You're Dead to Me - Causes of the British Civil Wars: Royalists versus Parliamentarians

Episode Date: February 7, 2025

Greg Jenner is joined in 17th-Century England by Dr Jonathan Healey and comedian Toussaint Douglass to learn about King Charles I and the causes of the British Civil Wars.This year marks the 400th anniversary of Charles I coming to the throne on 27th March 1625. Less than two decades later, his antagonistic relationship with Parliament would ignite a civil war, one that would end with his capture, trial and execution, and the rule of Oliver Cromwell. The war is remembered as a fight between Cavaliers and Roundheads, but what did each side actually believe in, and what were the causes of this conflict? Tracing the breakdown of the relationship between the King and Parliament, this episode takes in clashes over taxation, religion and the limits of royal power, disastrous wars, unpopular advisers, and Charles’s attempts to rule without Parliament altogether. It also moves outside London, exploring popular uprisings against everything from the King’s taxes and contentious church reforms to the 17th-Century cost-of-living crisis. If you’re a fan of royals behaving badly, political bust-ups, rebellion and revolution, you’ll love our episode on the causes of the British Civil Wars.If you want to hear more from Toussaint Douglass, check out our episode on abolitionist Frederick Douglass. And for more Stuart history, listen to our episodes on King James I and VI and scandalous actress Nell Gwyn.You’re Dead to Me is the comedy podcast that takes history seriously. Every episode, Greg Jenner brings together the best names in history and comedy to learn and laugh about the past.Hosted by: Greg Jenner Research by: Matt Ryan Written by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Emma Nagouse, and Greg Jenner Produced by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Audio Producer: Steve Hankey Production Coordinator: Ben Hollands Senior Producer: Emma Nagouse Executive Editor: James Cook

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you can listen to the latest episodes 28 days earlier than anywhere else. First on BBC Sounds. Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we're getting political on the 400th anniversary of the coming of King Charles I. So yes, we're traveling back to the 17th century to discover the causes of the British Civil Wars. You might call them English Civil War.

We'll explain later. And to help us separate the royalists from the radicals, we have two very special guests. In History Corner, he's associate professor in Social History at Kellogg College University of Oxford, where his research focuses on the social history of early modern England. You might have read his incredible book, The Blazing World, A New History of Revolutionary England. He's also the author of a forthcoming book, The Blood in Winter, all about the run-up to the Civil War in 1642.

It's Dr Jonathan Healy. Welcome, John. Hi, Greg. Lovely to be here. Thank you for coming in. And in Comedy Corner, he's an award winning stand up comedian. He's a writer. You may have seen him on BBC Three's Stand Up for live comedy or loads of Dave shows like Outsiders, Hypothetical, Question Team or Late Night Mash. And you will remember him from our episode on Frederick Douglass. It's Toussaint Douglas. Welcome back to the show Toussaint. Thanks so much for having me Greg. You also forgot to mention that, just like John, I

also have a connection with Kellogg's. I had cornflakes this morning, so I'm also very academic myself. Don't want to, yeah. I'll leave it to him mostly, but just to say that, you know, I dipped my toes in some milk, so yeah. Toussaint, last time you proved yourself to be a bit of an American history aficionado. You knew quite a lot about Frederick Douglass. Yeah, well he was one of my heroes. So someone I, yeah, and also I did study kind of American history at uni a bit. So I had a little bit of a help there.

This one, not so much. So when you told me about the British Civil War, I did think it was like a British version of like the Marvel kind of films, some of that, the Civil War films. So that's my starting point. So yeah, we'll probably be leaving a lot of the history to John, but I'll chip in every now and then, I'm sure. So what do you know? This is the So What Do You Know? This is where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener might know about today's subject. and as you've probably heard of the British Civil Wars, or rather you've

probably heard of the English Civil War. That's not really a name we use that much anymore and also there aren't that many movies about it or pop culture about it. We've got King Charles popping up in To Kill a King, there was the show The Devil's Whore, there was Black Hat of the Cavalier years. Recently we've had Julianne Moore and Nicholas Galatzine seducing their way into the early Stuart Court in Mary and George, which was very rude and naughty. I enjoyed it.

But I reckon most listeners are going to be unsure of the details here. I think probably you're thinking of Roundheads vs Cavaliers or Oliver Cromwell and his ugly war tour, Charles I being beheaded. But how did a civil war actually start? And just how long is a long Parliament? Let's find out the British Civil Wars or the War of the Three Kingdoms or the English Civil War or I mean, there's loads of names for it, but they started in 1642. They lasted about a decade But today we're gonna do the prequel. We're gonna go Phantom Menace to some we're gonna basically do in fact Phantom Menace had loads

Of chat about tax and import duties. That's what we're doing as well. So lucky you. It was a slog. So I'm hoping this podcast is a little bit a little bit less like that. But yeah, it's not all taxes, I promise you. So, John, where do we start our story? Do we start with Charles?

Well, we're going to look at the period 1625 to 1642. That's from the start of Charles's reign to the moment when it all kind of falls apart and the Civil War begins in England. But we're going to start with James I as well, because some of the things that we'll be thinking about will date back to the predecessor of Charles, his father. James I of England, James VI of Scotland. But for Toussaint's benefit, what are the super speedy highlights of James the First's quite controversial reign? So James the First was very short of money and that created an awful lot of problems

and in particular it created a lot of problems in his relationship with Parliament because the assumption was at this time that for the King to take people's money they had to give consent to it in Parliament, which met when the king wanted it to. But the trouble is that when James called parliaments, they tended to want grievances to be addressed. So there's that. He's short of money. It's a kind of perennial thing for the English and the British government. There's also a huge amount of kind of social stress in England at this period. There's been a long period of population growth, it means that people can't get on the housing ladder, food prices are very, very high. There's

a series of riots in 1607. This sounds familiar. I'm sensing a thread here. During these riots in 1607 in the Midlands, people threw down fences, which may feel like a little bit of a kind of random thing to do but these were enclosures which had kind of fenced people out of land. And to do that they had to level the fences and they had to dig, they used spades to dig. So they took the names levelers and diggers and that then later in the 17th century they became the names applied to radical democratic and indeed communist groups. That's very Middle England activism though, isn't it?

