Music hall had a tradition of bawdy humour and song that went back centuries. ibid.
A new technology to further undermine Victorian values: photography. ibid.
Rude photographs became affordable and available. ibid.
Someone with a genius for the rude innuendo now needed was Victoria superstar Marie Lloyd. ibid.
Victorian moral reformers argued that music halls linked to prostitution were part of an exploitation of women undermining the morals of the nation. ibid.
By the Edwardian era there was a new kind of peep-show – the Mutoscope. ibid.
Legend has it that King George III, the grandfather of Queen Victoria, had a secret wife and three children before his official marriage. If it’s true, every monarch since then has been a pretender to the throne. The Real King & Queen
The evidence that Hannah married George appears to exist in the form of a marriage certificate. ibid.
Mr Speaker, members of the House, I shall be brief as I have rather unfortunately become prime minister right in the middle of my exams. I look forward to fulfilling my duty in a manner which nanny would be proud. Blackadder III: Dish & Dishonesty, Pitt the younger, BBC 1987
Meet the new Member of Parliament for Dunny-on-the-Wold. Precisely, sir. Our slogan shall be a rotten candidate for a rotten borough. Baldrick, I want you to go back to your kitchen sink, you see, and prepare for government. ibid. Blackadder to Prince, with Baldrick
Pitt the younger: I intend to put up my own brother as a candidate against you.
Blackadder: Oh and which Pitt would this be? Pitt the toddler? Pitt the embryo? Pitt the glint in the milkman’s eye? ibid.
We in the Adder Party are going to fight this campaign on issues not personalities. Because our candidate doesn’t have a personality. ibid.
Reporter: One voter, 16,472 votes – a slight anomaly?
Blackadder: Not really, Mr Hanna. You see Mr Baldrick may look like a monkey that’s been put in a suit and then strategically shaved, but he is a brilliant politician. The number of votes I cast is simply a reflection of how firmly I believe in his policies. ibid.
I shall become best friends with the cleverest man in England. That renowned brainbox Dr Samuel Johnson has asked me to be patron of his new book and I intend to accept. Blackadder III: Ink & Incapability, Prince to Blackadder
It’s the most pointless book since How To Learn French was translated into French. ibid. Blackadder to Prince
Baldrick, I’d bump into cleverer people at a lodge meeting at the guild of village idiots. ibid. Blackadder
It’s taken me seven years and it’s perfect – Edmund: A Butler’s Tale. A giant rollercoaster of a novel in four hundred sizzling chapters. A searing indictment of domestic servitude in the eighteenth century with some hot gypsies thrown in. My magnum opus, Baldrick. ibid. Blackadder
So you’re asking where the big papery thing tied up with string belonging to the batey fellow in the black coat who just left is? ibid. Baldrick to Blackadder
Mrs Miggins, there’s nothing intellectual about wandering around Italy in a big shirt trying to get laid. ibid. Blackadder
Sir, I have been unable to replace the dictionary. I am therefore leaving immediately for Nepal where I intend to live as a goat. ibid. Blackadder to Prince
Blackadder: Yes, and your definition of dog is?
Baldrick: Not a cat. ibid.
Sir, I hope you are not using the first English dictionary to look up rude words? ibid. Dr Johnson to Prince
Nothing a roaring fire can’t solve. Baldrick do the honours, will you. ibid. Blackadder
French is all the fashion: my coffee shop is full of Frenchies. And it’s all because of that wonderful Scarlet Pimpernel. Blackadder III: Nob & Nobility, Mrs Miggins to Blackadder
If the Pimpernel does finally reveal himself I don’t want to be caught out wearing boring trousers. ibid. Prince Regent
The ancient Greeks, sir, wrote in legend of a terrible container in which all the evils of the world were trapped. How prophetic they were. All they got wrong was the name: they called it Pandora’s Box, when of course they meant Baldrick’s trousers. ibid. Blackadder to Prince Regent, with Baldrick
I charge you now, Baldrick, for the good of all mankind never allow curiosity to lead you to open your trousers. Nothing of interest lies therein. ibid. Blackadder
We hate liars, bounders and cads, don’t we, Blackadder? ibid. Prince Regent
These are volatile times, your Highness. The American Revolution lost your father the colonies; the French Revolution murdered brave King Louis, and there are tremendous rumblings in Prussia. Although that might be something to do with the sausages. Blackadder III: Sense & Senility, Blackadder to Prince
They are so poor they are forced to have children simply to provide a cheap alternative to Turkey at Christmas. ibid.
