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  • #27 'Hellish miners' - Ep 4 Blowing up the Gunpowder Plot

    #27 'Hellish miners' - Ep 4 Blowing up the Gunpowder Plot
    2025/07/16
    To avoid any possible blame for the plot falling on himself or the king, Cecil procures confessions saying the seven gentlemen plotters began excavating a tunnel under the House of Lords long before the government stepped up its anti-Catholic legislation. They apparently lived on site, in an upstairs room, seven to a bed. They dug unnoticed, only in the day (or was it only in the night?) for almost a year, before spying a handy cellar next door for the gunpowder barrels. Yes. Of course. (R)

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    34 分
  • #26 Why blow up Parliament anyway? - Ep 3 Blowing up the Gunpowder Plot

    #26 Why blow up Parliament anyway? - Ep 3 Blowing up the Gunpowder Plot
    2025/07/09
    The parliament of 1604 refuses to grant the king money. They’re still paying for the effects of the last plague. But this is Cecil’s job. What to do? On 5 November 1605 the assembled MPs and peers are calmly informed that there has been a devilish Catholic plot to blow the lot of them up. A plot that their king and Cecil have brilliantly foiled. Unsurprisingly, this time, they vote the king the money he so badly needs. Job done. (R)

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    30 分
  • #25 'Here lieth the Toad' - Ep 2 Blowing up the Gunpowder Plot

    #25 'Here lieth the Toad' - Ep 2 Blowing up the Gunpowder Plot
    2025/07/02
    We take a look at James I’s shadowy chief minister Robert Cecil who manages to implicate most of his Catholic enemies in the plot. Cecil was so desperate to improve King James’s dire view of him (his father had caused the execution James’ mother, Mary Queen of Scots) he would stoop to anything. (R)

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    35 分
  • #24 'There is no state trial so totally devoid of reality' - Ep 1 Blowing up the Gunpowder Plot

    #24 'There is no state trial so totally devoid of reality' - Ep 1 Blowing up the Gunpowder Plot
    2025/06/25
    We look at the story the government published as The King’s Book, more than 500 witness statements and other contemporary sources and conclude, like the Victorian antiquarian Jardine who wrote up the trial from the State Papers, there is no reliable corroborating evidence for the gunpowder story we’ve been told. (R)

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    33 分
  • #67 The King, the lies and the whitewash - Ep 7 Nightmare in the trenches 1914-16

    #67 The King, the lies and the whitewash - Ep 7 Nightmare in the trenches 1914-16
    2025/06/18

    On 14 July 1916 senior officers finally decided to ignore Haig. At the Battle of Bazentin Ridge they put to use everything that was good practice and broke in to the German lines. But because junior officers at the front were not permitted to take a decision, and their commanders in their chateaux were hopelessly out of touch, it was never converted into a ‘break through.’ Another 9,000 lives lost for very little gain.

    After the disaster of the Somme, whitewash was elevated to a new military art form. Haig and other senior officers lied in their accounts. Haig ultimately blamed the French. Haig was even promoted by his friend the King. But he got his comeuppance on 26 March 1918 when command of the British army was handed to the French. The defeat of the Germans would be masterminded not by Haig but by Ferdinand Foch. (R)


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    42 分
  • #66 The British who cheated on the Somme - Ep 6 Nightmare in the Trenches 1914-16

    #66 The British who cheated on the Somme - Ep 6 Nightmare in the Trenches 1914-16
    2025/06/11
    At the southern end of the line, next to the French, British units took all their objectives on the first day of the battle. They succeeded mainly because their maverick commanders had learnt from the French how to bombard the Germans accurately, putting them out of action long enough for the infantry to mop up. They’d also been assisted by the French big guns. By lunchtime some of these units were being served a hot meal in a newly occupied German trench. It’s a remarkable story the British Army has done its best to forget. Some military historians say, with all that French help, they cheated! (R)

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    42 分
  • #65 Haig's war crime on the Somme - Ep 5 Nightmare in the Trenches 1914-16

    #65 Haig's war crime on the Somme - Ep 5 Nightmare in the Trenches 1914-16
    2025/06/04
    The French decided they only had enough artillery to attack on a 9-mile front if they were to neutralise the German guns so that their infantry were not needlessly slaughtered. Haig had fewer guns – enough for perhaps 4 miles of front – but he chose to attack across 16 miles. 57,000 British soldiers died on the very first day, 1 July 1916, and no ground was gained. The French achieved all their objectives and lost 1,500 men. This is not a story that’s usually told (R)

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    44 分
  • #64 They had the wrong guns - Ep 4 Nightmare in the Trenches 1914-16

    #64 They had the wrong guns - Ep 4 Nightmare in the Trenches 1914-16
    2025/05/28
    On the eve of the Somme the British had far too few artillery guns, and most of the ones they had were the wrong sort. They needed five times as many heavy guns before they could launch an attack. The few big guns they did have were grossly inaccurate, sometimes missing a target by one mile. They were firing shells that were not fitted with delayed-action fuses which meant the German machine-gunners were safe in their deep underground bunkers. And yet British schoolchildren are still taught it was a surprise that the bombardment that preceded the infantry attack failed so catastrophically. (R)

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    41 分