I'm putting a fence down, this is my fence and I'm making sure it's level actually. And there's a lot of religious issues which have hung over from the Reformation. And so by the end of James's reign, England is at war with Spain. Yeah, so Charles went on this kind of long and entirely daft trip to Madrid where he basically kind of popped up in the Spanish court and tried to get the Infanta to marry him and the King of Spain said no. And so he went home and he was absolutely mad about this. So he persuaded his father to join a war against Spain. It's quite incel behaviour, isn't it? If a woman says no to declare war on an entire country. I mean the incel thing it sounds

flippant but people thought that Charles was so sexually repressed that he had something called the green sickness which kind of made him ill because he wasn't getting enough sex so I'm going to get letters for this but maybe he was the first incel who knows. Goodness me. So the end of James's reign, England and Scotland of course, at war with Spain which is bad news. So Toussaint, King Charles I comes to the throne, 1625, do you think he learns from daddy's mistakes? I'm gonna go with no.

I'm gonna go with he didn't have the greatest dad modelling in what he should be doing so I'm thinking he's more of the same, Greg. I think that's a pretty good guess. John, things just get worse for young Charles, don't they? Yeah, I mean, he doesn't take after his father, though. I mean, one of the first things he does is he tries to clean up his court and make it a little bit less debauched. I mean, he was terribly offended by the sort of drinking and the pissing and the shitting that had gone on under his father, so he did try and clean that up. But

the issue of tax, you know, those phantom menace issues, let's call them that, didn't go away and completely poisoned Charles's relationship with Parliament because he basically sort of says, well, you know, there's a war, I really should be able to just take your money. But Parliament says, well, actually, we have to vote it to it to you and before we do that we want you to address these grievances that we have. And the grievances are, they're long and they're extensive. One of the grievances is Charles has married Princess Henrietta Maria of France, who of course was a Catholic. This was a provocative move at the time where religious tensions were high. She wasn't even allowed

in the church during the coronation and wedding ceremony. Yeah, I mean there's a lot of anti-Catholicism in England at this point. It's not helped were high. She wasn't even allowed in the church during the coronation and wedding ceremony. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of anti-Catholicism in England at this point. It's not helped by the fact that in the church, there's a group which Charles rather likes, who want to create a much more elaborate church with lots more sort of, you know, we'd call it high church, I guess. Yeah, he's married to a French Catholic and he's also, and this is a Mary and George thing, he's also still really intertwined with the Duke of Buckingham who Parliament see as a thoroughly bad thing.

They see him as corrupt, they see him as an upstart, they see him as very, very dangerous. There's also a weird thing called, Toussaint, tell me if you've heard of this before, tonnage and poundage. This is Radio 4, right? I'm gonna say no? And if we weren't Radio 4, what would you say? I'd probably still say no, because my mum listens to everything I do. Alright, John, tonnage and poundage is not as filthy as it sounds. Well, I mean, to the English common law mindset, it was distinctly filthy,

because it was a way that the Crown tried to take money without gaining consent from Parliament. Tonnage and poundage, as funny as it sounds, is a fairly kind of, you know, it's a tax on imports and exports. And traditionally, Parliament had always granted it to the monarch at the start of their reign for life. But under Charles I, Parliament says you can have it for a year. And then we're going to kind of have another look and see if everything kind of tracks and everything's okay and then it expired so Charles was faced with a bit of a problem which is

that he suddenly lost this source of income and he approached that problem in the most direct way you probably could which is that he just collects it anyway so parliamentarians lawyers sort of think well this is sort of a little bit illegal isn't it? Okay so he's raising an awful lot of money on tonnage and poundage which is a sort of medieval customs duty. I quite liked money, I think you should have rolled on, I think money could catch on. You've mentioned the Duke of Buckingham, so he was King James's lover, he'd been raised to that status. He is the star of Mary and George, if you want to watch that show, it's very fun. So he's sort of chief advisor to

Sarr. He's not having a great time with it though, because he launches a military campaign to go and attack Cadiz in Spain, and it goes very badly. All the soldiers get drunk and then run away. So how do you think he gets back into Parliament's good books? I feel like he probably doesn't. I feel like the only way probably someone like that gets back into Parliament's good books is if they get to like, I'm not, nothing, nothing, yeah, above board, lawful, but yeah, a bit of punishment probably might help them. I don't know.

I mean, your instincts are quite good on this. You've already sort of, you've basically sort of guessed where we're going in this episode. His attempt to get in their good books is to launch another military campaign having bungled the first one and he bungles this one as well it's a double bungle he's trying to help the French Protestants the Huguenots in La Rochelle John and it's a sort of classic clerical era. Yes so the soldiers turn up to this castle to try and take it and they get out of their boats and they get out these ladders which they've brought

along to scale the walls and they discover that they're too short so they all get killed. And it is another disaster. Buckingham, at this point he's been impeached by parliament and that's not worked. So in the end, the Buckingham problem is solved by assassination. He makes the mistake of going to Portsmouth and he goes to an inn in Portsmouth and as he comes out of that inn in Portsmouth he is stabbed by a person called John Felton. I mean it's one of these kind of dramatic scenes as he was stabbed no one could see who did it and someone saw it and thought assumed it was a French person because you know this is a French. So they shouted out a Frenchman, a Frenchman.

Why did they assume it was a Frenchman? Did he have a croissant in his hand? I mean why are they basing that on? I stabbed him with a baguette. But the actual stabber, the actual murderer, John Felton, thought they were saying his name. They said, Frenchman, Frenchman. He thought they were saying Felton. So instead of running away, he turned back and said, yes, was I?

And they grabbed him and hung Drew and caught him. So it became a great men for him as well. I mean, I feel like the guy's first mistake was going to Portsmouth, right? I mean, that's where he went wrong. Why go to Portsmouth? Lots of other really good, no offence to Portsmouth, but I've been there quite a few times for gigs and other places. So we have the Duke of Buckingham killed, the chief advisor's gone, he's out of the picture. So does that mean things are a little bit easier for Charles because Parliament is appeased that one of the bad guys is gone?

I mean, you'd hope so, but no. And they've had a recent controversy over something called the Petition of Rights whereby Parliament basically says non-parliamentary taxation is illegal, Charles eventually signs it or eventually gives his assent but fudges it. And then they go back to arguing about punnage and townage and eventually end up also fighting about religion. There's this group within the English church which wants much more kind of high church ceremonial smells, you know, that kind of thing. They are very much in the ascendancy. Charles likes them very, very much. MPs within parliament got very angry about that because they saw it as a return to Catholicism and they started to challenge Charles in parliament. What does high church involve? What would that be in church? What does it look like?

