• 41 minutes 52 seconds
    Anglotopia Podcast: Episode 100 – Britain, America & Chicago: A Conversation with His Majesty’s Consul General Richard Hyde

    In this special on-location episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, recorded at the Chicago History Museum on the occasion of His Majesty the King's official birthday, Jonathan Thomas sits down with Richard Hyde — His Majesty's Consul General in Chicago and the senior British diplomatic representative across 14 states in the American Midwest. Speaking just before the British Consulate's King's Birthday Garden Party, Richard explains what a Consul General actually does, why Britain doesn't have a National Day, how he approaches representing modern Britain to the heartland of America, and what King Charles's address to a joint session of Congress meant for the Special Relationship. The conversation also uncovers a remarkable piece of Anglo-Chicago history: after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, Queen Victoria and 8,000 British donors — including Disraeli, Tennyson, and John Stuart Mill — sent books to Chicago, directly founding the Chicago Public Library. Plus: the Beatles, Frank Lloyd Wright's Welsh roots, Abraham Lincoln's North Wales ancestry, and why Chicago is Richard's favorite city in the world.

    Note: We had originally planned to do a 100th Q&A for our 100th episode, but a much bigger opportunity arose last week, which we thought was more fitting. We'll do the Q&A soon!

    Links

    Takeaways

    1. The United Kingdom is one of the only countries in the world without an official National Day — which is why British consulates abroad use the King's official birthday in June as their annual celebration, conveniently timed to coincide with Trooping the Colour.
    2. Richard Hyde covers 14 American states as Consul General — roughly 25% of the entire United States — including 105 members of the House of Representatives and 28 senators, making the Midwest a critical region for understanding where American politics is heading.
    3. After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, Queen Victoria personally led a donation drive that saw 8,000 British donors — including Benjamin Disraeli, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and John Stuart Mill — send books to Chicago, directly founding the Chicago Public Library. Victoria's personally signed copy of a biography of Prince Albert is still in the library's special collection.
    4. King Charles's address to a joint session of Congress during his America 250 visit was, in Richard's assessment, a masterclass in diplomatic communication — speaking to shared values rather than political divisions and reminding both nations of the deep historical thread connecting Magna Carta to the US Constitution.
    5. Frank Lloyd Wright's family were Welsh; Abraham Lincoln's great-great-grandfather came from a small village in North Wales just 40 miles from Richard's hometown of Liverpool; and Anish Kapoor — who designed Chicago's Cloud Gate Bean — is British. Britain's cultural fingerprints are everywhere in Chicago.
    6. The British Consulate deliberately chose the Chicago History Museum and the Chicago Public Library Foundation as partners for this year's King's Birthday event to honor the Victorian book donation story — and encouraged guests to donate to the Foundation in the spirit of Queen Victoria's original gesture.
    7. Richard argues that British culture in America is simultaneously everywhere and invisible — so deeply embedded in American music, film, language, and history that most Americans don't register it as foreign. The Beatles are the perfect example: four working-class kids from Liverpool whose music plays in every country in the world, including a Chinese restaurant in Somalia in 1998.
    8. The Special Relationship, Richard says, is ultimately about 80% agreement — both countries share fundamental values on democracy, freedom, and human rights, and the disagreements, while loud, are at the margins. King Charles's Congress speech focused on that 80%.
    9. Richard's most unexpected discovery in Chicago: Midwesterners are the most authentically friendly people he's encountered in 10 overseas postings. They follow up. They text you. They actually become your friends — not just professional contacts.
    10. Richard's message to young Americans: spend time abroad. Not a two-week vacation, but a semester, a few months, living in someone else's culture. It will change how you see America — and make you appreciate it far more deeply.

    Soundbites

    1. "I like to joke that Chicago is one of America's two great cities with proper downtowns. Everywhere else is sprawl. But the difference is — in Chicago, the people are nice, the streets are clean, and the food's better." — Richard on why Chicago stands apart.
    2. "We're celebrating America 250. We're celebrating the fact that this is the greatest startup in history. We argued a little bit and there was some spilled tea — and despite all of that, 250 years on, no two countries do more together in the world." — Richard on Britain's approach to America 250.
    3. "Queen Victoria and 8,000 British donors sent books to Chicago after the Great Fire of 1871 — and that donation directly led to the founding of the Chicago Public Library. Victoria's signed copy is still there. It's a gesture from 1871 that still resonates now." — Richard on the Anglo-Chicago library story.
    4. "The King rises above the moment. He was able to come at a challenging time in our relationship and remind Americans — and remind Brits — that there are fundamentally more important things than the moment we're in. And that is our shared values." — Richard on King Charles's Congress speech.
    5. "I've been all around the world. I've never really been a great theater-goer. But Ed Hall at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre has kind of infected me. I've become addicted to theater." — Richard on an unexpected Chicago conversion.
    6. "The flag in the United States is the symbol of their liberty. Our flag was created from existing countries we already had. So Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland — the Union flag is basically a combination of four different crosses. We didn't have to fight for it." — Richard on why Brits and Americans relate to their flags so differently.
    7. "I've lived here almost two years. Of all the places I've lived, this is the easiest place in the world to actually build a network of friends. You can stand in a bar and someone starts talking to you about the Cubs and fundamentally how terrible everyone is at the moment — and they actually follow up." — Richard on Midwestern friendliness.
    8. "The longer I stay away and the more I've represented my country overseas, the prouder I am of that country. Warts and all. I'm proud of the history — even the complicated history. You have to understand it, not erase it." — Richard on representing Britain from a distance.
    9. "I have to say — I saw Hamilton recently and the best character in Hamilton is the King. Everyone agrees. He has the best songs." — Richard on George III stealing the show.
    10. "If you ever get a chance to travel — and I say this to a lot of young Americans — don't mean a two-week vacation. Go spend a semester abroad. Go spend a few months in somebody else's culture. And you'll understand A, that the country you love isn't perfect. But the longer you think about it, the more you'll appreciate what your country does." — Richard's message to young Americans.

    Chapters

    • 00:21 Introduction — Jonathan sets the scene at the Chicago History Museum on King's Birthday
    • 01:36 Welcome from Richard Hyde — The occasion, Chicago, and what the day means
    • 01:58 Richard's Background — Liverpool, an Indian father, and a career that took him to India, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Texas, and Chicago
    • 02:47 What Surprised Richard Most About Chicago — Midwest vs. Texas, great food, accessibility, and why Chicago rivals New York
    • 04:44 British Things in Chicago — Hawksmoor, Celtic Crossings, Irish pubs, and a Sunday roast worth traveling for
    • 07:08 What Does a Consul General Actually Do? — The difference from an ambassador, 14 states, 25% of the US, and what the job really looks like day to day
    • 10:25 Representing Modern Britain — Multicultural, proud, complicated history, and the gap between Downton Abbey and reality
    • 11:30 The Scope of the Midwest Region — 105 House members, 28 senators, and listening to farmers in South Dakota
    • 15:22 What Is the King's Official Birthday? — Why Britain has no National Day and how the official birthday fills that gap
    • 17:42 The Anglo-Chicago Library Story — The Great Fire of 1871, Queen Victoria, 8,000 British donors, Disraeli, Tennyson, and the founding of the Chicago Public Library
    • 19:49 Chicago's Literary Heritage — Hemingway, Carnegie libraries, and the bookishness of the Midwest
    • 20:15 America 250 — Celebrating the greatest startup in history, spilled tea, and why Britain is all in
    • 22:20 The Founding Fathers as British People — A nuance most Americans don't consider
    • 22:33 King George III in Hamilton — Richard's verdict: the best character, the best songs
    • 23:07 King Charles's Address to Congress — What it meant, how it landed, and the 80% agreement principle
    • 26:02 Getting the King to Chicago — Deep dish dreams and the challenge of a royal itinerary
    • 26:36 The Anglo-Chicago Connection — Frank Lloyd Wright's Welsh roots, Lincoln's North Wales ancestry, Anish Kapoor's Bean, and why British culture in America is invisible because it's everywhere
    • 29:14 The Transatlantic Flow Goes Both Ways — Charles Yerkes and the London Underground, Gordon Selfridge, and Chicago's British legacy
    • 29:46 Does Representing Britain Change How You See It? — Absence, appreciation, complicated history, and Churchill in Fulton, Missouri
    • 33:08 What Richard Champions in the Midwest — The Beatles, Liverpool, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and British music's global reach
    • 35:25 Chicago's Theater Scene — Shakespeare, Kinky Boots, Harry Potter, and how theater became Richard's unexpected passion
    • 36:10 The Tea Question — Richard's honest answer, builder's tea, Yorkshire Tea, and the biscuit problem
    • 37:06 Hadrian's Wall and Health Plans — Jonathan's August walk, no sugar in the tea, and necessity
    • 37:37 Richard's Favorite Thing About Chicago — The people, authentic friendliness, and why this is his best posting in 10 assignments
    • 39:39 The World Cup Question — England's chances, Richard's divided loyalties, Wales, Argentina, and playing in the heat
    • 40:46 Wrap-Up — Thank you to the Chicago History Museum, how to follow the British Consulate General Chicago

    Video Version

    19 June 2026, 1:00 pm
  • 54 minutes 9 seconds
    Anglotopia Podcast: Episode 99 – Churchill’s Secret Life as a Painter — Dr. Lucy Davis on a Once-in-a-Lifetime Exhibition at Wallace Collection

    Did you know that in addition to saving the free world, Churchill was also an accomplished painter? In this episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, Jonathan Thomas sits down with Dr. Lucy Davis — curator of paintings at the Wallace Collection in London and co-curator of Winston Churchill the Painter, the first major retrospective of Churchill's art in over 60 years and the first substantial UK exhibition devoted to his paintings since his death in 1965. The exhibition brings together nearly 60 works, roughly half from private collections rarely accessible to the public, and traces the full arc of Churchill's artistic life: from the tentative canvases he made during the darkest moment of his World War I career, through the luminous Mediterranean harbors and Moroccan cityscapes of his mature period, to the bold late works of a man who found in painting one of the greatest solaces of his life. Lucy walks Jonathan through the story of how Churchill came to paint, the three major artists who shaped his style — John Lavery, Walter Sickert, and William Nicholson — the single painting he made during World War II, the extraordinary Hallmark Cards world tour, and why the Wallace Collection is the perfect home for this once-in-a-lifetime show. The exhibition runs until November 29, 2026. Book your tickets now.

    Lucy is very grateful to her colleagues at Hallmark Cards, Inc. for their research into the World Tour of Churchill's paintings, which she has referenced in this podcast.

