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Hello friends, and welcome. Now, last time I left you on a cliffhanger. With the first Battle of the wars of the Roses about to kick off, we'll be picking up that story in a moment. But before we do, I need to let you know that this episode contains a number of instances of hardcore ultra violence directed towards men and beasts. While I've got you, I also want to tell you about a couple of things. The first is that there are now special signed numbered editions of my books, the Plantagenets and the Hollow Crown, available via Millennia Books. And if you're a royal favourite, you can get a discount on both. Just visit our Patreon to get your code and links. I also want your help. Next month my new mini series, History's Greatest Fails launches. It's a collab with my dear friend and fellow history nerdazoid, Elizabeth Day. We'll be discussing how failure is the lifeblood of historical achievement and in the bonus episodes, producer Al will be stepping into the studio and he and I will be discussing your favorite failures from history. We'd love you to leave us voice notes. To get that chat started again, head to our Patreon. So to find out how to leave us a message. Ok, that's enough plugs. Let's get back to the thugs. Battle is looming in St Albans and it's going to be messy after this short break. You know what? You gotta feel sorry for King Henry vi because he wouldn't be anybody's personality hire and he was just as bad at HR as at Kingship. He's the guy who forced all his warring nobles to hold hands in the Love Day Parade. If only Plantagenet England had Indeed sponsored jobs. With Indeed, you can spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all the right boxes. Less stress, less time, more results when you need the right person to cut through the chaos. This is a job for Indeed sponsored Jobs and listeners of my show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves@ Indeed.com thisishistory just go to Indeed.com thishi thisishistory right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.comthisishistory Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Ever wondered what it feels like to be a gladiator facing a roaring crowd and potential death in the coliseum? Find out on the Ancients podcast from History hit twice a week. Join me Tristan Hughes As I hear exciting New research about people living thousands of years ago, from the Babylonians to the Celts to the Romans, and visit the ancient sites which reveal who and just how amazing our distant ancestors were. That's the ancients from history. Hit. Forsooth. And forsooth. Forsooth and Forsooth. Henry VI has never been one for cursing, but right now he's really letting rip with the worst language he's ever uttered. As well he might, the Plantagenet King of England is being hustled through the streets of St. Albans by men loyal to him, or at least loyal to the Crown. They're hauling him along like he's a sack of potatoes, which he might as well be for all the use he's been as king. Right now, in St. Albans, an old Roman town north of London, all the drift and failure of his 33 year reign is coming home to roost. It's May 22, 1455, and all over the city men are fighting. Some are shooting arrows, others hacking away with small swords and knives. Houses are being looted. Barricades built to try and control the mayhem are being torn down. From a church tower somewhere, the alarm is being sounded, as if that could possibly help. On the King's side are a couple of thousand loyal men, retainers of the nobles who've been trying to prop up the royal regime. Their commander is Humphrey, Duke of Buckingham. As close a thing as England has to an elder statesman right now. On the other side are a few thousand more men who also claim to be loyal subjects of the Crown. Their leader is Richard, Duke of York, ably backed up by his northern allies from the Neville family. They're out for blood. It's not the King's blood they want, but rather that of his favorite, Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset. All the same now, blades are swinging and arrows fizzing. Anything can happen. So the ring of guards around Henry VI are doing everything they can to hustle him through the chaos and get him somewhere safe. Anywhere safe. The commander Buckingham, takes personal charge and tells them to head towards a grubby looking shack. It's apparent from the stench wafting from it that this place belongs to a tanner, a leather maker who uses animal urine and crap to soften the hides. It's not exactly the most regal hideout, but beggars can't be choosers. Before they can get there, though, they're cut off by archers and men at arms wearing Yorkist badges on their coats. There's a beat, then one of the Yorkist archers draws his bow. Henry VI is 33 years old. the same age his dad, Henry V, had conquered half of France, this Henry could barely conquer his way out of his own pajamas. He's as out of depth in this battle as he has been throughout his whole reign. And now it looks like everything might be rushing to an end. Forsooth, and forsooth, he says again. Forsooth and forsooth. I'm dan jones and from sony music entertainment. This is history season 9 of a dynasty to die for. Episode 10 the battle of st albans. I don't know how many battle sites you've ever visited, but in my experience, they often feel strange, kind of jarring. More often than not, historical battle sites are tranquil, even innocuous patches of field or beach or town. It can be hard to get your head around the fact that anything nasty ever happened there. Head to Dunkirk, for example. You can sit by the beach and watch families picnic and cyclists potter along the seafront path where 86 years ago a third of a million Allied troops were evacuated while being strafed by Messerschmitts. Or walk around the rolling green fields of Picardy. It's almost impossible to visualize the medieval bloodbaths that took place there at Crecy and Agincourt. It's the same in St Albans. Today. It's a teeny city about an hour's drive north of central London. There are some famous Roman ruins, a cathedral that feels far too big for the rest of the place, a high street with a medieval clock tower, likely the one that was sounding the alarm in 1455, a few charity shops and a Starbucks. It's nothing spectacular, and it's certainly wild to think that around 600 years ago this place was overrun by marauding medieval armies. It's even odder to believe that on May 22, 1455, King Henry VI was on that very spot being dragged for his own safety to a stinking tanner's hovel. But that's