There's more ceremony, there's a lot less focus on private prayer, listening to sermons. One of the biggest things is that the communion table, which in the English church at this period was traditionally in the middle, so it's kind of accessible to everyone, gets railed off and put at the east end. It's sort of protected, but also that looks like a Catholic altar and this is very offensive to quite a lot of people. So what you're saying there is that one of the key reasons that caused Britain to plunge into civil war, one of the most monumental and influential moments in our history, was a disagreement over interior design.

Is that what we're saying here? It doesn't get more British than that, does it? So we're just fighting over where the table goes. We've got the third parliament of 1628 called where again he's trying to raise money, parliament's like no, people who refuse are imprisoned or they're pushed into the army, they're pressed into the army. So there's real tension where Charles is throwing his weight around. There's a lovely quote, John, Sir Benjamin Rudyard, he says, this is the crisis of Parliament's, we shall know by this

if Parliament's live or die. Oh, that's good, isn't it? It's a good quote. It is and basically what he's doing is he's looking at the European scene and he's seeing that in France and, you know, in Spain, monarchs are at this point trying to rule increasingly without parliament and he thinks that England will go down this route as well. Essentially, the monarchy is starting to look very, very authoritarian and parliament really kind of fights back against this. Yeah. And Charles' attitude to Parliament goes full cycle. King Charles wrote a lovely quote here,

At first I liked Parliaments, but since, I know not how, I was grown to distaste of them, but I am now where I was. I love Parliament. Tucson, I know you like your politics, I know you're quite into sort of politics. Yeah. Is I Love Parliament a good slogan? You know, is it memeable?

I'm not quite sure it's memeable, no. I don't know who that would be for, to be honest, apart from parliament. So Charles, he loves parliaments for now, but the honeymoon period doesn't last because there's a subsidy bill, John, isn't there? And you've talked about the forced loans, there's martial law, the petition of rights, there's tonnage and poundage again. And you mentioned the subcommittee, the subcommittee are in charge of the tonnage and poundage thing and they just suddenly decide to be a subcommittee about Catholicism. They've changed the name. Oh now we're getting into the nitty gritty. Subcommittee, here we go, alright. Subcommittee, that's what you want. And Charles is annoyed at this and he demands an adjournment.

Yeah, he basically adjourns parliament as a kind of prelude to dissolving it. But when he sends his messenger to the House of Commons, they basically bar the door so he can't get in and they hold the speaker down in his chair for like an hour. And while they do that, MPs pass a series of resolutions basically saying that if you support all this kind of stuff you are a traitor and at this time it's one of these kind of very dramatic moments where MPs, because of course the MPs would all wear swords at this point, so they're all grabbing their swords and they're sort of banging them on the floor and they start calling each other patriots and royalists so you start to get

these kind of party labels if you like. It's very disorderly scenes. Great fun. As a historian you're loving this but that's chaos. I love the idea of just the messenger just outside the door like I can hear you, I know you're in there, just open the door, this isn't cool guys, come on, you're like what am I going to tell the king, I've got to go back to him. And the king responds by imprisoning nine MPs. That's not good news, right? John, you can't imprison MPs. Can you? Can he? Can he? Well, I mean, there's a question. I mean, yeah, I mean, he can and he does. He's obviously quite cross about the situation. By this point,

he's sort of starting to think, well, maybe I'll kind of wind up these wars. So I'm not going to need quite so much money anymore. He basically decides that he wants to rule without parliament. It's all too much of a hassle. So from now on, he will try to rule England without calling another parliament for as long as he can. Toussaint, do you want to guess how long this personal rule no parliament is? This guy doesn't sound like a long and stable ruler.

So I'm going to, I'm going less than five, less than five years. Sensible guess, it's 11 years. 11, he managed to pull off for 11 years, really. What did he do? Did he just lock the door as well? So they couldn't get, he just changed and locked the door. Is it just all down to the door? I don't know, is that the key?

Whoever controls the door controls the country. I don't know, how does he do 11 years? That's a good point John. I mean, is he raising cash just in his own way then? He's not getting Parliament to pass these laws for him? Yeah, so I mean Parliament at this point is something which doesn't sit permanently. It only sits when the King calls it. And what he then tried to do was he tried to find new and creative

ways of raising money. And in order to do this, the new ways are basically the old ways. And one of his civil servants, a guy called Sir John Burra, had been ferreting away in the 17th century equivalent of the National Archives, which was in the Tower of London. And he'd found all these crazy medieval ways of raising money and, you know, everything from, you know, attacks on beer, for example, or attacks on death or attacks on lawyers, which I think would have been quite popular. But the two really crucial ones were, get this, fines for people who were wealthy enough to become knights, but hadn't presented themselves to become knights at the King's coronation. So he fined people for

that. It's called the disdraint of knighthood. Very controversial, as you can imagine. And the other thing he did was he found the boundaries of the old medieval forests, and he found that basically they covered about a third of the country, and said, right, okay, there's all these medieval laws against building houses or having land on the forests, and said, well, you know, I know there's a massive town here now, but in 1200, this was a forest. So I'm going to find you as well. And again, it was very controversial and people didn't like it very much. Right. Toussaint, if you need to sort of rustle up, I don't know, let's say three billion quid, what strategies would you go for?

If I needed a quick three billion, I think I would just draw my face onto a piece of paper and just say that's three billion. He's the king, isn't that what money is? I mean, that might work. I don't know. Maybe that works in some dictator ships. I don't know. But I think that tends to lead to hyperinflation. But you know, I'm not an economist. Something he does do is he turns to ship money. What is ship money? Well, ship money is a well established or was a well established way of raising ships for the Navy. And basically what happened was that coastal communities were told you need to provide a ship for the Royal Navy and that would protect the country. What Charles

did was he kind of rolled it out to inland counties on the fairly sensible premise that basically they get protected as well. And it was very, very controversial because he was essentially doing a new tax and he was doing it without parliament. The way he did it was very, very clever. He said, basically, it's an emergency and the emergency is the French and pirates and the Turks as well. And he said, there's loads of pirates in the English channel. They keep coming here and being a pain. So it's an emergency. So I need to have a tax without parliament. And people argued, well, that's all very well, but you know, it doesn't look like that much of an emergency. There's like two pirates,

mate, come on. And he says, well, I'm the king and I get to decide when it's an emergency. Rather cleverly, he's kind of basically said, in emergencies, I can have your money and I get to decide when it's an emergency. Therefore, I can have your money. But it seems to work. You know, he raises quite a lot of money through it. You can see the tensions rising here, Tucson, I think, because the King is just doing what he wants. So we've already mentioned tension between the high church Anglicans and the ones who are sort of almost a bit Catholic and the Puritans. What is Armenianism? Is it this high church thing you mentioned?

