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- [00:01]
Renee Zellweger
Hi, I'm Renee Zellweger. If you've ever laughed, cried, or cheered for Bridget Jones, there's a new podcast just for you to celebrate the release of the new film Bridget Jones Mad about the Boy. There's stories from her love interests, Bridget's friends, and even a few surprises. So join me and let's dive back into Bridget's world. Catch Bridget Jones, Mad about the Boy, the podcast, wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:28]
Dan Jones
Hello everyone. Just a warning. This episode will contain descriptions of sexual violence and very graphic content. The carcass sizzles and smokes as it drips onto the hot coals of the fire, releasing the distinctive smell of roasting meat into the country air. The peasant working the handle gives it half a turn and grunts in satisfaction. He takes a moment to spray some water onto the coals. The French put great store by their cooking. No one wants dinner burning. From near the fire there comes a little whimper. The peasant looks round and puts his finger to his lips. He shakes his head in grim warning and the whimpering stops. The peasant checks the meat on the spit once again and gives the handle one more crank. He starts to sharpen his carving knife, preparing to slice off the first strip. As he does, the whimpering starts up again, turning into great sobs. But now the peasant doesn't bother to hush the noise. He just starts hacking off lumps of meat, tossing them to his mates who've been watching. The meat burns their fingers, but they don't care. Each one takes a chunk and advances on one of the captives, who are sitting bound and terrified, watching the worst thing they've ever seen in their lives. The captives are a well to do lady and her children, and the main course, which they're about to be force fed by their captors, is dad. It's summer, 1358. France is in the grip of anarchy. All over the country, peasants have risen up, attacking the lords and knights they blame for having ruined the kingdom. The rebellion is known as the Jacquerie, after the nickname given to the rebels, which is Jacques Bonhomme, or in English, John Goodfellow. These so called Jacques have attacked aristocratic houses and castles. They've killed their hated overlords. They've banded together to carry out violent riots in provincial towns. And now, in one of the most notorious deeds of all, this gang of peasants have killed a knight and are roasting him on a spit. The chronicler, Jean Le Bel, admittedly no fan of the rebel peasants, records what I dare not write the horrible deeds that they did to ladies and damsels, among others. They slew a knight and then put him on a spit and roasted him at the fire in sight of the lady, his wife and children. And after that the lady was forced and raped by 10 or 12 of them, and then they made her eat of her husband and after made her die an evil death with all her children. Even by the wretched standards of the 14th century, a time of climate, disaster, famine, ceaseless warfare and the Black Death, this is diabolical. And the fact that the kingdom has sunk into such depravity is a black mark against the name of the French king. That king is John ii, ruler of the House of Valois, who has been in power for nearly a decade. Why the hell hasn't John got a grip on his kingdom? The answer is simple. John isn't in his kingdom right now. He's in England, the prisoner of the Plantagenet King Edward iii. While his country burns and his knights are hog roasted and fed to their own families, John's playing the harmonica and hoping that someone will pay the ransom to let him out. But that's easier said than done. So at the start of 1358, Edward III is laughing, his rival king is banged up and France is leaderless. Could this Plantagenet be about to pull off the greatest coup in the whole of of English history? I'm Dan Jones and from Sony Music Entertainment. This is history Season 6 of A Dynasty to Die For Episode 11 Eat the Rich say you want to get.
- [05:37]
Ryan Reynolds
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- [06:33]
Dan Jones
Shopify.co.uk ThisIshistory Ryan Reynolds here from Mint.
- [06:38]
Mint Mobile Advertiser
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- [06:59]
Renee Zellweger
Of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent.
- [07:00]
Dan Jones
To $15 per month required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price.
- [07:03]
Renee Zellweger
Plan options available, taxes and fees extra.
