(narrator) At the heart of the British establishment are the royal palaces.

Imposing.

(Ramirez) They encapsulate the very finest architecture, art, design.

(narrator) Lavish.

(Whitelock) It was deliberately grand, this most ostentatious statement of absolute power.

(narrator) ...and brimming with hidden gems.

(Dunlop) You always feel like there's something new to discover.

(narrator) They're the backdrop to every royal event.

(Boniface) Every celebration, birth, death, crisis, for a thousand years.

(narrator) In this all-new Secrets of the Royal Palaces, we gain exclusive access to these illustrious buildings and uncover their private parts... (Foyle) The regal bog.

That would be used by Queen Victoria herself.

(narrator) ...reveal the extraordinary royal art hidden within.

(Ramirez) The Queen's stamp collection is worth 100 million pounds.

Not a bad return on loans of pictures of yourself, really, is it?

(narrator) ....dig up royal palaces' dark history.

(Williams) George builds secret tunnels so no one could ever see him.

(narrator) ...and share fresh revelations about the royal dramas that are gripping the nation.

(male #1) Not a soul got anywhere near that island.

I loved her to bits.

(narrator) This is the Secrets of The Royal Palaces.

(dramatic music) In this episode, we reveal how Princess Margaret escaped the palace into a media storm... (Boniface) As far as any tabloid is concerned, if you have got a royal story, then there's a Union Jack plastered across somebody's genitals, then you'd be highly delighted.

(narrator) ...how a magnificent clock in Kensington Palace almost didn't make it out of the workshop.

(Klein) He wanted it to be beat to pieces and entirely destroyed.

He just didn't want anyone else to waste more time and money on it.

(narrator) ...and Louis XIV's doctors tried a wacky royal remedy in the Palace of Versailles.

Including treating an anal fistula with a red hot poker.

Poor guy.

(narrator) Magnificent, sensational, remarkable--Britain's palaces are the envy of the world.

They represent Britain and the Crown on a public stage.

Tourists flock to Britain to see the treasures of the palaces.

They stand outside Buckingham Palace, they gaze at Windsor Castle.

They want to immerse themselves in the history of this country.

(narrator) But not all palaces are meant to be enjoyed by the public.

Sandringham House is a more private palace.

It is personally owned by the Queen, a retreat away from her subjects' gaze.

So, it was a surprise to many when, in July, 2015, William and Kate chose it as the venue for the very public christening of their daughter, Princess Charlotte.

So, royal christenings, you imagine palaces, you imagine states, pomp--particularly when you're talking about the child of the future King, King William.

Members of the public were invited to attend.

I mean, when I say "attend", they were invited to stand outside the church and to see the comings and going of the royals and the other guests.

(narrator) And there was a poignant reason why Sandringham's quaint parish church was selected.

(Andrews) The Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene is the parish church of Sandringham House.

It has the history as well through William's mother, Diana Spencer, as she was also christened there.

(Kay) Prince William likes this symbolism.

He's made it clear that he wanted Diana to be involved on the journey that he embarked on with Kate, first as his wife, by presenting her with his mother's engagement ring, and then, at Charlotte's christening because they chose the very church where Diana was christened herself.

(narrator) And that wasn't the only nod to the late Princess of Wales.

There was also Charlotte's middle name.

(Kay) I think he, very wisely, decided not to give Charlotte his mother's name as her first name.

Everything she did, everything she said would be compared with her.

But, by giving Diana as a middle name, it ensures that she's there, if you like, she's still there at the heart of William's family.

(Andrews) William has spoken a lot about the loss of his mother and about how he thinks about her pretty much every day.

He very much wants to keep his mother's memory alive.

(narrator) Princess Charlotte's christening gown also has a hidden connection with her royal past.

Charlotte was baptized in the Honiton lace christening gown that's been used by royalty throughout generations.

(narrator) But this gown was not as traditional as it first appeared.

(Andrews) It's not "the" original because the original was about 100 years old, and, after so many royal children, it's been christened to bits.

It was looking a little bit worse for wear.

So, Angela Kelly, the Queen's dresser, recreated the christening gown.

