War maybe Hell but it’s also very, very expensive and like almost every other country European country in the early 1700s England was deeply in debt. Enter the South Sea Company and a story that mixes avarice, corruption, deceit, international intrigue and vast sums of other people’s money all topped off with political infighting and an unpopular monarch.
During the latter part of 1647 a small church at Putney on the banks of the Thames saw ordinary soldiers and their civilian supporters call for not just for political and religious toleration, but also for the franchise to be extended beyond the landed gentry. The Putney Debates paved the way for many of the civil liberties we value today but seems largely forgotten.
World War One was the most significant event of 20th Century and amongst other things marked the beginning of the end of Pax Britannia. The vacuum left would be readily filled by others but it wasn’t going to be plain sailing. Almost a hundred years after World War One the future of the Royal Navy is as uncertain as it’s ever been.
Sails are finally done away with as steam power takes over and the race between armour and guns gets under way. Pax Britannia turns maps of the world red as the Americans, Japanese and Germans aspire to have navies just like the British; the road to World War One begins.
Nelson is dead becomes a ‘terrible ancestor’ and the Napoleonic War rumbles on for another ten years. The Royal Navy tries to undo the slave trade Hawkins had created and the Admiralty do their level best to ignore every new technological advance.
This episode takes a look at explorers not the usual fighting and politics. Cook sails to the Pacific Ocean and Bligh is only remembered because of a certain mutiny.
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