Helen Castor (4:27)

Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. God save the king. No black white unity till there is.

Dan Snow (4:33)

First some black unity.

Helen Castor (4:35)

Never to go to war with one another again. And lift off and the shuttle has cleared the tower.

Dan Snow (4:46)

Helen, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast.

Helen Castor (4:48)

Thank you for having me. It's an absolute pleasure.

Dan Snow (4:50)

Where do we start with poor old Richard ii? I mean, is Richard ii, is he a bit like Henry vi? Is he actually probably one of the nicer medieval kings and therefore one of the worst ones, like the kind of guy you would actually go out for a drink with in the modern world.

Helen Castor (5:02)

I would not choose to go out for a drink with Richard ii.

Dan Snow (5:04)

Oh, really?

Helen Castor (5:05)

I would with Henry. I would with Henry iv.

Dan Snow (5:08)

Oh, hang on. Okay, well, maybe. Okay, maybe you. Okay, well, in that case, we need to just re plug this episode. Okay, well, let's talk about Richard ii. Difficult inheritance, Granddad, if not the best medieval king of England, was sort of one of the top three legendary but long period of decrepitude. Son dies for him. So, Richard, difficult. How old is he, when he comes.

Helen Castor (5:27)

To the throne, he's ten, ten and a half, not a good age.

Dan Snow (5:32)

And where's England? I mean, it's been a pretty tough century.

Helen Castor (5:35)

It's been tough in lots of ways. Of course, the Black Death, absolutely terrible, kills probably half of England's population. But England is halfway through what we know as the Hundred War. Of course they don't know it's the Hundred Years War and they don't know they're halfway through it. But it's been going very, very well for England in its early stages, in the 1340s, 1350s, there's victory after victory at Crecy and Poitiers and Calais. So England's got used to having a war on the go that is bringing in lots of plunder, lots of prisoners, including the King of France and the King of Scotland. At some point, England's used to being top nation. And then in the 1360s there's an attempt at peace. 1370s, the war starts up again, but it all starts to go wrong. So by the time a 10 year old comes to the throne in 1377, this glorious golden past under this great king, Edward III is beginning to look not just tarnished, but really dangerous.

Dan Snow (6:39)

Right? And so Edward III dies before he can really take the blame for lots of that. It all falls upon this poor 10 year old. You know more than anyone about this. What is the nature of medieval kingship? It must really, really matter who's wearing that crown. I mean, despite all of the advisors. Why is that?

Helen Castor (6:57)

Because this is personal rule. And I think if we want to get to the essence of it, it's really helpful to think about the images on the Royal Seal, which validates every single instruction that comes out of this government. It's a big wax seal and on one side there's a picture of the King on horseback, in armour, with a sword in. That's half the job is to be a soldier, a warrior who will defend the country against external attack. And if we transplant ourselves to the Middle Ages, we have to remember that defence doesn't mean sitting behind a static border. What Edward III has shown brilliantly is that the best form of defence can be attack. Taking the attack to the French, fighting on French soil and thereby keeping England safe, as well as winning plunder and prisoners and all of those things and territory. But on the other side of the seal is the King on a throne with auburn sceptre in his hands and a crown on his head, as a judge, as a lawgiver, because it's the king's job to keep order inside the country, as well as to defend it from attack. That's in everyone's interests. He's been put there by God to uphold the law and give justice to his people. And if you don't have the king right at the top, like a referee, if you like, the risk is the country's going to collapse into anarchy. So it's a really, really, really important job.

Dan Snow (8:25)

And what are the anarchistic tendencies? Is it the great lords they just fight all the time? I mean, why is there such a. What's the opposite of centrifugal, centripetal force in these medieval kingdoms?

Helen Castor (8:35)

The lords are part of the issue. It's not that they are robber barons who are forever beating each other on the head unless an even bigger someone comes and beats them on the head. It's that they are powerful, ambitious men who are powerful because they hold lots of land and therefore command lots of people who live and work on that land. They always want more land, they want to be more powerful, so they are always pushing in that way. But they don't want anarchy. Because if you're a property owner, anarchy is not in your best interests. It means that your property, the source of all your wealth and power, is vulnerable and is likely to get attacked by someone even bigger than you. So what they need is a referee. They need to know that they can look to the king for command, for command. That's going to be in their interests and in the country's interests. But that need for law goes all the way down, because if you think about it, this is an extremely centralized state, but one that doesn't have a professional police force, it doesn't have a standing army. How are you actually going to keep order if you don't have someone right at the top commanding those hierarchies of landed power? That's in everyone's interests. And those are the key features of the King's job, is to understand what's in the interest of the country and provide the kind of rule that is going to benefit everybody.

Dan Snow (9:58)

And when you put it in those terms, it is just quite literally impossible. A 10 year old boy can discharge those functions, both military and keeping order like that, between powerful, competing interests in the country. So we try Regency, but obviously no one likes the Regent and it's just a nightmare. But when do we first hear about Richard's character? When does he first start having agency for himself? And what do we hear about him? Is he as warlike as his father and grandfather?

