← THIS IS HISTORY — A DYNASTY TO DIE FOR
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Hello, friends. Now, before I hand you over to the marriage of the century, I'd like to remind you that you can join in all the fun my royal favourites are having over on Patreon. That's where you can get all bonus episodes ad free. And in this week's episode, producer Al and I are going to be delving into a rather complex royal family tree, that of the Woodvilles. And I've assigned the favorites the job of finding me pop stars who have paid tribute to the middle ages. Hit patreon.com thisishistory to make your submission. Want to know why? Well, it's all in this episode.
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Hey guys, this is Molly Sims, host of Lipstick on the Rim. So I have a little bit of a pet peeve that I think you're going to relate to this. I'll be having a great day, feeling good, and someone will say to me, you look tired. And I'm like, I promise you I'm not really tired. But here's what I've learned. My eyelids, they do sit a little low. And once my doctor explained that to me, it actually kind of made a lot of sense. She prescribed me Upnique, the first and only FDA approved prescription eye drop for adults with low lying eyelids. One drop per eye in the morning and I notice my eyes look more open awake within minutes. It's like just one simple step. That's it. And the results? Guess what? They last up to eight hours. Learn more about upne.com that's u p n e e q.com or talk to your doctor. Just a little quick safety note about Upne. Oxymetazoline hydrochloride ophthalmic solution 0.1%. Tell your doctor your symptoms and medical history, including blood pressure, blood flow issues and heart, brain or eye disease. Drooping eyelids can be caused by other more serious conditions such as a stroke. Do not touch the tip of the Upne vial to your eye or any other surface. This is not a complete list. Risks Good sleep is everything. That's why Ollie's science Back support is made with a blend of melatonin and L theanine for both kiddos and grown ups. So when your mind won't switch off, you've got something that can help your racing thoughts and restless nights won't stand a chance. Find Ollie Sleep solutions for the whole family@ollie.com that's o l l y.com.
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The great and good of England have packed into Reading Abbey Church and there's a mood of high anticipation in the air. Everyone who's anyone among the nobility is here. They all know there's business to be done. The year is 1464. Summer is just turning into autumn. In the fields beyond Reading Abbey, the harvest is ripening. And for the first time in a very long time, there's reason to be hopeful about the future. It's been a long time since Plantagenet England covered itself in glory. But in the three and a half years since Edward IV won the Battle of Towton, deposed Henry VI and claimed the crown for the House of York, things have been slowly creeping towards normality. The King is young, personable and vigorous. He's also one of Europe's most eligible bachelors. He's backed up by a powerful right hand man, Richard, Earl of Warwick. Together, they've dealt with the threat from Lancastrian rebels, including the old Queen, Margaret of Anjou. Whisper it, but things might actually be looking up. That's why this meeting is being held at Reading. There's a packed agenda of government business, including a consultation on reforming the English currency to help shore up public finances. But before that is the hot topic of the day. Edward is 22 and he's decided to get married. The question is, to whom? Various names are in the mix. Princesses of all ages from the realms of France, Scotland, Burgundy and Castile. There are arguments for and against all of them. Ultimately, it's down to Edward as King to pick which kingdom he wants to ally with and which woman he wants to help him start a new generation of Yorkist royals. To make things extra exciting, Edward is going to do an X Factor style reveal. So when the King strolls into the Abbey church where everyone's gathered, the air is fairly crackling with anticipation. Bets are being laid. Will Edward announce the French pick favoured by his mate Warwick, a gal called Boner of Savoy? Or is the smart money on the widowed Queen of Scots who can help him tame the northern border? Edward gets up, clears his throat and lets the hubbub die down. Then he announces his decision. The new Queen of England is is. Is an English woman in her mid-20s from a very minor noble family who's been married once already, is widowed, has two kids and is related to people who fought against Edward at the Battle of Towton. Wtf? For reasons best known to himself, Edward IV has picked a complete nobody. Not only that, they're already married. As record screeches go, this