Shag, Marry, Kill: Kings Edition (Live Show Recording)

Summary

Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society

Episode: Shag, Marry, Kill: Kings Edition (Live Show Recording)

Host: Dr. Kate Lister
Guest: Dr. Eleanor Janega
Date: March 10, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this lively live show recorded in front of a sold-out audience, sex historian Dr. Kate Lister is joined by historian Dr. Eleanor Janega to play the ultimate historical party game: "Shag, Marry, Kill"—Kings Edition. The duo and their spirited audience dissect the personal lives, bedchamber habits, allure, and reigns of three iconic English monarchs: Henry VIII, Charles II, and Richard the Lionheart. With wit and irreverence, they take a candid (and occasionally bawdy) tour of royal sex appeal, personal hygiene, rumors, and misdeeds, all while engaging the crowd in deciding which king to shag, marry, or kill.

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The Contenders: Meet the Kings

(Segment Start: 05:08)

Henry VIII (1491–1547)

• Profile: The notorious Tudor king; famed for his six wives, penchant for palace-building, and shifting physique.
• Hobbies: Sportsman (wrestling, tennis, jousting), foodie, falconry enthusiast.
• Notable Issues: Didn’t like being told what to do—or many of his wives. A complex relationship with the Church and authority.
• Reputation: “This fucking guy.” (Eleanor, 05:17)
• Fun Fact: Owned about 50 palaces. “What a unit.” (Kate, 06:21)

Charles II (1630–1685)

• Profile: The Restoration king, beloved by Horrible Histories fans. Known for pleasure-seeking and a roaring court.
• Hobbies: Hot chocolate, wigs, jewelry, fashion; “didn’t like monogamy very much.” (Kate, 07:02)
• Rumors: Had a huge penis—“if the rumors are to be believed.” (Kate, 07:05)
• Health Note: Had syphilis.
• On Monogamy: “Just like me, for real.” (Eleanor, 07:02)
• Experience: “A generous lover? …He’s gonna flop it out.” (Eleanor, 20:10)

Richard I, "the Lionheart" (1157–1199)

• Profile: Crusader king more at home in France than England. Known as “Coeur de Lion.”
• Hobbies: Poetry, travel, music, “his mother.” (Eleanor, 07:48)
• Dislikes: England, doing his job, family time (except with his mum).
• Court Culture: “Good music, great wine… but mostly in France—so, a long-distance relationship.” (Eleanor, 08:24)

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Structure of the Game

(Segment Start: 09:14)

• Audience and hosts must decide, for each king: Who to shag, marry, or kill.
• Assessment of each king “at their absolute best” or “peak era”—not in their declining years. (Kate & Eleanor, 09:27-09:51)
• Evaluation Criteria:
  • Physical attractiveness
  • Bedroom prowess
  • Smell/personal hygiene
  • Martial and kingly success

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Attractiveness of the Kings

Henry VIII

• “He was hot in his youth.” (Kate, 10:42)
• Over 6’2”, auburn hair, “the handsomest prince in all of Christendom.” (Kate, 12:24)
• Leg obsession in the records—“Bring back perving on men’s legs!” (Eleanor, 12:50)
• “He was really, really hot. And then he has this jousting accident… and it would have been unbelievably painful and really, really smelly.” (Kate, 14:14–14:53)
• Later described as “Harvey Weinstein-sized,” with sexual dysfunction issues.

Charles II

• Over 6’, “fashion icon,” dark features, “king of bling,” even if he was “skint.” (Kate & Eleanor, 18:24–19:09)
• Notable for extensive wig and accessory collection.
• Reputation for a sizeable penis immortalized by the poet Rochester:
  • “It’s the sauciest prick that ever did swive.” (Kate quoting Rochester, 21:19)
• On rumored endowments: “That don’t impress me. Don’t point that at me.” (Eleanor, 19:25)

Richard the Lionheart

• “Excellent of elegant build… hair between red and gold… limbs were supple and straight.” (Eleanor, 22:17–22:38)
• Possibly tall (estimates up to 6’5”, although doubtful)—“some exaggeration,” likely 6’1” to 6’2”.
• “Light on the penis information, heavy on the legs.” (Eleanor, 24:54)
• Snappy dresser, musical, and poetic: “He’s artsy.” (Eleanor, 26:49)

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2. Were They Good in Bed?

Henry VIII

(Segment Start: 27:09)

• “You can tell he had a lot of sex, but that man does not fuck. Henry VIII never fucked in his life.” (Eleanor, 27:37)
• Prone to intercourse for heirs, not passion. “He was actually quite prudish.” (Kate, 27:56)
• Sexual dysfunction and ailments widely documented; example: Anne of Cleves “smelt bad” excuse.
• “He just gives me the vibes of, like, the sort of guy who's gonna cry after, you know.” (Eleanor, 28:47)

Charles II

(Segment Start: 31:02)

• “Charles fucks, all right. Like, absolutely, that man.” (Eleanor, 31:02)
• Reputation for prolific sexual activity, numerous mistresses, and love of pleasure ("up against a wall" flings).
• “He stuffs the royal palaces full of his mistresses all at the same time… not to mention his wife.” (Kate, 32:39)
• Downside: High risk of syphilis—he and many lovers died young from disease.

Richard the Lionheart

(Segment Start: 37:09)

• Only one confirmed illegitimate son—“small potatoes” compared to others.
• Allegations of sexual assault in some sources, but context is complicated: “A lot of those are antagonistic sources … But also, I’m not gonna lie to you, do I believe them? Yeah.” (Eleanor, 37:17–37:47)
• Potentially bisexual; close physical relationship with King Philip II of France.
  • “There were options. … Oftentimes in the Middle Ages, kings just like to hang out with their guys.” (Kate & Eleanor, 40:09–40:21)

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3. Did They Smell Good?

(Segment Start: 43:07)

• Henry VIII: Good grooming habits in youth (“fastidious about cleaning,” perfumes and oils). Later, leg ulcers made him “smell from several rooms away.”
• Charles II: Era of “just change your shirts, don’t need to wash”; questionable hygiene standards. Audience bristled at “leave the Middle Ages alone” over bathing myths.
• Richard: Medieval kings enjoyed baths—especially at court in Poitiers or on the Continent. Crusades and military campaigns, however, brought unavoidable stink.

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4. Were They Good Kings?

(Segment Start: 48:57)

Henry VIII

• Charismatic early reign, but grew ever more violent and impulsive, obsessed with producing an heir.
• “He kills more people… more people executed than any monarch.” (Kate, 50:15)
• Not redeemable in the view of panel or audience.