Helen Castor (10:22)

He's not warlike at all. Richard is brought up in what looks to me very much like a cocoon of gilded cotton wool, because he's the only hope in the next generation, as it were. The Black Prince, his father, Edward III's eldest son, great chivalric hero, has had only one legitimate child, and that's Richard. So the first time we see him is just after his father's death, just past his 10th birthday. His grandfather's not dead yet and he's brought into parliament to rally the whole kingdom around him, with the chancellor, who happens to be a bishop, giving a great speech, saying, the King has sent us this prince, just as the Holy Scripture says, God sent his only beloved son. You know, it's a wonderful piece of political rhetoric to indicate to the realm they need to rally round this small boy. The only problem is there's a 10 year old sitting there listening to himself being described as the Messiah. And the trouble is, that lesson seems to have gone in far too deep.

Dan Snow (11:24)

Ah, a formative and impressionable age.

Helen Castor (11:28)

And six months later, he is crowned. It's an amazing ceremony, glittering, sacred Westminster Abbey, center of attention that seems to have confirmed the lesson. And then we don't see him very much for the next few years. But 1381, what we know as the Peasants Revolt, the biggest popular uprising in medieval England, takes over the southeast and London. And they are setting their sights, the rebels, on the regime that is governing in the King's name. The war's going badly, too many taxes are being taken, they are impoverished, everything's going wrong. They want to get rid of the lords who are running the government, but what they're saying is they want to do that in the name of the King, because they're saying, we know the King isn't actually ruling. So they say they're rising in the name of King Richard and the true commons. And so when Richard is called on to ride out to meet them twice, first at Mile End and then at Smithfield, again, this is a sense of his sacrosanct majesty, because the rebels fall silent as he rides towards them. And when he says, I will be your captain, I will be your leader, they follow him to their own destruction, it turns out, but he and they agree on something very important, which is the government's going to rack and ruin. These nobles are doing a terrible job. And Richard at 14, thinks, you've already told me, I'm King. In fact, there hasn't been a Regency because no one can agree on who the Regent should be. So Richard's been Told he's been ruling since the age of 10. He knows he hasn't. And so he starts identifying his nobles as the enemy because they are taking his place in his government.

Dan Snow (13:12)

Ah, the old good czar evil counselors conundrum. And so Richard, like Tsar Nicholas, would get a bit high on his own supply, by the sound of things. But let's get. I want to come back to the peasants, Rob. It's a huge moment. People have heard of. Let's talk about his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, the man who would become Henry iv. No spoiler. They were very similar in age.

Helen Castor (13:28)

They were. Richard was three months older, but almost exactly the same age. Henry was the son of John of Gaunt, Richard's oldest surviving uncle. The most powerful man in the country, the Duke of Lancaster, with enormous estates, great power, huge wealth. And it's Gaunt who is desperately trying to keep the show on the road. In these difficult years after the death of Edward iii, he almost never stops moving. He's riding between the northern border to try and keep peace with the Scots or fend them off if they're attacking, and then down south trying to run government and fend off the French. But he's getting it in the neck from absolutely everybody. So young Henry, growing up at his father's knee, has a very different sense of what the problems in England are. He's actually seeing that there are problems and the reality of what they are. And in 1381, when the rebels charge into London and storm the tower, Henry, at 14, is actually in the Tower and almost gets killed by the rebels who've just burned down his father's palace of the Savoy. He's saved by the kindness of one rebel, a small holder from Kent named John Ferrer. And we only know this because Henry remembered him for the rest of his life and many years later, pardoned him for something else for having so kindly and wonderfully saved his life in 1381. So Henry is getting a very, very different education and he's a very different character.

Dan Snow (14:57)

Well, and tell me about that. As a character, how does he differ from his cousin Richard?

Helen Castor (15:01)

Richard loves the majesty and the magnificence of kingship. There is not any amount of gold that is too much gold for Richard to wear, to surround himself with the pageantry, the image making, the iconography of kingship is what Richard seems to see as the essence of his role. Henry is learning how to fight, he's jousting at court. From the age of 13, Henry loves books, Henry has friends. It makes him sound blandly Nice or something. But he makes friends really easily and really deeply wherever he goes. That's not the case with Richard. I tend to feel that it's probably important in Henry's development that he has two extremely formidable older sisters with whom he grows up, and then a whole gaggle of younger half siblings. So instead of this rather splendid isolation that Richard is brought up in, he also has half brothers and sisters, but he's the youngest, he's the baby, and he's the only royal one. They're his mother's children, which is why he's the only heir to the throne. Henry is growing up in a magnificent but very real and quite rumbustious household. And I think he has his edges knocked off in quite a helpful way at an early age.

Dan Snow (16:18)

Helen Castor. This is out and out Lancastrian propaganda we're feeding the audience here. I approve of this message. Okay. No, I'm into it. Okay. So peasants revolt. Roughly speaking, is it the revolt of people that live in the countryside or are they actually peasants? It's the revolt of the working man, a kind of spontaneous popular uprising.

Helen Castor (16:36)

It is a popular uprising. It's not a rising of the poorest of the poor. Often, you'll find in history, revolts are not the poorest of the poor. It's people who can see that they should be doing better. In the wake of the Black Death, there are fewer working people around. They should be able to be improving their lots, they should be able to demand higher wages, they should be able to move around to get more land and so on, instead of which the government is piling on measure upon measure to try to keep them in their place in the immediate aftermath. This is years before, but in the immediate aftermath of the Black Death, the government snaps into action to impose a maximum wage to try and hold wages at pre plague levels. And there are attempts to enforce that. But the key thing in 1381 is the introduction of the Poll Tax. The landowners who sit in the Commons in Parliament, that is, the lesser landowners, but still very powerful people, members of the landed classes, the gentry, they've got so fed up with paying tax after tax for the war that they're trying to push the tax burden down below them. And a poll tax is a flat rate tax and therefore very, very unfair on working people who are paying exactly the same as the gentry and the noblemen ahead of them. And that's what really sets this Revolt alight in 1381.

