The King Who Murdered The Archbishop | Henry II | Real Royalty With Foxy Games

out of the chaos darkness and violence of the Middle Ages one family rose to seize control of England generation after generation they ruled the country for more than 300 years ruthlessly crushing all competitions to become the greatest English dynasty of all time the Plantagenet what I love about the Plantagenet story is that it's more shocking more brutal and more astonishing than anything you'll find in fiction I want to show you the Plantagenets as I see them real living breathing written by an official jealousy hatred and revenge these Kings murdered betrayed and tyrannized their way to spectacular success for better and for worse the Plantagenets forged England as a nation this time the founder of the dynasty Henry the second warrior and Empire Builder he transformed England from a war zone into a European superpower but murder and betrayal by his own family threatened to tear apart everything he had achieved in 1153 Henry Plantagenet sails to England with an invasion force aiming to seize back the throne he's only 20 but he's already an experienced soldier he's been fighting France since he was a kid and his mother's drilled into him the idea that the crown of England is rightfully his says Henri approaches these shores he's convinced he has a date with destiny Henri's a powerhouse with a fiery temper bursting with raw energy and ambition within a year Stephen is dead and Henry is crowned Henry the second the first Plantagenet King it of course he doesn't speak a word of English but after 90 years of Norman French rule in England no one does except the peasants and it's not then the Henry's here to pick a fight with it's the Barents four generation the Barons been fighting vicious turf wars burning looting raping killing if you lived here you could come home any day to find your house on fire your crops destroyed your animals taken or your family murdered and this has been going on for nearly 20 years as long as the new king has been alive Henry's future and the future of England depends on bringing the Barons to heel he could simply destroy them whose armies big enough but instead he does something totally unexpected high on the Welsh borders is Wigmore castle once one of England's greatest fortresses it's the power base of human toughest of the barons and the last to hold out against the new king oh and defies Henry and gets away with it he turns up here at Wigmore with an army and lays siege to the castle [Music] Henry's got Hugh surrounded but he's not here to destroy him it just sits outside Here I am it's my army what are you gonna do about it unsurprisingly Hugh folds but it's what Henry does next that marks him out as a king to watch because he takes Hugh's castle away from him I think gives it straight back he's saying you can have your power but only because I say so I'm the king I'm in control and you work for me [Applause] one reason Henry has the confidence to take on such powerful men and because he has a formidable arm henry's queen is Eleanor Duchess of Aquitaine 10 years is senior she's such a famous beauty students across Europe sing 40 songs about bedding her she shocked the continent by divorcing the King of France in 1152 and marrying Henry just two months later they're a good match by the time Henry takes the throne she's already produced their first son but this Queen is far more than a baby machine as Duchess of Aquitaine she's a serious political player in her own right Henry brings muscle Eleanor brings prestige together they're a match for anyone and their union creates a Plantagenet Empire that stretches from the borders of Scotland to the Pyrenees but to keep control of such vast territory Henry has to do something radical controls everything - Henry the question is how does he maintain it he could use his barons to rule the different regions that standard medieval practice but as far as Henry can see the Barons are lonely do things his way as long as it suits them to get what he wants Henry's going to have to do things a little bit differently Henry's genius is to create a new one not of soldiers but of class educated commoners unlike the Barons they'll do exactly what he wants what Henry invents is the basis of the civil service that still runs the country today [Music] here at the National Archives nine hundred year old documents revealed a full extent of Henry's control so this is a writ from the second year of Henry's reign and it's an official instruction from the king we can see the king Rex here dude norm did you give Aquitaine he's sending instruction to the sheriff of Dorset ordering him to give back a farm in the village of ram person to its rightful owner that might sound mundane but hundreds of these survived and what they show you is Henry's interest in every last field and pasture of his kingdom and this isn't everything Henry's doing he's also rebuilding royal finance through the exchange ustus is raving about the country to reestablish law and order what it all adds up to is Henry's complete obsession with stamping his control of every area of his new kingdom the mastermind pulling the administrative strings for Henry is commoner Thomas Becket the son of a merchant he may be lowborn the Becket such a brilliant operator that Henry makes him Chancellor it's Beckett who makes sure the Kings grip on England is