The Queen's Coronation Behind Palace Doors

The Queen’s Coronation Behind Palace Doors

Tensions and conflict arose between the Queen Mother and Prince Philip behind the scenes leading up to Queen Elizabeth's coronation in 1953. The Queen's Coronation Behind Palace Doors includes dramatic re-enactments and interviews with leading royal biographers Hugo Vickers Sarah Bradford, Tim Heald, Piers Brendon and Gyles Brandreth, Maids of Honour Lady Anne Glenconnerand and photographers' assistants Michael Dunne and John Drysdale, and former House of Hartnell employee Michael Talboys. King George VI died prematurely on 6 February 1952, aged 56, thrusting his twenty five year old daughter Elizabeth onto the throne. The Queen Mother was forced to stand aside Elizabeth was caught in the middle. Prince Philip wanted to showcase a thoroughly modern monarchy whilst the traditionalists, including the Queen Mother, saw no reason for change ...
Diana Life Through The Lens

Diana Life Through The Lens

Photographer Jayne Fincher shares her experiences as part of Princess Diana's press corps in this documentary. Fincher who photographed Diana for 17 years, reveals behind the scenes insight into the media phenomenon surrounding the famous royal. Often called the Most Photographed Woman in the World Diana was under the media's constant glare, but who created her public image, the monarchy, the press, her devoted fans or Diana herself? ...
Britain's Real Monarch

Britain’s Real Monarch

This documentary argued that all British monarchs since Henry VII of England did not have a valid claim to the English throne. The programme based its thesis on the centuries old claim that Edward IV was illegitimate born to Cecily Neville by an English archer while her husband, Richard, Duke of York was elsewhere in France fighting. The legitimacy of Edward IV was the subject of speculation at the time, and a document in Rouen Cathedral is presented by Dr. Michael Jones as indicating that Richard, Duke of York, and Cecily Neville were a hundred miles apart during the five week period when Edward's conception must have occurred. This theorised illegitimacy of Edward would bar a rightful claim for himself and his descendants ...
Prince John The Windsors Tragic Secret

Prince John The Windsors Tragic Secret

Born in 1905 John was the youngest of George V's children. Diagnosed with epilepsy, he died in 1919 after a particularly severe seizure. Had he lived he would have been the present Queen's uncle. The popular image of Prince John has since been one of a neglected child who was regarded as an embarrassment and shut away from public view, deprived of contact with his family. Using testimonies of individuals with direct personal connections to the prince, together with new research and photographs of the real Johnny this documentary unravels some of the mysteries and misconceptions surrounding him, presenting a more complete story than has ever been told before ...
Battle for the Bible
Secrets Of The Dead

Battle for the Bible

Presented by Rod Liddle explores the life and times of the visionaries who fought a powerful and violent church establishment to publish the Bible in English. Their vocation, tenacity and sacrifice left a lasting impression on the language and literature in the centuries that followed. The inflections, cadences and familiar phrases of the first English Bible set the foundations for the way English has been spoken and written in the five centuries that followed its first publication. Perhaps its most important legacy, though, is the Protestant notion put by Jefferson God hath created the mind free. This underpinned the separation of church and state, the constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression and the right to fight for freedom of choice, freedom of conscience and freedom of speech ...
Angel of Death
Nazi Hunters

Angel of Death

Nazi Hunters chronicles the stories of those individuals who chased some of the most hated and reviled criminals on earth. Prepared to hunt the perpetrators of the World War II atrocities that shocked the world these pursuers of justice included the likes of Winston Churchill, the British Special Air Services, the strategists who planned the D-Day landings and the Israeli Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations (Mossad). Episode The Angel Of Death Mengele - He experimented on adults and children in the Auschwitz death camps. He was a prime target and was, for many years the world's most wanted criminal. The Hunters were Simon Wiesenthal, the UN War Crimes Commission and even Mossad. But none of them succeeded ...
Episode 2 Mary I The First Virgin Queen
Edward and Mary The Unknown Tudors

Episode 2 Mary I The First Virgin Queen

Channel 4 Written and presented by Dr David Starkey, this is the compelling story of two of England's most striking monarchs a brother and sister, tied by blood and affection, and torn apart by religion, power, and some of the bloodiest episodes in English history. Mary found herself cast into the shadows, ignored by her father and declared illegitimate by Act of Parliament after the birth of Edward. Nonetheless she became very attached to the motherless boy, and he to her, declaring her his dearest sister. When Edward was just nine, their father died and the young boy became King, surrounded by advisors and further distanced from his beloved elder sister. But by now they were divided not just by power and status, but also by faith Edward was dead at the tragically early age of 16 and Mary became Queen. She set about making England a Catholic country once ...
The Last Dukes

The Last Dukes

Dukedoms are created by the monarch for reasons ranging from a grateful nation rewarding a major war leader to a king acknowledging his illegitimate son. The last dukedom to be created was by Queen Victoria. As they gradually become extinct what will become of those that remain? Do they still have power and wealth? What is it to be a duke in the 21st century? Answers come from a surprising variety of extraordinary character ...
The Queen's Mother In Law

The Queen’s Mother In Law

A great granddaughter of Queen Victoria Prince Philip's mother married into the Greek royal family, only to see the Greek monarchy overthrown by revolution. Fleeing into exile, she suffered a severe nervous breakdown. She was locked away in mental hospitals and subjected to experimental treatments by psychiatrists, including Sigmund Freud himself but eventually fought her way back from mental illness, and became an unlikely hero of World War Two ...
Episode 3 Stalin v Churchill June 1941
Warlords

Episode 3 Stalin v Churchill June 1941

WWII was not just a military conflict. It was also a series of psychological battles waged by the four great leaders Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. In these mental duels, the "warlords" lied, schemed, charmed, flattered and cheated to win. Inter-weaving the leaders' own words with personal recollections and private diaries, it reveals the four warlords as fascinating, flawed, and fully human. Episode 3 Churchill vs Stalin, June 1941 - June 1943 Churchill v Stalin examines the duel between the British and Russian leaders over what kind of Europe would emerge at the end of the war, a duel during which Roosevelt secretly intervened behind Churchill's back to decide the outcome ...
The First Emperor The Man Who Made China

The First Emperor The Man Who Made China

The First Emperor The Man Who Made China follows the rise and fall of Chin Shi Huang China's legendary first emperor. The Discovery Channel was allowed unprecedented access to Emperor Chin's underground burial complex that spans over seven square miles. The team employs cutting edge technology such as ground penetrating radar combined with CGI to illustrate the design and layout of the largest unopened tomb in the world ...
Hitler's Favourite Royal
High Society

Hitler’s Favourite Royal

Hitler's Favourite Royal covers the life of Prince Charles Edward, Queen Victoria's youngest grandchild, who was forced by his Grandmother to take up the Dukedom of Coburg in Germany after a series of unexpected deaths of uncles and cousins. With the advent of World War One, he reluctantly fought for the German army but refused to fight the British. However, once the war was over, he was stripped of his English titles. Disillusioned, he turned to far right politics and became an enthusiastic early supporter of the emergent Nazi Party and unwittingly helped in Hitler's rise to power ...