Kings & Queens of England: Episode 2: Middle Ages

the story of the kings and queens of England is more surprising than you might think it's a fine trauma a thousand years of tales of lust and betrayal of heroism and cruelty of mysteries murders tragedies and trials but there's more than that this episode begins with a king of England who ruled for over a year but who simply vanished from the record and it ends with a boy whose claim to the throne was based on fictions that became historical orthodoxy we begin in the year 1216 in the reign of King Louie of England yes King Louie not the most famous king of England at the request of the barons and with the enthusiastic support of the population of London he'd come to England from France to take over the crown from John and John struggling to fight back had fallen ill and died Louie who'd been acclaimed King at a mass in some Paul's Cathedral now had the throw to himself he had no coronation as the bishops had been excommunicated but rulers are created in England by acclamation not coronation which is why the uncrowned Edward the eighth was a king and Lady Jane Grey who did have a coronation was not Queen and Louie got rubbed out of the list of England's monarchy cuz his acclamation was with hindsight withdraw that was because the Barons had not expected Louis to appoint his friends from France and Flanders as his chief councilors they'd expected to be given much more control over what went on and then they thought there's a better option John had a nine-year-old son Henry of course no child had ever been King but there's a first time for everything and if the King was a child and one of the Barons was Regent then the Barons really would be running things of course Louie controlled London but the child was at Corfe castle and they could at least get him to the nearest Abbey Gloucester to crown him of course they didn't have the crown but they could use his mother's gold neckband actually they didn't have an archbishop available to do the coronation nevermind the Bishop of Winchester was available and had the keys to the Treasury it wasn't a well attended ceremony not even all of John's executives could get there but it would have to do naturally little Henry the third was not actually exercising the powers of King that was the job of a baron the Regent the chap that got the job was a 70 year old Earl of Pembroke William Marshall a safe pair of hands if ever there was one old faithful Marshall had long ago been a bold young knight in the days of Henry the first the Charles grandfather he'd worked his way up the greasy pole of advancement by the simple if very unusual principle of loyalty to his Lord and total trustworthiness everyone trusted him and now the Barons expected him to get rid of Louis and rule on behalf of little Henry and Louie was roundly defeated in the end he agreed to go back to France and agree he'd never been King of England at all and all the barons and bishops who declaimed him as king that they'd never done anything of the sort everyone became patriotic for the first time since the Norman Conquest the French were being described as foreigners looting the English the Barons all spoke French and they had nothing in common with the villains on their lands but they were beginning to feel English and William Marshall reissued Magna Carta and said that all the old laws and rights of England were exactly what Henry the third wanted to uphold William Marshall died the grand old hero of England in 1219 and Henry was given a proper coronation at Westminster the following year as Henry grew up the barons and bishops had no intention of letting him get away from them he learned to do as he was told and that pretty much defined him as a king what the Barons and the bishops hadn't thought about was that one day he would be listening not to them but to his wife perhaps one of them should have married him instead in 1236 he married Eleanor a younger daughter of the count of Provence he was 29 she was about 19 and she wrapped him round her finger she arrived with her uncle who immediately started running the King's life and cottage huge amounts of treasure off to his homeland then she got another uncle installed his Archbishop of Canterbury a physician became the Bishop of Durham and large sums of money supposedly going to her mother were actually funding the Wars of her brother-in-law that you could Anjou she was inevitably staggeringly unpopular and however little money the king had he always seemed able to support her relatives abroad paying for their courts and their armies in 1263 the population of London rose in rebellion their targets were Flemish bankers Jewish finances and Queen Helena she was in the Tower of London London's Royal Palace and got away from the Watergate to slip down the Thames to Windsor as her boat approached London Bridge she was pelted with missiles back crowd shouting drown her which she managed to get back to the safety of the Tower the kingdom had become uncover noble at least by this king and queen this was not the same country it had been in 1066 towns had grown traded grown London had grown with the Barons losing influence and Londoners angry