Yeah, it is. I mean, to be fair, I get a lot of student essays where it has been auto-corrected from Arminianism to Arminianism, or it says things like, Charles I had a lot of problems with Armenians, which I think is a very, very specific form of prejudice. But it comes to a Dutch theologian called Arminius, and he argued for essentially a form of faith where you're not completely predestined to heaven or hell, you have a certain amount of free will. And that then kind of ties into this English idea of ceremonialism and, you know, again, interior design, putting the altar, putting the holy table at the east end, and it's connected by this sort of clumsy guy from Reading who is sort of a bit like a kind of short version

of Rickage of Ace, who just alienates everyone, called William Lord. And he became the Archbishop of Canterbury and he was very, very controversial because, you know, the Calvinists and the Puritans didn't like it very much. Okay, so William Lord, it's Lord L-A-U-D. And there's a vicar called Peter Titli who sounds fun. Not because of his name, although I mean maybe a bit because of his name. It's a bit because of his name, is it? Come on, let's do that.

I know we're radiant for it, but it's a little bit because of his name. John, why is Peter Titli fun? Well, because he liked to bow and do all this kind of stuff so much that he would fall over and drop the prayer book and all this kind of stuff. And, you know, this was all in the name of decorum, of course. Was he also drunk as well though? Because I feel like just bowing isn't enough to make you fall over. Unless he was really top heavy on his head.

Like I've got quite a big head sometimes, but I feel like he must have been hitting the communion wine a little bit, surely. Okay, so the anti-Puritan push of the 1630s also enters a surprising arena, which is sports. Toussaint, what kind of things are you imagining here? I'll be generous, there aren't that many formalised sports in the 1630s. So anti-Puritan sports. Yeah, so the kind of of high church Armenian style sports. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So obviously you've got like main sports like egg and spoon race. So is it like that but with like the communion cup?

Nice. The egg is just in the cup and you're just running with that. I have no idea. I have absolutely no idea Greg. I love the idea of a sort of child sports day, like, like a primary school. What sort of sports and activities are we talking about? Well basically what the King did in 1633 is said on the Sunday, these are the sports you can play. Puritans thought you could play no sports on the Sunday. They're like, you know, the very fact that you're suggesting we can play sports on the Sunday is entirely

offensive and Charles basically had all his ministers, all his clergymen around the country, they were forced to read this thing called the Book of Sports, which basically said, these are the sports you can play. And if you're a Puritan minister, you were deeply offended by this. And some of them did have clever ways of getting around it. So for example, they would read it out before anyone had turned up in church. Oh, nice. Or there was one guy who read it out and then read the Ten Commandments and said,'ve now heard the the laws of God and the laws of the king you can choose which one you obey. Wow okay strong that. Strong. So these sports are we've got dancing? Yeah so Morris

dancing is very politicized it's a kind of angry, radical form of dance. Is it though? I've seen a bit of Morris dancing, is it angry? I'm not quite sure. They've all got copies of- Just furiously flicking their ankles with the bells. Dancing with mouths a little red. But one of my favourite ones is a kind of set of sports that are still with us today, which are the Cotswold Olympics, which was set up by a guy called Robert Dover. And it was a specific way of annoying the local Puritans because he was really trying to rub their noses in it.

But he made sure it was all very hierarchical and it all kind of fitted the social hierarchy. So the rich would do things like hunting and shooting, whereas the peasants would basically do something called shin kicking, which sounds pretty horrible to be honest. There's also the wits and ails, so the brewing of ails, which I think is again the Puritans are against. So we've got this sort of culture war, the king is ramping up the culture war on one side, the Puritans are pushing back, but we also then get the cost of living crisis again, John. Why is this crisis happening? It's not inflation, is it? Root cause it is inflation. There's a big growth in population. That means that there's

more mouths to feed. There's also a series of really bad harvests from about 1628 onwards that led to food riots. There's also this kind of the fences, the enclosure that we talked about earlier. There's a big series of riots, particularly in the West, the Forest of Dean, led by a man who goes around dressed as a woman. There's a series of very, very significant riots there. There's a sense in the 1630s that the social order is really kind of fraying. There's a lot of anger out there. There's a cost of living crisis, but surely it's not affecting the Puritans, is it? Like, they must be saving loads of money. They're not doing anything with their time. They're

just indoors just like, just reading the Bible. Like, what, they're not spending any money, are they? Why is the guy dressing up in women's clothing? Is he just feeling more comfortable that way and this is his excuse? He may be. So, one theory is that it's a disguise. The other is that it's, the authorities tend to be a lot gentler to women rioters than men, although that doesn't really work because when they captured him they would have probably found out quite quickly. The best explanation is that it represents this idea of the world turned upside down. Basically the enclosers, the people who are taking this land away from the poor, are people who are overturning the social order and it's a way of mocking that. It's a way of saying,

you know, if you take away our land you might as well have men dress as women and that really would overturn the social order kind of thing. It's a conservative society in lots of ways. It's quite pantomime, isn't it? It's quite sort of really cranky. Now earlier, Toussaint, you mentioned Marvel and I can ring my Marvel bell because we have Captain Carter show up, who is a lady who she sort of rallies the brave lads of Malden in Essex. Do you know what she does, Toussaint? To rally them? Yeah, they go on a heist. They go to steal some stuff.

Oh, right, okay. This sounds very, yeah, what do they steal? Well they're going after the grain. They carted it off. Captain Carter carted it off. Not the sexiest heist, I'll be honest. No. Stealing stacks of grain.

Bit more ambitious. Go for the gold. Do you know what I mean? You get all the grain you want and then some with gold. Well you're just stealing grain. You can only have grain. Grain only gets you grain. You can't eat gold, Dusan.

Come on, think of it. They're hungry. This is a political act. John, Captain Carter, or Anne Carter as she is, she was executed for this heist. Yeah, I mean it's unusual that she was treated very, very harshly. It's very unusual for food rioters to be hanged in this period and she was treated very, very harshly and I think it is partly because there is this kind of political crisis and people are kind of basically saying well this is more serious now because of the political crisis.