one is off the charts. In Reading Abbey, jaws hang open as everyone tries to process the news. Nothing like this has happened since the NORMAN Conquest of 1066, it's. It's insane. But the nobles had better get used to it. The new Queen of England is called Elizabeth Woodville and she's about to to bend royal history out of shape forever. I'm dan jones and from sony music entertainment, this is history. Season 10 of a dynasty to die for. Episode 2 Rise of the Woodfilms. When we think about medieval history, maybe the first name that pops into our heads isn't Beyonce Knowles Carter. But on this occasion, maybe it should be. Because what did Beyonce advise the men of the world back in 2008? If you like it, then you should have put a ring on it. As I recall, she made that point more than once. And though I'm not totally sure she was singing about medieval politics in her smash hit single, Ladies Put A Ring on it, it's amazing how well her lyrics fit with the politics of 1464. If you want to discuss which other modern pop stars have paid effective tribute to the Middle Ages, you can join our royal favourites discussing it over on Patreon. For now, let me explain what I mean, or rather, let me explain who this Elizabeth Woodville is that Edward likes so much and exactly why he's gone and put a ring on it to the bemusement of all his subjects. There's a reason why we haven't heard anything about the Woodvilles in the nine seasons of this podcast so far. That's because until recently, they've not really amounted to a hill of beans. Prior to 1437, they were just minor landowners in the southeast of England with a little bit of land in Kent and a little bit in Northamptonshire. But in that year, 1437, they scored a major coup. Richard Woodville, that's Elizabeth's father, had been Chamberlain, a senior household official to Henry V's brother, John, Duke of Bedford. And when Bedford died in 1435, he left behind him a very eligible 20 year old widow called Jacquetta of Luxembourg. Jacquetta was a proper blue blooded European aristocrat and she was also related by marriage to King Henry vi. It seems that she and Richard Woodville fell in love because they married without royal permission and paid a gigantic fine of £1,000 to Henry VI to get the legal paperwork in order. Afterwards, Jacquetta got old Richard a noble title, Baron Rivers, and they were often to be seen hanging out with Queen Margaret of Anjou. This was noted with some displeasure by other nobles, including the Earl of Warwick and in his teenage years, the future King Edward iv. At one point, during the fighting at the end of Henry VI's reign, Warwick and Edward even got hold of Rivers and gave him a humiliating verbal roasting, calling him a knave's son who didn't deserve his place in high society. Rivers went on to fight on the Lancastrian side at Towton, along with his son, Anthony Woodville. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Woodville had lost her first husband in fighting at St Albans. He'd also backed the Lancastrian side. So what, you may well ask, has gone down to land this daughter of a dodgy marriage and widow of a Lancastrian soldier in the arms of England's first Yorkist king? Well, the romantic version goes like this. According to stories told after the event, Elizabeth Woodville is famous for being hot stuff, one of the most beautiful women in England. Allegedly. That alone is enough to get her noticed by Edward. And in 1464, on the famously lovey dovey date of May Day, Edward apparently visits the Woodvilles at their manor of Grafton in Northamptonshire and suggests to Elizabeth that they enjoy a bit of the old how's your notoriously low born father? Elizabeth, taking one look at Edward and seeing the letters P L A Y A virtually tattooed on his forehead, sees an opportunity not unlike that her father had in 1437. She says she's down to party on the condition that Edward is down to yes, you're ahead of me. Put a ring on it to show she's serious. It's later said that Elizabeth pulls out a knife and points it at the King. And so Edward, eager to get on with things, agrees. Join us on this week's bonus episode to hear more about the mechanics of a quickie medieval wedding. To facilitate a quickie medieval quickie. For now, let's just say that it was surprisingly easy in the Middle Ages to mumble a few marital vows for the sake of a shag. The tricky bit, obviously, is getting unmarried afterwards or persuading the other partner to forget that they'd ever said anything consequential. But in this instance, it seems Edward isn't in any hurry to get unmarried. According to stories that circulate in Europe after the event, he really does fall in love with Elizabeth. And they're secretly married from that May Day meeting onwards, finally letting the realm know in September at the big reveal at Reading Abbey, which in very narrow