The Story continues by looking away from London for a few years; as we examine how and why Henry II invaded Ireland and the roots of the Irish diaspora of London, with a special chapter dedicated to examining some overlooked aspects of the event… why did Henry find himself, in the midst of the biggest political crisis of his reign, running off to intervene in a foreign country?

Returning and finishing the story of Thomas Becket, with a bumper episode that covers his elevation to Archbishop, why he fell out with the King, his intense theological war of words with the new Bishop of London and why, towards the end of his life, in a charged and emotive moment… London embraced their wayward son. The epic story of Thomas of London concludes.

The Story gets to the first part in the two-part saga of the life of Thomas Becket- the London boy who would go on to become Chancellor of England and Archbishop of Canterbury. And yet his story illustrates, perhaps perfectly, not just the tale of a man, but how the citizens of London navigated the powerful, unstable, and violent nation around them.

We have reached the first of a series of special episodes- an examination of the first document that attempts to describe the social life of Londoner’s in the 12th century… so who was William FitzStephen, and what was the city he described? Welcome to London in the year 1174…

London was once the financial capital of the world, and still is a significant player in this realm. But when, and how, did this role start? The Story of London reaches the decade where London’s position as a credit and banking centre begins to emerge, as an unlikely combination of circumstances and communities begins to create something unique… and this begins to impact upon the city itself.

The Story of London reaches the opening years of the reign of Henry II; foreign merchants start growing in power in the city; the Knight’s Templars make a spectacular land grab, and while the oligarchs who run the city continue to run things for their own benefit, a powerful new group emerge from within the streets of London itself…

The Story continues as we come to the end of ‘The Anarchy’- that wild rambling civil war unlike any before; the nation around them slowly drags itself towards a most unusual solution, and in the meantime London deals with the Thames freezing over, the death of the most charismatic man in the city, a new local family basically takes over St. Paul’s cathedral… and something much darker begins to grow…

The Anarchy continues, and London finds itself in the thick of it! As the civil war continues to slow burn itself across England, this chapter examines how London copes and then profits from this. It also covers how London politics may well have instigated a second front in the war, the way the 2nd Crusade was going on while this was happening (and how this impacted on some of the figures in the Story) and how these events were linked to events in London’s distant past.

1141 is one of the most important, and overlooked, years in the story of the City of London, and this episode is dedicated to telling its tale in full. Why had The Anarchy erupted? Why was it different from other civil wars? How did the city cope with being on the losing side? And how did London help turn the course of this war upon it’s head? All hell breaks lose… and I try to do this story justice.

While England was sliding into civil war, London itself seemed mostly unconcerned; a new class of Oligarchs were enjoying the benefits of London’s new Commune status, and this episode serves as an introduction to some of them; their personalities, friendships, nepotism and rivalries. It also explains why the new Bishop of London was fired by the Pope, what Rahere of St. Bart’s did next, and why London may have wondered if they had picked the wrong King…