Home Podcasts THIS IS HISTORY — A DYNASTY TO DIE FOR
THIS IS HISTORY — A DYNASTY TO DIE FOR

THIS IS HISTORY — A DYNASTY TO DIE FOR

Sony Music Entertainment 176 Episodes Jun 30, 2026

This is a story of three brothers, one crown, and not an ounce of loyalty between them. It’s the beginning of the end for England's most storied royal dynasty, the Plantagenets. Dan Jones brings you the story of the Yorkist King, Edward IV – tall, golden, ferocious – a young king who wins his throne on the battlefield and then destabilises it in the bedroom. His secret marriage to Elizabeth Woodville, a Lancastrian widow of minor nobility, detonates the political order. The old guard revolts. The Earl of Warwick aka the Kingmaker, emerges as a lethal enemy. What follows is a sequence of betrayals so baroque they border on the operatic. Alliances invert overnight as Warwick makes daring political moves. Kings drown in malmsey wine, princes mysteriously disappear from Towers and Richard III becomes England’s last ever Plantagenet king. Through this carnage emerges a family that will define English history: The Tudors. In a freezing Welsh castle, a thirteen-year-old Margaret Beaufort delivers a son she will spend decades manoeuvring towards the throne. Henry Tudor's claim is thin. His exile is long. His invasion, when it finally comes, is a bet against every reasonable odds.

Episodes

S10 E6 | The Prophecy Jun 30, 2026 1890 The not-completely-there king, Henry VI, isn’t someone you’d associate with clarity, but in 1470, he sees something with absolute focus. After being presented with his 13-year-old namesake, Henry Tudor, he tells everyone gathered at Westminster Palace that the young Henry is ‘the one’.  While his mother, Margaret Beaufort’s thrilled, there is a slight hitch to Henry’s apparition. There’s still an
S10 E5 | King Henry’s Second Coming Jun 23, 2026 1919 It’s time for a restoration, or rather, re-adeption.  In 1470, Warwick the Kingmaker seizes his moment and slings Henry VI back onto the English throne.  It’s fair to say the Lancastrian king doesn’t quite get the significance of this moment. He’s described by one chronicler as being nothing more than ‘a stuffed wool sack lifted by its ears’.  But Henry makes one pliable puppet for Warwick, who
S10 E4 | The Kingmaker Strikes Back Jun 16, 2026 1805 It’s a gorgeous, calculated provocation.  In the summer of 1469, in Calais, the Earl of Warwick, marries his daughter Isabel to George, Duke of Clarence, brother and heir to King Edward IV.  It’s another shot across the bow to Edward, who doesn’t seem to understand that the kingmaker wants him out. Within weeks, Warwick's rebels crush a royal army at Edgcote and the Kingmaker imprisons the king
You may also like: Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford Jun 11, 2026 2678 Hey Dan here. Here’s a podcast from none other than TIH alumna, producer Georgia Mills!  If you can’t get enough of historical failure after History’s Greatest Fails, give Cautionary Tales a listen. My royal favourites get one month free of a free subscription — look out for the gift link on our Patreon Court Gossip thread.  In the meantime, here’s a sample episode. It’s the tale of a poet who t
S10 E3 | LOVEBOMBING Jun 9, 2026 1778 Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick, knows there’s no such thing as a free lunch. And the best way to keep the people on your side is through their stomachs.  It’s a lesson King Edward IV has yet to learn. After marrying for love, and starting a diplomatic thaw with Europe, Edward soon finds out that there’s really only one task that matters: keeping his most powerful subject loyal.  So the you
S10 E2 | Rise of the Woodvilles Jun 2, 2026 1972 Edward IV marries in secret, then springs the news like a trap.  England’s new Queen, Elizabeth Woodville, arrives with two sons, a Lancastrian past, and a family ready to take their chance. When the newly-married couple introduces themselves at Reading Abbey, nobles gape. But Elizabeth takes her newfound royal status with aplomb. She stages a dazzling churching, forcing courtiers to kneel for ho
S10 E1 | A New Hope May 26, 2026 2173 A 13-year-old girl labours in a sealed chamber at Pembroke Castle as the plague circles them. Miraculously, Margaret Beaufort survives. Her son does, too. His name is Henry Tudor. This birth doesn’t register in the minds of many nobles, as they’re focused on England’s first Yorkist King, Edward IV. After his decisive victory at the Battle of Towton, his mission as king is to do what Henry VI c
Introducing… Season Ten of a Dynasty to Die For May 19, 2026 134 Three brothers. One crown. And no ounce of loyalty between them. In the final Plantagenet season of A Dynasty to Die For, Dan Jones traces the spectacular implosion of a dynasty that defined medieval England. You will meet King Edward IV, who marries for love and splits his court in half. His former champion, the Earl of Warwick, becomes a mortal enemy. Edward’s heirs mysteriously vanish i
War — History’s Ultimate Failure May 12, 2026 1937 Elizabeth Day grew up in Belfast and would as a child walk past the most bombed hotel in Europe. Dan Jones recalls a Croatian widow whose husband went out for bread and never returned. In this final episode of History’s Greatest Fails, Dan and Elizabeth name war as history's ultimate failure and reflect on the changes that follow societal collapse. Together, they draw on conflicts that ha
Ear Today, Gone Tomorrow: Van Gogh’s Guide to Artistic Failure May 5, 2026 2003 If you’re an artist, when would you like recognition to strike? Do you want it to be in your lifetime, only to be forgotten decades after your death? Or do you want to remain undiscovered, with your story potentially echoing for centuries after you’ve been discovered posthumously? These are some of the thorny questions Dan and Elizabeth consider in this episode about artistic failure. Together
Why isn’t Leonardo Da Vinci remembered as an engineer? Apr 28, 2026 1938 If you judge him by his own elaborate metrics, Leonardo da Vinci was a failure. Long before the Mona Lisa became shorthand for genius, Leonardo imagined himself as something else entirely: a military engineer, a designer of bridges and armoured vehicles, a master of siegecraft and architecture. In 1482, he wrote a breathless letter to Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, itemising these talents
How, exactly, does a woman ‘slip’ out of history? Apr 21, 2026 2416 What would you do if your life was omitted, reduced to an overlooked footnote, or filed away as an anomaly? In this episode, Dan and Elizabeth turn a lens on the practice of history itself, interrogating the choices and power structures that have traditionally left women out of the history books. They retrace the lives of three women who once stood firmly in their moment: Hatshepsut, a pha

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