Kings & Queens of England: Episode 1: Normans

[Music] the story of the kings and queens of England is more surprising than you might think it's a fine drama a thousand years of tales of lust and betrayal a parallelism and cruelty of mysteries murders tragedies and triumphs but there's more than that for example one of the most reliable chronicles describes how a king of England proposed adopting Islam as the national religion this episode the first of six includes that tale it tells the story of the English crown from 1066 to 1216 from one French invader William to the next Louis yes Louis another surprise a king of England who's pretty much disappeared from history it's easier to say where the history of the English monarchy ends than where it begins it ended on the 14th of October 1066 here at what became battle Abbey on sin Lac Hill near Hastings we all know that this was where Harold was killed and replaced by William the conquerer and Harold was the last Englishman to be crowned king from then on the sovereign would always be from a foreign family right down to Queen Elizabeth the second so a history of the kings and queens of England isn't like the history of kings and queens anywhere else in the world what happened here on that October day started a completely new history which is why it's the one dating history that everybody knows 1066 the story of that day was spelled out in a strip cartoon the Bayeux Tapestry probably stitched for Williams brother odo here's our heroes first appearance in the story that's William Duke of Normandy about 37 years old in 1064 he's being told that Harold Godwinson Earl of Wessex at the time has been shipwrecked on the French coast one of these guys is Godwinson I think it's the chap with the handlebar moustache he's about six years older than William and the most powerful man in England after King Edward these are both pretty hard men survivors in a very tough world [Music] Williams spent his whole life fighting for survival and was good at it by the time he was 20 he de stablished complete control over Normandy from then on he was fighting to hang on to what he had he got Harold to help him in one of those battles capturing mulsanne Michele and then apparently as the price of letting him go home had Harold swear to support him in becoming the next king of England which as the tapestry very clearly shows is not what happened [Applause] [Music] when old King Edward died Harold as we all know had himself crowned instead actually to be a bit more precise he had himself elected King the crown of England in those days was not inherited but awarded in Williams view this had all gone very badly wrong so he set about putting it right the Norwegian ruler Harald Hardrada took a similar view there was an old Norwegian claim to England which he decided to revive by launching an invasion of his own their two fleets arrived within a few days of each other one in the north of England one in the south both fleets were probably about the same size about 500 ships King Harald rushed north and destroyed hot-rodders army only about 34 ships made it back to Norway then he rushed south and this time of course he failed to pull it off we don't know for sure that the man with the arrow in his eye is Harald but he certainly died at the battle he and his axe wielding spear carrying army of Danish and anglo-saxon noblemen was simply swept away in their place were the new rulers of England Normans on horseback and William was their master master of the country he owned it [Music] he was not an elected King when he went to London to be crowned on Christmas Day the population thinking that was their duty now tried to elect him there claimed him with loud shouts the Normans not knowing what was going on thought this was some kind of uprising they rushed out of Westminster Abbey and burned London down England had become a new kind of Kingdom one which was owned locked stock and barrel by its King the story were telling through this series the story of a thousand years of English history is the story of this alien comprar and his successors to the throne it's the story of how they changed England and changed with it eventually turning into puppet rulers symbols of power they cannot wield and how in that transformation they survived through tides of revolution and republicanism so that today while they're not quite the only surviving Royals in Europe they alone still they claim to majesty now how did that happen the story of Williams rain is really the story of a warrior Lord taking all power into his hands he confiscated all the privately-owned land in the country its new occupiers were tenants of the king bound to him people of the north of England with their Viking capital at York were much more bound to Scandinavia than to Normandy they refused to submit he punished them by destroying all animals and all crops between York and Durham according to the Chronicles he celebrated Christmas 1070 in the ruins of York the inhabitants were reduced to starvation even cannibalism 16 years later when all the land in England was accounted for and valued in his doomsday survey there were places in Northumbria that were still utterly worthless the church too was made Norman and old anglo-saxon