Lucy Worsley spent twenty-one years explaining royal power to the public from the inside. In 2024, she decided to build a little empire of her own.
The Keys to the Palace, Handed Back
In October 2024, Worsley announced on social media that she would step down as chief curator of Historic Royal Palaces at the end of the year, after two decades in the post. At the time it read like straightforward personnel news. Eighteen months on, it looks more like the opening chapter of something else entirely.
Lucy Worsley left her post as chief curator of Historic Royal Palaces at the end of 2024, after 21 years overseeing the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace and Kensington Palace. She said she wanted more time for her podcast, Lady Killers. Fashion historian Eleri Lynn succeeded her in February 2025.
Worsley had joined Historic Royal Palaces in 2003, moving over from English Heritage while still in her twenties. She was, by most accounts, one of the youngest and one of the few women to hold such a senior curatorial post at the time. Two decades on, she had become arguably the most recognisable heritage professional in Britain, having built a parallel career as a television historian on top of the day job.
Historian-at-Large
Worsley did not retire into quiet consultancy. She rebuilt her public identity around a title she chose herself: historian-at-large. On Substack, in a newsletter called My Life in the Past, she described 2025 as a turning point, the year she cleared out her office at Hampton Court to start new adventures. The newsletter goes out weekly, with a paid tier offering archive access and live conversations with other historians. It is a fairly direct swap of institutional salary for subscriber revenue.
She kept one foot in the palace world, staying on as an ambassador for the charity, and remains publicly warm about her old employer. But the balance has shifted. Where her authority once came from the title on her office door, it now comes from an audience she owns directly, spread across television, podcasting, publishing and a subscription newsletter.
Why Did Lucy Worsley Really Leave the Palace?
Officially, the answer is simple. Worsley said she wanted to spend more time on Lady Killers, the BBC Radio 4 podcast she launched in 2022, and on what she called its growing community of listeners. That is the confirmed version, and nothing in the public record contradicts it.
The more interesting reading, and this is this piece’s own interpretation rather than anything Worsley has said outright, is about timing. Lady Killers had already grown from a single-season true crime series into a repeating franchise, retitled Lady Swindlers and then, in 2026, Lady on Trial, pulling in guests such as Baroness Hale of Richmond, the first female president of the UK Supreme Court. A podcast that can attract a former head of the judiciary as a guest has outgrown the description of a side project.
From Palace Files to Publishing Deals
Worsley’s next book, Queens and Kings: An Unusually Personal History, arrives from Hodder & Stoughton in the UK and Pegasus Books in the US on 3 September 2026. Its pitch leans directly on her old job title: two decades of behind-the-scenes access to the royal palaces, retold as a personal account of the monarchy rather than an institutional one.
According to trade press reports, Hodder has since signed her for two further books, a biography of Marie Antoinette and one of Arthur Conan Doyle, continuing a relationship that already produced a Sunday Times number one bestseller with her 2022 life of Agatha Christie. Each new title trades on the same asset: a curator’s eye for detail, now sold under her own name instead of her former employer’s.
Crossing the Atlantic, on Her Own Terms
Worsley’s television work has widened its geography too. Lucy Worsley Investigates: The American Revolution, a two-part series filmed on both sides of the Atlantic, aired on PBS in April 2026 as part of the broadcaster’s America at 250 season, before a UK run on BBC Two the following month. “Digging into the past is a true joy for me,” Worsley said of the project.
It is a small but telling shift for a presenter previously associated almost entirely with British subjects, from Jane Austen to the Tudors to the Blitz. Timing a series to America’s 250th anniversary puts Worsley in front of a large PBS audience at a moment of heightened national interest, with no British institution’s name required on the credits.
Confirmed vs. Assumed
Confirmed: Worsley left Historic Royal Palaces in December 2024, cited her podcast as the reason, and has since been succeeded by Eleri Lynn. Her book, television and podcast output now sit across multiple platforms and companies rather than one institutional home.
Assumed: the framing of this as a deliberate personal-brand strategy is this piece’s own reading of the pattern. It is not a claim Worsley has made about her own motives, and it should be read as editorial interpretation rather than confirmed fact.
FAQs
Why did Lucy Worsley leave Historic Royal Palaces?
She said she wanted more time for Lady Killers, her BBC Radio 4 podcast, after 21 years as chief curator. She stepped down at the end of 2024.
Who replaced Lucy Worsley as chief curator?
Eleri Lynn, a fashion historian who had previously worked at Historic Royal Palaces between 2013 and 2021, was appointed in February 2025.
Is Lucy Worsley still connected to Historic Royal Palaces?
Yes. She remains an ambassador for the charity, even though she no longer holds a curatorial role there.
What is Lucy Worsley’s new book about?
Queens and Kings: An Unusually Personal History draws on her two decades inside the royal palaces to retell the story of the British monarchy. It publishes in September 2026.
What is Lucy Worsley working on next?
Beyond Queens and Kings, she has two further books contracted with Hodder & Stoughton, on Marie Antoinette and Arthur Conan Doyle, alongside her ongoing podcast and television work.
Sources
- Museums Association, “Moves: Clare Barlow to lead People’s History Museum; Lucy Worsley leaving Historic Royal Palaces”, October 2024
- Museums Association, “Eleri Lynn succeeds Lucy Worsley as chief curator at Historic Royal Palaces”, February 2025
- The Bookseller, “Lucy Worsley’s next three books signed to Hodder & Stoughton”, 2025 (exact date unconfirmed)
- PBS, “Lucy Worsley Investigates: The American Revolution” press release, February 2026
- Simon & Schuster, Queens and Kings publisher page, 2026
- Lucy Worsley, “My Life in the Past” (Substack), 2025
- Archives & Records Association, APPG honour announcement, November 2025
