Black Adder:The Foretelling

Series: 1 Episode: 1

First broadcast on 15 June 1983. Featuring Peter Cook as King Richard III.

Edmund, the mostly forgotten son of Richard Duke of York, oversleeps and arrives late for the Battle of Bosworth.

He's supposed to be fighting on side of the Plantaganets, but due to sheer incompetence and a rather rash reaction to Richard III taking his horse, he chops off the near-victorious King's head. Then he saves the life of Henry Tudor, leader of the opposing army.

Now his father is King and he is Duke of Edinburgh, Edmund wants to be taken more seriously. Having toyed with the idea of calling himself The Black Vegetable, he settles for Baldrick's suggestion, the name The Black Adder.

A legend is born.

Black Adder:Born To Be King

Series: 1 Episode: 2

First broadcast on 22 June 1983. Featuring Robert Carlyle as Dougal McAngus.

To celebrate the King's imminent return from the crusades, Harry instructs Blackadder to organise an evening of traditional entertainment.

The supreme commander of the King's army, Lord Dougal McAngus, arrives home early and is awarded Blackadder's Scottish lands as a reward for his bravery in battle.

Enraged, Blackadder hatches a plot for McAngus to be stabbed on stage during the entertainment.

However, he changes his mind about the assassination when McAngus offers him documents showing that Harry is illegitimate.

Inconveniently, the letters actually prove that the Queen's adultery took place nine months before Blackadder's birth, not Harry's. Blackadder destroys the evidence and, cunningly, blows McAngus' head off.

Black Adder:The Archbishop

Series: 1 Episode: 3

First broadcast on 29 June 1983.

The King has murdered three successive Archbishops of Canterbury so Blackadder is understandably terrified when he is the next appointment.

Determined not to be the next prelate to be brutally slain in a freak accident, he brilliantly persuades a rich nobleman to donate all his lands to the King and not the Church. However, the King accidentally orders Blackadder's murder anyway.

Blackadder narrowly escapes and is stripped of the title of Archbishop when all three popes realise that he is not suitable priest material.

Black Adder:The Queen of Spain's Beard

Series: 1 Episode: 4

First broadcast on 6 July 1983. Featuring Miriam Margolyes as the Spanish Infanta and Jim Broadbent as her interpreter, Don Speekingleesh.

It is a time of wars and political upheaval, and the King decides to make an alliance between England and Spain by marrying Blackadder to the Spanish Infanta.

Blackadder is keen to end his appalling run of luck with women, until he meets the Infanta: a short, plump, sexually voracious lady with a facial hair problem.

His schemes to thwart the marriage all fail, until news comes of a new alliance between France and Switzerland. Politics now demand a match with the Hungarian princess - a charming girl. The only problem is that she's eight years old.

Black Adder:Witchsmeller Pursuivant

Series: 1 Episode: 5

First broadcast on 13 July 1983. Featuring Frank Finlay as the Witchsmeller.

It is a time of plague and omens in the kingdom.

In this atmosphere of paranoia, the Witchsmeller Pursuivant is called to court, to sniff out the chief witch and bring an end to the country's bad luck.

Inconveniently, the Witchsmeller decides that Edmund is the Chief Witch, and that Percy and Baldrick have something a bit witchy about them, too. But just as the boys are about to burned at the stake, the Witchsmeller spontaneously combusts - as if by magic.

It seems that, when Edmund's mother said she 'hasn't had any power for years', she may have been exaggerating.