Dan Snow (18:03)

Okay, so we've got the peasants storm into London. They do. Remarkably, the only Hostile force ever to take the Tower of London is this peasants revolt and they bounce on the beds and they chase members of the royal family around and kill the chance of the exchequer. But Richard does. This is always said to be his great moment. He does ride out, does he, to meet the main body of the peasants, the ones not charging through the behavior. And what happens there? There's this great moment, isn't there?

Helen Castor (18:26)

There is a great confrontation, yes. It's a fascinating episode, the whole thing. They do take the Tower of London, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the way you get to take the Tower of London if you are a storming force is if somebody opens the door and lets you in. I suspect there was sympathy for the rebels inside the Tower. There's a lot of sympathy for the rebels in London. The rebels are asking to see Richard because he is their King. They are looking to him for help. They say, we want to talk to the King. And the people around Richard are very worried about this. Of course, they're all terrified for their lives. They're terrified for the King's life, what's going to happen. But these are rebels who, on the road to London, have had a password. You could be stopped on the road and asked, with whom hold you? And the right answer was, with King Richard and the true commons. And if you didn't say that, you were going to lose your head in pretty short order. So they are looking to Richard for help. Richard rides out in front of them. They say, right, we want an end to serfdom and we want an end to all lordship except that of the King. Different ones among the rebels say different things on different days, but those are the central requests, and Richard quite likes the sound of that, because no lordship except that of the King is exactly what he thinks he ought to have. And all these nobles who are a generation older than him, who've been getting in his way. I think he quite likes the sound of it all. Of course, that's not what either he or the rebels get, but it is a moment that reinforces him in his sense that he is special. God has put him on the throne with unique powers, unique authority and unique presence.

Dan Snow (20:08)

We've just finished that story quickly. So he sort of agrees in a sort of amorphous way to some of these ideas and slogans, and they agree to disperse. At which point his government, is that him or is it his lords? Is it his local sort of high sheriffs and lord lieutenants? They absolutely rinse all of these former rebels and there's A great crackdown.

Helen Castor (20:26)

There is, there is, and it's bloody retribution. And it's a lesson, a very harsh lesson to the rebels. I think it's yet another episode in which Richard finds that things he says are not necessarily going to happen as he wishes them to in his realm. It's not at all that he thinks people who rebel against the form of his government should be spared punishment. It's not that he is a bleeding heart for these working men and women. I suspect we're already seeing a king who struggles to see any issue, any set of complaints in any terms other than his own. I think for Richard, he is the center of the universe and his interests are the only ones, with one possible exception, which we might come onto in a minute, that are really real and meaningful to him. In other words, I think we're seeing a narcissist developing before our eyes.

Dan Snow (21:31)

And so there's no such thing. You can't agree that there is an idea around, as it were, loyal opposition, that if you're against me, you must be deranged maniacs.

Helen Castor (21:39)

Yes. And increasingly, as we go on through the next few years, not only deranged maniacs, but traitors. And the law of treason, which his grandfather had. In a very politic, very statesmanlike move, his grandfather, Edward III had passed a statute that really closely defined what treason was. So it wasn't just a weapon that the King could throw around at will, leaving his subjects deeply insecure. He defined what treason actually was. And what you see as the 1380s go on is that Richard doesn't want to be bound by that and increasingly wants to say that anyone who dares stand up to him in any way should be classed as a traitor.

Dan Snow (22:23)

Now, let's talk about these extraordinary parliaments of the 1380s, which all got exciting names like the Wonderful Parliament, the Merciless Parliament, and am I just bringing my 17th century sort of biases to this? But is it essentially, King needs cash, wants money from Parliament, is completely unprepared to do things in return, deal with redress, deal with the issues raised by parliamentarians. And it's this sort of classic English problem you get between King and Parliament.

Helen Castor (22:52)

In outline, yes. But I'd want to add in that the problems they want redress for are immediate and they're massive. In 1386, the parliament is called because the biggest French fleet since 1066 is massing in a Flemish port, preparing to invade and to cross onto the beaches of East Anglia. And Richard is paying absolutely no notice to this. Richard and the One person whose interests he ever showed any sign of putting on a par with his own, his friend Robert de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, who he's busy promoting through the ranks to become Duke of Ireland. They're more or less riding in the opposite direction because de Vere is supposed to be going on an expedition to Ireland. They're riding west while the French are threatening to invade from the other side. So it isn't just he's taking our money and he's not giving us what we want, he's taking cash upon cash upon cash upon cash, and we're about to get invaded. And he doesn't seem to think it's a serious issue. So in that Parliament, which is the one that's usually called the wonderful Parliament, but I need to make two notes here. One is, our meaning of the word wonderful is a little bit different from the medieval one. It means to be wondered at, but in a bad way. In other words, amazing, awful things were going on at this Parliament, but also the likelihood is that it was actually coined to refer to the next parliament we're going to come onto, which is the merciless one. I think actually both names were originally applied to that one. But in any case, 1386, invasion scare at its height. And Parliament says to the King, we want to get rid of your Chancellor, because this is not going well. The Chancellor was one of Richard's household men, the people he did actually trust. And he says to Parliament, I would not dismiss Scullion from my kitchen at your request.

