Travels Through Time

The late eighteenth century history was a time in Europe when a brilliant old world collapsed and raucous new one rose to replace it. In this episode the biographer Veronica Buckley explains how the Hapsburgs, one of the great European families, responded to this revolutionary change.

It was a stern challenge but inspired by one of the great matriarchs in European history, Empress Maria Theresia, her son Emperor Joseph II, his successor Leopold and their sister, Marie Antoinette, reacted as best they could in that perilous year, 1790.

Veronica Buckley is the author of Seven Sisters: Captives and Rebels in Revolutionary Europe's First Family

Read an in-depth article about this story on Unseen Histories.

Show notes
Scene One: 20 February 1790, Emperor Joseph II dies in Vienna

Scene Two: October 1790, The French revolutionary Comte de Mirabeau meets with Emperor Leopold II in Frankfurt to discuss a possible intervention in France.

Scene Three: November 1790, The Habsburg imperial family arrives in Pressburg for Leopold’s coronation as King of Hungary.

Memento: A piece of elegant jewellery belonging to Marie Christine.

People/Social
Presenter: Peter Moore

Guest: Veronica Buckley

Production: Maria Nolan

Theme music: Firelight by Minka / Mozart - Piano Sonata in B-flat major, III. Allegretto Grazioso performed by Brendan Kinsella

Most people know Daniel Defoe as one of the great writers in the history of English literature. But the author of Robinson Crusoe was much more than that. A rabble rousing pamphleteer and erratic entrepreneur, in the early years of the eighteenth century Defoe also became an undercover political operative.

Defoe's career as a spy intersected with a huge moment in British history when the Act of Union between England and Scotland was being planned in 1706. Today's guest, the historian Marc Mierowsky, revisits this time in today's episode – analysing a series of events that were crucial to the genesis of Great Britain 

Marc Mierowsky is the author of A Spy Amongst Us. 

Show notes
Scene One: July 1706. The Cockpit in Whitehall. The Scottish and the English commissioners finally settle on the terms of the treaty for the Act of Union.

Scene Two: 23 October 1706. Edinburgh. The treaty has been sent north - it is being debated in the Scottish parliament -- and a riot breaks out. Defoe is a witness to the disorder.

Scene Three: December 1706. The west of Scotland. Defoe deploys agent John Pierce to infiltrate the Hebronites.

Memento: Daniel Defoe's familiar letters.

People/Social
Presenter: Peter Moore

Guest: Marc Mierowsky

Production: Maria Nolan

Theme music: Firelight by Minka

Today’s guest, Sean Cunningham, takes us back to a particularly perilous year in the eventful reign of King Henry VII. He explains that 1497 was a year of brinkmanship, battles, plots and disasters that very nearly resulted in the fall of the House of Tudor.

Sean Cunningham is Head of Collections, Medieval, Early Modern and Legal, at the National Archives in Kew. He is one of the leading authorities on the life and times of Henry VII – the first of the Tudor monarchs.

Often overshadowed by his attention-hogging son (he of the six wives), Henry VII was a formidable operator: wily, quicksilver, determined, restless. He needed all these qualities to survive the multiple threats to his rule.

Sean Cunningham is the author of Henry VII: Treason and Trust. 

Read an accompanying article about Henry VII at Unseen Histories.

Show notes
Scene One: August 1497. King James IV of Scotland challenges the Earl of Surrey to single combat.

Scene Two: October 1497. Henry VII interviews Perkin Warbeck in Taunton Castle.

Scene Three: December 1497. The fire at Sheen Palace.

Memento: The original manuscript of Perkin Warbeck's confession.

People/Social
Presenter: Peter Moore

Guest: Sean Cunningham

Production: Maria Nolan

Theme music: Firelight by Minka

Given the scandal surrounding Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, we thought we'd examine an eerily familiar moment in British history. In January 1809 the Duke of York became the subject of a huge and embarrassing news story. It was a story of sex, power, money and corruption right at the heart of British politics. One of the stars of the affair was a woman of no rank, title or fortune. Her name was Mary Anne Clarke.

Show notes
Scene One: 27 January 1809. Colonel Wardle stands up in the House of Commons.

Scene Two: 1 February 1809, Mary Anne Clarke gives evidence before the House of Commons.

Scene Three: 20 March 1809, Spencer Percival announces the Duke of York's resignation as Commander in Chief to the House of Commons.

Memento: Mrs Clarke's coat.

People/Social
Presenters: Peter Moore

Production: Maria Nolan

Our guest today is the New York Times bestselling historian Charles King, the author of Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times that Made Handel's Messiah.

The Messiah is one of the best known pieces of all classical music and, as King suggests at the beginning of this conversation, it 'may be the world's greatest monument to the possibility of hope'.

To tell us more about how such an extraordinary piece was written, as well as to take us along to its premiere in Dublin in April 1742, King sat down with us for a travel back through time just the other day.

Charles King is the author of Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times that Made Handel's Messiah

Show notes
Scene One: 13 April, 1742. The words 'Comfort ye/Every Valley' at the premiere of the Messiah in Dublin.

Scene Two: 13 April, 1742. The words 'He Was Despised' at the premiere of the Messiah in Dublin.

Scene Three: 13 April, 1742. The Hallelujah chorus at the premiere of the Messiah in Dublin.

Memento: The original manuscript of Handel's Messiah.

People/Social
Presenters: Peter Moore and Min Kym

Guest: Charles King

Production: Maria Nolan