Okay. And the King also devises other stricter penalties. He goes after the printing. So he's sort of controlling the media, I suppose. Is that fair? Yeah. And one of the things about the 1630s, which becomes very, very controversial, particularly later, is the strong control of the press by the government. So, for example, there is a decree against printed material in 1637 and there are a series of really quite nasty prosecutions for sedition. One of the earliest is a guy called Alexander Layton, who's a Scot and writes about bishops in such a way that the king doesn't like. So he ends up being put in the pillory in a snowstormstorm just to make it worse. He had his ears cut off, he had one of his ears cut off. He was whipped and then thrown in prison

and he was forced to kind of sit in a prison cell with rats and mice for 10 years. And by the time he was released by parliament, he was basically a complete mess, as you would be. Yeah. So getting your ears lopped off in a snowstorm is the 17th century equivalent of YouTube taking down a video for copyright infringement. It's quite bad, but they don't kill you. Let's get back briefly to Captain Carter. Was she rare being a woman involved in protests, John? You said it was rare that she was executed, but were women often politically engaged, politically radicalised?

Yes, I mean, women were very much involved in protests, particularly about food, because that was seen as kind of in the in women's domain. And so you would often see women leading food riots. There's also people like Lady Eleanor Davis, who's a really interesting character. She was an aristocratic lady. And she began making prophecies early in the 17th century, including prophesying that her husband would die. He was a bit cross about this and ended up sort of burning her papers. And then she had another husband who also burnt her papers. So she ran up against the patriarchy, shall we say. And then in the 1630s she found herself angry about William Lord and at one point she went into Lichfield Cathedral and she poured a vat of boiling tar over the communion table because she thought it was

in the wrong place, for which she was sent to Bedlam, which was a mental asylum, and eventually the tower, although she was released eventually. So yeah, women are very much involved in protest. Religion is one thing that women often end up protesting about. They're definitely part of the political nation in this period. Wow. I mean, chucking molten tar onto a sort of sacred table in a holy building, that's quite bold. Toussaint, I mean, have you ever gone that bold with a protest?

No. I mean, it's always boiling tar, isn't it? It's never kind of lukewarm tar, like it always has to be bubbling doesn't it, the tar. I feel like tar in itself is enough but it's for some reason people who use tar it's always got to be 100 degrees you know boiling point. It's curious that to be honest. All right so that's a very bold protest. She called herself the primate and metropolitan and she sat in a bishop's throne as well, didn't she?

She really like, wasn't keen. Cheeky, very cheeky. Very cheeky, I think is politely putting it. We're supposed to learn from our own mistakes, but other people's errors can be instructive too. From efforts to control the weather that went disastrously awry, to the untimely death of the Segway boss, history is a treasure trove of mishaps and meltdowns that can teach us all. I'm Tim Harford, host of Cautionary Tales, the podcast that mines the greatest fiascos

of the past for their most valuable lessons. Listen to Cautionary Tales wherever you get your podcasts. We've spoken a lot about England so far and I think it's really important, in case listeners don't know, that Charles I of England was King of Scotland as well. They were kingdoms that were united because he was a Stuart, his family was Scottish, his dad was Scottish. So these English reforms, these William Lord reforms, was he also pushing them north of the border up into Scotland as well? Yes, and Charles saw himself as having what he called an imperial crown. So it was his

duty to impose his ideas, his religion on Ireland and on Scotland. In Scotland, initially, it ran into a lot of difficulty. In 1637, Charles tried to impose Lordianism on Scotland. Scotland was particularly anti this kind of thing. They particularly liked their communion tables in the middle of the church. And so when a new prayer book was used in Edinburgh by the Dean of Edinburgh, apparently, according to legend, an Edinburgh woman called Jenny Geds stood up and flung her stool at the Dean of Edinburgh before he was chased out of the city by a mob. That then led to the conditions of a massive rebellion in Scotland. And in 1638, the Scots en masse signed this thing called the Scottish National Covenant, where they basically said that they

would protect their church, their kirk. They became called Covenanters. Charles agreed to convene an assembly of the kirk and the Scottish Parliament, and they then abolished bishops. So they basically said, oh, thank you for our nice assembly. We're gonna really go whole hog.

And one of the things that Charles's father had said was no bishops, no king. He thought the bishops were absolutely central to the institution of the monarchy and Charles agreed. So it's a real two fingers. You've said something very, very important there, John, and I'm going to be an absolute childish idiot here and I'm going to have to just pull you up on something. You said chucked her stool at the dean. Do you mean furniture or do you mean she pooed in her hand and lobbed it at his head? Because I don't know if this is good, but I just like some clarity.

Funny enough Greg, I had exactly the same conversation with my editor a couple of years ago. Sadly, the possibly apocryphal Jenny Gads had a, I think, I'm assuming a kind of three-pronged piece of wooden furniture, picked it up and lobbed it at the Dean saying something along the lines of, don't say mass in my lug, which is great. I love the word lug. But no, it wasn't poo, I'm afraid. Sorry. Okay. So you said the Scottish covenant has got rid of bishops entirely and this means war to Saint. Do you know what this war is called?

The British Civil War? You think so, right? That's what we've got, you're here, that's what we're doing. Are we there yet? We're not there yet. No. This is called the Bishops' War. Now, is it a war fought by bishops, for bishops, against bishops or just near some bishops? How are the bishops involved, John? I would like it to be near some bishops. It was settled by a chess game. It was for and against. So Charles was fighting on the side of his bishops.

The Scots were fighting against his bishops and Charles was trying to protect the bishops. The Scottish were trying to bash the bishops. It led to a plan by Charles to invade Scotland and it all went terribly badly wrong. By March 1639, the Covenant had seized most Scottish strongholds. The King's soldiers under the Marquis of Hamilton met really, really tough resistance, including Hamilton's own mother. His mother Anne apparently was seen on a beach when he was trying to land saying, if my son lands I will shoot him myself with a pistol.

So some family issues going on there. That's embarrassing isn't it? That's embarrassing seeing your mum on the beach. You go, ah lads, I don't know what to say but that's my mum isn't it? Please don't kill her, alright. And he changed sides eventually. He eventually did come out of the Covenanters. So maybe it worked.

Maybe it worked. Eventually it ends in a truce because the Scots managed to kind of array their soldiers out to look like they had a lot more. And Charles happened to be looking at them through a telescope and sort of went, oh shit. They've got more soldiers than I thought. And so eventually there was a truce. Although it was always very much in bad faith. shit. They've got more soldiers than I thought and so eventually there was a truce. Although it was always very much in bad faith, Charles was always planning to fight again.