Charles II

• “Kind of okay.” (Eleanor, 50:31)
• Preferred pleasure to ruling. Reopened theaters, dabbled in science, but dodged responsibility.
• "He doesn't really want to be king. He wants to have fun..." (Kate, 50:34)

Richard the Lionheart

• “He didn't do anything and never came here. So, like… I love that, personally.” (Eleanor, 51:20)
• Rarely in England, left affairs to his mother Eleanor of Aquitaine.
• “He’s not nice. … He was a pretty okay Duke of Aquitaine but… a completely absent king.” (Eleanor, 53:23)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Just bring back perving on men’s legs!" – Eleanor, championing historical body obsessions (12:50)
• "You can tell he had a lot of sex, but that man does not fuck. Henry VIII never fucked in his life." – Eleanor, on Henry’s reputation (27:37)
• "Charles fucks, all right. Like, absolutely, that man." – Eleanor, matter-of-fact on Charles II (31:02)
• "That don’t impress me. Don’t point that at me." – Eleanor, on the hype around Charles’s size (19:25)
• "Light on the penis information, heavy on the legs." – Eleanor, on Richard I (24:54)
• "You get everything. I think that he maybe shagged his wife once. She didn't even have to get knocked up." – Audience, on marrying Richard the Lionheart for peace and quiet (60:20)
• "Go out doing what you love." – Audience, on risking syphilis for a shag with Charles II (58:57)

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Audience Participation & Final Tally

(“Voting” segment start: 54:25)

• Henry VIII: Overwhelmingly "kill." Very few willing to marry (“If I have an Anne of Cleves situation: I get land, power, don’t have to sleep with him!”)
• Charles II: Overwhelmingly "shag." Some would marry for the wigs, money, and decadent court—even if it involves syphilis. “We’ve all gotta die of something.”
• Richard the Lionheart: Overwhelming "marry"—for the absence (“You know why? He’s not fucking here. Love that in a man!”)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 05:08 – Introduction of each king
• 09:14 – How the game works & judging criteria
• 10:10 – Was Henry VIII attractive?
• 18:24 – Was Charles II attractive?
• 22:17 – Richard’s looks and “leg talk”
• 27:09 – Were they good in bed? Henry VIII
• 31:02 – Bedroom reputation: Charles II
• 37:09 – Richard the Lionheart’s love life & rumors
• 43:07 – Who smelled the worst?
• 48:57 – Were they any good as kings?
• 54:25 – Audience voting & justifications (“Shag, Marry, Kill” answers)
• 59:49 – Final conclusions, wrap-up

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Final Results (per audience majority):

• Henry VIII: Kill ("Death to Henry," 54:25)
• Charles II: Shag (despite risks of syphilis, for the pleasure and swag, 57:00–59:27)
• Richard the Lionheart: Marry (for a life of freedom, money, and absentee spouse, 59:49–60:46)

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Overall Tone

Playful, comedic, bawdy, and feminist with a sharp historical edge. Both hosts and audience lean into irreverence, critical honesty about historical figures, and joyful debunking of myths. The episode is a blend of rigorous history and raucous banter, with a distinctly inclusive, “come as you are” feel for listeners.

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TL;DR

If forced to pick among three legendary kings for a randy round of “Shag, Marry, Kill,” the audience would kill Henry VIII (“baby Hitler”), shag Charles II (and hope not to die of syphilis first), and marry Richard the Lionheart—safe in the knowledge he’d rarely set foot in England, let alone your marital bed.

Transcript

[Kate Lister]

Do you want even more shocking and scandalous history, like why the ancient Greek statues had such small manhoods, or what went on behind closed doors in the Georgian era? Well, sign up to History Hit where you can see me discover the scandalous side of history, as well as hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week covering everything from prehistoric Scotland to the Treaty of Versailles. Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com subscribe

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[Kate Lister]

Oh, we got a treat for you three eligible bachelors for your perusal. Well, they're not exactly eligible at all really. They're accessible, but they're not eligible. They're kings. Last year we did our first live show with 400 of you glorious people and it was so much fun that we thought it would make a great gift for everybody else. So here's the recording and we hope you enjoy it. Hello my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister, and you are listening to the first ever live recorded episode of Betwixt the Sheets. But before we can go any further, I do have to tell you say it with me. This is an adult podcast spoken by adults to other adults about adulty things in an adulty way, covering a range of adult subjects. And you should be an adult too. Hello, hello. It's so nice to see you all. Oh, we have some very attractive listeners. Look at you people. It's so nice to see you. Before we can go any further. I've got some housekeeping. Can we make sure that everyone's got their phones turned off or at least have it turned to loudspeakers, so whatever happens, we can all hear? So the other thing we need to do is thank you guys a lot because they put us in one of the smaller rooms and you guys went, no, bigger room, and you sold it out and you blew up the wait list and then you did the same thing to the next room and now look at the room that we're in. And the other thing we need to thank you for is that we just hit a million listeners a month and only about half of that is my mum. So thank you. So this is your live recorded episode and we are going to be playing a game of Shag, Marry, Kill. I believe you've all been given some cards on your way in. Oh, fabulous, Fabulous. You're going to introduce you to three monarchs from UK history and then we will all decide together to shag, marry or kill. And the bar is low, but we're all going to. We're all going to try our absolute best. But obviously I can't do this by myself, so I have to have a guest with me. And who else could I possibly have asked of this, apart from the one, the only, the absolutely wonderful Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger. Well, hello.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

It's pretty big fun season, I guess.

[Kate Lister]

Fancy seeing you round these parts.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

I know. Well, I do leave the pub sometimes.

[Kate Lister]

Sometimes. Shall we introduce you and our audience to the three monarchs?

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Oh, yes, please.

[Kate Lister]

All right. It was tough picking.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

The trouble is that there are so many trash men throughout history and, like, really trying to limit that and pare it down. That was actually the issue, I think.

[Kate Lister]

So. The first one, obviously. I don't think we could have done this without him, could we? No, it's Henry. Henry, Henry, Henry. Henry viii.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

This fucking guy. This fucking guy, yeah.

[Kate Lister]

So, first up, we have Henry, born in 1491, a divorcee and widower.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Mm. So that's a way of putting it. Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

From London, who has an array of interests and hobbies. He's a very keen sportsman. He likes his food. He's a gastronome,

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

kind of a foodie. That's what I think of when I think about Henry viii. Yeah. Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

He always got a lot of palaces. Yeah, he's got about 50 palaces. Yeah. Likes falconry. Things that he doesn't like. That's quite extensive. He doesn't like being told what to do an awful lot. He doesn't like the church by the end of what happens. And he doesn't like quite a lot of his wives.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

It's funny. It's funny how he seems to have a problem with women.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

I think we could characterize it as such. Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

We'll get onto the finer details, but that is contestant number one for the Tudor fans amongst us. Right, Right. Give it up for Henry. What a unit. Next, contestant number two, I think.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Now we're talking. Here we fucking go.

[Kate Lister]

Now we're talking. Born in 1630, this is Charles II, beloved of horrible history enthusiasts the world over. But we're going to be going a little deeper than that, I think. What can you say about Charles? Okay. He likes hot chocolate. That's a thing that he brought in, apparently.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Okay.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He didn't like monogamy very much.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Just like me. For real?

[Kate Lister]

Yeah.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Great. Cool.

[Kate Lister]

And if the rumors are to be believed, he had a huge penis. I was gonna say touch on that, but that's not. We will cover that. Didn't sound right too. We'll get to the penis. Yeah, we will get to the penis. Things that he didn't like. Didn't like monogamy, didn't. Or. He was a bit of a sneaky one when it came to Catholicism and Protestantism and sneaky fibs. And he had syphilis. So that's contestant number.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

I just want to make it clear that those two things are not usually related. It's just like. It's more of a correlation and less of a causation in this instance. Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

And an excellent wig collection, I think. All right, I am going to look to you to introduce contestant number three.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Well, have I got a catch for you. It's only Richard I, AKA the Coeur de Lion, AKA you know, the Lionheart. For everyone who speaks English, which doesn't include my boy. So, born in the year of our Lord 1157, he likes poetry, travel, and his mother. He dislikes coming to England, doing his job.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

And family time, other than his mother, you know. So let me tell you this about him. If you go to his court, there's probably going to be some good music. If you go to his court, there's going to be some great wine. I cannot stress how much his court is in France and not here. So it's gonna be a long distance relationship, but one that does involve good wine.