ways crushed at Glastonbury archers were stationed inside the abbey and orders given that the old chants should be replaced by new ones from France twenty-one monks was shot and yet there were limits to his power a few thousand Norman's most of them not even understanding the language of their new country couldn't run the place they needed the English to keep everything working and William understood that perfectly well his coronation he made an oath to uphold the laws of King Edward to uphold good law and renounce bad the old courts would continue to function and old traditions would normally be respected this oath would become fundamental to the coronation of any King the question though would be who got to wear the crown when william died bloated and exhausted at the ripe age of sixty his attendants stripped his body and scattered what mattered now was who would hold the land he'd conquered and how it had all been his and it was he who decided on his deathbed in Normandy he handed out the spoils he gave his eldest surviving son Robert his Duchy of Normandy but it was the younger son the red-haired William William Rufus who the Conqueror willed should be acclaimed King of England and the youngest Henry was told he would have to be content with five thousand pounds but Henry was his father's son content with five thousand pounds was that likely [Music] the key to the plotting that followed was that of course none of the brothers was content Henry stirred the brew of resentment that made Robert try to take the kingdom of England from William and William try to take the Duchy of Normandy from Robert and Henry was always changing sides weakening them both eventually Robert tiring of the whole struggle decided it would be more satisfying to fight Saracens and his brothers and went off on crusade William was now secure and powerful and Henry changed his policy he was now William Rufus his very best best friend the Bishop of Lincoln later said that when Henry praised anyone he was sure to be plotting that person's destruction it does seem as though Henry concentrated on quietly stirring up discontent among churchmen and barons in England which was not hard as William Rufus needed their money and had little to offer in return except to give to some what he'd taken from others and besides William Rufus wasn't their kind of chap he didn't marry he had no children and as one Chronicle puts it all things that are loathsome to God and to earnest men were customary in this land in his time and therefore he was load some dwell my all his people and abominable to God which is of course homophobic chronicles speak for being gay on the 2nd of August in the air 1100 both William and Henry were hunting separately in the new forest it was the last day of William Rufus's life no one knows who fired the arrow that ended the reign of William Rufus his companion Terrell immediately fled and disappeared abroad Williams body was abandoned where it laid but a spot still marked by this stone the next day local peasants took it in a cart to Winchester Henry had arrived before them Winchester was where the Royal treasure was kept he demanded the treasury keys from the guards they refused to hand them over saying that Robert his elder brother was the rightful heir Henry drew his sword and declared that no one should stand between him and his father's scepter resistance collapsed and when the peasants arrived with their cart the Lords of England were busy electing Henry as their King the first elected ruler of England since Harold Godwinson [Music] the Bishop of Winchester refused to give the corpse a Christian burial out of respect for his royal status William Rufus was nevertheless interred under the cathedral tower and when that collapsed a few years later everyone said Henry's coronation Westminster was an attempt to ensure his authority to rule he was 32 years old his father had won the country by force of arms and his barons backed him for rich rewards but why would anyone want to King now alongside his sanctification by the church he issued a charter promising that he would not overtax the church or his tenants in chief and that they must treat their tenants as he treated them he claimed that the crown changed his nature he was no longer an ordinary human being as the anointed king he held special divinely granted powers his touch was supposed to cure scrofula swollen neck glands from tuberculosis this magic power which became known as touching for the Kings evil was practiced by English monarchs for the next 700 years as proof of their divine authority he also quite smartly understood that it was a good idea to promote new people to positions of power those who were already great barons didn't need a king but men on the make would support him by the time Robert was able to mount a challenge to Henry it stood no chance he agreed to recognize Henry as King of England in exchange for pension of course it didn't last henry ended up invading Normandy in 1106 and imprisoning his brother for the rest of his life this is his tomb in Gloucester Cathedral the question of who was entitled to succeed to the crown was still when you came down to it a matter of brute force but Henry's victory had a profound symbolic meaning