King Henry III of England. An interview with Prof David Carpenter

hello and welcome to the history of London I am dr. Ian Stone and today I'll be joined professor David Carpenter David is a professor of medieval history at King's College London and the author of several books on the Middle Ages two of his more famous publications include the struggle for mastery which offers a history of Britain from 1066 to 1284 and Magna Carta his latest book published in the last month is the first volume of his biography of King Henry the third Henry who reigned from 1216 to 1272 was the fourth longest serving monarch ever to have sat on the throne of England those of us interested in history of London Henry is probably most famous for building Westminster Abbey but as we shall see his reign was important for London in so many other ways David's book has been described by reviewers as epic and a brilliant study and we are very fortunate to have him with us to discuss Henry today David welcome and thank you for joining us thanks for having me on Ian it's a pleasure David let's be honest Henry is not the best-known of English medieval kings yet as you point out at the start of your new book no King of England came to the throne in a more desperate situation then Henry 2/3 could you introduce Henry and the world into which he was born and then say more about the challenges which he faced and how he and his supporters overcame these yeah the immediate situation was actually dire because King Johnny's father had rejected Magna Carta and the Barons had been offered the throne to the eldest son of the King of France Prince Louie and when John died in October 1216 Louis and Mandy the allegiance really of more than half who that's two-thirds of the great barons he cold controlled London and he looked for all the world as though John's nine-year-old son Henry thirds only nine might be swept away perhaps he would have been packed off to a monastery and Louie would have become king of England so that was the desperate situation in which Henry the third came to the throne in the end it didn't work out like that Henry's remaining supporters won the Civil War established Henry on the throne but Henry was then I think really a king in a new age after that he was the first king who had to face the restrictions of Magna Carta because one way the his supporters won the war was to concede all the rebels have been fighting for they conceded Magna Carta which John had rejected and Lou in a way was ignoring so Henry's the first king of England who has to govern within those kinds of restrictions some ways it was even more challenging than that because Henry was also the first King of England who had to contend with the growing power of Parliament Parliament first really appears by that name but also as a powerful force in national life in Henry's reign and so Henry has to deal with that he's also in a new age spiritually religious life of the country friars arrived in England in the 12 20s and also there's tremendous movement conscientious movement amongst many committed bishops to reform the lives of their flock the people in their diocese the clergy and people in their diocese in line with the rules set out in the great papal Council of 1215 called the fourth Lateran Council so Henry is very much someone within a new age having to deal with with new challenges I think I think another way that he was a king in a new age as well it related to one of the more unsuccessful signs of his father's rule as well is that John had lost his patrimony of Normandy's Haddon yeah no you're quite right there - so overshadowing the rain is the loss of the great continental possessions Normandy held since 1066 Anjou held since 1154 by Henry's predecessors they've been conquered by Philip Augustus the great king of France in 1204 five and that ripped the heart from the dynasties continental empire so Henry has to face that too he is a king of greatly diminished power compared to his predecessors and faces the question who is he ever going to to actually recover those continental possessions I mean listening to that I can quite understand why you said that no King of England had yet come to the throne in a more desperate situation so you know how did Henry and his supporters overcome this you've said something about Magna Carta something with which we perhaps associate more with his father than we do with Henry how else did they overcome these did these challenges and in a very sort of well just a word about Magna Carta cuz I think it was central to meeting those challenges because what the minority government of Henry the 3rd did when you say minority you had me was a really the future of the dynasty is in the hands of a small group of loyalist barons and also in the hands of a great papal Leggett called guala and because by this time the papacy is on King John and in the dynasties side so what they did I think an extraordinary courageous but also perceptive farsighted decision was to think the only way to win this war is to concede what the rebels are fighting for and so almost as soon as Harry came to the throne the next month November 1216 they issued a new version of Magna Carta and I think that took the heart out they still had to be military victories there was a military victory at Lincoln in May 1217 but I think the most striking thing there is that the great English barons on the side of this French Prince clearly didn't fight very hard they sort of struck a token blow and then rendered and that was because they knew that what they were fighting for Magna Carta new form of limited monarchy had already been conceded and so that's the essential reason which the central force behind Henry establishing himself on the throne now of course he is not responsible for that it's done by great ministers William Marshall Earl of Pembroke who's the Regent these are the people who've won the war for him established him on his throat but Henry Lee Lee lives with the consequences and the final definitive version of Magna Carta the Magna Carta which is still on the statute book of the United Kingdom today and some of its clauses is not King John's charter of 1215 but Henry's charter of 1225 which he issued just towards the end of his mind minority and so you know Henry lives with that legacy the English barons who who fought at Lincoln and you said earlier that you know perhaps half of the country was against Henry as he came to the throne I mean how are they treated once he's restored well that's another very important factor in establishing Henry on the throne and if ever there was a civil war which ended in a statesman like way this was it because the rebels were all returned to their estates they weren't disinherited and that was partly because the looey have made very good before he left for France resigning his claim to the throne have made very good terms with his supporters he's also I think thanks to the wisdom of the great magnets on Henry's side that they saw the only way to smooth over the awful storms of the Civil War was in a very conciliatory settlement so the settlement included a new version of Magna Carta and also the return of everyone to their lands as they held them before the war yes and for those of us that particularly