In episode two of Monarchy Dr. Starkey chronicles the stormy path of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England, the world's first nation state. He tells how, assailed by blitzkrieg from the Danes of King Canute, it survived to take its captor captive; and how, driven by civil strife, it nonetheless restored itself to power until through a historic misfortune, it fell in the end to the knights of William the Conqueror.

• David Starkey