← THIS IS HISTORY — A DYNASTY TO DIE FOR
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- [00:02]
A
Elizabeth, what's your greatest failure?
- [00:05]
B
I mean, so many to choose from. But the one that is coming to mind is probably this one. He's asking for help with a bulky parcel that he removes from the passenger seat of his car. And I question it mildly as we're walking upstairs. I'm like, what's this? Then he said, oh, it's. It's a camp bed. I was like, oh. He was like, yeah, your mattress is really uncomfortable and it's so bad for my lower back pain. So I've brought my own futon. And what happens, Dan? And, you know, apologies if any listeners or viewers are of a delicate nature, but we are intimate on my mattress, which is totally fine, FYI.
- [00:44]
A
Oh, God.
- [00:45]
B
And after we have done the act, he sort of unrolls his futon, then rolls onto the futon like a sort of faithful hound lying at the feet of his Tudor retainer. And I remember going to slee. This is totally fine. You know, how great to be with someone who just knows his own body, who is self aware enough to acknowledge that he has lumber issues and he's taken action. And then in the middle of the night, I woke up, sat bolt upright, and I just thought, this man cannot be my boyfriend and I need to break it off. And I did the next day. And he said, well, as long as you don't come back to me in six months having changed your mind, because by then your ovaries would have dried up and I won't be interested.
- [01:26]
A
Somehow I find that more horrific than Henry VIII having Anne Boleyn beheaded with a sword. I know it's not, and I think it's just the shock of the new, but that is atrocious.
- [01:44]
B
I mean, nothing could be worse than that, really.
- [01:47]
A
Well, if it's any consolation, Futon Don's got nothing on the epic failures we're about to tell you about on our new show, History's Greatest Fails, the hosted by me, Dan Jones, and me, Elizabeth Day.
- [02:01]
B
We're old friends and history graduates, and in this podcast, we're going to dig into failures of historical proportions to understand
- [02:08]
A
why losers make history. What often happens with discussions of Richard III is that they're played backwards. And when you read the story forwards, I think what you see with Richard III is a personal tragedy. I Wonder if Richard III's time is really now. Failure is not something to be ashamed of. Failure is something to learn from and grow from. We're unusual in that being a sort of a dominant cultural understanding. It's a sort of quite progressive modern way of thinking. My instinct is that for most of history, failure is sort of shameful and all sorts of other negative connotations. And so we've just sort of entered this period where Richard is really the perfect character because there are questions about his supposed guilt. There are sort of issues around his disability. He is a sort of the perfect character to be re examined, loved, fetishized.
- [03:15]
B
That's what's amazing about history. You describe him there as a character. This person actually existed.
- [03:21]
A
Yes.
- [03:22]
B
And in this person's reputation and legacy, we can put all of our own feelings of inadequacy and failure and shame and humiliation and embarrassment, all of those petty grudges, all of those reputations that we want to save about ourselves, we can put into this historic receptacle. It's kind of an, it's why I love these stories. Carry on.
- [03:46]
A
Dan. No, no, I, I, I was going to totally agree with you and I think that actually we say that again. I'm going to totally agree with you just that you make all your preposterous Ricardian statements and I say I totally agree with you.
- [04:01]
B
Listen to history's greatest fails on the this Is History podcast feed or watch on YouTube.