- [07:05]
Dan Jones
See full terms@mintmobile.com anyone with a passing knowledge of the history of France will probably agree with me when I say that when the French decide to have a revolution, they go at it pretty hard. This is the country that invented the guillotine of Robespierre and the Terror of 1793. Seen in that context, you might say that The Jacquerie of 1358 can be filed under France Gonna France. But this moment is so much more than a summer of violent, cannibalistic, revolutionary fervor. For Edward iii, the Plantagenet, who has had his sights set on the French throne For more than 20 years, this is his moment. France is in the grips of a violent Jacquerie and their king is in English hands. 13:58 is looking like the perfect time to strike. But hold on. How did Edward come to have John II in the Tower of London? Well, to explain that, we have to return to where we left our story last episode at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. Last time we saw John, he was marching up a bloody hillside towards Edward's eldest son, the Black Prince, trying to snatch victory from the jaws of battlefield defeat. Well, sadly for John, all he snatched from the jaws of defeat on that day outside Poitiers was defeat. He was outsmarted and quite literally outflanked when the Black Prince's knights rode round the battlefield in two detachments, thundering down on him and taking him prisoner. John had tried to avoid this possibility by having more than a dozen lookalikes on the battlefield, all dressed identically to him, but he still managed to get himself caught, along with thousands of other knights and 14 noblemen. About a quarter of his army was captured at Poitiers and thousands more of his men were killed. Poitiers is an even bigger disaster for France than Crecy was 10 years earlier. Not only is John locked up, but the ruling class in France has been ravaged. What's more, the Black Prince and his men bring home to England something like £300,000 worth of captives and Valuables, plus whatever the ransom is going to be to bust John out of jail. In one afternoon, the English have scooped a financial windfall beyond their wildest dreams, equivalent to years and years of war, finance. And John II has to just suck it up. In May 1357, the Black Prince brings him from Bordeaux to London, where there's wild celebration. England's two main enemies in the Hundred Years War are Scotland and France. And now both of their kings are prisoners. In the English capital, there are massive pageants and spontaneous parties. The street's packed with so many people that it takes three hours for the Black Prince to take King John about half a mile through the city streets. Gold and silver leaf is tossed in the air like confetti. Once these celebrations have died down, it's made clear to John that he can continue to enjoy the luxurious lifestyle he has at home. He's permitted to have horses and dogs, servants and consultants of all sorts, including an astrologer, presumably so he can keep asking if the stars reveal it's time for him to go home yet. But the cost of all this is steep. John has to engage in some hardcore political negotiation from as weak a position as is imaginable. And every move he makes in London, he is more or less catastrophic for his kingdom. Talks in 1357 and 1358 set the price of his king's ransom at 4 million, later reduced to 3 million gold French crowns, or around 440,000 English pounds. You might call it a billion euros today, but that wouldn't really do justice to the staggering size of the demand. The result in France is extreme political turmoil. Rioting on the streets of Paris and by the summer of 1358, the Jacquerie, which rips through the French countryside. And this isn't the end of the violence either. When the French government, nominally headed by John II's 20 year old eldest son, the Dauphin Charles, gets its act together. They crack down on the rebels with extreme prejudice. The counter jacquerie is at least as vicious as the popular rebellion itself. And all over France, villages are burned by vengeful aristocrats and knights who leave peasants hacked to pieces or swinging from nooses in trees. On top of this, France is also tormented by the presence, scattered across the realm, of so called free companies, bands of soldiers not attached to any army, fighting among themselves, terrorizing ordinary people and generally creating mayhem. In the power vacuum caused by John's absence in London, Edward III follows the mayhem unfolding across the channel with a mixture of satisfaction and excitement about the opportunities his close noble allies are busy building magnificent houses with their huge profits of war. Henry, Duke of Lancaster, builds the Savoy palace in London. The Earl of Warwick, who formally arrested King John at Poitiers, carries out some incredible upgrades to Warwick Castle in the Midlands. Edward, however, has higher ambitions than merely slinging up fancy new houses. In 1359, seeing that France is broke and broken, he starts making plans for what should be his last major invasion of France. The plan is to sail an army to Calais, then march through northern France and seize Raim in champagne. He's not going there just to crack open a few bottles of bubbly. Edward knows that Raoul is the traditional crowning place for all kings of France. If he can capture it, then he'll be able to see through the mission he outlined at the beginning of the war. He can put John II's crown on his own head. It's time for Edward to put his money where his mouth is and end this war once and for all.
- [14:26]
Renee Zellweger
Welcome to the White Lotus in Thailand.
- [14:29]
Dan Jones
It's a wellness center.
- [14:30]
Renee Zellweger
You should get a facial. The lady in the airport thought you were my dad. My God. The Emmy award winning HBO original series returns.
- [14:38]
Dan Jones
There has been more crime on the island.
- [14:40]
Renee Zellweger
I'm a little freaked out. What happens in Thailand stays in Thailand. Oh, what does that mean?
- [14:46]
Dan Jones
It means we're not dead yet. Amen. Amen.
- [14:49]
Renee Zellweger
A new season of the HBO original series the White Lotus premieres February 16th at 9pm on MAX.