Yeah, I mean without wishing to spoil it, there is a second bishops war so as soon as the treaty is signed he's already planning a second one and of course a second one breaks out a year later. So Charles does the obvious thing here, he calls another parliament and having had the short parliament for he now goes on a parliamentary bender. It's called the long parliament. He can't get enough. Toussaint, how long is the long parliament?

I'm going to go with two years. That's a very sensible guess. It's 20 years. 20 years? This guy is so random. I don't... I wouldn't know where... If I was a parliamentarian, I just wouldn't know where I stand with him. Do you know what I mean? I just want clarity from Charles. I feel like he's like, are you into me? Are you not? Like, you keep calling me up and then you keep breaking up with me. Like, come on. Like, what's our relationship status here? 20 years, wow. In fairness, he was dead for half of that. So, you know, I mean, John, it's a technicality,

right? The parliament is never dissolved because the king is executed. But you know that we're jumping ahead. But that's why it's called the long parliament. Is that fair? Yeah. But also he can't dissolve it because he needs money. They also then passed an act called the Triennial Act, which is terribly important, which says Parliament must sit every three years and if it doesn't, if the King doesn't call it, then leading kind of lawyers and politicians can call it anyway. And that is a massive constitutional revolution because previously Parliament had always been called by the King, that was the only way it could be called, and now they're saying Parliament is permanent and it

can be called even if the King doesn't. Good on Parliament. Yeah, they found their self-worth after all that being messed about and actually like, you know, good. I'm glad. Yeah, so we now have a parliamentarian sort of step forward, you know, because often people will assume that Cromwell will be kind of important at this phase, but Cromwell isn't really in the picture yet. The person who steps forward to be sort of leader of parliament a bit is called John Pym, is that right? Yeah, I mean, Cromwell is basically a backbench MP from Cambridge. He's virtually, you know,

very, very little significance at all. Pym is this kind of long standing, incredibly politically savvy guy. He is an absolute master of political timing and he is particularly good at organising committees. So it really is the thick of it. He's kind of Malcolm Tucker but put in parliament. He's incredibly clever, he's incredibly sophisticated and has this kind of group of MPs and peers who support him and want to reform the state. And he gets nicknamed King Pym, which sounds like King Pym, but it's King Pym. But that's, I mean, I'm guessing his friends call him that? No, no, his enemies. No.

Oh really? It's a kind of, it suggests that he wants to become king. He's ambitious, he's a traitor. So it's very much an insult. When you hear it, it's normally someone in a pub in London saying, Ah, that King Pym, I hope he gets fried in his own grease kind of thing. Oh, lovely. It's not his friends.

Pym starts to unpick Charles' policies. He goes after ship money, which was that inland coastal thing. He goes after the Star Chamber, which is how Charles had crushed the media. He goes after the High Commission. He takes after, he goes after crucifixes and images in the churches. So he's taking on the Anglican high church, Armenianism. He's sort of puritanizing and and streamlining government. So King Charles was under huge pressure from Pym and from Parliament in general. And he was now relying on a new adviser called Thomas Wentworth, the Earl of Stratford, who

was out in Ireland. And he tried to recall Wentworth back to London. Parliament found out about it. They intercepted him. They accused him of treason and they forced the King to sign the death warrant and Stratford was executed. And he had been running Ireland and without Stratford there, suddenly we get a huge, huge outbreak of violence in Ireland. And this is a really important factor, isn't it? Yeah. So after the execution of Stratford, I mean, literally the day of the execution of Stratford, Charles met with his negotiators from Scotland and they said he's surprisingly cheery for someone who's just had his lead advisor beheaded. And the reason was that Charles in the summer of 1641 had

decided to go to Scotland and try and win power there. And to do that, he engaged in plotting to try and have his enemies arrested and possibly killed. Meanwhile, in Ireland, which of course had been subject to British colonial rule for decades now, was suddenly kind of bubbling up into rebellion. And the issue was that, or one of the kind of immediate issues was that Stratford had created this army of Irish Catholics, and then he'd been beheaded and the army was left with nothing to do. There was a plan to give it to Spain and to France, but Parliament were a bit reluctant to that. So essentially it just kind of sat there. And then these people became,

these disbanded soldiers became very, very angry and that kind of fed into a rebellion. And in October 1641, it all kind of explodes with this plot to take Dublin Castle, which is betrayed, and then a huge uprising in Ulster which quickly gets out of hand and there are reports of massacres, really quite nasty bloodshed and some of them are true but also they're massively exaggerated by the English press and that then creates a really kind of tense situation going into the end of 1641. And we get the Irish Catholic Confederation of Kilkenny, which is the sort of unification of an Irish resistance or independent movement almost.

And they are fighting for the king, but they sometimes fight against the Scottish and sometimes for, like it's very confusing what's gonna happen, but the Irish equation is so important. And this is one of the reasons we don't call it the English Civil War because Ireland is a huge part of it Scotland's a huge part of it Unfortunately Wales just gets sucked into England. Sorry Wales So we get the Grand Remonstrance. Do you know what that is Toussaint?

It sounds a bit like a dance that the couples on Strictly would do like week nine, you know Like Blackpool week, you know, because it's quite technical and it's a lot of hip action to it, you know what I mean? Like the grand remonstrance. It just sounds really nice to say as well, grand remonstrance, it's just a really nice name to say. But it's not John, it's much more serious than that. And the music isn't nearly as jolly.

Well, so it's basically a big document with 204 clauses. It's huge, which basically says what was wrong with Charles's rule, what we've done about it and how we're good, and what we still need to do about it. And essentially the kind of implication is that because Charles's government was so bad, we as parliament need to take control over that government. We need to have control over the appointment of government officers. So people like the Lord Treasurer, all those kind of things. And that's the implication. It's hugely, hugely controversial. MPs sit up until 2am in the morning debating it. Eventually it passes by a whisker because there's lots

and lots of opposition to PIM in parliament by this point. And then there's a kind of huge argument about whether it can be printed and it ends up with Parliament saying that it can be published but not printed. So immediately people are sent away to sort of make these manuscript copies which are then sold in London. But it's a moment where, and the really important thing I think about the Grand Remonstrance, is it's a moment where it's clear that in Parliament itself, in the House of Commons in particular, MPs are divided. There are royalists and there are parliamentarians and it's a split down the middle. That hadn't been the case in 1640, it had been much more unified in opposition. So now we're getting closer to a situation where the political nation is divided and that can then lead to civil war.