the crown itself was in danger England was on the edge of revolution enter the revolutionary a Frenchman on the make the charming clever younger son of a powerful and ruthless Norman Lord a chancer with style Simon de Montfort France was now ruled by King Louie's widow on behalf of their young son she was a shrewd woman who decided the young Simon was dangerous stuff and forced him to escape abroad he'd come to England in 1231 when he was about 23 intending to recover land his family had lost years ago and he was really good at it he became the best of friends with the impressionable Henry in no time and Henry's sister fell for him in 1238 they were married and he was given back those lost family lands he was Earl of Leicester the English were suspicious of foreigners so Simon completely converted into an Englishman in 12:39 Henry and Eleanor had a son Simon sponsored the baptism they chose the name Edward after the great anglo-saxon King Edward the Confessor this French royal family had adopted English patriotism but as the political crisis deepened Simon became increasingly committed to the total reform of government eventually the crisis became a full-blooded civil war and by the time the war ended in 1264 Henry and his son Edward were Simon's prisoners and he took over the country Simon now set about inventing an entirely new form of government one which was based on the deeply rooted English principle of consent in 1265 he summoned a meeting of the country a Parliament at Westminster to endorse his government he summoned not only barons and bishops but also to Knights from each Shire and most extraordinary representatives from all the boroughs the towns he said he was acting in the King's name but the King didn't have much to do with what was going on in fact silent had established what we might see as a modern state there was a written constitution a symbolic King a powerful leading Minister and there was a parliament with representatives of the church the countryside represented by a great landowners and Gentry and of towns we might see it like that they didn't to most people at the time this was clearly the tyranny of Simon de Montfort by now Prince Edward was a grown man 25 years old and it was his job to overthrow this tyranny and restore the crown first of course he had to escape imprisonment at herebut castle the prince was allowed to exercise his force on the common so he wore out his guards horses racing with them and then jumped onto a fresh horse that have been brought for the purpose and disappeared into the distance what followed is known as the Battle of Evesham at the end of which Simon de Montfort was chopped up into pieces Henry was back on his throne but it was Edward who was now running the country this tall muscular warrior he was called Longshanks had the military skill to crush the remaining rebels and the good sense not to punish them afterwards he understood how to make peace and accepted the proposition that the King must respect legal limits on his power and consult with the nation he also habitually spoke English the first royal to do so since 1066 Parliament made him the steward of England de montfort Revolution had left its mark the old King died in 1272 having reigned for 56 years Edwards main interest in life was chivalry and warfare his natural costume was armor it had been since he was a child when Henry died Edward was out of the country on crusade he came home to be crowned with his queen yet another Eleanor in 1273 the daughter of the king of Castile she'd already born Edward six children they would have ten England now had something like a settled system of government Edward confirmed the existing charters including Magna Carta and was able to leave the business of government and justice to his Council and judges his main concern was how to gather the money to conduct his military interests without provoking more rebellions he hit on a brilliant policy he invented nationalism to demonstrate that his kingship was rooted in English tradition he and Elinor conducted the most remarkable ceremony at Glastonbury in 1278 and 90 the monks of Glastonbury had found graves which were believed to be those of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere the bones had been placed in the Lady Chapel now 88 years later King Edward carried the bones of Arthur and Queen Eleanor those of Guinevere they put the legendary remains in a magnificent tomb in the main church Edward presented himself as a new Arthur all this was part of a wider campaign to give his kingship the power of myth and so unite the country behind him this unity was going to be needed when he claimed supremacy over all Wales it worked when the Welsh princes rejected his claim he was able to raise the money to make an enormous military effort he became the first English King to totally concur this mountainous territory one of its princes swellin was killed in battle his head was mounted on the table the other David was put on trial for treason before Parliament and sentence to be drawn hanged beheaded and quartered this was a savagery previously unknown in English the English system of shires and hundreds was now extended to cover