- [15:05]
Dan Jones
Heavy chains are hauled through the streets of Ram, dragged by teams of citizens who sweat and grunt with the effort. The chains are heavy and hard to shift, which is the point. They've been wrenched from the drawbridges of the city gates. As these have been dismantled and blocked up, the chains are being placed strategically at street corners to make it hard to get around the city in case of assault and street fighting. And this is only one of the emergency measures taking place all over the city. Urgent building and demolition work is underway. There's hammering and banging and fishing. Frantic yelling between workers. The walls are being reinforced. Bell towers are being requisitioned by the military to be used as public alarm posts. Animals are being driven out of stables and corralled inside the town in holding pens. Ditches are dug outside the walls and buildings that lie close to the perimeter of the city have had their walls tor. All of this work is taking place because the citizens of Ro know that Edward III is coming. He has more than 10,000 troops at his back, more than half of whom are mounted archers. A nightmare hybrid troop Combining the deadliest aspects of longbowmen and knight, Edward has pretty much any every one of his most experienced generals and captains with him. The Black Prince, the Duke of Lancaster, the Earls of Northampton and Warwick. Some are garter knights, some go all the way back to the Nottingham castle raid days. Others, like his eldest son, are the elite warriors of the younger generation. Edward is in the incredible position of having paid for this huge army without having had to raise a penny in taxation. He's used the massive profits of his war booty. So in a sense this is a French funded invasion of France. And Edward has publicly stated that he's not going home without the crown on his head. Reims is the place he needs to go if he's serious about that ambition. And since landing in Calais in late October 1359, he's been grinding his way towards the city. It's slow going. Winter is setting in and Edward's huge army can't travel faster than 10 miles a day. He's slowed up further by a French defensive strategy of stripping the countryside of everything edible and hiding all the people inside walled cities. Still in Rome, they know Edward is coming and the citizens have to be ready for him. It's early December when the big bad wolf finally appears and Edward immediately sends his vast army out to camp all around the countryside. He instructs messengers to demand that the citizens surrender. He repeats his warning that he's here for the long haul and that the people of Ram should not be dumb enough to defy him. These are the usual formalities. Edward doesn't expect the citizens to just give up. The whole future of their kingdom is at stake and indeed the people Edward that they'll hold out for as long as they have breath in their bodies. In response, Edward blocks off all the roads leading in and out of the city, just as he did in Calais more than a decade ago. He's going to try and starve them out. It's a bold plan, but at Calais in 1346-7, Edward built a huge wooden city and sat there for 11 months, supplied by his allies in Flanders and subjects in England, able to order surges of new troops whenever he needed them from just 20 miles away on the English south coast. It takes him barely one month outside Reim to realize that the same is not going to be possible here. In early January, with the inhabitants of the town sitting pretty and his own men starting to go hungry and freezing, Edward has to go back on his promise to stay at Raim until the job is done. Less than Two weeks after New Year Edward, he tears up his entire strategy and breaks the siege camp. He's decided there are richer pickings for now to be found south in the Duchy of Burgundy. It's hard to see how this gets Edward any closer to being crowned King of France. But he's pragmatic enough to accept that he's not going to take Reim at all if his army have frozen to death. Another dose of hell raising may be what's required, but to persuade the French that they have no option but to invite him to take over, or he might be able to goad the Dauphin Charles into making the same mistake as his father and grandfather and taking on the English in battle. It seems like once again, Edward's instincts are right. In Burgundy, the Duke pays Edward a fortune as a bribe to leave him alone. Then Edward turns around and starts advancing on Paris. The chances of Edward taking Paris are much worse than taking Ram. But now he's playing a different game. The mission is to put the fear of God into the Dauphin's government. To that end, Edward's prepared to commit even the most despicable war crimes. At one point around Easter 1360, he allows his men to set foot to a priory in which more than a thousand people are hiding from the war. 900 of them burn to death. Another 300 are slaughtered as they try to escape the burning building. In mid April, Edward has his whole army camped outside Paris, literally staring down the French government willing them to break. The pressure on both sides is immense. Edward's army is once again on the verge of running out of food. The French are at breaking point. Who will blink? The answer comes on Monday 13 April. That day, Edward is moving his troops in search of an area where they can forage for food, when above them, the sunny spring skies suddenly turn d. The air changes temperature and begins to crackle with electricity. The English troops look at each other, terrified and confused. As they do, the wind begins to howl. Then the first raindrops start to fall harder and harder. Then they're no longer raindrops at all. They're huge hailstones cast down as if they're missiles from heaven. Men are panicking. Animals are screaming. Edward and his commanders have no idea what to do. No one has ever known weather like it. Before long, the storm is so intense that men are falling down, unable to stand the assault. It's like God has decided that enough is enough. Has the Almighty finally intervened to deal Edward the crushing blow that no French king has ever managed? Find out next time on the season finale of this Is History.