    Links

    The Exhibition

    Books

    Churchill Sites

    Also Mentioned

    Takeaways

    1. Winston Churchill the Painter at the Wallace Collection is the first major retrospective of Churchill's art in over 60 years — nearly 60 works, roughly half from private collections that are rarely if ever accessible to the public. This is a genuinely once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
    2. Churchill took up painting in 1915 at the lowest point of his life, following the catastrophic failure of the Dardanelles campaign. His wife Clementine later said she thought he would die of grief — and it was painting that gave him back his spark.
    3. Churchill was never formally trained, but worked closely with at least three leading professional artists: John Lavery (portraiture and plein air painting), Walter Sickert (modernist techniques and working from photographs), and William Nicholson (still life, tonal restraint, and simplified composition).
    4. Churchill's single painting during World War II was a view of Marrakesh, painted the day after he took President Roosevelt to see the sunset over the Atlas Mountains following the Casablanca Conference. He gave it to Roosevelt as a gift — it is in the exhibition, facing the painting he later gave to President Eisenhower.
    5. The Wallace Collection's connection to Churchill runs deeper than the exhibition: Odette Pol Roger was born Odette Wallace as great-granddaughter of Sir Richard Wallace, became Churchill's close friend, and reserved an entire vintage of Pol Roger champagne for him. A quarter-bottle believed to be one of the last he drank before his death in 1965 is on display in the exhibition.
    6. Churchill's paintings were the subject of a record-breaking world tour of North America, Australia, and New Zealand in 1958, masterminded by President Eisenhower and Joyce C. Hall, founder of Hallmark Cards. Churchill initially refused — until Eisenhower wrote him a personal letter about the wave of goodwill it would create.
    7. Churchill submitted paintings to competitions under the pseudonym "David Winter" and was given the title of Honorary Academician Extraordinary by the Royal Academy — only the second person ever to receive this honor, after Edward VII.
    8. The goldfish pool at Chartwell — Lucy's personal favorite painting in the exhibition — contains a detail invisible in photography: the ripple created by the fish on the surface, painted in a subtle mauve-grey. Lucy says it perfectly summarizes Churchill's playful, witty personality.
    9. Picasso, upon seeing Churchill's painting La Dragonnière, said (paraphrasing) that Churchill would have been a good professional painter if he hadn't had something else to do. The painting is in the exhibition.
    10. The new edition of Churchill's own book Painting as a Pastime — with an introduction by Paul Rafferty — has just been published and is the perfect companion to the exhibition. It explains in Churchill's own words why he took up painting and why everyone else should too.

    Soundbites

    1. "Clementine was looking on and she was so relieved to see him engaged in something. He talked about all this unwanted leisure — going from a really high-pressured executive job to suddenly watching the whole tragedy unfold. To see that spark lit up again." — Lucy on Clementine's reaction when Churchill first picked up a paintbrush.
    2. "He said painting was a complete distraction. He said: I know nothing which without exhausting the body more entirely absorbs the mind." — Lucy quoting Churchill on why painting worked when nothing else could.
    3. "He's painting the headquarters of the battalion as it was progressively being shelled and devastated. One of his young soldiers said he was unusually quiet and withdrawn and asked what was wrong — and he said: I've been really struggling to paint the craters." — Lucy on Churchill painting in the trenches at Plug Street.
    4. "He said it should be a joy ride in a paint box. Nobody should feel afraid or daunted by it. We don't have to aspire to masterpieces." — Lucy on Churchill's message to anyone who wants to paint.
    5. "A traveling exhibition of your paintings in the United States would not only attract a great deal of attention, but I am certain it would serve in a very definite way to strengthen the friendship between our two countries." — Lucy quoting Eisenhower's letter persuading Churchill to allow the world tour.
    6. "He submitted a painting in 1925 to an amateur painting competition and won first prize — although one of the judges wanted to disqualify it because he thought it must be by a professional painter." — Lucy on Churchill exhibiting anonymously under the pseudonym David Winter.
    7. "Picasso said — and I'm paraphrasing — that he would have been a good professional painter if he didn't have something else to do." — Lucy on Picasso's verdict on Churchill's painting La Dragonnière.
    8. "There's a particular detail that doesn't come out in photography — the ripple created by the fish on the surface that he's painted in this sort of mauve-grey color. It's just such a lovely finishing touch and really summarizes that playful, witty side of his personality." — Lucy on her favorite painting in the exhibition, the goldfish pool at Chartwell.
    9. "He made the gardener row back and forth across the moat to create ripples so he could try a different effect in the water." — Lucy on Churchill's obsessive dedication to capturing reflections accurately.
    10. "I think he would like to see us leaving the exhibition with smiles on our faces and with an urge to pick up a paintbrush." — Lucy on what Churchill himself would have wanted visitors to take away.

    Chapters

    • 00:22 Introduction — Jonathan sets up the exhibition and introduces Dr. Lucy Davis
    • 01:59 Lucy's Background — 15 years at the Wallace Collection, the Courtauld, the National Gallery, and Washington DC
    • 03:09 What Is the Wallace Collection? — A world-class art collection in an intimate Marylebone townhouse
    • 04:47 The Wallace Collection's Churchill Connection — The Artists Aid Russia exhibition, Clementine's charity, and the Pol Roger link
    • 06:29 Churchill's Favorite Champagne — And the quarter-bottle of Pol Roger in the exhibition
    • 07:14 How Churchill Came to Paint — Gallipoli, the darkest moment, Ho Farm in Sussex, and Hazel Lavery's advice
    • 09:49 Did He Take to It Naturally? — Total ambition, total audacity, and the self-portrait painted at 40
    • 13:00 Painting in the Trenches at Plug Street — Easels in the First World War and the crater problem solved
    • 14:50 What Painting Gave Churchill That Nothing Else Could — Complete absorption, relief from anxiety, and seeing the world properly for the first time
    • 17:12 Churchill's Message to Everyone — A joy ride in a paint box, and why no one should feel daunted
    • 19:13 500 Canvases Alongside Everything Else — Chancellor, Prime Minister, Nobel laureate: where did he find the time?
    • 21:12 The One WWII Painting — The Casablanca Conference, Roosevelt, the Atlas Mountains, and a gift that symbolized the Special Relationship
    • 23:02 The Marrakesh Painting and the Gift to Eisenhower — Two paintings face to face in the exhibition
    • 23:47 The Hallmark Cards World Tour — Joyce C. Hall, Eisenhower's persuasive letter, and a record-breaking global exhibition
    • 25:49 How Did Brad Pitt End Up Owning the Marrakesh Painting? — Neither host quite knows
    • 26:34 Churchill's Artistic Mentors — John Lavery, Walter Sickert, William Nicholson, and what each one taught him
    • 32:20 Churchill's Influences — Monet, Cézanne, the Impressionists, and the tessellated pavement of dabs and lozenges
    • 32:33 Walking Through the Exhibition — Six galleries from First Attempts to the Royal Academy
    • 34:00 Gallery 1: First Attempts — Lavery, the self-portrait, and the Plug Street paintings
    • 35:00 Gallery 2: Life and Hope — Chartwell in all seasons, Blenheim, and the wilderness years paintings
    • 36:00 Gallery 3: Still Lifes — Nicholson's influence, the Magnolia painting, and thank-you gifts to friends
    • 37:00 Gallery 4: Light, Atmosphere & Reflections — The Riviera, Morocco, La Dragonnière, and making the gardener row
    • 38:19 Morocco — Six visits, the Red City, the Atlas Mountains, and the Eureka Valley picnics
    • 39:30 Gallery 5 & 6: Recognition — The Royal Academy submission under a pseudonym, Honorary Academician Extraordinary
    • 40:06 Chartwell as Inspiration — 50 years, built for the view, goldfish pools, and the changing seasons
    • 41:45 How a Major Exhibition Comes Together — Loan negotiations, private collections, and 20 years in the making
    • 43:34 The Exhibition Catalog — Six essays, new archival research, and what makes it more than a picture book
    • 47:11 The Contributors — Andrew Roberts on soft power, Catherine Carter on Chartwell, Paul Rafferty on the Riviera, Alan Packwood on Churchill as a visual person
    • 48:36 The Churchill Family's Involvement — Support from the very beginning and throughout
    • 49:16 Why Americans Should Get on a Plane — A revelation, a personality revealed, and a zest for life
    • 50:22 Rapid Fire Churchill Round — Favorite book, film, quote, and painting
    • 53:44 Wrap-Up — Exhibition details, tickets, catalog, and Jonathan's August visit

    Video Version

    12 June 2026, 1:00 pm
  • 1 hour 17 minutes
    Anglotopia Podcast: Episode 98 – Best British History Books with Brendan Dowd from the History Nerds United Podcast

    In this episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, Jonathan Thomas is joined by Brendan Dowd — West Point graduate, Iraq War veteran, government consultant, and host of History Nerds United, one of the most respected history book podcasts in the business with over 220 episodes — for a pure, unfiltered book nerd conversation. Both hosts came with a stack of their favorite British history books and took turns sharing their picks, debating the merits, going gloriously off-topic about Darkest Hour, the new Wuthering Heights film, Bridgerton, and Dan Jones's upcoming castles book, and building what amounts to a British history reading list that will keep you busy for years. Between them, Jonathan and Brendan recommend over 20 books spanning Alfred the Great, the Tudors, the Regency, Victorian London, World War II, Thatcher, the Iranian Embassy Siege, and the hidden history of English wolves — plus a peek at what's sitting on each of their TBR piles right now.

    Links

    History Nerds United

    ⠀Jonathan's Picks

    ⠀Brendan's Picks

    ⠀Also Mentioned

    ⠀Anglotopia

    ⠀

    Takeaways

    • Both Jonathan and Brendan started their podcasts for exactly the same reason — frustration at the quality of existing coverage in their field — and both were shocked to discover how generous, enthusiastic, and collegial the history author community turned out to be.
    • Brendan's gateway into British history was Alfred the Great by Justin Pollard — a compact, accessible biography of the only English monarch to earn the title "the Great," which he recommends as the perfect gateway drug for readers who think history books are intimidating.
    • Jonathan's most-reread British book is Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Island — a definitive outsider's portrait of British culture from the early 1990s that remains beloved by British readers themselves, and the book that most shaped his vision for Anglotopia.
    • Andrew Roberts's one-volume Churchill biography is both Jonathan and Brendan's recommended starting point for anyone wanting a modern, comprehensive, and myth-busting account of Churchill — and Roberts's Napoleon biography is equally essential.
    • Helen Castor is independently named by Brendan as one of his very favorite history writers — her Eagle and the Hart on Richard II and Henry IV, and her Joan of Arc episode of his podcast, are both highlighted as exceptional examples of humanizing complex historical figures without sanitizing them.
    • Both hosts agree that the best history books share a quality: they humanize their subjects — showing the positive and the negative — rather than either condemning or canonizing them. The books they admire most leave the reader to make their own moral judgments.
    • Empireland by Sathnam Sanghera and The Crown's Silence by Brooke Newman both generated significant controversy — particularly in British publications — but both Jonathan and Brendan recommend them as essential, rigorously evidenced correctives to popular myths about the British Empire and the monarchy's role in the slave trade.
    • Ben Macintyre's The Siege — on the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege in London that made the SAS famous — is Brendan's pick for best recent true British history read, praised for building unbearable tension over hundreds of pages before releasing it all in a single extended final chapter.
    • The new Wuthering Heights film gets a thumbs-down from both hosts — "it looks beautiful but just didn't land" — while Darkest Hour generates a spirited debate about the Underground scene that ends with both agreeing it's historically wrong but emotionally right.
    • Both hosts are currently working through books about the interwar period, Cold War espionage, and upcoming releases from Dan Jones and Thomas Asbridge — and both agree that the single greatest problem with loving history books is that the TBR pile never gets shorter.