interested in the history of London it's worth noting that some of the Louie's greatest support came from the Londoners Taurasi right there in I mean the great base of the rebellion of Louie and the rebel barons was London and their to London was spared punishment after the war so Louie have make got terms for the Londoners as well you said about the the peace that was arranged after the Civil War being statesman Mike and I I do quite agree I can't think of another civil war that ended in on such good good terms if I can put it on that but elsewhere in your book you also speak about Henry statesmen like peace with the King of Scotland particularly in 1238 when Henry announces his claims of over lordship over the king of Scott over the Scottish Kingdom and in return the Scottish King and Alexander I believe isn't it he gives up his claim to northern counties of England so Cumberland I mean you describe that as a statesman like peace as well and it seems that a constant theme throughout Henry's reign and perhaps surprising especially when compared to his son Edward is very good relations with Scotland generally I mean as the odd the odd moment went down for a bit much it really you're right about that Ian can I put that in a wider context the greatest achievement of Henry in his reign was peace internal peace and that was also let link to external peace so we look at his external relations he makes a very statesman like settlement with the King of Scots on which you just referred to in which the king of Scott resigned his claims to England's northern counties and Henry in return basically gave up his claim to overlordship of Scotland he doesn't do so in so many words but that was implicit in the 1238 settlement and that laid the foundations it consolidated this long long period of anglo-scottish peace which lasted in fact all the way through from 1217 to 1296 now Henry did wage wars in wails but they were really last resorts and I think it's really extraordinary that in the 12 40s when he had the opportunity and in a wave of justification he didn't seek to to conquer Wales in the same way as his son Edward the first did so I think his his attitude to Wales and to the wealth rulers was that he wanted to live in peace with them and then the final great piece he made was with the King of France near the ninth in which in 1259 in the Treaty of Paris wonderfully statesmen like settlement Henry resigned his claims to the lost territories to Normandy Anjou and part two and that was accepted as Duke of Aquitaine so he retained Gascony and additional territories new who conceived him you see in that too laid the foundations for a long long period of nearly 25 years of anglo-french peace as well so in terms of External Relations Henry was a peacemaker now also there was internal peace because essentially peace in England lasted from 1217 the end of the magna carta civil war all the way through to 1263 and I think Henry has Henry certainly took credit for that and was given credit for that contemporaries praised the long piece of his reign and that had all sorts of consequences of consequences for London as London hugely expanding in size and population prosperity thanks to this long period of peace there was a new it permitted the work of the friars of Bishops passionately reforming the lives of their diocese all the great cathedrals built and rebuilt in Henry's reign it also allowed a new commercial network of markets and fairs and a huge increase in the money supply rip issued a recoiling in 1247 which had tremendous success and if I may say and that's one reason why you go online you can buy Henry the third silver pennies from the recoil each of 12:47 very easily and comparatively cheaply whereas coins from before that are very hard to come by hmm I mean I think I think you described the three pointed as a colossal administrative achievement oh yeah I think Henry did he and we did go on military campaign I mean again in against louia France particularly in 1230 and 1242 43 I think you know I mean okay we can say that Henry was let down by his allies particularly on the second campaign we can we can sort of you know we can we can we can say that it was a very hard thing to him to seek to do and all of those things but they weren't the most successful military campaigns yeah well you say that again in France but he was a king with ambition in that area but without the illness that should attend it so he absolutely no martial expertise he was totally the reverse of Richard the Lionheart or his son means there's no evidence he ever attended tournaments he hawked he was a great Hawk Hawk sment falconry then doesn't had no reputation as a Huntsman so Henry just had no knowledge how to drive forward a military campaign and that's why his two attempts to recover his lost territories in 1230 and 1242 as I've said were abject failures I mean after that I mean fundamentally he was a king who needed to live in peace and he was a wreck specific us that's how he's described in contemporary sources a Pacific King and I think it's he was so wise in the end to to realize that and make peace with new Knights of France I'm an astonishing excape mom nice go dream quite but in 1254 when Henry's making his way back from Gascony and he arranges to meet Louie and they go to Paris together and Louie presents him with the gift of the elephant of course following this and Henri makes quite an impression I think it's fair to say on on Louis subjects you know we think about an aunt on cordial or something perhaps in the modern era but when we consider how difficult relations had been between the capetians or kings of France and the kings of England this was a very I wish in these brexit days we could think of that a little bit more and think of the necessary ingredients for negotiating a successful piece and underlying the Peace of Paris in 1259 with a very very close relationship between Louie and Henry they started off as rivals and then they became friends and as you say they were married two sisters and I think they both was they also respected each other in many ways they respect each other's piety they've been deeply religious kings and in Paris I mean Henry held these huge feasts which he fed large numbers of paupers and he gave gifts to everybody and he was widely admired for his his conduct in in Paris but out of that I think this very deep personal bond between Henry and Larry but also between the two sisters Queen Zerona and Queen Margaret developed and it was just a wonderful wonderful thing away won't think so often of kings and rulers prime ministers presidents in all ages having you know very very difficult relationships this was quite the reverse of it and if if it hadn't been for that this is very close relay Henri andouille there was certainly been no piece of Paris in 1259 and what was so good was that the legacy of the piece then Lance's into the next generation when I saw peace between England and France lasting all the way through as I've said to 1294 mm-hmm you mentioned Henry's wife Eleanor here perhaps we should introduce her could you say something about Eleanor well Henry was very I mean in a sense going back to Henry's piece why was there internal peace it was because Henry was very easygoing he he was