because it changed the status of the English crown under his father England had been a property seized and owned by the Duke of Normandy now Normandy was a property seized and owned by the king of England Henry was a naturally cheery person just after his coronation he married Edith the daughter of an English woman and as the king of Scotland and he encouraged Normans he was promoting to Mary English women the great barons regarded this with contempt and referred to their king and queen as Godric and Godiva a style statement which roughly translates as CID and Gladys as sturdy warriors they also didn't appreciate the fact that he was literate in three languages his other nickname on the book click means Henry the SWOT but those great Baron's were having their power undercut as Henry recruited his government officers and judges from the church he supervised his kingdom by moving his court from one Center to another it was a great traveling performance like a circus with no permanent home he spent half his time in Normandy but when he was away the Kingdom was run by a totally reliable civil servant Roger the Bishop of Salisbury who was called the Justitia the idea of government by a system rather than by a man was beginning to take shape he sent judges on their own tours of the country and enforced the laws harshly which seems to have been quite popular according to The Chronicle ISM but his punishments were often based on the idea that people were guilty until proved innocent and there was no time to do that where England's lanes really full of blinded and mutilated men muttering but fair you'd think so from the sources we have they liked the strong King and he managed to keep the Treasury well stocked with money which meant he could spy loyalty when he needed to the key to this was his system for checking his income twice a year at sheriffs and royal officials from all over England had to bring their money to be counted by being shunted around in piles on a checkered cloth like a chessboard checked it was called the Exchequer the system worked so well that the cabinet minister in charge of the nation's finances is still called the Chancellor of the Exchequer and we still use paper chitti's called checks by a combination of force and diplomacy he controlled and to some extent colonized Wales relations with Scotland were fine three of his wife's brothers became kings their England was becoming a peaceful stable and successful Kingdom Henry sent his young daughter Matilda to Germany to marry the Holy Roman Emperor and in 1116 he held a great assembly at Salisbury where all the Barons nobles and bishops swore homage to his son William as his successor to the crown in 1120 young William was a star an enthusiastic warrior a keen Huntsman and the heir apparent he'd been in Normandy with his father fighting the King of France and the whole party was returning to England William and his pals were travelling in a brand new ship the white ship they were the 12th century English jet-set the millionaire Knightly lads who were heirs to most of England and Normandy once they got on the ship there was a terrific party alcohol was taken and how soon it became really rowdy the hooray Henry's yelling at one another and throwing off a bunch of priests who'd come to bless the voyage William's cousin Stephen of Guam had an upset stomach and he felt he needed a bit of peace and quiet so he decided to go ashore and take a later ship by the time they got to see it was already dark and the other ships were way ahead the wind was light William decided to catch up with the King and ordered the chaps to start rowing the master was as drunk as anyone else so they began to speed into the duck 50 oars pushing this state-of-the-art longboat at a terrific link that was when they sailed straight into a rock and smashed the ship The Rock of Buffalo was a well-known hazard to navigation the cries of the drowning company were heard on shore and on the Kings ship but everyone thought that party was still in full swing in fact the future of England had just been destroyed in the equivalent of a drunken car crash it said that Henry never smiled again you can see why six years after the fatal crash not knowing what else to do Henry obliged the barons nobles and bishops of England to swear fealty to his daughter Matilda as his successor just as he'd had them swear to his son but there was of course a huge difference no woman had ever ruled in her own right in either England or Normandy her husband the Emperor was dead but for strategic reasons he had Matilda marry the son of the count of Anjou this was not a family with a power base in England Henri's sleep was filled with nightmares of peasants and barons complaining that he'd failed them all and then Henry went and died of a surfeit of Lamprey's how does that happen a lamp tree is a parasitic fish that looks as if it belongs in a bush tucker trial Henry loved him his doctor had put him on a diet that involved not eating lampreys and he got a fever and died after ignoring the advice and the doctor said as doctors do I warned him by the time Henry died in 1135 in Basel falling apart he was 67 years old and he'd gone a long way towards defining the job of the King of England but the