[Kate Lister]

I could be down with that. I've read worse than that. All right, so those are our three contestants. So just spoil you for choice. So I want everybody thinking the whole way through this how would you categorize these three hulking figures of masculinity and monarchy? Would you shag them? Would you marry them, or. Or would you just put them in a big sack and kick them in the sea?

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

They all looked just like this.

[Kate Lister]

But if you had to, like, if you had to choose, that's what we're going for. And I was thinking backstage, I think that it would be fair for us to say, like, at their peak.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Okay. Yeah, I think.

[Kate Lister]

Because that's like. They're very different kings, Henry, at the start and then at the end. Yeah.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

You think that's fair? I think that that is fair. You know, we're not necessarily talking about decrepitude.

[Kate Lister]

No.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Although it comes into it. I mean, some of them don't make it that far. But, you know, I think that what we're saying is peak era.

[Kate Lister]

Peak era.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

At their absolute prime, at their absolute best. I think that's probably. Yeah, that's probably fair.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

You know, like, please think of me that way.

[Kate Lister]

You know, so, right, Henry, first category that we're going to investigate is, was he attractive?

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

I don't know who said that?

[Kate Lister]

You can decide for yourself. One thing we do need to say is that the perceptions of beauty do change. People will look at pictures of us in a few hundred years from now and wonder what the fuck were we doing.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

It's true.

[Kate Lister]

They'll be like, what's with the eyebrows? What's with the. It'll look very, very peculiar to them. So this may have been as hot as it got. It might. But I will say this for Henry, he was hot in his youth.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

That's what they say.

[Kate Lister]

That's what a lot of people say.

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[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

And I mean, don't get me wrong, partially it is because he is a homicidal maniac. So, like, you have to. You have to put that into the equation.

[Kate Lister]

But even before he became a homicide,

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

before he was a homicidal maniac, before. Remember the before times? You know, it's like this man is kind of like the equivalent of when you look at these, it's like when someone who does a family obliteration is then shown on a jet ski in the news. That's basically what we're showing you now. It's like a beloved family man.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah. But with lovely hair, I think. Yeah, yeah, I think. Right. So when he was a young man that came to the throne, and we teenager often think, like, what were you doing when you were 18 years old? For God's, like, could we trusted with an entire Country. No, I don't think it's particularly difficult to look very attractive when you're 18. I think that most people are beautiful when they're 18. But he was a particularly fine specimen. He stood at over 6 foot 2 because that kind of thing's important. That's what they say on dating profiles, you know that one men. Yeah, because that's important. He would definitely have done that by Tapestry. Over 6 foot 2, which is considerably higher than the average. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The average Tudor height.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah, I think it's higher than the average today. So, you know, shout out to a real one.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, Hulking man.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

But on the other hand, I would really like to stand next to him because it's hilarious. How many men who like I'm 6 foot and then I'm like, oh, that's cute. Usually people who are six foot are one inch shorter than me, not four. So that's wild. But okay, cool. Yeah, yeah.

[Kate Lister]

Well, if we got you side by side, I think he would. He'd pass the L on a test.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah, that's true.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, yeah. He was auburn haired, red haired in color, according to some of the people at the court at the time. He had a very beautiful face, like almost feminine. It's described as being so beautiful. He's almost feminine. The handsomest prince in all of Christendom. And they're all crazy about his legs that. You'd be surprised how much that turns up in the records when people are talking about how good looking someone is. The legs.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Do you know what? Bring it back. Bring back Pervin on men's legs. This is what I say. Do you know what it is? It's the tights, right? Like it's because since what we're doing and like I'm actually being serious, like it's a bit of dress history that we say is that we tend to find shapes more attractive if they accord to what fashion is doing at the time. So, you know, the more legal men are showing, the more important leg will be.

[Kate Lister]

Well, he showed a lot of leg and he did this thing. You can see it in his big Maya maman one over there. See those garters around his legs? It has been suggested that it was those garters that he tied to make his muscles pop.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

I'm sorry, it's curse he did.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah. Don't you laugh at Henry's legs. Those garters that might have actually really damaged the veins in them which led to his not so hotness later in life, I'm afraid.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Okay, well, look, I'VE gotta say, as someone who used to wear a lot of heels, it's like, I can't go around making fun of people who damage themselves for fashion. So it's like, yeah, no, and it'll happen to you young people. So, yeah.

[Kate Lister]

So as a young man, six foot two, red heads, okay. Really into sports. Like, think of him as like your jock, your rugby player. He's. He's wrestling, he's playing tennis. He fucking loves jousting. He can't get enough of it.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah, okay.

[Kate Lister]

But the reason that I've said that we should pick him at his finest is because for Henry, that changes, like, rapidly. He's really, really hot. And then he has this jousting accident, I think it was 15, 36. Breaks his legs. And then something happens. The scholars have been rowing about this for hundreds of years. For the purposes of this, we'll just say they were fucked. I think that's fair. Whatever it was, whatever happened to him, it caused ulcers to open up in his legs that were infected. And it went right down to the bone. And it would have been unbelievably painful and really, really smelly. You could apparently smell him from several rooms away, which. It's grim, isn't it?

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Well, it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, I knew I wasn't gonna win you with that one. Look, the other thing that happens to him, legs are fucked. Is he doesn't stop eating the way he was eating when he was, you know, running, jumping, climbing trees, all that stuff. So he does put on weight quite rapidly. And we looked this up, didn't we? He was £300. Or for those in old money, 21 stone. Yeah, I don't think today that that's actually that big. That's how our perceptions have changed. And then we were trying to find people that were of the same frame, and we came up with Dwayne the Rock Johnson. Not a good performance.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

I just feel like it's.

[Kate Lister]

No, that's not. And then the other one was Harvey Weinstein.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

It's like. So it was like, same. He. And I was like, there you go. There it is.

[Kate Lister]

So hold that image in your mind. Bless him. And apparently his willy didn't work as well, according to some documents.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah, yeah. You know, that really helps is if people start writing about it. His dick is broken.

[Kate Lister]

His dick is broken. He used that in the court trial when he was trying to get Anne Boleyn out.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

It's wild. Cause it's usually the other way. It's like you're not supposed to say that. That means that she can divorce you.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, like they wrote it down. Apparently she'd said, oh, he has neither a passion nor a puissance, I think was the expression. And then Henry joined in. My go. Yeah. And she slept with like 100 men. It's like, henry, shut up.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

God forbid women have hobbies.

[Kate Lister]

Okay, right, so then, okay, that's Henry. I think, if we're considering him at his peak, quite hot.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah. I mean, to be fair, like, that's a man.

[Kate Lister]

Yes.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

You know, and I like those. So. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Kate Lister]

All right.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

And he dresses well too. He spends a lot of money on looking like that.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah. I really like that necklace that he has on there. Like I absolutely would. Little garnet pearl number. Yes. Okay. Come on, queen.

[Kate Lister]

I'll be back with Eleanor after this short break.

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[Kate Lister]

Okay, all right, so Charlie boy, was Charlie boy fit.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

I mean, like, my man is a fashion icon. Like, category is silks girl. Like, yeah, uh huh.