Plantagenet history for you and we can't get enough of it. By the way, if you want to share your favourite battle site recommendations with our royal favourites, head over to our Patreon and join the medieval travel thread. For now, let's get back to st Albans in May 1455, because we really need to get our heads around what's going on there and how things have got so very out of hand. As we heard last time, at the heart of the crisis in 1455 is a colossal super size law. Heavy beef between two nobles. There's Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, architect of England's humiliation in the Hundred Years War against France. He's the King and Queen Margaret's favourite. On the other side is Richard, Duke of York. When King Henry VI went mad, York was appointed Protector. He banged Somerset up in the Tower. But now Somerset is out and he's bound to want his revenge. York is convinced that their feud is now a zero sum. He needs to take Somerset out or he's toast. That's why he has an army in the field. He's making a show of strength that'll force the King to give Somerset up, to put him on trial for treason and execute him on top of that. And forgive me for repeating things you already know, but this stuff is notoriously complicated. There are sub beefs within the big beef. Think like little bits of biltong within the bourguignon or mini sliders inside. The producer Al is making stop with the cow flesh analogies. Faces at me. You get the idea. Let's just say that the main sub beef at st Albans in May 1455 is between two northern noble families. York is allied with a Neville family whose toughest nut is Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick on Somerset. And the King's side is Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland. The Nevilles and the Percys have been knocking lumps out of each other in northern England for years. The collapse of royal authority means they have to side with whichever of the big beast nobles they think can best further their own interests. Hence a York, Neville or Yorkist alliance on the one hand or who want change and a Somerset Percy alliance on the other, who like the status quo. At St Albans, these are the teams lined up and the prize in the middle of them is the King. Whoever controls Henry controls their own destiny. When everyone arrived at St Albans, there were negotiations between messengers from York's team and and the elder statesman Buckingham. But there was no way that the King was going to agree to York's central demand, which was Somerset's head on a plate. While those negotiations were going on, some of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick's men got fed up waiting and started an assault. It was a surprise attack, which is why everything is is now so chaotic and why Henry VI is now being dragged towards that tanner's hut to try and get him safe, even if it's literally in a shack that smells worse than a public toilet. When Henry is cut off by the Yorkist archers, tempers are at their hottest. If everyone were thinking clearly, the Yorkist would lower their weapons. But everyone is very much not Thinking clearly, the Yorkists have got it in their heads that anyone protecting the King is connected with Summerset and is therefore a traitor. Which means they're fair game. So the bows aren't just drawn, they're loosed. A volley of arrows is shot into the group around King Henry. Men go down, blood welling from arrow wounds. The Duke of Buckingham is hit, though he's only wounded. An arrow grazes King Henry's neck. Forsooth. And forsooth. This chump yells again, you do foully to smite a king anointed. So, Henry, babe, now really isn't the time. The men around the King of PG rated curse words finally make a break for it and drag the burbling idiot into the tanner's hut and slam the door. The wretched place is definitely not palatial, but it's defensible. They hold it down while outside, the fight rages on. It's not a long fight, in fact, it only lasts about half an hour in total. And as it unfolds, it becomes increasingly, horribly obvious that the King and Buckingham have got off lightly. The nobleman Lord Clifford, a senior royal commander and ally of the Percy family, is hacked to death in the street. So is Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, the chief enemy of the Nevilles. Somerset isn't hanging around in the street waiting for the fight to come to him. If this guy has shown one talent over the years, it's been for covering his noble backside. So he scarpers into a pub called the Castle Inn along with his 19 year old son, Henry. But someone sees him go and pretty soon the place is surrounded. Somerset realizes he can't stay in there. At long last, he's run out of places to hide. He and his lad decide they're going to have to fight their way out of the corner. So out they come, swords swinging. The odds are stacked against them. Although young Henry Beaufort fights bravely, he's badly wounded. For his dad, Somerset, wounded isn't an option. He's been a marked man since the start of this horror show. So after a short fight, Somerset is surrounded and cut to shreds. Back in the tanner's hut, Yorkist troops have now got Henry VI surrounded too. Although he's bleeding from his arrow scrape, he's not getting chop sueyed. Yorkist troops invite him to come out of his hole. Then they take him to the more rarefied surroundings of St. Albans Abbey. When Henry gets there, he's met by a welcome party of Richard, Duke of York. And with the top two Nevilles, York's father in law, the Earl of Salisbury and Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. They greet the king respectfully, then bring him to the holy shrine of St. Alban himself. They swear their loyalty, but make it clear that from now on, they're going to need Henry to follow their instructions and be ruled by their advice. What can Henry say? Forsooth. And forsooth barely covers it. He meekly agrees. The Yorkists claim victory, but it's hardly a happy camp they rule over. The wounds opened at the Battle of St. Albans are going to take decades to heal. Hello, Dan Jones here. I'm an author and medievalist, and I don't think it'll surprise you to know I've amassed enough hardbacks to fill a moat. But in the process, I've often lost where I am while purchasing a book online, drowning in a sea of tabs that each require a new login. That's why I find bookshops powered by Shopify a breeze to use. Shopify is an online commerce platform that remembers my details across different businesses, meaning everything is in the one place. 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