affable gregarious warm-hearted lazy he never saw Hollow and he spent his one of the fascinating things about Henry is that we know where he was on the early every day of his reign that's because of this unique source I am coming back to Queen Helena I haven't lost that quite lost my way but we have in the Henry's reign this wonderful unique source which are all his letters and they're enrolled on the roles of the Chancery and unlike any other king they are very personal letters later in the Middle Ages the Chancery that has become very formulaic they're not personal in Henry's reign and it's at the first rain where this is Marie's roles so they'll survive in toto while they've got some lots of letters which are purely bureaucratic and the king has nothing to do with them they also have lots and lots of very personal letters of the King what these letters do they all end with a date and place of issue and so they show where Henry was on nearly every day of the year what they show is he had this wonderfully comfortable life this comfortable at INRI where he spends weeks and months at his favorite palaces and palace castles on in the southwest mr. Winchester wins more breh the farthest north was Woodstock now how does this all come back to Henry's Queen or Henry married in 1236 of Provence and she was only 12 she does not a great IRS he doesn't bring very much with her in fact I'd rather leave we sorry I didn't make more of that in in the book but Henry loves her in warm-hearted open-handed he showers her with gifts rewards clothes jewels and so on and he gives her the space in which to operate his indulgent husband and she made use of that space because as the years went on it was clear that she was a much tougher character than her husband she becomes a a faction fighter in the politics of Henry's reign she figure asleep remotes the interests of her uncle's who come from Savoy she quarrels bitterly with the second group of foreigners Henry introduced in England his half-brothers from prot 2 but he actually plays a very major part in the revolution 1258 then in the Civil War so she plays a bigger part I think you could argue that a lot of Provence plays a bigger part in English political life any queen since the conquest yes I mean he only the only person who perhaps would come close I think would be an inequity but she famously knocked up though as well wasn't she yes Harry got cross with her one of occasions but at least she was never locked up she was exiled what he took she went to France in the Civil War when she tried to raise an army to rescue her husband in a very impressive way she was a very impressive woman I somehow I mentioned she was cross with Henry more often he was cross with her things she was exasperated but I think she also knew she was on a winner I mean she knew how really to control him for a lot of the time and she knew that he was open handed I mean one of them ARC's John of how John wrote a wonderful poem after Henry's death in which what's the characteristic he he singles out for Henry he he singles out his the way he's a he gives like a like a flowing fountain and Ellen knew that I knew that she was in a way on as I've said onto a good thing this I mean this woman arted nosov Henry to which you refer I mean we shouldn't really be sort of simplistic as to say either a good thing or a bad thing but we can see that I think both the pluses and the minuses of a one hand on one hand he's feeding 500 pulpers a day which as you point out it's a substantial sum of money over the course of ten years perhaps enough to build a castle great occasions like the feast of his patron saint but the Confessor the numbers go up into thousands mmm and when his favorite daughter sorry his favorite sister the Empress died he wanted to feed her hundred thousand stalkers there's no wonderful expression of royal piety and charity here is his patronage towards their foreign relatives that you've mentioned in several yards and his um his half-brothers from party who called the listen yawns often I mean it can be seen as part of a very strategic way of thinking if you like Henry trying to build these diplomatic networks across Europe bringing people in that are extremely capable all very well-connected so shouldn't necessarily be criticized per se but it's open handedness and of course Kings were meant to be generous Kings were meant to reward their followers in Middle Ages chalk I think though there were there were good reasons for having connections with both his wife's ankles the Savoy yards because they gave Henry and Charlie new international profile all kinds of connections there were reasons to for giving patronage to his half-brothers because they still had substantial interests in what might help the defense of Gascony and also Henry thought both groups are going to be very loyal to me I don't think it was a question of him you know distrusting the native nobility but he certainly thought well you know these are family if I establish them in England they will be loyal thereto and saw pillars of the regime I think he thought the same of Simon's Mumford the trouble is that those perfectly reasonable ambitions were marked by just going over the top I'm not knowing when to stop you know if he had given patronage to these people in a judicious way if he'd known when to say no as well as yes I think it could have worked out but I mean he just went I mean he did extraordinary things like for example he established Peter of Savoy the Queen's uncle as Lord of Richmond in Yorkshire as far as one can see without ever having met him he likewise made younger brother Boniface Archbishop of Canterbury without ever having met him and the degree of favor he channeled to these people just went beyond the bounds of sense and also he'd lacked the political skill really to reconcile the factional conflicts which was resulted I think Henry's idea was that Onias court in which native magnets would marry into wooden Temari with his foreign relatives but he just left the political skill to bring that about and there was a wider problem because this is a period of growing English national feeling since the loss of Normandy in 1204 all the great barons now only had land in England they were born in England so they can join with the general bulk of the population in the feeling of Englishness and so Henry seems although he's the most English king way since the conquest because he basically lives in England and confesses eat well yeah he seems grievously at odds with the Englishness of his subjects so in a way we're coming round to understanding why there was a revolution in 1258 you know Henry had done good things he had he wasn't a hard-driving spiky unpleasant King like King John he made peace he'd been indulgent to great English magnets as well as his foreign relatives and I think one thing which was emerged I think what important new piece of research is the extraordinary contrast between Henry's rule and John's rule in terms offerings of money to the King for concessions and favors I mean under John it was quite regular for the Kings to be offered twenty twenty-five thousand pounds a year for all kinds of concessions under Henry think it was about four five thousand pounds and that reflected I think a decline