Catherine de Valois, 28 year old mother of King Henry VI is relaxing in her chamber in one of the many beautiful country houses she owns across Plantagenet, England and Wales. As usual, the place is bustling. Servants pop in and out to make sure she has everything she needs. Enough to eat, enough to drink. Musicians are packing away their instruments after their daily recital. Catherine has enjoyed music since she was a newlywed and her husband since the great warrior king Henry V had the court's finest play to her every morning. That said, Catherine hasn't exactly been concentrating on the music. She's waiting for someone to appear. In fact, here he comes now. Owen Tudor enters the chamber and bows. This handsome Welshman has been a servant in Catherine's household for years, but in recent months, well, let's just say he's caught a little bit more than the Queen's eye. He loiters awkwardly, and the rest of the servants, wise to what's going on, drift away, leaving the two of them alone. Owen nudges the door shut and locks it. And before you know it, they're on one another. A tangle of clothes and limbs, lips and hot, scandalous breath. But just as things are getting serious, Catherine stops. Can she hear her baby crying? Ah, never mind. That's what nannies are for. Outside the room, the rest of the servants go about their business, pretending not to know what's happening. There are a million and one reasons, moral, legal, political. Why Henry V's widow and this charming taffy definitely shouldn't be up to what they're up to. But you know how it is. When it's hot, it's hot. And the truth is, the world outside this steamy little chamber is going very rapidly to hell. What's the harm in having a little bunk up while it burns? I'm dan jones and from sony music entertainment, this is history, season nine of a dynasty to die for. Episode three, hot stuff. After more than 100 episodes of this podcast, 200 if you count those bonus episodes over on Patreon, I'm pretty sure I've got to the stage where I repeat myself. But for anyone who hasn't heard Jones first rule of history, let me remind you that the three most underrated moving forces in history are the weather, sexual attraction and drunkenness. Or as I think I once put it, breezes, boners and booze. But for now, let me say that the spectacular mesalliance that's French for danger shag falls into the second category, sexual attraction. Catherine de Valois, the king's mum, getting it on with a random Welshman in her household and getting pregnant by him is a relationship that seems to be founded on pheromones, not canny political calculation. But it'll have the most astonishing historical consequences. We'll get to those consequences in good time. But for now, I just want to pause and dig into why this is such a risky business, especially for Owen Tudor. OGs will remember that in Plantagenet, England, relations between the English and the Welsh can be flown frosty going on, colder than the infinite frozen vacuum of outer space. Back in the 13th century, Edward I battered the Welsh before he hammered the Scots, conquering Snowdonia and leaving his mark on the landscape in a ring of stone fortresses. Then, during Henry IV's reign, the Welsh rebelled en masse. The figurehead of that rising was Owain Glendor. And although old Owain is long dead, the after effects of his rebellion can still be felt. At the start of owain's rebellion, Henry IV's parliaments passed a whole raft of anti Welsh penal laws. They amounted to a sort of anti Welsh apartheid. Welshmen were banned from buying land or property in England. They couldn't become citizens of English towns. The Welsh were forbidden to wear armor or carry weapons. They weren't allowed to hold public office. And that was just the start of it. Any Welshman accused of a felony in England could be executed on the spot, wherever he was found. Even Welsh minstrels and travelling bards were outlawed, probably to try to clamp down on anti English propaganda being circulated. This podcast would certainly have had me banged up in the Tower. It may yet do. In 1430, all those anti Welsh rules are still in place. And though no parliament has passed a statute that specifically says no Welshman is allowed inside the King's mum's knickers and members of the English royal family are massively forbidden from getting their backs blown out by the boyos, it definitely doesn't feel like it's in keeping with the spirit of the law. So how is it that Owen Tudor and Catherine de Valois are getting it on when they should be very much getting it off? Well, the truth is, the whole thing's a bit of a head scratcher. The scene I teased you with at the start of this show is basically a Mills and Boone trip of my own devising. But I made it up for good and historical reason, which is this. The story of how Owen and Catherine fell in love essentially belongs to the realm of romantic fantasy. It happened all right, but exactly how is shrouded in layers of titillating speculation. One legend says Owen is the bastard son of a pub landlord who charmed his way to the top. Another says he signs up to fight in Henry V's Agincourt campaign. The penal laws don't ban Welshmen from risking their lives fighting England's. Wars, incidentally, and that he comes