Dr Kat and the Danger of Boy Kings

hello and welcome back to the channel if you're new here hi you're very welcome this is reading the past and I'm doctor cat and the idea for today's video sort of came out of what I was talking about last week I'm going to leave last week's video links in the card up here but in that video I talked about Mary the first and I particularly focused on her rather unfortunate moniker that has gone down in history namely Bloody Mary I was asking whether or not she'd actually earned that title was she really all that bloody particularly if we compare her to what came before and after her I also talked about Henry the eighth's absolute desperation for a male heir and I explained that perhaps it was understandable because female queenship in its own right had been an experiment that had arguably failed if the early modern people looked back to the example of the Empress Matilda she and her cousin Stephen have been involved in a civil war known as the anarchy that had engulfed all of England as they attempted to figure out who would hold sway and power over the English throne ultimately Matilda was defeated and Stephen won the day and so perhaps therefore we have a reason they've tried female queenship it was an abject failure so now no more female Queens clearly but as I pointed out in that video when Stephen died it was Matilda's son who took the throne so well she may not have exercised monarchical power in her own right successfully she does Mary secured a position whereby it is her direct bloodline that ends up holding sway and winning the day Stephen may have won the battle but arguably Matilda won the war so while I think we can perhaps understand why Henry and his courtiers may have been reticent about woman on the throne what he actually is behind is arguably based upon evidence a far more dangerous thing we have one example of a failed female Queen ruling in her own right but Henry leaves behind a boy of 9 to rule the whole of England and there are far more examples of English history of the failure of Kings who come to the throne as boys than there are of Queens willing in their own right and so today I want to talk about boy Kings and the potential danger they pose before I delve into this topic I need to offer a note on the terms that I'm going to be using some of the boy kings that I'm going to refer to today come from a period of British history before the Norman Conquest during the early medieval period some of my UK viewers might be confused as to why I'm not calling it the anglo-saxon period because after all that is how we know it and it is in the UK the term anglo-saxon is not loaded in the way that it apparently is for example in the u.s. I'm aware that I have quite a large percentage of my viewership coming from America I'm really glad that you're here thank you for joining us from across the pond and I've been watching those debates with interest the fact that this term is loaded in ways in the u.s. that it simply isn't in the UK that in the way it's loaded it causes pain and alienation is for me a reason not to use it in this video I certainly would never want anything I say to make somebody feel upset alienated or in pain and so for me it just feels better to change the term but at the same time I don't my UK viewership to be confused I am referring to the period that you know of however I am just using the terms early medieval or pre Norman rather than anglo-saxon firstly we're going to be looking at the notion of success and I think in the case of the boy kings that we're going to be exploring we have to acknowledge that success and failure is perhaps in the eye of the beholder what looks like a successful monarchy to me may seem a failure to you is the successful king a peacekeeper or a war monger does success look like dying in your bed at a ripe old age still King with a son to succeed you successfully and may even a spare air in the wings should the unthinkable happen or is the success of a king measured purely by the acts of his reign that he finds his country in one state but leaves it in a better one I'd love to know what you think so do you let me know in the comment section down below the Bible has a stark warning it seems against boy Kings if we look here at the King James Version of the Bible Ecclesiastes 1016 woe to thee o land when thy King is a child and thy Prince's eat in the morning but does the Bible have a point I'm going to start with those pre Norman boy kings of which there are five that I wish to explore first up we have Edward he is born in around 9:40 and he becomes king at just 15 in 955 he rules for just four years his monarchy is beset by feuds with both his noble and churchmen these churchmen included the Archbishop's Dunstan and oder Dunstan is perhaps more famously referred to as Saint Dunstan and he was exiled during the reign in 9:57 this boy King loses the allegiance of the merchants and possibly the Northumbrian with them which divide England these kingdoms now become loyal to his younger brother Edgar who rules these lands in his place he dies in October 9 59 having not produced a male heir of his body to succeed him he is just 19 years old and is buried at Winchester Edward has acquired a reputation as a debaucher an opponent of monasticism a Despoiler of the church and an incompetent ruler which derives from the account of him in the earliest life verse in dunstan written around ten hundred and from the latest sources which elaborate the same themes it is the case over the aid whig quarreled with Dunstan and sent him into exile and it may be doubted whether a life of the saint would provide impartial evidence for the life of the king his younger brother Edgar was born around 943 and he had been recognized as king of the mercy and possibly the northumbrian from