Not many people might realize that sometimes you use unorthodox methods to create that really beautiful dated antique look.

She experimented with dipping it in all different strengths of Yorkshire tea just to create the perfect shade for the gown.

That sort of slightly-aged brown look is actually tea leaf stains.

(narrator) One final element made this christening extra special because Princess Charlotte was a British princess like no other.

(Andrews) The law had been changed just two and a half years earlier to ensure that any daughter born to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge maintain their line of succession.

Charlotte is the first woman who holds her place in succession, and that is a really, really important moment.

It means that she's only, you know, three people from the Crown in her own right.

(narrator) Kate and William may have chosen Sandringham for this extra special christening, but the family spend their day-to-day at Kensington Palace and, in its time, Kensington has housed generations of royal residents in its many rooms, from Queen Victoria to Princess Diana.

(McMahon) Even though, today, it's a big of a royal boarding house, given some of the royals who lived there and were even born there, you can bet that those walls have some incredible secrets.

(narrator) One of these secrets lies in the most impressive room at Kensington-- William Kent's magnificent Cupola Room-- and the entire room centers around one eye-catching and unmissable clock.

But what secrets does this timepiece-- known as the Temple of the Four Great Monarchies of the World-- hold?

It's a large, really elaborately decorated clock.

So, on the top, you've got a bronze of Hercules and Atlas supporting the world, and, around the four corners at the bottom, you've got representations of the four great monarchies of the world.

You've got the Assyrians, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans-- each represented by their rulers, and each scene depicts an episode of great drama from those empires.

(narrator) Standing on a wooden plinth, nearly a meter high, is the centerpiece of the room, but it's not its mishmash of rococo and classical Baroque styles that make this clock stand out, it's the secret hidden within it.

It is a musical machine and it was designed to play compositions, not just tinny renditions, but beautifully polyphonic compositions by the famous musicians of the time, like Handel.

And it would really have acted a bit like a palatial jukebox.

You could enjoy the art, you could enjoy the sculpture, you could tell the time, but then you could also revel in the music.

(narrator) Yorkshire clockmaker Charles Clay was the creator of this extraordinary timepiece.

He could set up a shop quite close to St. Mary le Strand in London in 1720 and in 1723, he became clockmaker to the Crown.

He even completed a clock that is still outside St. James' Palace, and his shop became a real curiosity.

Visitors could pay to go in and see these wonderful pieces of craftsmanship, but also listen to the music, because many of them were these musical clocks.

(narrator) But the Temple of the Four Great Monarchies of the World was very nearly destroyed before it ever saw the light of day.

Clay actually spent 20 years and more than 2,000 pounds of his own money building this clock, but, tragically, he didn't see it finished before he died.

And, just three days before he died, he wrote that he wanted it to be beat to pieces and entirely destroyed.

He just didn't want anyone else to waste more time and money on it after his death.

(narrator) Luckily, Clay's wife clearly didn't do as he asked, as it was completed by clockmaker John Pike and advertised for sale by Clay's widow in November, 1743.

(Klein) It would have been an incredible shame, of course, if his wife had followed through with his wishes, but, thankfully, she didn't.

She actually advertised the clock for sale towards the end of 1743 and that's where it was bought by Augusta, Princess of Wales, and she placed it immediately in the Cupola Room in Kensington Palace where it still stands today.

(narrator) As well as being full of incredible artworks, sculptures, and architecture, the royal palaces often hide hideous scandals from the eye of the public.

(flighty music) ♪ (Williams) Elizabeth was the famed Virgin Queen and when she became queen no man would touch her.

That wasn't the same when she was a vulnerable teenager.

When Henry VIII dies, she moved in with her stepmother, Catherine Parr, the surviving wife who was devoted to her.

You'd think that was a happily ever after story, but Catherine Parr has always been in love with Thomas Seymour.

So, when Henry VIII dies, she thinks, "I'll marry Seymour."

But Seymour, he's got other ideas.

He asks the 13-year-old Elizabeth to marry him.

Elizabeth says no.

And when he can't have Elizabeth, he has second best and that's being her stepfather.

Catherine Parr married Thomas Seymour and then he uses his marriage to get access to Elizabeth.