all Wales and the conquest was emphasised by huge state-of-the-art royal castles like this one at Caernarfon Edwards warchest was based on a new source of royal finance in 1275 Parliament granted him the right to charge customs duties on wool see how useful it was having a parliament with merchants to agree to taxes nevertheless popular rhymes suggested trouble was brewing the King he wants to get our gold the Queen would like our lands to hold his war chests had come from Jewish moneylenders but now they had no more to give nevermind the Jews could serve another purpose Italian bankers would provide advances on the customs duties and collect the taxes themselves and Edward could unite the country behind him in persecuting the Jews 650 years later the Third Reich would adopt his entire program-- first Edward decreed that they were a threat to the country their movements and activities were restricted to identify them easily or Jews were obliged to wear a yellow patch in the shape of a stud next he arrested all the heads of Jewish households over 300 were taken to the Tower of London and executed while others were murdered in their homes finally in 1290 the king banished all Jews from the country by now the armoured Overlord was a national hero when his wife Queen Eleanor died in the same year worn out by child births his own grief was turned into a major display of national mourning her body was ceremonially carried from Lincoln to Westminster and a memorial cross erected at every one of the twelve resting places including here at Charing in London Charing Cross it was time to enlarge the Kingdom again in 1296 he led an army to enforce his claim to Scotland Edinburgh was seized and the King of Scotland stripped of his crown was imprisoned in the Tower of London Scottish Kings were crowned enthroned on the stone of Scoon or Stone of Destiny Edward had it moved to London and put in the coronation chair in Westminster Abbey Edward appointed a trio of Englishmen to run the country actually his rule in Scotland was not noticeably harsh or unjust but that was beside the point his own conjuring of the demon of nationalism was turning against him ordinary Scots began to discover a feeling of national identity a popular Scottish resistance movement grew led by William Wallace better known nowadays outside Scotland at least as Braveheart most of Scotland had broken free before he was defeated and then in 1306 rebellion began again and Robert the Bruce was crowned King of Scotland by now Edward the hammer of the Scots was old and sick he tried to lead an army back into Scotland but it became obvious he'd never get there a few miles north of Carlisle on his deathbed he gave instructions to his 23 year-old heir Edward Prince of Wales a hundred Knights were to crusade carrying his heart the army should carry his bones to defeat Scotland and the prince was not to have anything further to do with his steady very close friend piers Gaveston the king was dead edward ii was ready to party edward was physically tall and muscular but his similarity to his father ended there he had no interest in being warlord his father had taken him on campaign but the Prince traveled with a pet lion and a troop of Genoese Fiddler's Edward the first had tried to change his character by assigning him a charismatic Squire who was good at tournaments this had backfired spectacularly Edward and piers Gaveston had fallen in love Gaveston was banished but obviously he was now coming back Gaveston was an elegant charming artistic man who loved showing off his power of Edward and could still easily beat more macho men in tournaments this was a recipe for a short life before his coronation Edward married Isabella the sister of the King of France then Gaveston was seen wearing Isabella's wedding jewelry at the coronation he showed up carrying the crown wearing royal purple and pearls some of the barons wanted to kill him on the spot eventually of course they did kill him here at blackwell hill in Warwickshire having chased the King and peers around the country and then Robert Bruce renegade King of Scotland said about completing his war of independence he captured Edinburgh and besieged the last English stronghold Stirling in 1314 edward ii set out to relieve the city the Battle of Bannockburn just outside the castle was a total disaster for the n-words troubles were made worse by the fact that the climate which had been benign for about a hundred years took a dramatic and long-term turn for the worse in 1315 as harvests failed and cattle died the Barons said that his extravagance and lack of direction was intolerable so the grown-ups took over the Earl of Lancaster head of the council was now acting as king keeping Edward on a daily allowance of 10 pounds but he still had friends he turned to Hugh Despenser and his son dispenser was the only nobleman who had supported Gaveston eventually they managed to help him break free of the power of Leicester and the other great Nobles but no one had a solution to the unending run of bad harvests and the apparent enthusiasm of the Despenser's to enrich themselves made Edwards rule deeply unpopular his special his Queen Isabella in 1325 