The Monarchy

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the British monarchy. In the last two hundred and fifty years, we’ve beheaded one king, exiled another, hired a distant German-speaking dynasty to fill the monarch’s role, and then mocked and ignored them, suffered a mad man and then a lavish sensualist, threatened a young queen, and then, over a century ago, invented a pageantry which brought majesty to a monarchy which is now tilting at the twenty first century against many and mighty odds. How has the monarchy survived since the execution of Charles the First two hundred and fifty years ago and what relevance does it have in a devolved Britain?

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Guests

• Professor David Cannadine 3 episodes
  Director of the Institute of Historical Research, London and former Lecturer in History and Fellow, Christ's College, Cambridge
• Bea Campbell No other episodes
  

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Programme ID: p00545k6

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00545k6

Auto-category: 941.0099 (History of the British Isles—monarchy and heads of state)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello, I'm joined today by historian David Cannadine and social commentator Bea Campbell to look at the changing face of monarchy.