Dear readers of our site, history lovers and anglophiles, I am going to leave behind for a moment the comic and gruesomeness of the Horrible Histories books and I am going to talk about a TV series that I really enjoyed watching during my school and university years. Every time the course about England’s history became too tangled and hard to follow, I would search the web for a documentary that could clarify the issue.
Monarchy is a British TV series produced by Channel 4 between 2004 and 2006, which was eventually broadcasted worldwide, from the USA to Australia. The host of this program is British academic and historian Dr. David Starkey, the one who presents and analyses the causes, events and political warfares from the Anglo-Saxon Invasion to present day. David Starkey takes us on a journey throughout “a real, grown up history of how a monarchy created a nation”. The hunger for power and many crucial events that lead to famous wars and irreversible changes in British and world history are fully explained and supported by chronicles of the time and important documents written by English monarchs or by other people involved in the issues of the state. With the help of our professor, we gain access to manuscripts and we have the chance to “visit” places full of history, such as castles (Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace), cathedrals (Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral, St. Peter’s Basilica), colleges and ancient ruins (Roman Baths, Roman Forum).
I highly recommend this series of documentaries, because they are very helpful in learning history and understanding facts and the way they took place. My favourite episodes are those about King Henry VIII, Queen Victoria and the House of Windsor.
by Alina Andreea Cătărău