rock-solid and it's clearly some kind of spark between them they quickly become drinking buddies hunting partners and best mates but because of Beckett everything Henry's achieved is about to come under threat the trouble begins here at Canterbury seats of power of the one part of England that remains beyond Henry's control the church one Englishman in five is a cleric they're effectively above the law whatever crime they commit even rape or murder only church courts can try them the worst punishment they can give out is a fine the king can't touch them so in 1161 when the Archbishop of Canterbury dies here Henry thinks excellent I'll appoint my mate Thomas's Archbishop we can knock some sense into the church and even though Thomas has never been a priest Henry bullies the monks at Canterbury until they agree to elect him so you can see why Henry thinks he's got the church problem so not after all Becket his best mate he owes his career to him what could possibly go wrong Henri's failed to spot a massive problem in the medieval world there is a higher power than the king Beckett finds God pretty much the first thing he does is hang the king out to dry by resigning as Chancellor he's sending a very blunt message I'm not gonna do what you say anymore I have a new boss now with God in his corner what Beckett now defies every command the King makes to bring the church to heel unsurprisingly it doesn't go down very well with Henry this is a king famous across Europe for his uncontrollable temper a man who once got so furious during an argument he rolled around on the floor pulling the straw out of his mattress stuffing it into his mouth so it's fair to say that Henry wasn't just angry he was apoplectic and this rage combined with Henry's intense desire for control will lead to murder and betrayal that threatens to destroy everything he's achieved [Music] [Music] Westminster July 1170 henry ii is having his eldest son young Henry crowned king of England effectively king in waiting [Music] it should secure Henry's legacy instead is going to tear his world apart because there's one man who really should be there but Henrique hasn't invited thomas becket crowning kings of england the Archbishop of Canterbury's gig and it always has been so when Beckett finds out about the young Kings coronation he explodes with fury he does something utterly reckless Becket excommunicated every single cleric involved as far as he's concerned they're quite literally going to hell when the news reaches Henry out comes his Plantagenet rage again and he says something you'll come to regret for the rest of his life Beckett Beckett keep their letter told us and yours what right I become me please your door Hansie Oh Henri's just venting but that's not how it looks to his nights what they hear is a direct order from their king this simple misunderstanding sets up a disaster and here in Canterbury it all comes crashing down days later full night to pass through these doors and they march into the cathedral to confront Beckett here he's unarmed exams Fischer's roads and they're in our mo is soared by their size [Music] furious words are exchanged they try and drag Beckett back to the cathedral he resists and it's at this point one of the Knights draws his sword and brings it down on Beckett's head chopping off part of his skull Beckett Falls one of the Knights scoops his brains onto the floor with the tip of his sword but they're not alone because hiding in doorways and behind pillars are Beckett's friends and supporters bearing witness to an event that'll shock Christendom every single good thing that henry ii has done in his career until now may as well be wiped out because this is what he'll be remembered for [Music] the fact that his words were taken out of context is neither here nor there as far as everyone's concerned Henry ordered Beckett's murder outraged at this sacrilege goes viral across Europe people begin to question whether Henry has really fit to be a king Henry realizes straightaway how damaging this will be this is the first time since his meteoric rise that he's been vulnerable I think he would have hurt him personally as well he and Becket may have been knocking lumps out of each other for years this is still a man who was once his closest friend who understood him better than anyone else the humiliated King makes himself scarce and goes to Ireland on campaign in a crisis on this scale the one group he should be able to count on her his own family but now they turn on him too and it's all Henry's fault Henri's eldest son Henry the young king is a chip off the old block ambitious power-hungry and impatient as king in waiting he should be taken to Ireland so Henry can teach him how to exert iron-fisted control but he isn't instead the young king is left behind festering in the aftermath of his father's disgrace and whilst he's away the King leaves control in the hands of his slick bureaucrat powerless and isolated resentment at his father starts to beat away to another surviving document revealed just how humiliating life is for the young king this is a record royal accounts from 1170 to when Henry is off beating up the Irish on the face of it it's pretty dry it's a long list of payments made but throughout the records of money paid out to the young king what's interesting is they're all quite small let's have a look there's one here from Berkhamstead and it says