He tries to catch her and tickle her, break into her bedroom.

Thomas Seymour, he starts sexually harassing Elizabeth.

So, you have Elizabeth, the future Virgin Queen, not protected by her stepfather, but exploited.

Seymour is convinced that, one day, Elizabeth will be queen and that's why he's trying to groom her, gain control of her, gaslight her.

He wants to be king.

Catherine Parr falls pregnant and then she dies and, as soon as his wife dies, the first thing he tries to do is marry Elizabeth, not because he loves her, not because he's attracted to her, but because he wants power.

The king, Edward VI, brother of Elizabeth, he gets to hear of this and, to him, this is treason.

Thomas Seymour is put on trial and you'd think at this point he might give up on his desperate quest for power, but no.

And he actually tries to invade Hampton Court, break into the king's palace, and kidnap him and, along the way, he actually shoots the king's pet spaniel.

So, Seymour tries to get possession of Elizabeth when she's a child by sexually harassing her, and then, he tries to get possession of the king, who's also a child, by kidnapping and killing his dog.

That leaks out into the public.

It's a huge scandal, the king executes Thomas Seymour.

Some people in Tudor England were clearly mad for power.

(light music) (narrator) Coming up on Secrets of The Royal Palaces, we learn how Princess Margaret reached breaking point at the palace.

(Warwick) He'd leave notes in her drawer saying, "I hate you, 10 reasons why I hate you."

(narrator) ...and how a king and prince used Kensington for a popularity contest.

(Whitelock) Court was forced to be in two camps.

Some courtiers were there with the king, others were there with the prince, so it really was a split court.

(adventurous music) (narrator) Every royal palace has its own moment in the spotlight and a monarch that defines its purpose.

Henry VIII made Hampton Court his pleasure palace, George IV brought the bourgeoisie to Brighton Pavilion, and Louis XIV made a powerhouse of Versailles.

(McMahon) These royal palaces have had varying fortunes.

Basically, when a monarch favors a particular palace, that's the center of power.

(narrator) But in 1714, despite 17 pregnancies, Queen Anne died, leaving no surviving children.

The throne went to her nearest Protestant relative, a cousin from Hanover.

Enter George I, the first of the Georgians, and his choice for his center of power: Kensington.

(Foyle) By the time of George I's accession in 1714, Kensington was in a pretty poor shape.

A combination of a lack of maintenance and bad quality building meant that it was kind of collapsing.

Nonetheless, George had a fondness for the place and he set about a new suite of building work here.

Now, this went beyond the intention just to breathe new life into it and smarten it up.

He had another secret intention in mind.

(narrator) George had arrived in London with his son, also George, the young Prince of Wales.

But father and son couldn't stand each other.

You had something of a contrast between the Georges.

You have the king, who is a bit of a salt, brooding in his palace.

And then, you have the younger George and his terribly fashionable wife, Caroline, going around town, being terribly sociable, making lots of new friends.

Court was forced to be in two camps.

So, some courtiers were there with the king.

Others were there with the prince.

So, it really was a split court.

(narrator) To win the popularity contest against his son, George I set about turning Kensington into the ultimate party palace.

(McMahon) So, George gives Kensington Palace a major makeover.

I mean, he needs to show that he's going to be a permanent feature of English society, that he is the King of England, that he does have legitimacy.

And so, what he does is he gets the palace to, essentially, express that truth.

(narrator) And so, George started the first stage of its renovations the way anyone wanting to make an impression would: by making an entrance.

(Foyle) This is the king's grand staircase.

It's the first impression you'd have of the interior of the palace as a Georgian courtier winding your way up and into the core of the palace.

Now, this fairly dull cube was built for William III, but it was transformed by George I's favorite court painter, William Kent and his assistant.

(narrator) So, how'd King George make a dull cube feel like a place to party?

(Foyle) Now, what they managed to do was to convince you that you were in a Venetian lodger.

A series of arcades with a group of people gathering at the balustrades to look down on you.

These walls hold some secrets if you know where to look.

You see, throughout, there are guards holding up their pointy pikes just so that if you're not invited or you're not wearing the right thing, then you're definitely not welcome.