Dan Snow (24:53)

That's not constitutional monarchy, is it, folks?

Helen Castor (24:55)

No, it isn't, really. At which point, a delegation goes to visit him, led by his youngest uncle, Thomas of Woodstock, the Duke of Gloucester, because Gaunt is, at this stage, abroad. Gaunt would have helped in this situation much though lots of people hated him, including Richard. But Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, and the Bishop of Ely, Thomas Arundel, go and see him. And they say, be careful, Sire. Remember what happened to your great grandfather, Edward II in 1327, who was deposed. They don't say it in so many words, but it's very clear what they're getting at. And Richard says, if you keep behaving like this, I'm going to have to ask my cousin, the King of France, for help, and I'd rather submit myself to him than to my own subjects. Now with a French invasion fleet ready, this is dumbfounding and delusional.

Dan Snow (25:44)

Wow. And what is Henry Bolingbroke doing at this point? Him and Richard mates. I mean, they're first cousins, Are they friends and do they collaborate? And is he starting to become estranged? What's going on with him?

Helen Castor (25:55)

Yeah, there's no sign they're mates at all. There have been attempts to put them together at earlier stages in their childhood, but they really haven't taken. They don't seem to have anything in common. By this stage, both Richard and Henry are 19, both of them are married. Richard has no children. Henry's young wife has just given birth to their first son, another Henry, Henry of Monmouth. He's born at Monmouth Castle and Henry, 19 year old Henry has been left in charge of the family, the dynasty, the lands, while his father Gaunt, has gone off to fight in Spain. So this is a huge weight on Henry's shoulders and he's sitting in that parliament in 1386, watching Richard behave like this and having to make really big decisions about what to do next. Because it's clear that greater, more active opposition is in the works, a council is appointed in that parliament to take over government from Richard. Richard leaves Westminster in a huff, goes off travelling round the country, more or less seeing if he can drum up military support, it seems, while the council is in power at Westminster and also secretly consulting with his judges with some very leading questions, getting them to tell him that anyone standing up to him is in fact or should be punished as a traitor. And so in 1387, when resistance comes out into the open, led by Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, along with two other earls, Arundel and Warwick, two younger men join them. One is Thomas Mowbray, the Earl of Nottingham, and the other is Henry. This is a momentous decision. He actually decides to lead the men that his father has left him in charge of into open opposition to his cousin.

Dan Snow (27:42)

You listen to Dan Snow's history at More Richard II than Henry Ivan coming up after this.

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Dan Snow (30:05)

As you're describing this, I'm thinking about the sort of the ambiguity of medieval kingship. And maybe the reason that some people find it so difficult to get their heads around some rulers is that people like John and Richard ii, on the one hand they are being told, well, there's nothing written down that says you can't do these things. You are an absolute monarch, you are God's representative on earth. And indeed, you know, he goes and has a ceremony when he's 10 and he watches all these words being spoken. But practically, if you look at the cleverness of Edward III and Henry II or Henry I, they're all, they're very, very good politicians, they're smart, they don't force the issue.

Helen Castor (30:38)

Right?

Dan Snow (30:39)

But it must be very confusing for all those like, well, I suppose maybe Henry III as well, who keep getting snarled up in the fact it's like, well hang on, I thought I was in charge. What's going on around here.

Helen Castor (30:47)

I think that's right, but I think where they go wrong, the Richard II of this world, or the Johns, is not seeing what the nature of their job actually is. Richard is very good on the rights of being king, but he's not at all good on the responsibilities. He doesn't see that to have this God given power, you know, with great power comes great responsibility, as we learn from Spider Man. And it's as true in the 1380s as it is now. And to find yourself in a situation where there's a French armada about to land on the beaches of East Anglia, it seems, and for you not to see that as the most important thing that you have to deal with, working with your subjects to defend your kingdom, something's gone very badly wrong in your conception of what the job actually is. French Armada doesn't actually turn up, which is why we've never heard of the French Armada of 1386. Because the wind doesn't turn. It takes so long to get. They've got so many ships and so many men, it takes so long to get them all on board that they're into November by this point and the weather doesn't turn for them and they have to say, right, lads, we'll try again next year. But at the point where Parliament's confronting Richard, nobody knows they're not going to come. So it's Richard's dereliction of his duty and his failure to see that, yes, God has given him a crown, but God has given him a crown to do something, and that something is to look after his people.

Dan Snow (32:13)

So on paper, their practical role and the way of doing things is actually very different from any constitutional restrictions on their power and all that kind of stuff. Fascinating. So these lords, they form the appellants, don't they, Henry? And these lads. And do they get this chancellor they wanted to, I mean, do they successfully get rid of this offending politician?