for the works reiji's fili Reyes of the king the son of the King xxx that's 30 shillings well today that's a few thousand pounds which might sound like a lot but the eldest son of a king it's chicken feed now the normal way that things would work is that a king would give his eldest son a block of lands from which to draw his revenue but Henry hasn't done that he's kept everything to himself to keep control so the picture you get reading this is of the old king or the richest most powerful men in Europe while his eldest son is going round cap in hand begging money from royal officials [Music] resentment is spreading through the rest of the family too [Music] the year before Beckett's murder Henry's wife Queen Eleanor had returned to her homeland in Aquitaine and she based her self here at Poitier where this Hall is what remains of her magnificent ducal palace after years living in a foreign country Eleanor's come back with her favorite son Richard to train him to take over her lands there when she dies finally she's back where she belongs this is where she was born this is where she was raised frankly food and the weather are better here too but Ellen is about to find that her Aquitaine is now a very different place a spanking new cathedral has been built in the town center this is more than just a church it's a PR statement designed to sell the Plantagenet dynasty to the people and the banner headline of this message is a spectacular window incredibly it survived intact for nearly nine centuries if you look at this stained-glass window high up in the cathedral you can see Henry Eleanor and their four sons it's like a snapshot of a united family ruling together over England and half of France except it isn't really like that because in Aquitaine Eleanor finds its Henry's men collecting the taxes Henry's men controlling the Barons even when our husbands hundreds of miles away it's obvious that he's the one is in control now Eleanor might have brought Aquitaine to Henry in marriage but that doesn't mean it's his then Eleanor discovers something Henry's done that to her is unforgivable behind her back Henry has mortgaged off part of her Aquitania to secure a political alliance this is like coming home one day to find your husband's change the locks sold all your stuff live I had a whole bunch of other people to live there it's not just M&A as fuming Richard is spitting blood about his lost inheritance to one stroke Henry has created two powerful new enemies and he probably doesn't even realize henry's blindness to his family's feelings is a ticking time bomb here and she no 175 miles southwest of Paris in the very heart of Henry's French lands and it finally explodes chignon Castle has enormous strategic importance if you want to rule of Plantagenet Empire controlling it is absolutely essential and that's exactly why Henry the young king expects that one day this castle will be his then one night Henry announces his giving chignon castle the jewel in the Plantagenet crown to John the young king's six-year-old brother [Music] think what it would have been like here that night this is one of the angriest families in history try and imagine all that Plantagenet rage just boiling up but I think there have been much Pleasant chitchat over dinner [Music] she'll see the loss of the castle is more than the young king can bear true to form Henry's completely dismissive he's utterly incapable of seeing things from his son's point of view but the young king is adamant for 18 years he's had to suffer his father's obsessive control now he's drawing a line in the sand the young king should have known better [Music] Henry was never gonna give up control without a fight chignon teaches the young king a harsh lesson his father is never gonna give him real power and he's sick of being strung along but if Henry thinks he's got the young king where he wants him he's dead wrong his eldest son is now hell-bent on taking the old man down [Music] spring 1173 if the young king steals out of his father's custody who flees to Paris straight into the arms of Louis the seventh King of France this is out-and-out betrayal the young king is planning to use King Louie to help seize his Father's throne but why does the King of France get involved in such a dangerous game to dr. Julie burrow an expert in the medieval French Court it makes perfect sense Lois hates Henri well they had many reasons not to like each other maybe the first one is that they embody completely opposite ideas of what it is to be a king on one hand you have you know Henri macho warrior and on the other hand you had Louis was anything but and the other thing is that Henry was much much wealthier than Louis and never wasted an opportunity to do sure it very clearly but it's more than just political isn't it well yes what makes this story unusually that you have a very deep personal aspect to it a mere two months after Louis separated from his wife Eleanor she married Henry and she didn't just marry him but she started having one baby boy after the other when Louie and Eleanor had really tried for a song four years before that so that must have been really really painful for poor Louie so all those aspects together explain why you have such a deep and long animosity between those two men the young king rocking up in Paris is no surprise to Louie this is more than just a spur-of-the-moment betrayal by a petulant