[Kate Lister]

I think that's a face I'd sit on. I think. Yeah. Quote Dr. Kay Lister. Yeah, that's right. I think so. You could hold onto the wig stopper. Okay, stop, stop. Another tall fella, over six foot tall.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Okay, all right.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, if that's important. Dark features. A lot of people comment on his dark features and bling. He is the king of bling. But he didn't actually have that much money. He was a bit skint, but that hasn't stopped him.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

But he spent it in the right Places. And that's what's important. You know, the poor. Who are they? The pearls right there, baby. Right, yeah.

[Kate Lister]

You know, he knows how to accessorize. Okay. The penis. Oh, you all want to know? We all want to know.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Can I just say something? Yeah. All right. Okay, so here's the thing about, like, the big penis thing. Like, again, like, put this on the jacket cover of a book. That doesn't impress me. Like, don't point that at me. Like, what's that?

[Kate Lister]

Oh, the Shania Twain of big dicks.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah. So you got a big dick that don't impress me. Et cetera. Like, no, like uniformly. Okay. And especially. Especially if it's a king. So a.

[Kate Lister]

Like, how many kings with big dicks have you fucked?

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Come on. Okay, I just want to say this, you know, as a proud working class women king don't get to have sex with me.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, no.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

So they wish they did. No, thank you. I'm constantly saying to kings. I'm like, get out of my inbox. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to see it.

[Kate Lister]

No, but.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Okay, here's the thing. The owners of big dicks, right? So what they do is they're like, congratulations, that is true. And you're already having sex with a king. This guy is a generous lover who is like, what I'm all about is her pleasure. No, he's gonna flop it out.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

And just because it's big, is it pretty and you know what I'm talking about.

[Kate Lister]

I do know what you're talking about. I do. Yes. Just because it's big doesn't mean that it's gonna be a lot of fun, does it? But you can feel quite over faced by it. I find if it's. If it's too big, it's not too big.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

And he's gonna be, oh, Charles isn't so big.

[Kate Lister]

Right. He's the kid. He doesn't have to.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

But, you know, it's bigger than your dawn. That's what he's gonna want, you know?

[Kate Lister]

Yes, he is. But do you know how we know he has a big penis? Yeah. How? Someone wrote a poem about it. That was Rochester, the naughty rake, everyone's favorite scallywag. Rochester writes a poem called. I think it's called Satter to King Charles, where he talks quite explicitly about how big his penis is. He says it's as big as a scepter. And at one point he says, it's the sauciest prick that ever did swive.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Okay, all right.

[Kate Lister]

Okay. And he got thrown out of court for that. The king threw him out of court.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Okay. No, I love that. It's like, he's like, oh, my gosh. Can you believe it? He wrote a poem about how big my monster hog is. We better throw him out. Right. Don't do that again. I can't. Wow. Did you hear? The king threw Rochester out so bad because of the big dick bone, which he doesn't like. Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

Rochester knows that because he was friends with a number of his mistresses, but in particular, Nell Gwyn, who we all know.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Come on, Queen. All right.

[Kate Lister]

We all know. And if anybody would know a big member, it's Nell. So that's the reason that we think he might have had a penis that you could use as a draft excluder. If that is important to you. Maybe it's not. I know. As you've said, he is the king. I mean, you know, how much does this stuff really matter? Do you want to take it away for your boy?

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

I have a quote for you.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, okay.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Just a really normal way to talk about Richard the Lionheart. He was tall, excellent. Of elegant build.

[Kate Lister]

Right.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

The color of his hair was between red and gold. Another redhead, important for medieval people.

[Kate Lister]

Okay.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

His limbs were supple and straight.

[Kate Lister]

Straight.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

So, yeah, again, like, more leg talk. This is like leg, leg chat.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah. All about the legs.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He had long arms suited to wielding a sword. Okay. His long legs matched the rest of his body.

[Kate Lister]

Is everybody changing their Tinder profile as we speak? My legs match my body.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Many people are saying. So what we do know about him is he definitely kind of has light eyes. For me, I would guess, because they don't say specifically what his eyes are. That probably means they're blue. Because if he has gray eyes, medieval people would be like, oh, my God, write it down. Because they think gray eyes are really, really hot. So what you tend to find with descriptions of medieval people is you get more of it if they match the beauty standard and less of it if they don't.

[Kate Lister]

Okay.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Some people have said that he was 6 5, but, like, a girl. I just don't believe it. Like, I mean, like, 6, 5 in medieval money. That's, like, quite a lot. That would be like saying he was 7 foot 2. You know, like, it's. But he was probably quite tall. And I wouldn't be particularly surprised if he was like, you know, six' one, six' two. Ish, something like that. But let's also remember that Edward Longshanks, he was six' two. When everyone Was like, is this a giant? What's going on? And so it's like we have, like, a couple of times when they say, oh, he's six, five. And then it comes up. You know, it's also kind of weird because another thing that people say is that his brother, King John, I was like, five, five. So, like, that would be. I just feel like there isn't, like, a foot.

[Kate Lister]

I think there might be some exaggeration.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah, that's my thoughts on that exactly. Because it's like, oh, Richard's the good one. He's six foot five. John's the bad one, he's five foot five, you know, which is like defamation towards our short kings, I think.

[Kate Lister]

So they were pretty brutal, though, the medieval people, when it came to that stuff, though, weren't they?

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah, you know, it's like they don't exactly pull punches is the thing about them. So, you know, they love to body shame. And you know what if you want to body shame a king, actually, I think that's really funny, and you should so do that.

[Kate Lister]

Is there any information on his penis?

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah, very little, sadly. You know, like, I just. And I just feel like medieval people should be writing that down for me, but they're not, sadly. So light on the penis information, heavy on the legs.

[Kate Lister]

Okay. Okay. Something to work with. Snappy dresser.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah. Yeah. So, like, pretty well turned out. I mean, my man is often at court in Auquetan and, like, you know, you need to, like, show up.

[Kate Lister]

Okay.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Like, they do. They do not play in Poitiers, you know, so it's like, you gotta, like, you gotta come up, you know, it is a very fashionable court.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

What people tend to talk about a lot is he's got a really great voice. He's a good singer. Oh, okay. He composes his own poetry, much in the way that his great grandfather did.

[Kate Lister]

That's.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Listen, they're French, you know. Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

But like, is it, like, good singer, songwriter, or is it like, that a party who just turns up with a guitar and starts?

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

I mean, he's a king, so I would assume the latter. But I mean, to be fair, what is going down in terms of, like, the troubadour?

[Kate Lister]

Oh, he's a troubadour.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

He's a troubadour. So it might be like, girl, that dress is so scandalous. You know, like, that might actually be what's happening. So it could be like, you know, fucking music.

[Kate Lister]

All right.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Which would be kind of cool.

[Kate Lister]

Okay. Okay. He's creative. Yeah.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

He's, you know, so it's good for men to have hobbies.

[Kate Lister]

I think so.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

And so it also kind of keeps him busy so he doesn't fall down. The kind of Henry viii, I'm a big jock, look, I go jousting thing. Which his older brother Henry, the young king, did kind of fall into. He was just like a party boy out on the jousting circle, you know, the entire time. So to Richard's credit, he's at court, he's writing his little songs. And so, I don't know, like, I guess he's artsy.