the age of about 14 he becomes king of all england from 959 when he is 16 years old with the death of his brother by ascending to his brother's throne he reunites the kingdom for his brother seems by his actions to have split he is known in history as edgar the peaceful he produces at least three surviving sons it seems he's done all he can to secure the succession and his nation when edgar died he was around 31 or 32 on the 8th of july 1975 and his eldest son did succeed him to the throne although as we will find out his rule was contested it seems that Edgar's arm was not only long but also heavy his reign came to symbolize a golden age of peace and plenty exemplified by the epithet Pacifica's which first appears in the 12th century chronicle of john of worcester whether things were so comfortable for those who lived through it probably depended upon the point of view Edgar's eldest son Edward was born in a roundabout 962 making him 13 years old when his father died and he ascended to the throne as I mentioned his succession to the throne was contested rather ominously he is known to history as Edward the martyr his reign ends on the 18th of March 978 when he was around 15 or 16 years old he was murdered at Corfe castle in uncertain circumstances corfe castle was the home of his younger half-brother Ethelred for this reason Edward's stepmother is implicating his murder perhaps having hopes to get her son on the throne alternatively another motive for his murder has been given us his apparently quarrelsome character Edward is also known to have been very much in favor of monasticism in England so anybody who was of the anti monastic persuasion may also have had a motive to kill him Edward dies without producing any children and so that half-brother of coure Castle Ethelred becomes king after him Edward died too young to have had much influence on government on his own account and political affairs remain firmly in the hands of elderman elf hair edwards PowerBait seems to have been very restricted when compared with that of his father Ethelred known to history as Ethelred the unready was born in around 966 the murder of his brother Edward makes him King when he was just 11 or 12 his reign was beset by conflict with Denmark Danish raids on English territories led to the massacre of Danish settlers in 1002 perhaps as the result of this the Danish King Sweyn Forkbeard invaded and ruled England from 1013 to 1014 after his death Ethelred returned to the throne from 1014 to his own death on the 23rd of April 1016 F the raid was succeeded by his son Edmund Ironside for a few months before Edmunds own death he was then replaced by Sven son Knut however Ethelred the unready had other children he was also the father of Edward the Confessor by his second wife and Edward the Confessor became king in 1042 until 1066 and with the Confessor died without children in 1066 and following his death the succession to the English throne was highly contested it was a period of strife invasion and war the most famous of these is arguably the Battle of Hastings part of the Norman conquest of England ethelred's posthumous reputation has rendered him synonymous with bad rulership and left him a figure of fun in the final analysis it is as difficult to decide what credit if any Ethelred can take for the positive aspects of his reign as it is to apportion blame for its manifestly disastrous outcome it is enough however to suggest in this way that there was more to Ethelred than the familiar tale of Viking invasions exacerbated by incompetence treachery and entry in high places an equal to the challenges that confronted him and unfortunate in the circumstances that engulfed him but always more interesting than merely unready in addition to being the end of the pre norman period the year 1066 was also a year where could have had another boy King of England Edgar the ætheling was born in around 1050 - he was the grandson of Edmund the second and he was just 14 years old when King Harold Godwinson was killed at the Battle of Hastings in his place many of the nobles elected Edgar the ætheling to be king after him Edgar would eventually submit to will in the Conqueror in December 1066 nevertheless he was involved in rebellions against Williams ruled between 1068 and 1070 having fled to the Court of Malcolm ii in scotland eventually it seems he adapts to norman rule and even makes friends with William the Conqueror's sons Robert and William it is perhaps questionable whether we should even include Edgar the ætheling as a boy King although he was named as such it was during a time of invasion William was already on English soil Harold Godwinson had been killed and William never went away and eventually as we know Edgar submits to him so do you even think he counts as an English king let me know in the comment section down below certainly Edgar lacked the force of personality to impose himself upon events in the period between 1066 and 1070 for although he was handicapped by political isolation in 1066 and the disunity of the English leaders Edgar's death occurred without record Henry the 3rd was born on the 28th of October 12:07 he became king after death of his father King John in 1216 Henry the 3rd was just nine years old and the Barons war of 1215 - 1217 was underway his reign is characterized by his piety however as a king he is known for lacking military success or diplomatic skill either at home or abroad he did however reign for a very long time but in 1258 when Henry was age 51 his half-brothers the Lucien's held sway and they were widely unpopular because of this and potentially the other failings of Henry the Third's monarchy the Barons led by Simon de Montfort rebelled in 1263 Henry's forces were defeated by Simon's at the Battle of Lewes in 1264 and Henry was imprisoned Henry's