son because Henry the young king isn't acting alone his brothers are in on this too and so is the one person whose vital to making the whole betrayal possible Eleanor the Queen's been plotting with her ex-husband to replace Henry the second she immediately sends richard to join his older brother in comparison a few days later Eleanor follows she makes a mad dash across France on horseback disguised [Music] but she doesn't make it she's caught on her way to Paris by only two seconds men and brought to chignon castle not as a queen but as a prison your own sons rebelling against you is pretty much as bad as it gets your queen masterminding the whole plot with her ex that's off the chart [Music] the scandal rocks medieval Europe but there's no stopping the betrayal Eleanor has set in motion in Paris Louie Richard and the young king are mobilizing to attack Henri from all sides and not just in France they're going to hit him where it hurts the most England plenty of English barons are still pretty sore about having their wings clipped by Henry the second the young King promises to give them everything back now the last time the English barons had that sort of power they basically destroyed the country so this is a pretty reckless promise it's not careful strategy but that's the young King for you he's good at betrayal but he lacks his father's political savvy he just wants to win whatever the cost he even cuts a deal with Henry's other mortal enemy the King of Scotland the young King promises him big chunks of England if he attacks Henry from the north for a King of England in Waiting this is a dangerous game but it works by the spring of 1174 henry faces a perfect storm full-on revolt is spreading across his empire all sparked by his family's betrayal whilst henry's fighting in france england it's turning into a disaster sir the king of scotland has invaded the north and foreign mercenaries are flooding across the channel to support the Barons revolt if Henry doesn't do something drastic England will be lost most kings crossing the channel to face a rebellion will be thinking the same thing raise an army crush them by force but Henry's got something else up his sleeve because he realizes it isn't his barons or even his sons who are threatening his empire its the dead hand of Thomas Becket rising up from beyond the grave it's more than three years since Beckett was killed in Canterbury Cathedral in that time Henry's troubles have gone from bad to worse on the 12th of July 1174 henry ii heads to canterbury what he does in the next 24 hours will shock the world and decide the future of the entire plantation of dynasty just outside the city walls he stops removes his boots and begins to walk barefoot along the road people watching must be wondering if they're desperate King has lost his mind streets here in Canterbury full of people all nudging each other pointing maybe even trying to grab him they notice the king because behind him Royal standards fluttering he's dressed as an ordinary pilgrim rough woolen clothes and he's barefoot and the roads aren't nice and clean and smooth they're muddy they're filthy the full of broken pots and sharp stones that cut his feet to shreds this isn't just physically painful it's humiliating the king of England is dragging himself through the mud leaving bloody footprints behind Henri's performing the most public act of penance imaginable begging God and Becket's to forgive him this can only end in one place Canterbury Cathedral this wretched three-mile walk is actually propaganda dynamite every person who sees it will spread the news of the scale of the kings penance but Henry isn't finished yet he knows he has one chance to win back the hearts and minds of his kingdom and he's planning something spectacular [Music] the stage vis grand finale is the shrine of the once best friend he accidentally murdered Thomas Becket when Henry enters the cathedral dirty bloody and drained Thomas's shrine isn't up there down these stairs the Crypt [Music] it's down here in the dark among the columns the Henry does something absolutely extraordinary in front of Becket's tomb Henry kneels down the commands the monks to whip him 100 of them take turns to beat his back up to five times each with a birching [Music] Henry is spilling his own blood to atone for the spilling of Becket's and Cathedral above these are the same monks who cowered behind the pillars in horror then now they strike the blows beating a sin as I can in all Henry receives more than 300 flesh macerating lashes [Music] there may be far fewer people down here than up there but these are the men who write about all those scene who'll tell the world there may be Henry's punishes for there also is propagandists it's a masterstroke of charismatic kingship this is Henry's best shot at quashing the whispering campaign against him [Music] but there's no guarantee of saving then something extraordinary happens the next morning a messenger arrives he bares explosive news the King of Scotland has been captured the invasion of the north is over must have seemed like some kind of miracle the timings just too perfect and it feeds directly into Henry's own propaganda ever since the time of Beckett's death he's been describing himself in documents as king by the grace of God and now he has unarguable proof that God is on his side [Music] Henry's miracle rips the heart out of the