Helen Castor (32:33)

They do, but he's already been dismissed in 1386. So this council that's been in power for a year has in a sense tackled all the immediate intra things for the government. It's seen off the threatened invasion, it's set about financial retrenchment and so on, but it finds itself with a new threat in 1387 because Richard is trying to rewrite the law of treason and so on. They suddenly find they've got a bigger problem inside the house than they had outside the house in the previous year. And so they're stuck in the position that you were alluding to a Minute ago, this problem of how do you oppose the King when the King has been put in place by God. Well, one way you do it is you say, it's not you, sire, it's the dreadful people around you. So these five lords appellant are so called because they launch an appeal of treason against the men around the King that they are blaming for what has gone wrong. Now, in fact, of course, it's Richard. But attacking the King is a very, very difficult thing to justify. It's a very difficult thing to do or get support for. So the merciless parliament in 1388 sets about trying for treason the men immediately around the King who are now being blamed for what all the things that Richard has done, and some of them are executed. The one that particularly pains Richard, it seems, is his former tutor, Simon Burley, who was the man who'd carried him in his arms from his coronation. He wasn't one of the first wave to be accused, but he gets swept up in the momentum of the second wave of executions that take place otherwise. Robert de Vere, Richard's favourite, has already fled abroad, as have some of the others. So it's not that they succeed in executing everyone they set out to charge, but really the point is to stop the King in his tracks, to make clear that this is not how government can run. And they've got to hope that Richard might learn his lesson. There is an indication that before this Parliament opens, a couple of months before it opens, it's already become clear that you just can't trust Richard to keep his word. And there are a couple of days behind the walls of the Tower where they seem to have actively discussed deposing Richard at this early stage. But the problem is, who are you going to put in his place? You can't do without a king. Richard doesn't have a brother, he doesn't have a son. He's got uncles and he's got cousins. Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, says, I know, I think I'd make a rather good king. And young Henry says, hang on, my dad's your older brother. I don't think that's going to wash. They can't decide who to put in Richard's place, so they have to put the crown back on his head and then proceed on the basis that it is all the people around him who've been causing the problems. And just hope that from now on, Richard, who is still only 21, he's a young man, lots still to learn, give him a second chance. Let's hope it'll go better from here on.

Dan Snow (35:46)

God, it's just so fascinating, the comparisons with different monarchs through the centuries and trying to work. It's so fun to work out what's different, of course, because every context is different, but also some of these enduring tropes around giving individuals huge amounts of power and unfortunately, sometimes they're just unable to wield it pragmatically. Our sympathies are not with Richard. Right, Helen. Unlike Charles I, when you think actually these politicians were pretty crazy with their, you know, there's a lot of sort of religious millenarism going around. And also it was quite hard for Charles I to make a deal. We think actually the fault does lie pretty nominally Richard ii.

Helen Castor (36:18)

It does. I think there's certainly room to feel sorry for him because he's been brought up in this extraordinary way and one could say, well, what chance did he have as this spoiled, cosseted baby who was never made to face up to his responsibilities? On the other hand, he's taken that ball and he's run with it. And yeah, the difficulties of the late 1380s, you would have to say, are pretty clearly of his making. It takes two sides. His uncle, Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, has a lot of chips on his shoulder and a lot of grievances about being the youngest, the overlooked youngest of Edward III's sprawling family of sons and so on. But what Gloucester is pointing at, the complaints he's making, the complaints he's representing from Parliament are very, very real. But the difficulty is with all of this, and here is again where the echoes and the resonances that you're talk come in. When a leader at the head of a constitution starts attacking the accepted principles and structures of that constitution instead of upholding them, what are you going to have to do to stop him? Are you yourself going to have to break bits of the Constitution in the attempt to stop him? Because Richard has been trying to expand the law of treason to make it mean whatever he says. But in the Merciless Parliament of 1388, the Lords appellant push the law of treason far beyond where it had been before by saying, we're going to have to operate by parliamentary procedure. In other words, they're making it up as they go along. And it's very telling that at the end of that Parliament, they pass a statute saying that everything that has happened in that Parliament is right and must never be gone back on. But the whole of the Parliament must set no precedent. Those procedures must never be used again either. They're in a really? Really, Trick. Trying to hold Richard back within structures that he is refusing to abide by.

Dan Snow (38:22)

Okay, fascinating. So now we've got Henry Bolingbroke. Now, presumably their relationship is irrevocably damaged and he goes off like any robust young man to have a few nights out in Lithuania. Tell me, what does Henry decide to do next?

Helen Castor (38:38)

He decides whether because he wants to win his spurs and have some fun andor because putting a good few hundred miles between himself and his cousin seems like a politic thing to do at this point, he decides to go traveling across Europe. His father, Gaunt has come back in 1389, having left in 1386 as the most hated man in England, comes back as the elder statesman. Everyone's so relieved to see him because everything had got so much worse after he'd left. So. So with Gauntbach, Henry is free to go. He's leaving his wife and his now two or three small sons at home in Peterborough Castle. And so he goes off to join the crusading order of Teutonic Knights in their campaign against the pagans of Lithuania. And this is a crusade that operates in two seasons per year, because you can only fight in in the spring and the autumn, when the Lithuanian wilderness isn't too boggy in the summer or frozen too hard in the winter. And it is a kind of grand tour for aspiring knights across Europe. This is a thing that many, many Englishmen and knights from other countries go and do, including Henry Hotspur, Henry Percy and many other compatriots of Henry's. But he really makes his name, he does really well there. And when he goes back for a second season, he discovers that a treaty has derailed the campaign for the time being. So he sends his armour home and goes on a real grand tour through the great courts of Europe, all the way to Jerusalem as a pilgrim. And that not only makes him known, makes him admired across Europe, but I think has a very profound spiritual effect on him. Actually going to the holy places in Jerusalem as a pilgrim is a profound thing. So these are very formative years for Henry and years in which he's learning to be a military leader in very cosmopolitan and very grand style. This is all bankrolled by his extraordinarily wealthy father, Gaunt. So there's no penny pinching or belt tightening going on here, but in it is a very bonding experience with his men. It's a very formative experience on many levels, I think.