[Kate Lister]

Artsy, craftsy, artsy.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

An artsy boy.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, the next talking point we've got is slightly more graphic. It's. Were they good in bed? So we'll start with Henry. This is tricky because we have an alarming amount of information about this man's sex life. Cause he kept killing his wives and

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

putting them on trial. Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

And he tried to get. But he didn't try succeeded. He got Anne Boleyn beheaded because apparently she'd been shagging everybody and laughing about his penis and his manhood. So we've got quite a lot of things.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

So women can't have hobbies. Yeah, no, I get it. Right, okay.

[Kate Lister]

Would he have been. Do we think that Henry would have been a kind and generous lover? Oh, he might have been. He might surprise you.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Here's my thing.

[Kate Lister]

Right.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

And I've already said this to you, and I will keep saying this. The thing about Henry is you can tell he had a lot of sex, but that man does not fuck. Henry viii never fucked in his life.

[Kate Lister]

He had intercourse.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah, he had intercourse and was like, you know, just like, thinking about getting an heir the entire time.

[Kate Lister]

He was actually quite brutish. He's got this reputation in sort of modern cinema and the imagination of. He was this really, like, wenching, hulking guy, like, eating red meats. He was actually quite prudish. He was worried. He didn't know about germs, but he was, like, really fastidious with cleaning. And he was really worried about getting ill all the time. So he didn't want to be around, well, people a lot of the time. And I'm not sure that he would have been that crazy into sex. In fact, when he had sex with Anne Boleyn for the first time, apparently he was quite surprised by her technique. We don't know anything more than that. Like, Anne, what were you doing, girl? Doing something. But whatever it was, it took him by surprise.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah, but I just feel like that could be, like, anything.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, could be.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

It's like, you know, she was breathing.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Which I didn't. Like, I'll be on top.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

That kind of a thing. You know, he just gives me the vibes of, like, the sort of guy who's gonna, like, cry after, you know. Yes. And again, you know what I'm talking about. Yeah. So it's just like.

[Kate Lister]

The other thing that we do know about Henry is that there seems to been some sexual dysfunction going on. And we know that because when he gets married to. Oh, who was it he said smelt bad and was uglier? The name's gone up.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Anne of Cleves.

[Kate Lister]

Thank you.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Like, justice for Anne of Cleves. Like, what a queen. Actually. Like, I love Anne of Cleves. Like, she's my. Like, I'm like, ride or die for Anne of Cleaves, actually, because she's from a really cool part of the world. And also. Shut up, Henry. Shut up, shut up.

[Kate Lister]

Well, when they got together and he refused to have sex with her, obviously everyone's freaking out because it's unconsummated. And rumors start to swirl that maybe Henry can't do the job, so he has his physician announce in Parliament that he's still having wet dreams. How weird would that be if Keir Starmer's GP turned up

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

any day? No, it's part of the reshuffle.

[Kate Lister]

So, I don't know. Like, with the state of politics at the moment, would you even notice that it's just a slow Tuesday that's.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

I invite the public to go for the. Et cetera.

[Kate Lister]

So he gets his doctrine to announce this, and then apparently we're all supposed to go, oh, he's so manly. Obviously, the problem is with Anne. So there's some sexual dysfunction. There's mention of that in his. In, well, Anne Boleyn's trial. I don't know how great Henry would have been in bed, but he was tall.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

They're all the same height when they're lying down, et cetera, et cetera. I don't know.

[Kate Lister]

All right. I don't think I've done him much justice here, but he did have. He had a few mistresses. Not as many as you would think, actually. Mary Boleyn, we know that one. And there was. I think it was Bessie just before that, but he certainly wasn't.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

I love the name Bessie. It's like, you know, Bessie shagged, you know? Yeah. Like, Bessie. Like, Bessie knew what was up and then she probably just moved on. Like, you know, every. Bessie's a good time Girl, I think so. I think that's nominative determinism.

[Kate Lister]

So that's Henry. All right, let's. We've only got a limited amount of time for this one, but let's do Charles.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Okay. Okay. So let me just tell you, Charles fucks all right. Like, absolutely that man.

[Kate Lister]

Like, you try and stop. Yeah.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

It's like there's just like, you know, a number of members of the court the whole time who are like, put the monster hog away. You can't hang dong. This is the throne room. Like, he absolutely loves it and that's the difference. Do I think he's necessarily good in bed? I don't know. But I know that he likes to

[Kate Lister]

shag and he was having the best time. Like you'd know that he would have been doing that. His reputation for womanizing starts pretty early on, before he's king, when he's in exile sulking about not being king and Cromwell is doing his thing. He's getting a reputation for it already to the point where his advisors and his ministers are actually quite worried about this because if he gets to be king again, he's just this big philandering sex maniac.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

What a breath of fresh air after the Puritans, though, you know.

[Kate Lister]

And also he didn't need to worry about that, as we've learned is you can be a philandering sex maniac and still be sorry, king. That's fine. So he has a reputation for that and they are genuinely concerned about it. And the number. We only know his official mistresses because he got them pregnant and they had his children. But that doesn't include all the one night stands, the quick flings, the up against a wall, which I'm sure there

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

would have been many, you know, Good for him. Right. I think that that's actually like a good use of time.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

And money. I don't know. Like it keeps him busy, doesn't it?

[Kate Lister]

Well, he does. Is that it is new the way that he does it. He stuffs the royal palaces full of his mistresses all at the same time. Right. And even the French had rules against this. So it was the French that brought in this system called the matrice on titre, the official mistress. Right. Like that's a job you can apply for. Tell your careers advisor at school, that's what you want to do. That's the proper job. But they even. They were like, it's one at a time. It's one at a time. Like when Madame de Montespan became the official French mistress. No. She wasn't. There was someone else who was the official mistress. And it was considered really quite shocking that he was cheating on the woman he was cheating on his wife with. It was. You have to do these things properly. But Charles just stuffed his palaces full of them all at the same time. Just a revolving door of them. And not mention his wife.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah. Women in stem. I don't know where I'm going with this.

[Kate Lister]

No. I mean, I like to think that they all kind of, you know, there was a sisterhood, but there's actually quite a lot of competition about it. Because you think that how. You know, like, look back at your love life and think of all the people that, for a brief while, you were like, ride or die. But I love them. And your friends were just going, oh. And now, like, you look back at me, like, I have no idea what I saw in that person. Like, that's what the royal mistresses have to. To contend with, is that's how quick it can change. And they have to keep this guy's attention. Yeah.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Well, I mean, I guess that one thing I will say about this particular period, though, is that'll be fun, because it'll be like, how much lace can you wear? You know, he's gonna be like, wow, look at her foppy dress. Love that. You know, you could put, like, a boat on your head and, you know, that kind of thing. Like, I'm really. You know, it's one of the worst times to be alive. I think. Like, they. Yeah. Oh, God. Yeah. Like, I would. I just think that in terms of, you know, like, the oppression and the bad times and the blah, blah, blah, blah. But it's some of the best fashion.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, we've got some good shots.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Everybody's wearing heels. They got a bird on their head for some reason. Everyone's just wearing too much powder. It's like, aesthetic is on point. They're all gonna die of lead poisoning.

[Kate Lister]

Yep. It's like, that brings me. Because the thing they do die, a lot of his mistresses is complications from venereal disease because he was handing out syphilis like, it was a bag of toffees. Like, they all, like. Nell Gwynne died at 37, and a number of them die really quite young. And it's probably complications arising from syphilis. And we do know that Charlie Boye had that, and he died quite young as well. That may be something to factor into your decision making going forward. And condoms were not great at the time. Yeah. Cheap reusable. Good. And you wouldn't use them with the king anyway, I don't think. Because you'd want to get pregnant damn quick.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing, isn't it? Like, I'm not here just because of the monster dong.

