← THIS IS HISTORY — A DYNASTY TO DIE FOR
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Hello, friends. Now, before I throw you all into the belly of the beast, a quick note from me for my royal favourites on Patreon. I'll be giving away signed copies of the brand new Millennia Books edition of my book, the Plantagenets, which this whole crazy medieval adventure is based on. Head to patreon.com thisishistory to be in the running. Now on with the show. After this short break,
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The beer house in Southwark is rocking. It's mid September 1470. The harvest is in and there's plenty of ale to go around. Drinkers of all ages and various nationalities rub shoulders and make merry. Toasts are proposed and beer foam sticks deliciously to mustachioed upper lips. When the drink is flowing. Southwark is the place to be. The London suburb on the south bank of the River Thames is known across Plantagenet England as the place to go to get your mug filled and your something else pulled. Here in Southwark, every day's your birthday. Today though is a bit different because as pints are passed around and songs sung, there's a commotion in the street outside and suddenly a mob of out of towners burst in. This lot don't look like they're to play beer pong. The newcomers are a bunch of troublemakers from Kent intent on causing chaos. They turn over tables and they rough up patrons. They're up in everyone's faces, getting off on the terror these half cut day drinkers are feeling. It only takes a few moments for the place to empty out. Thugs bringing the action to the streets while everyone else just tries to get out of there unharmed. Not for the first time in recent years, public order in the English capital has broken down. And the reason comes right from the top. Over the past few years, the Yorkist King Edward IV has been struggling to contain the troublemaking of his one time noble henchman, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. Since spring this year, Warwick has been Overseas, gathering supporters for an invasion, he's in cahoots with Edward's brother, George, Duke of Clarence, and now the King of France, Louis XI too. Two days ago, Warwick landed back in Devon in the southwest. Edward, meanwhile, is up north trying to raise an army to defend his kingdom. There's a serious power vacuum and no one has a clue what's going to happen next. The Kent mob are taking advantage of no one being in charge to have a bit of fun, drink some free beer and stick one over on a bunch of foreigners, that being the good old English way. And if Warwick has his way, leadership vacuums are here to stay. Because the man he's come to England to put on the throne isn't himself or even George, Duke of Clarence. It's the most useless King Plantagenet England has ever produced. 48 year old Henry VI. Henry's leadership style is like a scarecrow being remote drone piloted by a care bear. He's already been kicked off the throne once for being a basket case. But now Warwick, the self appointed kingmaker, is angling to hook him out of the Tower of London and re crown him. If it works, it'll be the most astonishing coup in Plantagenet history. Whether there'll be any England left for the scarecrow to rule, well, that's another question. I'm dan jones and from sony music entertainment. This is history season 10 of a dynasty to die for. Episode 5 king henry's second coming. Nostalgia, a yearning for another time and another place is a concept that was coined in the 17th century by the Swiss physician Johannes Hofer. It originally referred to the homesickness experienced by Swiss mercenaries fighting in the wars that wracked the European continent back then. Today, it's become a generalised term, referring to everything from political longing for the good old days to the current vogue for going to see bands from the 1990s run through their old sets, kidding ourselves that it still sounds as good now that they and we are fat and arthritic and sober. But of course, the feeling we call nostalgia wasn't invented in the 17th century. The idea that the good times lie in the past has been a constant throughout human history. People in the Middle Ages were just as prone to delusions about the greatness of the good old days as we are now. Because really, how else can we possibly explain what happens in Plantagenet, England in 1470? In the nine years since Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou were booted out of power, there's been nothing at all to suggest that they would have made a better fist of ruling the realm than Edward iv. Now, it's not like Edward has been perfect, far from it. His marriage to Queen Elizabeth Woodville proved divisive and provocative. His attitude to danger. Ah, screw it. Let's have another drink and hope for the best. Has not always been urgent enough. But really, Edward versus Henry VI. Give me a break. In the 39 years that Henry VI was king, England went through its roughest patch in centuries. France lost, political unity shattered, the treasury empty. The Royal family withered away to virtually nothing. A full blown