Everything you need to know about new Sky History docudrama
Prepare to see the Royal family in a way you’ve never seen before – including some bloody and brutal truths of British history.
Royal Kill List, a landmark Original series by Sky History, details the story of King Charles II and his efforts to seek and destroy the Regicides who murdered his father.
Told through a combination of dramatic monologues and reconstructions, the story is split into the perspective of three people – the Royalists, the Regicides, and King Charles II himself.
With an esteemed cast voicing the three-part drama, Royal Kill List aims to lift the lid on this often overlooked part of history filled with political power moves, espionage, deception, and revenge.
The story about obsession with power would make Succession’s Roy family blush.
Here’s everything you need to know about the new series.
What is Royal Kill List about?
Royal Kill List starts in the year 1660, with Charles II returning to England to claim his father’s throne after nine years in exile in Scotland. It takes him next to no time to establish himself as a formidable figure – and one seeking vengeance.
His father, Charles I, had been publicly executed for treason in 1649 after spending most of his 24-year reign in conflict with Parliament. The conflict resulted in civil wars in Scotland, Ireland and England, with fighters split between being Royalists or Republicans (a group led by Oliver Cromwell, who wanted to overthrow the monarchy).
After Charles was beheaded, Cromwell assumed power of a military dictatorship, which dissolved after his death. With Charles II reinstated, his first decree was to ensure those responsible for his father’s execution were held responsible.
The Declaration of Breda was created – which commanded seven of the people who signed his father’s death warrant – the ‘Regicides’ – to be killed.
However, once the warrant was made available to the King, Charles decided he wanted all 59 men involved to die. This was spurred on by his brother, James I.
Instead, he passed the harrowingly named Act Of Indemnity and Oblivion – which instructed the men responsible be hung, drawn and quartered once caught.
In a brutal act of torture, this involved some of the men being hanged, but being cut down before death, then being disembowelled, their genitals cut off and burnt in front of them, before they were eventually beheaded.
During the first episode of Royal Kill List alone, ten men suffered this fate.
Who’s in the cast of Royal Kill List and where have we seen them before?
Royal Kill List is via three key storytellers - each depicting a perspective of the three groups involved in the tale.
Sheila Atim (The Woman King, The Underground Railroad) tells the side of the Royalists who are in full support of the restoration of the monarchy and the sometimes extremely dedicated people of the court.
Jared Harris (Chernobyl, The Crown, Mad Men) represents the Regicides, whose involvement in signing the death warrant for King Charles I results in their own days being numbered – but some still insist what they did was right.
Finally, Joseph Fiennes (Shakespeare in Love, The Handmaid’s Tale) recounts the side of King Charles II, and how his desire for revenge and bloodlust consumes him more by the day, while he’s influenced by those close to him in and around the court.
What is the UK release date for Royal Kill List and where can I watch it?
Royal Kill List continues Tuesdays at 9pm on Sky History – available on Sky 123 (Scotland 124), Sky Glass / Sky Stream 115 and Virgin 131.
The full series is available as a boxset on NOW, and on demand for Sky customers.