(regal music) These members of court are to prepare you for the splendor of the rooms above, to set the scene, to titillate you, and to get the sense that this is not a dour place anymore, it's a court that's going to be full of life and fun.

(narrator) His entrance complete, George was ready to return Kensington to its rightful place as the great party palace.

But, as we'll find out, George wasn't finished pimping the palace.

(Foyle) You let a man like William Kent loose with a king who's got it all to prove and you can come up with some really interesting art.

♪ (narrator) From father/son feuds to sibling rivalries, the palaces are full of scandal and drama.

Well, the royal family is one gigantic soap opera, which we all watch with interest.

(narrator) And sometimes, these palaces are witness to events they'd rather we didn't know about.

In 1976, the relationship between the royals and the tabloid press was still a comfortable and controlled one.

Their secrets were safe behind palace walls.

But outside of the palaces, the queen's stylish sister, Princess Margaret, was increasingly becoming the focus of the tabloids, making headlines as a glamorous party princess.

In the '50s, the world's media were interested in having photographs of only two women.

One was Elizabeth Taylor and one was Princess Margaret.

(narrator) And her relationship with hipster photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones further captured the public's attention.

(McAndrew) Margaret and Snowdon were the ultimate glamor couple in London of those days.

We were getting into the Swinging Sixties.

They'd hang out with all the most famous celebrities, movie stars, artists.

A real Bohemian lifestyle.

There was this kind of romantic ideal, but it was an ideal that wasn't gonna last because, after they'd married, reality started to kick in.

He didn't want to be bobbing along in Princess Margaret's wake going to hospitals, opening garden fetes.

(narrator) Margaret and Tony moved into Kensington Palace, which became a pressure cooker of cruel and toxic behavior.

(Warwick) Tony was out doing his own thing or...she said, "He would spend the say in his study drinking my claret."

He'd leave notes in her drawer saying, "I hate you, 10 reasons why I hate you."

It got to the point where she would ask a friend or a lady-in-waiting just have a look in the book to see if there's a note left in my glove drawer.

(narrator) As their marriage rapidly unraveled, headlines about marital rifts and rumored affairs began to surface.

He took a job as a photographer for the Sunday Times and then, on photographic assignments, started having flings.

(McAndrew) And it must have been painful for Margaret to realize this.

When she's being feted as this absolute sex symbol, this pinup... people like Pablo Picasso were sending messages saying that he fantasized about her every night, and yet, she wasn't enough for her husband.

(Andrews) It's becoming well-known by this point in society circles that Tony's having affairs, but lonely Margaret is also looking for solace in other people, but no one really knew about them until it all exploded with the arrival of Roddy.

(McAndrew) Roddy was 17 years her junior, he was a gardener by trade, and they fell completely in love.

It was all so secret.

It was a such a big royal secret.

(suspenseful music) (narrator) And Margaret knew the perfect place to keep the secret: Her private palace on the Caribbean island of Mustique.

Margaret's holiday house was her very own Love Island, far away from royal responsibilities and an increasingly turbulent home life at Kensington Palace.

It was a slice of paradise for her.

It was also the only property that she owned in her own right.

You know, wherever she lived-- Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Kensington Palace-- they were all state-owned, you know, they were Crown properties.

She effectively had her own court.

She didn't have to be the queen's younger sister and she didn't have to be on her best behavior, because the naughty press weren't there either.

(tempestuous music) But in February, 1976, Princess Margaret's relationship was revealed to the world when one photographer managed to gain access to their secret hideaway.

It was an astonishing coup that this photographer managed to get this picture of Margaret and Roddy on the island of Mustique because Mustique was pretty much a private island.

You couldn't just wander in and take photographs of whatever you wanted.

We all love gossip and there is no better gossip than a royal having an affair with a hot young man in Union Jack briefs.

(narrator) What had started as a secret affair on a tropical island had turned into a royal crisis, a crisis that would change the royal family's relationship with the media forever.

Kensington Palace may have been the place to party, but in the Tudor age, it was all about eating, and there was no better feast to be had than at Hampton Court Palace.

(McMahon) Hampton Court was the palace of the Tudors, from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I.

