Churchill's People (1974)
Churchill's People is series of 26 historical dramas produced by the BBC, based on Winston Churchill's A History of the English-Speaking Peoples. They were first broadcast on BBC1 in 1974 and 1975.
With 30 Day Free Trial!
Churchill's People
1974Seasons & Episode
43 AD: Lucius is one of several Roman spies sent into the offshore island of Pritan, quietly to study the ground before plans for the invasion by the Emperor Claudius.
654 AD: Two powerful adversaries face each other - Penda, pagan king of Mercia, and Oswy, Christian king of Northumbria.
878 AD: King Alfred has suffered another defeat from the Danes and escapes through the Athelrey swamps to the safety of Odda's Hall. Disguised as a minstrel, Alfred enters the headquarters of the Viking invaders but his conversation with Chieftain Guthrum unsettles the Danes.
1042: Godwin, Earl of Wessex, summons Edward from out of his exile in Normandy to wear the Crown of England. But the apparent security of Godwin's Anglo-Saxan policies is disrupted by Edward's partiality for a French connection and Rome-orientated religious tendencies.
1066-1070: Forest laws bring about a climax between the Saxons and the Normans.
1191: King John is brought to his knees and signs the Magna Carta.
1381: Revolt in East Anglia when the peasants are pressed beyond endurance by taxes and misgovernment by inexperienced King Richard II. Bishop Henry is sent to quell the risings.
1440: When Henry V died, the feudal families of England began to prey upon each other. Royal upstarts succeeded one another until the nation was divided into two factions, the House of York and the House of Lancaster.
1538: Hugh Goodrest, a Warwickshire Lawyer, returns to his home town of Hales Owen to find the nearby Abbey and its inmates under investigation by the King's Commissioner, Dr. Layton. Rumours of monastic dissolution have reached the townspeople and they are apprehensive because the abbey is the centre of their lives.
1603-1618: Sir Walter Raleigh is tried on trumped-up charges of treason and imprisoned in the Tower. For 13 years he languishes in jail, still dreaming of a legendary Peruvian empire, its treasure, and its king. King James is finally forced to release the old man and send him to Guiana to bring back the gold he has so often talked about.
1610: A Puritan family in Nottinghamshire, hounded by King James I for their opposition to Anglican orthodoxy, go into unhappy exile in Holland and then decide to try the untried land of America.
January 1640: King Charles I rallies his troops to fight the Roundheads and loses his head and kingdom for the trouble.
Burford, May 15th 1649: The Puritan revolution has reached its climax. The soldiers' democracy is over and Cromwell takes his revenge.
1665: The Royalists return. But for John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, the Restoration means plague and despair.
1689: The Protestant settlement in Ulster pre-empts King William's offensive against the Irish Jacobites. In Londonderry the apprentice boys close the gates of the town against James's troops, beginning a siege that is to cause appalling privations to its citizens.
1772: The MacAmney family are evicted from their highland homestead by the landlord to make way for sheep. Selling everything they own, they embark on a perilous sea journey to Canada.
1775: An American judge who has settled in London reconstructs in an interview with a journalist his dispute with the radical Sam Adams, the Boston Massacre and the events which led to the Boston Tea Party.
1834: The Tolpuddle Martyrs are sent to Australia where a Tasmanian settler tries to get their service on his estates.
Churchill's People is series of 26 historical dramas produced by the BBC, based on Winston Churchill's A History of the English-Speaking Peoples. They were first broadcast on BBC1 in 1974 and 1975.
Watch Trailer
With 30 Day Free Trial!
Free Trial Channels
