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Friends, it's time to gaze into the crystal ball. I never thought I'd be delving into the mechanics of medieval horoscopes, but I guess thanks to an ambitious woman called Eleanor, I am now. I wouldn't say I'm an expert in medieval astrology in any case, but in this week's bonus episode, producer Al and I are delving into all things woo woo in the medieval world. If you want to listen to that episode, head over to patreon.com thisishistory.com to subscribe. Remember, subscribers get to listen to all episodes ad free. You can also become one of our royal favorite subscribers who get access to special behind the scenes videos, lively chat rooms and so much more. Oh, and a reminder, you can now watch this show on our YouTube channel. Go to YouTube.com hisishistorypod Give us a follow while you're there. And just a quick note that this episode will mention suicide. Now on with the show after this short break. The servant holds the sack and Owen Tudor throws in all the valuables within reach. A couple of candlesticks go in the bag, a few silver salt cellars. There's a nice set of gold cups. They could be worth something. He dashes out of the chamber and down the corridor to the chapel, the servant hustling behind him. When he gets there, Owen sweeps the altar for gold plates and ornaments. Hopefully God will understand. Once he's cleaned out the chapel, Owen peers into the sack. It doesn't look like much of a haul, but it'll have to do. The clock is ticking. He and the servant neg it out of the house to the stables and saddle up. Then they hit the road, hoping there's time to get ahead of the search party that's bound to be on their heels. They haven't gone far along the road towards Owen's native North Wales before the riders catch them up. They don't come with handcuffs, just a message. They know everything. Catherine de Valois, mother of King Henry vi, has died. It was a natural death, but Catherine's marriage to Owen, a Welshman and a commoner, was very much unnatural. While Catherine was alive and Owen was her bit of prime Welsh beefcake, the powerful Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and the Royal Council were prepared to look the other way. Now they're not being Welsh and banging the Queen Mother is a crime. In fact, it's two crimes. So Owen Tudor is told to report to London pronto, where Humphrey and co have a good mind to lock him up in Newgate Prison. Do not pass Go. Do not collect the 137 pounds, 10 shillings and 4 pence. Your bag of loot adds up to for this boyo, the good times have stopped rolling and as England continues on its post, Henry V come down. He's not the only one. I'm dan jones and from sony music entertainment. This is history. Season 9 of a dynasty to die for episode 4 tainted love. Have you ever had a friend who just seems to be a magnet for trouble, even when they aren't trying to attract it? I'm thinking of the type of person who walks into a room and things just start going sideways. They head into a bar and a punch up starts. You get in the car together and suddenly every lunatic on the road is cutting you up, giving you the jack off sign. It's like the opposite of the halo effect. Call it the waft of dogshit effect. I'm asking because whenever I think about Henry vi, that's the sort of person I have in mind. You'll have noticed that in the last few episodes of this season, Henry has been a bit of a non player. That's mostly because he's been a kid removed from the centre of power while the grown ups try and handle things on his behalf. Occasionally they hoik him out of school to be crowned king of somewhere, but that's about it. Without giving away too much by way of spoilers, that's going to be the story of Henry's adult life too. Yet for all that, he hasn't really done anything to anyone. Henry VI manages to get people super worked up simply by existing. Think back to the first episode of this season when there was nearly a riot on London Bridge because someone thought someone else was going to have too much influence over Henry. Or last episode, there was a lot of ill feeling in Paris when Henry went for his French coronation because Cardinal Beaufort wanted to do the job and so did the Bishop of Paris. Well, in this episode we're going to come across two more examples of Henry causing trouble for people without doing a thing except being the King and the only child of Henry V. One of them involves a reckless attempt to figure out how long Henry's actually going to be the King. We'll come to that one in a minute. For now though, I want to stick with Owen Tudor, who's blundered into the royal family and managed to increase its membership in a way that no one except for him is very happy about. The clandestine liaison between Catherine de Valois and Owen Tudor, which began when she saw him drunk or swimming or dancing or some combination of the above, began in the late 1420s. It lasts until 1437 when Catherine dies. And one of the most politically problematic things about it, besides there being actual laws against the queen shacking up with whoever she fancies, is that their affair has produced a number of children. These kids don't have any royal blood, or not any English royal blood anyway. They don't have a claim on the crown and they're not secret, but they're an awkward asterisk in the Plantagenet family tree all the same. The two eldest of them, who are going to crop up in our story as it goes on, are called Edmund and Jasper Tudor. When Catherine dies, the Royal Council decides something has to be done with them, so they're sent to grow up at royal expense, somewhere quiet and out of the way. The spot chosen is Barking Abbey in the south eastern English county of Essex. Barking is ruled by a grand abbess called Catherine Delapole, and it's a pretty luxurious place for the Tudor boys to get their education. Barking has beautiful buildings, a well stocked library and a chapel with the bones of its first abbess, Saint Ethelberger, to gawp over. That's a big contrast to where Jasper and Edmund's dad ends up. Owen Tudor has created a needless political headache. He's given the King some half siblings who England really didn't want or need. For that, Owen's ass is going to the big house. As we heard already, when Catherine de Valois dies, Owen tries to make a dash to