Dan Snow (41:08)

Don't go anywhere, folks. More on the story after this.

Zoe (41:19)

Morning. Zoe Got donuts.

Jeff Bridges (41:21)

Jeff Bridges, Why are You still living above our garage?

Zoe (41:24)

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Nice.

Jeff Bridges (41:51)

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Helen Castor (41:51)

You heard them.

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Helen Castor (41:54)

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Dan Snow (42:56)

So it sounds like as Henry's looking outwards, he's looking upwards. He's expanding. Richard is in a tower somewhere, stabbing dolls of the lords who've betrayed him. Right. He's obsessed with the inside game, he's obsessed with the past. Is that a fair characterisation?

Helen Castor (43:11)

It is. We can't yet necessarily be sure. If we were living through those years, the early 1390s, we'd be looking at Richard nervously and thinking, what's he planning? What's he up to? Has he learned his lesson? Because he's being more politic than he was before. He's showing more signs of engaging with the actual business of government than he was before. He's not stupid, Richard. He's seen what happened in the 1380s and he's identified pressure points that he wants to avoid in the future. And one of them is the war with France. If you can't win it let's make peace. Gaunt spends another few years non stop riding around trying to find a peace treaty that'll work. No permanent peace can be found in the end because this is a war, even if everyone wants to stop it. In fact, the fundamental issues at stake are still as difficult as they ever were. They can't be sorted out. But what Richard does agree in 1396 is a long truce, a 28 year truce, and by that stage his first wife has died. And so this is a truce and a peace treaty, a temporary peace treaty sealed with a marriage. He marries the King of France's oldest daughter. Richard is 29 and his new queen Isabel is 6. So that's an interesting insight as well into Richard's thinking. This is not a man. Remember he doesn't have any children. He doesn't seem to be in any particular hurry to acquire a son and heir. Now partly that may be because I don't think Richard likes contemplating a world that he's not at the epicenter of and trying to think about the future in the hands of somebody else doesn't sit particularly well with him. But also he's beginning to make good use of the lands that any heir of his would have, that is the Principality of Wales, the Earldom of Chester, the Duchy of Cornwall, because he is beginning to build up his own personal military retinue on the basis of those lands. It's all quite low key at the moment and you know he has an absolute right to do this, but you've got to ask yourself, why does he want a personal military retinue when he's the King?

Dan Snow (45:40)

Ah, yes, it's the old classic English monarch trying to find sources of extra parliamentary revenue. It's the old classic, isn't it? It's a danger sign.

Helen Castor (45:48)

It is. And he, in the late 1380s, he knew he'd been pinned into a corner by the Lord's appellant because they could call on their military retinues, they could put armies into the field in a way he couldn't. And that's because he's the King. The army he's supposed to be able to put into the field is the army of all his lords and all their men.

Dan Snow (46:11)

Yeah, he clicks his fingers and they all turn up.

Helen Castor (46:13)

Exactly. But that hasn't worked for him because he's arguing with his lords, he's, he's not on the same page as them about what his government should be doing and in fact he's accusing them of being traitors. So the fact that he's now Building up his retinue with his new badge of the white hart, which he's plastering all over his palaces and churches and the people who now follow him. So, White Hart Lane. Any spurs fans out there? It still lives on in many pubs, the sign of the white hart. There are questions to be asked about what direction Richard thinks he's going in.

Dan Snow (46:46)

Okay, so that is, as you say, very weird. So he's building up sort of personal power as opposed to Ra. That's fascinating. So what's he do with this army? When does he strike back? When does the empire strike back?

Helen Castor (46:56)

The Empire strikes back in 1397. Richard launches a coup against the leading rebels of the 1380s. They've been pardoned, they've been told it's all in the past. Nothing to see here. Suddenly, those pardons are ripped up. Duke of Gloucester, the Earl of Warwick and the Earl of Arran are arrested. Warwick is sentenced to life imprisonment because he begs for his life. Arundel is found guilty and beheaded, which is a big deal. We're not into Tudor worlds where everyone loses their head every five minutes. Yet this is really unusual for the Middle Ages. And the Duke of Gloucester can't appear in Parliament to answer the charges because he's dead. Rumours are swirling and he has, in fact been murdered in Calais, where he's been kept under lock and key. So murdering your own uncle, murdering a son of the great Edward iii. This is huge. And the younger two appellants, Henry and Mowbray, are terrified because is Richard gonna come for them next?

Dan Snow (47:49)

What I've learned, Helen, in medieval history is you're allowed to kill as many normal people as you like, but when you start messing with the aristocracy, you fall out of favour very quickly as a king.

Helen Castor (47:56)

That's it.

Dan Snow (47:57)

Right, so he's walking on dangerous ground here. Very dangerous. So we've got Mowbray and Henry Bolingbroke, son of John of Gaunt. Does Richard come for them before he can?

