The Eagle and the Hart with Helen Castor

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Hi everyone, and welcome to episode two hundred and sixty
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of the Medieval Podcast. I'm Danielle Sabalski, also known as
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the five Minute Medievalist. Most of us probably came across
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English kings Richard the Second and Henry the Fourth through
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the works of Shakespeare, maybe even recently by watching these
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plays together in the series The Hollow Crown. Richard the
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Second came to the throne as a young child, only
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to lose it to his cousin Henry in thirteen ninety nine.
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But why did Henry take such drastic action? And what
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became of the teenage boy who stood up to a
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crowd of angry peasants and held his own. This week
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I spoke with doctor Helen Caster about rival cousins and kings,
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rich of the Second and Henry the Fourth. Helen is
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a former professor and Director of Studies in History at
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Sydney Sussex College at the University of Cambridge and the
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award winning author of Blood and Roses, the paston Family
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and the Wars of the Roses. She Wolves the women
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who ruled England before Elizabeth and Joan of arc A History.
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Her new book is The Eagle and the heart, the
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tragedy of Richard the Second and Henry the Fourth. Our
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conversation on the events that shaped these two kings, what
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it was that set them on a collision course, and
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how an anointed king could lose his hollow crown is
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coming up right after this. Welcome back, Helen. It's always
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so good to see you. We've already been chatting for
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like almost fifteen minutes, but it's time to start talking
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about your book.
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Welcome back.
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Thank you so much for having me. Danielle, It's fantastic
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to be with you.
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Oh, I'm always happy to speak to you.
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All right.
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So we've been talking about this book that you've been
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working on for years, and I've been so excited about
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it coming out. Why did you want to talk about
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Richard this second and Hanuy the fourth in conjunction, because
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this is a book that really brings the two together.
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Why did you want to do that as a project?
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So many reasons, but I think what it boils down
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to one is that I've always been interested in power.
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How do you actually govern a medieval kingdom when you
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have no professional police force, you have no standing army,
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you have no modern transport, you have no modern communications.
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You are one man, You're the king. That kind of
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structural issue has always fascinated me, So the deposition of
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a king what brings England to this point in thirteen
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ninety nine when Richard actually loses his throne and he
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loses his throne to his first cousin, a man almost
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exactly the same age, so closely related to him, but
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such an utterly different person in terms of temperament, in
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terms of experience, in terms of attitude to the world.
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That I wanted to see if I could rise a
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psychological portrait of these two, and to do it together
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so that you would understand not just Richard the Second,
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who is a fascinating character, but if anybody knows anything
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about him, it's from Shakespeare. He's the central figure in
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one of the greatest and most beautiful of Shakespeare's plays,
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whereas Henry is a much shadowyer figure. He's the agent
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of Richard's four in Shakespeare's Richard the Second, and then
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in the plays that bear his name, he's in the
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background while Prince Halen, Falstaff and Hotspur fight it out
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at the front of the stage. So I wanted to
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give Henry his due and see exactly what it was
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about the relationship between these two men that played out
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in the drama of thirty ninety nine.
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Yes, and I mean, we definitely need to get to
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that critical point.
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It's a really good point that you're making him that, like.
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Henry the Fourth acts, he has two plays in his name,
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and he's almost forgettable.
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He Shakespeare well, exactly, because actually I think Henry is
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one of the most fascinating human beings I've ever written about.
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And there he is sandwiched between Richard the Second, one
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of the worst medieval kings, and Henry the Fifth, his
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own son, one of the greatest medieval kings. And his
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reign is complicated, it's full of drama, but drama that
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was difficult for him and the country to survive. But
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actually the human being at the center is so human
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and I think so fascinating when you dig in.
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Yeah, So let's do it. So let's start at the beginning.
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Who is Richard the Second? What time are we talking about?
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Set the scene for us Richard the Second's ascension to
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the throne.
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Richard the Second becomes King of England in thirteen seventy seven,
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at the age of ten, and this is a very
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bad time to have a king who's ten, because England
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has been at war for decades by this point with
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France in what we know is the Hundred Years War. Obviously,
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the people of Richard's Kingdom didn't know it was the
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Hundred Year's War. They didn't know how many years they
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were left on the clock, but they did know that
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after decades of really very successful fighting, the triumphs of
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Cressy and Poitiers and Calais and great victories, and the
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fighting happening over there in France, now in the thirteen seventies,
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everything was starting to go very badly and the fighting
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was heading England's way. The south coast was beginning to
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face French raids. And the difficulty politically was that the
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Great King, Edward the Third, who had been the glorious
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warrior king of this earlier phase of the war, was
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old and he was ill, and his son, the Black Prince,
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another military hero, was not old, but also ill, and
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the Black Prince died in the eineteen seventy six, and
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that means the crown has to skip a generation and
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come to rest on the head of this little boy
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in thirteen seventy seven. It's a frightening moment because he's
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the one with the right to rule, but he's not
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yet old enough. So England's nobles have to find a
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way of keeping government and the war going until they
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hope soon he'll be old enough to rule for himself. Yeah.
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So he's being raised with his father being ill for years,
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with the expectation he's going to be king, and he
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knows it.
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And I always have.
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Some sympathy for Richard the Second because there is no
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way that this kid was going to turn out okay.
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So tell us a little bit about his upbringing and
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how he was expected to be a king from the
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time he is very small.
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He really was. He was his father's only surviving legitimate child.
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He had had an older brother, Edward. There should have
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been Edward the fourth, the Black Prince, after Edward the third,
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and then Edward the fifth. It could all have been
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so different, but little Edward died when he was very young,
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and Richard was left as the only surviving child, legitimate
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child of the black Print. And as you say, for
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as long as he could remember, his father had been
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not a great campaigning warrior, but an invalid suffering with
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a chronic illness which meant that, given that his grandfather,
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Edward the third was also ailing by this time, he'd
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never actually seen kingship in action. He'd never had a
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chance to see what the job actually entailed. What he
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had known was being brought up within a very magnificent
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but closed off household focused around an invalid, with himself
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really wrapped in cotton wool. As far as it's possible
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to tell, we don't have day by day details of
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his education, but we certainly have the sense that he
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was being prepared for kingship only in terms of being
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told that he was unique, he was irreplaceable. He had
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to be protected at all costs. So, as you say,
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it's a complicated family, in some ways, it's a blended family,
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we would call it because his very unusually his mother
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had been married before. She had much more checkered history
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than most royal brides, and she so Richard had older
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half brothers and half sisters, but they had no claim
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to the throne. So within this large and magnificent and
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complicated household, he was unique. He was special.
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Yes, And you mentioned it as a cocoon, sort of
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like a magnificent cocoon, and this is something that he
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wants to keep around himself forever, but when he steps
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out of it, he recognizes that things are not.
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As he expected.
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So when does he start appearing on the political stage.
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Because he appears on the political stage pretty early, in
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probably the highlight of his life during the peasants revolt,
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right he does.
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I mean his earliest appearances are ceremonial, and we have
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to remember that he was crown and anointed at the
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age of ten, So this is what he's been looking
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forward to. This is a recognition of his sacred status.
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Absolutely extraordinary ceremony, all focused on him and the role
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that God has given him. But as he then starts
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looking around himself at government, he's being told that he's
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ruling because there's no regency put in place. The difficulty
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is that his most powerful nobleman is his uncle John
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of Gaunt, the greatest magnate in the country. If anyone's
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going to be a regent, it has to be him.
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He can't be passed over. But Gaunt is so unpopular
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because the war is going badly, politics has become extremely fractious.
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People in the country blame him for everything that's going wrong,
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so he can't be regent, but no one else can
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be regent instead, so they fudge it. They say there
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is no minority. The king is ruling, and Richard hears
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this as much as anyone else, But as he looks
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around him, he thinks, well, no one is doing what
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I say. So four years after his coronation, what we
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call the Peasants' Revolt happens. Thousands of working men and
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sub women from across the Southeast converge on London to
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protest at what they see as a corrupt and failing government.
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It's a terrifying moment. They storm the Tower, they burn
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down John of Gaunt's Palace of the Savoy, They take
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over London, and the noblemen around the king are frightened,
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and they have reason to be frightened. The Chancellor and
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the Treasurer of England get seized by the rebels. They
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have their heads brutally hacked off and paraded on pikes
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through the city. This is real danger, and Richard rides
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out to the rebels to engage with them, to talk
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to their leaders, to say, what is it you want,
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my people? And it is It is a moment of
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great bravery and great poise. From this fourteen year old boy.
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But what I think we have to remember, Brave though
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he undoubtedly is, is that the rebels were blaming the
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noblemen around him for everything that was going wrong. They
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were not blaming him. What they were doing was looking
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to their king for help, for guidance, for the exercise
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of the authority that they believed should be his, And
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Richard agreed with them. Richard knew that he was not
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in any danger from these rebels. They had a sort
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of password they were using when they met people on
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the roads around London. They would say, with whom hold you?
