Bloody Mary: Villain Or Victim?
63 mins, 2016 Did ‘Bloody Mary’ deserve the name? This gripping film takes us to the heart of a Tudor tragedy, with parallels to a modern world where religions are in conflict. EVIL QUEEN? Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII, ruled between 1553 and 1558, was painted as the evil queen who tried restore Catholicism… Read more »
The English Reformation: Henry VIII & The Break With Rome
27 mins, 2015 The Church Of England as we know it today has its roots in Henry VIII’s conflict with the Roman Catholic Church in Rome – resulting ultimately in a complete break. This film explains the reasons and the repercussions with the use of vivid reconstructions. “HE NEEDED A BOY” Henry believed a male… Read more »
Industrial Revolution 1: In One Man’s Life
34 mins, 2004 Powerful drama telling the story of Tom Ward, born in 1800 in a remote Yorkshire weaving community, who moves to a mill town and sees great changes. Tom is brought up to work a hand-loom, but he finds the work, and the village life, stultifying. He feels he needs more in life… Read more »
Industrial Revolution 2: The Causes
24 mins, 2004 Presenter Dave Nellist offers in clear and entertaining terms a range of possible causes of the industrial revolution. No final answers are given: it’s up to the viewer to decide. A few great men? Maybe it was the genius of Britain’s inventors, although that idea is not so popular now. Was it… Read more »
Industrial Revolution 3: The Effects
25 mins, 2004 The classic view of the industrial revolution is that it “turned the world upside down”, but historians now question this. Dave Nellist presents the arguments. He also looks at the other popular images of the time — child labour, for example. No doubt children were exploited in the mills, but how common… Read more »
Roots Of Conflict
32 mins, 2002 What was the background to the clash between Henry II and Thomas Becket? This film creates a powerful picture of Henry’s personality. He is known as the king responsible for Becket’s murder, but he was also a strong king, who laid the foundations of the British legal system. We look at how… Read more »
The Murder Of Thomas Becket
32 mins, 2002 A suspenseful reconstruction of one of the most popular stories in history, narrated by Sian Phillips. This film takes up more closely Henry’s conflict with the church (as introduced in Film 1: The Roots Of Conflict), and his attempts to resolve this conflict by appointing Thomas Becket as Archbishop of Canterbury. Interwoven… Read more »
Medieval Life 1: Two Families
30 mins, 2002 A unique, comic and ultimately tragic insight into how two different families lived in medieval times. On the eve of the outbreak of the Black Death, the local lord of the manor shows us around the manor house. We learn about their way of life, ambitions and views on society. At the… Read more »
Medieval Life 2: The Black Death
32 mins, 2002 This film is a gripping and grizzly evocation of the devastation wrought by what was probably Britain’s worst ever disaster: the Black Death of 1348. The film explains the different kinds of plague, bubonic and pneumonic, and covers in graphic terms the terrible suffering which it brought to its victims.Powerful reconstruction brings… Read more »
Medieval Life 3: Religion, Medicine and Women
30 mins, 2002 An exploration of three key aspects of medieval life. Villagers describe a world of startling strangeness to modern minds. 1. RELIGION: The church, and its priests, were of a kind we would not recognise today. It had huge power over peoples’ lives. Before the world of science and rationalism, the threat of… Read more »
The Norman Conquest 3: After The Battle
23 mins, 2002 The Battle of Hastings was only the start of the Norman Conquest. What happened next? How did it change Britain? This video looks at how William consolidated his grip over England: how he distributed the land among his barons, how castles were used to dominate the local population and how the fuedal… Read more »
Castles
24 mins, 2002 Castles were a key part of William the Conqueror’s conquest of England. They are quaint tourist haunts today, but when they were built they were symbols of oppression.This video explains why the castles were built, where they were built and how they worked. Using Rochester castle as its key example, this video… Read more »