in the Kings ability to extract money from his subjects by arbitrary means it reflected in a way both the letter and spirit of Magna Carta so in all these ways Henry fits perfectly into post magna carta kingship and that does explain why there is this long period of peace and of course the trouble with us on the other side he creates a factionalized court in which there are awful quarrels over patronage policy between foreign relatives English magnets all in that sort of pot together and at the same time and this is I think one of the great problems of Henry's reign is that Henry had totally failed to reform the realm and I think the reason for that is almost the other side of his piety I think Henry was very sure of his innocence in his place in heaven here was a king devoted to edit the Confessor feeding hundred hundreds thousands of paupers a good and pious King trying to convert the Jews to Christianity and I think Henry's confessors probably said you know you've nothing to worry about you've your conscience should be clear instead he should have been thinking all the time about okay I've also got a responsibility to the wider realm to reach out oppression malpractice especially of local officials and he quite failed to do that partly because he think thinking about the things but partly facts would cause his very piety took his mind off that and here he was very different from his contemporary King of France near the knight who saw as integral to his kingship and integral to his own salvation the rooting out of corruption in the realm he needed to reform the France to save his soul and that was just not a vision which which Henry had and say what hamd in 1258 was a combination of a court coup all the factional fighting over over spilling to one group of magnets and foreigners rounding on another linked to this discontent more widely in the realm at the failure to reform the realm and also a madcap scheme Henry had to place his second son on the throne system yes I think you refer to that as brett somers ridiculous agreement ever in ever into ever entered into by an English monarch yeah I suppose this comes back to one where we haven't yet talks about but which runs through some of the things I've said is what characteristically people single out for Henry contemporaries it was his simplicity well the best carry descriptions of him was that he was a pious King a wrecks pious Hamas but also a wrecks simplex now simplex is a very difficult word quite to get right it can be praised it means honest straightforward like the Prophet Joe was described as simplex Henry sometimes call simplex in that way but he was also simplex in well except it's coming you're just playing foolish stupid thick that's unfair but I think with Henry it meant he was naive yeah and that takes us back to just not having the political skills you know reconcile factions at court to know when to stop in his open handed giving and the simplicity came back most terribly in the in this extraordinary scheme to place his second son on the throne of Sicily now that was an offer made to him by the Pope in 1250 three four five and every thought all this is just wonderful it's coming from the Pope it must be a gift from God what he failed to realize is that the Pope was actually on the one hand saying well okay I'm offering you the kingdom of Sicily the first thing you've got to do is to pay me nearly 90,000 pounds for the privilege of being offered and then having paid that money you've got to actually take an army all the way out to Sicily to conquer it from its ruler it's called manfred o illegitimate son of the empress frederick ii well I mean of course it was completely impossible there was no way Henry could raise the money in the first place and there was equally no way he could possibly take an army out to Sicily we need the whole of the English establishment the church Parliament were pulled by by the whole scheme so you know how and asked could Henry think of doing that and here again it's his simplicity and whose piety because he thought he actually said to the Pope look everyone tells me this is impossible you I can't do it but he say there Henry goes on in this letter to say about trusting in in the Almighty who can quell tempest sand move mountains I'm gonna go ahead anyway and having gone ahead he then makes this offering at the shrine of Edward the Confessor that the Confessor will have a happy outcome we haven't for I mean I will come better to confessor I'm just think Sicily I mean one point in the book you speak about how just a dangerous gulf opened up between Henri new subjects and I think you know we see that clearly in the Sicilian affair the Sicilian business where the Kings sights are set on much a much higher plane if you like than than the majority of his subjects but it's got better something you said earlier as well about the sort of there's a real sense in your book of how Henry's court and Henry himself drifted away from the political nation if I can put it in those terms there's there is there's a very wide political community in thirteenth century England isn't there and yeah many of them do not feel they're getting the access to the king and to royal justice in the way that they would have perhaps liked and I think I think there's another another another example there of perhaps comparing Henry to Louie or think about how Henry could have reformed the realm an awful lot of people felt that everything the call was just too remote did it may I think that's right I think that and that remoteness goes to some institutional changes Chancellor you no longer had a chief justice here no and these are people who you could address complaints yes and I think the court therefore becomes increasingly remote you know the political community and you're so right to say that critical community is increasing in size during this period nights free tenants peasants becoming much more vocal and Henry I think just didn't grasp that you know I think again again he probably thinks my piety is enough and people should see the time a good and pious King I'm voted to a patron saint here but the Confessor which I'm gay means the realm I'm rebuilding Westminster Abbey and doing all these things that for Henry's seemed enough and he just doesn't grass sometimes with words but whether we deeds that this is not enough and he needs to write out to a wider community should we say something about that confesseth him because he again probably not the the the most well-known the most famous medieval monarch but ground break in in so many ways I mean he's the last proper English king with the anglo-saxon I suppose because as far as within the Conqueror and his descendants were concerned Harold was a usurper and you know Henry adopts him as his patron saint if you like he names his eldest son after him you said about Henry's creation of peace both internally and externally being perhaps his greatest achievement that we could easily argue that Westminster Abbey was as well in some ways it sort of extraordinary divergence from his predecessors can you say more about the Confessor and Henry's devotion to him yeah boy you're so right this is something entirely new I mean no previous King had a patron saint at all let alone a patron