There's also a petition presented to Parliament which is 24 yards long. So it's about 20 metres long, it's got 15,000 signatures on it, it's against Catholic peers and bishops, and I love the idea of just unrolling this petition slowly in front of Parliament, but it's so passive aggressive. So the Grand Remonstrance, not a ballroom dance unfortunately, it's an absolutely huge list of things that people hate about the King. We're getting daily clashes in Parliament by this point, we've got riots, we've got protests, we've got people being shot, proper violence breaking out in Westminster. And a fed up King Charles basically comes up with a plan. He's going to arrest Pym. He's going to accuse him of treason, he's presumably going to execute him. And why doesn't

it work? Well, so the first thing that Charles did was he accused them publicly in the House of Lords on the 3rd of January, and he accused five MPs and one peer. And the Lords were supposed to then say, yep, fine, we'll have them all arrested and we'll impound their papers because that will give incriminating evidence. Instead, the Lords say, actually, we think you've done this the wrong way because you've used a particular procedure, which we don't think is correct. So Charles goes home in a bit of a sort of, you know, a bit of a fuss. And then at some point he decides that the next day he will gather about sort of 500 armed cavaliers, march down to Westminster from Whitehall

and he will pull them out himself. He will have the five MPs arrested. And so that's what he did. But by the time he got there, they'd run away. And the reason was that they knew he was coming, they'd had a series of warnings, one of which probably came from someone called Lady Carlisle, Lucy Hay, who was a courtier, one of Henrietta Maria's ladies-in-waiting, but who was also connected to Pym and his group. Anyway, they kind of fled and went by boat into London and Charles

kind of sort of, oh, I can see my birds have flown and then went off again in a huff. The 4th of January, when this happened, was an utterly shocking moment for the country because Charles had basically taken an armed gang down to parliament and threatened to arrest. Now he hadn't done it, he hadn't massacred them, but they thought he was within a whisker of basically having loads of MPs shot.

It was a hugely, hugely shocking moment for the political nation. 1642, this is the year of the civil war and in May of 42 we get the country basically going to... How does the country raise itself to war when it's the king that they're angry at? Well I think, I mean by this point it's much more split down the middle. I mean, a lot of people are angry at the king, but there's a lot of people who are still loyal. And basically what happens is that both sides say we need to defend ourselves from the other side. So parliament raises the militia and does so without the assent of the king, which they've

never done before. Whereas Charles used something called the commissions of array, which was a medieval way of getting people to come out to slay and kill people who were attacking the king. And both sides are raising these defensive forces. At the same time, they're saying, well, we're only doing it because the other side is raising forces. And eventually that then cascades into the next step, which is to actually raise armies. But before then, Parliament had put together another document, which sounds a bit less like a ballroom dance, I reckon. The 19 propositions, which basically is another attempt to say, look, things have got bad, the way that we solve this is we get control of the government, we take it away from the

king, we get control of the militia. And of course, there's no way that Charles would agree to this. It's two political positions which are very much apart. And that then again sort of feeds into this arming, creation of armies, by which and by the summer basically Charles has decided that it's all gone too far. The only way I can deal with this is to declare war on the rebels, as he calls them, on the Earl of Essex, their leader. And that's why he went to Nottingham and raised his standard on the 22nd of August. Why did he choose Nottingham to declare war?

Is it because it already looks like a bit of a battlefield or is it just like... No, I'm joking. I really like Nottingham. I've already alienated Portsmouth. I don't want to lose Nottingham as well. I've got a long history with Nottingham. I'm already in Portsmouth, I don't want to lose Nottingham as well. I've got a long history with Nottingham, I went to uni there, it's really good. Some fond memories, my first mugging was in Radford so I've got a lot of really like Nottingham.

I mean it's a fair point, why not? Is it just because it's in the middle of the country? Is that just a good, sensible... Yeah, he just really hates Leicester. He wanted to give a bit of trade to that. I mean, he does. I mean, one of the things that Charles was executed for was for laying waste to Leicester. That was literally in the charge against him. But no, it's because it's right in the centre of London.

Sorry. A bit of metropolitan elite there. It was right in the centre of the country and it was a great base for raising troops in the Midlands and also possibly going over towards Wales where Charles knew that he had a lot of support. So on the fateful day 22nd of August 1642, having come to power in 1625, Charles I raised the royal standard at Nottingham and then apparently the wind blew it down which was never a good sign and thus declared the British Civil War, the English Civil War, whatever you want to call it, but he declared war. Charles had come to power in 1625, so it's 400 years this year since Charles had come to power. The question I want to ask

you Toussaint, which side would you have sided with? Would you have gone King or Parliament? Oh, that is a good question. I think before this I would have gone Parliament because I'm a man of the people and also I'm not a king. But to be honest, I'm not going to lie, Parliament, they do seem a bit like Jobsworth's. Like a little bit like 2am, the Grand Remonstrance thing, the 19th... If I got that in my entry I'd be like, mate, do one please. We've heard it before. Just chill out.

So I think I might go Charles, you know. I think I'm going to, I think I'm going to, I think I'm royalist, yeah. It just sounds a little bit more fun. Just a little bit. Okay, so you're a cavalier. Pop on your hat. Yeah, cavalier, yeah.

Yeah, feather in the cap and off you go. So there we go. So that's the end of the story. We're not going to cover the actual wars itself. We're stopping here. But there we go. Toussaint not going to cover the actual wars itself. We're stopping here. But there we go. Toussaint has committed himself to the King's cause.

And John, I guess, I don't know, are you fighting for the parliamentary side? I don't know. With the BBC, so we need balance. So yeah, I'll be a parliamentarian on this one, I think. Okay, great, lovely. The nuance window! Okay, time now for the nuance window. This is where Toussaint and I sit quietly and read

seditious pamphlets for two minutes while Dr John tries not to topple over in the pulpits while gesticulating wildly about the British Civil Wars. You have two minutes, take it away Dr Healy. So, I mean, it's very easy when you're thinking about the British Civil Wars to think that it's basically all Charles I's fault and lots of historians think that's the case. I'm not saying he's a success by any stretch of the imagination. He toys with militarism, he toys with authoritarianism, he marches to parliament with an armed gang. He basically does mess things up quite significantly. There's nothing which says that he has to impose his prayer book on Scotland.

Nonetheless, I think one of the things that's really important to have in mind is the fact that there are these really kind of deep level problems in the country at the time. We talked a bit about inflation and all this kind of stuff and that makes it much harder to run a government. We talked a little bit about social pressures and again, that makes it much harder to rule the country.

