Henry VIII had two legitimate daughters, (Bloody) Mary and Elizabeth. Neither had any children; so when Elizabeth died in 1603 the Tudors died with her. James Stuart, a distant cousin of Elizabeth’s and already king of Scotland, was invited to take over the English throne too, even though he was an unprepossessing drooling drunkard.

He came with the promise that he would persecute the Catholics less than Elizabeth had, but he failed to honour it, in much the same way that some governments ignore pledges in their election manifestos. The result was the Gunpowder Plot of 1605; a bunch of dissident Catholics tried to blow up the king and parliament on 5 November. There are many conspiracy theories about who was really behind the plot, but the fact was that Guy Fawkes was caught under the main chamber of the House of Lords with a lot of gunpowder and a match.

Most of the conspirators were shot, possibly to prevent them from talking, while Fawkes was horribly tortured on the rack until he could scarcely walk or write his name. Then he and the remaining plotters were dragged from The Tower to Old Palace Square, opposite the House of Lords, to be hanged until almost dead, drawn – cut open so that their intestines spilled out – and then quartered – pulled into four pieces by heavy horses. Bonfires were lit all over the country, and we have been celebrating this sorry event ever since, although it is not clear to me whether we celebrate the torture and executions, or the idea of blowing up the houses of parliament.

James’s son Charles I was worse than his dad; he thought he was God, and could get away with anything, but went too far when he took an armed posse into the house of commons to arrest his critics. Eventually he was executed, and Oliver Cromwell, generally known as carrot-nose, ran the country.

After Cromwell died things improved; in 1660 Charles II was welcomed back to the country from exile. He was a terrible womaniser but otherwise a good egg, and a strong supporter of science. He put the Royal into the Royal Society, and appointed the first Astronomer Royal. The only thing I really dislike about him is that he tried to ban coffee-houses - one of the main subjects covered in The Strange and Sundrie Stuarts this week on Radio 4.