(narrator) As an eligible bachelorette, Elizabeth I held frequent banquets full of suitors desperate to impress, and they soon found a fail-safe way to keep Elizabeth sweet.

(quirky music) ♪ Nowadays, you might all strive to be sugar-free, but in the 1600s, there was a sugar craze like no other.

Monarchs and the elites filled royal courts with the most amazing items, all made from sugar to flaunt their wealth.

(narrator) Ivan Day is a food historian who specializes in these sugar creations.

(sensuous music) Hi, Ivan!

What have you got for me?

Look at all these incredible things!

And they're all made out of sugar.

(Ivan) Yeah.

This kind of thing only appeared in very high status households, like royal palaces, and it was a really skillful job.

They were more like artists than chefs.

So, within the royal palace, you often had a little department and they made these beautiful things.

They often carved their own molds to make items and we have, of course, the recipes, and a lot have survived in little books like this, which was known as a "book of secrets."

(Williams) So, these are secret recipes?

And everything was decorated.

For instance, if you look at that amazing cathedral mold and just how intricately it's carved, you know, it's like a spider web, it's so fine.

(Williams) This is cookery and this is architecture and this is design.

The most brilliant engineering minds are going into this.

(narrator) These sugary works of art would be presented in the wealthiest households in Britain and, at palace parties, there would be meals consisting entirely of sugar and preserves.

This sugar craze really took off in the Tudor court of Elizabeth I.

(Williams) What is this?

It looks like a little, kind of, crisp--what is it?

(Ivan) Well, it was known as a muscadine.

They were a kissing comfort.

It's a perfumed lozenge that was aimed at sweetening your breath.

(Williams) So, it's like chewing gum before you might go on the date?

(Ivan) Exactly, yeah.

The main element with joke food is you often get these extraordinary and fake things like a whole plate there of bacon and eggs and some wag picks up a plate and takes a bite into-- (Williams) Into the egg.

An egg and then hands it around and all the guests have some, but which time, the plate is empty.

So, they look at the plate and think, "Mmm."

(Williams) That's brilliant.

I mean, they must have thought it was hilarious.

(Ivan) Saves all washing up.

(narrator) But these sugar-filled feasts would come at a cost.

(Williams) It was tooth decay on a plate.

Elizabeth, of course, has these very bad teeth.

she suffers with tooth decay, particularly near the end of her life, and has to have teeth drawn and just don't seem to make the connection between sugar obsession and problems with your teeth.

There are recipes where sugar is an important element in the toothpaste that they used.

So, they actually brushed their teeth to get rid of sugar with more sugar?

It's fascinating, isn't it?

Because when you do look at skulls from the period, medieval skulls, the teeth are usually surprisingly well-preserved, but when you move into the 16th century, there's obvious tooth decay and gum disease.

Not only did people start to have bad teeth in the Tudor period, but it's often been seen as a sort of symbol of elite, that you actually start to artificially blacken your teeth if they weren't bad.

You'd make them black with charcoal.

So, you thank the Tudors now for our fascination with sugar in modern times.

The idea that sugar was great fun and brilliant and amazingly good for you.

Well, my teeth are sugared out and I don't know how the Tudors did it.

They had serious sugar stamina.

(narrator) Thankfully, the secrets of the Elizabethan dental regime have been learned and not passed on.

Coming up on Secrets of The Royal Palaces, the doctors at the palace of Versailles struggle to treat Louis XIV's embarrassing problem.

(Williams) The worst types of surgical interventions in the late 17th century were found for Louis, including treating an anal fistula with a red-hot poker.

Poor guy.

(narrator) And we reveal how tabloid trickery ignited an international royal scandal.

(Warwick) What the News of the World did in 1976 was they cropped off Lord and Lady Cork so that it looked as though here was just Princess Margaret and Roddy Llewellyn and everything that that kind of implied.

(narrator) Every royal has favorite palaces where they feel most at home.

Charles bought and renovated Highgrove to his own personal tastes and passions, whilst the Queen loves Balmoral, a place of privacy and seclusion, and, once known as the "Aunt Heap," but now a favorite with the younger generation, including William and Kate, there's Kensington Palace.

