Episodes

  • Royals in Crisis: The Diana Years - Part Three
    Nov 24 2025

    What is Princess Diana’s legacy?

    In our final episode on the Princess of Wales’s life, Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams pick up the story at the turning point: the Royal separation that launched the most consequential chapter of her life, her emergence as a global humanitarian supernova.


    Diana shakes hands with patients in AIDS wards, embraces children with leprosy, confronts the landmine crisis in a bulletproof vest, and rewrites the royal rulebook with empathy and emotional intelligence. We follow the divorce negotiations, the media frenzy, the complicated final summer with Dodi Fayed, and the midnight chase that became one of the darkest moments in modern royal history.


    Robert shares what it was actually like on those last Royal tours with Diana, while Kate uncovers how Diana bent royal protocol, political convention, and 20th-century misogyny to her will.


    And, then, of course, there was her funeral, a day unlike anything the nation had ever seen.

    Brave, chaotic, glamorous, bruised, and brilliant, Princess Diana’s legacy still shapes the monarchy today, for the better.


    Hosts: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams

    Series Producer: Ben Devlin

    Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

    Executive Producer: Bella Soames

    Hosts: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams

    Series Producer: Ben Devlin

    Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

    Executive Producer: Bella Soames


    A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular.


    Sign up to Palace Confidential, the FREE royals newsletter from the Mail's top experts. Delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday, it's the smartest way to stay in the royal inner circle. Just head to dailymail.co.uk/palaceconfidential to sign up today.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    35 mins
  • Royals in Crisis: The Diana Years - Part Two
    Nov 17 2025

    The fairytale is starting to fall apart ...

    In the second part of our Diana deep dive, Kate Williams and Robert Hardman pick up the story just after that balcony kiss, and follow the new Princess of Wales through the most dazzling and difficult years of her royal life.

    From the Riviera honeymoon aboard Britannia to the birth of Prince William, from the Australian tour that electrified a nation to the famous dance with John Travolta at the White House, this episode charts the meteoric rise of a young woman becoming the most photographed person on the planet. But behind the smiles, pressure is building: morning sickness that lasts for months, the demands of instant royal life, the relentless press pack, post-natal depression, and the first unmistakable cracks in the marriage.

    This week, we follow Diana and Charles from the “love boat” towards the year the Queen would later call her annus horribilis. The glamour, the joy, the strain, the scrutiny: the contradictions that made Diana a global phenomenon are all here.

    A rollercoaster chapter in the story of a princess who changed the monarchy forever.

    Hosts: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams

    Series Producer: Ben Devlin

    Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

    Executive Producer: Bella Soames


    A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular.


    Sign up to Palace Confidential, the FREE royals newsletter from the Mail's top experts. Delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday, it's the smartest way to stay in the royal inner circle. Just head to dailymail.co.uk/palaceconfidential to sign up today.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    31 mins
  • Royals in Crisis: The Diana Years - Part One
    Nov 10 2025

    The first episode in our deep-dive exploration of the most influential figures in modern royal history - Diana, Princess of Wales.


    It begins as the greatest love story of the age: a shy nursery assistant, a lonely prince, and a glittering wedding watched by nearly a billion people. But before the heartbreak, the revenge dresses and the headlines, there was the young Lady Diana Spencer - awkward, funny, occasionally lost, and totally unprepared for what came next.


    In this episode, Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams trace her rise from the fringes of Sandringham to the steps of St Paul’s. They uncover the aristocratic family that produced her, the fractured childhood that shaped her, and the courtship that captivated the world. There are guinea-pig prizes, polo parties, awkward proposals and that famous “Whatever love is” interview. All the moments that built the myth before it broke.


    Part royal history, part social snapshot, this is Britain on the brink of the 1980s. Unemployment high, spirits low, and suddenly a fairytale to believe in. The first act of Diana’s story is pure spectacle: puff sleeves, flashbulbs, and a nation in love.


    Join us as Queens, Kings & Dastardly Things begins its most revealing journey yet.


    Hosts: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams

    Series Producer: Ben Devlin

    Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

    Executive Producer: Bella Soames

    Hosts: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams

    Series Producer: Ben Devlin

    Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

    Executive Producer: Bella Soames


    A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular.


    Sign up to Palace Confidential, the FREE royals newsletter from the Mail's top experts. Delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday, it's the smartest way to stay in the royal inner circle. Just head to dailymail.co.uk/palaceconfidential to sign up today.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    30 mins
  • The Royal Woof!
    Nov 3 2025

    OMRG*, we’ve got a genuinely Royal corgi in the studio, a four-legged, waggy-tailed world exclusive on Queens, Kings & Dastardly Things. Listen Now


    Joining Kate and Robert is Lee, a champion pedigree Welsh corgi descended directly from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s own beloved dogs, alongside her breeder, Mary Davies, who once met the Queen herself to arrange an aristocratic “blind date” between their corgis.


    Yes, we’re going barking mad in the best possible way, as we talk royals and their pets. From Queen Victoria’s pampered spaniel Dash to Edward VII’s terrier Caesar, from a Pekinese looted in the Opium Wars to the late Queen’s famously mischievous pack of corgis and dorgis, it’s a conversation that bounds happily through two centuries of canine companionship, full of devotion, diplomacy, and the infamous “Corgi war” at Windsor.

    *(that’s our Royal version)


    Hosts: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams

    Series Producer: Ben Devlin

    Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

    Executive Producer: Bella Soames



    Hosts: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams

    Series Producer: Ben Devlin

    Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

    Executive Producer: Bella Soames


    A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular.


