This episode traces how Britain came to see slavery not as an unfortunate fact of life, but as a moral wrong that demanded repentance. It explores a world in which slavery was normal, profitable, and largely unquestioned, and shows how a distinctly Christian moral claim — that every human being bears the image of God — began to reclassify slavery itself as sin. By examining Britain’s deep entanglement in the slave system, the role of Christian abolitionists, and the quiet but decisive shift in English law through cases like Somerset v Stewart, the episode shows how moral awakening came before political action. It ends at the moment when conscience has changed — but before the far harder question is answered: what happens when that conscience collides with Parliament, profit, and empire? 

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