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And the right answer was with King Richard and the
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true Commons. And if you didn't come up with that answer,
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you weren't going to live very much longer. So Richard
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and the rebels saw eye to eye in this very
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very important conclusion. And they also agreed that the men
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who were running his government when not doing a good
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job and were overstepping their bounds. So you get the
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scene set in this great confrontation for actually how Richard
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sees his own government in the years that followed. He
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believed that his greatest nobles, far from just trying to
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keep the plate spinning as he was growing up, were
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actually standing in his way, were betraying the authority that
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God had given him. And that's what you see play
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out as you get into the mid thirteen eighties, Richard
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growing through his teens until a great confrontation happens in
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thirteen eighty six when the war is going disastrously. But
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that's not how Richard sees it.
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Yes, let's get to that in a second. I just
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want to re emphasize this.
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In that imagine you're a fourteen year old boy. You're
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always told that you're special, and then there you are
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in front of thousands of.
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People who tell you that you are a special You're
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the one who they are looking towards for guidance, as
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you say, and that moment, I think really sort of
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housified everything he'd always spend time so that for the
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rest of his life he was like, well, I have
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a perfect example here.
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Thousands of people told me that I was right, and
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I think he just holds on to that.
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Forever exactly and follow him. He says, the great confrontation
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with what Tyler Smithfield. When Tyler ends up getting killed
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in this great moment of potential chaos, it's Richard who
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rides forward and says to the rebels, I will be
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your captain, and they follow him. They're looking to him
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as their savior. And this is very much a conclusion
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that Richard already has in his mind. I mean, there's
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one astonishing moment, it seems to me, even just six
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months before he becomes king. He's brought into Parliament to
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be shown to the people. As you know, it doesn't
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matter that the black Prince has just died, it doesn't
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matter that the king is ill. Look, the future is
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in good hands this royal boy. And the speech that
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the Chancellor makes in introducing him literally says, the King
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has sent this prince to you, just as God sent
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his only beloved son, he who is looked for by
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all men. And even if everybody else there knew that
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was political rhetoric, it's a ten year old boy being
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described in his own presence as England's messiah, and the
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rebels in thirteen eighty one confirm that opinion. I think
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you're so right, and he's looking for that forever after.
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Yes, and he holds onto it. And one of the
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things that you mentioned.
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Later on in the book is that he has no
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understanding later of what led to this point, because everything
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seemed to be leading him in the direction of always
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being divinely right. So I think that we really need
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to stay on that for a minute, in that it's
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going to be important leader to look at what he's
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doing leader and understand why he's doing things that might
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seem otherwise crazy.
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That I think that is so important, And he is
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one of the points where we also get a little
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parallel to think about with Henry's story. Henry, his cousin
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who's only three months younger than him, almost exactly the
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same age, son of John of Gaunt, who is the
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most hated man in England at this point. Henry is
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in the tower at the point where it gets overrun
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by the rebels, and he is so vulnerable in that moment.
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His father is hundreds of miles away on the Scottish border,
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and the rebels hate his father so much that the
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risk of Gaunt's son being murdered is extreme and very real.
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And we know that Henry in fact was saved from
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death only by the kindness of one particular rebel, a
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small holder from Kent, who recognized him and saved his life.
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And we know this because twenty years later, when Henry
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became king, he pardoned him another offense and said in
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the pardon that it was because he'd wondrously and kindly
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saved his life back in thirteen eighty one. So Henry's
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getting a taste of the reality of political conquers and
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political violence, and Richard's getting a taste of the unreality
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of being viewed as a royal messiah.
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Yes, absolutely, and I'm glad that you brought that out
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because it really does shape them.
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They're both fourteen, fourteen year.
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Old boys, and we know that things that happen in
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high school are things.
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That stick with you, right, They really really do.
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All Right, So you've talked about thirteen eighty six is
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five years later what happens in thirteen eighty six, because
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it's not great.
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It's not great. So they're both nineteen by this point,
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Richard and Henry, but it's Richard that the crisis focuses on. Unsurprisingly,
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the war is going appallingly badly for England by thirteen
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eighty six, to the point where a French armada is
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gathering at a Flemish port ready to launch the biggest
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invasion of England since the conquest of ten sixty six.
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It's a terrifying moment, and the Parliament that gathers in
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the late summer the early autumn of thirteen eighty six
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is terrified about what might happen, and focused on a
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desperate need to marshal defenses against this coming invasion. And
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they are blaming Richard's chief minister, who by this stage
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is his chancellor, a man in his household who he's
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been seeing as a way of asserting his authority within government,
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a man called Michael de la Pool, And they want
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de la Pool removed from office. And they tell Richard this. Now,
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you'd think that with a French fleet about to appear
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any minute, Richard might have a sense that there are
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bigger issues than what's going on with his ministers. But
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Richard doesn't. Richard struggles always to see anyone other than himself,
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anything other than himself, as real and meaningful, and so
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he interprets this as an attack on his own authority,
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and he says he wouldn't at the request of his
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parliament dismiss a scullion from his kitchen. Not tactful, not helpful,
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and Gaunted by this stage, has gone to fight abroad.
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So the opposition to what Richard is doing or not
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doing is led by his youngest uncle, Thomas of Woodstock,
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who goes to see Richard and says, come on, now,
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you know we've got to sort this out. And Richard says,
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if you persist with this insolence, I will ask my cousin,
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the King of France for help against you. Now that
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is delusion, the idea that King of France and his
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forces are about to invade your Parliament's trying to get
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you to focus on that. You're going to ask the
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King of France for help because he's another king who
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will understand that these uppity subjects should not be challenging you.
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Woodstock then reminds him of the face of Edward the Second,
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his great grandfather, who had been deposed back in thirteen
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twenty seven, andes, okay, things are a bit more serious
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than he thought, but it doesn't lead him to see
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the light and see the problem and see where he's
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gone wrong. He's forced into complying with the appointment of
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a council to take over his government so on, but
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it becomes clear that actually he's biding his time, and
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he regards all of this as treason. The invasion doesn't
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come in the end because of the weather, the wind
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doesn't go in the right direction, and the fleet is
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too big for its own good in the end, So
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the scare. That's why we haven't heard of the French
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armada of thirteen eighty six. But of course the people
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living through it didn't know that this invasion wasn't in
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fact going to arrive.
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They would be expecting it and they would be frightened.
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And at the same time, there are all of these invasion,
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smaller ones that are happening along the coast, and everyone
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is quite upset that the King does not care enough about.
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This, doesn't seem to see the reality of what's going on. Yeah.
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No, I think that that is very true, in that
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he's actually not understanding it and in conceptual terms as
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being as real as everything that's going on within his
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daily life.
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I think that is absolutely correct.
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So he's starting to collect grudges, and he's starting to
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collect favorite and I think it's important to recognize that
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people are starting to look at him as Edward the
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Second in certain ways because of his favorite. So can
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you tell us a little bit about what's going on
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with the people that Richard likes best.
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People that Richard likes best are the people around him
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in his household, a collection of young nobleman who he
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doesn't see as a threat because they've been his friends
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from childhood insofar as he really has friends. But first
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among them is Robert Devere, the Earl of Oxford, who's
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five years older than Richard and really the only person
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we'll see really in Richard's life whose interests Richard ever
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put ahead of his own. One of the chroniclers says
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that Devere was Richard's whole heart, that if Devere said
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black was white, that Richard wouldn't contradict him. So the
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00:21:09.599 --> 00:21:13.519
problem in thirteen eighty six is not the king has
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favorites full stop. It's not a thing that stands on
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its own. The problem is that a French fleet is
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about to invade, and Richard has been, if left to
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his own devices, heading in the other direction, with Devere
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concentrating on all the great gifts and titles he's giving him.
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So it's the problem that the king's priorities seem completely
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upside down, if not just unrecognizable from what the rest
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of the political community think. Is important. The fact that
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Londoners are being asked to prepare for a siege as
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the French are about to appear in the channel. So
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there is such a gulf of understanding between Richard and
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his subjects at this point, and when the Council takes
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over government, Richard and Devere and various others within his
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household take off. They go off traveling around the country
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instead of cooperating, instead of helping, put their shoulders to
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the wheel. And during this almost year of traveling, it's
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00:22:09.680 --> 00:22:14.039
clear that Richard is preparing his weapons against what's happening.
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He summons his judges to him and gets them to
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say that everyone who does anything against the king's will,
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who forces the king to do something against his will,
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or persuades the king to do something against his will,
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should be punished as a traitor. And if that's allowed
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to stand, then the whole project of advising the king
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becomes untenable because if you advise the king to do
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something and he then turns around and says, actually, no,
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you taught me into that and I didn't want to
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do it, You're a traitor. It's giving the definition of treason,
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this most terrible of crimes, over to the king, and
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this king is not a king you can trust.