(Andrews) They are spaces of fairy tales, of riches, of castles, and of gold.

But, for some of the royals, they are gilded cages.

(narrator) On the first of February, 1976, Princess Margaret had escaped life at Kensington for her own tropical palace on the island of Mustique, unaware that back in England, blurry pictures of her and a man 17 years her junior were about to hit the headlines, and we can reveal how the tabloids doctored the photos to make them look even more scandalous.

(Warwick) What the News of the World did in 1976 was they cropped off Lord and Lady Cork that were sitting on the other side of the table, so that it looked as though here was just Princess Margaret and Roddy Llewellyn on the island of Mustique with the ocean in the background and everything that that kind of implied.

(Andrews) By our standards, they weren't doing anything.

They were just having a swim.

But, the very fact that he's there and that people have worked out that he's in a relationship with her--it was a furor.

As far as any tabloid is concerned, if you have got a royal story and, somehow or another, there's a Union Jack plastered across somebody's genitals, then you'd be highly delighted.

So, in 1976, of course, it made the whole country's eyebrows shoot up into its hairline.

(narrator) Tabloid headlines label Margaret as a floozy who spends the public's money partying.

Her husband Tony moves out of their home at Kensington Palace.

(McAndrew) She must have felt very lonely and very ostracized and she must have felt that the world was a hypocritical place because she knew perfectly well, as did most other people, that her husband had conducted multiple affairs, but, because she had had these photographs taken of her, she got the brunt of it.

(narrator) These iconic photographs marked the start of a new level of royal press intrusion and a growing hunger for royal gossip.

(Boniface) She was very modern for her time, but there were plenty of women who've done things during history that weren't accepted at the time.

Today, a woman of 43 hanging out with a 25-year-old wouldn't even produce much of a twitch of the eyebrow.

Then, she was the very first cougar.

(Warwick) Zayeed said to her, on one occasion, "Do you see yourself as a controversial character?"

"No," she said, "I'm not controversial at all.

I'm living my life."

(narrator) But Margaret was forced to give up this relationship, that genuinely made her happy, to protect the royals and the palace.

I think this moment, Margaret's Mustique photographs, did mark a change in the relationship between Fleet Street and Buckingham Palace.

There had always been quite a cozy relationship.

They could hush things up quite easily, but that was no longer the case and I think the royals realized that.

(dramatic music) (narrator) From the Disneyland domes of Brighton Pavilion to the striking staircases at Buckingham Palace, they are a physical representation of a monarch's wealth, power, and status.

They're there for glitz, they're there to show off wealth-- how many bedrooms, how many gold toilets you could fit into a mere hundred acres or so.

Palaces are supposed to be grand, they're supposed to be a spectacle outside and inside.

(narrator) And no one knew this more than George I.

With his party rooms complete, George wanted a suite of innovative state rooms, which not only delighted the eye, but send secret signals to those doubting his claim to the throne.

(Foyle) This is the most spectacular of the rooms in Kensington Palace is the King's Gallery, and it was remodeled about 1725 by William Kent.

And what Kent created is Britain's first Italian-style art gallery.

Anybody visiting from the continent would recognize this kind of architecture.

Anyone coming up the stairs thought they'd been wafted into Venice.

(Whitelock) The artwork in the state apartments were deliberately designed to showcase his credentials, his lineage, why he was king, his background, his suitability.

(McMahon) It's a kind of pictorial curriculum vitae for George, it's to prove that even though he's a foreigner who can barely speak English, he is fit to be the King of England.

(regal music) (narrator) But we can reveal this wasn't the only room with hidden symbolism.

The finest and strongest message of all is in the Cupola Room.

(fancy music) (Foyle) Kensington can be quite surprising.

You let a man like William Kent loose with a king who's got it all to prove and you can come up with some really interesting uses of art.

The eye rises through a painted, coffered dome.

William Kent gave you the impression you were looking at a very sculpted, solid Roman ceiling.

But the culmination of this thing is not a classical image, it's a very English one.

It is the Garter star, that's the emblem of the Garter Knights of the Windsor Castle-- a royal culture almost 400 years old at this time.

