#1702 Thomas Jefferson on British Royalty

Listening to America

Society & Culture, History

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 5 May 2026

⏱️ 57 minutes

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Summary

Guest host David Horton interviews President Thomas Jefferson about his strong anti-royalist principles. In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson lambasted King George III for his crimes against the American colonists. Jefferson did not go quite as far as Thomas Paine, who called George III "the royal brute of England," but he wanted to eliminate all echoes of monarchism in American public life. Jefferson met George III once in 1786 and came away even more disillusioned than he had been previously with the ways of kings. In France, he met Louis XVI several times and generally liked him, but found him woefully out of touch with the suffering of the great mass of French people. David Horton wondered how Mr. Jefferson would react to the American fascination with British royalty in our time. This episode was recorded on April 28, 2026.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, everyone, and welcome to this introduction to this week's podcast.
0:04.3	This is about Thomas Jefferson and royalty.
0:07.0	One of my favorite subjects, you know, Americans have a real thing about British royalty.
0:12.2	You can see Megan Markle and Harry on the cover of People magazine,
0:17.5	and its equivalence half the time now, as we saw Princess Diana most of the time
0:23.6	during her lifetime, always good copy in America.
0:26.6	I can't understand quite why, nor do I understand the appeal of the musical Hamilton.
0:32.6	But I do love in it when King George III sings, I'll be back.
0:38.0	I think that's an outstanding song.
0:39.8	I actually heard it in London, where it was even more biting than it would be on the New York stage or Chicago.
0:48.7	So David Horton's going to become increasingly more the guest host, even host, of the program.
0:54.4	He likes to keep Jefferson in the mix, which I like too.
0:56.9	So this was a program in which Jefferson first announces royalty in all sorts of ways.
1:01.6	Really grim.
1:03.1	I mean, Jefferson is a bit of a scrooge with respect to royalty and Christmas.
1:09.9	Not sure why, but this is, well, certainly I understand why he's a Scrooge with respect to British
1:16.7	royalty.
1:17.7	I think he would be appalled by America's fascination.
1:20.6	You can see Megan Markle and Prince Harry on the cover of. magazine or People magazine about half the time.
1:31.4	Why We Care is completely unclear to me, and much earlier we could see Princess Diana all
1:37.0	the time in those journals.
1:39.1	Great copy, I suppose.
	...

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