Wales, but he's summoned back to London to face the music. He thinks better of going on the run, so he shows his face and when he does, he's sent to prison. To begin with, he's locked up in Newgate, London's filthy, dangerous lockup, where debtors and brawlers rub shoulders with heretics and murderers. The conditions there are so bad that in January 1438, Owen makes a bid for freedom, breaking out and going on the run for a few days before he's caught and locked up again. This time they don't put him back in Newgate. Owen goes to secure accommodation at Windsor Castle instead. That's a bit more luxurious, but it's still not great. Only after two years of imprisonment in July 1439 is Owen let out. And even then it's with a suspended fine of 2,000 quid hanging over a his head. If he steps out of line again, the hope is that he and anyone else thinking of complicating the royal family tree will heed his warning. But no sooner has Owen been let out of jail than another scandal swings into the orbit of young Henry VI and the royal court. Ironically, this one involves the person who went after Owen in the first place, the king's uncle and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. Since John, Duke of Bedford died, Humphrey has fancied himself as the big dog of the House of Plantagenet, the last surviving brother of Henry V, keeping his spirit alive. But not everyone sees him that way. And thanks to an incredible stroke of reckless stupidity, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, is about to feel the hot breath of the law down the back of his own neck. And it all begins with a horoscope. The world moves fast. Your workday even faster Pitching products, drafting reports, analyzing data. Microsoft 365 Copilot is your AI assistant for work built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Microsoft 365 apps you use, helping you quickly write, analyze, create and summarize so you can cut through clutter and clear a path to your best work. Learn more@Microsoft.com M365 copilot Shopping is hard. I can never find anything in my size. I don't even know my size. I buy my clothes the same place I buy my groceries. There's a better way. Make it easy with Stitch Fix. Just share your size, style, budget and done. Your personal stylist sends pieces picked just for you. That was easy. Stitch Fix Online Personal styling for everyone. Free shipping and returns. No subscription required. Get started today@stitch fix.com when the daughter Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester's rooms has been shut and bolted, the Duchess and her learned companions sit down at the table and begin the ceremony. Around the chamber, candles are burning brightly. They were lit at precise hours corresponding to the movements of the planets on a large table. One of the Duchess servants, a famous astrologer called Roger Bolingbroke, is spreading out books and sheets of parchment covered in detailed grids of numbers. Among these documents is a little wax figure of a boy, simply fashioned, with a crown on its head and a scepter in its hand. No prizes for guessing who that's supposed to be. The Duchess Eleanor, a good looking woman in her early 40s and the most senior noble woman in England, fiddles with one of the many glinting jeweled rings on one of her fingers. She watches Roger Bolingbroke, who's furrowing his brows and looking serious. She notices that the other men at the table are nodding as though they know exactly what's on Roger's mind. Roger mutters something about Saturn and a Phrase that sounds like the eighth house. He looks at a chart covered in diagrams of the solar system. He moves the wax figure onto a little hot plate warmed by a candle. Below it, the wax begins to soften and melt. Now Eleanor can barely contain her curiosity. Even though the readings always proceed in this way, Roger stroking his chin and milking the moment, she still gets excited. As the moment of revelation approaches, impatient, Eleanor asks Roger to explain what's going on. He looks up from the parchment, as grave as she's ever seen him. He gives one last meaningful pause. There's no doubt about it, he says. All the numbers and observations say the same thing. By June 1441, King Henry VI of England will be dead. The wax figure topples over. Eleanor gives a gasp. Obviously, this is horrible news for Henry, for the Plantagenet dynasty, for England. But for her, well, let's just say there's an upside to every downside. Although she was born a mere gentlewoman and spent much of her life as a lady in waiting, for the last decade or so, Eleanor's been the wife of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. And since King Henry has no children, Humphrey is the heir presumptive to the Crown. So in June 1441, when the stars say Henry is going to die, Eleanor's husband will become King Humphrey I, and she will be. It's almost too exciting to say the words Queen Eleanor of England. This, or something like it, is the scene that's played back to Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester, in July 1441, when she's hauled up on trial before a panel of bishops. The most senior of them is none other than her husband's old sparring partner, Cardinal Henry Beaufort. Yes, the guy who almost brought London to a standstill because he didn't want someone else to have too much control over Henry vi. And happily for Cardinal Beaufort, but very unhappily for the Gloucesters, he and his fellow bishops seem to have enough evidence of Eleanor's ill fated predictioneering to score a fatal blow in the rivalry between the two most powerful men in England. They've already arrested and interrogated the astrologer, Roger Bolingbroke, along with Duke Humphrey and Eleanor's private secretary, another cleric who was at the ceremony. They've also picked up a well known wise woman of Westminster that's a local healer, or if you're feeling uncharitable, a witch. Her name is Marjorie Jordemane. What they've got is this duchess. Eleanor has long maintained an interest in astrology and associated woo woo. She collects astrological tracts and she consults men like Roger Bolingbroke. There's nothing wrong with that per se. Astrology and other forms of discovery divination are branches of science and not necessarily illegal. What is illegal are the questions she's been getting Bolingbroke to answer