[Kate Lister]

No.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

Huge penis, has syphilis, so. And he has lots of mistresses, so he's experienced, I guess. I'll be back with Eleanor after this short break. With Verbocare.

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[Kate Lister]

We've planned for the plot twists, so

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[Kate Lister]

Richard the Lionheart. Moving swiftly on good in bad.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Okay, so he's got one illegitimate son

[Kate Lister]

who is small potatoes. Yeah. Philip of Heart Charles had like, 14.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah, exactly. Right. So we know that he's at least messing around enough to knock some women up. The bad news about Richard the Lionheart is that there is some source material that says that he was a bad lad and that there were some what I would classify as sexual assaults.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, that's not good.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Which, like, this is like, it's bad news. But also, I'm not gonna lie to you.

[Kate Lister]

Why am I surprised?

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Like, I was like, Richard. What I would say that is important within this, though, is a lot of those are antagonistic sources. Do I believe them? Yeah, but, you know, people don't like Richard the Lionheart. Richard the Lionheart, a uniquely disliked individual throughout Europe. So annoying that he gets arrested by the Holy Roman Emperor on the way back from Crusade, and they're like, we gotta lock this motherfucker up. Like, I hate this guy. And then eventually, when his mom, like, ransoms him and, like, she's gotta schlep all the way over to the Holy Roman Emperor, she's gotta be like, yeah, here's all of the money that we have in England. Please, like, let my son out. And he's let out. It's written about him. He is out. The devil is free. You must look to yourself. So, like, people don't Richard is not popular. Really?

[Kate Lister]

Yeah.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah. Like, he's a uniquely unchilled dude. So our records that say that he may be sexually assaulting women might just be like, I hate Richard. Me and all my homies hate Richard. Richard sucks. You know? But it's also a difficult one to say because it is not as though kings don't do that all the time.

[Kate Lister]

All the time.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

It's just that, like, especially if you are a common woman, you are not fit to even enter the record. And we have a lot of stuff about this, for example, in d' Amore or the Art of Courtly Love, which is a difficult document to work with because maybe it's satire. But even if it is satire, the point is that this stuff is happening enough that they're, like, making fun of it. Right. And it's essentially a pickup manual. It's like a. This is. How do you be a pickup artist? And what they say is, when rich people come across peasant women, you should just feel free to sexually assault them.

[Kate Lister]

That's.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah, because, like, peasants are.

[Kate Lister]

I can't get on board with that.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

So, you know, he might just feel

[Kate Lister]

like, you have to have a boundary, isn't it? You know, when you've reached it. Yeah. You're like, yeah.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

So it could just be that, like, he's behaving like every other member of the nobility.

[Kate Lister]

I've heard he's gay.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Well, he's at least a black gay. So, like, okay, look. All right, so one of the pieces of evidence that we have about this is that he was often sleeping in bed with King Philip II of France.

[Kate Lister]

And to be clear, they could afford two beds.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah, they could. There were options. Now, to be fair, oftentimes in the Middle Ages, kings just like to hang out with their guys.

[Kate Lister]

Just hanging out with my buddy in the bed.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

And everyone was like, I think that's. That's fine. But I think that this is kind of an important thing to talk about because there's this assumption then that, oh, well, it must be just, like, a thing that straight guys do, like, while they're being straight. But medieval people don't even have a concept of being straight. Like, there's no such thing as being heterosexual. In the medieval period, you either have sodomy or you don't. And sodomy, as I will never tire of saying, is any form of sex that cannot result in procreation. So if Richard the Lionheart had ever had sex with his wife, which he did not, you know, and within that she gave him a hand job, he would be a sodomite.

[Kate Lister]

That's some weird small print, isn't it?

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah. Like, it doesn't. It just doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. So, like, there is, you know, if you ask nerds like St. Thomas Aquinas, who spent all of his time creating a hierarchy of, like, I think this sex is worse than that sex. Like, he'll tell you that he thinks that, like, two dudes getting down is, like, slightly worse than stuff like rape because it is illogical. Cause no one can get pregnant. Okay, so, like. But that is like one theologian 100 years after this, like, being weird with it. So that's not necessarily how things are happening. And we also know that Richard's got a lot of good friends. He's just got buddies. You know, he and his buddies.

[Kate Lister]

Do they go to the theater a lot.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Do you know where else they go is on crusade. And what goes on on tour stays on tour. Way.

[Kate Lister]

Lads, lads, lads.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

And when you're on tour, you're under plenary indulgence.

[Kate Lister]

That means that hope will let you off.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah, you gotta get out of it. Whatever you do, whatever you do, it's fine. Just. And it's a long way to Jerusalem, my friends. Oh, that's crazy. There's only one bed on this ship, in the bedroom. Uh oh. There's some kind of mix up, you know, so, yeah, there's a lot of that happening with Richard. So I feel like very many other important medieval scholars that we're dealing with at least a proud bi man.

[Kate Lister]

Okey dokey. That might impact your choice going forward. That might. Okay. Did they smell good? I think we do need to address this one. Right. Because I think that actually smell is an extremely important sexually arousing feature. I think if something doesn't smell good, it's just all over. Right.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

That's the ick.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, I think so. Henry did not smell good towards the later stage of his life. He had these awful ulcers. But when he was in his prime, I think he might have smelt okay. Because he was really fastidious about cleaning. And we know that he imported lots of oils. He would have smelled quite musky, like civets and these kind of new things that are coming in from the Americas.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Rubbing a weasel on himself.

[Kate Lister]

He smells weasel. He smelled like weasel. An ambergris whale. I'm. I'm not helping him at all. But I think as a young man, I think that he would have smelt quite good.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah, I think that that's fair.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah. I mean, I think that, like, fancy lads, they love that stuff, don't they? And we have the literal receipts for this. Like, he's spending a lot of money, we do on, you know, bathing accoutrement.

[Kate Lister]

Charles. I don't know, because this is the point in history where somebody came up with the idea that you don't need to wash, you just need to change your shirts. That's. And it was like a big thing.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

And medieval people get blamed for this. It's not medieval people, it's modern people. It's modern people who do this. Leave the Middle Ages alone. Jesus Christ. I'm so tired of you people. See, like, just.

[Kate Lister]

You want to upset a lot of medievalists, just run into a conference and go, they didn't bathe. Huh?

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Like, literally, you will catch blows. So I wouldn't recommend it. Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

I don't know how good. I mean, he's the king, he can afford things. He does. He washes himself semi regularly. But they are doing this horrible shirt thing.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

And so I've talked to some experiential archaeologists who are some of the best people in the world, right? Who. And what they do is they go around and they dress up and they put on all the things and they try it out to see what it does. And it is alleged that if you, like, Change your shirt 12 times a day, you don't stink that much.

[Kate Lister]

No, I'm just. No, no, just wash. Just wash.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

I mean, I'm not smelling it.

[Kate Lister]

Sounds like something a teenage boy would have come up with. I don't smell, Mum. I'm doing experimental archeology. I don't need to wash myself. This is history. I'm not having Richard the Lionheart.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

He's gonna be fine. You know, like, the medieval people love a little bath. Like, that's their whole deal. They love a little bath.