son Edward escaped De Montfort and defeated him the next year managing to free his father Henry's desire for vengeance was only modified by the intercession of his clergy but the peace in England was an uneasy one when Henry died on the 16th of November 1272 he was 65 years old Henry is buried in Westminster Abbey and his son the man who had escaped him on foot and freed him succeeded him as Edward the first Henry was essentially a man of peace kind and merciful his peacefulness was both a strength and a weakness he hoped to learn from John's diplomatic mistakes he also hoped naively to imitate the chivalry of nearly the ninth but the mystique of monarchy to which Henry aspired was an outward show designed to bind him to his magnates neither in theory nor in practice that he challenged their liberties indeed he helped to set fashions for aristocratic luxury for the rest of the century Edward the third was born on the 13th of November 1312 he became King at age 14 following the deposition of his father Edward the second by his mother Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer Isabella and Roger Mortimer at his Regents Edward the third until the 19th of October 1330 on this date Edward seized power just before his 18th birthday in the final assessment it remains uncertain whether end of the 3rd can indeed be credited with an overall political strategy he rarely indulged in grand statements of constitutional theory and many of his acts of government were merely designed to placate a political community whose moral and material support was so vital to his military enterprises on the other hand with rare exceptions he achieved enormous and remarkable success and inspired the loyalty of his subjects his reign marks one of the longest periods of domestic peace in the history of medieval England by all and the third was a fairly traditional war-loving medieval king he managed to die in his bed aged 64 on the 21st of June 1377 with a male of his bloodline to succeed him afterwards this was his grandson Richard the son of his son Edward the Black Prince that grandson became rich the second he had been born on the 6th of January 1367 when he ascended to his grandfather Edward the thirds throne on the 22nd of July 1377 he was just 10 years old his was a crisis-hit reign in 1381 richard was only 14 years old when the peasants revolt broke out nevertheless he behaved with bravery and was seemingly integral in putting that rebellion down as it were turnout however whatever diplomacy he may have possessed in dealing with his peasants court would not be so easy and factional division damaged his rule his cousin Henry Bolingbroke had been exiled and disinherited because of this treatment by his cousin Henry Bolingbroke rebelled he forced Richard to abdicate his throne and then replaced him as king on the 29th of September $13.99 Henry Bolingbroke became Henry the 4th Henry the 4th seems have been originally keen to let the former King live but plots for his rescue made this seem unwise it is believed that Henry the fourth or someone supporting him let Richard the second starve to death the following year on or around the 14th of February 1400 Richard ii was 33 years of age in explaining his eventual downfall both contemporary and modern historians have focused attention on the unwisdom and extremism of his actions in the last two years of his reign when he sought to impose his own concept of kingship on a reluctant community and to enforce his authority by means considered by many in the community is barely lawful when Henry Bolingbroke claimed the throne on the 30th of September $13.99 he maintained that the realm was on the point of being undone for default of governance and undoing of the good laws riches rule from the summer of 1397 onwards was characterized by a combination of ideology and a sense of insecurity which in the aizen's opponents amounted to a lack of good governance and for this he was rejected Henry the fourths grandson Henry the sixth was born on the 6th December 14 21 he became King at just nine months old following his father Henry v death Henry the 6th seems have been the diametric opposite of his confident aggressive warlike father he is perhaps best known for his bouts of catatonic mental instability and also for the civil war that ravaged his reign the so called War of the Roses erupted in 1455 in March 14 61 Edward Earl of March defeats the Lancastrian forces to become the Yorkist King Edward the fourth Edward the fourth reign was secured when his forces defeated Margaret of Anjou's resistance fight and managed to imprison Henry the sick in the tower in 1465 nevertheless discord between Edward the fourth and Warwick named the kingmaker led to some side swapping which saw Henry the sixth released from the tower and restored the throne in 1470 Edward the fourth fled England but in the following year 1471 Edward the fourth returned to England and defeated the Lancastrian forces again Henry the sixth was once more imprisoned in the Tower of London and on the 21st of may 14 71 when he was aged 49 it was there that he died the alleged cause of death was in quotes melancholy apparently following the news of the loss of the Battle of Tewkesbury at which his only son Edward had been killed however many suspect that he was actually murdered no King who loses his crown and dies in prison and whose reign ends in Civil War can be counted a success Henry the sixth was not a robust ruler who left a consistent stamp on the workings of government though to dismiss recorded expressions of his opinions and will as mere administrative convention goes too far Henry lost his crown at the outset of a dynastic Civil War but to regard him as many writers have done as directly and solely responsible for the Wars of the Roses fails to take fully into