Love. Loss, and a queen who deserves to be famous again. Listen now.

This week, Kate is joined by historian and broadcaster Alice Luxton, whose new book follows a wonderfully bonkers idea: walking 200 miles in December to retrace the funeral route of Eleanor of Castile, England’s “lost queen.”

Eleanor was no mild medieval consort. She introduced carpets and forks, built dazzling Castilian-style gardens, amassed a property empire, travelled endlessly while almost constantly pregnant, and inspired her grief-stricken husband Edward I to build a string of spectacular monuments across the country. Alice and Kate plunge into Eleanor’s world of crusades, court politics, Arthurian myth, medieval plumbing, purgatory, poisoned daggers, and the unexpected origins of Charing Cross as a London landmark.

Hosts: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams

Series Producer: Ben Devlin

Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

Executive Producer: Bella Soames

Hosts: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams

Series Producer: Ben Devlin

Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

Executive Producer: Bella Soames

A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular.

Sign up to Palace Confidential, the FREE royals newsletter from the Mail's top experts. Delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday, it's the smartest way to stay in the royal inner circle. Just head to dailymail.co.uk/palaceconfidential to sign up today.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Behind every coronation, balcony wave and solemn procession lies a simple truth: royalty is theatre.

In this sparkling, story-packed episode of Queens, Kings & Dastardly Things, Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams pull back the velvet curtain on the royals’ surprisingly long, and often hilarious, love affair with pantomime.

From Henry VIII discovering Anne Boleyn through a masked performance, to the Restoration actresses who scandalised a queen, to Queen Victoria’s sentimental family tableaux, the stage has always been a royal playground. But nothing compares to the Second World War pantomimes at Windsor Castle, where a teenage Princess Elizabeth donned tights as Aladdin, Princess Margaret stole scenes as Cinderella, and a young naval officer named Philip watched from the audience.

History, romance, and panto all in one room… oh yes it was.

Hosts: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams

Series Producer: Ben Devlin

Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

Executive Producer: Bella Soames

Hosts: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams

Series Producer: Ben Devlin

Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

Executive Producer: Bella Soames

A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular.

Sign up to Palace Confidential, the FREE royals newsletter from the Mail's top experts. Delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday, it's the smartest way to stay in the royal inner circle. Just head to dailymail.co.uk/palaceconfidential to sign up today.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A seasonal cracker from the podcast that loves Royals and history - listen now.

In this special edition of Queens, Kings & Dastardly Things, Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams unwrap the surprisingly rich, and frequently eccentric, festive legacy of the monarchy. From a 10th-century duke reinvented as a Victorian Christmas hero, to Henry VIII moonlighting as a carol writer, to the Tudor court’s rather questionable idea of “seasonal cheer,” it turns out the royals have been shaping our holidays for over a millennium.

We travel from medieval Bohemia to Cromwell’s anti-Christmas crackdown, before settling by the fire with Victoria and Albert, the couple who practically invented the modern festive season. Along the way, we explore SEDITION in much-loved carols, rogue wassailers, musical monarchs, and a surprising link between the Windsors and “Good King Wenceslas.”

This episode asks the big question: what have the royals ever given us for Christmas?

Quite a lot, as it turns out.

Hosts: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams

Series Producer: Ben Devlin

Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

Executive Producer: Bella Soames

A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular.

Sign up to Palace Confidential, the FREE royals newsletter from the Mail's top experts. Delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday, it's the smartest way to stay in the royal inner circle. Just head to dailymail.co.uk/palaceconfidential to sign up today.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.