to court in the service of Henry V's household steward. It's sometimes claimed he's the keeper of Queen Catherine's wardrobe, or that he's her sewer, meaning he serves her meals and tastes them to make sure they're cooked properly. There's a tradition that says Catherine falls in love with Owen when she sees him swimming naked, sort of like Daniel Craig in Casino Royale meets Colin Firth in Pride and Prejudice. There's another that says Owen's dancing at a ball, trips, falls and lands with his head in the Queen's lap, which is more or less where it stays. Are any of these true? Maybe, maybe not. But we do know a few things about Owen and, and indeed about Catherine during the period when they meet. We know that Owen is from a family who are big news in North Wales, specifically the island of Anglesey that sits just off the coast. His dad is called Meredith ap Tudor and his extended family includes none other than Oaing Glyndore. Owen Tudor is born around 1400, so he's a kid at the time of the Glyndore Rebellion. Self evidently. By the time he's in his 20s, he's got himself into the orbit of the English royal court. So what about Catherine? Well, as we heard in episode one of this series, when her son Henry VI is a baby, she's on mum duty. But as the 1420s go on, there's less mumming to do and Catherine starts to try to figure out what she's going to do with the rest of her life. Around 14:25, rumors go around that she's taken a fancy to a guy called Edmund Beaufort, a nephew of the powerful politician Cardinal Beaufort. This would be a politically sensitive dalliance, as it would seem to load a lot of royal power onto one branch of the royal family. One sniffy chronicler blames Catherine for basically being too horny to have any political appreciation of the situation. He says she's unable fully to curb her carnal passions. Well, that's standard issue raging chronicler misogyny for you. But it does seem that there's a moment when Catherine's love life becomes a matter of national interest. At a parliament in 1426-27, there's a debate about whether dowager queens should be able to marry whoever they like. The conclusion the Parliament reaches is no, they should not be free to marry as they choose. In fact, a law is passed saying that if queens do marry as they like, then the men they marry will forfeit all their lands. That's a fairly clear shot across Edmund Beaufort's bows. After it, any affair there is between Catherine and Edmund probably fizzles out. Although join me on this week's bonus episode if you want to hear a really scandalous conspiracy theory about that. Sometime after 1428, Catherine decides to find herself a partner who has essentially nothing to lose, like, well, a dishy Welshy step forward. Owen Tudor. By 1430, Catherine and Owen are a bona fide item, emphasis on boner. Obviously. That's when Catherine gives birth to their first son, Edmund, and in the years that follow, there will be two or three more Jasper, Margaret, and possibly a son called Owen. At some point they get married, although this is one royal wedding that isn't celebrated. With parades through the streets of London and fountains gushing Chateauneuf du Pape. It's kind of sweet, but of course there's a gigantic elephant in the room, which is this. Given that Parliament has passed one law banning Catherine from marrying and about 8,000 laws banning Welshmen from so much as humming Bread of Heaven, how are these two getting away with it? Henry VI has four half Welsh half siblings, yet the men in power in Henry VI's England seem content to look the other way. Well, the answer is that the men in power in England have have plenty on their plates as it is, thank you very much. It would be awfully nice if the most pressing issue facing them were policing the Queen Mother's every bit of slap and tickle, but frankly, there isn't the bandwidth. All the focus of England's power brokers in the early 1430s is across the channel, where they're trying to hold on to the English kingdom of Northern France and the alliance with the Duke of Burgundy that makes it possible. Since Joan of Arc burst onto the scene, their enemies have been on the march and it's hard to know what the English are going to be able to do to stop them.
A (15:50)
As evening falls in Rouen on the last day of May in 1431, a weary labourer scrapes up ash from a bonfire and shovels it into his barrow. He's almost got the last of it, but he knows he can't leave even a few specks lying in the streets. So he brushes the little that's left into a last neat pile, scoops that up too, then puts his shovel down, wheels the barrow to the river and dumps the whole load into the Seine. The water turns grey, foams a little, and then the ash is gone. He congratulates himself on a job well done. The last earthly remains of the intolerable heretic and rabble rouser Joan of Arc are washed away forever. Good riddance to bad rubbish. On the face of things, Joan of Arc being burned to death is quite a turn up for the English, as we heard last episode. Just under two years ago at the Siege of Orleans, Joan burst onto the scene and threw the whole English war effort into disarray, waving her white flag, wearing her mail armour, blathering on about talking to angels, generally making a