George I is telling you that he's a king who is not only creating these monumental visions, but also someone who is assuming his right to rule from very old native English traditions.

(narrator) But, sadly, for George, his time enjoying the fruits of his rather expensive refurb would be rather short-lived.

(McMahon) It all just seems so incredibly unfair.

He's gone to all that effort to restore his reputation after his son's been trashing it around town.

He's looking forward to all those parties.

He's going to be the center of attention in English society and then he goes and dies.

And who takes over the newly revamped palace?

His son, the very person he was trying to put back in his box.

Thanks to dad, Kensington provided a ready-made palace in which George II and Queen Caroline could form their own royal court.

(narrator) But Queen Caroline had even bigger plans for the palace.

(Whitelock) She really is one of those most overseen members of the royal family, but one who had a huge influence, not least at Kensington Palace.

(whimsical music) (narrator) The royal palaces encapsulate the past and paint a picture of our history throughout the ages.

Each palace has a story.

They are, if you like, a gateway into another world.

They're like time capsules.

(narrator) But some of these tales are more painful than others.

(quirky music) ♪ (Williams) When you're Louis XIV, you're the most powerful king in the world, but still, when you have a medical problem, you put yourself into the hands of the doctors and that can be a disaster.

So, here's a man, the most powerful man in France, and he can't be treated for a fistula-- this small tumor that's really giving him huge amounts of pain-- and he was treated with all kinds of dreadful ideas, purgatives, lots of prayers, all the worst types of surgical interventions of the late 17th century were found for Louis, including treating an anal fistula with a red-hot poker.

Poor guy.

An appeal is put out for someone to help the king and Felix, his surgeon barber, he comes forward and he has an idea of how to help the king with his fistula.

He wants to create a surgical instrument that would remove the fistula, but, first of all, he's got to test it.

So, what Felix does is he goes off and tests it on prisoners.

So, these poor prisoners have all kinds of things done to their behinds in the name of the king's health.

Finally, after six months of trialing it on these poor guinea pigs, Felix decides he's got the surgical instrument he needs to rescue the king's heath.

It's really very large, it's got spikes sticking out from it, it looks pretty painful.

But it did the trick.

When he used it on the king, it removed the fistula and the king's health was restored.

And this is a huge moment in surgery.

Essentially, the idea you can take off tumors rather then try to burn them off with a red-hot poker.

And Louis himself decided to invest more money, more scholarship, in surgery and so, surgery, something that barber surgeons did, something that was kind of an unskilled job, it's moving to being a skilled job, moving to being the cornerstone of modern medicine.

(narrator) Coming up on Secrets of The Royal Palaces, Queen Caroline decides Kensington Palace needs a water feature.

Queen Caroline wasn't gonna be happy with a bird bath.

She wanted a lake.

(narrator) And in Hampton Court, Queen Mary goes to extreme lengths to produce an heir.

(Williams) The queen became convinced that God would not allow her child to come into the world when there were still Protestant dissenters in the country.

Protestants should be killed and the country should be purified.

(light music) (narrator) A palace refurb is a royal tradition.

William III extended Hampton Court to compete with Versailles, George IV turned Windsor into the fairy tale castle we see today, and Queen Victoria extended Buckingham Palace to accommodate her ever-growing family.

(Owens) Each reflects the individual tastes, the identities, of the monarchs that helped create them and build them.

(narrator) And when George II and his Queen Consort, Caroline of Ansbach moved into a newly refurbished Kensington Palace in 1727, they looked beyond the buildings to make their mark.

(Whitelock) The king was rather stupid, he was dull, and his wife was much more glamorous, much more accomplished, much more intelligent, she really is one of those most overseen members of the royal family, but one who had a huge influence, not the least at Kensington Palace.

(narrator) Princess Caroline was both glamorous and ambitious.

Queen Caroline went straight to the top of the celebrity gardening world.

She commissioned Charles Bridgeman to provide designs that would transform this landscape.

She reclaimed 300 acres of Hyde Park, and remember, this had been turned over to public usage in 1677 by Charles I.

So, was this royal theft of public property?

(narrator) Caroline made herself project manager and, together with Bridgeman, the pair set about secretly transforming the park.