saint in Edward the Confessor and Henry so Henry doesn't inherit any confess oriole count not realized by any of his his predecessors an actual fact it wasn't until quite into his 12 into his twenties in the mid twelve thirties that all this changes so well who's the professor it was the last anglo-saxon king of the shoe line he died on the 5th of January 1066 and was buried in the Abbey he had built at Westminster and that's all depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry with his body processing to this new great new church he'd built well the monks of Westminster desperately wanted to have a saint and there was some merit in the Confessor so in 1161 they find their campaign came to fruition and the Confessor was made a saint and he was translated to his new shrine in the abbey 1163 it was all a bit of a flop actually as I said no Kings seen after that henry ii richard the lionheart john i think particularly none of particularly to confessor or anyone else either so how does all this change in the mid 12 30s and make Henri really a very unique King I think it was a combination of thing two things coming together the first was that Henry was just emerging from one of the most torrid times in his reign 12:32 1234 spell of a great minister the Bishop of Winchester peace day rushing driven in for the only time in his reign into the kind of rule that John had espoused and so Henry was accused of tyranny even threatened with Deepa's ition but there was an ear well there was a civil war in Wales there was disorder in England and so in the end Henry is forced to dismiss the bishop and he feels grievously let down by his great ministers so it's at this very point that the monks of Westminster get hold of him because the monks of Westminster are desperate to have the Kings support they're trying to rebuild the Abbey and they haven't made much progress they're desperate to defend their privileges against the demands of the Kings judges and so days come to Henry and they say basically look your temporal ministers have let you down place your trust in an eternal minister who will always be there and always see you right and that's the Confessor and I think there's one crucial clinching thing and that's Henry's desperate to get married and one of the monks of Westminster it was the power of Hurley Richard legrasse was one of the leading diplomats in negotiating the marriage with an ER of Provence and he comes back and he says look who has got you this wonderful wife it's of course the Confessor you placed your trust in the Confessor and it's worked and from then on was Henry was hooked and devotion to the Confessor becomes absolutely central to his life and I think it works in two ways at first it's very personal I mean Henry thinks if I show my devotion to the Confessor he will see me right in this life he will intercede at God's right hand and help me in all my aims and ambitions in this life but of course even more important he will get me to the next he will get me to heaven so that's the very personal side wait I think it was also more to it than that in that Henry is also offering the Confessor to the nation he is now going to be our national Saint I want everybody to participate in all the great goods the Confessor can bring everyone must show their devotion to him they must thank me for it but also you know that I mean they was in - as they were say think when I'm a king supported by the Confessor the Lemus also wanted to thank me for giving them the Confessor and of course at the center of that giving was where Westminster Abbey because you had to understand how to sanctity work if you've adopted someone as your patron saint the absolutely vital thing is to persuade that saint that you are indeed devoted to him no good just going around saying you know you're my patron saint and the safe will come back and say oh yes surely share it how can I show it how can I prove to the Confessor as I'm absolutely devoted to him and the arms through Westminster Abbey now you might think that was a bit odd because what Henry thinks is I'm going to rebuild Westminster Abbey in the most modern way possible making most splendid Church in the world who proved to the Confessor migration to him but of course that involved putting down the church the Confessor had built which was an impressive Church will be somewhat miffed at the destruction of his own structure but Herod obviously didn't think of it like that he thought only other person is going to be tremendously pleased that I am putting out his church which was certainly very old and out-of-date and the Pope just graduated rareness and I'm going to build this wonderful new Church in its place and also provide the Confessor with the new shrine so that's what the Henry did but you see here again two objectives come in he's doing it for himself mmm also doing it for everyone for the public because of course you've got to think where is the Abbey it's at the very center of the realm it's a Wesson's beside the Royal Palace where where the exchange to get the Abbey going in 1245 and building it he also times the confessors feast day on the 13th of October with the opening of Parliament Henry's thinking what's going to happen here it's going to people are going to attend Parliament end the feast day of the Confessor on 13 October see this wonderful new church I'm building and then open Parliament and fall in with my wishes so it's it's personal it's very political and it's very very lungs and very London and you've got to think of looking over London looked over London from say the Hill of Hampstead or Blackheath or broccoli what is 50s of course still dominating is the great sparse and pools but then over at Westminster you see the great Hulk of this amazing new church going up I think it's terribly important to realize that the Abbey was a church like nothing else seen in England if you compare it to some of the English contemporary English churches so Salisbury particularly built in Henry's reign the Abbey is dramatically different and far more spectacular and splendid people had never seen a church like that in England and that's partly because of its great internal Hyde it's a hundred and four feet from the floor to the top of the vault which you know 20 30 feet higher than many of the great contemporary English cathedrals it's partly because of its wonderful for with its windows with Gallants it's on the Roses of bath and then of course the great great rose windows mmm the south transept and the North transept facades and the huge great north door the main entrance saying why is this all this new it all came from France I mean the great Master Mason who designed the Abbey with Henry and I think Henry and and the Master Mason worked closely together it's called Henry of Reims and certainly came from the great Cathedral Rees he may well have been links when you'd worked their butts of the features I just said came from the great French for regions from Reims from amia from dr. Dom in in Paris and people in England have seen anything like them before it's perfect true of course that if a French architect to the abbey they might have said well you very well but actually our Kathi's was a lot higher unlike the French to take a to fill their superior