Acorn Media released Monarchy with David Starkey, Set 2 on October 30.
“Replete with infidelities, betrayals and rivalries, English history comes to life and emerges as a compelling family saga,” the company said in a statement recently.
The box-set is two discs with five episodes covering nearly 250 years of British history, including a blunt telling of Charles II, who fathered 17 illegitimate children.
Also included are the “austere William of Orange, whom Parliament invited to conquer England; plain, pragmatic Anne, who oversaw the expansion of a great empire; George I, who established the Hanoverian line but never learned English; and regal Victoria, who ushered in a new age that saw the Monarchy become the model for middle-class morality.”
This lively, engrossing narrative shows how events in the bedroom and on the battlefield shaped Europe’s longest-surviving governing institution. In a world rocked by populist revolutions, how did England’s monarchs manage to hold on to power? Starkey finds answers in the English tradition in which kings and queens rule by consent of the people, as well as in the adaptability and tenacity of those who sat on the throne.
The set coincides with these episodes airing on public television starting in October.
The first set was released last September and covered the time period from the fall of the Roman Empire to the Restoration times.
DVD 2-Vol. Boxed Set: 5 episodes – approx. 239 min. – 16:9 widescreen — (CC)
Release Date: October 30, 2007
Price: $39.99