    ⠀

    Soundbites

    • "I lost it. I said, there's gotta be a better way. I don't want to continually torture my family with all my rants about books. So I started the blog." — Brendan on the one-star Amazon review that launched History Nerds United.
    • "I sent 10 emails on the first day thinking if I get one back I'll be ecstatic. I got eight back within three days. And I've now sat on a boat with Dan Jones having drinks, overlooking Omaha Beach. Nobody tell me it didn't happen." — Brendan on the unexpected magic of the history community.
    • "I have yet to interview a jerk. Everyone has been unfailingly nice and so excited to be there and just so game to talk about whatever." — Brendan on 220+ episodes of History Nerds United.
    • "My long-term goal is to be like Bill Bryson. I've actually met him. He's a very nice chap. I can only hope to be 10% as good as him one day." — Jonathan on Notes from a Small Island and his writing ambitions.
    • *"If you want to understand why everything is happening in Downton Abbey, read *The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy. I read it as research for a novel I was writing in college and it has never left me." — Jonathan on David Cannadine's masterwork.
    • "Churchill wouldn't have done that. He was not that type of person. But you put Churchill in a period tube carriage, surrounded by Londoners during the Blitz, and it captures the essence of what the story is trying to tell. Was it real? Heck no." — Jonathan and Brendan on the Underground scene in Darkest Hour.
    • "Helen Castor is constantly teaching you, but you feel like you're just having a conversation within the book. At the end of it, you hear Helen get emotional talking about this teenager burned at the stake — how scared she must have been, even with all her faith. She makes her human instead of an icon." — Brendan on his favorite episode of History Nerds United.
    • "The thesis is that because Britain hunted wolves to extinction, it unleashed the economic powerhouse of sheep farming and wool — and as a consequence of that led to so much of what we know as Britain. I read it and I wanted to read it all over again immediately." — Jonathan on The Last Wolf by Robert Winder.
    • "She stayed laser focused on the Elizabethan succession and somehow it's still interesting all the way through. She mentions the Spanish Armada for about three sentences. I said in my review: this book has been written. We don't need any more on this subject." — Brendan on Tracy Borman's The Stolen Crown.
    • "No author has ever made me feel more lazy than Catherine Grace Katz — she wrote *Daughters of Yalta* while she was in law school. If you told me that I would one day be sitting there with Marsha Clark from the OJ Simpson trial, I would have called you a liar. But that's what this world does." — Brendan on the surreal privilege of the history podcast community.

    ⠀

    Chapters

    • 00:00 Introduction — Jonathan sets up the book conversation episode and introduces Brendan Dowd
    • 01:41 How a Tank Platoon Leader Got a 220-Episode History Podcast — Long commutes, bad Amazon reviews, and one unexpected email
    • 05:58 The History Author Community — Why everybody wants you to win, and the generosity of historians
    • 08:10 Dan Jones on a River Cruise — Brendan's honeymoon, Omaha Beach, and a surreal life moment
    • 09:01 What History Nerds United Is — The format, the philosophy, and why Brendan calls himself the laziest podcaster
    • 10:26 BOOK PICKS BEGIN
    • 10:39 Brendan Pick #1: Alfred the Great by Justin Pollard — The George Washington of England and the perfect gateway drug
    • 12:18 Jonathan Pick #1: Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson — The definitive outsider's portrait of British culture and Jonathan's most-reread book
    • 14:28 Brendan Pick #2: The Six Loves of James I by Gareth Russell — A party animal king, Scottish trauma, and the most uncomfortable compliment Gareth ever received
    • 16:58 Jonathan Pick #2: Churchill: Walking with Destiny by Andrew Roberts — The one-volume biography that settles the argument
    • 18:15 Andrew Roberts's Napoleon — A brief but enthusiastic detour to France
    • 18:56 Brendan Pick #3: Battle for the Island Kingdom by Don Hollway — 1000 to 1066, the most disgusting assassination in history, and setting up everything
    • 20:05 Jonathan Pick #3: My Early Life by Winston Churchill — The only autobiography, the Boer War escape, and the Gary Stiles connection
    • 21:50 Darkest Hour Debate — The Underground scene: historically wrong, emotionally right, and why it works anyway
    • 23:18 The Perfect WWII Double Bill — Darkest Hour followed by Dunkirk as a single evening
    • 23:50 Brendan Pick #4: Henry V by Dan Jones — Present tense biography, the greatest medieval king, and writing something when you feel ready for it
    • 25:29 Jonathan Pick #4: A Very English Scandal by John Preston — Jeremy Thorpe, a murder plot, a dead dog, and the British establishment
    • 26:57 John Preston's Robert Maxwell Book — And a certain imprisoned daughter
    • 27:26 Brendan Pick #5: Thomas More: A Life by Joanne Paul — Saints, hair shirts, comedy gold, and debunking 500-year-old myths
    • 29:24 Jonathan Pick #5: London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd — The definitive history of London and the gateway to a great corpus
    • 30:25 Brendan Pick #6: Once a King: The Lost Memoir of Edward VIII by Jane Marguerite Tippett — He wasn't a Nazi, and the documentation proves it
    • 32:03 Jonathan Pick #6: Citizens of London by Lynne Olson — Americans in London during the Blitz and how they helped save Britain
    • 33:24 Brendan Pick #7: The Stolen Crown by Tracy Borman — The Elizabethan succession, new evidence, and calling Henry VIII a few four-letter words
    • 34:56 Tracy Borman on Inside the Tower of London — And Dan Jones's upcoming Castles book
    • 36:03 Jonathan Pick #7: Empireland by Sathnam Sanghera — Deconstructing myths of the British Empire and why the author quit social media
    • 37:32 Brendan Pick #8: The Crown's Silence by Brooke Newman — The monarchy's direct financial involvement in the slave trade and British publications' predictable response
    • 39:34 Jonathan Pick #8: The Iron Lady by John Campbell — The definitive Thatcher biography and why she's Churchill's true successor
    • 41:45 Brendan Pick #9: The Greatest Knight by Thomas Asbridge — William Marshal, four kings, King John, and a life that reads like a Hollywood script
    • 43:22 Jonathan Pick #9: The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy by David Cannadine — The book that explains Downton Abbey and everything behind it
    • 44:29 Brendan Pick #10: The Eagle and the Hart by Helen Castor — Richard II, Henry IV, and why taking the crown makes you a marked man
    • 46:48 Jonathan Pick #10: Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh — Fiction that illuminates aristocratic decline and the companion read to Cannadine
    • 48:18 Brendan Pick #11: The Invention of Charlotte Brontë by Graham Watson — Jane Eyre as a gateway, the weird genius of the Brontë family, and more autobiography than you realized
    • 50:18 Wuthering Heights Film Discussion — Brendan defers, Jonathan gives a verdict: beautiful but it didn't land
    • 51:43 Jonathan Pick #11: The Last Wolf by Robert Winder — No wolves, lots of sheep, and the surprising hidden springs of Englishness
    • 53:10 Brendan Pick #12: London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe — A body off a balcony opposite MI5, true crime that leaves you profoundly uneasy
    • 54:54 Jonathan buys London Falling at Barnes & Noble — And finds it in the fiction section
    • 55:24 Jonathan Pick #12: The Regency Years by Robert Morrison — What Bridgerton gets wrong, what Jane Austen's world actually was, and the Anglotopia Bridgerton guide
    • 56:23 Bridgerton vs. The Patriot — Two hosts agree: know your genre, leave accuracy at the door
    • 58:15 Brendan Pick #13: The Siege by Ben Macintyre — The Iranian Embassy siege, the SAS, and a final chapter that takes an hour to read
    • 1:00:06 Jonathan Pick #13: Churchill's Citadel by Katherine Carter — Chartwell as weapon, the wilderness years, and the best first book Jonathan has read in years
    • 1:01:31 What's on the TBR Right Now — Ike and Winston, Three Weeks in July, A Shellshocked Nation, the Nord Stream conspiracy, Dan Jones's Castles, and more
    • 1:07:37 The Book Neither Host Can Find Anyone to Write — Brendan's gap in the market involving Joan of Arc's most disturbing companion
    • 1:10:24 The Book Jonathan Should Write — Brendan makes his pitch; Jonathan firmly declines
    • 1:11:06 Jonathan's Gap in the Market — Churchill's second term as Prime Minister: underexplored, fascinating, partially covered by The Crown
    • 1:12:29 John Lithgow as Churchill — Too tall, earned it on The Crown, also very scary in Dexter
    • 1:12:36 Brendan's Proudest Episode — Helen Castor on Joan of Arc, two hours that felt like twenty minutes
    • 1:16:52 Wrap-Up — Where to find History Nerds United, the full book list in the show notes, and promises of a return visit

    Video Version

    5 June 2026, 1:00 pm
  • 35 minutes 24 seconds
    BONUS EPISODE: What’s on in London in June 2026, Royal Events, Exhibitions, Theatre, Heatwave Travel Tips

    In this special bonus episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, Jonathan Thomas launches an experimental new monthly format: a London events guide covering what's actually on in the city this month. June is arguably London's finest month — 16 to 17 hours of daylight, the longest evenings of the year, and an events calendar absolutely bursting at the seams. Jonathan walks through everything worth knowing about June in London: the major royal events including Trooping the Colour and Royal Ascot, the blockbuster summer exhibitions at Tate Modern, Tate Britain, the Royal Academy, the National Portrait Gallery, the V&A, and more, plus what's on in London theater from Shakespeare's Globe to the West End, live music at Wembley and the Roundhouse, and practical tips for surviving — and thriving in — a London heat wave. If this episode proves popular, Jonathan will make it a monthly fixture. Let him know what you think in the comments.