Helen Castor (48:05)

They turn on each other because they're both terrified. They can both see which way the wind is blowing. They accuse. And Richard says, right, we'll sort this out by a duel. You can fight each other and God will decide who's telling the truth. They spend five months preparing for the duel. This is the point at which Shakespeare's Richard II starts. Anyone who knows the play. And just as they are about to charge at each other in the lists, Richard stands up and says, stop. I'm banishing you both.

Dan Snow (48:31)

Oh, come on. They've just spent five months in the gym, laying off the wine. Oh, my goodness. Exhausting.

Helen Castor (48:38)

People have come from all over Europe to watch this. And Richard says, so you can both leave the country. And this is itself remarkable because neither of them have been found guilty of any crime. But what choice do they have? Off they go. Henry goes to Paris, They've been told not to go to the same place. Mowbray goes off towards Jerusalem. But a few months later, John of Gaunt dies. A broken man with his heir sent into exile, all his decades of work reduced to rubble, really in the hands of this petulant king who thinks that government ought to be a matter of his arbitrary will. And there's one more insult to be added to this injury, because Richard has promised Henry that he can inherit his lands when his father dies. And as soon as Gaunt's dead, Richard says, nope, change my mind, I'm having them for myself. And if the king can do that to the most powerful nobleman in the country, if he can snap his fingers and say the law doesn't apply, I'm taking your property. Who can't he do that to? This is the moment, the fork in the road, the turning point. This is the moment when Henry's got to choose. Is he going to stand up against what is now full blown tyranny and see if the country will come with him, or is he just going to accept the destruction of his dynasty?

Dan Snow (49:55)

And Henry chooses to fight. Do you think he wants the crown at this point, or is he just fighting for his place at the top table as one of the most senior know, elevated aristocrats in the country?

Helen Castor (50:05)

This is the million dollar question, isn't it? I think, and it's been argued about, it was argued about at the time, it's been argued about ever since. I think Henry knew enough, he was experienced enough, he was intelligent enough to know that if he came back to challenge Richard, it wouldn't stop at just getting his inheritance back. How could it? Because it was completely clear that Richard could not be trusted. He could pardon people, people 10 years earlier and then rip up the pardons and change everything. So the only way Henry was going to be able to restore property rights within England was by doing this terrifying deed, which was deposing the rightful king. Rightful in the sense of anointed king by blood. He was going to have to depose him. And in practice, Henry himself was the only possible choice, in pragmatic terms, to replace him.

Dan Snow (51:03)

People think this kind of thing happens in medieval history all the time. It's certainly true. Lots of brothers would fight with each other and sometimes fight with their female cousins in English history. But just getting rid of a king, once they're sort of securely on the throne is quite unusual, right?

Helen Castor (51:15)

It really is. And it's extremely unusual for it to happen more or less without a blow being struck. Richard had made a fatal error. He thought he had built this extraordinary, glittering edifice of kingship and had got rid of all the enemies within. Disinheriting Henry was the final piece in that building project. And so at that point he says, right, I'm going to take my army off to Ireland where I've had a nice time before, making the Gaelic chiefs prostrate themselves before me. What he hasn't realized is that his glittering edifice is a house of cards. And the minute Henry comes back, not with an army, but just with a small group of household men in one ship, people start flocking to him. Other members of the great nobility, particularly the Percys in the north, but ordinary people come flocking to his banner. So by the time Richard scrambles back from Ireland, Henry's at the head of a massive army and the kingdom's already lost. And Richard finds himself helpless, alternating between rage and grief and really not knowing what to do because it's already over.

Dan Snow (52:25)

Then we get one of the great Shakespeare speeches. Let us sit upon the ground and tell the story of the death of kings. But in real life, what happens is Richard just hand himself in. Does he get captured? What's going on?

Helen Castor (52:34)

Richard gets captured. The difficulty of getting back from Ireland because his fleet is scattered. The ships had all been sent away once they landed in Ireland, they have to, to get ships back. They cross to Wales, he's separated from his troops. It's all a disaster. He's taken into custody by Henry, brought back to London, put in the Tower. At which point two things happen. Richard abdicates and Richard is deposed by. Basically, it's a parliament. But once Richard's been deposed, it's no longer formally a parliament because it was called under Richard's authority. Now, obviously we know that, that Richard doesn't, of his own free will, voluntarily abdicate. It's a belt and braces process. If you're going to get rid of an anointed king, it's a very dangerous, a very frightening, a very difficult thing to do. So if you can persuade Richard to put his seal on a document of abdication, so much the better. But there's also this really serious process of trying to explain what has gone wrong with Richard's rule and the Key charge that they come back to again and again and again is perjury, which might sound odd, but what they mean is perjury, because he's broken his coronation oath. In his coronation oath, he'd sworn to uphold the law and do justice to his people. He hasn't done that and therefore he's guilty of perjury and can be removed. And Henry steps forward and claims the crown for himself through a kind of fudged collection of ideas. He has got royal blood. He's come back and been acclaimed by Parliament and he's come back with military force to take the country. But he doesn't want to claim by conquest, because that would mean he could just rewrite the laws. He doesn't want to say that his title depends on Parliament and he can't claim to be the heir by blood because there are other cousins who would have something to say about that as well. So it's a frightening moment. But he is crowned and anointed in Westminster Abbey on 13th October 1399. And Richard disappears up north into Pontefract Castle. Henry hopes never to be seen or heard from again.