account the circumstances of Henry's own life and the age in which he lived the son of that deposing King Edward the fourth would come to be known as Edward the fifth he was born on the 2nd of November 1470 Edward the fourth death on the 9th of April 1483 made his son King at just 12 years old as it would turn out this king would never have a coronation indeed for a more detailed chain of events of what happened after ever the fit exceeds the English throne you should check out my video on rich the 3rd which I will leave linked in a cart nevertheless the climax of these events came on the 26th of June 1483 because on this date Edward the Fitz uncle Richard Duke of Gloucester took his seat in Westminster as which of the 3rd Edward the 5th have had no coronation nor would he have won he and his younger brother Richard Duke of York were held in the tower and from that place they went missing they are still missing presumed dead and their uncle Richard is a prime suspect for their disappearance and all murder Henry the eighth was born on the 28th of June 1491 his father died on the 22nd of April 1509 meaning that Henry the eighth became King just before his 18th birthday which technically at least if nothing else classifies him as another boy King he was however keen to rule his own right which may go some way to explain his swift marriage to Catherine of Aragon he saw himself as a man and wanted to rule as one becoming a husband so quickly was a prime way of doing this perhaps his reign was marred by foreign and also national conflict he was responsible for a religious schism that endangered his nation and almost split it into his marital strife is and was a legendary source of embarrassment he was beset by personal ill health that seemed to have altered his personality making him irascible untrusting and tyrannical if that isn't enough he is also responsible for debasing the English coinage damaging its reputation overseas and making foreign trade incredibly difficult and expensive nevertheless Henry the Eighth dies in his bed on the 28th of January 1547 when he was 55 years old he had provided England with that long-form male heir who survived to succeed his father Henry the eighth's son Edward was born on the 12th of October 1537 to Henry's third wife Jane Seymour with Henry's death on the 28th of January 1547 Edward becomes Edward the sixth at this point he is just nine years old he would only live until the 6th of July 1553 he died when he was 15 because he dies at just 15 Edward never reaches his majority he is never allowed to rule completely on his own and perhaps this is one of the reasons why the character of his kingship would always be somewhat obscured to us another factor may also be the strength enjoyed by his Regency Council this Regency Council that have been put in place because of Edward's youth was a source of danger for the security and stability of the nation because within this council faction could grow and conflict could arise the first head of the Regency Council had been Edward's uncle also named Edward Edward Seymour protector Somerset he attempted to rule seemingly with an iron fist his rule however became unpopular and he was eventually overthrown by another member of the Council John Dudley Duke of Northumberland Edward it seems were simply too young to keep his house in order Edward the sick died in his bed not having produced an heir of his body and as we would see his plans for the succession fell apart within weeks of his death the examples of these twelve boy kings is for me statistically interesting I am comforted with calling seven of their reigns a failure I'm not sure where I sit in the case of two of them whether I call it a success or a failure that leaves just three but I can competently call a success so for me statistically that points the fact that having a boy ascend to the English throne it's far more dangerous than having a woman sit on it we have just that one example the Empress Matilda whose reign as a regnant queen falls apart because of her sex nevertheless it is still her heir that ends up holding the English throne after her think about how many in that twelve would have hoped the same thing to happen to them but they were not successful seven out of twelve ending in failure is statistically interesting and it makes me wonder Henry's obsession about getting four male heir we used to explain away by talking about the failure of female rule in the past but does that mean that Henry could possibly have been confident as he entered his last weeks as he becomes increasingly aware that he is going to leave behind a boy to follow him can we really think that he's going to be all that happy about it if he is worried about the history of female queenship surely he must have also been worried about what happens to boy Kings let me know what you think about that in the comment section down below or come and find me over on my social media I'll leave links to my Instagram and my Twitter in the description box follow me there and we can continue this conversation I do hope you've enjoyed this video and found it useful if you did then please let me know by hitting the thumbs up please also subscribe to this channel and click the belly icon so that YouTube tells you what I've next uploaded I hope you're gonna have a great day whatever you're doing and I look forward to speaking to you in my next video take care of yourselves bye bye for now [Music] [Music]

Channel: undefined

Views: 50,093

Rating: 4.9154534 out of 5

Keywords: Boy Kings, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, Elizabeth, Deposition, Abdication, Education, Literature, Culture, History, Early Modern, Renaissance, Great Matter, Tudor

Id: 8UUo9V0SE1s

Length: 26min 51sec (1611 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 22 2019