Queens, Kings, and Dastardly Things

For Valentine’s Day, Queens, Kings & Dastardly Things goes full royal romance-with-a-body-count.

Robert Hardman and Prof Kate Williams delve into the whispered love story of Edward II and his dazzling courtier, Piers Gaveston — a friendship (or something more) so intense it detonates the English court. Why did the barons loathe Gaveston so much? Who gets the stuffed-crust portion of medieval “pizza” of land, titles, and power, and who’s left starving?

And then comes the infamous comeuppance: the notorious ending Christopher Marlowe gives Edward II —death by red-hot poker. True? Find out.

Royal love. A battle for lands. And a legend that refuses to die.

Hosts: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams
Series Producer: Ben Devlin
Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini
Executive Producer: Bella Soames
Hosts: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams
Series Producer: Ben Devlin
Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini
Content Editor: Joseph Palmer
Executive Producer: Bella Soames

A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular.

Sign up to Palace Confidential, the FREE royals newsletter from the Mail's top experts. Delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday, it's the smartest way to stay in the royal inner circle. Just head to dailymail.co.uk/palaceconfidential to sign up today.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to royal history with bite.

In this episode of Queens, Kings & Dastardly Things, Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams head east to Transylvania to unravel one of the strangest threads in modern royal history. King Charles III’s long-standing fascination with Romania turns out to involve more than rural preservation and beautiful churches — it also leads back, genealogically, to Vlad III, the ruler whose brutality helped inspire the Dracula legend.

But Vlad is not the region’s only blood-soaked aristocrat uncovered. Their conversation also takes in the infamous Countess Elizabeth Báthory, accused of torturing and killing young women in neighbouring Hungary — and asks whether her reputation reflects historical reality, political convenience, or deep-seated fears about power, inheritance, and women who ruled alone.

Hosts: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams
Series Producer: Ben Devlin
Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini
Executive Producer: Bella Soames
Hosts: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams
Series Producer: Ben Devlin
Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini
Content Editor: Joseph Palmer
Executive Producer: Bella Soames

A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular.

Sign up to Palace Confidential, the FREE royals newsletter from the Mail's top experts. Delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday, it's the smartest way to stay in the royal inner circle. Just head to dailymail.co.uk/palaceconfidential to sign up today.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Royals, hot dogs, Hollywood, and the making of the “special relationship”

Robert and Kate conclude their deep dive into Britain and America’s long and complicated partnership. Joined once again by historian, broadcaster, and Gilded Age expert Julie Montagu, Countess of Sandwich, they trace how glamour, war, royalty, and politics combined to create the modern Anglo-American world.

From Edward VII’s fascination with wealthy, irreverent Americans, through the cultural explosion of Hollywood and jazz, to the shockwaves caused by Wallis Simpson, the episode explores how America became both Britain’s obsession and its future. As two world wars redraw the balance of power, monarchs and presidents begin meeting face to face, propaganda goes viral before the word exists, and American soldiers — and culture — flood into Britain at its darkest hour.

The story culminates with the Second World War, the rise of American global dominance, the humiliation of Suez, and Queen Elizabeth II’s pivotal visits to the United States. A final chapter in a long political divorce: no longer bitter, never quite clean, but undeniably special.

Hosts: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams
Series Producer: Ben Devlin
Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini
Executive Producer: Bella Soames
Hosts: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams
Series Producer: Ben Devlin
Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini
Content Editor: Joseph Palmer
Executive Producer: Bella Soames

A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular.

Sign up to Palace Confidential, the FREE royals newsletter from the Mail's top experts. Delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday, it's the smartest way to stay in the royal inner circle. Just head to dailymail.co.uk/palaceconfidential to sign up today.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Revolution, the American divorce, and the true history of the sandwich!

Robert and Kate return to the American War of Independence as the story moves beyond declarations and slogans, and into the long, uncertain struggle of what independence actually meant. Joined by a special guest, historian, broadcaster, and Gilded Age expert Julie Montagu, Countess of Sandwich, they explore the years after 1776, when the war dragged on, loyalties fractured, and victory was anything but assured.

From Yorktown and the uneasy end of the war, to the daunting task of inventing a new nation from scratch, the episode examines how America decided not to become what it had just escaped. Should George Washington be a king? What should a president look like? And how does a former colony meet its former monarch again — as an equal?

The story stretches forward through fragile reconciliation, the burning of Washington in the War of 1812, and the long shadow of the Civil War, before arriving at the Gilded Age — a moment when old aristocracy and new American wealth collide, and the modern “special relationship” begins to take shape. A tale of ambition, miscalculation, reinvention, and the strange intimacy of a political divorce that never quite became a clean break.

Hosts: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams
Series Producer: Ben Devlin
Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini
Executive Producer: Bella Soames
Hosts: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams
Series Producer: Ben Devlin
Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini
Content Editor: Joseph Palmer
Executive Producer: Bella Soames

A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular.

Sign up to Palace Confidential, the FREE royals newsletter from the Mail's top experts. Delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday, it's the smartest way to stay in the royal inner circle. Just head to dailymail.co.uk/palaceconfidential to sign up today.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Celebrating the 250th anniversary of American Independence - unfolding the momentous history.

Robert and Kate kick off a three-part deep dive into one of history’s significant break-ups: how George III went from being “King of America” to the monarch who lost an entire continent. From the earliest English colonies - Jamestown’s swampy gamble, and the Puritans braving the Mayflower crossing - to the booming, self-confident 13 colonies of the 18th century, the stage is set for a spectacular falling-out.

Taxes, tea, troops in your living room, the Boston Massacre, the Sons of Liberty, Washington’s early defeats, and that electrifying moment in 1776 when the Declaration of Independence rewrote the world. Robert and Kate unpack the misunderstandings, blunders, loyalties, and sheer distances that pushed a loyal colony into open rebellion and forced a young George III to face the greatest divorce in royal history.

Hosts: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams
Series Producer: Ben Devlin
Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini
Executive Producer: Bella Soames

Hosts: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams
Series Producer: Ben Devlin
Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini
Content Editor: Joseph Palmer
Executive Producer: Bella Soames

A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular.

Sign up to Palace Confidential, the FREE royals newsletter from the Mail's top experts. Delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday, it's the smartest way to stay in the royal inner circle. Just head to dailymail.co.uk/palaceconfidential to sign up today.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.