    Sign up to Palace Confidential, the FREE royals newsletter from the Mail's top experts. Delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday, it's the smartest way to stay in the royal inner circle. Just head to dailymail.co.uk/palaceconfidential to sign up today.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    22 mins
  • Rotten Spares: The Prince Andrews & Harrys of History - Part 2
    Oct 27 2025

    Are Princes Andrew and Harry the most troublesome ‘spares’ in royal history?

    You might think so — but buckle up, because history is littered with spares who partied harder, plotted darker and pushed the Crown to breaking point.

    Welcome to Queens, Kings & Dastardly Things, where royal biographers Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams take you inside the palace doors to meet the heirs… and the headaches. Every monarchy needs a backup but what happens when the backup goes rogue? From regency playboys who bankrupt the nation, to sword-swinging dukes suspected of murder, to princesses who perfected the art of rebellion, we reveal the royals who made even today’s headlines look tame.

    Join us for the royal stories the courtiers hoped you’d never hear.


    Hosts: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams

    Series Producer: Ben Devlin

    Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

    Executive Producer: Bella Soames

    Hosts: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams

    Series Producer: Ben Devlin

    Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

    Executive Producer: Bella Soames


    A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular.


    Sign up to Palace Confidential, the FREE royals newsletter from the Mail's top experts. Delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday, it's the smartest way to stay in the royal inner circle. Just head to dailymail.co.uk/palaceconfidential to sign up today.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    25 mins
  • Spares: The Prince Harrys of History (1)
    Oct 19 2025

    Prince Harry may have put the word spare on the map, but he’s not the first royal to grumble about being second in line.


    In this week’s episode, Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams dig into centuries of royal runners-up — from Elizabeth I to George V — the siblings who weren’t meant to rule, yet somehow stole the show.

    From party-loving princes to quietly competent sisters, being “the spare” has always been a tricky business. Some plotted their way to the throne, some partied their way out of it, and others just got on with the job — usually in glorious frustration.


    And as for Harry, is history repeating itself, or breaking the royal mould entirely? Who thrived in the shadow of the crown? Who went gloriously rogue? And could Harry himself one day surprise us all?


    Tune in for a rollicking history of royal back-ups, brides recycled and brothers upstaged — only on Queens, Kings & Dastardly Things. LISTEN NOW

    Hosts: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams

    Series Producer: Ben Devlin

    Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

    Executive Producer: Bella Soames


    A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular.


    Sign up to Palace Confidential, the FREE royals newsletter from the Mail's top experts. Delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday, it's the smartest way to stay in the royal inner circle. Just head to dailymail.co.uk/palaceconfidential to sign up today.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    26 mins
  • Churchill & The Queen
    Oct 12 2025

    Was Churchill her favourite PM — and who did the Queen secretly loathe?

    Find out in this week’s royally revealing episode of Queens, Kings & Dastardly Things!

    Robert Hardman is joined by royal biographer Andrew Morton — yes, the man behind Diana: Her True Story — to spill the palace secrets behind Queen Elizabeth II’s fifteen Prime Ministers, from Winston Churchill to Liz Truss.

    From Churchill bursting into tears during audiences to Thatcher trudging through the Balmoral mud in high heels, from John Major quietly becoming the boys’ guardian after Diana’s death to Edward Heath’s icy froideur over Europe, it’s a whistle-stop tour through seventy years of royal-political drama.

    Who made her laugh? Who bored her senseless? And which PM nodded off next to her at dinner?

    With anecdotes of horse talk, coronation nerves, backstairs gossip, and power struggles behind palace doors, this episode lifts the velvet curtain on one of history’s most enduring double acts — the monarch who never flinched, and the politicians who tried to keep up.

    Hosts: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams

    Series Producer: Ben Devlin

    Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

    Executive Producer: Bella Soames


    A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular.


    Sign up to Palace Confidential, the FREE royals newsletter from the Mail's top experts. Delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday, it's the smartest way to stay in the royal inner circle. Just head to dailymail.co.uk/palaceconfidential to sign up today.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    29 mins
  • Spies & The Crown - Part 2
    Oct 5 2025

    Royals in taxis, Groucho Marx glasses on ski slopes, and a Soviet mole hiding in the Queen’s drawing room — this episode has it all. Listen Now.


    In their second episode of Spies & The Crown, Kate Williams and Robert Hardman go full cloak-and-dagger as they unmask Anthony Blunt — the Queen’s own art adviser turned KGB spy — and dig into the bizarre world of undercover royals.


    From Princess Elizabeth sneaking into the VE Day crowds, to Prince Harry insisting he was just “Bob” in a nightclub, history proves the Windsors have never been short on disguises.And then there’s the bombshell: how close did treachery really get to the heart of Buckingham Palace? And could it happen again?


    Listen now to Queens, Kings & Dastardly Things — where the palace walls whisper, and the spies are sometimes already inside.


    Hosts: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams

    Series Producer: Ben Devlin

    Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

    Executive Producer: Bella Soames

    Hosts: Robert Hardman and Professor Kate Williams

    Series Producer: Ben Devlin

    Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

    Executive Producer: Bella Soames


    A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular.


    Sign up to Palace Confidential, the FREE royals newsletter from the Mail's top experts. Delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday, it's the smartest way to stay in the royal inner circle. Just head to dailymail.co.uk/palaceconfidential to sign up today.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    25 mins