I am about to enter the job market [reads newspaper]. Right, let’s see. Situations vacant. Mr and Mrs Pitt are looking for a baby-minder to take Pitt the Younger to Parliament … ibid. Blackadder to Baldrick
Don’t worry, Mr B. I have a cunning plan to solve the problem. But this is a really good one: you become a dashing highwayman, then you can pay all your bills and on top of that everyone would want to sleep with you. Blackadder III: Amy & Amiability, Baldrick to Blackadder
I’m as poor as a church mouse that’s just had an enormous tax bill on the very day his wife’s ran off with another mouse taking all the cheese. ibid. Blackadder to Prince
I’m a gay bachelor, Blackadder. I’m a roarer, a rodgerer, a gorger and a puker. ibid. Prince to Blackadder
I love her more than any pig. And that’s saying something. ibid. Amy’s father to Blackadder
Have you ever been to Wales, Baldrick? Well don’t. It’s a ghastly place. Huge gangs of tough sinewy men roam the valleys terrifying people with their close-harmony singing. You need half a pint of phlegm in your throat just to pronounce the place names. ibid. Blackadder
The girl is wetter than a haddock’s bathing costume. ibid.
I’ve been thinking of bettering myself. I applied for the job of village idiot of Kensington. I got down to the last two but I failed the final interview. I turned up. Blackadder III: Duel & Duality, Baldrick to Blackadder
He’s madder than mad Jack McMad, the winner of last year’s Mr Madman competition. ibid. Blackadder, re Scottish cousin
I am informed your royal father grows ever more eccentric. And at present he believes himself to be a small village in Lincolnshire commanding spectacular views of the Nene Valley. ibid. Wellington to Blackadder dressed as prince
What do we have for royalty? A mad Kraut sausage-sucker and a son who can’t keep his own sausage to himself. ibid.
The King who went mad. Yet George III reigned longer than any king in British history through tumultuous change. He was the last King of America and the first of Australia … A champion of science, art and music. Robert Hardman, George III – The Genius of the Mad King, BBC 2017
George III was halfway though his reign when his first bout of mental illness began: it lasted four months. ibid.
He arranged his own marriage to Charlotte – the German princess he had never met who bore him fifteen children. He was driven by his sense of duty to his family and his country. ibid.
1453: England is bitterly divided between two royal factions: Yorkists and Lancastrians. And out of this conflict will rise one of the most important women in British history, a woman whose story is rarely told. Her name is Margaret Beaufort, pregnant and widowed at thirteen. In her womb England’s first Tudor King. Royal Bastards: Rise of the Tudors, Sky Showcase 2021
So York becomes Protectors once more, and a shocked King once again vanishes into his illness … The Wars of the Roses have begun. ibid.
Duke of York murdered 30 December 1460. ibid.
York’s death is a Lancastrian triumph, but in cutting him down Margaret realises the Queen has unwittingly set the stage for a far greater enemy to rise. ibid.
How can Edward succeed where his father failed? ibid.
King Henry and the Queen flee to Scotland. Their reign is over. And thousands are dead. But of course the Yorkists blame it all on the Queen. That domineering aberration of a woman. ibid.
1468: The House of York rules England with an iron fist. And the Lancastrian Margaret Beaufort is getting ready for one of the most important nights of her life: the King is coming to dinner. The King who stole her son. The King that Margaret despises. Royal Bastards: Rise of the Tudors II
Warwick gets Clarence [King’s brother] to join a plot against his own brother. This kid is easy prey for Warwick, the classic middle sibling … With Clarence in his back pocket, Warwick starts stirring up a rebellion. ibid.
Warwick goes from being a Yorkist to being a Lancastrian … Edward is taken by surprise at the speed of Warwick’s approach. ibid.
Even though it’s Henry VI on the throne, Warwick brokers the real power. His betrayal of Edward and the House of York is complete. ibid.
Margaret takes the ultimate political high-risk political gamble. She’s going to support Edward. ibid.
Edward has won back his crown … and the only way to end this is to get rid of the Lancastrians once and for all. ibid.
At 40 years old, the King [Edward IV] dies, and once again England will turn on itself. ibid.