she got away to France and refused to come home unless the Despenser's were thrown out worse she'd fallen passionately in love with an ally of Lester's who was hiding out in France Roger Mortimer Isabella and Mortimer gathered an army and invaded England in September 13 26 as homophobia turned into mob rule Isabella and Mortimer were joyously welcome to London a few months it was all over the elder dispenser almost 90 years old was hanged without being given time to take off his armor the younger and his genitals cut off then he was disemboweled the object was for Isabella and Mortimer to rule in the name of her 14 year old son but the boy refused to accept the crown without his father's consent so Edward dressed in black was deposed in a solemn ceremony the steward of his household broke his staff of office he broke down and cried he was eventually moved to Berkeley castle where he was encouraged to die as soon as possible he was denied sufficient food and clothing he was prevented from sleeping he was crowned with a crown of hay and shaved with ditch water Isabella generally known as the she-wolf of France reproved the guards for their mild treatment since he would not die by himself he was murdered in his bed on the 21st of September it said that he was raped with a red-hot poker his dying shrieks were heard throughout the castle a homophobia had allowed his Abela and her lover Mortimer to brutally and illegally depose Edward the second that didn't make them heroes for long Edward the third in whose name they ruled was their prisoner but in 1320 when he was 18 he broke free they were staying in Nottingham and he put together a plot to lead a band of armed men into the castle through an underground passage they seized Mortimer and Isabella Mortimer was hanged Isabella shut away in Castle rising in Norfolk and England had a king again law and proper government would be resumed under a handsome young man properly entitled to the throne who also happened to be a fine chivalrous knight who spoke English French and German and who was already married with a baby son what could be better than that how about a good war Edward decided on the most extraordinary and significant military campaign since the Norman Congress he announced that by the laws of inheritance he was the rightful successor to the throne of France he was rubbish wasn't but he certainly meant to you and in 1337 he began preparing his invasion actually there were two genuine reasons for this and neither had anything to do with the law of succession one was that the French were supporting the Scots and so long as that continued the King of England would never be master of Scotland and Northern England would be constantly threatened by Raiders looters and Scotch armies the other was that England was now a busy commercial country selling wool to Flemish Weaver's in 1336 Philip of France decided to take control of this trade he arrested all English merchants in flanders and took away the privileges of the flemish towns and the craft guilds english merchants pointed out that they've lost their income the king had lost his customs duties the kingdom had lost its foreign trade the coast on the far side of the channel was vital to English security and prosperity whatever the cost it must be kept open the same imperative would force Britain to war against Napoleon against the Kaiser against Hitler Edward was the first to have to face him his solution was to claim France and breaking this little campaign is known in history as the Hundred Years War but this war actually changed the nature of the Kings job because it required a new kind of army ever since William the Conqueror the idea had been that in exchange for their land holdings lords and knights were supposed to turn up in arms and fight for the king when they were needed but this didn't work very well for a war overseas firstly a knight's service was only meant to be for 40 days at a time that doesn't work with a Hundred Years War secondly many Knights felt that they shouldn't be obliged to go overseas at all they were probably right and thirdly they weren't necessarily fighting men anymore so Edward needed to have a professional army Knights who didn't want to serve didn't have to they could pay a tax called scooted that would allow Edward to hire professionals mercenaries were quick to see the opportunity for plunder and ransom and joined up and freed from the need to pander to Knightly good manners on the battlefield Edward hired thousands of effective deadly archers from the lower classes instead of being a feudal warlord the king was now a professional commander he invaded Normandy in 1346 and his professionals destroyed the old-fashioned feudal knights of France at crécy opening up that vital coast Calais held out and when it eventually surrendered Edward announced that it must be punished the city keys must be handed over by six leading Berger's barefoot with nooses round their necks to be hanged when they arrived the Queen publicly fell on her knees and pleaded for the burghers lives which of course Edward granted this splendid pantomime was part of the theater of royalty which Edward was now developing to a magnificent