exactly yeah I think too that he would have said yeah they may be higher but the abbey is far more magnificent in terms of its internal decoration and that's true too I mean they that was hugely costly which is the use of Purbeck marble no use of sculpture Dax called IATA these little roses which were everywhere in the in structure the very deep mouldings the carvings all of that meant was far richer Church than anything in France and there was also one other thing which actually relates very much to London today and that one of the most exciting things done for London and done for the abbey over the last 10 years has been opening up at Westminster Abbey what are called the Queen's galleries now that's where now the Queen open them that's why they're called the Queen's Jubilee cameras and that's where now all the Abbey's treasures are housed well what are these Queen's galleries they're the central middle part if you like of the structure of Henry the Third's Church it's called the triforium and it's a gallery triforium with external windows and roof and external window so it creates a huge amount of middle space in the church a so-called second storey in the church where people can can go and they've never been open to the public before and they are now open to the public the question is why did Henry want them why Nadine had go for this gallery try forea which huge extra expense and also just not found in contemporary churches you don't find in Salisbury you don't find his in the great French cathedrals why did Henry do that I think there were two reasons the first was that it was just make church much more magnificent grander more spectacular but secondly and this goes back to Henry's piety his feeding of paupers what I think happened is that on the great feast days all the paupers went up there to attend the great services before they then came down and were rewarded with their free meal so we know for a fact from a record that on the 13th of October 1260 the feast of head of the Confessor in that year Henry fed five thousand and sixteen paupers well I bet you before they had their meal they were all up in the gallery triforium taking part in the service and of course it wasn't just the confessors feast I mean he was very aware of the abbey and I should have stresses of course the coronation Church of the kingdom again makes so sexual and I think Henry thought at coronations to that's where the crowds will be and of course that's where they do go they were there in the last coronation in 1953 and in previous coronations before that so I think in a way that's something I suggest I think for the first time in the book that this helps to explain this magnificent feature on the abbey hens piety desire for paupers to attend services helps to explain it and and you made so wonderful you make that sound almost if that was Henry's I dare and I do wonder when you say about this I bi how much of it do how much we do you think and I suppose it's very hard for us to know that how much ins this was Henry working with Henry of Rheims and saying I like this I would like you to do that I've seen something I want you to do do we do we know that I think that's absolutely how it was and we certainly have documentary evidence from these wonderful letters I've been talking about before to show Henry's tremendous eye for architectural and decorative detail for example there's one order in which he says I've just been told that it will be much more sumptuous if underneath my throne in the Great Hall in my Palace of Westminster the the Lions supporting the throne are made of bronze rather than of marble and so I want them made in bronze there's also very clear evidence that Henry was very much in tune with what sometimes called a new expressivity in English art the way which particularly faces in sculpture and painting now express much more lifelike and exact allistic express emotion for example he says I want the painting of winter above a fireplace in fact the Queen's fireplace in the Palace of Westminster by its sad looks and softly a figure representing winter by its sad looks and miserable portrayals of the body to be just be likened to winter and then on the other hand when he he wants to have a painting in the church at the Tower of London in which he wants some cherubims painted little children and he wants them to be joyful and cheerful in their expression and could beyond that this huge range of letters making very very detailed orders for the decoration of copes vestments for paintings architectural detail so I think it's absolutely no doubt at all that what master Henry would have done was to lay out plans for Henry to look at and then to discuss with him in detail you know what form of Windows do you want this is what you could have at Reims this is what there is Adhamiya how do you want this the North transept to look like do you want to cover the whole whole of the the abbey and this amazing little square formalised roses called Aiyappa I think I almost imagine how that happened I think Henry would have said to masterly well you know can we go one step further how can we make the adding even more these sticker ative Lee and so much many scratches everything oh my I don't we cover every surface in daya go for it I think I think essentially master Henry of Reims and Henry the third were together the designers of the a be in some ways an ideal patron I suppose rather than some of these sort of personnel lips and saying oh well not sure I've got the budget for that you know Henry was not afraid to go for it I mean perhaps Henry drives we see that from his his letters he said I want all the marble work put up by but before winter I'm very worried that the workmen are going to depart for lack of pain you know find the money wherever you can get it from he's driving on the work all the time in an open-handed way so he must be a wonderful patron because the same open-handed generosity which was faithful in giving far too much patronage to foreign relatives magnets ministers he's absolutely wonderful as a patron of art and architecture you know this is you take this is government funding without any cut limits and of course that's where only we know the cost I mean hmm it was all painful bye Henry are busy out of net out of the kingdom's revenues and the cost was probably 40 to 50 thousand pounds now what does that mean well that's over one year's annual revenue of the the King and Kingdom and it would have been enough to have built at least four of the great grimm castles with which Edward the first finally held down the conquest of Wales cemented the conquests wells well I think Henry's money was far better spent yeah I think I think in history of the Kings work they refer to Edwards Castle building program has been the equivalent of a sort of modern-day buying a fleet of nuclear submarines so you know he absolutely half a fleet of nuclear submarines or something perhaps but which is comfort to perhaps one thing we might want to sort of think about just starting to come to a conclusion here is you've mentioned Westminster in London but one I mean of course nowadays we associate we very much think that Westminster is at the heart of London but during Henry's reign in the 13th century there were two