398
00:22:51.960 --> 00:22:54.039
Yes, definitely, he's not a king you can trust.
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And I think that maybe people in the modern world
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00:22:57.200 --> 00:22:59.319
expect that this is normal kingship where you can just
401
00:22:59.359 --> 00:23:01.720
say no with their head here and there. But this
402
00:23:01.799 --> 00:23:06.240
is absolutely not what it was until this time, until
403
00:23:06.319 --> 00:23:07.960
Richard decided to rewrite the rules.
404
00:23:08.000 --> 00:23:12.039
Right, that's right. The king's job is to uphold the
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rule of law and provide his people with justice, and
406
00:23:16.160 --> 00:23:19.240
that is only going to work. And in one sense,
407
00:23:19.279 --> 00:23:21.240
the king has to be above the law, because otherwise
408
00:23:21.240 --> 00:23:23.279
where does the law come from. The law comes from
409
00:23:23.279 --> 00:23:27.640
God through the king, that's true. But the constitution, this
410
00:23:27.759 --> 00:23:29.759
system of government is only going to work if the
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king accepts that he must abide by the rules of
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law that he has promised to uphold and impose on
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his subjects. And that's been clear in England for you know,
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you can go back to Magna Carta. That's one of
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00:23:41.880 --> 00:23:45.920
the key principles that's established in Magna Carta. And Richard's
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00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:50.920
great grand Faster Edward the third has codified the law
417
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of treason in a statute to make clear that this
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most terrible weapon in the hands of the king, because
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if you're a traitor, you not only get executed in
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the most horrible way, but your lands are forfeited, and
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therefore your family is destroyed forever. That treason is very
422
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closely defined. It's not something that can simply be used
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as a weapon of the king's discretion or will. And
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Richard's trying to change all that because that's how he
425
00:24:18.759 --> 00:24:22.039
sees his own power wrongly, but that's how he sees
426
00:24:22.079 --> 00:24:23.119
it well.
427
00:24:23.160 --> 00:24:26.240
And it's interesting because you can see Edward the third
428
00:24:26.319 --> 00:24:29.960
in his time, trying to cardify this so that it's
429
00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:33.559
forever clear to everyone. And then in Richard's rule, you
430
00:24:33.599 --> 00:24:35.759
see throughout the book people are swearing oaths here, but
431
00:24:35.799 --> 00:24:37.640
then they have to break them, but then they're swearing
432
00:24:37.720 --> 00:24:40.039
another one here. And all these things that are supposed
433
00:24:40.039 --> 00:24:45.319
to be perpetually true are not true, so trust.
434
00:24:45.519 --> 00:24:49.200
They really are. And that's such a good point because
435
00:24:49.200 --> 00:24:51.680
what Edward the third had recognized was that if there
436
00:24:51.720 --> 00:24:54.160
is that trust between the king and his people, and
437
00:24:54.240 --> 00:24:57.079
if those rules are clear and everyone knows where they stand,
438
00:24:57.359 --> 00:24:59.960
the king only gets more powerful because he can call
439
00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:03.240
all on his subjects within that structure of trust and
440
00:25:03.319 --> 00:25:07.079
understanding and law and people have no reason not to
441
00:25:07.359 --> 00:25:10.119
trust and serve him. So in a sense, it's a
442
00:25:10.119 --> 00:25:13.559
win win situation, whereas once you start going the other way,
443
00:25:13.599 --> 00:25:16.319
it's a catch twenty two. Yes, the king might promise
444
00:25:16.359 --> 00:25:19.119
this today, but if he changes his mind tomorrow, and
445
00:25:19.200 --> 00:25:22.119
if you swear this today but he changes the basis
446
00:25:22.119 --> 00:25:26.160
of what you're swearing to tomorrow, trust is lost. The
447
00:25:26.200 --> 00:25:29.880
mechanism stops working because no one knows how it's individual
448
00:25:29.920 --> 00:25:33.839
bits fit together anymore. And that's what you see play out.
449
00:25:33.880 --> 00:25:37.119
That sense of any solid ground on which to stand
450
00:25:37.359 --> 00:25:39.759
starts falling away, and you see it. You see it
451
00:25:39.759 --> 00:25:44.599
in the response to Richard's redefinition of treason, because if
452
00:25:44.640 --> 00:25:48.640
I may go on to this, yes that once it's
453
00:25:48.720 --> 00:25:53.680
clear what Richard is doing, Thomas of Woodstock, his uncle,
454
00:25:54.200 --> 00:25:57.640
and some other leading nobles, the Earl of Arundel and
455
00:25:57.680 --> 00:26:00.759
the Earl of Warwick, decide that they are going to
456
00:26:00.839 --> 00:26:03.480
have to arm themselves against him. That they've already gone
457
00:26:03.799 --> 00:26:06.799
far enough that they can't trust this king who has
458
00:26:06.880 --> 00:26:09.440
just told them they're traitors. So that's what they do.
459
00:26:09.480 --> 00:26:12.920
They gather forces. They end up challenging the king and
460
00:26:12.960 --> 00:26:15.880
saying we need to remove the people around you. Now
461
00:26:16.400 --> 00:26:19.519
it's not that they necessarily actually believe that it's the
462
00:26:19.519 --> 00:26:21.799
fault of the people around Richard, but that's what they're
463
00:26:21.839 --> 00:26:24.319
going to have to do, because otherwise they're making war
464
00:26:24.359 --> 00:26:26.799
on the king and they definitely are traitors. So what
465
00:26:26.839 --> 00:26:28.599
they do is they say, no, other people around you
466
00:26:28.640 --> 00:26:31.799
are traitors. And Richard says, okay, we can have a parliament.
467
00:26:31.839 --> 00:26:35.599
We'll try all this in parliament. And Richard once again lies,
468
00:26:35.839 --> 00:26:38.799
he lets them all escape. He's not going to comply
469
00:26:38.920 --> 00:26:42.160
with what he's promised. And at that point two more
470
00:26:42.559 --> 00:26:47.000
younger noblemen join the opposition, the rebel lords. One of
471
00:26:47.039 --> 00:26:49.480
them's a man called Thomas Mowbray, the Earl of Nottingham,
472
00:26:50.160 --> 00:26:53.599
and the other is our friend Henry, son of John,
473
00:26:53.759 --> 00:26:57.319
Richard's cousin. In other words, Henry, who's been left in
474
00:26:57.480 --> 00:27:00.960
charge of his father's interest, the Duchy of Lanka interests
475
00:27:01.440 --> 00:27:04.599
at home in England while Gaunt is abroad, has recognized
476
00:27:04.599 --> 00:27:07.559
the degree of the danger and he's thought, I'm going
477
00:27:07.599 --> 00:27:09.160
to have to stand up here. I'm going to have
478
00:27:09.200 --> 00:27:11.039
to stand up with the others. But it's a very
479
00:27:11.079 --> 00:27:14.400
frightening and a very dangerous decision that he makes at
480
00:27:14.400 --> 00:27:15.240
that point.
481
00:27:15.440 --> 00:27:18.839
Yes, and there are always going to be repercussions. So
482
00:27:19.720 --> 00:27:25.880
everything settles out eventually. Richard's favorites get dispersed everywhere. They
483
00:27:25.920 --> 00:27:28.880
most of them have an escape that they are not
484
00:27:29.039 --> 00:27:32.319
actually convicted of treason and executed.
485
00:27:32.519 --> 00:27:35.319
They are, or they are convicted, they're conflicted in their absence,
486
00:27:35.319 --> 00:27:37.400
but he's allowed them to flee, flee abroad, so they're
487
00:27:37.440 --> 00:27:40.880
not executed, but some are executed in this Parliament of
488
00:27:40.920 --> 00:27:44.160
thirteen eighty eight, which gets called the Merciless Parliament. It's
489
00:27:44.240 --> 00:27:46.319
an example of exactly what you were pointing out a
490
00:27:46.359 --> 00:27:49.599
minute ago, that because Richard is being so threatening to
491
00:27:49.680 --> 00:27:53.799
his subjects, these rebels, these rebel lords, the five rebel Lords,
492
00:27:54.359 --> 00:27:57.720
have to go further in opposing him, and they take
493
00:27:57.759 --> 00:27:59.960
the law into their own hands, really in this parliament.
494
00:28:00.599 --> 00:28:04.519
So they've done things that are worrying and unjustifiable, and
495
00:28:04.559 --> 00:28:08.599
that they're making up procedures in parliament to justify executing
496
00:28:09.279 --> 00:28:12.880
not the leading favorites, but men including Richard's former tutor
497
00:28:13.000 --> 00:28:17.440
Simon Burley. So blood has been shed not by the
498
00:28:17.559 --> 00:28:20.880
King at this point, but by the people standing up
499
00:28:20.920 --> 00:28:23.279
to him. So we're already through the looking glass here.
