Sweary realism gives colour to these accounts of England’s most appalling kings and queens
Unruly is part Horrible Histories, part jolly romp guided by Alan Bennett’s view that history has no sense but is “just one fucking thing after another”. But it is mostly – this being a history of England – swearing.
Mitchell doubts, for instance, that Henry II actually said: “Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?” before Becket was terminated in Canterbury Cathedral. “It was something more along the lines of ‘What sort of a bunch of saps have I surrounded myself with that they let me get treated like shit by this fucking oik?’”
