This episode examines the Great Plague of 1665, one of the darkest moments in Britain's history, when over one-fifth of London's population of 500,000 perished in a matter of months. Much is known of the disaster from the perspective of the largely well-to-do contemporary chroniclers, but this film tells the story from the perspective of the poor through the account of a local councillor who lived a stone's throw from Fleet Street.
In 1605 conspirators plotted to blow up Parliament and kill King James I. This film seeks out the truth behind the best remembered terrorist act in Britain's history
The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through the central parts of the English city of London from Sunday, 2 September to Wednesday, 5 September 1666. The fire gutted the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall. It consumed 13,200 houses, 87 parish churches, St Paul's Cathedral, and most of the buildings of the City authorities. It is estimated to have destroyed the homes of 70,000 of the City's 80,000 inhabitants. Many Londoners believed the Great Fire of London was started deliberately by a foreign enemy. And they wanted to make sure a foreigner would pay for this crime of the century.
How did this non-descript East Anglian gentleman emerge from the Fens to prove himself a military genius and a master politician, capable of reforming the army?