500
00:28:23.559 --> 00:28:24.680
Yes, exactly.
501
00:28:25.119 --> 00:28:25.319
Yeah.
502
00:28:25.359 --> 00:28:26.759
I was trying to find a way of saying, like,
503
00:28:26.880 --> 00:28:29.640
these people were executed, but these people were not executed.
504
00:28:29.799 --> 00:28:32.039
It's something that you spell out very clearly in the book,
505
00:28:32.079 --> 00:28:33.920
but you're trying to do it in a quick way.
506
00:28:34.200 --> 00:28:38.240
So as you have this young Henry, he's on the
507
00:28:38.319 --> 00:28:40.759
side of the people who are it's hard to call
508
00:28:40.799 --> 00:28:42.880
them rebels at this point because they end up being
509
00:28:42.920 --> 00:28:45.559
on the side of right, but they've gone a lot
510
00:28:45.640 --> 00:28:49.480
farther than he is comfortable going. So how does he
511
00:28:49.599 --> 00:28:52.920
react to this sort of in the aftermath of this
512
00:28:53.039 --> 00:28:54.599
Is he okay with it?
513
00:28:54.759 --> 00:28:57.119
How does this affect Henry?
514
00:28:57.160 --> 00:29:01.759
It's a complicated piece that desay from thirteen eighty nine,
515
00:29:02.200 --> 00:29:05.640
Richard has had enough of a shock to his system
516
00:29:05.680 --> 00:29:08.039
that he realizes he's going to have to take a
517
00:29:08.039 --> 00:29:13.039
step back rebuild. Gaunt comes home from fighting abroad, and
518
00:29:13.039 --> 00:29:15.279
Gaunt has gone away as the most unpopular man in
519
00:29:15.319 --> 00:29:17.559
England and he comes back the one person who hasn't
520
00:29:17.599 --> 00:29:21.160
been involved in this horrifying chaos, and everyone's so pleased
521
00:29:21.160 --> 00:29:23.319
to see him because he comes back as an elder
522
00:29:23.359 --> 00:29:27.279
statesman who can hopefully calm everything down. So there is
523
00:29:27.319 --> 00:29:30.279
a period of the calm after the storm. Richard is
524
00:29:30.279 --> 00:29:34.400
being circumspect, he's not pushing the boundaries for a while,
525
00:29:34.640 --> 00:29:39.359
and Henry takes the opportunity to put some distance between
526
00:29:39.440 --> 00:29:44.279
himself and his cousin a strategic absence from England, which
527
00:29:44.319 --> 00:29:48.200
also gives him the opportunity to go on the medieval
528
00:29:48.319 --> 00:29:52.920
chivalric equivalent of a Grand tour of Europe. The first
529
00:29:52.920 --> 00:29:55.799
thing he does is go off to a very glamorous
530
00:29:55.839 --> 00:29:59.880
tournament in France convened by a French knight called Boussiko.
531
00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:02.440
So by this stage there's been a truce between England
532
00:30:02.440 --> 00:30:05.559
and France, which means they can embark on some chivalric
533
00:30:05.640 --> 00:30:08.960
games instead of war in earnest and Henry makes a
534
00:30:08.960 --> 00:30:12.119
great name for himself of this tournament. He's a great jouster,
535
00:30:12.759 --> 00:30:16.160
he's a very charismatic young man. And having done that,
536
00:30:16.240 --> 00:30:20.240
he then decides, well, what does a charismatic knight do?
537
00:30:20.799 --> 00:30:23.880
He goes on crusade, and the available crusade at this
538
00:30:23.920 --> 00:30:28.079
point is a crusade in Prussia and Lithuania being conducted
539
00:30:28.160 --> 00:30:32.599
by the Teutonic Knights, an order of crusading knights. So
540
00:30:32.640 --> 00:30:35.519
he goes off crusades in Lithuania with a group of
541
00:30:35.640 --> 00:30:40.359
very close friends, equits himself admirably and honorably there, thinks
542
00:30:40.400 --> 00:30:42.079
he'll do some more of that, But the next time
543
00:30:42.119 --> 00:30:45.319
he goes back the weather has knocked out that particular
544
00:30:45.359 --> 00:30:49.319
crusading season. The wilderness, the Lithuanian wilderness is too marshy
545
00:30:49.680 --> 00:30:52.519
or unpassable, and so he decides, then he will go
546
00:30:52.680 --> 00:30:55.559
on as a pilgrim, and he will go to Jerusalem.
547
00:30:55.960 --> 00:30:58.960
And so he travels not with a military retinue, but
548
00:30:58.960 --> 00:31:02.480
a peacetime retinue through the great courts of Europe, fated
549
00:31:02.519 --> 00:31:08.039
wherever he goes, admired wherever he goes, until he reaches Jerusalem,
550
00:31:08.279 --> 00:31:11.640
which is an overwhelming spiritual experience for the faithful in
551
00:31:11.759 --> 00:31:14.599
this period, and it's a place where even the great
552
00:31:14.640 --> 00:31:18.359
crusading kings of England, Rich the lion Hearted the First
553
00:31:18.400 --> 00:31:22.720
had not set foot. And so he reappears in England
554
00:31:23.559 --> 00:31:28.640
after these glamorous travels as an even more glamorous and
555
00:31:28.680 --> 00:31:32.000
accomplished figure. He now knows many of the great political
556
00:31:32.079 --> 00:31:35.720
leaders in Europe, and he arrives with this rather extraordinary
557
00:31:35.759 --> 00:31:38.079
baggage train back at home in Peterborough, where his young
558
00:31:38.119 --> 00:31:41.400
wife Mary is waiting for him with their young children.
559
00:31:41.440 --> 00:31:44.920
For young sons and a new baby girl. He brings
560
00:31:44.920 --> 00:31:48.039
Mary a parrot as a present, but he also brings
561
00:31:48.039 --> 00:31:52.559
an ostrich from Prague and what is usually called a
562
00:31:52.640 --> 00:31:55.440
leopard that he'd been given by the King of Cyprus.
563
00:31:55.440 --> 00:31:59.240
But I'm absolutely convinced that it's a hunting cheetah because
564
00:32:01.039 --> 00:32:03.680
was a practice that had been brought into the Eastern
565
00:32:03.720 --> 00:32:07.319
Mediterranean from the Arab world, and I suspect this was
566
00:32:07.319 --> 00:32:10.200
a hunting cheetah, although whether it was entirely welcome at
567
00:32:10.240 --> 00:32:12.599
home in Peterborough, I'm not sure.
568
00:32:13.200 --> 00:32:18.160
You have to keep it away from the ostrich exactly. Yes,
569
00:32:18.240 --> 00:32:20.759
But this grand tour that he's going on, I think
570
00:32:21.519 --> 00:32:26.160
that visiting Jerusalem was probably really good for him spiritually,
571
00:32:26.240 --> 00:32:30.160
because it seems as his life progresses that he does
572
00:32:30.319 --> 00:32:33.200
have regrets that he does he does feel things deeply,
573
00:32:33.240 --> 00:32:35.880
I think, is what I'm trying to say. So he's
574
00:32:35.960 --> 00:32:40.279
making all of these friends and alliances that he's not
575
00:32:40.480 --> 00:32:43.400
looking at I don't think looking at as alliances at
576
00:32:43.400 --> 00:32:46.920
this moment, but they are firm friendships that will hold
577
00:32:47.000 --> 00:32:50.240
him in good stead later. And at the same time,
578
00:32:50.400 --> 00:32:55.599
Richard is biding his time and he's gathering his grudges.
579
00:32:56.279 --> 00:32:58.240
So what happens next?
580
00:32:58.279 --> 00:33:00.000
I think we kind of need to push our time
581
00:33:00.200 --> 00:33:04.000
to get everything in we do. So we're getting close
582
00:33:04.079 --> 00:33:06.119
to the end of the thirteen nineties.
583
00:33:06.160 --> 00:33:07.599
What's happening with Richard?