fundamental problem who was entitled to that job had still not been solved Matilda was in Anjou her husband and then up on Stephen wah who sailed from Normandy to England and claimed the crown Stephen who had been saved from drowning on the white ship by an urgent need for a lavatory he was the son of Henry's sister a legitimate grandson of William the Conqueror he'd also been the leading Baron to swear fealty to Matilda as the heir apparent but that was then and this was now he was 38 years old backed by his very tough mother and one of his brothers was the Bishop of Winchester with the keys to the royal treasury the wife of the count of Anjou was not a popular choice with the Barons Stephen was a normal besides he seemed a malleable sort of chap brave enough and high-spirited he was also generous courteous and affable and would probably do as he was told which was of course a recipe for disaster than was crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury at Westminster on Christmas Day 1135 he issued what was now the traditional coronation oath promising to respect the old laws and be nice to everyone according to the anglo-saxon Chronicle when they saw that the king was a good-natured and kindly man who inflicted no punishment they committed all kinds of terrible crimes ordered an homage and sworn oaths of fealty but none were kept meanwhile matilda was enraged and of course had her own supporters england was moving rapidly to civil war stephen was insecure he surrounded himself with people from near broth Fleming's which didn't go down well with the Barons he fought loyalty until it emptied the Treasury and then began confiscating property so that he could pay his supporters by the time Matilda landed to claim her throne in 1141 Stephen was trying to put down rebellion after rebellion he was a brave even ferocious fighter but his support melted away and he was captured in a battle at Lincoln Stephen was Matilda's prisoner a church council declared that he was deposed by the manifest judgment of God and recognized Matilda as Queen Mathilda proceeded to Westminster and was all set to be crowned and then something went peculiarly wrong something that carries an extraordinarily clear message about the job of being the monarch of England all the Childers understanding of one if he had been learned in Germany where she'd been Empress since she was 12 years old she had been popular and successful there after the Emperor's death when Henry the first had brought her back to England some German princes of the Empire followed her to demand her back as their sovereignty but the sovereignty she had learned was absolute power the Emperor's will was law the only possible higher law was the church that was not how it worked in England even the Conqueror had promised a dis coronation to respect the laws of England but Matilda flatly refused she didn't need a coronation to be queen in her view she already was she behaved imperiously which might mean magnificently in German but meant intolerably in English and when the citizens of London petitioned her for a renewal of King Edward's laws she not only refused to listen but demanded a heavy tax from them so they threw her out Stephen was released from prison and resumed his battered kingship in fact he had a second coronation Matilda roamed around the Midlands in the West country fighting for a throne that she was entitled to but could never have in 1143 just before Christmas Stephen finally had her trapped and starving in Oxford castle but unbelievably Matilda and three Knights got away it had snowed and that night dressed entirely in white they dropped over the walls to the frozen water below they moved silent and invisible in the fresh snow right through Stephens can [Music] it was another five years before Mathilda gave up and returned to Normandy but she simply handed the torch to her son Henry who came to England when he was 16 to carry on the struggle so the fighting went on year of the year and the country was in effect without law and without government but the anglo-saxon Chronicle said castles were filled with Devils and evil men Christ and all his sense were asleep Stephen naturally intended his own son Eustace to succeed him but in 1153 both Eustace and Stephens wife fell ill and died Stephen had had enough at the end of the year Stephen and Henry wrote together into London there the King proclaimed a new foundation for the kingdom Henry was now his own adopted son and would be his successor as King of England although Stephen would remain King for life Henry would take over the government immediately the next year utterly worn out King Stephen retired to his grave on the 19th of December 11:54 there was a double coronation in Westminster Abbey the 21 year old henry ii was crowned King and his 33 year old wife Eleanor was crowned queen consort Eleanor Duchess of Aquitaine knew all about being a queen when she was 15 orphaned and the richest damsel in France she was married to the heir to the French throne and a few days later the pair became king and queen of France the King of France was a saintly figure with perhaps a rather low sex drive Eleanor came from a family of lordly troubadours whose Court was dedicated to interesting love