terms is kind of sweet. This 22 year old Lothario has been looking all over Europe for a queen. Then he finds one on his front doorstep. Despite the hell he's walked through to become king, Edward is Prepared to put it all on the line for love. That is undoubtedly a cute How We Got Together tale, only I think there might be a little bit more to it than that. Historians have puzzled over the Woodville marriage for generations, wondering why. Why on earth Edward decides to sacrifice the diplomatic value of a foreign match to do what no king since the Norman Conquest has done and marry one of his own subjects. And not only that, but a subject of low birth linked conspicuously to the Lancastrian cause. Well, here's my theory. That's the whole point. It's not a bug, it's a feature. Edward has spent three years trying to bring the Lancastrians to heel. Some of that has involved fighting them. But he's also quietly shown himself willing to reconcile, forgive and forget and build bridges. Marrying the daughter of a Lancastrian family is a clear symbol that he's committed to restoring political unity at home, above everything else. Marrying the daughter of a guy he and Warwick publicly humiliated during the wars makes the point even more strongly. Marrying the daughter of a woman who was mobbed up with Queen Margaret. How much more conciliatory do you want the King to be? Plus, bonus, Elizabeth Woodville just happens to be a hot MILF who's fitter than a butcher's dog and does some sexy crazy stuff like pulling a knife on you when she's mad. Sometimes you just got to accept what's staring you in the face. Anyway, that's my theory. Feel free to disagree and note that what I'm not saying is that Edward has any right to expect the whole world to get down on their knees and praise him for marrying Elizabeth Woodmilf when there was a queue of politically suitable foreign princesses being lined up, the marriage severely annoys a whole bunch bunch of people. Edward's mother, Cecily, thinks he's lost the plot. His brothers George and Richard will also have plenty to say about it. Down the line, the jilted foreign princesses are fuming. You may remember from last episode that Isabella of Castile, sister of Enrique the Impotent, was in the frame for a royal wedding. She's so knocked about being turned over that decades later, she's still bitter about it. But possibly the most irate of everyone is Edward's right hand man and matchmaker. The Earl of Warwick has been leading negotiations for Edward to marry Boner of Savoy, a relative of the King of France. Edward has let him carry on these talks for months, all the while being secretly married already. Now Warwick looks like an absolute chump. And while to return to my theory, that may actually be part of the point to bring the big man down a peg or two. It doesn't mean he has to like it. But then there's the thing. In 1464, Edward has struck a defiant, unconventional, weirdly romantic tone and shown Warwick and everyone else in England that he is the boss and he's going to do things his way. It's bold, it's brave, it's so crazy it might just work. All the Woodvilles have to do is show a bit of class and get the rest of the country to love them as much as the king does. That can't be so difficult. Or can it? When you consider medieval history like I do, you realise that a great deal of change hinges on leaps of faith, something England's King Henry VI largely did not do. Now, he might have been better suited to selling stained glass windows. And he would have been unstoppable if Shopify was around in his day. It's a commerce platform that helps you make that leap to get your business into the world. Henry would have loved Shopify's inbuilt design studio, where he could have sampled hundreds of ready to use templates to build a beautiful online store. Plus, this shy king would have had plenty of AI tools at his disposal, helping him elevate his product descriptions page, headlines and product photography. So make that leap. Turn what if into With Shopify today Sign up for your pound one per month trial today at shopify.co.uk dynasty go to shopify.co.uk dynasty that's shopify.co.uk dynasty. Study and play come together on a Windows 11 PC and for a limited