art the life of the king was being turned into a public performance his court was the home of chivalry and his lords and knights were given parts in the drama it was a brilliant device for binding together war taxation and loyalty the Queen was as important in this as the king she led the ladies of the court the judges of chivalric behavior and she was the source of mercy tempering her husband's justice this was a religious image people were encouraged to show devotion to the Virgin Mary the Queen of Heaven who would intercede and offer protection against divine judgment intercession was desperately needed by people who believe that God punished them with death death arrived at Weymouth in June 13:48 black death in less than a year the whole country was stricken no one could have understood what was happening once a person was infected large foul-smelling swellings developed in the groin neck and armpit death followed within two or three days the disease killed more than a third of the population and by 1350 the population of England was half that of 1315 in the midst of the dying the theater of royalty grew grander Edward created the order of the garter where two tournament teams played out in our theory and drama based on some George's Chapel at Windsor the castle was rebuilt for the show with the nobility bound to him by chivalric Dreams and the Shires and towns granting funds for the war in parliament the French war could still go on another decisive victory of poitiers in 1356 brought France to the point of disintegration but by now the war couldn't be ended the nobility and troops saw endless vistas of plunder while the Kings only chance of income came not from his withered population but from rich ransoms this war would last a hundred years by the time Edward died in 1377 sixty-five years old the townsmen and peasants of England was sick of the whole thing the King's oldest son Edward the Black Prince had been the flower of chivalry and hugely popular but he died a year before the king the successor to the throne was the black Prince's ten-year-old son Richard real power though lay with Richards Uncle John of Gaunt the war had by now turned against England the French were ravaging the English coast the shrunken working population demanded proper wages they had no interest in performing feudal duties on the land while desperate landowners needed more than ever to enforce them Gaunt's government needed money and tried to raise it from a poll tax not understanding that the population was far smaller than before when they failed to raise the money they'd expected they tried again and England erupted Lords nobles bishops get rid of them all who needs them when Adam delved and Eve spam who was then the gentle man the so called peasants revolt of 1381 was actually an uprising of the respectable people of towns and villages across England its aim at least for the rebels that captured London was an end to lordship in church and state just one Archbishop and a king specifically not they added a king called John they detested John of Gaunt who went into hiding the dramatic moment of course was the meeting of Richard and the rebels at Smithfield on the 14th of June the rebel leader what Tyler was talking to the king when the Mayor of London cut him down the rebels immediately drew their bows and the King now 14 years old rode forward to calm them I will be your captain come with me into the fields and you shall have all you ask and they dispersed as he told them it was an astonishing lesson in the mysterious power of kingship the rebels should never have trusted him of course once the danger was past the ringleaders were hunted down and killed Delaine he are and village he shall remain years later when Richard would need popular support he would find he had none but Richard had been given a dramatic vision of himself he seems to have been convinced that the basis of his power lay in the special authority of sovereignty he was the first English king to have portraits made instead of wars he offered tournaments accompanied by music and dancing with the ladies of the court but Richards choice of companions were not the kind of men that most barons approved of and above all Richard abandoned the war with France leaving France in control of Flanders unpleasant references were made to Edward the second and look what happened to him he found himself up against a group of noblemen who call themselves the Lord's appellant appealing to have his closest advisors removed and take over the government which is what happened Richard was effectively dethroned he was able to recover power in 1397 as part of his efforts to secure his throne he exiled Henry Bolingbroke John of Gaunt son but Bolingbroke came back with a vengeance and Richard found that wherever he turned for support it simply wasn't there Bolingbroke captured him demanded his voluntary abdication and then sat on his throat Richard disappeared into a prison in Pontefract castle where he was murdered Richard had no children the line of the Black Prince Edward the thirds eldest son had come to an end the proper heir to the throne was an eight-year-old boy called Edmund living in Ireland