The new six-part series, Monarchy with David Starkey, combines a gripping biographic narrative of England's royal rulers (in stories of power, lust, treason and murder) with a thought provoking, original and intelligent analysis of the gradual emergence of a unique form of government, a Constitutional Monarchy.

The series will examine the power, politics, religion and the extraordinary lives that make up one the oldest surviving governing institutions in existence.  In Monarchy two strands, the family saga and the constitutional history of a nation are inextricably linked.  

With his usual energetic and crisp style Dr. Starkey, also the host of the award-winning PBS series, Six Wives of Henry VIII, begins our journey with the fall of the Roman Empire and the subsequent Roman withdrawal from Britannia.  From this point forward, England was ripe for invasion and indeed several waves of invaders - Anglo-Saxon, Viking and Norman - shaped the English identity and had a radical impact on the development of the nation.

From there the series looks at the Great Plantagenets, the Century of Edwards, The Shakespearean Kings, the Wars of the Roses, The Tudor Dynasty - including Henry VIII and Elizabeth I - and the Reign of the Stuarts.