    Links

    Royal Events

    ⠀Exhibitions — Book Ahead

    ⠀Theater

    ⠀Long-Running West End Shows

    ⠀Live Music

    ⠀Practical Resources

    ⠀

    Takeaways
    • June is arguably London's best month to visit — 16 to 17 hours of daylight, reliably pleasant weather, and the richest events calendar of the year, though it is also peak tourist season with hotel prices running 20 to 40 percent above spring rates.
    • Trooping the Colour — the monarch's official birthday parade — is the major royal event of the year in 2026. Even without a ballot ticket to Horse Guards Parade, you can experience the procession on the Mall and the balcony appearance at Buckingham Palace by arriving very early and staking out a good spot.
    • Every major summer blockbuster exhibition in London requires advance booking — some, like The Queen's Fashion at The King's Gallery, are already sold out through 2026. Book tickets as soon as you finish listening, even if your trip dates aren't confirmed yet.
    • The Frida Kahlo survey at Tate Modern, the James McNeill Whistler retrospective at Tate Britain, and the Marilyn Monroe exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery are Jonathan's top three must-book exhibition picks for the month.
    • The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition — the world's largest open submission art show, running since 1769 — is a uniquely chaotic, democratic, and wonderful experience where everything on the walls is for sale and any artist can enter.
    • Shakespeare's Globe is staging Much Ado About Nothing from June 11, and Regent's Park Open Air Theatre opens A Midsummer Night's Dream on June 20 — watching Shakespeare outdoors on a long June evening is one of the quintessential London summer experiences.
    • London generally does not have air conditioning in older buildings, hotel rooms, or most tube lines. The first thing you should do after arriving in summer is buy a fan — Jonathan recommends going straight to Argos, Britain's version of a catalog store, for an affordable one.
    • The tube's older lines (Central, Piccadilly) get brutally hot in summer due to London clay absorbing and retaining heat underground. The Elizabeth line is fully air conditioned and runs east-west across the city — use it as much as possible in a heat wave.
    • The National Gallery is experimenting with extended summer evening hours, staying open until 7 PM most evenings and until 9 PM on Fridays from July 1 — Jonathan's suggestion: have an early dinner, then walk over for a free evening of world-class art.
    • Don't try to pack too much in. Pick three or four things you genuinely care about, build your days around those, and leave time to wander, sit in Green Park with a deck chair, or walk along the Thames in the long evening light. June in London is as much about the atmosphere as the attractions.

    ⠀

    Soundbites
    • "The light is the headline for June. You get sixteen to seventeen hours of daylight. Twilight stretches from around eight PM to nearly ten PM. You can have a full day of exploring, sit down for dinner, and still walk home along the Thames and have some daylight." — Jonathan on why June is London's best month.
    • "If you've ever wondered what the best month to visit London is, a lot of people will quietly tell you it's this one." — Jonathan on June in London.
    • Plan your day around it. Get up stupidly early — three, four, five in the morning — get your spot on the Mall and soak up the atmosphere. It'll be like a party atmosphere." — Jonathan on how to experience Trooping the Colour without a ticket.
    • "The Queen's Fashion at The King's Gallery is sold out for the rest of the year, and I know a lot of people are gonna be really disappointed when they try to get tickets and they simply can't." — Jonathan's warning on the most in-demand exhibition of the summer.
    • "The walls are packed from floor to ceiling and everything is for sale. It's chaotic and wonderful. And it's a great way to see up-and-coming artists and established artists side by side." — Jonathan on the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.
    • "Shakespeare under the open sky in one of London's loveliest parks on a warm June evening — it doesn't get dark till ten PM anyway. Enjoy some champagne, enjoy some theater out in the green. That's my top theater pick for the month." — Jonathan on Regent's Park Open Air Theatre.
    • "The first thing you should do after you land is go to what the British call an ironmonger — a hardware store — and buy a fan. Don't skimp. It is essential for Americans traveling in Europe." — Jonathan's number one summer travel tip.
    • "The London clay is a heat sink. It absorbs heat and then it doesn't let it back out. So the tube gets really hot in the summer. If you are prone to heat issues, avoid the tube except the Elizabeth line, which is fully air conditioned." — Jonathan on navigating London in a heat wave.
    • "I sat there in the rain in the 40s, got soaking wet. And I — not exaggerating — almost got hypothermia. It was July. I could not warm up when I got back to the hotel because the heating wasn't on and there weren't enough blankets because it was July." — Jonathan's cautionary tale about British summer weather.
    • "Argos is exactly like Service Merchandise — you go in, there's a big catalog, you pick your thing, and it comes out on a conveyor belt. Get a fan. Don't even look at the weather forecast first. Just trust me — you're going to need a fan." — Jonathan's most practical London summer tip.

    ⠀

    Chapters
    • 00:21 Introduction — Jonathan launches the experimental monthly London events format
    • 01:15 The Feel of June in London — Long days, the light, and why June is special
    • 02:20 June Weather — What to expect, heat waves, and the maritime humidity problem
    • 03:45 Peak Tourist Season — Crowds, hotel prices, and why June still beats July
    • 05:00 Trooping the Colour — What it is, how to see it without a ticket, and Jonathan's tips for getting a good spot
    • 08:30 Royal Ascot — Fascinators on the tube, the royal procession, and how to get tickets
    • 10:00 Wimbledon — The ballot, resale tickets, strawberries and cream, and what to do if you can't get in
    • 11:30 How to Book Exhibitions — Why advance booking is non-negotiable and the Queen's Fashion sellout warning
    • 13:00 Frida Kahlo at Tate Modern — Jonathan's pick and why Tate Modern is worth seeing for the building alone
    • 14:30 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition (June 16) — The world's largest open submission art show
    • 15:30 Anish Kapoor at the Hayward Gallery (June 16) — The Cloud Gate connection and why it's worth seeing
    • 16:15 Marilyn Monroe at the National Portrait Gallery — Just opened, book fast
    • 17:00 Barbara Hepworth at the Courtauld Gallery — And why Somerset House is worth a visit anyway
    • 17:45 Schiaparelli at the V&A — Fashion exhibitions and why the V&A excels at them
    • 18:15 Wes Anderson at the Design Museum — A treat for film fans
    • 18:45 James McNeill Whistler at Tate Britain — A sellout show, book immediately
    • 19:30 Wallace & Gromit at Young V&A — The Aardman exhibition Jonathan is hoping to catch in August
    • 20:15 Closing This Month — Mikalojus Čiurlionis at the Royal Academy (closes June 21) and Hokusai at Dulwich (closes June 30)
    • 21:00 Theater — Why June is the best time for London theater
    • 21:30 Regent's Park Open Air Theatre — A Midsummer Night's Dream, Jonathan's top pick of the month
    • 22:00 Shakespeare's Globe — Much Ado About Nothing from June 11
    • 22:30 New West End Openings — To Kill a Mockingbird (June 25) and Cyrano de Bergerac (June 13)
    • 23:00 Long-Running Shows — Lion King, Hamilton, Wicked, Six, Les Mis, and how to get discount tickets
    • 24:00 Live Music — Harry Styles at Wembley, Olivia Dean at the O2, Orville Peck at the Roundhouse
    • 25:00 Practical Tips: Heat — Does London have air conditioning? (Mostly no)
    • 26:30 The Fan Imperative — Buy one at Argos, the British Service Merchandise
    • 28:30 Pack for All Weathers — The July outdoor concert near-hypothermia story
    • 30:00 Humidity and Heat — Why British summer heat hits differently than dry American heat
    • 31:00 Use the Long Days — 17 hours of light, late museum hours, rooftop bars, evening walks
    • 32:00 National Gallery Extended Hours — Stay open till 7 PM, Fridays till 9 PM from July 1
    • 33:00 Don't Overpack Your Itinerary — Pick three or four things, leave time to wander
    • 34:00 Wrap-Up — Londontopia events calendar, listener feedback request, Friends of Anglotopia

    Video Version

    4 June 2026, 6:00 pm
  • 1 hour 11 minutes
    Anglotopia Podcast: Episode 97 – City of Dreaming Spires – The Anglotopia Guide to Oxford – Travel, Tips, and Tricks

    In this solo episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, Jonathan Thomas delivers his definitive guide to Oxford — his favorite city in England outside of London and the subject of his guidebook 101 Oxford Travel Tips and Tricks. From the bleary-eyed chaos of his first visit in 2012 with an angry 16-month-old and the Mini Cooper factory ring road at midnight, to two stays as a student on the Oxford Experience program, Jonathan brings nearly 15 years of personal history with the city to bear on a comprehensive, enthusiastic, and practically useful travel guide. The episode covers how to get there, how long to stay, the Oxford Experience immersive student program, the colleges you must see, the Bodleian Library's remarkable layers, the essential museums, the unrivaled bookstore scene led by Blackwell's and its famous five-mile Norrington Room, Oxford's extraordinary literary connections from Lewis Carroll to Tolkien to Philip Pullman, the day trips that demand your time — including Blenheim Palace and the Cotswolds — and the practical tips that will make your visit infinitely more enjoyable.

    Links

    ⠀

    Takeaways

    • Oxford is Jonathan's favourite city in England outside London — and most Americans either skip it or see it in a rushed half-day bus tour that barely scratches the surface. Two days minimum is the right call; three is better. Oxford is just 60 miles and 40-45 minutes by direct train from London Paddington, making it one of the easiest day trips or overnights in Britain — and you can also get there direct by bus from Heathrow without going into London at all.
    • The Oxford Experience — a residential immersive programme at Christchurch offering one-week courses for adults in July and August — is Jonathan's single highest recommendation for anyone who wants to truly inhabit the city. Courses cost £1,500–£2,000 all-in and include room, board, lectures, and excursions; book in November when the schedule is released as popular courses fill within hours.
    • The Bodleian Library is not one library but several — the Divinity School, Duke Humphrey's Library, the Radcliffe Camera, and the Weston Library — and the best way to see them properly is to book a guided tour well in advance, as they sell out.
    • Blackwell's bookshop on Broad Street is arguably the greatest bookshop in the world — the underground Norrington Room alone has five miles of shelving beneath Trinity College — and Jonathan has never left without spending several hundred pounds. Staff will package books in brown paper and ship them back to the US at reasonable rates.
    • Oxford's literary connections are extraordinary: Lewis Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland at Christchurch (Alice was the Dean's daughter); Tolkien and C.S. Lewis met with the Inklings at the Eagle and Child every Tuesday through the 1930s and 40s; Philip Pullman set His Dark Materials here; Oscar Wilde studied at Magdalen; and Inspector Morse has made every corner of the city feel like a crime scene.
    • The Eagle and Child — the Inklings' famous pub on St. Giles' Street — has been closed since COVID and is currently being refurbished by new owners. It must reopen as a pub by heritage law, and is expected to reopen either in 2026 or 2027; keep an eye on the show notes link for updates.
    • If you're in Oxford for even one day, you must go to Blenheim Palace — just eight miles away by bus, the only non-royal non-episcopal palace in England, birthplace of Winston Churchill, UNESCO World Heritage Site, and arguably the greatest country house in Britain. A bus from Oxford drops you at the gates.
    • Jonathan's top Oxford hack: stay for at least one night. By 4-5pm the tour buses are gone, Oxford becomes a completely different city, and the cultural life — theatre, bookshop talks, music — begins. Arrive early to beat crowds at the sights, then save the evenings for culture and quieter exploration.
    • Avoid mid-April to mid-June (exam season, colleges restrict access), avoid July if you run hot (medieval stone buildings have no air conditioning and bake in the heat), and buy a fan the moment you arrive if visiting in summer. September and October are ideal months to visit.

