Untold Lives

Join Oswin and Carla as we go back – way back – to a time before podcasts and instagram, before radio and photographs. Join us as we journey back 300 years to meet the people who made monarchy work.

And they’re not the people you might expect to meet. At a time when Britain’s kings and queens barely spoke the language, please let us introduce you to Mehmet and Mustapha, two Turkish men who ran the life of George I. Here they are above, pictured on Kensington Palace’s extraordinary King’s Staircase.

And what about Abdullah, who brought a caracal from India all the way to the King’s Menagerie at the Tower of London? Or Bridget Holmes, Frances Talbot and Grace Tosier – without whom, life would have been just a bit less tolerable for the Stuart and Georgian rulers.

So tune in to hear Dr Mishka Sinha, co-curator of Kensington Palace’s wonderful exhibition Untold Lives, as we lift the curtain and peer into the machinery of monarchy.

And this being Trapped History, it’s not simply a tale of valets and ‘necessary women’. Here, you will find empire, commerce, politics and race. Welcome to the 18th century!