This Sceptred Isle was created as a series of short 12-14 minute radio programmes by the
BBC for transmission daily on Radio 4 from 1995 about the history of the lands and peoples
of the British Isles. The producer was Pete Atkin.
Starting in 55 BC with the arrival of Julius Caesar and initially concluding in 1901 with
the death of Queen Victoria, the series was read by Anna Massey and included extracts from
the book A History of the English-speaking Peoples written by Sir Winston Churchill,
interwoven into Christopher Lee's main account of the history. The extracts were read by
Paul Eddington, who died during the production and his role was taken by Peter Jeffrey. In
total the series contained 216 episodes, ran 29 hours, and was first broadcast in daily
episodes between June 1995 and June 1996.
The series was very successful, being broadcast twice each day in the morning and late at
night, and in 1999 the BBC extended the programme to cover the twentieth century; picking
up from where the first series had finished to the end of the millennium. This new series
was a total of 15.25 hours long and although it used the same narrator, the quotations were
read by Robert Powell. The first episode of this new series was broadcast on August 30 1999
and the final episode on December 31 1999.
In 2001 another shorter series entitled This Sceptred Isle: Dynasties was produced. This
told the stories of the powerful and influential families of Britain's history, including
the Godwines, the Despensers and the Churchills. The series consisted of 10 episodes and was
again narrated by Anna Massey.
Over the course of several months in 2005 and 2006 This Sceptred Isle: Empire a 90-part
history of the British Empire was broadcast on Radio 4. Each part was approximately 15
minutes long. The narrator was Juliet Stevenson and the cast of readers of various historical
documents including poems, songs, personal letters, and first-hand accounts--included Jack
Davenport, Joss Ackland, Christopher Eccleston, and Anna Massey among others.
The programme's title is a quotation from act 2 scene 1 of Shakespeare's King Richard II,
attributed to John of Gaunt: "This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, This earth of
majesty, this seat of Mars ... This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England".
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