Does royalty make for the best stories? According to historian Thomas Penn, who paints a dark portrait of Henry VII in Winter King, the continuing fascination with the royal family lies in the gap between the lofty conception of the institution and the imperfect reality of the human beings who embody it. German journalist, Peter Littger, joins the discussion to offer a continental perspective on the compact between subject and monarch.

If royalty is essential to the British identity, another strand is the music of the people – folk music. Five decades after Ralph Vaughan Williams and AL Lloyd's Penguin Book of English Folk Song was first published, Steve Roud and Julia Bishop have updated it. Roud discusses the tunes they've added – and those they've left out – with the singer Rachel Unthank, who performs songs from both the new edition and the old.

Winter King by Thomas Penn (Allen Lane)
Republic vs Monarchy by Peter Littger (KE7)
The New Penguin Book of English Folk Songs by Steve Roud and Julia Bishop
A Century of Song (EFDSS)
The Unthanks