the great-grandson of King Edward's second son Henry's father was the third son so Henry was certainly not heir to the throne but he was a big man with a big red beard and a big army and he was sitting right there in England on the throne not in Ireland not eight years old so Parliament decided that he was very definitely fully entitled to be king of England oh yes Edmund spent the whole of Bolingbroke trained as a well maintained prisoner Henry was the first King to speak English as his native tongue he was personable brave and a very capable leader in battle but without legitimacy he was clinging to power by his fingernails anyone who doubted Bolingbroke s'right to be king of england could expect to be heart hanged and then have their intestines pulled out before being killed his regime became ever more repressive as he became more worried there was an uprising in the north which he put down with real ferocity it was said that he personally killed 30 men in battle and the air hung heavy with the smoke of burning flesh as the English church under this new regime began burning heretics the usurper needed to rule by fear but the most frightened person in England was him off who'd seized the throne and killed King Richard was a frightened man he made himself sick with worry sometimes he sank into a coma people said he had leprosy government was taken over by his son also called Henry a young man who'd grown up fighting on his father's behalf in fact Parliament suggested that the King abdicate in his son's favor which he refused to do in 1413 the Grim Reaper came with a more convincing offer he was only 45 years old and the 26-year old henry v was crowned in April in the snowstorm henry v did all he could to get the country back onto a stable footing he gave richard the seconds remains a proper burial and of course he got back to the important business of invading France France was still in a state of disintegrate ruled by Charles the sixth a man with a severe mental disturbance in a fit of derangement he'd slaughtered his own attendants now he believed that he was made of glass and about to break he actually had iron rods stitched into his clothing it was easy meat and Henry's overwhelming victory of a zinc ore in 40:15 destroyed much of France's aristocracy the English king was now in control of Paris Charles very fragile agreed to acknowledge Henry as heir to the French throne this meant disinheriting his own son the Dauphin and Henry took Charles his sister Catherine de Valois as his bride what a great place to end the story England safe Edward the third plan to take over France brought to fruition a genuinely popular King and they all lived happily ever after not in 1422 henry v not yet 35 years old contracted dysentery and died england had a new King Henry and Catherine's son Henry the sixth six weeks later the King of France also died and Henry the sixth became King of France just one problem his Majesty King Henry the sixth was only 10 months of the Duke of Bedford was appointed regent of France and the Duke of Gloucester regent of England and the babys kingdoms especially France were in serious trouble the dough FAP wanted his kingdom back and everything the English had done ravaging the countryside destroying all authority and stability it could have been calculated to create a passion of nationalism it was entirely natural for people to believe that Joan of Arc was on a divine mission to drive the English out of France and give it its rightful king under her inspirational leadership the dophins forces took over a Leon and Reims and he was crowned King of France in Reims in 1429 little Henry had still not been crowned king of anything something obviously had to be done about that so later the same year now seven years old he had a coronation in Westminster Abbey the idea was then to get him to Reims where kings of France are supposed to be crowned but that just wasn't safe so he ended up being crowned King of France in Paris it was all a mess in fact English forces were now fighting a losing battle the new factor in the equation was gunpowder cannon and hand guns changed the whole nature of warfare and Henry did not grow up to be a warrior a quiet studious young man he never felt it was his job to lead the English forces in battle they were finally destroyed at Castillo in 1453 the Hundred Years War was over England was left with no possessions in France except Calais but Henry's problems had barely begun the taxes needed to fight the war and corruption among royal officials meant the country was disheartened and angry and the issues of legitimacy that had lain pretty dormant in England since Henry Bolingbroke usurped the throne were now coming out of the woodwork richard ii had been the last legitimate King of England if there was such a thing he'd been succeeded by his murderer and rivalling Brook the father of Henry v the grandfather of Henry the sixth they were all descended from John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster but that wasn't the legitimate line of descent John of Gaunt and an elder brother whose descendants were still alive the rightful king of England had not been Henry the fourth but