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In early 1466, a German visitor to England by the name of Gabriel Tetzel finds himself invited to a magnificent royal ceremony. The Queen Elizabeth Woodville has recently given birth to her first child by the king, a daughter who will be known as Elizabeth of York by tradition. Following childbirth, a woman goes through a religious ceremony called a churching. Tetzel gets to see Queen Elizabeth's and he describes the incredible pageantry. The queen left her childbed and went to church in stately order, accompanied by many priests bearing relics and by many scholars singing and carrying lights. There followed a great company of ladies and maidens from the country and from London who had been summoned. Then came a great company of trumpeters, pipers and players of stringed instruments. The King's choir followed 42 of them, who sang excellently. Then came 24 Heralds and Persuivants, followed by 60 Counts and Knights. At last came the Queen, escorted by two dukes. Above her was a canopy. Following this, Tetzel describes a solemn celebratory feast. The Queen sat alone at table on a costly golden chair. The Queen's mother and the King's sister had to stand some distance away. When the Queen spoke with her mother or the King's sister, they knelt down before her until she had drunk water. Not until the first dish was set before the Queen could the Queen's mother and the King's sister be seated. The ladies and maidens and all who served the Queen at table were all of no noble birth and had to kneel so long as the Queen was eating. The meal lasted for three hours. The food which was served to the Queen, the Queen's mother, the King's sister and the others was most costly. Much might be written of it. Everyone was silent and not a word was spoken. Tetzel has been around the block, but he reckons all this pageantry sets a high bar for magnificence. It's been about 18 months since Elizabeth Woodville was announced to England as the new queen. She's taken to the role with maximum aplomb. Now, when it comes to being a medieval royal, maximum aplomb is not necessarily a bad thing. People laughed at Henry vi, remember, for wearing clumpy old farmer's boots and too much black. The trouble is, many nobles in England are muttering that the Woodvilles, Elizabeth and her extended family are getting far too big for their non clumpy farmer's boots. England is alive to the sound of teeth being gritted on paper. This should really be a time of triumph for the House of York, not least because as well as having sired his first royal baby, Edward has scored a major political win. In 1465, his men have tracked down a doddery old guy wandering between safe houses in the north of England. King Henry VI has been captured without much of a fight and is currently being held in genteel confinement in the Tower of London. Such a pathetic sight that Edward doesn't even bother to have him murdered. A sign of the growing confidence he feels as King, yet set against that are the Woodvilles. One problem is that there are so damn many of them. The Queen is one of a dozen children and all of them want looking after. In most cases, that means finding suitable marriages into the wider English aristocracy. So from 1466 onwards, Woodville's siblings are married to the heirs to the Earldoms of Kent, Essex and Pembroke, and the Dukes of Buckingham and Exeter. There are other plum titles or prospects of titles handed out too. This upsets both the snobbish instincts and the economic equilibrium of England's noble class. As we've heard, the Woodvilles are considered upstarts. So the sight of them spreading like a rash through England's aristocratic dynasties is not wholly welcome. On top of that, there's a basic issue of supply and demand. There aren't actually that many noble families knocking around in England, and heirs of marriageable age are valuable commodities. To have so many of them snapped up by the King's in laws creates headaches for matchmakers outside the royal circle. Finally, there's a sense that the Woodvilles are a bunch of chancers and graspers, abusing their position for naked financial gain. There's one marriage that seems very egregious in that respect. Elizabeth's 19 year old brother, Sir John Woodville, is engaged to the 65 year old Catherine Neville, Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, King Edward IV's aunt. Intergenerational love is one thing, but this just looks like a power grab by the Woodvilles, who fancy snapping up the valuable Duchy of Norfolk for themselves. Put all this together and the Woodvilles are not endearing themselves to the rest of their noble peers. Now, on one level, you can't blame them for making the most of their good fortune, but on the other, there seems to be a jarring failure to read the room. They figure that as long as Elizabeth Woodville is Queen and producing a brood of Plantagenet princes and princesses, there's not much anyone can do to stop them making out like bandits. But as the 1460s go on, someone starts to get other ideas. Edward's right hand man, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, he's still licking his wounds after he was blindsided and embarrassed over the Woodville marriage. And as the old Queen Margaret of Anjou found out the hard way, Richard isn't afraid to bash heads together to voice his displeasure. So the man's got a temper and everything the Woodvilles are doing seems carefully calculated to make him explode.