584
00:33:08.319 --> 00:33:10.759
Okay, I'll try and do this in headline fashion to
585
00:33:10.759 --> 00:33:14.160
see where we get to. Richard is biding his time,
586
00:33:14.200 --> 00:33:21.799
but he's making preparations. He is gathering his own private retinue. Normally,
587
00:33:22.240 --> 00:33:24.599
kings don't need a private retinue because they can command
588
00:33:24.640 --> 00:33:27.880
the whole kingdom. But Richard is bestowing his badge of
589
00:33:27.920 --> 00:33:32.759
the White Heart on various retainers and servants and knights
590
00:33:32.799 --> 00:33:35.440
and esquires and archers. So he seems to be building
591
00:33:35.519 --> 00:33:38.559
up the makings of a private army. So we'll find
592
00:33:38.599 --> 00:33:40.359
so far. But you begin to wonder why does a
593
00:33:40.440 --> 00:33:43.119
king need a private army in his own kingdom, particularly
594
00:33:43.160 --> 00:33:45.920
when he's also making peace with France. Richard has never
595
00:33:45.960 --> 00:33:48.799
been a fighter. He doesn't want to lead armies against France,
596
00:33:48.839 --> 00:33:51.960
so he can't make a permanent peace. It's too complicated,
597
00:33:52.000 --> 00:33:54.960
the issues go too deep. But he agrees a twenty
598
00:33:55.000 --> 00:33:58.759
eight year truce on the basis that he will marry
599
00:33:59.200 --> 00:34:02.200
the daughter of the King of France. His first wife,
600
00:34:02.240 --> 00:34:04.839
Anna Bohemia, has died in thirteen ninety four, and in
601
00:34:04.880 --> 00:34:08.320
thirty ninety six he marries Isabella of France, a six
602
00:34:08.480 --> 00:34:12.559
year old girl at a great summit meeting just south
603
00:34:12.559 --> 00:34:15.039
of Calais the field of the Cloth of Gold, almost
604
00:34:15.239 --> 00:34:18.960
literally on the same spot, but the medieval equivalent. So
605
00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:22.599
Richard seems now to have everything where he wants it.
606
00:34:22.639 --> 00:34:25.440
He's got military force of his own in England, he's
607
00:34:25.440 --> 00:34:27.559
made peace with France, he's not about to be attacked
608
00:34:27.559 --> 00:34:31.599
from there. And he also clearly feels he still doesn't
609
00:34:31.599 --> 00:34:34.079
have the power that he ought to have in his
610
00:34:34.119 --> 00:34:37.119
own kingdom. And in thirteen ninety seven he launches an
611
00:34:37.159 --> 00:34:41.159
attack on the nobles that he thinks are still standing
612
00:34:41.199 --> 00:34:44.440
in his way, his uncle Thomas of Woodstock, the Earl
613
00:34:44.480 --> 00:34:47.039
of Arundal, and the Earl of Warwick. He takes them down.
614
00:34:47.239 --> 00:34:51.880
In thirteen ninety seven. Arundal is tried and executed in parliament.
615
00:34:52.199 --> 00:34:55.559
Warwick is tried and imprisoned for life because he begs
616
00:34:55.599 --> 00:34:58.320
for mercy weeping, and Richard enjoys that so much he
617
00:34:58.920 --> 00:35:02.039
agrees that his life be spared and Woodstock doesn't even
618
00:35:02.119 --> 00:35:06.119
get his moment in Parliament because Woodstock is murdered in prison.
619
00:35:06.480 --> 00:35:10.519
It's not announced that he's murdered. He's just died unexplainedly
620
00:35:10.679 --> 00:35:14.400
in prison in Calais. And this is dramatic because Richard,
621
00:35:14.400 --> 00:35:18.159
when he arrested them, had claimed they were plotting against him,
622
00:35:18.480 --> 00:35:21.480
But when the trials happen in Parliament, it's clear there
623
00:35:21.519 --> 00:35:24.400
is no new plot and what they're being convicted for,
624
00:35:24.519 --> 00:35:27.199
accused of and convicted for is what they'd done ten
625
00:35:27.280 --> 00:35:30.000
years earlier in the crisis of the late thirteen eighties,
626
00:35:30.559 --> 00:35:32.800
a crisis in which many other people had been involved
627
00:35:32.840 --> 00:35:36.320
and for which everyone concerned had been explicitly pardoned. So
628
00:35:36.400 --> 00:35:39.320
we're back again to what is the definition of treason?
629
00:35:39.559 --> 00:35:44.400
Who decides can the king simply destroy people because he
630
00:35:44.519 --> 00:35:48.280
chooses to in any given moment. And the two men
631
00:35:48.320 --> 00:35:52.440
who are most frightened of what might happen next are
632
00:35:52.480 --> 00:35:54.920
the two other nobles from the late thirteen eighties who's
633
00:35:54.920 --> 00:35:57.800
stood against him, Thomas Mowbray and Henry.
634
00:35:59.119 --> 00:35:59.400
Yes.
635
00:35:59.760 --> 00:36:04.159
I had read Henry the Fourth in my undergraduate years
636
00:36:04.599 --> 00:36:07.679
and not really understood what was going on between Mulbray
637
00:36:07.719 --> 00:36:10.599
and Henry but now it becomes super clear and that
638
00:36:10.679 --> 00:36:14.159
they had a packed, they had accomplished what they meant
639
00:36:14.159 --> 00:36:17.400
to and re established the right rule back in the
640
00:36:17.440 --> 00:36:20.840
thirteen eighties, and now it's coming back to haunt them.
641
00:36:20.840 --> 00:36:23.239
And I really do think it's important to emphasize like
642
00:36:23.320 --> 00:36:26.960
everyone had been pardoned, it had been put aside, so
643
00:36:27.039 --> 00:36:30.840
that officially there was no grounds for any of these
644
00:36:31.239 --> 00:36:35.239
events to happen. And it's super shocking that this uncle,
645
00:36:35.280 --> 00:36:38.719
this royal uncle, had been murdered in prison. I think
646
00:36:38.760 --> 00:36:41.800
that the weight of this moment we need to say
647
00:36:41.840 --> 00:36:43.719
here for a second, and that people who were living
648
00:36:43.760 --> 00:36:45.800
at this time would have been absolutely shocked.
649
00:36:46.119 --> 00:36:47.800
There's no precedent for this at all.
650
00:36:48.320 --> 00:36:53.360
You're exactly right. It's shocking, it's horrifying, and it's terrifying.
651
00:36:53.440 --> 00:36:57.880
I think sometimes because the tutors and the bloody beheadings
652
00:36:57.920 --> 00:37:01.519
of the sixteenth century loom so large, can just assume
653
00:37:01.679 --> 00:37:04.360
that the Middle Ages were the same or worse, But
654
00:37:04.400 --> 00:37:10.280
they really really weren't. Noblemen in medieval Europe very rarely
655
00:37:10.760 --> 00:37:14.840
got executed by their own kings. They rarely died on
656
00:37:14.880 --> 00:37:17.559
the battlefield because they were worth so much in ransoms
657
00:37:17.599 --> 00:37:21.800
that they were always worth capturing. So while medieval life
658
00:37:21.920 --> 00:37:25.920
was violent and dangerous, it didn't usually involve, if you
659
00:37:25.960 --> 00:37:28.199
were the son of a king, the threat that the
660
00:37:28.280 --> 00:37:32.000
next king might accuse you of something he'd already pardoned
661
00:37:32.039 --> 00:37:34.880
you for, stick you in prison, and then murder you.
662
00:37:35.400 --> 00:37:37.800
And if a king is prepared to do that, who
663
00:37:37.840 --> 00:37:40.800
is safe. Henry and Mowbray certainly couldn't be sure that
664
00:37:40.840 --> 00:37:43.039
they would be safe, But they also couldn't be sure
665
00:37:43.079 --> 00:37:45.760
that they could trust each other, because in this hall
666
00:37:45.840 --> 00:37:49.519
of mirrors, no one knows who's talking to Richard, who's
667
00:37:50.000 --> 00:37:53.119
trying to keep themselves safe from Richard. Richard seems to
668
00:37:53.119 --> 00:37:56.760
feel that his own security depends on making all of
669
00:37:56.800 --> 00:38:01.000
his subjects insecure all the time. What that means, of course,
670
00:38:01.079 --> 00:38:04.639
is chaos. So Henry and Mowbray turn on each other,
671
00:38:05.599 --> 00:38:09.000
and Richard decrees that they must fight a duel, because
672
00:38:09.039 --> 00:38:12.199
it's he said, he said, God will decide by fighting
673
00:38:12.199 --> 00:38:14.320
a duel. And this is where the beginning of Richard,
674
00:38:14.360 --> 00:38:18.320
the Second Shakespeare's play starts, because Henry and Mowbray are
675
00:38:18.360 --> 00:38:22.039
about to fight a duel in earnest Trial by combat
676
00:38:22.400 --> 00:38:23.519
in thirteen ninety eight.
677
00:38:24.079 --> 00:38:26.880
Yes, and what I hadn't realized before reading your book
678
00:38:26.960 --> 00:38:30.039
was that this was also for the benefit of the
679
00:38:30.079 --> 00:38:33.280
rest of Europe, because Richard wanted to be an emperor
680
00:38:33.320 --> 00:38:36.960
at the same time, Like, i't even realized that it's
681
00:38:37.039 --> 00:38:41.239
already spectacular enough on that tiny island, but doing this
682
00:38:41.719 --> 00:38:44.679
in order to become an emperor is.