affairs she later said that she thought she'd married a man but had married a monk she had a series of affairs including one with Matilda's husband Geoffrey of Anjou he rather dashingly Waris brigov broom planter janista in his hat so people called him Plantagenet eventually all the ovens the whole family line wore it on their crest she then had an affair with Geoffrey's son the attractive young Henry a bright well-educated athlete with vitality intelligence freckles and money according to a contemporary chronicler Henry's father had warned his son offer saying that she had been his lover and she was the wife of Henry's overlord Henry was Duke of Normandy but Geoffrey died in 1151 and in 1152 Andra got Eleanor pregnant lui who probably didn't know that detail had their marriage annulled and she married her toy boy of course she did all she could to encourage his efforts to become king of England and make her a queen again the coronation of 1154 must have been most satisfying for her he didn't make his mother's mistake of claiming to be above the law instead maintaining proper form he issued a charter confirming all the liberties that were enforced under his grandfather Henry the first the combination of his lands and Eleanor's meant that this King of England ruled more than half of France though as the vassal of the French King it would have been too much for almost anyone but Henry was a man of extraordinary Restless energy who travelled vigorously around his realms and would order his court to hit the road with no notice whatever he got England up and running with astonishing speed he had all newly built castles destroyed so that individual Lords could not stand against him and got the law functioning again he organised government into ministries with the Chancellor of the Exchequer playing the role we would now recognize as Prime Minister the chap in question was the son of a London merchant he was Henry's closest friend and colleague they joked and drank together and he lived as the greatest Lord in the country Thomas Becket between them they reformed the currency finance government and began the changes in the judicial system that would lead to the system of trial by jury England was beginning to develop a commercial life towns were growing the population was becoming better educated the new system for running Royal Courts asked groups of local people often peasants to report and decide the facts of the case the system that had worked for the Conqueror allowing the people to run their own country was at the heart of Henry's way of getting everything up and running again perhaps that was why he needed a Londoner at the heart of his government the next stage in his reforms was to reduce the power of the church which had become the only functioning judicial institution during the chaos of Stephens Wars anyone accused of a crime who could read a line of Latin was deemed to be a church man that made them immune from the royal court they could only be judged and punished by the church of course the church wouldn't agree to give up its privileges so when the Archbishop of Canterbury died in 1162 it seemed a smart idea to install Thomas as the new Archbishop then he would deliver the church to Henry actually it seemed a pretty terrible idea to Matilda who warned Henry not to do it what did his mother know look what a mess she'd made of things Elinor was also against it and she hadn't made a mess of anything she'd been a very competent regent when Henry had been abroad and must have seen what Henry had not seen that Thomas Beckett's driving force was not loyalty to Henry Oh surely not she was just jealous that Henry spent time with Thomas than with her Henry was sure it was a really good idea of course it was a really bad idea why did Becket become fanatically committed to the church as soon as he got the job why did he wear Hessian underwear with lice and lash his body why did he oppose the king's plans more fiercely than any other bishop he ended up excommunicating the bishops of London and Salisbury and sacking the Archbishop of York for not opposing the king he'd already acquired all the earthly power and wealth possible now he had a bigger ambition he was arguing that the church must rule everyone including the king this was especially dangerous as Becket was hugely popular Henry was given two rages and the situation was bound to enrage him who will rid me of this turbulent priest on the 29th of December 11:17 four of henry's loyal Knights did just that slicing off the top of his head at the altar of his Cathedral in the words of an eyewitness the red of the blood mixed with the white of the brains like white of the lily and the rid of the Rose this was shopping Henry had to distance himself from Beckett's murder and win the hearts and minds of his subjects [Music] Beckett was immediately the most popular martyr in the country a hundred thousand pilgrims flock to the site of his death he would obviously be made a saint as soon as possible the danger of course was that the Pope would excommunicate Henry and pronounced an anathema against him as the murderer of England's primate the population would turn against him in England and the King of France would seize his vast lands across the channel