civil war. Yep, that too. There are no rose tinted glasses in the world rosy enough to see the good in this situation. And it surely doesn't take a course of analytical talking therapy to bring us to the understanding that you can't go backwards to go forwards. And yet here we are. It's September 1470 and Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, is invading England in a bid to defy all good sense and reason and restore Henry VI to the throne. And in the place of Edward iv, we're so far through the looking glass, we might as well tie a bow around our waists and call us Alice. So, with all that said, let's zoom in on what Warwick does in 1470 to try and force through his genius plan of replacing the House of York with the House of Dork. Last episode, we heard how Warwick and Edward's brother, the dozy and treacherous George, Duke of Clarence High, tailed it out of England, went to France and made a pact with the French King and old Margaret of Anjou. That was spring 1470. They spend the next few months preparing an invasion force and as we heard at the start of this episode, they land in Devon in September of the same year. They bring with them a few other noble allies. One is Jasper Tudor, one time Earl of Pembroke and uncle, guardian of a 13 year old kid called Henry Tudor, who's under careful royal supervision in Wales. Jasper, who's also Henry VI's half brother, is representing Queen Margaret as the de facto senior male noble. On the Lancastrian side, it's not exactly a broad based revolutionary movement, but once they land in Devon, they find nobles and their private armies ready to come over to their side. Some are naturally tied to the super nobles, the Nevilles, and back Warwick because for better or worse, he's one of them. Some have been alienated from the crown by Edward's unpopular Woodville in laws and some just drift towards the whiff of trouble like a dog towards a pan of sausages. It's enough to Give Warwick, Clarence and co some momentum or at least to not kill off their invasion from the beginning. So they start issuing proclamations in the name of Henry VI demanding that all able bodied men come and get stuck in. And though that does sound faintly comical, it does give your God fearing Englishman a bit of pause for thought. Because for better or worse, Henry Vill, who's been in the Tower of London for the past five years, is still the son of the heroic Henry V. He was crowned twice, he was anointed with holy oil. Does that not count for something? Might it be that actually his was the rightful cause all along? It sounds absurd, but in the heat of the moment, these are the questions Warwick is asking people to consider and as the rebel Lord said, set off on a march through England, out of the west country towards the Midlands. Lining themselves up with Henry gives them at least a sniff of legitimacy. So long as you don't think about the probable consequences too hard. While all this is going on. Meanwhile, Edward IV is in Yorkshire. He's been up there for months trying to get a grip on rioting and rebellion, some of it regular north of England stuff and some of it deliberately stoked by Warwick. He dashes down south as soon as he finds out that Warwick has landed. Like Warwick, he sends out demands for assistance and he gathers a fair crowd of loyal nobles to his side, including his youngest brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and the Queen's brother, Anthony Woodville. He also knows he has one really big beast lining up to be back him against Warwick. That's none other than Warwick's brother, John Neville, Marquis Montague. John Neville is a tough old soldier and the fact that he's one of Warwick's closest relatives means having him in the Royal corner is going to be a win in itself. But at the critical moment when he's supposed to be showing up to join the Royal army to face down his brother John Neville flips. He's cooking a bit of his own dissatisfaction with Edward, based on the fact that Edward has redistributed some major northern lands away from him to the Neville's biggest rivals in the north. Now he gets his own back. He sends word that he's still heading Edward's way with a load of hard ass warriors at his back. But he's not coming to join forces, he's coming to put the King under arrest. If this was ever a drama, now it's most certainly a crisis and Edward has to think fast. He has a very stark choice. He can stand and fight, hope to defeat John Neville, then go on and try to win a battle against Warwick that carries the significant risk of capture or even death. Or he can run. Edward chooses life. He sets out with a party of close companions for the ports of England's east coast and after a hair raising journey, manages to get aboard a ship at King's Lynn. On October 2, 1470, he sets sail for the Netherlands where his ally and brother in law, the Duke of Burgundy, has some influence. He has to think on his feet once he gets there, but right now twisting is better than sticking, even if it means leaving England wide open for Warwick to do the unthinkable and restore Henry vi, Prince of Darkness to the English throne.