- [23:29]
Ryan Reynolds
If you can't wait for the next episode, it's already out over on this Is History. Plus, alongside an additional subscriber only episode.
- [23:38]
Dan Jones
Where I chat to producer Georgia about everything you just heard and much more.
- [23:45]
Georgia
Let's talk about the battle of Poitiers from last week's episode. But you dropped a new nugget of information this week.
- [23:53]
Dan Jones
I just wander around with nuggets of information dropping from my pockets. A bit like Hansel and Gretel in the forest.
- [23:58]
Georgia
Follow breadcrumbs and you'll get to this podcast, the Lookalikes. Yeah, John goes on with a dozen lookalikes. That's brilliant. That's funny.
- [24:09]
Dan Jones
If you were going to battle Georgia, wouldn't you do the same thing?
- [24:12]
Georgia
I guess so.
- [24:13]
Dan Jones
If you knew that you in particular were wanted on this battlefield, would you not take like a few?
- [24:19]
Georgia
Wouldn't that. In the age of chivalry, isn't that a bit embarrassing?
- [24:23]
Dan Jones
Like, oh, oh, you think it's cowardly?
- [24:25]
Georgia
Yeah, a little bit.
- [24:27]
Dan Jones
Yeah, maybe it is a little bit cowardly, but it's not that uncommon. And the example, as I think about it, that springs to mind is Henry IV. In fact, at the Battle of Shrewsbury in 14 Caudino three takes a few effectively body doubles. It's basic self preservation. I mean, if you are a targeted individual on the battlefield and you're the king, and your capture, as John II finds out the hard way, will devastate your kingdom and lead to a mass outbreak of popular rebellion and such. Probably a good idea to have a few people dressed up as you just to confuse the enemy. But you don't like this.
- [25:03]
Georgia
Well, yeah, I'm thinking.
- [25:05]
Dan Jones
Cause you think you're like Tom Cruise. Am I?
- [25:08]
Georgia
Because I'm short?
- [25:10]
Dan Jones
Not only are you. I wouldn't. If I was describing you to people that hadn't met you, that wouldn't be the first adjective.
- [25:18]
Georgia
I won't ask all that.
- [25:19]
Dan Jones
We'll get into that. But I don't think of you as necessarily short by definition. And that's not why I think you like Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise, of course, famously wants to do all his own stunts. He doesn't want a stunt double. And if Tom Cruise says, well, I'm gonna ride the old motorbike out the plane base, jump down a cliff into the Hoover Dam, swim underwater for three minutes. No, let's make it eight minutes. And then, you know, electrocute myself. And they say, we probably want a stunt double for some of that. Tom, he's gonna go? Absolutely not. And if the people on the set insist that he needs a stunt double, he'll sack those people and get another assessor in until he's allowed to do the stunt. I think that's your approach. You're more like that.
- [25:56]
Georgia
Well, so is Edward iii, because a few episodes ago we hear about him going undercover in a little fight, which sounds pretty dangerous because he doesn't have the kingly protection of, oh, we won't kill you, we'll ransom you.
- [26:09]
Dan Jones
Now, that's very interesting, isn't it? And that tells us a little bit about how history has some double standards going on here, because you're referring to the Battle of Calais on the 1st of January, 1350, when Calais is defended successfully by the English. And yes, Edward III rides under the banner of his mate, Sir Walter Manny, or Morning of that battle. But he gets mad props for doing so. Like, oh, Edward iii, this guy is the. Is the don of chivalry because he's. He's on the front line, he's fighting, he's, you know, underwater man. He's. There is no sort of one king. We're all kind of banded together. John II does something very similar and gets absolute pelters. I'll tell you why.
- [26:58]
Georgia
Because he's French?
- [26:59]
Dan Jones
No, because Edward III won and John II lost. And history is famously, if not written by the winners, typically written in favour of them.
- [27:08]
Ryan Reynolds
You can start a free trial by going to thisishistorypod. Com or if you're on Apple Podcasts, click Try Free at the top of the page.