Causes of the British Civil Wars (Radio Edit)

You're Dead to Me

BBC

Comedy, History

4.7 • 10.9K Ratings

🗓️ 9 May 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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 27 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.

This is a radio edit of the original podcast episode. For the full-length version, please look further back in the feed.

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

Transcript

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0:00.0	Before you listen to this BBC podcast, I'd like to introduce myself.
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0:37.1	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:42.3	Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio For Comedy Podcast that takes history seriously.
0:47.5	My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster.
0:51.1	And today we're getting political. We're travelling back to the 17th century to discover the causes of the British Civil Wars. You might call them English Civil War,
0:58.6	we'll explain later. And to help us separate the Royalists from the Radicals, we have two
1:02.4	very special guests. In History Corner, he's a associate professor in social history at Kellogg
1:06.9	College University of Oxford, where his research focuses on the social history of early modern
1:11.4	England. You might have read his incredible book, The Blazing World, A New History of Revolutionary
1:15.9	England. He's also the author of a forthcoming book, The Blood in Winter, all about the run-up to
1:20.2	the Civil War in 1642. It's Dr Jonathan Healy. Welcome, John. Hi, Greg, lovely to be here.
	...

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