Starting 22 May
BBC4 at 9pm
In BBC4’s new 3 part series, Dr Lucy Worsley investigates the lives of 17th century women after the extraordinary Restoration of Charles II. In each episode, as she explores a host of female characters … at court.. at home…. and at large, their lives offer a fascinating insight into a world teetering between the medieval and the modern. Lucy discovers how some women gained wealth, celebrity and political power like never before, but only as mistresses of the King; she shows how sexual allure defined the look of an age for the first time ever, while women’s virtue was under constant moral scrutiny; and reveals how some women became feminist trailblazers, while others were still being burnt as witches. In a world of extraordinary contradictions, with the place of most women still very much in the home, others became writers, travelers and performers. But as women entered the public sphere…. as the first ever actresses became the first ‘modern’ celebrities, they were also pilloried as whores. In an age when childbirth still dangerously and horrifically medieval, Lucy explores the beginnings of enlightenment science and modern gynaecology. The Restoration transformed the lives of women.. but was it for better or for worse?
Dr Lucy Worsley is an historian, presenter and Chief Curator of Historic Royal Palaces.
3 x 60′ for BBC4