    ⠀

    Soundbites

    • "Most of my early memories of Oxford were driving the ring road at midnight with a toddler who would not go to sleep and who would only stop crying if he was in the car. We drove round and around, seeing nothing other than the Mini Cooper plant every time we went past." — Jonathan on his first trip to Oxford in 2012.
    • "Oxford has this warmth to it — that yellow beige Cotswold stone, weathered and warm. And there's this scholarly, bookish vibe from the place that you don't really get anywhere else. It's not just a campus. Oxford University is the town of Oxford." — Jonathan on why Oxford grabs you.
    • "I was immediately spellbound. I loved it immediately. And that's the thing about Oxford — it grabs you once you visit, and you're walking around this beautiful architecture surrounded by deep, deep history. They don't even know exactly how old the university is. It's over 800 years old. When Oxford was founded, the Aztec Empire hadn't even reached its peak." — Jonathan on falling in love with Oxford in 2016.
    • "There were riots. There was full scale urban warfare in Oxford in 1355 — the St. Scholastica's Day riot. 63 scholars and 30 townspeople were killed. As a result, the town was forced to pay annual reparations to the university in a formal ceremony that continued into the Victorian era." — Jonathan on Oxford's violent town vs. gown history.
    • "You basically get to live as an Oxford student for a week. Morning is lectures, afternoon is tours and excursions, evening is formal dinner in the Great Hall. And one night you're invited to high table — suit and tie, port, mingling with the professors. It's a very quintessentially British experience." — Jonathan on the Oxford Experience programme.
    • "I've never gotten out of the Norrington Room without spending several hundred pounds. Let me just say that. Five miles of shelving underground beneath Trinity College. So many books." — Jonathan on Blackwell's legendary underground bookshop.
    • "The Pitt Rivers Museum is like the Victorian cabinet of curiosities. Dimly lit, quiet — maybe people don't even know it's there. Polynesian canoes, samurai outfits, weapons, armour. A strange and wonderful melange of human culture from all over the world." — Jonathan on one of Oxford's most atmospheric museums.
    • "If you're in Oxford and you don't go to Blenheim Palace, you've wasted a trip to Oxford. It's the only non-royal, non-episcopal palace in England. I would argue it's probably the greatest house in Britain. And a bus from Oxford drops you right at the gates." — Jonathan on Blenheim Palace.
    • "By four or five o'clock in the afternoon, the tour buses are gone. And it's just you and the people who live and work and study in Oxford. Oxford becomes a completely different place. That's when the cultural life wakes up." — Jonathan's key Oxford overnight hack.
    • "Scriptum on Turl Street — if you're a bookish type, you will love this place. Beautiful blank books, journals, diaries, fancy pens. I have a beautiful leather book from there with gorgeous cream pages that I cherish so much I haven't written anything in it. I'm afraid to ruin it." — Jonathan on his favourite hidden gem shop in Oxford.

    ⠀

    Chapters

    • 00:00 Introduction — Jonathan sets up the Oxford guide episode and plugs his Oxford guidebook
    • 01:48 Jonathan's Relationship with Oxford — Brideshead Revisited, American universities, and the Oxford DNA in US campus culture
    • 03:30 First Visit: Oxford 2012 — Diamond Jubilee trip, an angry toddler, and the ring road at midnight
    • 06:20 Second Visit: Oxford 2016 — The train from Paddington, the proper day, and falling in love properly
    • 08:42 A Brief History of Oxford — Ford of the Oxen, Alfred the Great, Henry II, 800 years, and the St. Scholastica's Day riot
    • 13:30 The University Explained — 44 colleges, town vs. gown, the founding of Cambridge by Oxford exiles, and Oxford today
    • 16:10 How to Get There — Train from Paddington, Oxford Tube bus, direct from Heathrow, and why not to drive
    • 19:30 Getting Around Oxford — Walking, taxis, park-and-ride pitfalls, and Tolkien's grave
    • 21:10 Day Trip vs. Overnight — Why staying beats leaving, and how Oxford transforms after 4pm
    • 23:40 The Oxford Experience Programme — Christchurch, Worcester College, the Nelson course, high table, and the Enigma course Jonathan wants to do next
    • 33:15 Accommodation Options — Hotels, staying in colleges out of term time, and the Randolph (Inspector Morse's pub)
    • 35:20 The College System Explained — 44 semi-independent colleges, how to apply, porters, scouts, and visiting hours
    • 38:00 Must-See Colleges — Christchurch, Magdalen, Worcester, Merton, Wadham (Brideshead), and the peculiar All Souls
    • 43:00 The Bodleian Library — Five buildings, Duke Humphrey's Library, the Radcliffe Camera, the Divinity School, and why you must book a tour
    • 47:00 Radcliffe Square & St. Mary's Church Tower — The most beautiful urban space in Britain and the best views in Oxford
    • 48:40 The Ashmolean Museum — Britain's first public museum, the Alfred Jewel, Guy Fawkes's lantern, Turner paintings, and it's free
    • 51:00 The Pitt Rivers Museum — Through the Natural History Museum, the shrunken heads, Polynesian canoes, and the Victorian cabinet of curiosities
    • 53:00 Carfax Tower, Oxford Castle & Prison, and the Covered Market — Views, ruins, Brown's Café, and Ben's Cookies
    • 55:30 The Botanic Garden & Broad Street — Riverside walks, the Martyrs' Cross, and the Reformation in Oxford
    • 56:30 Shopping in Oxford — The High Street, Blackwell's, the Norrington Room, OUP Bookshop, Scriptum, The Last Bookshop, and why to skip the Harry Potter tat
    • 01:03:00 Literary Oxford — Lewis Carroll, Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Oscar Wilde, Philip Pullman, Inspector Morse, and the Eagle and Child update
    • 01:09:00 Harry Potter Oxford — Divinity School, Duke Humphrey's Library, Bodleian courtyard, Christchurch Great Hall, and the new TV series
    • 01:12:00 Day Trips from Oxford — Blenheim Palace, the Cotswolds, Stratford-upon-Avon, Rousham House, Didcot Railway Centre, and Bicester Village
    • 01:18:00 Practical Tips — Book ahead, avoid exam season, avoid July heat, arrive early, save museums for the afternoon, walk everywhere, punt the river, visit Scriptum
    • 01:24:00 Wrap-Up — Oxford rewards time and attention; two days minimum, the Oxford Experience if you can, and a call for listeners to share what they love about Oxford

    Video Version

    29 May 2026, 1:00 pm
  • 1 hour 5 minutes
    Anglotopia Podcast: Episode 96 – Churchill the Writer – Gary Stiles on My Early Life and the Craft Behind the Legend

    In this episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, Jonathan Thomas sits down with Dr. Gary L. Stiles — physician, medical researcher, former Distinguished Professor of Cardiovascular Research at Duke University, and lifelong Churchill scholar — to discuss his new book A Prelude to Immortality, published by Unicorn Publishing Group. Gary's book is the definitive study of Churchill's most beloved work, My Early Life — his only autobiography, written in 1930 when Churchill was in his mid-fifties, and never out of print in nearly a century. Drawing on previously unpublished letters from the Churchill Archives, Gary walks Jonathan through the five specific reasons Churchill wrote the book, the remarkable ambulatory dictation process by which he composed it, the POW escape from the Boers that made him internationally famous, the strategic gifting of inscribed copies to over 100 influencers including T.E. Lawrence, Churchill's Nobel Prize for Literature and his complicated feelings about it, and the surprisingly human, vulnerable side of Churchill that his nanny shaped and that the history books rarely capture. The episode closes with a Churchill lightning round — favorite quotes, anecdotes, books and films — including the extraordinary story of Churchill reciting Hamlet from memory alongside Richard Burton at the Old Vic.

    Links

    Takeaways

    1. My Early Life, published in 1930 when Churchill was 55, is his only autobiography — covering only the first 27 years of his life — and has never gone out of print in nearly a century. It was also the book most prominently cited when Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953.
    2. Churchill wrote My Early Life for five specific reasons: to reinvigorate his public persona as the wilderness years approached; to describe the Victorian era that formed him; to tell his story in his own voice for posterity; to generate desperately needed income; and to inspire a post-WWI generation he felt was paralyzed by fear and disengagement.
    3. Churchill's writing method was "ambulatory dictation" — he would pace his library at Chartwell, mumbling and testing sentences aloud for cadence, rhythm, and word sound, while secretaries stood ready to transcribe. He never wrote My Early Life by hand; every word was dictated.
    4. The book is deliberately written in the voice of Churchill at the age of each event — as a frightened schoolboy, a cavalry officer, an escaped prisoner of war — not as a 55-year-old man looking back. This was a conscious literary choice to make readers feel what he felt, not intellectualize it.
    5. Churchill's escape from a Boer prisoner of war camp in 1899 — a 400-mile solo journey through hostile territory — was the pivotal moment that made him internationally famous and launched both his writing career and his political one. Captain Haldane never forgave him for it, calling him a cad; Churchill's two chapters on the escape in My Early Life are, in large part, a carefully crafted defense of his honor.
    6. Churchill kept fresh flowers on his nanny Mrs Everest's grave from her death until his own in 1965 — over 90 years — and kept her photograph at his bedside at Chartwell, where it can still be seen today. Gary argues it was Mrs. Everest, not Churchill's famously neglectful parents, who taught him humanity, empathy, and the capacity to care for others.
    7. Churchill was nominated for the Nobel Prize over 27 times in both the Peace and Literature categories. He won the Literature prize in 1953 — beating Hemingway, who came second — though he would have preferred the Peace Prize. Hemingway publicly stated Churchill deserved it, and had previously included Churchill's war writing in his own books as examples of great prose.
    8. Churchill was the original influencer: he personally managed the distribution of over 100 pre-publication inscribed copies of My Early Life to royals, politicians, business leaders, friends, and voters — with three handwritten iterations of the list found in the Churchill Archives, with personal notes on each recipient.
    9. Churchill's prodigious memory — which left FDR, Stalin, and his own staff in awe — was the key tool that allowed him to weave My Early Life from four earlier books, 13 major articles, and hundreds of newspaper dispatches, selecting and transforming individual sentences across decades of work.
    10. Churchill was not the impenetrable marble figure of popular mythology — he cried frequently, could be easily hurt, and never stopped seeking the parental approval he never received. Gary's research in the Churchill Archives reveals a side of him that is rarely discussed and fundamentally changes how you read everything he wrote.