683
00:38:44.119 --> 00:38:47.039
This is the thing. This bit of the story isn't
684
00:38:47.079 --> 00:38:50.280
usually taken very seriously by academic historians because it's so
685
00:38:50.920 --> 00:38:55.079
clearly ludicrous. But the point I think is that Richard
686
00:38:55.119 --> 00:38:57.920
doesn't know it's ludicrous. So the Holy Roman Empire is
687
00:38:57.960 --> 00:39:00.719
about to collapse into civil war, and some of the
688
00:39:00.760 --> 00:39:04.320
participants in that conflict know they need a stalking horse,
689
00:39:04.360 --> 00:39:06.519
someone who they can put up as a candidate for
690
00:39:06.559 --> 00:39:09.719
emperor against the one they're trying to topple. And they
691
00:39:09.760 --> 00:39:12.480
see Richard and they think, okay, he looks like he
692
00:39:12.559 --> 00:39:15.199
might fall for it, and sure enough he does. They
693
00:39:15.239 --> 00:39:19.000
send delegations saying, so would you consider becoming holier of
694
00:39:19.039 --> 00:39:20.519
an emperor, and which says, do you know what? That
695
00:39:20.519 --> 00:39:24.280
sounds like a marvelous idea, starts giving them enormous sums
696
00:39:24.280 --> 00:39:28.639
of money and trying to demonstrate to the watching eyes
697
00:39:28.639 --> 00:39:32.960
of Europe that he is a ruler who is enforcing
698
00:39:33.159 --> 00:39:36.519
absolute obedience in his own kingdom and can then move
699
00:39:36.559 --> 00:39:40.440
on to the greater glory of imperial power on the continent.
700
00:39:41.119 --> 00:39:43.960
It might look ridiculous and overblown to us, but the
701
00:39:44.000 --> 00:39:46.079
point is I think that Richard believed it.
702
00:39:46.719 --> 00:39:49.679
Yes, and so this is a big moment you have.
703
00:39:49.760 --> 00:39:52.159
These two nobles are going to fight it out, and
704
00:39:52.239 --> 00:39:54.039
as you say in the book, it's such a big
705
00:39:54.079 --> 00:39:56.719
moment that other European nobles have sent heralds like I
706
00:39:56.760 --> 00:40:00.320
want a first person eyewitness perspective on this, tell me
707
00:40:00.360 --> 00:40:04.719
what happens. But Richard actually doesn't allow this fight to happen.
708
00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:07.360
And not only that, but he's he lets them spend
709
00:40:07.360 --> 00:40:09.840
the whole day basically wondering are we going to fight
710
00:40:09.880 --> 00:40:12.400
to the dead here or what that's it?
711
00:40:12.480 --> 00:40:15.800
I mean, it's been months in preparation, five months they've
712
00:40:15.840 --> 00:40:18.719
been waiting for this, They've been training, they've been preparing.
713
00:40:19.039 --> 00:40:23.400
Henry has the most exquisite armor sent from Milan from
714
00:40:23.400 --> 00:40:26.679
his friend Jan Galiatzo Visconti and Milan, who's met on
715
00:40:26.719 --> 00:40:30.599
his travels, who sends handmade armor and four armorers to
716
00:40:30.679 --> 00:40:34.000
fit it to the inch to the millimeters, the fraction
717
00:40:34.039 --> 00:40:37.639
of an inch to Henry's body, Mowbray has armor from Bohemia.
718
00:40:38.199 --> 00:40:41.199
These lists have been built outside the walls of Coventry.
719
00:40:41.800 --> 00:40:46.840
Everything is prepared, and Richard, for whom life the more
720
00:40:46.880 --> 00:40:50.159
one looks at it, life is a theatrical performance with
721
00:40:50.280 --> 00:40:54.599
himself center stage, stands up just as they are about
722
00:40:54.639 --> 00:40:58.519
to charge each other and says stop, and their lances
723
00:40:58.519 --> 00:41:00.840
are taken from them. Their whole is a led away
724
00:41:00.960 --> 00:41:03.320
and they have to sit back to happen again. And
725
00:41:03.400 --> 00:41:07.360
for two hours nobody knows what's happening. And after two
726
00:41:07.360 --> 00:41:11.039
hours the herald comes back out and says, the King's
727
00:41:11.079 --> 00:41:15.079
decision is that both of these noble men are banished
728
00:41:15.239 --> 00:41:17.519
from the realm Mowbray for the rest of his life
729
00:41:17.960 --> 00:41:25.199
and Henry for ten years. Now. This again is extraordinary, perplexing, unforeseen,
730
00:41:25.760 --> 00:41:28.800
and frightening because neither of these men have been convicted
731
00:41:28.840 --> 00:41:33.519
of any crime. What are they being exiled for? What
732
00:41:33.679 --> 00:41:37.239
have they done? But Richard is the king, and the
733
00:41:37.280 --> 00:41:39.960
trouble is a bit like putting a frog in cold
734
00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:43.760
water and gradually heating it up. Because everyone has gone
735
00:41:43.800 --> 00:41:47.199
along with the destruction of arundl and Warwick and Woodstock.
736
00:41:47.239 --> 00:41:51.360
And because Richard is now holding all these cards in
737
00:41:51.400 --> 00:41:54.559
his hand, including his private retinue, and including the threat
738
00:41:54.599 --> 00:41:57.159
of He's issued a general pardon to all of his
739
00:41:57.280 --> 00:41:59.800
subjects in Parliament and then said, but it doesn't include
740
00:41:59.800 --> 00:42:01.719
fifty people, and I'm not going to tell you who
741
00:42:01.719 --> 00:42:04.440
those fifty people are, so that could be anybody, you know.
742
00:42:04.679 --> 00:42:08.639
Nobody feels safe to stand up, so Mowbray and Henry
743
00:42:08.679 --> 00:42:11.599
have no choice but to go into exile. But he
744
00:42:11.639 --> 00:42:15.119
does promise them that they can inherit any inheritance that
745
00:42:15.159 --> 00:42:18.119
falls to them while they're away. And yet again he lies,
746
00:42:18.320 --> 00:42:22.679
because in February thirteen ninety nine, John of Gaunt, a
747
00:42:22.679 --> 00:42:26.400
broken man by this stage, dies and Richard says, no, Henry,
748
00:42:26.440 --> 00:42:30.000
you may not inherit the greatest noble inheritance in the country,
749
00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:32.440
the Duchy of Lancaster. I'm going to take it into
750
00:42:32.519 --> 00:42:36.639
my own hands. And that's the last straw, because if
751
00:42:36.679 --> 00:42:40.639
the king can take away the greatest inheritance in the
752
00:42:40.639 --> 00:42:43.440
country from the most powerful man in the country apart
753
00:42:43.440 --> 00:42:46.920
from himself, then no one is safe. And Henry decides
754
00:42:46.920 --> 00:42:48.239
he has to come back to challenge that.
755
00:42:49.519 --> 00:42:54.239
So do you think that Henry's intention was always to
756
00:42:54.280 --> 00:42:57.639
take the throne. He says, he says it wasn't. He
757
00:42:58.199 --> 00:43:01.679
swears it wasn't. Maybe this is one of the things
758
00:43:01.679 --> 00:43:04.320
about this is conscients later because he swears on everything
759
00:43:04.800 --> 00:43:07.880
that he's just coming back to get his inheritance, and
760
00:43:07.920 --> 00:43:11.079
he invades England. We can't call it an invasion. He
761
00:43:11.119 --> 00:43:14.559
comes back, he returns, and all of these friends that
762
00:43:14.599 --> 00:43:17.920
he's made and kept throughout his slave support him. What
763
00:43:18.079 --> 00:43:20.199
do you think did he always have his eyes on
764
00:43:20.239 --> 00:43:21.239
the throne at this point?
765
00:43:21.239 --> 00:43:21.920
Do you think.
766
00:43:22.760 --> 00:43:28.440
Henry was a realist and he was an intelligent man,
767
00:43:28.800 --> 00:43:33.800
and I think he knew He must have known that
768
00:43:33.920 --> 00:43:37.480
the logic of this situation as it unfolded was that
769
00:43:37.800 --> 00:43:40.960
he was going to have to end up deposing Richard,
770
00:43:41.599 --> 00:43:46.280
because if he'd learned anything from the twenty two years
771
00:43:46.280 --> 00:43:50.920
of Richard's reign so far, it was that Richard could
772
00:43:50.960 --> 00:43:56.599
not be trusted. So whatever negotiations you conducted, whatever agreements
773
00:43:56.599 --> 00:44:02.039
you came to, whatever rearrangement of the political structures that
774
00:44:02.159 --> 00:44:05.920
Richard had set up, you agreed with him. He had
775
00:44:05.920 --> 00:44:08.239
shown again and again and again that he would find
776
00:44:08.239 --> 00:44:10.320
a way to subvert it and to try then to
777
00:44:10.440 --> 00:44:14.519
strike back. So yes, Henry is coming to reclaim his
778
00:44:14.559 --> 00:44:17.159
inheritance and to see what happens, because after all, he
779
00:44:17.199 --> 00:44:20.519
doesn't know, you know, he's risking everything to do this.
