NEWDOCUMENTARY
Menu

Explore the archive

What are you curious about?

Try ocean or coral reefs

Browse all themes →
History

How the Tudors Lost Their Heads

2026SeriesAshley Morris
Watch on other platforms

Power examined through the people it destroyed

How the Tudors Lost Their Heads follows historians Dan Snow and Professor Suzannah Lipscomb through the lives and deaths of figures caught in Tudor politics. The programme uses executions as an entry into the relationships between monarchy, dynastic claims, personal ambition and political danger. Its subjects include Anne Boleyn, Mary, Queen of Scots, and Perkin Warbeck.

The historians visit castles and palaces in Britain and Europe and consult archival material. The programme presents its cases as opportunities to reconsider familiar accounts, connecting documentary traces with the places where power was exercised. Each individual’s downfall provides a separate route into the same historical world.

Claimants, queens and royal favourites

The Perkin Warbeck chapter examines his claim to be one of the Princes in the Tower. Anne Boleyn’s episode considers evidence around the queen’s downfall, while another follows the rise and fall of the Earl of Essex, Elizabeth I’s last favourite. These stories bring questions of identity, loyalty and influence into the royal court.

Further chapters focus on John Dudley and his role in Lady Jane Grey’s brief reign, and Margaret Pole, the Last Plantagenet. Their inclusion extends the series beyond its best-known royal subjects, showing how dynastic politics could place powerful people outside the throne in danger.

Biography and an investigation of royal authority

The series combines individual biographies with an examination of the political circumstances around an execution. The central issue is the relationship between a person’s choices and the struggle for power in which those choices were made. The separate cases make the Tudor state visible through the lives it brought to an end.

Episodes

S01 · E01

Mary Queen of Scots

For centuries, Mary, Queen of Scots has been cast as impulsive and self-destructive. Now, through new evidence and rare access, Suzannah Lipscomb and Dan Snow uncover deeper layers to this most famous historical figure; a queen who confronted violence, adversity and cunning enemies, and who skillfully played a perilous political game to the end.

S01 · E02

Perkin Warbeck & the Princes in the Tower

1491, Ireland. A young man claims to be Richard, Duke of York, one of the missing Princes in the Tower. Backed by European powers, he poses a serious threat to English king Henry VII. Suzannah Lipscomb and Dan Snow reexamine the evidence behind one of history's most persuasive pretenders. Was he, in fact, England's rightful ruler?

S01 · E03

Anne Boleyn

Executed on charges of adultery and treason, Anne Boleyn is often remembered as the ‘harlot' who seduced Henry VIII into annulling his first marriage and forcing his country into religious turmoil. Suzannah Lipscomb and Dan Snow explore evidence that reveals a different Anne, whose ideas transformed England and whose reputation deserves reassessing..

S01 · E04

Earl of Essex – Fall of a Favourite

Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, was Elizabeth I's golden boy: a charming, reckless war hero. He stood at the Queen's side as she rallied troops against the Spanish Armada. But just twelve years on, he was executed for leading a rebellion. Suzannah Lipscomb and Dan Snow unpack Essex's rapid rise and fall, and the court politics that sealed his fate.

S01 · E05

John Dudley: The Wicked Duke

Known as the wicked duke, John Dudley mastered the perilous politics of the Tudor court and became the power behind King Edward VI. But Dudley's attempt to secure the crown for his own daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, the ‘Nine Day Queen,' sparked a succession crisis. This royal gamble brought Dudley to the height of power and then destroyed him.

S01 · E06

Margaret Pole: The Last Plantagenet

Born royal, Margaret Pole lost her status and riches as a child. She fought back to win unprecedented power for a woman in Tudor times, even defying Henry VIII. But she became caught in a feud between the Catholic church and an increasingly paranoid king. Dan Snow and Suzannah Lipscomb investigate a brutal execution that shocked the nation.

Episode descriptions: TVmaze · CC BY-SA 4.0

Film details

Format
Documentary series
Release year
2026
Premiere date
2026-09-06
Director
Ashley Morris
Production companies
History Hit, Little Dot Studios
Country of production
United Kingdom
Language
English
Episode runtime
60 min

Catalogue information: TVmaze · CC BY-SA 4.0