Tudor Ambition: Houses of the Boleyn Family

When the English nation rose out of the ruins of the Roman Province of Britannia, people remained obsessed with their Roman past. Seismic social and political change in 1066 barely upset the vision of patrons and architects and Rome remained England's cultural capital driving the imagination of its architects.Uploaded 12-08-11This is a part if the series of lectures, 'God, Caesar and Robin Hood: How the Middle Ages were Built':The English Middle Ages saw the construction of some of the world's greatest buildings, structures that still shape our towns, cities and countryside and mould our national identity. These four lectures give a controversial new view of how medieval England was built starting with the departure of the Romans and ending with the Reformation.The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/making-england-the-shadow-of-rome-410-1130Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

00:00 | Polybius's Question: How Did Rome Conquer the World?Uploaded 03-07-2600:39 | Polybius: Hostage, Historian and Tutor to Scipio02:05 | The Fall of Corinth and the Greek Cause02:52 | Why Constitutional Stability Matters: Avoiding Stasis03:31 | Plato's Circle: The Image of Stability04:48 | Adding Growth: Rome's Second Question06:23 | Stability vs Growth: Sparta and Rome Compared09:30 | Lecture Roadmap: From Greece to Rome10:01 | Polybius on Why Constitutions Matter11:31 | Herodotus's Three Simple Constitutions12:56 | Aristotle's Six-Fold Scheme: Good and Bad Rule14:11 | Mixing Constitutions to Avoid Decline15:10 | Three Modes of Mixing: Blending, Co-Presence, Counterbalancing19:39 | Sparta's Mixed Constitution: Kings, Elders and Assembly21:17 | Plato and Aristotle on Sparta's Flaws27:42 | Polybius's Active Counterbalancing and the Rust Metaphor32:11 | Polybius on Rome's Mixed Constitution35:30 | Rome's Elements: Consuls, Senate and Assembly40:02 | Polybius's Cycle of Constitutions44:45 | Legacy: Adams, Hobbes and the Case for Mixed GovernmentWatch the Q and A session here: https://youtu.be/-18jnBqpQxQPlato in the fourth century BCE penned an indelible sequence of constitutional decline ending in tyranny, as well as a more complex set of possibilities for mixing different constitutional kinds. Two centuries later, Polybius portrayed constitutional change as cyclical, with an eventual collapse of democracy into ‘ochlocracy’ (mob rule) and then reversion to monarchy. These and other ancient authors proposed that a mixed constitution might prevent unwanted political change – an idea that would influence many later generations of political thinkers.This lecture was recorded by Melissa Lane on the 28th of May 2026 at Barnard's Inn Hall, LondonMelissa Lane is the Class of 1943 Professor of Politics, Princeton University and is also Associated Faculty in the Department of Classics and Department of Philosophy. Previously she was Senior University Lecturer at Cambridge University in the Faculty of History and Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge.She studied for her first degree in Social Studies (awarded summa cum laude) at Harvard University, and then took an MPhil and PhD in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, where she was a student at King’s College, supported by appointments as a Marshall Scholar, Truman Scholar, and Mary Isabel Sibley Fellow of Phi Beta Kappa.Professor Lane is an author, lecturer and broadcaster who has received major awards including being named a Guggenheim Fellow, and the Lucy Shoe Meritt Resident in Classical Studies at the American Academy in Rome. She has published widely in journals and authored or introduced nine major books including Greek and Roman Political Ideas; Eco-Republic; and most recently, Of Rule and Office: Plato’s Ideas of the Political, which was awarded the 2024 Book Prize of the Journal of the History of Philosophy.Professor Lane is the only person ever to have delivered both the Carlyle Lectures and the Isaiah Berlin Lectures at the University of Oxford.The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/plato-polybiusGresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/Website: https://gresham.ac.ukTwitter: https://twitter.com/greshamcollegeFacebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollegeInstagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollege Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"And first, the fair PARABOLA behold, Her timid arms with virgin blush unfold!..."Uploaded 12-08-11Mathematical poetry may seem an unlikely form of satire, but 'The Loves of the Triangles' (1798) was not only a clever parody of Erasmus Darwin (Charles' grandfather) but also a powerful political commentary expressing contemporary fears of revolution and evolution.The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/triangular-relationshipsGresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website.http://www.gresham.ac.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The post war years, by contrast with the first 45 years of the 20th century, were marked by peace and stability. For much of the period, ideological conflict gave way to consensus and the convergence of political creeds. Yet, by the end of the century, Britain seemed a markedly less optimistic society than it had been in 1945. Indeed, perhaps a central theme of the post war period is the decline in national self-confidence and confidence in British institutions. How is this to be explained?Uploaded 19-10-11The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the on the Gresham College website:http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/britain-in-the-20th-century-the-character-of-the-post-war-periodGresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sydney's botanic garden, founded in the early nineteenth century, was expected to ship new plants 'home' to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, from where they could be transplanted to other colonial gardens, to see if they could become valuable new crops to enrich the British Empire. Such plans had varying degrees of success, leaving botanists to question why specific plants would only grow in particular places. Uploaded 10-06-26This lecture looks at how Kew addressed such questions, and the tensions between its role in the advancement of science, and as a public park.A lecture by Jim Endersby, Visiting Professor of the History of Science 2 DecemberThe transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/gardens-of-empireGresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege Support the show (https://www.gresham.ac.uk/get-involved/support-us/make-donation/one-donation) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices