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Friends, I'm going to make this announcement quick. If you want to delve deeper into the history behind each episode, remember, you can always get more on our bonus episodes. This week, producer Al and I are donning our true crime caps to figure out if Richard, Duke of Gloucester, the future Richard iii, was a Royal Serial Killer. But for now, it's time for La Vengeance.
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Lamine Yamal steps into McDonald's, looks left, sees Pulisic, looks right, sees Jimenez, gives a nod to Ronaldinho in the corner with a FIFA World cup meal. Ronaldinho sees son in the booth. Son finds Beckham going for extra Big Mac sauce. He's got Davies at the table just behind him. Davey's going for his collectible cup, a steal by Henry, who pulls his own collectible cup. Collect one of nine legendary cups with a FIFA World cup meal participating McDonald's for a limited time while supplies last all rights reserved. 2026 McDonald's at FIFA World Cup 2020
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The oarsmen rowing the barge along the Thames pull up at the riverbank, hop out and moor their boat at Westminster Pier. A small, tough woman with a pinched face and hard eyes steps up. She hesitates before she sweeps along the unsteady gangplank to disembark. Her name is Margaret Beaufort, and right now, despite herself, a smile of triumph is playing at the corners of her mouth. Just behind Margaret comes a young man. She doesn't know him very well, in fact, she's only ever met him a handful of times, but she loves him more than anything else in the world. It's her only son. Henry Tudor, the baby Margaret gave birth to during the plague swept winter of 1457, is now 13 years old. The same age that Margaret was when she popped him out. Frankly, it's a miracle that either of them have survived this long. And it's even more of a miracle that Margaret has the chance to bring the lad here to Westminster to meet England's new king. Well, sort of. Henry VI. The date is October 28, 1470, and just a few weeks ago, in a spasm of truly Bizarre political gymnastics, England's Yorkist King Edward IV fled his kingdom and the old Lancastrian King Henry VI was taken out of the Tower of London and plonked back on the English throne. And since King Henry is both Margaret's son's namesake and his half uncle, she's adamant that the two need to meet. Which is why she's brought him here now to the palace of Westminster, where the King is living. In her wildest dreams, she never thought this day would come. After being greeted at the gates, Margaret and Henry are whisked through the palace to where the King is sitting among a group of nobles receiving visitors. Margaret's heart must be racing with excitement, although as she claps eyes on the King, it's a bit of a struggle to keep it racing. It's been years since Margaret last saw Henry VI and time hasn't been kind to him. He looks feeble, vacant and very shabby. He's wearing a tatty old blue velvet gown, the sort of thing she'd expect to see at a funeral, not in the royal court. Is he mad? Not quite, but he definitely looks a few turnips short of the full harvest festival. But never mind, because as Margaret greets the King and introduces her teenage boy to him and the other nobles, the most astonishing look comes over Henry VI's face. It's as though he's seen a ghost. He peers at Henry for a while in silence, and then, with the most serene look on his face, he says, this indeed is the one to whom we and our adversaries must yield power. What does that mean, you and I might wonder. But Margaret is in no doubt Yoda in the old Navy. Bathrobe has spoken and his cryptic words seem to tell her that her boy is destined to grow up to be a king and conqueror in his own right. It's not clear how, when or why, but in his mum's mind, Henry Tudor is now destined for greatness. But there is just one teeny, tiny problem. Any day now, the other King of England, Edward iv, will be heading back to his kingdom, determined to get his crown back. Anyone who stands in his way is going to have their head handed to them in a sack. If Margaret isn't careful, her little Tudor golden boy is going to be one of them. I'm dan jones and from sony music entertainment. This is history season 10 of a dynasty to die for. Episode 6 the Prophecy. Among the many authors who've dropped out of favour since their heyday is a 19th century Frenchman called Eugene Su, born to A well off surgeon from Napoleon's armies, Sue had a bit of a career as a military medic himself. But he soon wanted to prove that the pen was mightier than the scalpel. In 1830, he published his first book, Curnock the Pirate, which kicked off a prolific career in which he put out dozens of works which were notable for several things. Firstly, he had a lot of success publishing his stories as serials. You know, one exciting part every week, loads of drama, keeping the audience on the edge of their seats, desperate to hear what happens next. If only someone would make a history podcast that worked like that. Sue was also fond of writing about medieval history. He did novels on Joan of Arc, the Crusades, French Peasants rebellions and more. And on top of all that, sue is probably most notable today for coming up with the phrase, la vengeance c' est manges tres bien froid, or as it's usually translated into English, revenge is a dish best served cold. Now, sue wrote his books just over 350 years after the Plantagenet family was bringing the chaos to Western Europe in the 15th century. But if ever there was a phrase to describe how Edward IV is feeling in the spring of 1471, La Ven Gen froid, is it because we heard last time, this guy has really been put through the wringer. He thought he was sitting pretty on the English throne, securing it for the House of York and putting the country back together again after the disasters of Henry VI's reign. Then his old ally, Richard Neville, aka Warwick the Kingmaker, went rogue. He recruited Edward's brother, George, Duke of Clarence, as his useful idiot, then recruited the shambolic Henry VI as his useful mega idiot. And between them, these three amigos managed to hound Edward out of England, forcing him to abandon not only his kingdom, but his heavily pregnant wife. Then they put Henry VI back on the throne and calling it a readption. And now, by the sounds of things, Henry VI is living his best life, chilling in Edward's palaces, wearing filthy smocks and telling weird little Welsh boys that they're going to grow up to be the dog's cock. Edward is an amiable guy with a fairly deep reservoir of patience. But in 1471, it's run completely dry. So by Easter, he sails from his exile in Burgundy and lands on England's northeast coast at Ravenspur in Yorkshire, with a band of troops at his back, he means business. Edward hasn't just been inconvenienced, he's been humiliated. And someone is going to have to pay. The good news for Edward, once he lands in Yorkshire is, is that he doesn't run up against any immediate resistance. In part, that's because he's playing it slightly cautious. Rather than saying he's come back to depose the guy who deposed him after he deposed him, which is always a bad look, he just says he's come back to claim the lands that are his in his noble capacity as Duke of York. He says he's just a loyal subject who wants a bit of justice. And although that's plainly an absolute crock of piping hot horse waste, his claims of loyalty mean major towns and cities like York, Nottingham and Leicester feel comfortable in letting him pass by, feed his troops and recruit more supporters to his cause. By March 29th, Edwards outside Coventry. And that's significant, because inside Coventry, the kingmaker is holed up with a bunch of his pals, congratulating themselves on having done such a good job of king making. When they find out Edward is approaching, they slam the city gates and send defenders to the walls. They may or may not have observed that Today is the 10th anniversary of the Battle of Towton, the clash in 1461 when Edward first won the throne by vanquishing a Lancastrian army in a blizzard. But if that's passed them by, Edward reminds them, because it's at this moment he drops his pretense of just coming back to be Duke of York. He sends them word that he's here to do away with Henry the Usurper, and if they don't like it, then they can come out and see what he has to say to them. Kingmake that inside Coventry, as Edward suspected, Warwick doesn't have the men or the appetite for a fight. So the gates of Coventry stay locked and Edward, wanting to keep the energy among his followers high, leaves Warwick to have a think about what he's done and sweeps off down to London. As he goes. Edward is starting to look increasingly like the man with the plan, and as he approaches London, he gets a visit from maybe the last person he expected to see. Or then again, maybe the first person, Edward's brother, George, Duke of Clarence, the first of the useful idiots, a spineless buffoon who enabled a good many of Warwick's shenanigans, now decides, oh, that he's backed the wrong horse. He shows up in Oxfordshire, comes to Edward and dramatically throws himself on the ground, begging for his brother's forgiveness. It's a pretty dismal pantomime, and it's hard to see how you could blame Edward if he would have Clarence smeared in jam and staked out naked for the ants to eat. But Edward doesn't. Instead, he hauls Clarence to his feet and tells him not to worry and escorts him back to Coventry so he can show Warwick just how badly the country is falling away from him. Having done that and still not persuaded Warwick to come out and face the music, Edward goes once again in the direction of London. When he arrives, he marches through the open gates. The gates are open because the citizens have seen which way this wind is blowing, so they let him inside the walls. Then the clergy at St. Paul's let him enter the cathedral to give thanks for the success he's had so far. And after that, Edward scores another major win. Henry vi, shabby and virtually insensible, has not even had the gumption to leave the capital. He's staying at the Bishop of Lambeth's house, so Edward sends men to escort the old fruitcake back to the Tower of London. They don't have a hard time making the arrest. After that, Edward turns his mind to the last two items on his to do list, which are arguably the most important of them all. The first thing he needs to do is go and see his wife, Queen Elizabeth Woodville, who's patiently waiting for him in Sanctuary where she's looking after their first son, a little boy named after him. The happy couple have a very happy reunion in which Edward meets his one year old kid and Elizabeth probably asks him nicely that if he's considering fleeing the realm in future, could he maybe give her more of a heads up so she can pack an overnight bag? But that sort of thing is going to have to wait because having regained his wife and Edward's second major task is to serve up a giant helping of ice cold revenge to the person who deserves it most of all. It's been the mother of all slogs winning his kingdom back, and Edward's determined never to be knocked off his perch again. To that end, now is very much time to put Operation Kill Warwick the Kingmaker into action.
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This summer, Prime Video takes you back before Legally Blonde, before law school and into the world of Elle woods in high school. Set in 1995, this Gemini vegetarian knows exactly who she is until her family moves from Bel Air to Seattle. Packed with iconic fashion, 90s nostalgia and a throwback soundtrack, Elle proves one law school was hard, high school was harder. From the world of Legally Blonde, watch Elle, a new original series only on Prime Video July 1st.
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This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block. Or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it, ready to make anything online make sense. There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required compatibility and availability various.18/.
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The King's army marches out of London, heading north. Thousands of hooves and boots move together. Men are armed with longbows, swords and axes. Some are dragging carts loaded with cannon. It's a damp Saturday, the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. One way or another, someone's going to die. But there's not a hope in hell of a resurrection. There are two kings in this army. The leader indisputably is Edward iv. But he's brought along the other king of England too. The man he's been referring to as Henry the Usurper. God only knows what Henry makes of it. It's astonishing to think that this peace loving old duffer has actually been present on more battlefields than his warrior father Henry V ever was. But actually, what Henry VI feels about this caper is neither here nor there. Edwards going north in search of Warwick, the so called kingmaker. He's brought Henry for one purpose only. To give the lie to Warwick's claim to be left tenant of England under Henry's authority. Either way, a mighty reckoning awaits. And it's not very far away. Literally. In fact, Edward has barely made it 10 miles out of London before his scouts catch sight of the very man they're looking for. Finally, having been reinforced by loyal supporters, including his brother, Warwick has raised enough to troops to dare to leave Coventry. He's been heading south towards London for the past few days. And now the two sides are going to clash. By the time the King's army and Warwick's are in full sight of each other, it's getting dark. Too late in the day for a battle, so they both camp overnight. But both sides know that when the sun comes up on Easter Sunday, the showdown is on. The trouble is, as the sun comes up, so does a thick mist, a fog that clouds the short distance between the two armies and stops them getting a clear sight of each other. You'd have to be nuts to fight in these conditions. But given everything that's happened in England over the last quarter of a century, these people passed the nuts threshold long ago. Fog or no fog, they're going to have it. The two armies crash into each other, with Edward leading his from the front and Warwick commanding his own from the rear. Unsurprisingly, it's a vicious fight, mostly waged at close quarters, as the guns can do nothing in the fog but shoot blind. And to begin with, it looks like Warwick is going to have the best of it. One of Edward's divisions is commanded by his good friend Lord Hastings. That division gets routed those who aren't butchered there and then flee back in the direction of London, spreading the word that the King has been defeated. It's fake news, in fact. Edward's army hangs together and they manage to keep fighting for several hours, by which stage the whole battlefield is chaos. But it's chaos that will favour the King. As the battle wears on, two things happen. The first is that Worwick gets an almighty bollocking from his brother John Neville for trying to command the fight from the rear, rather than getting stuck in. John Neville basically calls Worwick a coward and goads him into abandoning his favoured method of command for something riskier and less familiar. The other thing that happens is that once a whole load of Warwick's men are done chasing Lord Hastings rabble back to London, they turn around and go back to join the main battle once more. It's their undoing. By the time they re arrive at the battlefield, the lines have pivoted, but in the fog they don't realize. So when they lay into what they assume are Edwards rear lines, they're actually attacking their own team. And their own team starts screaming treason. So suddenly everyone is fighting everyone all at once. It's a proper royal rumble. And after four hours of fighting, when the fog lifts and everything's done, few men have ever, ever seen anything like it. The injuries are horrific. Men with their noses hanging off their faces and their guts hanging out. The dead number in the thousands. One chronicler writes that there was never in a hundred years a fiercer battle in England than this, which is really saying something. But amid the ferocity, the battle has a definitive outcome. As the bodies are counted and identified, two members of the House of Neville are found cold and motionless on the field. One of them is John Neville. The other is his brother, whom he egged on into fighting. In the midst of the melee, Warwick the Kingmaker is dead. His body and his brothers are stripped naked except for loincloths, lifted up and placed into open coffins. Then Edward has them both brought to London and set down on the steps of St. Paul's where, in the words of the chronicler, others might see them, which many thousands did. Warwick the kingmaker, arch manipulator, man of the people, and let's be real here, borderline narcissistic head Case has made his last king. For two generations, he's tried to keep one hand, and sometimes both hands, shoved up the backside of a ruler of his choosing. Finally, all his scheming has brought him to his miserable reward. His puppet turned protege turned nemesis, Edward IV has finally broken free. But Edward isn't finished. A few days after the Battle of Barnet, at the start of May, the last remaining Lancastrians who weren't cut down fighting with Warwick are on the run in the Cotswolds when they too hear the ominous sound of a Yorkist army heading in their direction. It's Edward, coming to finish the job he started. With backup from Lord Hastings and the youngest royal brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Edward is now a formidable opponent. With his blood up and momentum behind him, the Lancastrians boast a pretty impressive force themselves. Queen Margaret of Anjou has finally made it over to England with her warlike teenage son, Edward of Westminster. She's taking shelter in an abbey. Her army is led by the Duke of Somerset, the Earl of Devon, and Warwick's old deputy of Calais, Lord Wenlock. It looks set to be an even matchup, but in the end, it's nothing of the sort. The armies collide near Tewkesbury, a market town just shy of the Cotswolds. After an initial period of hard fighting, the Lancastrian resolve melts. The battle turns into a rout. And just as happened at Barnet, many of the leading nobles are killed, including 17 year old Edward of Westminster, the only child of Queen Margaret and Henry vi. The Battle of Tewkesbury is fought and lost by the Lancastrians in a few hours on May 4, 1471. After it, Queen Margaret is captured and sent off to be kept under house arrest until she can be deported to France. At the start of the year, it looked like Edward IV and the Yorkist monarchy were down and out. Now, as summer is starting to burst and bloom in the blood soaked English hedgerows, it seems like the wars of the Roses might just be settled once and for all.
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it's not quite midnight on Tuesday 21st May, 1471, and Henry VI is lying morose and miserable, back in his rooms at the Tower of London. The Tower is quiet, or as quiet as it gets on a night in a place that's full of prisoners and guards, cooks and servants and wild animals. Even by Henry's standards, this has been a day to forget. His readption is well and truly over. He's back in jail. His pretend best friend, Warwick the Kingmaker, is dead. Queen Margaret is a prisoner. Half the small number of nobles who still supported him are also dead. And so, most tragically of all, is his son and theoretical heir, Prince Edward. The pool of people around Henry has been shrinking steadily for a long time. Now he's almost entirely alone. Or is he? In fact, someone's approaching his chamber. It's an uneven footfall, the sound of a man with a slightly uneven gait. Someone like, say, Edward IV's youngest brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who's been hanging around the Tower quite a bit lately. What could Richard be doing coming to his cell this late at night? What business might he have with Henry? The next morning, when Henry's guards look in on his rooms, they find a miserable sight. Henry VI on, off. Lancastrian King of England is dead. The official cause of death is sheer displeasure and melancholy. But there's a widespread suspicion that this one has the efficient hands of Edward IV's more loyal brother, Richard, all over it. When Henry's body is taken to St. Paul's for display, it leaks blood over the cathedral pavement. And when the news spreads abroad that Henry is dead, foreign diplomats conclude that Edward IV has finally decided to show his ruthless side and crush the seed of the Lancastrians. Because, truly, it's hard to know who's left to represent their line. Although maybe there is just one person. In September, an army sent by Edward IV is besieging Pembroke Castle. Inside it is one of the few Lancastrians still at Liberty, Henry VI's old half brother, Jasper Tudor. And with him is his nephew, who was born in the castle 14 years ago to Margaret Beaufort. Henry Tudor hasn't exactly got pure royal blood pumping in his veins, but his connection to the old Lancastrian royal family is strong enough to. To count for something. And let's not forget how old Henry VI remarked during the re adeption that this kid was the one who everyone else would one day have cause to fear a much diluted bit of Lancastrian claret, and the prophesying of a shambolic basket case is hardly the stuff on which great lineages are founded. But after his torrid experience in 1470-71, Edward IV isn't taking any chances. The problem is, the army he sent down to try and winkle Henry Tudor out of Wales isn't quite strong enough to take the considerable fortress at Pembroke. And the Tudors still have friends in Wales. So in mid September, while one band of Welshmen arrives to cause a distraction outside Pembroke, Jasper and Henry Tudor slip out of the castle, head to the nearby town of Tenby, and start making hasty arrangements to get the hell out of Dodge. They hire a boat and with a small handful of servants, put to sea. They're heading for the continent. For France, for Brittany, for anywhere they can be kept safe from the hand of Yorkist vengeance. From now on, they'll have to live their lives depending on the goodwill of foreign protectors and in the fear that assassins could find them at any minute. Whatever it was that Henry VI thought he saw in young Henry Tudor during that brief meeting almost a year ago will probably never be known. The best this kid can hope for from now on is survival. To find out if he has the faintest hope of that, come back for our next episode of this Is History. Do listen in to next week's episode to see if our boy Henry Tudor ever makes it back from his French dispatch. But if you've got any passing interest in Tudor history, you probably already know what happens. No spoilers please. For now, I need to ask my dear royal favourites who I know are avidly watching and listening to this episode. And a big question. Do you think it was Richard, Duke of Gloucester, AKA the future Richard iii, who killed poor old Henry vi? I know we don't do true crime here on this Is History, but boy, this season will be full of it. Join your fellow medieval cold case investigators on patreon.com thisishistory Uncovered windows can make
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