One of history’s great ironies is that one of Russia’s most successful periods occurred under the leadership of a monarch with not a drop of Russian blood. Catherine II, better known as Catherine the Great, was a minor Prussian princess whose fairly horrible mother set her sights on achieving notoriety through her daughter. Fortunately for…
217. Diana’s Secret Keeper | Paul Burrell
Today, with all the talk of Diana this week, we are taking a page out of the Done and Dunne podcast with a very reliable narrator for this particular trashy tale. Dominick Dunne went to London in 2002 to report in on the trial of Paul Burrell, the royal butler who knows all Diana’s secrets….
216. Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer
The world was captivated by the saga of Princess Diana when she married and divorced Prince Charles, but it turns out that marital trouble is a bit of a family matter for the Spencers. Alicia has the details on Diana’s brother, Charles Spencer, whose three divorces and other romantic misadventures stand out even among the…
215. The Plantagenets | John Lackland and Isabella of Gloucester
England’s King John is truly one of a kind. He was a king so bad at the job that there’s never been another British ruler willing to adopt the moniker. In the Robin Hood lore, Prince John is often depicted as a usurper while the rightful king, John’s brother Richard, was away on crusade. Indeed,…
214. The Plantagenets | Eleanor, Mother of Dynasties, featuring Richard the Lionheart and Berengaria of Navarre
Eleanor’s life was no less interesting following the death of Henry II. Rather than fade into the background, her son, King Richard I, instead made her his most powerful deputy in England while he went to the Holy Land on Crusade. In fact, Richard I was an extremely disinterested monarch and spent very little of…
213. The Plantagenets | Eleanor of Aquitaine featuring Henry II
After Eleanor finally succeeded in ending her marriage to Louis VII of France, she had a brief turn of wedded bliss to the future Henry II of England. It’s not that the marriage was short, just her happiness. Henry II, it turns out, was a king of questionable judgment, as Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket…
212. The Plantagenets | Eleanor of Aquitaine Before Henry II
There are no Plantagenet kings after Henry II without Eleanor of Aquitaine. History is not without examples of powerful women, to be sure, but even in that pantheon, Eleanor of Aquitaine is a special case. In this first part of her story, Alicia takes us through her early life in the French province of Aquitaine,…
211. Royal Tea-Time | As The Windsors Turn & Listener Letters
It’s a sad week, friends, and we are distracted by the losses of Dolly Parton and Tim Curry. Today, we do a little Royals Round Up with chatter about Harry and Meghan, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, Sarah Ferguson, and their daughter. Then, we share some listener emails and answer their questions to the best of our distracted…
210. The Stormin’ Normans | Matilda and Stephen
After the unfortunate incident with the boating accident that killed Heir Presumptive William in 1120, King Henry I had a choice to make when it came to succession planning. While he had nephews through his sister and illegitimate children (galore), it was his daughter Matilda, Holy Roman Empress since her arranged marriage at the age…
209. The Stormin’ Normans | William the Conqueror, William II, and Henry I
Today we travel back nearly a millennia to investigate the House of Normandy, the beginning of the line of non-English Kings. William the Conqueror was the first Norman (French) king of England defeating King Harold at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. What follows is the wild ride of William, his wife Matilda of Flanders…