    Soundbites

    1. "Churchill kept fresh flowers on his nanny's grave until the day he died in 1965. For 90 years. And he kept a picture of her at his bedside. If you go to Chartwell now, you can still see it. That's how close and important she was to him." — Gary on Nanny Everest and Churchill's lifelong devotion.
    2. "He was what I call stubborn. If he didn't want to study math or Greek or Latin, he just didn't — even at age twelve, he just told the teachers, I can't do this. I'm not interested in doing this. Which drove them absolutely crazy." — Gary on Churchill's unconventional education.
    3. "He would mumble. He would say words. He would say bits of sentences. Then he'd stop and say, no, no, no, that's not it. And then start again. He was listening to the cadence, the word play, the story he was telling — until he got the sound of the words, the pacing, the tone, the rhythm, and the message all clear." — Gary on Churchill's ambulatory dictation method.
    4. "He wanted to grab life by the throat. He wanted the post-WWI generation involved in politics, involved in social issues. He flatly states that if you do not make a difference in the world to make it a better place, your life is absolutely wasted." — Gary on what Churchill wanted the next generation to take from My Early Life.
    5. "Churchill was the original influencer. He sat down and planned who should get the books — Royals, business leaders, politicians, friends, voters. He went through three iterations of the list in his own hand, with personal notes on each person." — Gary on Churchill's strategic gifting of inscribed copies.
    6. "He would have preferred the Nobel Peace Prize. He wanted to be seen as the person who could get the Soviets, Americans, British and French together to create a calmer world. That obviously didn't happen." — Gary on Churchill's complicated relationship with his Nobel Prize for Literature.
    7. "Who's the bloody fool on the gray? Someone who wants to be noticed, I imagine. He'll be noticed — he'll get his head blown off." — the exchange Gary quotes about Churchill's habit of riding a conspicuously grey pony into cavalry charges to ensure he was seen.
    8. "It usually nauseates me. It's usually written by somebody who knows nothing about Churchill and what he really stood for. Churchill is a great name to drop when you want somebody to support what you're trying to support." — Gary on Churchill being invoked in modern political discourse.
    9. "Churchill begins to hear some kind of rumbling. He speeds up and the sound speeds up. He slows down and the sound slows down. And what he finally realizes is Winston Churchill is in the audience — reciting the speech from memory, out loud, word for word." — Gary recounting the Richard Burton / Hamlet anecdote at the Old Vic.
    10. "The price of greatness is responsibility. He turned that on himself. If you're great, you've got to be very responsible." — Gary on Churchill's favorite quote, first used in a speech at Harvard in 1943.

    Chapters

    • 00:00 Introduction — Jonathan sets up the episode and introduces Gary Stiles and A Prelude to Immortality
    • 01:47 How a Cardiologist Became a Churchill Scholar — A lifelong passion for resilience, literature, and collecting
    • 02:59 What First Grabbed Gary About My Early Life — Churchill as a role model for success and getting back up
    • 04:06 The Research Journey — 40 years, unpublished letters, and the surprising discovery of Churchill's humanity
    • 06:33 Nanny Everest — The woman who shaped Churchill more than his parents ever did
    • 08:36 What My Early Life Actually Covers — Ireland, Harrow, Sandhurst, Cuba, India, Sudan, South Africa, and Parliament
    • 12:29 Why Churchill Stopped at Age 28 — The wilderness years, crossing the floor, and a planned second volume that never came
    • 14:19 Writing in the Voice of His Younger Self — A deliberate literary choice, and how he pulled it off
    • 17:00 Ambulatory Dictation — Pacing, mumbling, secretaries, and the sound of sentences
    • 18:32 The Five Reasons Churchill Wrote the Book — Persona, legacy, income, inspiration, and the Victorian era
    • 22:38 Churchill's Financial Chaos — Chartwell, near-bankruptcies, the best wine and cigars, and Clementine's despair
    • 25:16 The Boer War Escape — Capture, the plan, the jump, Captain Haldane, and a 400-mile solo journey to freedom
    • 32:24 How the Escape Made Churchill Famous — International press, a political career launched, and a grudge that lasted decades
    • 34:50 The Dedication to a New Generation — Churchill's message to post-WWI youth, and its echo in JFK's inaugural address
    • 37:43 Weaving the Book from Earlier Work — Prodigious memory, four books, 13 articles, and hundreds of dispatches
    • 40:54 Two Titles, Two Markets — My Early Life in Britain, A Roving Commission in America, and a battle with publishers
    • 43:13 The Inscribed Copy Strategy — Over 100 recipients, three handwritten lists, and T.E. Lawrence's extraordinary reply
    • 47:36 Churchill's Education in English at Harrow — Mr. Somerville, color-coded sentence parsing, and the foundation of a Nobel laureate's prose
    • 49:49 The Nobel Prize for Literature — 27 nominations, beating Hemingway, preferring the Peace Prize, and what Hemingway said
    • 53:35 Churchill and Hemingway as Contemporaries — Two Nobel laureates who admired each other across the Atlantic
    • 54:36 Churchill in the Modern Political Discourse — Gary's frank response to selective and misleading invocations of Churchill today
    • 57:44 Churchill Was Not Perfect — Gallipoli, mistakes, humanity, and the importance of judging the past in its own context
    • 58:17 Lightning Round: Favorite Churchill Quote — "The price of greatness is responsibility"
    • 59:32 Lightning Round: Favorite Churchill Anecdote — Richard Burton, Hamlet at the Old Vic, and Churchill reciting it from memory out loud
    • 1:01:35 Lightning Round: Favorite Churchill Book — Churchill: A Life by Martin Gilbert, and Savrola, Churchill's only novel
    • 1:03:11 Lightning Round: Favorite Churchill Film — Darkest Hour, Young Winston, and the blubbering scene on the Underground
    • 1:04:20 Wrap-Up — Where to find A Prelude to Immortality and My Early Life, and a call to read both

    Video Version

    22 May 2026, 1:00 pm
  • 1 hour 5 minutes
    Anglotopia Podcast: Episode 95 – Lights, Camera, Britain: A Film Scholar on What Makes British Cinema So Distinctively British

    In this episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, Jonathan Thomas sits down with Spencer Murphy — Assistant Professor in Media and Communications at Coventry University, specialist in film theory and cross-cultural cinema, and founder of the Coventry East Asian Film Society — for a wide-ranging, enthusiastic, and genuinely entertaining conversation about British film. What is a British film, exactly? Is it about the money, the cast, the crew, the story, or the setting? How does class permeate almost every British film ever made, from Ealing comedies to Harry Potter? Why does the British landscape function as a character in its own right? And why do Americans connect so deeply with British cinema when its sensibility — restrained, ironic, self-deprecating — is so different from Hollywood's? Jonathan and Spencer also trade their top five British films each, debate the new Wuthering Heights adaptation (neither of them liked it), and discuss why British cinema's literary inheritance is both its greatest strength and, sometimes, its creative limitation.

    Links

    Takeaways

    • Defining what constitutes a British film is genuinely one of the hardest questions in film studies — it can't be reduced to funding source, shooting location, cast, or director alone. Both Jonathan and Spencer agree the most satisfying answer involves who is behind the artistic vision, but even that gets complicated fast.
    • The "Mary Poppins test" is Spencer's shorthand for films that feel very British on the surface but aren't authentically so — the tourist's vision of Britain, the chocolate-box version that meets an expectation rather than reflecting a reality.
    • British film has a deep and complicated two-way relationship with how Britain represents itself to tourists — Hollywood's vision of Britain shapes what visitors expect, and British places have increasingly adapted to meet those expectations, from Harry Potter shops in York's Shambles to the way villages brand themselves around filming locations.
    • Class is the single most persistent thread running through British cinema across every decade and genre — from Ealing comedies to Downton Abbey to Trainspotting — and Spencer argues it's almost impossible to think of a major British film that isn't, consciously or not, about the class system.
    • British cinema's literary inheritance — the endless cycle of Jane Austen, Brontë, and Robin Hood adaptations — is both a commercial lifeline and a creative constraint. Spencer sees it as potentially reducing the space for new voices and contemporary stories, though he acknowledges the money it generates can fund smaller, more singular films.
    • The British landscape is not just a setting in British cinema — it functions as a character, carrying regional pride and identity in a way that Hollywood rarely matches. Spencer notes that British location managers and production designers feel a deep obligation to get place right in a way their American counterparts don't always have.
    • Spencer's explanation for why Americans love British film comes down to one word: self-deprecation. British culture — and British cinema — is not afraid to ridicule itself, to see its own shortcomings, and to raise them with others in a way that doesn't quite offend. He sees this as the quality Hollywood fundamentally cannot replicate.
    • The new Wuthering Heights adaptation was a near-universal disappointment for both Jonathan and Spencer — not for lack of visual quality, but for failing the fundamental question every film must answer: who is this for?
    • Spencer's most unexpected recommendation is Dead Man's Shoes (2004) by Shane Meadows — a harrowing, masterful, deeply regional Midlands film that he shows students as one of the most authentic and powerful representations of working-class Britain ever put on screen.
    • The incoming Harry Potter TV series — set explicitly in the 1990s with a period-appropriate visual aesthetic — is likely to have a bigger impact on British tourism than anything since the original films, and will once again reshape what visitors expect Britain to look and feel like when they arrive.

    Soundbites

    • "When I grew up, I really loved Hong Kong movies — Bruce Lee. The thing that fascinated me was you had streets with Chinese signs, but then Royal Albert Street, buses that looked like London buses. I remember my dad saying, 'Oh, it's part of Britain.' And I was like, what? That can't be so." — Spencer on the connection between British colonialism and his career in film.
    • "It's almost like a snake eating its tail. Britain adapts to meet the expectation that its own exported films have created. You go to the Shambles in York and every other shop sells Harry Potter things and tea — because that's what people want to see." — Spencer on cinema's two-way influence on British culture and tourism.
    • "Class in the UK is not purely related to finance. You can be a very, very wealthy working class person. You could be a millionaire and you'll always be working class. That idea of class being embedded generationally — going back hundreds and hundreds of years — movies articulate that struggle." — Spencer on why class is the defining thread of British cinema.
    • "I'm from the Black Country — a heavily industrial area. I moved into what people would call a very middle class job as a lecturer at university. But my accent, the way I speak, where I'm from — it's working class and it will never leave me." — Spencer on living the class story British cinema tells.
    • "You could argue British cinema is trying, in the 1940s post-war period, to lay out the parameters of class once more — because the great leveller of class was the Second World War, when it really didn't matter who your parents were. People were dying at every rank." — Spencer on class and British cinema's post-war identity crisis.
    • "I always think of it as the King Charles test. He gave that speech in Congress — understated, but deeply critical, undercutting the president in a way where nobody could quite call him out for it. That is quintessentially British. And I think British film does that too." — Spencer on why Americans love British cinema's self-deprecating wit.
    • "You're never going to see a British version of Top Gun. It's just never going to happen. Hollywood can be very congratulatory. British cinema is not afraid to ridicule what it is to be British — and I think that appeals to American audiences enormously." — Spencer on the fundamental difference between British and American cinema.
    • "Wuthering Heights — I watched it and I thought, I don't even know what it felt like, but it didn't feel British to me. I wasn't sure who it was made for. Is this made for 19 year olds? Because I don't get it." — Spencer on the Emerald Fennell adaptation.
    • "Dead Man's Shoes is harrowing and awful, but it had a massive impact on me. It touches on class, on the 1980s, on the downtrodden. It's a film I've seen about three times. I show it to students because it's just masterful." — Spencer on his most unexpected British film recommendation.
    • "When they replayed the Royal Wedding coverage in the pub, you know what came on after it on BBC One? Wallace and Gromit. The perfect chaser of all that Britishness." — Jonathan on the most quintessentially British television scheduling decision ever made.