[Kate Lister]

They do.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

They love a little bath. And, like, especially the kings and stuff, because they're like, oh, have you seen my bath? Big bath in there, gentlemen. That's why, you know, Richard is like, oh, that's crazy. There's only one bath in here, Philip. Well, half the bathe together.

[Kate Lister]

Oh, look at that.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Which, you know, is an interesting thing. So sometimes when you hear occasional stuff from the Middle Ages, when people be like, he bathed too often. Literally, what they're talking about is, that guy is in there and he's fucking. So it's like.

[Kate Lister]

That's interesting.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah. Like, for example, the Emperor Frederick ii, one of my favorite emperors, who was hanging out down in Sicily, he's refusing to Go on crusade. Like an absolute legend. He's got really big hammam and he's just like in there with sundry women at any given time, just like going at it. Right. And so as a result, the papacy is like, get that man out of the bath. And people now think that that meant that people didn't bathe. But that is a roundabout way of being like, this man fucks. And the papacy doesn't like it. So you will often have like, for example, in bath houses here in London and you'll know this. It's really difficult.

[Kate Lister]

Why will I know this? I spend my time going around bath houses, although I did. I was once the maid of honor for my mate and she said she wanted to go to a spa and I booked us into a late night spa in Leeds city centre and it turned out that it was a bathhouse and. Yeah, nice. It was not the party we thought it would be, but everyone had fun.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah, you know, we all had a good time though, didn't I? So, you know, here, you know, if you go down to the equivalent of the red light district in Southwark, you can visit the Stews and it can be really difficult for us to tell whether that's just a bathhouse or if it's a brothel cum bathhouse. I shouldn't have put it that way. So, you know, and it is one of these things where it's like, it could just literally be the place where everybody goes to bathe because, you know, there isn't indoor plumbing, water is really heavy heating, it is really annoying. So if you can professionalize that out, everybody does, but sometimes there are professionals of like varying stripes. So the point is like, everybody likes having a bath. It could be sexy, it couldn't be, you know, it depends. There is this thing also sometimes where people will talk about how crusaders smell though, which is a not good, I'd imagine.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, yeah, I know that they washed, but that if you walk into Jerusalem,

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

if you walk into Jerusalem and you're wearing mail armor and you're wearing a bunch of metal in the middle of the desert and now you're like locked outside a city while everyone goes, boo, go home, white boy and things of this nature, then you are not going to have access to bath houses and then you are going to be suffering, right? And this kind of gets brought up a lot in crusader stuff as well because again, they'll be like, oh, and no one could bathe and everyone really stunk and you're supposed to understand that as like, oh, they're suffering for God. Right. You know, like, they're. They're. They put themselves in this terrible situation where they can't even get a bath. So doesn't that mean that they love the Lord?

[Kate Lister]

Right.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

And that comes up over and over again in medieval literature. Like, if a saint wants to prove they're super holy, they'll be like, so I gave up bathing.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

And. Because the point is, like. And that sucks. It sucks to smell. It sucks to not have a bath. And so sometimes it'll just be a discussion about how holy they are, and sometimes it'll just be like, ew, those white boys stink. You know? And like. But it's situational and it has to do with, you know, being in an army.

[Kate Lister]

Right. Okay. Thank you for that. I will factor this into my decision making process. And the final point that I think we need to try and touch on is were they a good king? Like, would that help you make your decision? Henry viii. Was Henry a good king? Jesus Christ. Hey. He might have been. There's people there that thought in the beginning. But he was doing. He was okay. Like, he tries to go over to France, tries to have some battles, and he's like, yay. And he's read all these stories about chivalry, and he really fancies himself as this chivalric knight, but as a lot of kings, he. So he kind of.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

That's the plus of the live show. It's not a visual medium right now. So I can make jack off cymbals forever. All day long. Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

He was doing in his early reign when he was with Catherine of Aragon, and like, they loved each other and he seemed to genuinely love her. And he was, you know, I'm gonna go to France and nick this bit of it. And people were quite impressed. And then it just all got derailed, didn't it, by Henry and his wandering Willie and his just obsession with it. So I don't know. Could we call him a good king?

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

No.

[Kate Lister]

Henry.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

No.

[Kate Lister]

That's. Are there any die hard Henry fans here?

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

I just want to talk.

[Kate Lister]

Okay. All right. And definitely by the end of it, he's completely lost it.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Oh, God. Yeah, yeah.

[Kate Lister]

Like, he killed more people, I think, than sort of had more people executed than any monarch. Like, not like crusades executing, but, you know, like passing the orders for it. Very violent. Yeah. All right. But we're not getting him. Okay. Charles.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

He's kind of okay. Yeah, yeah.

[Kate Lister]

Like, the thing about Charles is that he doesn't really want to be king. He wants to have fun and he wants to play, and he wants to amuse himself. That's what he wants to do. He has far more fun doing that. When it actually comes to the administrative tasks of running. He's just a bit like.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Well, he's just like me, for real. He is, yeah.

[Kate Lister]

But he's interested in science. He makes some progresses there. He reopens the theaters. He. He does sneaky things with France, like pretend that he's not a Catholic, when really he was definitely gonna convert to it on his deathbed. Sneaky, sneaky. Mm.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

I love that.

[Kate Lister]

Okay.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

I love a little deathbed Catholicism like that. That's right. Y' all come crawling back, you know.

[Kate Lister]

All right, before we make our decisions.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Wait.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, I know. I'm gonna ask you. What do you think of Richard? Was he a good king?

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

It's like, in many ways, he's one of the best sort of kings. Kind of. Cause he didn't do anything and never came here. So, like. So I love that, personally. Like, you know what is hilarious about Richard? I was like, england, that's some form of bank account, right? Excellent. Great. And it's like. I mean, basically, the minute he becomes King of England. He was never supposed to be King of England. Right. He was supposed to be the Duke of Aquitaine. That's what he was supposed to be. The minute he gets made king, he's like, great, I'm off to the Holy Land. See you, suckers. And what I will say in his favor is that he gives his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, a lot of power. And that's good. Like, that is the correct thing to do. That is the canonically correct thing that he could have given her more, in my opinion. He leaves too much to, like, other secretaries and these sorts of people who fall to squabbling. And he doesn't, I think, wring off his brother enough. Like, he should have given John something to do in Normandy and been like, okay, now you get out of there. That sort of thing. But is he a good king? No. Like, he doesn't fucking do anything. He came here three times, bro, and he didn't like it. And he was like, ew. And then, like, left immediately. Like, it's. It baffles me that he's talked about in any, like, sort of reverent tones in this country at all when he, like, hated you people. And, like. And it's all because. Because of Robin Hood. I think it's literally. This is Sean Connery's fault. Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

I mean, it was before Sean Connery.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah. And it's. I Mean, like, if you watch, like, Disney, Robin Hood with the little foxes and everything, and, you know, he comes in, in the end and he's the big lion to just like, I launched a thousand furries, that kind of thing. So, you know, like, he has this folkloric thing which is like, oh, all the problems with England are just because, like, the nice king isn't here. And if the nice king was here, he would come and sort it all. And he's like. He's not.

[Kate Lister]

He's not nice.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

He does not. He is not nice. He is not a good king. He was a pretty okay Duke of Aquitaine, but, you know, but that's because he liked it there, you know, and he was, like, quite interested in court culture, but he's like a completely absent king. But, you know, I suppose that there's an argument to be made that that's kind of like better than being Henry viii. Like, you know, at least he wasn't like, touching it. Yeah, you know, that's.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, yeah. Are you ready to make your choice?

