Royal History's Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley S02E02 - George IV and the Regency

Lucy Worsley finds the fibs behind the facade of Georgian elegance and discovers how the story of Regency Britain – from Waterloo to Peterloo – was spun to avoid revolution.

We think of the Regency as genteel and well-ordered: beautiful buildings, Jane Austen's romances, and red-coated officers defeating Napoleon at Waterloo. Lucy Worsley digs behind the facade of Georgian elegance to reveal the fibs that helped conceal a darker side to the Regency and suppress rebellion in an age of revolution.

This was the end of the Georgian era when a mentally ill King George III was forced to hand power to his extravagant son – the prince regent and future King George IV. Both kings lived in the shadow of the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon.

To make matters worse for the royals, British radicals were demanding political reform. To stop rebellion, monarchy and government relied on spin, secrets, and lies. Lucy reveals how an international victory at Waterloo became distinctly British, why the Peterloo Massacre was airbrushed out of history, and how Scotland was dressed up in tartan to support the union.