rebellion in England the Barons fold without a fight Henry's back in control [Music] in less than a month he's free to head back to France and take the fight to his traitorous sons Henry is on a roll and he gets back to France the rebellion melts away before him first he persuades the flaky young King to switch sides that leads Richard to fold as well their rebellion is snuffed out for Henry's family is a catastrophe they gambled everything and lost the king has crushed them but he now faces a dilemma what to do with his treacherous family the one family member Henry can't forgive his Eleanor because there's a wife rebelling against a husband she's committed one of the worst forms of treachery and she can never be trusted again and here in this Chapel near chignon Castle her fate is recorded in this incredible fresco so the front you can see her husband Henry Ellen is in the middle and the behind her are two of her sons this might look like a nice touching Plantagenet family portrait but it actually shows Eleanor being led off into captivity [Music] Henry may not need Eleanor anymore but he does need his sons to carry on the Plantagenet dynasty after him so in a public ceremony of reconciliation he forgives them even gives them money and castles they may have been forgiven but both boys must know but the one thing he will never give them after this is any real power [Music] Henry simply can't see that his obsession with control might be the root cause of all his family's betrayals and this blindness to his own fault will ultimately destroy him [Music] in the summer of 1183 an unexpected event throat Henry the second world into terminal his eldest son the young king dies not by the sword but a dysentery an inglorious death for an inglorious son very long term put them in blue Henri's grief isn't just a father's Lois Claire he's personally devastated the death of the young king has destroyed all his plans for his legacy as his remaining sons begin to jockey for position Henry is losing control again just two of Henry's sons remain alive only one can become his heir Richard the eldest surviving son is expecting to be named but Henry's favorite has always been his youngest son John he at least has never betrayed his father even so Henry doesn't dare name either of them Henry drags his heels last time he named a successor it was disaster this time he thinks by stalling he can keep Richard obedient and under control what he doesn't know is someone's been stoking up resentment in Richard whispering ideas of betrayal in his ear yet again the man doing the whispering is the new King of France philip ii he plays on Richards fears persuading him that his father intends to name John as heir Richard demands that Henry formally names him as his successor and of course Henry refuses that would been giving up control so with Philip by his side Richard once again goes to war against his father in less than a month they tear through the part of Henry's French lands winning every battle it's not long before a defeated Henry finds himself holed up again back here at chignon castle who is Sun and the King of France at the gates their young ambitious and aggressive Henry's old and tired the one thing he could never control has finally caught up with him time outside his Plantagenet heartland is collapsing the Empire he built and has ruled over for more than thirty years is being ripped from him by his own son it's a final total defeat on the 3rd of July 1189 Henry rides out from scheana to meet Richard a man who spent so much of his life on horseback his legs are physically bowed now has to be strapped into the saddle to stop him from falling off Richards demands are read out he wants land he wanted money more than anything else he wants to be the next king his all Henry can do to nod his head weakly and agree at the end he leans in for one last embrace and he whispers to Richard god grant that I may not die until I've had my revenge on you somewhere in this broken old man is still Henry the second king of England [Music] but this act of defiance is Henry's last hurrah [Music] God doesn't grant his wish Henry the second the first Plantagenet King of England dies two days later [Music] here less than 20 miles from chignon in the family shrine at font evo abbey henry ii lies buried beside him were buried the bodies of his wife Eleanor and his successor Richard but not his favorite son John for his whole reign Henry kept a close grip on his kingdom he never allowed his sons real control because fundamentally he didn't think they could do as good a job as he could when Richard and then John become King they proved him right within 15 years the Plantagenet Empire is collapsed torn apart by rebellion a war and that's why John's not buried here at Fonte ovo with his mother and his father because by the time John dies this place is ruled by France you [Music] you

Channel: Real Royalty

Views: 177,861

Rating: 4.8123369 out of 5

Keywords: real royalty, real royalty channel, british royalty, royalty around the world, royal history, edward ii, edward, edward iii, edward ii summary, edward i, edward ii dvd, edward ii murder, edward ii marlowe, edward ii isabella, edward ii streaming, edward ii full story, edward 2, edward plantagenet, earl of warwick war of roses, war of the roses documentary

Id: y7YkLsEmE4M

Length: 44min 35sec (2675 seconds)

Published: Fri May 22 2020