distinct centres Westminster in London although they were kind of joined along the river London the city of London had been founded by the Romans it's on the site where now the financial center the city of London the corporate sort of centre is Westminster is perhaps is about four miles up the river it was a kind of centre of government and Henry's relations with the Londoners could be fraught at times why was this why did Henry find it so difficult at times to get on with the citizens in the lead in town in the country yeah the reason for that is partly due to taxation when Henry was very determined to maintain his right to what he calls Tallinn London so that means that London is town oral towns like all Royal manners the king has this right to impose arbitrary taxation on them he's wise not to do it very often because if he does it too often obviously it will create political discontent but the Londoners on the other hand argued exactly the reverse and argued that they were especially privileged and couldn't beat alledged now that's a running area of dispute throughout Henry's reign and essentially Henry got his way that it created lots of tensions with the leading aldermen the citizens and so on and that's amazing and of course you're so right about the relationship between Westminster in London mm-hmm and take that a little bit further I mean Westminster with the Abbey and the palace they show the majesty of kingship but of course the Tower of London showed the might of kingship now the tower of course plays a very important role in Henry's relations with London we might think because peri this most specific King actually rebuilt the tower in a major way and surrounded it with its inner circle of walls which survived still why does he do that you might think it was to be nice to London and protect London not a bit of it no it's to keep London under control so much so that when the great new gateway Henry built collapsed and more recent excavations have shown where it was one London I had a vision of Thomas Becket the most famous London wall coming to the walls and striking it striking sorry the new gateway with his pastoral staff so it collapsed and Becket was then quoted as saying that I am destroying these walls this gateway because it is here to oppress the Londoners not to protect them so the Tower of London was very important the king's control over the city I think it's probably right one must be careful in exaggerating the tensions I mean there were periods when Henry's men were in control of London he was obviously dependent on London for a lot of his food and clothes and so on and some of the great citizens were very very closely connected with the court but but he had you know far more about this than I do you should am I right in thinking that College was the taxation and talaq was the most important thing I mean it's also disputes over who should be there the King wanted his men in these kinds of places but do you think taxation was the main problem I think I think taxation is definitely a a major problem I think the thing is it's it's not always about the money I mean 12:55 Henry turns round to Londoners and says I want a tally of three thousand marks and the Londoners say well we'll give you an aid of two thousand marks and the dispute isn't over a thousand miles the dispute is over status if you like yeah the difference between the king being able to say to the Londoners you have to do this and the Londoners saying no we will do this of our own free will yeah I agree I think this is over money but the status Henry is quoted to say you are my serfs rustic II London II entity or something is yeah yeah privilege you can't treat us like that so it's a certainly about status as well as most it connected and it goes back before Henry this goes back to the reign of Richard where the London as a form in a community owes vector 1215 in the run-up to to Magna Carta with John where we see the Londoners you know trying as hard as they can to get these this thing about telogen to Magna Carta so you know I think it's a reflect and you mean I think is a reflection of one the City of London's growing sires and prosperity and importance in the realm and you know there's a consequence of that as you say Henry is very dependent on the Londoners to supply his wine and his luxury goods and many of these lead in London has become very very rich indeed yes these people are there there as there as rich as many of the Barons in the realm and I think that they look and they think we'll hold on a second we're as important as these people we we deserve to be treated in perhaps the same way that they do in him we get his extraordinary situation in 1250 we're a very prominent Londoner who's an alderman on a chronicler Arnold fitz dead ma he makes his claiming his chronicle that the Londoners said that their peers were the Earl's and barons of England I mean it's an extraordinary sort of claim in in many ways and I think I think there is a there's a there's a broader power struggle perhaps here and perhaps Texas it crystallizes around taxation if it crystallizes around Henry's patronage of Westminster but ya know I'm just going to agree with you and I wish I'd put into the book that thing that said well fortune I have another chance because of course this is only one volume two is going to the first chapter is going to be Henry and his people and I think I shall have a section on society London there and as soon as this conversation is finished I'm just I have make a whole series of notes as to what's going to be in that chapter I'm going to remind myself on Fitz Ted Mars statement in in 1250 just let me rounding up I mean I think I probably ought to say a little bit about things like Henry's sense of humor which I think he's hardly creates I think quite happy atmosphere at court I mean partly it's lapsed so that when for example he went to bath in in the mid 12 50s he had his gesture thrown in we know that because he then made a suta clouds how the new suit of clothes made famous a I think there's quite a lot of push me pull me right you know ragging people in the court but here is human could also be slightly more slightly more sophistication there's a wonderful letter on the patron roles in which he gives full power to one of his clerks plainer protesters now normally you give full power in various sort of important situations diplomat going to negotiate a peace treaty this is a letter giving full power to one of Henry's Clark's to cut the hair the long long hair of all the other clerks and then Henry says and if you don't do so I shall be forced to take the scissors myself to your own hair I think this must again reflect the sort of games at court you know and you can imagine the King chasing round the Clarkes with the pair of scissors trying to sort of cut their hair so so different from his father I mean John had a set of humor but nothing like this I mean it was so different from John's spiky sense of humor in which he tried to humiliate people mock them addendums anything like that in Henry's court one final story about him which I think I think possibly does may have some foundation it's sort of in truth and it's told by the Italian friar Salim Baney and he tells the story which probably from