    ⠀

    Chapters
    • 00:00 Introduction — Jonathan sets up the episode and introduces Spencer Murphy
    • 01:50 Spencer's Journey into Film — VHS tapes, corner video stores, Hong Kong martial arts films, and an accidental PhD
    • 04:36 Jonathan Meets His Wife at Film School — A brief Anglotopia origin story
    • 05:13 Southeast Asian Cinema and the British Colonial Lens — How post-1997 Hong Kong shaped Spencer's thinking about national cinema
    • 08:52 What Is a British Film? — The question neither host can fully answer, and why that's the right response
    • 12:36 Jonathan's Working Definition — Setting, cast, and the authenticity test
    • 13:37 The Merchant Ivory Problem — When a British story isn't quite a British film
    • 14:32 The Mary Poppins Test — How to spot a tourist's version of Britain on screen
    • 16:17 Harry Potter, Bond & Lawrence of Arabia — Are America's favourite "British" films actually British?
    • 18:46 Cinema's Two-Way Effect on Britain — How films shape the places they portray
    • 20:53 Harry Potter as Britain's Biggest Cultural Export — And the new TV series that will change tourism again
    • 22:29 The Visual Identity of the Harry Potter TV Show — Why setting it in the 1990s is a smart move
    • 24:28 British Film Genres — Social realism, heritage drama, comedy, Hammer Horror, and what each adds to the British identity
    • 26:50 Class as British Cinema's Defining Thread — Why it runs through every genre from Ealing to Peaky Blinders
    • 31:33 The Full Monty, Billy Elliot & Richard Curtis — Class in 1990s British film
    • 33:36 Accents, Class & the Transatlantic Voice — From clipped 1930s RP to Trainspotting's Scots
    • 38:45 British Cinema & Literary Adaptation — Strength or creative constraint?
    • 42:49 The New Wuthering Heights — Two film lovers find they agree it didn't work, and debate why
    • 47:36 Landscape as Character — How place functions in British cinema differently from Hollywood
    • 52:08 Why Americans Love British Film — Self-deprecation, irony, and the King Charles Congressional speech
    • 55:23 The Battle of Britain vs Top Gun — How British and American cinema represent heroism differently
    • 55:50 Spencer's Top Five British Films — Rebecca, Dr. No, The Devil Rides Out, The Full Monty, Dead Man's Shoes
    • 59:14 Jonathan's Top Five British Films — The Remains of the Day, Master and Commander, About Time, Tamara Drewe, That Hamilton Woman, Hot Fuzz, On Chesil Beach, and Wallace & Gromit
    • 1:03:06 Wallace & Gromit After the Royal Wedding — The perfect end to any discussion of British culture
    • 1:04:08 Wrap-Up — Spencer must dash, a second episode is promised, and a call to share your own favorite British films

    Video Version

    15 May 2026, 1:00 pm
  • 44 minutes 26 seconds
    Anglotopia Podcast: Episode 94 – The Tudor Podcast Pioneer – Heather Teysko on Obsession, Community & TudorCon 2026

    In this episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, Jonathan Thomas is joined by Heather Teysko — host of the Renaissance English History Podcast, founder of TudorCon, and one of the true pioneers of independent history podcasting. Heather started her podcast back in 2009 on a Labor Day weekend whim, with a cheap microphone and no idea how to edit audio, and has since built it into one of the longest-continuously-running independent history podcasts in the world, alongside a book community, online summits, a Tudor planner, and TudorCon — the world's first Tudor history convention, now in its seventh year. Jonathan and Heather swap stories about falling in love with Britain, building history audiences online, resisting the shiny lure of algorithm-chasing, and why genuine passion is the only thing that makes any of this work. They also dig into TudorCon 2026 — taking place October 23rd–25th at the extraordinary Agecroft Hall in Richmond, Virginia, a genuine 15th-century English manor house that was disassembled and shipped to America piece by piece — where Anglotopia is proud to be a sponsor.

    Anglotopia Listeners can use the code ANGLOTOPIA to get 15% off the Tudorcon ticket price or Tudorcon from home.

    For Tudorcon, they can go to https://tudorcon.englandcast.com; that's the full Tudorcon site.

    For Tudorcon From Home, you can go to englandcast.com/tudorconfromhome and get a Tudorcon from home ticket.

    Use the code ANGLOTOPIA to save 15% on both pages.

    Links

    Takeaways
    • Heather Teysko launched the Renaissance English History Podcast in 2009 — the only Tudor history podcast in existence at the time — and very nearly canceled it in 2013 when she discovered it was getting 40,000 downloads a month without her having posted a new episode in nearly a year.
    • The spark for Heather's Tudor obsession was singing William Byrd's Ave Verum Corpus in a high school choir and realising that Byrd was writing secret Catholic music in Latin while serving Elizabeth I's Protestant court — a teenage existential crisis that never really ended.
    • TudorCon, which began as an online summit and went in-person in 2019, is now expanding significantly for 2026 — moving from a single-track event at Agecroft Hall to a multi-track conference with five classrooms and a reception hall, thanks to a new partnership with Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia.
    • Agecroft Hall is a genuine 15th-century Lancashire manor house that was purchased, disassembled stone by stone, and shipped to Richmond, Virginia in the 1920s by a wealthy tobacco entrepreneur who wanted to live in an authentic English manor — including the original medieval glass, which had to be transported separately by road to avoid cracking.
    • TudorCon is deliberately designed to sit between an academic conference and a Renaissance fair — costume-friendly, open to non-academics, and built around the idea that passionate enthusiasts with deep knowledge of a specific corner of Tudor history have just as much to contribute as credentialed scholars.
    • TudorCon From Home is a full live-streamed experience with its own host, dedicated talks, special events, and a real community feel — the online attendees even took a group screenshot last year to include in the official TudorCon group photo.
    • Heather lived in England for two years in her mid-20s on a BUNAC visa, spending weekends picking random train destinations and exploring — including accidentally attending the Durham Miners' Parade without knowing what it was.
    • After nearly 16 years treating her Tudor work as a hobby, Heather made a deliberate mental shift 18 months ago to treat it as a business — and has since signed a book deal with Countryman Press (an imprint of WW Norton) for The Tudor Fan Guide, due out in summer 2027.
    • Both Heather and Jonathan agree that chasing algorithms and platform trends is a dead end — the only sustainable strategy is making content you're genuinely passionate about and trusting that your specific audience will find you.
    • Heather is currently deep in a rabbit hole on medieval female mystics — including Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, and Elizabeth Barton (the Maid of Kent), the only woman in recorded history to have her head displayed on London Bridge.

    ⠀

    Soundbites
    • "William Byrd was writing Catholic music in Latin about transubstantiation while he was writing Protestant theological services for Elizabeth I. And something about that really spoke to the teenager in me — nobody understands my deep dark soul." — Heather on the moment that sparked a lifelong obsession.
    • "I logged in and I looked at my statistics. And this thing was getting like 40,000 downloads a month. And I was like, what the heck? I guess I'll keep this live." — Heather on almost cancelling the podcast in 2013.
    • "I had a young person's rail card. Every weekend I would show up at a random train station, look at where the trains were headed, and pick a place that sounded interesting. I wound up in Durham Cathedral for the miners' parade without knowing what a miners' parade was." — Heather on her two years living in England.
    • "I wanted to build something that was a mix of an academic conference with the fun of a Renaissance fair — where you could wear costumes, but you're actually focused on the history. And I think it's pretty cool." — Heather on the founding vision of TudorCon.
    • "Tudor nerds tend to be islands of nerdiness surrounded by people who roll their eyes when we want to talk about transubstantiation. Just having a space for all these people to be together in real time was really awesome." — Heather on why the community side of TudorCon matters more than the talks.
    • "It's the friendliest place in the world. People are always nervous about coming if they don't know anybody. Absolutely, you can come by yourself — because it's just the nicest group of people around." — Heather on what first-time TudorCon attendees always say.
    • "I could listen to somebody read train schedules if they were enthusiastic about it and loved it. That genuine passion for something — it's not something you see every day. When you see people who really have it, it's infectious." — Heather on what makes content communities work.
    • "She was starting from nothing — she had nothing. And she was paying me and treating it like a business. And I had this realization: I have way more reach than she does, and I keep treating my stuff like a hobby. So it's going to always stay that way." — Heather on the moment she decided to take her own business seriously.
    • "I used to feel guilty working on my podcast because I was like, I'm just doing my Tudor stuff. But now I'm like, actually, this is a business. Mom's going to work now. Mom needs to not be disturbed because mom is working." — Heather on the mental shift that changed everything.
    • "There's a community dedicated to roundabouts in Wales. There are 8 billion people in the world — surely a couple thousand of them share what you're passionate about. The internet gives you the tools to bring them together." — Heather on why niche communities always find their audience.

    ⠀

    Chapters
    • 00:00 Introduction — Jonathan introduces Heather Teysko and TudorCon, and announces Anglotopia as a 2026 sponsor
    • 02:17 How Tudor History Started — William Byrd, high school choir, and a teenage existential crisis about transubstantiation
    • 04:29 Moving to England at 24 — BUNAC visas, headhunting firms, Barnet, and random train adventures
    • 07:19 Starting the Podcast in 2009 — A Labor Day whim, a cheap microphone, and no idea how to edit
    • 09:38 The Early Podcasting Landscape — Why nobody treated it as a business, and how the show evolved
    • 11:00 Almost Cancelling Everything — 40,000 monthly downloads, a baby, and a very close call
    • 12:27 Moving to Spain and Finding a Business Model — Throwing things at the wall, a failed Tudor radio network, and a slow evolution
    • 13:44 The Online Summit That Led to TudorCon — The Facebook group, the debates, and realising community was the magic sauce
    • 15:02 TudorCon's History — From first in-person 2019 to pandemic pivot to Richmond expansion
    • 15:52 TudorCon 2026 — Multi-track expansion, Randolph-Macon College partnership, and why Jonathan is finally going to Agecroft
    • 16:00 What Is Agecroft Hall? — A real 15th-century Lancashire manor house shipped to Virginia stone by stone
    • 18:37 The TudorCon 2026 Speaker Lineup — Nathan Amin as keynote, John Dee's experiments, everyday Tudor life, and Virginia's local Tudor connections
    • 21:21 What Surprises First-Time Attendees — The friendliness, the inclusivity, and the magic of being around your people
    • 23:05 TudorCon From Home — The live stream, Heather's husband as host, and the group photo story
    • 24:43 A Discount Code for Anglotopia Listeners — Details in the show notes
    • 25:09 The Churchill Conference Comparison — Jonathan's experience and the Philadelphia America 250 connection
    • 26:41 Building a History Community — What Heather has learned about authenticity, passion, and why shiny marketing objects always fail
    • 29:51 On Expanding Too Far — Why Francotopia and New Zealandopia were bad ideas, and why passion can't be replicated
    • 30:31 The New Zealand Girls' Trip — Nine months old, postpartum depression, and one of the worst decisions of Heather's life
    • 31:52 Travelling with Infants — Jonathan's Diamond Jubilee trip with a six-month-old and the Oxford ring road
    • 33:18 Chasing Algorithms vs. Staying Authentic — How both Jonathan and Heather learned the same lesson the hard way
    • 34:25 The Value of Community in the Age of AI — Why human connection and shared passion can't be replicated by technology
    • 34:54 What's Coming on the Renaissance English History Podcast — Female mystics, Julian of Norwich, Elizabeth Barton, and following the rabbit hole
    • 36:50 The Business Shift — From "my Tudor stuff" to a real business, a book deal with WW Norton, and a Tudor app in development
    • 41:21 Two Hobby-Turned-Businesses Compare Notes — Jonathan and Heather on what it feels like when the hard work starts paying off
    • 42:51 Wrap-Up — Where to find Heather, TudorCon details, and a reminder that Anglotopia is a proud 2026 sponsor