Henry immediately fasted went into extravagant mourning and then did penance prostrating himself before the Canterbury altar he was publicly lashed by a monk it worked he saved his kingdom from the Pope saving it from Eleanor was much more difficult Eleanor and Henry had drifted apart partly because of his love affairs and partly because she feared that Henry's adventure with Becket threatened her own beloved Aquitaine she had gone back there she set up her own Court the court of love and that was where she raised her sons as romantic warriors and voted against him Henry imprisoned her there for sixteen years but her plots continued unabated she supported her older sons in rebellion against England trying not only to ensure her control over her own land but to take over from him the only one who remained loyal was John the youngest in 1189 the oldest surviving son Richard inflicted a major defeat on his father Henry met Richard near the Loire to arrange peace terms but when they publicly embraced Henry quietly growled may the Lord spare me until I've taken vengeance on you ii had been defeated in battle by his own eldest surviving son richard only one of his sons had remained loyal the youngest john back in his own chateau Henry asked for all Richard's supporters to be read out the first name on the list was John's Henry was heartbroken he died in delirium a few days later [Music] Elinor's imprisonment was over Henry had recognized Richard as his heir and Richard intended Elinor to rule England he had more important things to do crusade [Music] Eleanor had been on crusade when she was young as the wife of the King of France but also as the leader of her own feudal Army and now the Saracens had recon for Jerusalem Richard the romantic Richard the Lionheart was a totally fearless warrior whose whole upbringing had been based on Eleanor's idea of chivalry poet and swordsman Christian Knight and tournament hero a handsome and dashing leader of armies Richard tried to live out the fantasy life of one of the heroes of Arthurian literature from the stories told and sung in the court of love he came to London for his coronation but only so that he could collect the funds to pay for his great crusade to recover Jerusalem from Saladin he went off on his crusade declaring that he would sell London if he could find a buyer [Music] the crusade itself the Third Crusade was a sequence of great heroic and daring actions that completely failed to conquer Jerusalem associated with bursts of extreme brutality Saladin quite rightly pointed out that while Richard might be able to get an army into the city if he wanted to hold on to it he would have to spend the rest of his life there the two men never met but they fascinated and respected each other when Richard was ill Saladin sent his doctor the final truce ensured that Christian pilgrims would be free to visit the holy city but that had actually been Saladin's policy before the crusade even began Richard typically decided to make the journey home in 1192 into an adventure traveling alone and in disguise that was how he got captured and ended up imprisoned by Duke Leopold of Austria a man he'd repeatedly insulted during the Crusade the king of England had been found in an inn in Vienna unconvincingly disguised as a kitchen knave the Ransom Leopold demand it was a hundred thousand pounds about eight years income to the exchange rate lessness was crippling for the kingdom and eventually fatal for him as a storybook hero he always seems to have expected a happy ending and would sometimes even forget to put on armor that was how he got killed in the end taking a stupid chance at an unimportant siege in 1199 a crossbow bolt wound became infected while he was dying the man who'd loosed the shot was captured and delivered to him and Richard carried on behaving as they was in a storybook making a great gesture of releasing the man and giving him money Richard had no heir he named his brother the 32 year old John as his successor Richard age 41 died in his mother's arms England's hero king who detested the country and had spent six months of his reign there and the man who'd killed him was really delighted his little brother John was never meant to be king his father had called him John Lackland because there was originally no part of the huge on driven Empire left for him and the three problems that lurked at the core of monarchy in England now became crises how did succession work what was the balance between the king of the church and what legal limits existed on royal power especially when it came to taxes to begin with was he really Richard's proper successor one of his elder brothers Geoffrey had died leaving a son Arthur and there were barons in our shoe and Maine who argued that this thirteen year old was the proper successor they were supported by Philip king of France the only way to settle a succession dispute was by violence so John went to war his men captured the boy and he was never seen again it was generally believed that John drowned him which was the wrong way to solve the problem he'd guaranteed that Arthur would not be king but it left a very nasty smell it didn't stop the King of France from keeping the war going and by 12:05 John was driven