the twelve forties in which there's this another gesture and the gesture as just as supposed to be could also be quite sort of provocative so the Justice said to Henry well o King you are like Christ and Henry pleased but made the mistake of asking for more information so the Jester then said well you're like Christ because like Christ you're you're as wise you're wise at the age of thirty as you were when you were born very very cross this and ordered the gesture to be hanged but then the sequel is that all which again shows really how Henry's temper goes down how affable he really was miss time so the court has said to the Jester we'll look just make yourself scarce for a bit and come back when the Kings anger has cooled down it's interesting that this story I think that I I suspect you've got to Salim bany from a great friar who was at Henry's court for 112 horses called john of parma it was great friend of salmon bailey so i suspect it may be the sort of story going round which the jester sort of told whether it actually happen but he does capture I think Henry's you know it's meant to illustrate Henry's simplicity of course and but also his sort of sense of humor his affability ultimately so I do think that of all the English medieval kings henry was probably would be the sort of nicest to have met you know i think i cannot see him now welcoming you me and his court you know sorry as he did with Matthew Parris Matthew Perry said you know come and talk and come to dinner he wouldn't got up perhaps giving us a kiss of peace so I think he'd been a very nice person to me I mean obviously he had a very fierce temper but he got crossed quite easily but that all calmed down and for most of the time I think he was affable and easy gay but he did not have the if you like the intelligence I think one of the reviews of my book said he was Henry was a bit thick I think that's a bit unfair I mean he had a wonderful sense of beauty Barca textual detail he was actually very interested in some detail of accounts and money and and so on but I think he he was naive in in not really being able to calculate how to get from A to B what projects made sense when to stop when to say this sort of open-handed very emotional personality was too easily exploited by unscrupulous magnets for relations magnets and ministers I mean I think I mean I will just say this but it could be so hard to get a real a real character sketch of people in the Middle Ages I mean we don't we don't we don't I mean just in a very physical sense we don't actually have a crude likeness of Henry we don't wishing I could see mind you don't forget his body must be perfectly preserved in his tomb in Westminster Abbey and Dean's family in the 1870s was going to open it was unfortunately stopped Victoria you said she was not amused at this schemed tamper with the bones of her her predecessor so the all he was able to do was to measure the coffin and which was six foot one and a half and so as I suppose body length is just coffin length then he was probably what mid five foot five five foot six obviously his body must be perfectly preserved in that tomb so you know if if you opened it you probably wouldn't you could see what he looked like but I'm all against doing that and I recovered the bones to be disturbed well it can't be too far off having technology that could could see into the cold documentary sources prove can you sort of photograph through stone I think I know who ground-penetrating radar is it's probably only a matter of time before we have to technology we can get quite a detailed picture of what's there but in terms of in terms of your book one thing that really struck it's particularly to middle chapters on Henry's piety Henry's Court is that we can build up a picture of Henry to third and his court and his marriage and his relationship with his children so much of what we've spoken about today has been about I said has come from these record sources that Henry's government produced and there the letters of the king as you said whether they're these humorous kind of knockabout incidents with his clerks or whether it's letters about the soft furnishings he wants somewhere and I think many people would look at these records and think they are dryers dust letters of a bureaucracy but when their mind properly we can really develop a picture of Henry in his court and I absolutely did get a sense of the man in the power fee and I really enjoyed those middle two chapters particularly if I will say that of course it's a first video when you tomorrow's as well because this this doesn't cover all of Henry's life it finishes in 1258 when there's this revolution that goes far beyond making a call to a new scope and in fact we probably don't see anything like it in his country again until the civil wars of the 17th century and I mean a start of 1258 when I mean the revolution really takes place in April and May 1258 and at the started 1258 Henry as Henry has kind of settled scores with the London as if you like following this incident over telogen 12:55 yeah he's moved against the Londoners he's he's he's removed many of his opponents from political power in London he he's probably got good reason to feel quite satisfied at the end of February 1258 yeah I mean I think actually the revolution of 1258 took Henry by surprise part nicely because he just had this triumph over the Londoners hell I may say by Richard Eclair Earl of Gloucester was not and turned out he wasn't I think Henry was lulled into a false sense of security and of course he was completely taken by surprise by this march on the Kings Hall in which he feared he was actually when confronted by the Barons that he was being made a prisoner you know whereas he might have retreat you know it was going to happen he could retreat you to the Tower of London and being completely safe so but here that is another story I think you should end this off on your lovely little encomium about how close we can get to Henry I think that's so true and I think those two chapters are the heart of the book really so they're genuine biography they're genuine yeah I mean I do honestly think we can get I mean obviously always thinks it's about one's own King and I do think that those record sources in particular helped a little bit Matthew Parris we can get closer to Henry on a day to day basis than any other medieval King so can I just ask one front went what do you know you know when we might expect a second volume because we do end on a cliffhanger at the end of this first poem I hope to I'm revising now and I had to catch in to Yale next year so she come out in 2006 year 2021 2022 okay and will you come and speak for us when he does I would love to I would be honored to do so that'd be fantastic baby thank you very much thank you I will speak soon yeah okay you

Channel: The History of London with Dr Ian Stone

Views: 12,522

Keywords: King Henry III, Simon de Montfort, Westminster Abbey, Medieval London, Eleanor of Provence, History of London, Louis IX of France, Magna Carta, The Battle of Lincoln, Henry III, King John, Medieval England, Medieval Britain, Reform and Rebellion, David Carpenter

Id: VLb0OsXmBgM

Length: 73min 1sec (4381 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 09 2020