    Video Version

    1 May 2026, 1:00 pm
  • 42 minutes 53 seconds
    Anglotopia Podcast: Episode 93 – 600 Years in One House – Magnus Throckmorton on Coughton Court & Its Extraordinary History

    In this episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, Jonathan Thomas is joined by Magnus Birch Throckmorton, the latest custodian of Coughton Court — a Tudor manor house in Warwickshire that has been home to the Throckmorton family for over 600 years. Coughton Court is one of England's most historically charged houses: its great gatehouse was built during the reign of Henry VIII, its walls conceal a double priest hole from the Reformation, and on the night the Gunpowder Plot collapsed in 1605, it was the very house where the plotters' families waited for news. Magnus walks Jonathan through six centuries of survival, faith, and family — from Sir George Throckmorton's audacious confrontation with Henry VIII over Anne Boleyn's marriage, to the sacking of the house during the English Civil War, to the remarkable women of Coughton who kept it alive through every crisis. Magnus also shares what it's like to raise his young children in this living, breathing house, what he and his wife Imogen have introduced since taking over direct management in March 2026, and why American Anglophiles should make Coughton a priority stop on any Midlands itinerary.

    Links

    ⠀

    Takeaways
    • The Throckmorton family has lived at Coughton Court since 1409 — predating Columbus's voyage to America — making it one of the longest unbroken family occupancies of any historic house in England.
    • Sir George Throckmorton, who built the great gatehouse around 1530, was audacious enough to confront Henry VIII directly over his marriage to Anne Boleyn — and somehow survived by throwing himself on the king's mercy.
    • Coughton Court has a double priest hole: a decoy chamber above a hidden second chamber, designed so that searchers would find the first and assume it empty, never discovering the one below.
    • The Throckmorton family were connected to — but not directly implicated in — the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. The plotters' wives and Father Garnet waited at Coughton for news of whether the plan had succeeded or failed.
    • During the English Civil War, Coughton was sacked and plundered, leaving it in a state of ruin that took generations to rebuild.
    • Among the most remarkable objects in the house are a chemise believed to have been worn by Mary Queen of Scots at her execution in 1587, and a cape attributed to Catherine of Aragon and her ladies-in-waiting.
    • The award-winning gardens were designed from scratch in 1991 by Magnus's mother for his grandmother, including a rose labyrinth deliberately full of dead ends, designed to slow visitors down and make them appreciate the colours and scents.
    • Since taking over direct management from the National Trust in March 2026, Magnus and Imogen have introduced a café using hyper-local producers, a charity bookshop, artist residencies, workshops from willow weaving to botanical pottery, Tai Chi, yoga, a monthly supper club, and a summer programme of outdoor theatre.
    • Coughton is just 20 minutes from Stratford-upon-Avon and easily reachable from the Cotswolds — making it a natural addition to any Shakespeare Country itinerary.
    • The property includes two churches — one Catholic, one Protestant — with Throckmorton ancestors buried in both, a quirk that speaks directly to the family's extraordinary journey through five centuries of English religious history.

    ⠀

    Soundbites
    • "It's incredibly exciting — quite scary that your ancestors are looking down at you judging every step of the way. They've got the lovely portraits as you walk up the stairs, so you can't get away from them." — Magnus on being the latest custodian of Coughton.
    • "It's still a family home. It's not a statue in time. It's still breathing, it's still living, it's still evolving — and it really tells the story of one family who've stayed true to being Catholic the whole way through." — Magnus on what makes Coughton different.
    • "He said it is wrong to have meddled with both mother and sister — to which the king replied, it was never with the mother. So Sir George obviously had a nature of being able to push the boundaries." — Magnus on Sir George Throckmorton's confrontation with Henry VIII.
    • "The Throckmortons were not directly implicated in the Gunpowder Plot. They were one step away. None of the plotters had a Throckmorton name — which is probably the reason we're here today." — Magnus on the family's Gunpowder Plot connection.
    • "We have a chemise believed to have been worn by Mary Queen of Scots at her beheading. There's a Latin inscription saying Mary Queen of Scots at her execution on the 8th of February 1587. She was an incredibly tall lady, so it is a very long chemise." — Magnus on one of the house's most extraordinary objects.
    • "It was a thousand guinea bet — shear two sheep and wear the coat between sunrise and sunset. They shorn the sheep, wove it, dyed it, and it was worn at the feast that evening. The biggest travesty was the two sheep were served at the banquet." — Magnus on the famous Throckmorton Coat wager of 1811.
    • "The ladies are the ones who maintain and keep these houses going. They put their life and soul into it and the character of it. My grandmother was one of the first female QCs in the UK. These women are sometimes forgotten about in the grand stories." — Magnus on the women of Coughton.
    • "We are not necessarily close to anywhere, but we're never that far away. You can get to anywhere within an hour and a half — and we're 20 minutes from the Cotswolds, 20 minutes from Stratford." — Magnus on Coughton's surprisingly central location.
    • "Some people come to the UK expecting these houses to be the new Downton Abbey. There is no grandeur here. This is a living and breathing family house — we'll take you on our story, and you'll get an insight into what it's like living at Coughton." — Magnus on the personal experience he and Imogen offer visitors.
    • "My daughter is very good at watering on a Saturday. Mainly she waters the paths, not the plants — which is probably a thing, otherwise the gardeners would tell us off." — Magnus on raising children at Coughton Court.

    ⠀

    Chapters
    • 00:00 Introduction — Jonathan sets the scene at Coughton Court and introduces Magnus Throckmorton
    • 01:58 A New Chapter Begins — Coughton's March 2026 reopening under Magnus and Imogen's direct management
    • 02:19 600 Years of Continuity — What that extraordinary length of connection to one place feels like from the inside
    • 03:11 Raising Children at Coughton — Hector, Isabella, hide-and-seek, and the priest hole problem
    • 05:01 What Is Coughton Court? — A living Tudor family home, its history and why it matters
    • 07:09 Sir George Throckmorton & Henry VIII — The courtier who dared oppose the king's marriage to Anne Boleyn
    • 09:07 The Reformation and Catholic Persecution — Fines, recusancy, and the double priest hole
    • 11:35 The Gunpowder Plot of 1605 — How Coughton became the waiting room for the plotters' families
    • 14:30 The English Civil War — Sacked and plundered, and the long road to rebuilding
    • 15:32 The Women of Coughton — The overlooked figures who kept the house alive across the centuries
    • 17:00 WWII and the Speaker of the House — Coughton's designation as a wartime safe house
    • 17:38 First Impressions — What an American visitor sees walking through the gates for the first time
    • 18:22 Where Is Coughton Court? — Geography, distances, and how it fits into a Midlands itinerary
    • 19:40 Must-See Highlights — The panelled dining room, Mary Queen of Scots' chemise, Catherine of Aragon's cape, and the Throckmorton Coat
    • 23:47 The Award-Winning Gardens — Designed in 1991, the rose labyrinth, and Imogen's new influence
    • 26:08 Two Churches, One Estate — The Protestant and Catholic churches and the ancestors buried in both
    • 28:01 Taking Over from the National Trust — What it means to personally open the doors again
    • 29:46 New Ventures — The café, bookshop, workshops, artist residencies, supper club and more
    • 31:55 Coughton as a Community Hub — The village fête, dementia awareness days, and the volunteer team
    • 33:19 The Historic Houses Network — What joining has meant for advice, connections, and visibility
    • 34:43 Coughton's USP — One family, one faith, 600 years, and gardens that change with every season
    • 36:31 Why Americans Should Visit — The personal touch, the family access, and the Shakespeare Country connection
    • 40:37 Summer 2026 at Coughton — Roses, herbaceous borders, outdoor theatre, and very good ice cream
    • 41:43 Wrap-Up — Opening hours, website link, and how to find Coughton Court

    Video Version

    24 April 2026, 1:00 pm
  • 2 minutes 36 seconds
    We Want Your Questions about Britain for our 100th Episode Q&A

    A quick but exciting announcement from Jonathan: the Anglotopia Podcast is approaching its 100th episode, and to celebrate, Jonathan and Jackie — Mrs. Anglotopia herself — are sitting down together for a special no-script, no-agenda Q&A episode, just like they did for Episode 50. Anything goes: the history of Anglotopia, upcoming trips, favorite corners of Britain, TV recommendations, the monarchy, British culture — you name it. Submit your questions now using the link in the show notes, or drop them in the comments on here, YouTube, Instagram, or Facebook. Don't wait — they're recording soon!

    Link

    20 April 2026, 8:37 pm
  • 1 hour 15 minutes
    Anglotopia Podcast: Episode 92 – Tudor 101 – A Complete Crash Course in England’s Most Dramatic Dynasty With Sarah Morris

    In this episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, Jonathan Thomas is joined by Sarah Morris — creator of the Tudor Travel Guide, author of multiple Tudor books, including her novel about Anne Boleyn, and co-founder of Simply Tudor Tours — for a sweeping, entertaining, and deeply informative crash course in Tudor Britain. Calling it Tudor 101, Jonathan and Sarah walk through the full arc of the dynasty: from the unlikely origins of Henry VII emerging from exile to win the crown at Bosworth, through the world-altering reign of Henry VIII and the break with Rome, the short and turbulent reigns of Edward VI and Mary I, and the remarkable story of Elizabeth I and how she turned vulnerability into a kind of genius. Along the way, they tackle the most misunderstood Tudor wife, untangle the confusing web of Marys in the family tree, explain the real-world devastation of the dissolution of the monasteries, and map out the social hierarchy of Tudor England from vagabonds to dukes. Sarah also shares her essential must-visit Tudor sites for American Anglophiles, gives insider tips on getting the most from historic houses and ruins, makes a passionate case for the Mary Rose Museum, and reveals which controversial Tudor drama she secretly loves — and why it launched her writing career.

    Links

    ⠀

    Takeaways
    • The Tudor dynasty was a genuinely unlikely outcome — Henry VII spent 12 years in exile before winning the crown at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, and his claim
    17 April 2026, 1:00 pm
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