Welcome to British Isles Friday! British Isles Friday is a weekly event for sharing all things British and Irish — reviews, photos, opinions, trip reports, guides, links, resources, personal stories, interviews, and research posts. Join us each Friday to link your British and Irish themed content and to see what others have to share. The link list is at the bottom of this post. Pour a cup of tea or lift a pint and join our link party!

Last week, I commemorated the final season of Vera. Heather wrote a fun review of a book that didn’t work for her: The Cosy Croissant Café by Jane Linfoot.

Lucy Worsley, a British historian, is well-known for her TV specials featuring everything from the wives of King Henry VIII to Agatha Christie.

Recently she started the series Lucy Worsley Investigates. Two seasons have four episodes. Each episode focuses on re-examining a particular past event through new discoveries and thoughts. Both seasons have aired in the US on PBS and are available to stream with a PBS Passport (a benefit of your membership to your local station).

Season 1 covered The Black Death, The Witch Hunts, the Madness of King George, and the Princes in the Tower. All topics that I find fascinating. Here’s the trailer for Season 1:

Season 2 covered equally compelling stories: Jack the Ripper, William the Conqueror, The Gunpowder Plot, and Bloody Mary.

Here’s a segment from The Gunpowder Plot episode:

The final episode, Bloody Mary, is available to stream until May 8, even without PBS Passport, so I recommend taking a look. I was intrigued that Lucy Worsley believed that Queen Mary was unfairly given the nickname of Bloody Mary. And that Queen Mary was not given enough credit as the first woman who reigned over England, setting up structures that made possible the long, successful reign of her sister, Queen Elizabeth I.

Have you watched Lucy Worsley Investigates? What did you think?