Dan Snow

And actually, weirdly, our Byron was probably the most centrist dad of them all.

Isn't that saying something?

Right.

I mean, frankly, if I lived before modern medicine, dentistry, food, etc., I think I'd have mental instability.

I genuinely, I find the ability of humans to survive in these sort of things we're going to talk about, the kind of situations people are thrown into, you know, losing half your kids when they're in, you know, before the age of 10.

I just think the mental instability must have been endemic.

And the problem is, is we're not making the podcast about them.

You know, therein lies the problem, right?

So anyway, talk about the Byron family.

We've sort of talked a little bit about it, but I mean, are they a grand family?

Were they famous before our Byron came along?

His grandfather goes on Anson's voyage around the world, and he had a terrible reputation, Admiral Byron, Foul Weather Jack, didn't he?

So they all seem to have nicknames, and they all seem to have endless scrapes of death.

My goodness, the misery.

I mean, dying in France.

I mean, it's one thing to be poverty-stricken.

And so a very, very turbulent family, very colourful, you might say, but also turbulent and colourful times.

I mean, this is the end of the 18th century.

We've got all the isms coming in.

We've got the French Revolution.