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A crowd is crammed into the tournament ground at Smithfield, just outside London's wars, to watch a match up for the ages. It's mid June 1467 and it's hard to remember a time when there was so much public excitement for a sporting contest. Edward IV has declared a two day public holiday to mark the occasion. The jousting enclosure itself is a total sellout. Ordinary Londoners have clambered into trees nearby to try and get a glimpse of the action. And what are they trying to see? Well, it's a mixed discipline fight between two of the most valiant men in Europe. On the one side is a foreign visitor. He's Antoine, the 46 year old illegitimate son of Philip the Good Duke of Burgundy. Old Philip was a war buddy of Henry V and his son Antoine, AKA the Grand Bastard of Burgundy, is renowned as the best jouster on the planet. Facing him on the opposite side of the field is England's challenger, Anthony Woodville, brother of the Queen Elizabeth Woodville. At 27, he's nearly two decades younger than the Grand Bastard. So what he lacks in experience and fame, he makes up for in youthful vim and vigor. It's set to be a titanic set too. And so it proves on the first day, the Bastard and Woodville joust on horseback. This is supposed to be the Bastard's strongest suit, but as their horses snort and stamp, then charge, there's a collision between them. The Bastard is knocked out of the saddle, but his horse falls on top of him. Thankfully, he's all right, but the horse isn't. It's so badly injured that it's killed. The judges say there's been some irregularity in the clash and the Bastard is offered another horse to continue combat. But he says he's done for the day and they agree to come back tomorrow. The next day things are even fiercer. It's hand to hand combat and these two refuse to pull any punches. They absolutely wail on each other, getting so violent that it looks like one of them might be killed. So at the height of the action, Edward iv, who's presiding over the tournament, gives a great shout, comes down and orders them to stop fighting. He declares that their contest is a draw, which means that honours are shared across the whole competition. Everyone who's been lucky enough to get a seat ringside agrees that this, this has been the most marvelous and chivalrous spectacle they can remember. What's more, while the Bastard and Anthony Woodville have been going at it almost literally hammer and tongs in the background, diplomatic wheels are also turning. The Woodvilles have been advocating to Edward for a good while for a peace treaty with Burgundy, who have long standing beef with France. You can get into the weeds of that beef by listening to our miniseries, the Glass King. There are lots of potential advantages to a pro Burgundian, anti French alliance. It makes sense for trade. The Burgundians are masters of courtly spectacle and things like insane jousting matches, which appeals to Edward and to men like Anthony Woodville. So while the tournament is going on, the finishing touches are being applied to an Anglo Burgundian pact. There's an agreement to marry one of Edward's sisters to one of the senior Burgundians. And though it's not quite sealed when the Bastard leaves London, hurrying home when he gets news that his dad has died, it seems almost certain that under Edward iv, England and Burgundy are now going to be in bed together for the foreseeable future. There is, however, a problem. For just as the Bastard of Burgundy is leaving England, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, is coming back in the other direction, returning home from an embassy to France. Warwick is still, by a long way, the richest nobleman in England and he still fancies himself as King Edward's most important lieutenant. But while he's been over in Paris on a grand mission to woo King Louis XI into a peace deal with England, at home, the Woodvilles have been directly undermining him by driving Edward into the arms of the Burgundians. Unsurprisingly, when Warwick clocks all this, he's furious. And his temper is not exactly improved by the news that his brother has been replaced as Chancellor, head of the royal bureaucracy, while two members of the Woodville family have been promoted to the offices of Treasurer and constable. The whole thing stinks like another Woodville slight against Warwick and his family. And Warwick is God damned if he's going to keep putting up with this sort of nonsense. As far as he can see, he's done far too much in the service of the House of York to be treated as a second class citizen, especially by a bunch of jumped up little twerps like the woodvilles. So from 1467, Warwick starts to distance himself from the royal court and starts on manoeuvres of his own, like he did during King Henry VI's day. He begins retaining a big private army and doing things designed to make himself popular with the ordinary people and an alternative source of power to the king. There's no immediate bust up between him and Edward, but the mood music has definitely changed. A chronicler writing at the time says the Earl of Warwick took to him in fee many knights, squires and gentlemen as he might to be strong, and King Edward did that he might to feeble the earl's power. And yet they were accorded many diverse times, but they never loved each other afterward. From Warwick's point of view, Edward IV has replaced him at his side with the Woodvilles. And the jilted earl isn't going to take it lying down. You know what they say, broken hearts lead to broken bones. But that's for next time on this Is History. Well, well, well. Talk about an enterprising marriage. Whether Edward and Elizabeth actually married for love is something we may never really find out. But you can't deny the fact that she hit the ground running once she got that ring on her. But speaking of Beyonce, I've got a task for my royal favourites. I'd like you to name me other pop stars who've essentially paid homage to the Middle Ages. Let's get a playlist going. Look out for producer al's post on patreon.com thisishistory.
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Spring just slid into your DMs. Grab that boho. Look for that rooftop dinner, those sandals that can keep up with you. And hang some string lights to give your patio a glow up. Spring's calling, Ross. Work your magic.