nuisance of herself. She helped get the dauphin crowned Charles vii, and seemed to be the figurehead for the French fight back that would drive the English out of all the bits of northern France Henry V worked so hard to conquer. But Joan's time in the limelight really doesn't last long. After the coronation of the Dauphin, it becomes obvious that she's outlived her purpose to the French. She's accomplished everything she promised, and now her talk of voices and visions is starting to get a little stale. She also keeps coming up with new places she wants to attack, whereas Charles VI's more experienced advisors are urging a more cautious approach. It's hard to know what to do with her. In 1430, she urges an attack on Paris, and when that fails, she loses a lot of credibility. Scholars at the University of Paris start to question whether she's really been talking to any angels at all. If God's on her side, why has he allowed her to fail? In May 1430, Joan goes kind of rogue, and tries to lead a company of soldiers to relieve the siege of a town called Compiegne, which is being attacked by England's Burgundian allies. That's where everything starts to go wrong for Joan. She ends up being captured at the siege. The Burgundians hand her over to the English, she's put on trial and all her visions are turned against her as evidence of her being a heretic. Very long story short, the English, in cahoots with the clerics of the University of Paris, find Joan guilty. She's imprisoned for a few months in Rouen in pretty terrible conditions. Then, at the end of May, she's taken out into the old marketplace in Rouen, tied to a stake and burned to death. She's still only 19 years old. Joan's last request is that she's allowed to look at a cross as she dies. She's granted that, but as we've just seen, there's no burial. Her ashes are dumped in the river. Joan's afterlife is a fascinating story with as many twists and turns as her short life. Join me on this week's bonus episode and I'll be discussing that with producer Al. Sign up@patreon.com thisishistory for now, we're going to stick with what's going on for the English in France, because although turning Joan of Arc into flame grilled fish food might be good for their morale, it doesn't do very much for the war effort at large. Charles VII can't be uncrowned King of France. The best the English can do is try to counterbalance his coronation with one of their own. Little Henry VI of England has to be crowned Henry II of France. As we heard last episode, Henry is brought over from England after his coronation there and he hangs out in rouen for nearly 18 months, waiting for Paris to be secure enough to stage his French ceremony. It's while he's in Rouen that Joan of Arc is captured and killed. Eventually, in the winter of 1431, with Joan dead and the situation momentarily stabilised, the English decide the time is ripe to get Henry's coronation going. On December 2, the young king, to be still only nine years old, rides into Paris on a white horse. His procession starts at the Abbey of St. Denis and he parades alongside his uncle John, Duke of Bedford, who's been the English regent of France now for nearly 10 years. All the grand poohbahs of medieval Paris come out to greet him with the usual series of street pageants and visual spectacles that accompany a coronation. There are little plays of saints lives and improving Bible stories and theatrical devices like great hearts which burst so that flocks of birds can fly out. One of the streets of Paris is turned into a river of water wine in which mermaids frolic, presumably freezing their tails and scallop shell. Bikini tops off, Henry is held up to the Parisians by Bedford and his key ally, the Duke of Burgundy. And a tapestry is shown off with the English and French coats of arms side by side. There's a moment of high pathos where Henry's French grandmother, the mad King Charles VI's widow, Isabeau of Bavaria, catches her young grandson's eye. He takes off his hat and bows to her and she bursts into tears. So far, so good. But once the coronation starts, things go a bit wonky. First, the English manage to upset the Bishop of Paris by refusing to let him do the crowning. The job is claimed by Cardinal Beaufort. Then, to add insult to injury, the food at the coronation banquet is ghastly. It's been cooked three days in advance and it's borderline inedible. Screwing up dinner in Paris is a very, very bad look. And once all the guests have gone home, there must be a nagging sense that this whole shebang has been a bit of a flop. Yes, this is an unprecedented historical moment. No one's ever been crowned King of England and France before, but it's all just a bit lacking. The ceremony hasn't popped off the way it would have if they'd managed to hold it in the traditional venue of Reim. Meanwhile, the English war effort is faltering, despite Joan of Arc's death. And the dream of conquering the whole kingdom looks further away than ever. And to pile on the misery, well, now everyone in Paris thinks English cooking sucks. And back home, the King's mum is playing hide the saucisson with Mac's bloody boyce. He'd like to think things couldn't get any worse. Unfortunately for the English, the bad times are only just getting started.