about the 19 year old king and the likelihood of him dying anytime soon. That's less a case of science and much more a case of treason. Eleanor has also been using the services of Margery Jordemane to whip up magic potions and love spells. It's suggested that Eleanor's either used Marjorie's love medicine to woo Humphrey into marrying her, or been using potions to increase her chances of getting pregnant. And predicting the King's death is a lot more serious than Eleanor asking Margaery to whip her up a batchload of herbal Viagra to slip into Humphrey's tea. When the charges are presented, there's not much Eleanor can say. Even before Roger Bolingbroke was picked up by the Royal Rozers, he'd been running his mouth around London, boasting that he knew when the King was going to die. The evidence against Eleanor is overwhelming. In the hope of a bit of clemency, Eleanor admits to the charges in front of her. She's imprisoned at Leeds Castle in Kent and in October she returns to London for the conclusion of proceedings. Much like Owen Tudor just a few years before her, Eleanor has the book thrown at her. She was born outside the aristocratic world. She got too close to the centre of power and specifically King Henry village, and now the powers that be have had enough of her. The court rules that she's going to be imprisoned for the rest of her life and her marriage to Humphrey is going to be dissolved. She will never see her husband again. Unfortunately, her partners in prognostication didn't see that coming. If their predictive powers were any good, they'd know that Eleanor's not done yet. 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In her hand, she holds a wax taper. With a knight standing guard on either side of her and the crowd making their feelings known, Eleanor is forced to walk barefoot from the temple to St. Paul's Cathedral. Royal orders state that no one should actually injure her, but this is a public shaming all the same. At St. Paul's Eleanor offers the taper at the high altar, but her punishment is far from complete. Two days later, she has to repeat the whole ordeal at another London church. Two days after that, she goes for a third time. And this is all for reading one horoscope. Then she's carted off for her imprisonment in castles including Kenilworth 1 on the isle of man and Beaumaris on Anglesey. Her public career is over and her now ex husband, Humphrey, is terribly politically wounded. He hasn't been able to do anything to save his wife from her punishment, but her crimes are going to stick to him like mud for the rest of his days. If Humphrey and Eleanor are feeling sorry for themselves, though, spare a thought for the rest of the crew who've been mixed up in the shenanigans. Remember Roger Bolingbroke, who did the horoscope reading, then spilled the tea all over London? He's found guilty of treason by a criminal court and he's hanged, drawn and quartered at Smithfield. One of the clerics who was involved kills himself in prison. Or as the polite parlance of the day has it, he dies of sorrow. Humphrey and Eleanor's secretary manages to get off with a warning. He's only convicted of having known about the ceremony rather than taking part in it. And as for the wise woman who provided the love medicine, well, you can easily guess what happened to her. Marjorie Jordan is burned at the stake for heresy and witchcraft for years after. This case is so notorious that even talking about it is considered dangerous. In 1443, a woman at Greenwich approaches King Henry while he and his attendants are passing through the street and complains that Eleanor has been unfairly treated. She's arrested and put to death by being pressed beneath heavy stones. Ouch. It's one of the sorriest tales in the long list of Plantagenet sorry tales. But beyond the simple moral of don't make wax figures of the king and predict his death, what does it tell us? Well, I think it's important that we see the stories of Owen Tudor and Eleanor Cobham as part of a broader narrative that's unfolding in the 1430s and 1440s. Since Henry V died, England has been flying on autopilot without an adult king to guide the realm. That means two things have happened. In the first place, the king is getting the medieval equivalent of helicopter parenting. Any threats to his independence or well being before his adulthood are violently eliminated. And in the second, there's been an evolving tussle for power in the king's name between old mates like Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and Cardinal Beaufort. The soothsayers were wrong. The King does turn 20 in 1441, the year Eleanor Cobham is arrested and shamed for reading a dodgy horoscope. The hope of everyone in England has to be that now he's technically an adult. Henry VI is going to step up. If you're partial to a bit of woo woo, you'd know the young king is years away from his Saturn return. Accountability and maturity aren't on his astrological chart for the time being. And structure, discipline and wisdom aren't necessarily what Plantagenet history likes to serve up. Somehow the older Henry gets, the more trouble he manages to cause. An omnishambles is beckoning. But that's for next time on this Is History. Hey, stop that. I can see you with my medieval eight ball. And believe me, after seeing that, Henry VI isn't the only person I should be worrying about. But listen, I'll give you one more chance if you help me out with this episode's discussion starter. I want to hear about your worst ever horoscope reading. To chime in, join my fellow medieval freaks on patreon.com thisishistory and get all that other fun stuff too. Ad free listening, book competitions and every main episode a week early. See you there. Well, the holidays have come and gone once again. But if you've forgotten to get that special someone in your life a gift, well, Mint Mobile is extending their holiday offer of half off unlimited wireless. So here's the idea. You get it now. You call it an early present for next year. What do you have to lose? Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch limited time, 50% off regular price for new customers. Upfront payment required. $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for 12 month plan taxes and fees. Extra speeds may slow after 50 gigabytes per month when network is busy. See Terms.