Edmund the Earl of March and now that Edmund was dead it was his nephew Richard Duke of York Edmund had carefully and probably wisely never made a point of making his claim Henry the fourth and Henry the fifth had been seriously powerful men but Henry the sixth wasn't in the same league his interest was not in war but in learning he founded Eton and King's College Cambridge and he was a gentle pious man there were many who believed that he was more a saint than a king Richard Duke of York now 40 years old decided that it was time for the crown to fall into his hands his claim was supported by most of the Barons of southern England the northern barons felt all this was codswallop they had the right to choose their King not be passed like slaves to whoever inherited them and then quite suddenly in the summer of 1453 the King went mad he'd probably inherited the strain of madness in his mother's family the illness that had wracked Charles the sixth the true legacy of a zinc ore was not the crown of France but a recurring disease that would afflict members of the English royal family for centuries he lost his memory he lost control of his body he lost the ability to speak coherently or understand what was said to him his wife gave birth to their only son but he knew nothing about it with the King incapacitated government needed to be handed to a regent and the man with the backing in the south to take over the reins was Richard Duke of York the inevitable and disastrous outcome was civil war Lancaster against York their badges the red rose of Lancaster and the White Rose of York gave history the Wars of the Roses to begin win it was a war for control not of the crown but of the King Richard didn't want to be crowned while Henry was still alive nor did he want to kill him but he did want to control the government and be recognized as successor the King made a partial recovery but was quite incapable of taking charge of his own defense his Queen made an impressive effort to do it for him Margaret commanded in the Battle of Wakefield in 1460 when Richard of York was killed Richard's son Edward of York had none of his father's qualms about taking the crown in March 14 61 Edward without any parliamentary approval had himself crowned Edward the fourth Henry was still alive a husk and became a refugee with his queen the deposed royal family hid in Scotland then Henry was captured and became a prisoner in London in 1470 an extraordinary upheaval backed by the king of France drove Edward the fourth from London and Henry was rescued from prison and restored to his throne it said that while Edward plotted his return from exile in Holland Henry had a curious interview with one of his distant relatives a boy of 14 Henry Tudor after the death of his father Henry the six mother Catherine de Valois had an affair with one of her servants a Welshman Oh enough Meredith up Tudor it was probably King Henry who arranged the marriage of their son Edmund Tudor to Margaret Beaufort a great grandchild of John of Gaunt Margaret became pregnant immediately but the Beaufort family would disbarred by ancient royal charters from ever succeeding to the throne so why did she call her baby Henry no Beaufort had ever been called Henry no Judah had ever been called Henry it was a king's name it suggests that Owen had great plans for the boy and that was obviously what Edward of York thought as soon as he had Owen Tudor in his power in 1461 he had his head chopped off his head was displayed lit up with a hundred candles Henry Tudor aged four had been taken prisoner but now young Judah was free and according to later stories was looked on as an important figure in the line of succession according to Shakespeare Henry the sixth looked at the boy and said hello surely this is he to whom both we and our adversaries shall hereafter give place the following year Edward the fourth made his counter-strike King Henry's son was killed at the Battle of Tewkesbury and Henry the six himself was captured a few days later he was murdered in the Tower of London the Wars of the Roses were over the competition between England's barons for control of the kingdom had ground to a bloody end with most of the great families of nobles having been slaughtered Henry Tudor was now head of the House of Lancaster he had no claim to the throne of course coming from the debarred Beaufort family so Edward should not have regarded him as a threat in theory just to be on the safe side he fled to Brittany but Henry Tudor would be back and he would make sure he controlled how the story was written in the next program we'll see how Henry Tudor shaped our knowledge of what followed creating the story of the most evil king in history and setting the stage for the most heroic how much do you know about Henry v sky digital views press read and take our test the turbulent reigns of the Tudors tonight at 10:00 coming up next protecting u.s. bombers from German attack the p-51 Mustang decisive weapon

Channel: AngelDocs

Views: 1,452,184

Rating: 4.6936774 out of 5

Keywords: middle ages, kings queens england

Id: bePT-iYPKyQ

Length: 46min 25sec (2785 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 11 2012