780
00:44:20.719 --> 00:44:26.920
He is explicitly going against his king's instructions. He's very
781
00:44:27.000 --> 00:44:29.559
lucky and he knows he's lucky in that Richard has
782
00:44:29.639 --> 00:44:32.760
chosen this moment to take his private army off to Ireland.
783
00:44:33.079 --> 00:44:35.760
Just shows you how little Richard understands what he's done.
784
00:44:36.159 --> 00:44:40.719
So he's left England relatively speaking, defenseless. Henry comes back
785
00:44:40.760 --> 00:44:44.039
with a small group of friends and household men. He
786
00:44:44.079 --> 00:44:46.199
doesn't have an army with him, but as soon as
787
00:44:46.199 --> 00:44:49.760
he lands in England, men start flocking to him because
788
00:44:49.840 --> 00:44:53.639
what Richard has done is so dangerous, so undermines the
789
00:44:53.679 --> 00:44:56.639
whole basis of the relationship between the king and his subjects.
790
00:44:56.840 --> 00:45:00.480
So I think Henry knew that if he could gather
791
00:45:00.519 --> 00:45:02.519
the support, this is what it was going to come to.
792
00:45:02.840 --> 00:45:04.880
And I think you're absolutely right that that is one
793
00:45:04.880 --> 00:45:07.280
of the things that he has. There are many things
794
00:45:07.280 --> 00:45:10.079
by now that he has to live with, including being
795
00:45:10.119 --> 00:45:13.039
complicit in the destruction of his uncle Thomas, the woodstock
796
00:45:13.039 --> 00:45:16.159
and the others in thirteen ninety seven, So there's a
797
00:45:16.199 --> 00:45:19.880
lot that's on his conscience already. But yes, he's going
798
00:45:19.920 --> 00:45:23.239
to have to believe that God wants him now to
799
00:45:23.320 --> 00:45:25.599
step up and take the throne for himself, to save
800
00:45:26.519 --> 00:45:29.559
his own inheritance, but to save England at the same time.
801
00:45:30.360 --> 00:45:33.679
I think that it's another thing that maybe might be
802
00:45:33.719 --> 00:45:37.280
difficult to see when you're looking backwards, is why wasn't
803
00:45:37.400 --> 00:45:41.360
Richard deposed before this point? And as you were talking
804
00:45:41.360 --> 00:45:44.239
about before, it couldn't have been anybody else. You couldn't
805
00:45:44.280 --> 00:45:47.119
have put John of Gaunt there because he was too problematic.
806
00:45:47.440 --> 00:45:49.760
But what Richard doesn't realize is when the second that
807
00:45:49.840 --> 00:45:53.199
John of Gunt dies, there is a candidate, and he
808
00:45:53.360 --> 00:45:56.480
just does not see it at all. So this is
809
00:45:56.480 --> 00:45:59.159
the earliest moment it could have happened exactly.
810
00:45:59.559 --> 00:46:03.719
And Richard all the way along has seemed to believe
811
00:46:03.760 --> 00:46:07.320
that there was safety for himself as king in not
812
00:46:07.599 --> 00:46:12.079
having a clear cut air because he showed no urgency,
813
00:46:12.320 --> 00:46:15.880
no keenness to have a child. His marriage to Anna
814
00:46:15.880 --> 00:46:18.679
Bohemia was childless, and then he chose to marry a
815
00:46:18.679 --> 00:46:20.480
six year old girl at the age of twenty nine.
816
00:46:20.519 --> 00:46:22.519
He clearly wasn't going to have any children for a
817
00:46:22.559 --> 00:46:27.519
long time with Isabella, so that sense that he wants
818
00:46:27.559 --> 00:46:30.239
to live in an eternal present. He doesn't want to
819
00:46:30.280 --> 00:46:33.920
think about the future after him, and he thinks he
820
00:46:33.960 --> 00:46:36.719
will be safest if he has all the resources and
821
00:46:36.760 --> 00:46:41.159
all the loyalty, and any change of focus from all
822
00:46:41.199 --> 00:46:43.760
eyes being on him he sees as a threat. But
823
00:46:44.119 --> 00:46:46.480
you're exactly right, well, Gaunt is there as a sort
824
00:46:46.519 --> 00:46:49.679
of lightning rod, because no one wants Gaunt as king,
825
00:46:50.360 --> 00:46:54.480
that's one thing. But Henry is a leader, he's a hero.
826
00:46:54.800 --> 00:46:58.239
He's someone who has all the qualities you would look
827
00:46:58.280 --> 00:47:00.920
for in a king, and king like him his grandfather
828
00:47:01.079 --> 00:47:04.840
Edward the third. The one thing he doesn't have is birthright,
829
00:47:05.039 --> 00:47:07.239
and that, of course is the one thing that Richard
830
00:47:07.360 --> 00:47:08.880
still has despite everything.
831
00:47:09.440 --> 00:47:12.800
M and I think that one other thing that might
832
00:47:12.840 --> 00:47:15.400
be important to remember is when you talk about Henry
833
00:47:15.480 --> 00:47:18.440
risking everything, he's risking his lands and stuff, he's risking
834
00:47:18.440 --> 00:47:22.159
his own life. But his son is the hostage of
835
00:47:22.239 --> 00:47:23.920
Richard at this moment as well.
836
00:47:23.960 --> 00:47:25.360
So this is a gutsy.
837
00:47:24.920 --> 00:47:29.320
Move, gutsy move. He's risking everything that's right. His eldest
838
00:47:29.320 --> 00:47:32.920
son Henry is with Richard in Ireland. It could be
839
00:47:33.079 --> 00:47:35.679
so easily that he would be killed at the very
840
00:47:35.719 --> 00:47:40.000
first news that Henry had returned. And he has three
841
00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:43.880
other sons and two daughters, the whole future of his family,
842
00:47:44.000 --> 00:47:48.039
his dynasty, his line, everything is on the line at
843
00:47:48.039 --> 00:47:51.719
this point, and it is a user patient in the
844
00:47:51.760 --> 00:47:54.840
sense that unlike in thirteen twenty seven, when Edward the
845
00:47:54.880 --> 00:47:58.960
second had been deposed, he'd been replaced by his own son,
846
00:47:59.400 --> 00:48:02.440
the very young Edward the third, so that was a
847
00:48:02.440 --> 00:48:06.760
deposition that could be papered over this one. Henry has
848
00:48:06.920 --> 00:48:09.880
a claim to the throne, but it's not the claim
849
00:48:09.960 --> 00:48:14.960
to the throne. There are other potential contenders, and while
850
00:48:15.159 --> 00:48:18.000
everyone can agree, it turns out at this point that
851
00:48:18.199 --> 00:48:21.039
no Richard is too dangerous. Richard must go, and there
852
00:48:21.119 --> 00:48:25.119
is unanimous support for the deposition. At that point in
853
00:48:25.159 --> 00:48:28.559
the autumn of thirteen ninety nine, it very quickly becomes
854
00:48:28.559 --> 00:48:31.039
clear that a usurper is not going to be able
855
00:48:31.039 --> 00:48:34.920
to sit securely on the throne, because anyone who has
856
00:48:34.920 --> 00:48:37.679
any doubts about what happened or their own interest in
857
00:48:37.760 --> 00:48:41.519
what happened, has alternatives to whom they can look straight away.
858
00:48:41.960 --> 00:48:44.800
Yes, we are already at the end of our time,
859
00:48:44.880 --> 00:48:47.199
so we need to we need to wrap this up
860
00:48:47.239 --> 00:48:50.800
and say what happens to Richard. Henry takes over. He
861
00:48:50.880 --> 00:48:54.360
takes Richard in custody. Some chroniclers say Richard's happy to
862
00:48:54.400 --> 00:48:55.360
hand over the throne.
863
00:48:56.039 --> 00:49:00.400
That's the official story. That's with a smiling face. He
864
00:49:00.400 --> 00:49:02.719
he abdicates and hands over to his cousin. No, he's
865
00:49:02.760 --> 00:49:05.199
not happy at all, clearly, but he has no choice.
866
00:49:05.880 --> 00:49:09.960
Henry hopes he'll be able to just send Richard into
867
00:49:10.320 --> 00:49:12.599
a deep, dark prison and no one will ever hear
868
00:49:12.599 --> 00:49:14.920
from him again. Sends him up to pont offrat Castle,
869
00:49:15.280 --> 00:49:19.480
but the first rebellion against Henry happens. The nobles who've
870
00:49:19.480 --> 00:49:22.840
been closest to Richard rebell three months later. That rebellion
871
00:49:22.880 --> 00:49:25.400
is put down fairly easily, but you just can't have
872
00:49:25.440 --> 00:49:29.119
a living ex king hanging around the country. However deep
873
00:49:29.159 --> 00:49:31.920
and dark his prison and the next news that comes
874
00:49:31.960 --> 00:49:35.800
a few weeks later is that Richard has died. It's unexplained,
875
00:49:36.119 --> 00:49:38.480
but rumor has it that he's been starved to death.
