed by the Bolsheviks in 1918. What led to their downfall? Was it the thrall of Rasputin? The indifference of an Autocrat toward his people? We dive in to the themes that contributed to the end of the Romanovs.
Harry and Meghan dropped a bomb on the Royal Rota last week, announcing they would be “stepping back” from their roles as Senior Royals and splitting time between North America and England. What does it mean? We break down their statement, any precedents, the reactions of the other royals and the press, and try to decide if we are sympathetic or cynical about the whole thing.
And now we’ve come to maybe the most famous beheading of all! Yes, this week we are talking Marie Antoinette and how she was unfairly blamed for France’s troubles due to xenophobia, run of the mill misogyny, and some slight overspending, which was expected of her position! This girl got a bad reputation, and it was undeserved.
It’s a Holiday Bonus! In this week’s episode, we are taking a break between royal beheadings to chat about how the royals have celebrated Christmas and New Year’s throughout the centuries. Starting with William the Conqueror’s coronation on Christmas Day through Queen Elizabeth II’s annual broadcast, traditions have evolved!
How does a government decide to behead its King? Religious disagreements get bad enough in England that some of Parliament decide they'd rather do without a King, and Charles I becomes the first (and last) English monarch to lose his head.
Welcome to the My Favorite Murder episode of Monarcast! We talk about the most famous cold case in English royal history, the princes in the tower. Who killed them? How did they die? Why did Edward V’s Uncle Richard seize the crown? Shakespeare didn’t even have to try to make this stuff up!
And now we get to the Wars of the Roses! You know it through the life of Elizabeth Woodville, but this time we are telling the side of the men. Spoiler alert: they mostly die! We start with King Henry VI, whose poor rule and mental illness lead his nobles to frustration, and ultimately, to a deadly conk on the head.
Did Richard II cause the Wars of the Roses generations later? No…but kinda? We open up our fifth series with that question as we go through the bumpy reign of Richard II and his ultimate removal from the throne.