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Elizabeth Woodville's servants wait at the doors of the sanctuary in the grounds of Westminster Abbey, waiting for them to open and allow their mistress in. They've made their way across London by night to get here, all the way from the Tower of London in the east. And now they've arrived. They need to get inside pronto. The Queen, or well, is she, is bearing up remarkably well. She's eight months pregnant with a boy and traveling at pace in the dark with no idea of what's going to happen is hardly ideal. But she has no choice. She had to get here. Earlier today she heard that her husband, the King, or well, is he, has abandoned his realm. Edward IV has gone to throw himself on the mercy of the Duke of Burgundy, a French power broker who doesn't necessarily need to give charity to a former king on the run. Edwards left England to the Earl of Warwick. That's the same Earl of Warwick who chopped Elizabeth's dad's head off last year. There's no knowing what he has lined up for her, her three daughters or her unborn baby if they fall into his hands. That's why Elizabeth has left the Tower, fearing Warwick was going to besiege it to free King Henry VI and come here to Westminster Abbey's sanctuary. It's a huge, squat walled complex of buildings with a chapel in its grounds and its official home turf for anyone on the run from the law. That could be debtors, thieves, even murderers. Or it could be queens of England whose husbands have legged it, leaving them in the lurch and up the duff. After a short while, the doors of the sanctuary are thrown open and the Queen is welcomed in. She formally requests to be taken in with her female attendants as sanctuary women, throwing themselves on the charity of the Abbot of Westminster and and the protection of God. Warwick probably won't risk desecrating the holiest abbey in England to drag her out. But it's hard to say how long they're going to be there. The most you can say is there's a fair chance Elizabeth will still be at Westminster when she pops out the child who's going to be the male heir to the Yorkist throne. Elizabeth Woodville is hardly the only person whose life has been thrown upside down by the realm's changing of the guard. Back in the Tower of London, the day after she leaves, an equally extraordinary turnaround in the life of Henry VI occurs. On October 3, the mayor of London comes to the suite of rooms Henry's been confined to for the last five years. Henry hasn't exactly been in a dungeon. He's had a couple of dozen servants and an allowance for wine, nice velvet clothes and priests to say mass for him every day. But he's a pretty pathetic sight, dirty and down at heel. The mayor has to try and overlook the shabby condition Henry's in and tell him the astonishing news that the Wheel of Fortune has had a bit of a whiz round. And would you believe it, he's actually King of England again. Henry's led through the Tower to the rooms that Elizabeth Woodville had been preparing for her birthing chambers. A few days later, he's moved to the Bishop's palace in the City of London. And on October 13, at St Paul's Cathedral in the heart of the city, Henry is made to go through the rigmarole of a quasi coronation. Now, officially, it's a crown wearing. You can't be crowned King of the same place twice. The name given to it isn't a restoration, but a readption. Whatever that's supposed to mean, but the effect is supposed to be the same. Warwick holds the train of Henry's robes as he shuffles around the cathedral. The Earl of Oxford carries his sword. And then Henry VI gets down to the business of being king again, which is to say that he does sweet fanny all just like in the good old days. Instead, the Earl of Warwick appoints himself as the King's lieutenant, the man who makes all the decisions. George, Duke of Clarence, hangs around in London, though he doesn't have a formal government position. And everyone else takes a big deep breath and starts asking themselves, what now? Because it sure seems like the hard work has been done. Warwick has invaded, chased Edward out of the realm and stuck a crown on the head of Henry vi. But now he has to answer a lot of far more difficult questions about how all of this is supposed to work. For nearly 10 years, England has been getting over Henry VI's rule. Lancastrian lands have been given to Yorkists, some of whom have supported Warwick in this caper to put Henry back on the throne. There are a whole bunch of people who've sat on their hands while Warwick has taken power, who will now be wondering whether they're about to pay the price. And there's a queen in Westminster Abbey who's about to give birth to a boy who'll have a very strong claim to the crown. And even if Edward never comes back, the poster boy for all this uncertainty is George, Duke of Clarence. He's been front and centre of all Warwick's scheming, and about a year ago, it was him who was supposed to be the puppet king and frontman for this carve up. Now he's not. Is he even heir to the throne anymore? Over in France, Margaret of Anjou is waiting eagerly for news that the coup has been a success. Once that happens, she intends to travel to England with her son Edward, who turns 17 on the day that his dad, Henry VI, goes through the motions of his re coronation at St Paul's Margaret's boy Edward has grown up a lot more like his mum than his dad. He likes a scrap and he's hardly likely to give over his own place in the English succession to Clarence. In fact, when Margaret and the lad do come back, it's dollars to doughnuts that she's going to make life a living hell for Warwick and Clarence, who for most of the last 10 years have been her mortal enemies. Figure a way through that one, if you can, and then figure a way through what exactly Warwick intends to do in every other case of divided loyalties, confused right to title and lingering hurt feelings dating back a generation. It was one thing to drag Henry VI out of the Tower of London and put a crown on his head. It's going to be quite another to make his readption anything but an applied lesson in the truth of the old maxim, Be careful what you wish for.
