Welcome to British Isles Friday! British Isles Friday is a weekly event for sharing all things British and Irish — reviews, photos, opinions, trip reports, guides, links, resources, personal stories, interviews, and research posts. Join us each Friday to link your British and Irish themed content and to see what others have to share. The link list is at the bottom of this post. Pour a cup of tea or lift a pint and join our link party!

Last week, I wrote about the long-running TV series Silent Witness, about forensic pathologists solving crimes in England. Jean read Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History, written by a British author so it covers conspiracy theories that may be completely new to American readers as well as the ones surrounding the death of Princess Diana that we’ve all heard.

Aristocrats is a TV mini-series that aired on BBC One in 1999. According to a review in Variety, the show aired on PBS that fall, but I missed it then. It’s available to stream on Amazon Prime.

The mini-series is based on a 1994 nonfiction book, Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louise, and Sarah Lennox 1740–1832 by Stella Tillyard.

A 1999 mini-series shown on Masterpiece Theater on PBS

The Lennox sisters were the daughters of the Duke of Richmond. The story begins in 1743 when the oldest sister is expected to marry, as soon as she agrees to accept one of her many suitors. We watch the sisters through their lives, a tumultuous time period that includes the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Irish Rebellion of 1798. Aristocrats dramatizes their stories of love, loss, adjustment, and scandal.

The costumes and settings in England and Ireland are stunning. This felt like a step back in time and a transportation in space. I loved learning about what it was like to be part of this history.

I hadn’t realized that Clive Swift died earlier this year. He was best known as the ever-patient husband of Hyacinth Bucket in Keeping Up Appearances. In Aristocrats, Swift played a good-humored and humorous King George II.

Have you seen Aristocrats? What did you think?