Great Lives

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BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Factual: Life Stories

Biographical series in which guests choose someone who has inspired their lives.

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Great Lives: Queen Emma

Queen Emma

BBC Radio 4 - Great Lives, Queen Emma

Alice Roberts chooses the wife of two kings - Aethelred and Canute.

Emma of Normandy is the link between the Anglo-Saxons and the Normans who conquered England in 1066. Alice Roberts is joined by Nina Ramirez to find out more about her amazing life

Professor Alice Roberts, best known as the presenter of Digging for Britain, picks the wife of two English kings and the mother of two English kings. Queen Emma was born in Normandy and came to England as a diplomatic peaceweaver when she married Aethelred in 1002. Somehow she survived the invasion of the Danes under Swein Forkbeard and married his son, King Canute after Aethelred's death. Together with help from Professor Janina Ramirez - author of Femina - and Patricia Bracewell who has written a trilogy of historical novels based on Emma's life, Alice pieces together an extraordinary life, the richest woman in England, aunt of William the Conqueror, mother of Edward the Confessor.

Alice Roberts is Professor of Public Engagement in Science at Birmingham University and the author of Crypt: Life, Death and Disease in the Middle Ages and Beyond
Programme also includes recorded audio of Professor Pauline Stafford, author of Gendering the Middle Ages

The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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