So, is it fair to say that Caroline stole parts of Hyde Park back from the public?

Well, the truth is a little more complex than that because Hyde Park then wasn't the kind of open place fill of amenities that we enjoy today.

It was, instead, more of a dense forest.

Now, hiding behind the trees were some deeply unsavory types.

(mysterious music) ♪ Kensington was a newly royal palace and so, there were moneyed people traveling between it and the city and Westminster, and highwaymen were waiting to pounce and rob those people.

(narrator) So, in 1690, the road was lit up with 300 new oil lamps, making it the first illuminated street in England in the hope that it would help give safe passage to passersby in the dusky evenings.

So, did it solve the problem?

Not entirely.

It looks like it might just have showed the highwaymen what it is that they were robbing.

(narrator) Caroline then asked Bridgeman to rip out the existing formal gardens and create huge, sweeping lawns giving visitors uninterrupted views across the park.

But, not satisfied with just lawns and lighting, Caroline set about creating London's most iconic outdoor water feature.

(Foyle) Every decent garden needs a water feature, but Queen Caroline wasn't gonna be happy with a bird bath.

She wanted a lake.

Now, at that time, the Westbourne stream wound its way through Hyde Park and it created a few ponds as it went.

They weren't enough.

She got Charles Bridgeman to create a mound of earth here called "the dell" and by doing that, you block the course of the stream, it gradually filled this valley up, and she got herself a boating lake.

It's a very clever piece of engineering, and, through it, it created the Serpentine, one of London's most recognizable bodies of water.

(majestic music) (narrator) Thanks to Queen Caroline's work, Kensington Gardens became invaluable as a place of entrainment and recreation, and today, members of the public can cross the dividing line between Hyde Park and the Gardens freely.

As well as working hard on transforming Kensington Palace, Queen Caroline worked hard on providing an heir, giving her husband a staggering eight children, but nearly 200 years earlier, Queen Mary I created an unholy drama over her attempt to give her husband his first.

(mysterious music) ♪ (Williams) When Mary I ascended the throne, people expected her to get married and have an heir immediately.

They were very keen to see a male heir, a boy king.

Mary married Philip of Spain and she adored him He wasn't quite so keen on her, but still, very quickly, there began be a story put about that the queen was pregnant.

She'd experienced morning sickness, she'd gained weight.

A miracle, because she was very old by the standards at 38, practically geriatric.

The whole courts of Europe were thrilled by this news.

Mary was going to have a Catholic heir and this would mean that the Catholic succession would continue in England.

A due date was set for May, 1555.

Mary and Philip go to Hampton Court Palace.

Many women are booked to look after her.

A beautifully-carved cradle is made.

Mary goes to her birth chamber and she waits.

Mary and Philip waited for their baby in May, they waited in June, she waited in July, and then, finally, the queen became convinced that God would not allow her child to come into the world when there were still Protestant dissenters in the country.

Protestants should be killed and the country should be purified.

So, she ordered another round of executions.

But the executions didn't do the trick.

Finally, in August, three months after the due date, nearly a year of "pregnancy," she comes out of her confinement room at Hampton Court Palace, she's thin, and admits that she wasn't pregnant and definitely no sign of an heir.

The people in the court were saying the queen was deluded, she'd made it all up.

The Venetian ambassador said it was only wind.

But, really, it was very hard to know that you're pregnant then.

There were no scanners.

All you could say was whether or not the child might have moved.

It was a phantom pregnancy because she wanted to believe so much that she was pregnant and her body, I think, simply reflected her desire.

(narrator) Next time, the secret deal struck by the queen to save the Queen Mum's palace treasures.

(woman #1) By putting it in a trust, she guaranteed not having to pay an inheritance tax.

(narrator) We get to try the most extraordinary dish ever served in a palace.

(Williams) What on Earth is this?

Why is a chicken mounting a pig?

It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen.

(narrator) And we reveal how may jewels it takes to make the ultimate crown.

(Ramirez) There's a staggering 2,868 diamonds, 269 pearls, 17 sapphires, 11 emeralds, and four rubies.

(regal music) ♪ ♪ (uplifting music)