876
00:49:39.039 --> 00:49:42.480
It's inevitable. Once he's been deposed, he can't be kept alive.
877
00:49:42.599 --> 00:49:45.920
But yet another thing that Henry will and does have
878
00:49:46.000 --> 00:49:47.159
to carry on his conscience.
879
00:49:49.239 --> 00:49:50.920
This might be a good place to stop in that
880
00:49:51.000 --> 00:49:53.719
I'll be speaking with Dan Jelds soon about Henry the Fifth,
881
00:49:53.760 --> 00:49:56.480
so maybe we need to talk about that, you know,
882
00:49:56.519 --> 00:49:59.719
Henry the Fourth's conscience. But I really hope that people
883
00:49:59.719 --> 00:50:03.400
will read your book and get into this because these
884
00:50:03.440 --> 00:50:06.039
are stories that we have heard a lot and may
885
00:50:06.159 --> 00:50:09.360
have a surface understanding of. But I think that your
886
00:50:09.400 --> 00:50:11.400
in depth look at this and the way that you
887
00:50:11.480 --> 00:50:14.880
uniquely always look at your subjects in that you understand
888
00:50:15.280 --> 00:50:18.519
where they're coming from emotionally, psychologically. I think that's so
889
00:50:18.599 --> 00:50:22.440
important to look at, especially in this relationship. So congratulations
890
00:50:22.480 --> 00:50:22.840
on the book.
891
00:50:22.840 --> 00:50:23.480
It's wonderful.
892
00:50:23.920 --> 00:50:26.360
Thank you so much. It's wonderful to hear that you
893
00:50:26.400 --> 00:50:29.719
think it works. I hope people will enjoy it if
894
00:50:29.760 --> 00:50:30.599
they read it. Thank you.
895
00:50:31.119 --> 00:50:34.559
Thank you. To find out more about Helen's work, you
896
00:50:34.599 --> 00:50:37.840
can visit her auther page at Simon and Schuster dot com,
897
00:50:38.119 --> 00:50:41.079
or find her on Instagram at Helen R. Castor.
898
00:50:41.719 --> 00:50:44.199
Her new book is The Eagle and the Heart The
899
00:50:44.280 --> 00:50:47.320
Tragedy of Richard the Second and Henry the Fourth, and
900
00:50:47.519 --> 00:50:51.079
it drops today in the United Kingdom October fifteenth in
901
00:50:51.119 --> 00:50:55.920
the United States and Canada. Before we go, here's Peter
902
00:50:56.000 --> 00:50:58.679
from medievalis dot net to tell us what's on the website.
903
00:50:58.840 --> 00:51:00.760
What's up, Peter, Hey, Well.
904
00:51:00.599 --> 00:51:04.159
There's some fun news coming from European politics these days.
905
00:51:04.480 --> 00:51:08.360
Wow, there's lots of news coming from European politics.
906
00:51:08.480 --> 00:51:09.719
What have you got in mind?
907
00:51:09.920 --> 00:51:13.199
It is that the next country in Europe might be
908
00:51:13.599 --> 00:51:18.119
coming from a medieval religious order. In Albania, the Albedian
909
00:51:18.119 --> 00:51:22.440
government is looking at allowing the Bektashi order and they're
910
00:51:22.480 --> 00:51:25.639
like a Sufi order from the thirteenth century to create
911
00:51:25.679 --> 00:51:29.559
their own kind of little papal state enclave within the
912
00:51:29.559 --> 00:51:32.840
capitalist city. Yeah, it's very interesting medieval group that's kind
913
00:51:32.880 --> 00:51:36.199
of muddled along over the centuries. They had their highs
914
00:51:36.239 --> 00:51:38.840
in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, but they've had kind
915
00:51:38.840 --> 00:51:40.920
of tough times and they're kind of like losing their
916
00:51:40.960 --> 00:51:44.280
little enclave to just people taking their land, which is
917
00:51:44.360 --> 00:51:47.280
kind of funny. So the Albanian Prime Minister has put
918
00:51:47.320 --> 00:51:49.679
out a message saying like this is going to happen,
919
00:51:49.920 --> 00:51:52.079
and it's going to be like twenty acres of land
920
00:51:52.239 --> 00:51:53.480
is going to be a little tiny state.
921
00:51:54.079 --> 00:51:56.239
I'd say that's a win. That's a win.
922
00:51:56.639 --> 00:51:59.719
Yeah, it win for medieval religious orders everywhere.
923
00:52:00.760 --> 00:52:04.199
And don't give up other medieval religious orders. Someday you
924
00:52:04.320 --> 00:52:05.800
too may become a micro state.
925
00:52:06.280 --> 00:52:08.880
Indeed, indeed, so we've got that plus something I've been
926
00:52:08.880 --> 00:52:12.280
working on for quite a while, which is our official list,
927
00:52:12.800 --> 00:52:15.760
official medievals dot netlist of the top fifty works of
928
00:52:15.800 --> 00:52:16.639
medieval literature.
929
00:52:17.679 --> 00:52:20.519
Now, I have to say, whenever you say like our,
930
00:52:21.480 --> 00:52:24.719
I just do the podcast you are MIDI list on it,
931
00:52:24.840 --> 00:52:28.880
so that when you say our list, it's not my list,
932
00:52:28.920 --> 00:52:31.400
Because I think that Gowayne should be the top, and
933
00:52:31.440 --> 00:52:32.159
you tell me it's not.
934
00:52:32.599 --> 00:52:35.199
It is not. Well, when I say our, I mean
935
00:52:35.239 --> 00:52:39.199
the Royal as in the Royal we yes, yes, which
936
00:52:39.239 --> 00:52:41.000
is you know, aptly describing me.
937
00:52:41.159 --> 00:52:45.920
Right, I'm just saying you're taking full responsibility for this list.
938
00:52:45.920 --> 00:52:48.079
No one emailed me, no one at me. This is
939
00:52:48.119 --> 00:52:49.000
Peter's list.
940
00:52:48.800 --> 00:52:51.679
All right, Peter, Yeah, yeah, So at the very top
941
00:52:52.079 --> 00:52:54.039
is Dante's Divine Comedy.
942
00:52:54.599 --> 00:52:58.280
Right, That's that's number one in the top fifty medieval
943
00:52:58.440 --> 00:52:59.440
works of literature.
944
00:52:59.719 --> 00:53:02.800
Yeah. And so what I did was in creating this
945
00:53:02.920 --> 00:53:05.719
was kind of looked throughout the medieval world what has
946
00:53:05.880 --> 00:53:09.679
importance and what's really important in Armenia is not important
947
00:53:09.679 --> 00:53:11.800
in England and so on. So I wanted to kind
948
00:53:11.840 --> 00:53:13.760
of have a list. It was very broad in the
949
00:53:14.159 --> 00:53:16.639
medieval world. So there'll be stuff that I'm sure that
950
00:53:16.719 --> 00:53:19.480
even top ranking medievalists well like I've never heard of
951
00:53:19.519 --> 00:53:23.880
this text from India or this Japanese texts, things like that.
952
00:53:23.960 --> 00:53:26.719
But I hope I've done a good job at putting
953
00:53:26.760 --> 00:53:29.760
out there what's had a real influence around the world.
954
00:53:30.320 --> 00:53:34.719
Oh so this is most influential. It's very hard to
955
00:53:34.760 --> 00:53:36.760
come up with a top fifty list and not like
956
00:53:37.239 --> 00:53:40.719
really established with the parameters.
957
00:53:39.880 --> 00:53:42.599
Are I keep it a bit vague in this. I
958
00:53:42.639 --> 00:53:44.880
want people to go intobate. I want others to come
959
00:53:44.960 --> 00:53:47.599
up with their top fifty list. Work away at it,
960
00:53:47.639 --> 00:53:50.079
work away world listening audience.
961
00:53:51.079 --> 00:53:54.159
So everyone at Peter with your suggestions or what the
962
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top fifty medieval works of literature are.
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That's right, that's right, and where they go. We've got
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like Arthurian stuff, We've got this stuff that's kind of
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religious in nature. We've got a play. We have a
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few pieces by women as well, and of course, yeah,
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reminds the Three Kingdoms it's in the top top five.
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So oh wow, wow, I think there's some bias here.
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Well.
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Thank you Peter for coming on and throwing down the
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gauntlets about what the top medieval works of literature are
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and telling us what's on the website.
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Thanks Peter. Thanks a big shout out to all of
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