out of most of France including Aquitaine and even Normandy the issue of church power also came up again it was John's bad luck to be confronted by an exceptionally militant and aggressive Pope Innocent the third innocent maintained that Kings had to submit to Pope's when the Archbishop of Canterbury died innocent announced that Stephen Langton who happened to be English was the new Archbishop John refused to accept the Pope's man Rome wouldn't give ground and neither would John in 1209 the Vatican excommunicated the king of England and his whole kingdom back in England John attempted to carry on regardless the Pope declared John deposed and that anyone who even spoke to him was excommunicated according to one chronicler John decided at this point to join the enemy in 1213 he sent a delegation to the Emir of Morocco offering to adopt Islam and turn England into an Islamic country in return for protection that would have turned history upside down is it true the air according to the story told the envoy's not to be such silly in fact John was reduced to total surrender the Pope demanded that he submit himself as a vassal of the church and that England should become a papal fief instead of a sovereign Kingdom so in 1213 Stephen Langton the new Archbishop of Canterbury took up his post as a representative of the new overlord of England in that capacity he decided to sort out the third issue the limits of the Kings power over his subjects barons were now virtually an organized political party this is the seal of the barons of London Langton presented them with the Charter issued by Henry the first and suggested that they demand something along the same lines but a bit clearer the Magna Carta this famous document was signed in June 1215 John and Richard had both tried to meet their costs by massive increases in feudal dues and legal charges and most of the Magna Carta is an effort to reverse these but there are also other clauses that show that Langton and the Barons thought that laws must bind the king himself as well as everyone else there was a notion of proper kingship in England and the Magna Carta tried to spell out what that meant if Langton had not been an Englishman the Magna Carta would probably have looked very different and it was certainly incomprehensible to Pope Innocent who saw it as a baffling and immoral limitation on the absolute power of the feudal lord of england who was of course himself so innocent issued a papal bull excommunicating anyone who stood by or tried to carry out Magna Carta and Stephen Langton found himself suspended from his job and recalled to Rome and John marched through England at the head of an army composed largely of foreign troops crushing the Barons and destroying their property and that's why the Barons went to France and got a new king of their own Louis the son of the King of France and so came the second French invasion of England in 1216 it was about the same size as the invasion of 1066 and Louie landed unopposed he was greeted with general enthusiasm and was hailed as King of England in a high-mass at some Paul's Cathedral he set up his own government and his army began its pursuit of John's twinkling forces John was assembling an army to stage the great final battle and was travelling along the seashore from Lynne to Lincolnshire a miscalculation of the tide was all he needed his whole baggage-train was washed away including his treasure and the crown jewels distraught broken he made his way to an a Viet swine's head where he was comforted with the monks latest experiment in beer-making which seems to have brought on dysentery fever and death Louis the first and last the king no one's ever heard of now controlled most of the country but the story of what happened to him and how his memory was erased as to wait for the next episode the story continues with the medieval kings and queens of England tonight at 10:00 and to find out more about Thomas Beckett's life and murder sky digital viewers press read coming up on UK TV history decisive weapons what a difference the t-34 tank made to Soviet fortunes in World War two [Music]

Channel: AngelDocs

Views: 2,015,219

Rating: 4.7355213 out of 5

Keywords: kings queens england, normans, documentary, royals, Battle of hastings, crusades, magna carta

Id: 0PfoYkgoBZQ

Length: 45min 49sec (2749 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 11 2012

Reddit Comments

[u/DefendedCobra29]

It's not Simon Schama, and it's not A History of Britain. WTF?

[u/animaInTN]

I'd gladly give body parts to listen to Schama for the rest of my life. sigh

[u/[deleted]]

I love "A History of Britain" with Simon Schama but they really needed a few more episodes to fill in the gaps where the content was sparse. I needed my War of the Roses fix, as well as more early Plantagenet content. Also, two world wars in one episode was a shame. Still, it is a terrrific overview. Wish there were more like this.

[u/WebbyDasserman]

Why does it start with the Normans? They might've given the Anglii a passing mention, seeing how England is named after them.

[u/oceanmutt]

This is a well produced and insightful BBC documentary series hosted by an eminent historian. It shouldn't be missed if you are interested in the subject.