The Restoration Queen: Maria of Modena
Not Just the Tudors
History Hit
4.8 • 3K Ratings
🗓️ 21 July 2025
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
**This episode contains discussions of miscarriage**
When a teenage Catholic princess was sent from Italy to marry James II and reunite England with Rome, public scandal and political intrigue fuelled society. Maria of Modena defied all expectations.
Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Dr. Breeze Barrington to uncover the hidden world of women at the Restoration Court, a network of female painters, poets, and maids of honour who reshaped the Stuart world. At its heart, Maria built a vibrant female-led court in Protestant England, demonstrating resilience against cruel gossip and societal pressures.
Suzannah and Breeze celebrate how female friendships, creativity, and quiet resistance gave Maria strength in the face of relentless scrutiny, and left an indelible mark on history.
MORE:
Nell Gwynn: Actress and Royal Mistress
https://open.spotify.com/episode/780pqRqcS8BCidbvHWRId7
How to Live Like a Stuart Aristocrat
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0VEpSUUnO1jr8IvM5YNudD
Presented by Professor Suzannah Lipscomb. The researcher is Max Wintle, audio editor is Amy Haddow and the producer is Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb. |
| 0:02.6 | If you'd like not just the Tudors ad-free to get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. |
| 0:10.5 | With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, |
| 0:16.0 | including my own recent two-part series, A World Torn Apart, The Dissolution of the Monastries, and enjoy a new release every week. |
| 0:25.2 | Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. |
| 0:32.0 | Hello, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb and welcome to not just the Tudors from History Hit, the podcast in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs, from Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare to Samarise. |
| 0:46.8 | Relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft. Not in other words just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors. |
| 1:02.0 | In the popular imagination, the Restoration Court of Charles II is a bawdy circus, |
| 1:08.6 | dripping in decadence, scandal and libertinism. |
| 1:11.6 | It's a world of royal mistresses, powdered wigs, and endless intrigue, |
| 1:16.6 | where women flit in and out of history as muses, lovers, and pawns. |
| 1:22.6 | But what if this vision is only half the story? |
| 1:26.6 | What if, behind the rouge-smudged revelry, |
| 1:30.0 | there was another court entirely, |
| 1:31.8 | one shaped not by men, but by women? |
| 1:35.2 | Today we'll be pulling back the velvet curtain |
| 1:37.9 | on a hidden network of women, |
| 1:40.2 | painters, poets, queens in waiting, |
| 1:42.9 | and maids of honour, |
| 1:43.7 | whose friendships, creativity and |
| 1:46.0 | quiet resistance reshaped the Stuart world. At its heart is Maria of Modena, a teenage |
| 1:53.9 | Catholic princess sent from Italy to Protestant England, who, rather than shrinking into the |
... |
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