Dan Snow (54:46)

And Henry's hopes are realised.

Helen Castor (54:49)

They are but via for Richard, a very unfortunate route. It's only three months after Henry's coronation that the noblemen who'd been closest to Richard, the ones who had won most out of his tyrannical rule in the last two years of the reign, decide they don't fancy their chances under this new regime. And they try raising the banners of revolt. It's put down very, very quickly. But here we come to another iron law of English history, which is that you cannot afford to have a living ex king hanging around the place, because if you do, anyone who feels like rebelling knows exactly where to go. And a few weeks later, it's announced that Richard has sadly and mysteriously died. The story goes, either that he has starved himself to death through grief, or perhaps that the food deliveries have stopped coming and his death has been hastened because necessary to the new regime.

Dan Snow (55:47)

So Henry iv, on paper now as he is, he's sparkling, brilliant warrior, superb, charismatic. His reign is absolutely miserable, isn't it? And there is Welsh revolt, there is civil war in England. He develops health problems reasonably rapidly. And on top of that, we now know that that act sowed the seeds of what would become known as the War of the Roses as well. So that bloodless coup had enormous ramifications, didn't it, for English and European history? Arguably, that would run all the way through the 15th century. What a moment.

Helen Castor (56:21)

It would. I suppose I would just want to add one more thing into that, which is Henry does have an absolutely miserable reign. Because if you are a usurper and a regicide, we come back to this question of how far are you going to have to go to protect the existing constitution from someone who's set out to destroy it? Well, Henry's had to go a very long way. He's had to take the throne, he's had to kill his cousin, the king. He has to live with that, but he also has to live with its effects because. Because anyone with a grudge against him outside the kingdom or within it, knows he has weak points, knows he's vulnerable, knows they can say, well, you shouldn't actually really be king. And as you say, the French, the Scots, the Welsh, a hundred years and a bit more since they'd been conquered by Edward I. Owen Glyndour says, no, the Principality of Wales ought to be independent. And then the Percy's, who are kingmakers essentially in 1399, as so often kingmakers do say, well, we're not being sufficiently rewarded because we made you. This is why as a king, you don't want kingmakers. But Henry survives. He survives with difficulty. He survives through years of chronic illness, which his enemies and I suspect he himself see as a punishment sent from God for what he's done. I think his conscience is very troubled in the last years of his reign. But his greatest success is handing on his throne to his son and heir, who runs Edward III really close for the title of greatest medieval king, Henry V. So I think we have to say, when we look at what Henry V achieves as the legitimate heir of a reigning king, even if it's a reigning king who's a usurper by the time Henry v dies in 1422, as king now of England and about to be king of France, because he's conquered half of it and agreed a treaty by which he, he will be the next heir to France. He leaves a nine month old baby as his heir and there is not one whisper of disloyalty to the Lancastrian dynasty. It takes another couple of decades and the revelation that Henry VI is in fact completely useless before more problems emerge. And I think we have to see 1399 as a precedent that is always there to be called on, on rather than necessarily an inevitable wound that is going to reopen. It is called upon in 1460, 1461, in terms of the dynastic claim of the Yorkists, and it's called upon in the 1640s when the nobles who are standing up against Charles I are looking for constitutional precedents in English history that will justify deposing a king. It's there to be used and drawn if the situation demands. But it's not that the Lancastrian dynasty was always inevitably going to fall. I think Henry V shows what's possible with the difficult legacy he inherited.

Dan Snow (59:26)

Well, and if he'd washed his goddamn hands during that siege and hadn't got dysentery, the world would be a better place. Helen Castor, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. What's your book called? It's wonderful. Everyone needs to go and buy it immediately.

Helen Castor (59:36)

Thank you very much. It's called the Eagle and the the Tragedy of Richard II and Henry iv.

Dan Snow (59:41)

Well, thanks so much. Come back on the pod. See you soon.

Helen Castor (59:44)

See you soon. Thank you.

Dan Snow (59:46)

Thank you so much for listening as always. And thanks for sticking with this podcast for so many years. If you're a longtime fan now, if you are, you'll remember the days when we used to smash out seven episodes a week. You'll probably notice that we're slowly honing the craft. We're bringing you longer and frankly, better episodes. There's a lot more research that goes into them, and we're trying to focus on more of what you want as well. And that's exactly what we're going to keep doing. So from November, there's going to be a change in our release schedule. You're going to get new episodes every Monday and Thursday if you're a subscriber, which I urge you to become, of course. And then if you are, you'll get extra bonus episodes on Fridays, too. The reason I'm doing that is I want to make sure I can put more time into the episodes I'm making for you. Try and do more of those explainers, for example. And I just monologue along. People seem to like those. Thank you very much for all the reviews.

Helen Castor (60:31)

Use.

Dan Snow (60:31)

As you can imagine, those take a lot of time. So with this new release schedule, I'll be able to give you more of those. Worry not, though. Dan Snow's history isn't changing, it's just getting better.

Zoe (60:51)

Morning, Zoe. Got donuts.

Jeff Bridges (60:53)

Jeff Bridges, why are you still living above our garage?

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Well, I dig the mattress and I want to be in a T Mobile commercial like you teach me.

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Nice.

Jeff Bridges (61:22)

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Helen Castor (61:26)

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So what are we having for launch?

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Dude, my work here is done.

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