A (24:29)
The food convoy is bumping along the road towards Paris under heavy guard. It's a foul Winter's Day in 1434 and the wagons are safe, stacked with grain and other Essentials which have to be delivered to the French capital every week just to keep the city from starvation. This is a depressing sight. Paris is one of the biggest cities in Europe and in ordinary times it would be more than capable of feeding itself. But the lands outside the wars have been ravaged by years of war, making them too dangerous to farm properly. On top of which, the winter has been so cold and wet that the fruit harvest has been ruined and young crops destroyed. Inside, the city isn't much better. There's a sullen, seething rage building, a feeling that the war has been bad for everyone and that having an English king who's still a young teenager isn't working out too well. As the food wagons round a corner in the road, the men appear. They're mercenaries in the pay of Charles vii. They're all heavily armed and they outnumber the guards by plenty. Not there's much time to count them. The ambush starts right away. Before you know it, the guards are lying dead or bleeding and the convoy drivers have been tied up for questioning. Any of them wearing English insignia on their clothes or who are heard to have been speaking English, have their throats slit. Sadly, this is just another day in the war torn French north and it's going to be another hungry week in Paris. Elsewhere isn't much better. Normandy has been rocked by peasant uprisings, plague is rife and English troops are getting so trigger happy that there are reports of massacres and other atrocities across the occupied lands. It's getting clear to everyone, especially the Duke of Burgundy, who's England's most important ally, that this can't continue. At some point, there'll have to be a negotiation for at least a truce, which will bring a bit of normality back to life in northern France. That process begins in early 1435 with diplomatic talks at Nevers, where the Duke of Burgundy quietly meets with ambassadors representing Charles vii. They agree things can't go on as they are, and the French float terms under which the biggest beef between the Duke of Burgundy and Charles VII can be solved. A way to settle the blood feud the that's existed since Charles and his henchmen murdered the Duke's father, John the Fearless, at Montereau back in 1419. They agree to hold a big formal peace conference in the Flemish city of Arras, and the English are invited to this one too, along with representatives of the Pope and delegations from Italy, the Spanish kingdoms and Portugal. The English send Cardinal Beaufort over to head up negotiations on the grounds that he's the most Experienced statesman and negotiator in the land who's been in this game since back in Henry IV's day. But much like that food convoy going into Paris, there's an ambush planned. This ambush is diplomatic, but it's every bit as painful. The English propose a long truce in the war, with all major issues pushed back until Henry VI turns 18 in four years time. They suggest some sort of marriage alliance to tie it all up. The French basically laugh in their faces and say they want to turn the clock back to before Edward III's day. With all the occupied territories given back, the French crown given back, and the old Plantagenet territories in Gascony held only on the say so of King Charles vii. There's a lot of daylight between those positions, to put it mildly. What's more, the burgundians and Charles VII's mob seem very friendly indeed. Their delegations keep going to church together and having jolly banquets. It looks very much like they're negotiating behind the backs of the English, planning to cut them out of the loop. It looks that way because that's exactly what's going on. After a few weeks of negotiation in which Cardinal Beaufort is hardballed at every turn, the English get fed up and storm out of the peace conference in high dudgeon. It's lashing rain as they go, and their cloak, which the chief negotiating team have had the word honour stitched onto, get soaked. Then two things happen, neither of which are a shock, but both of which are very bad. The first is that John, Duke of Bedford, the man who's done more than anyone else to keep the English alliance with Burgundy together and the English armies in the field, dies aged 46. Bedford has been ill for some time and his powers have been on the wane. All the same, he's the man who was the closest thing to a stand in for Henry V. Once he's gone, morale in the English held territories collapses. Much moan was made among Englishmen that were at that time in Normandy, writes one chronicler. The second thing that happens is that on September 21, the outcome of the Congress of Arrah is announced. The Duke of Burgundy, England's most important ally for the last 16 years, agrees a pact with Charles VII and Charles agrees to hunt down the men who killed old John the Fearless. Given that this means Charles VII will be hunting down himself, this is nothing more than a face saving exercise. But it's enough to bring the Burgundians and the headbangers, formerly known as the Armagnacs, together. For the first time in a generation. And it detonates a bomb under the entire English position in France. In just over a week, they've lost their top leader and their most important, important ally. Everything Henry V built is now under dire threat. It's hard to see how any of it is going to survive. There's only one person who can possibly step in and try to get a grip on a rapidly unfolding disaster. That's 14 year old Henry VI. Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Well, we'll find out next time on this is History. Well, I hope you enjoyed that. And here's the good news. If you're a subscriber, you can get a whole lot more in this week's best bonus episode, where producer Al and I will be getting down and dirty with all the gossip on Owen Tudor and Catherine de Valois. And we'll also be assigning blame for allowing the disgraceful phrase hide the saucy song to be broadcast. And for our royal favourites on Patreon, here's this week's discussion starter. We want to hear your stories of dangerous liaisons, historical or. Well, feel free to hit us with a personal overshare. All that/ad free listening competitions and every main episode a week early@patreon.com thisishistory. See you there. Oh, actually, I've got one more thing to ask of you. Now I'm going to make a confession. I couldn't have cared less about history until I was in my late teens. But Mr. Green changed that. He was my A level history teacher and he made it my favourite subject. His lessons were engaging and fun. It was like historical gossip. Not just the curriculum. The Inspiring History Teaching Awards is a brand new initiative from charity Historic Royal Palaces, celebrating our brilliant history teachers across the uk, the people who are in schools and higher education, bringing the subject to life in classrooms. Right now, doing what Mr. Green did for me some 30 years ago, I'm on the judging panel. Historians including Lucy Worsley and Greg Jenner are joining me. Plus teachers like Katie Hunter and Shelina Patel. So if you know someone who's currently teaching history and and deserves to be celebrated, you can nominate them at www.hrp.orguk. teachingAwards entries close on Sunday 25th January at 11.59pm.
