Episodes
| Episode | Title | First Broadcast | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | The Discovery Of England's Past | 20030327 | Presented by Elizabethan and Renaissance expert Jonathan Bate, this new three part series looks at the flowering of culture that took place under Elizabeth I and shaped our image of England forever. Famed for exploring the new world and laying the foundations of the British Empire, the Elizabethans also focused on domestic and inward discovery. This programme tells the true story of the book that inspired the greatest history plays of the Elizabethan era. The Holinshed Chronicles set down, for the first time, fragments of knowledge about the English, Scottish and Irish past into a single epic publication. The book on England was the largest and became the most popular Elizabethan history and the basis for the national story we still tell our children. But how much of England's newly documented past was based on ancient history, and how much on political propaganda? Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles were published in 1577. They were soon plundered for plots and plagiarised by Shakespeare and other Elizabethan dramatists. Richard II and many of the history plays draw closely on their retelling of the past. However, as we will discover, they are an unreliable basis for any truthful assessment of England's history - a fact many in power were well aware of at the time. So influential did the Chronicles become that Elizabeth's closest advisers called in the book for rewriting and censorship so that the story it told of England's past suited the Tudor regime. Jonathan Bate hears how today's historians have rescued the Chronicles from neglect. They were central to the idea of nationhood that emerged in the sixteenth century. Producer: Matthew Dodd The true story of the book that inspired the greatest Elizabethan history plays. Jonathan Bate explores how Elizabethan culture has shaped our image of England |
| 02 | The Discovery Of The English Land | 20030403 | Elizabethan and Renaissance expert Jonathan Bate presents a three part series examining the flowering of culture that took place under Elizabeth I and shaped our image of England forever. Famed for exploring the new world and laying the foundations of the British Empire, the Elizabethans also focused on domestic and inward discovery. The Elizabethans invented a dream-like pastoral England that has been an English ideal ever since. The counties of England stretch back to the Anglo-Saxons. But it was the Elizabethans who made them matter, and raised their individuality to legendary status. Jonathan Bate starts in Kent where William Lambard wrote his Perambulation of Kent in 1576: the first ever country history of its kind and one that soon became fashionable. It launched a host of literary imitators. Shakespeare was known as a 'Warwickshire man', Raleigh proud of being from the West Country. Jonathan traces the little known story of the vast and detailed mapping of England that was completed under Elizabeth for the first time in history. England now existed as a documented territorial whole - a project dreamed of by Henry VIII but only delivered by his daughter. Behind these fascinating cultural development lay politics. The court and its advisers needed devolved power to exercise local justice. But this county power had to be based on distinct cultural identity, not real military force. Could it be that English county identity was, in essence, an artificial creation dreamed up by London? Contributors to the programme debate this question. Producer: Matthew Dodd Jonathan Bate maps the influence of 16th-century cartography on the English countryside. Jonathan Bate explores how Elizabethan culture has shaped our image of England |