But also, these kind of issues with parliament are based on really kind of long-standing ideological differences. There are people who believe the king can kind of do what he wants, and there are people who believe that the king is much more restricted. It's very, very hard to rule the country

which thinks intelligently about these issues and comes to different conclusions. And it's the same with religion. The country, it's complex the way it thinks about religion. There are Catholics, there are Puritans, there are Protestants in the middle. And it's very, very, very hard to run one country like that, let alone three.

And remember that Scotland is more Protestant, more Puritan than England, and Ireland is mostly Catholic. So it's very, very hard for Charles. So again, I think with the Civil War, it's really, really important not to just pin this on one hopeless guy. And I'm not saying he's not hopeless, but it's important to think of other things

that are going on. He's dealt a very, very difficult hand. Oh, boo hoo, so hard for the king. Oh, boo hoo. I mean, he was a king in the 17th century, thought he was chosen by God. So let's not go too heavy on the feel sorry for a bit. You know what I mean he was a king in the 17th century thought he was chosen by God So let's not go too heavy on the feel sorry for a bit. You know, I mean Now you've stopped sides. Yeah, so you were fine for the king a minute ago what happens?

We've lost you So, what do you know now? This is our quickfire quiz for Tucson to see how much he has learned and remembered and you are giggling and wincing at the same time. It's so dense, it's just so much, it's so interesting, there's so much to it isn't there? Yeah there is, I mean it's only a 16 year period really, 17 year period but it's so, so much happened.

Alright we've got 10 questions for you. So here we go. Question one, in what year did Charles I come to the throne? 1625? It is, well done, yes. Yeah. 400th anniversary, well done. Question two, how did King James and King Charles's close advisor,

the Duke of Buckingham die? He was assassinated. He was, he was stabbed outside a pub in Portsmouth. By a croissant, maybe, we don't know. It's not in the history books, but we're thinking it might have been. Seems plausible. Question three, during his personal rule,

how long did King Charles go without calling parliament? Okay, this sticks in my head because it was quite a long time to be honest. 11 years. It was 11 years, well done. Question four, can you remember who was Captain Carter? Yeah, she was in the Marvel films. No, no, I'm joking, Greg, I've learnt something, don't worry.

She was a grain thief. Yeah, she could have gone gold but she went grain, so. She did and she was executed. Question five, can you name the Archbishop of Canterbury whose reforms were so unpopular they became unpopular? Oh lord yes I can it was lord. William Lord well done. Question six, which unpopular tax, there were quite a few actually, which particular unpopular tax could King Charles levy without parliament even in inland communities? Yeah I'm gonna have to say this one very carefully, Greg, because I know this is a

respectable podcast. It was, and I've also got a little bit of a list like speech pediments, so I'm sweating it a little bit. Ship pa pa pa money. Ship money. That is my final answer. Very good. Well done.

Yes. Final answer. Very good. Well done, yes. Question seven, can you name one traditional activity or outdoor activity that Charles encouraged during his anti-Puritan efforts? Yes, the shin wars, the shin kicking. Was it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Morris dancing, maypoles, wits and ailes. Yeah, the shin kicking is a good one.

Question eight, which wars of 1639 and 40 were sparked by Charles's attempt to bring the Scottish Kirk in line with the English church? Um, was that the bishops? It was, well done. Yeah, Bishop War one and two. Question nine, which MP led the opposition to King Charles and escaped before being arrested for treason? King Pym. It was King Pym, John Pym. This for a perfect ten. Where in 1642 did King Charles raise his royal banner and then it fell over in the wind thus beginning the Civil War. My favorite place in the world, an absolutely beautiful part of England, it's gotta be Nottingham. Woohoo, ten out ten. Well done Toussaint, excellent.

Really really impressive. Well done John for an excellent history lesson. Yeah brilliant lesson thank you. Well thank you so much Toussaint, excellent. Really, really impressive. Well done John for an excellent history lesson. Yeah, brilliant lesson. Thank you. Well thank you so much Toussaint and listen if you want more Toussaint do check out our episode on the American abolitionist Frederick Douglass who is an extraordinary man. For more Stuart history we've got the episode on King James of course but also Nell Gwynn, the 17th century actress. And remember if you've enjoyed the podcast please leave a review, share the show with your friends, subscribe to Your Dead to Me on BBC Sound so you never miss an episode. But I've just got to say a big thank you to our guests in History Corner.

We have the amazing Professor Jonathan Healy from the University of Oxford. Thank you, John. Thanks, Greg. And in Comedy Corner, we have the truly talented Toussaint Douglas. Thank you, Toussaint. Thanks so much for having me again. So much fun. Thank you.

And to you, lovely listener, join me next time as we untangle the complicated origins of another historical happening. much fun, thank you. And to you lovely listener, join me next time as we untangle the complicated origins of another historical happening, but for now I'm off to go and petition my local council with a 24-yard long petition about potholes. They're gonna feel my petty wrath. Bye! This episode of Your Dead to Me was researched by Matt Ryan. It was written by Emmy Rose Price Goodfellow, Emma Nagoose and me. The audio producer was Steve Hankey and our production coordinator was Ben Hollands. It was produced by Emmy Rose Price Goodfellow, Emma Nagoose and me. The audio producer was Steve Hankey and our production coordinator was Ben Hollands. It was produced by Emmy Rose Price Goodfellow, me and senior producer Emma Nagoose. And our executive editor was James Cook.

You're Dead to Me is a BBC Studios audio production for BBC Radio 4. Hello, Russell Kane here. I used to love British history, be proud of it. Henry VIII, Queen Victoria, massive fan of stand-up comedians, obviously, Bill Hicks, Richard Pryor, that has become much more challenging, for I am the host of BBC Radio 4's Evil Genius, the show where we take heroes and villains from history and try to work out were they evil or genius. Do not catch up on BBC sounds by searching Evil Genius if you don't want to see your heroes destroyed.

But if like me you quite enjoy it, have a little search. Listen to Evil Genius with me, Russell Kane. Go to BBC Sounds and have your world destroyed. We're supposed to learn from our own mistakes, but other people's errors can be instructive too. From efforts to control the weather that went disastrously awry, to the untimely death of the Segway boss, history is a treasure trove of mishaps and meltdowns that can teach us all. I'm Tim Harford, host of Cautionary Tales, the podcast that mines the greatest fiascos of the past for

their most valuable lessons. Listen to Cautionary Tales wherever you get your podcasts.