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Edward IV watches the Flemish Gunners at target practice. Likes what he sees. Bows and arrows are all well and good, but these days if you want to make an impact in battle, you need a bit of lead in your pencil. These guys are available to hire for anyone who's planning a little shootout, and although they don't come cheap, Edward is very much in the market. It's January 1471, and it's fair to say the last few months have been a trial for the absentee Yorkist king. On the positive side, he escaped England with his life and his freedom. But on the negative side, well, where to begin? His wife is trapped in sanctuary, and though she's given birth to a boy who is 30, theoretically the heir to the Plantagenet crown, that crown is now back on the head of Henry vi. Warwick is running England, or trying to, and Edward's brother Clarence is in his pocket. Warwick has used Parliament to pass bills of attainder against Edward, his youngest brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and a whole bunch of other loyalists. That means their lands and titles and have been stripped from them and forfeited for their families forever. So it's far from all good news. What's more, Edward's stay on the continent has been a real struggle, too. His brother in law, the Duke of Burgundy, has not been as forthcoming with his aid as Edward might have expected. He's been trying to avoid stoking tensions with the King of France, who's backed Henry VI's re adeption. So he's refused to even acknowledge Edward, let alone actually help him. Or at least that's been the case for a while. But the reason Edward is here now, watching target practice, is that there has been some diplomatic movement. Quite a lot of movement, in fact The King of France has ignored the Duke's attempts to keep him sweet and declared war on British Burgundy anyway. So now the Duke is a bit more inclined to back Edward. As a spite move, he's quietly slipped Edward 20 grand and promised him the use of a few ships. It's not a full war chest, but it's enough to buy Edward some trigger happy cloggies for a few weeks active duty and get over to England to hopefully pop a cap in Richard ne Neville's ass. Things could be better, but at least now there's some hope. Edward might get to meet his son. He might have a happy rendezvous with his wife or some of the side pieces who've kept him company on his long, chilly nights. As King, all he can do is try. At the start of March 1471, Edward, his hired gunners and roughly a thousand other men pack onto ships at anchor in Flushing, today known as Vlissingen in Flanders. At first, the omens aren't good. There's a stiff breeze blowing in the wrong direction and the little invasion force have to hang about in Port for nine days, waiting for that wind to change. But on March 11, it does change, and several great dozen ships push off into the North Sea. At first, Edward is intent on landing in Kent, in the southeast of England. But scouts he sends ahead report that the south east is well watched by Warwick's stooges. Edward has to change plan. On the fly, he decides to head further north, to Yorkshire. Now, on the surface, that's a slightly odd move. After all, Edward was in Yorkshire when all this trouble blew up in the first place, and it's miles away from London where he'll have to go to seize power. But there's a decent little landing spot up there, which might just be the place for this Yorkist king to make his comeback. As Edward sails the North Sea buffeted by severe storms, he has to know that the clock is ticking. Since the start of 1471, Warwick has been negotiating with France to get Queen Margaret and her son, Prince Edward of the House of Lancaster, across the channel to Dover. Now, it's not like she and Warwick are any closer to being best pals than they ever were before. But Warwick is working frantically on giving this weird regime he's installed some legitimacy. If he gets Margaret over before Edward, that's a big step in the right direction. And time is of the essence, because Warwick is coming to realize that in Henry vi, he's playing puppet master to a pretty unconvincing puppet. In the memorable words of a Burgundian chronicler Old Henry is nothing more than a stuffed wool sack lifted by its ears, a shadow on the wall, a crowned calf. Chroniclers aren't too enthusiastic about Edward's prospects in 1471, either one of them says of his restoration attempt. It's not easy to go out by the door and try to re enter by the window. But chronicler's gonna chronicle and in the end, it's Edward who wins the race to England. Margaret still hasn't set off from France when on March 14, Edward's storm battered ships put into port at Ravenspur in the mouth of the River Humber. It's a long way from London, but if anyone's looking for omens, Ravenspur provides one. 72 years earlier, in 1399, an exiled English nobleman called Henry Bolingbroke landed on the exact same spot, looking to take back lands that had been snatched from him by King Richard ii. In one reading of history, that's where all this Lancaster versus York beef got started. Because back then, Henry Bolingbroke marched out from Ravenspur and ended up snatching the English crown, murdering the king king and redirecting the succession. The difference between Edward and Henry Bolingbroke is that Edward has already felt the heavy press of the crown on his head and he knows that England isn't big enough to hold both him and Warwick alive. High noon is coming to Plantagenet, England, to find out who'll win the gunfight. Come back for our next episode of this Is History. Well, there you have it. Will Edward make it back through the window? Will Elizabeth Woodville make it out of Sanctuary? Does Henry VI have even the slightest idea of what day of the week it is to take a deep dive behind the historical scenes? Do please listen to this week's subscriber bonus episode. The best way to get that, along with our entire archive, ad free listening book giveaways, recommendations, historical travel and more, is to become a royal favourite@patreon.com thisishistory oh, and royal favourites this week. I want to know about what you think is the best era to have lived in. The favourite who writes my favourite response will get a signed copy of the new special edition of the Plantagenets courtesy of Millennia Books. Be there or be a stuffed woolsack dangled by its ears. The choice, my darlings, is all yours.
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