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

I am, yeah.

[Kate Lister]

Should we turn it over as well to you fine people? Have you. Have you made your decisions? All right. Okay, so what we're gonna do is we've got. Have we got a roaming mic somewhere? We got our microphone. We're gonna come and ask some of you lovely people why you have made the choices that you have made. Here we go. Let's have. Alright, so first up, Henry. Shag, marry, kill.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

That's right. Kill his ass. Kill his ass. No, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Oh, my.

[Kate Lister]

Guys, it's not even close. It's not even. That's overwhelmingly. Death to Henry.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

[Kate Lister]

Let's ask.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Eight people are married. What is wrong with you?

[Kate Lister]

Who's marrying Henry? You? Absolutely. Where's the mic? We need to speak to someone who wants to marry Henry. And there at the back, you explain yourself.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Absolute weapons. You, absolute weapons.

[Kate Lister]

Chop there, holding that up. Explain yourself to the audience. There's nuance.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah. Henry viii, big on nuance. Yeah. I can change him.

[Kate Lister]

I can. If I have an Anne of Cleves situation. Yeah.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Okay. All right. Okay, perfect.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah, she makes a good point. I'm gonna have so much land, so

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

much power, so so much freedom.

[Kate Lister]

And you never have to have sex with him. And I don't have to fuck him.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah, it's perfect.

[Kate Lister]

Married.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah, well argued. Yeah, all right.

[Kate Lister]

Well argued.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah, that's. See, the thing about me and Henry is obviously I'm killing Him. And I'm like. I am like. He's like baby Hitler to me. Where it's like where it presented with a time machine. He's like number two. He screws up everything for source survival in this country. He ruins all the good monasteries. I can't get no good architecture around here. I hate that man.

[Kate Lister]

You'd kill him. I would shag him. I would. Hey, that's my Tudor slip. Who else would shag Henry and explain your reasonings? Grab someone waving a yellow card in the air, you maniacs. I mean, if we're talking about his

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

crime, I guess I could get it. I get it. Okay. Yeah. All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Kate Lister]

Right, Exactly. You could just be a mistress and kind of vanish yourself somewhere. Okay, but I think that. I think he might. No one's forgiving Henry. We're in a minority. Okay. He's killed, right?

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah. Charles. Charles. Hold them up. Let's have a look. Oh, this is more complicated.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

This is more complex. We've got a few kills which who

[Kate Lister]

wants to kill chose?

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

This is like a real third situation.

[Kate Lister]

Wow, that's shag. It's overwhelmingly shag.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

It is shag. Yeah. Okay, but wait. I want one of each. I want one of each. So I guess I need a shag. I need a Mary. And then I need a kill.

[Kate Lister]

Grab us a kill. Who wants to kill Charles and his enormous penis?

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah, yeah.

[Kate Lister]

Go explain your reasonings.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Unfortunately, I only have the kill one, so I'm.

[Kate Lister]

Alright. Come on.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

A proletarian king. I love to see it. Kill them all. All my comrades hate kings.

[Kate Lister]

Was there anyone else that had enough?

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Kill all kings. 2k25. Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

Decided to. Oh. Yep. Yep. So mine was a bit of a process.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

I had French wine.

[Kate Lister]

Yes.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

I like hot men. And no Willie's worth a chunker.

[Kate Lister]

Or I forgot about the syphilis. You are right.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah, you're right. Yeah. The French disease. That was how I got to my conclusion.

[Kate Lister]

Okay, fair enough.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

All right.

[Kate Lister]

I would marry him. He was very, very generous with venereal disease. But also. But also with money. Like if you could. I know we all feel terribly sorry for his wife, but she did get to sit in a castle and drink tea and have quite a lot of money.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah, I really go back and forth on this one because I think it's a pretty good situation. You're gonna be up to your eyeballs in wigs for the rest of your life, first of all. So when you're a widow, you're gonna be having a great time. So I think that there's a lot to be said to. And then also, you are living in the time period where you can get access to, like, coffee and chocolate.

[Kate Lister]

I need to hear from someone who'd shag him knowing that he has venereal disease. Please explain your reasoning and your process. Here we go. So we're all gotta die of something. Die.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Queen. Come on, Queen. I know. That's right.

[Kate Lister]

Go out. Go out doing what you love. He did kind of look after them. He did. He recognized most of his illegitimate children and gave them titles and stuff like that.

[Greenlight Infinity Advertiser]

Win, win.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah. I'm team Shag, ultimately because I think it's the least amount of sexual contact you can have with the man with syphilis, whilst I'm also getting the most swag.

[Kate Lister]

That is. That is true.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

So I'm hoping for at least, like, a ship headdress out of the thing.

[Kate Lister]

I'd give that to you.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah.

[Kate Lister]

Yeah. Okay. Right, so Henry dead. Charles, you'd like to. Was that Mary or Shag, though? Was that Shag Leonardo? Yeah, it was shag. It was, yeah. All right, so Richard the Lionheart.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Richard the Lionheart. No. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it is Team Mary. Yes. Come with me on a journey. Come with me on a journey. No. Okay, but why would you. I want to talk to someone because I want to see if your reasoning is the same as mine.

[Kate Lister]

You'd marry him after all that? Oh, yeah.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

You know why he's not fucking here. Love that in a man.

[Kate Lister]

That's.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah, it's like you get. You get everything. You get everything. I think that he maybe shagged his wife once. She didn't even have to get knocked up. She didn't even have to have a baby about it.

[Kate Lister]

All right, let's find. So who wants to marry him? Let's get some.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

That's me. Yes.

[Kate Lister]

My girl knows.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

She knows what's up.

[Kate Lister]

Very smart. He leaves us with job.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah, yeah. But by then, hopefully I've got enough money. I'm like, oh, that's crazy. Anyway, I'm in Poitiers. That's it.

[Kate Lister]

Who would shag him?

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

All right.

[Kate Lister]

Okay. All right. This is Sean Connery's influence, I'm sure.

[Dr. Eleanor Jarlegger]

Yeah, yeah, I'm sure of it. Because he was good at shagging men. Cause he's good at shagging men.

[Kate Lister]

Bravo.

[Greenlight Infinity Advertiser]

Correct.

[Kate Lister]

Bravo, sir. Well done. Well, I think we got an overwhelming result there with a few outliers. Go and question your life choices. And thank you for voting so conclusively that we are killing Henry viii. We are shagging Charles ii despite the syphilis. And we're marrying Richard the Lionheart because he's never there. Thank you so much for coming along, everybody. You have been out. Absolutely amazing. Thank you for listening. And thank you so much to Eleanor and to the audience for joining me. And if you like what you heard, please don't forget to, like, review and follow along wherever it is you get your podcasts. And of course, don't forget that we have two more live shows coming to you this year, one in Edinburgh on 23rd May and 11 in London on 25th May. Just go to fane f A-N-E.co.uk and search for betwixt and we will see you there. Coming up, we are diving even deeper into the world of Hollywood's golden age and we'll be making a trip to the Emperor Tiberius's sordid island. And if you would like us to explore a subject, if you just wanted to say hello, then you can email us@betwixt historyhit.com this podcast will was edited by Hannah Feodorov and produced by Stuart Beckwith and Sophie G. The senior producer was Freddy Chick. Join me again betwixt the Sheets, the History of Sex Scandal in Society, a podcast by history hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic.