← THIS IS HISTORY — A DYNASTY TO DIE FOR
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Hello, this is History listeners. It's Dan here with some very exciting news right now. For a limited time, you can get an entire year of this is history plus for just 29.99. That's less than 2.50amonth for the ultimate this Is History experience. We've never done this before, so make sure to jump on it while you can. And as a this Is History plus subscriber, you'll get extra episodes every week, early access to new episodes of this Is History and the cherry on the top. It's all ad free. This very special offer will only be available for a limited time. So what are you waiting for Join today by either visiting the this Is History show page on Apple Podcasts and hitting Start free at the top of the page, or if you listen To Spotify, visit ThisIsHistoryPod.com to get access. I can't wait for you to join us. Thanks for listening. The musicians on the deck of the huge ship tune their instruments, getting ready to entertain the large crowd on board. The sounds of lyres, flutes, drums and bagpipes catch on the warm summer breeze. The ship known as the Cog Thomas rolls gently at anchor off the south coast of England, its furled sails slapping gently against the mast. Red and white crosses of St. George Flutter. It's August 29, 1350 and the sailors and soldiers on board are at ease, killing time and trying to keep out of the sun. They pass round wine skins and wait for the music to start. They've been here for hours, just waiting, drinking and wondering if anything will ever happen. The promise of a bit of entertainment is very welcome. The knight in charge of the musicians, Sir John Chandos, signals for them to begin the first tune. Chandos is a well respected knight, very tight with both the Plantagenet King of England, Edward iii, and his son, the Black Prince. In fact, Chandos is so close to them that a year or so ago he was sworn in as one of the founder members of Edward's elite knightly club, the Company of the Garter. He's a clubable guy and he's about to show exactly why the royals value his company so much. Sandos has recently been on a trip to Germany and while he was there he kept a keen ear out for the latest musical trends. He's a bit like a techno DJ coming back from Berlin with all the latest underground remixes. Right now he's going to drop the latest bangers and there's a great sense of expectation on the ship, not least since the wine has been flowing for hours. When the band strikes up and Chandos sings with them, the whole ship goes nuts. And why not? It's August, they're on the most luxurious ship in the whole kingdom and these are the hottest tunes of the summer. The King is leading the way on the dance floor and he's cutting quite the fine figure despite the summer heat. He's wearing a black velvet jacket and a natty cap trimmed with beaver skin. As well as the Black Prince, he has his young son John of Gaunt, just 10 years old, on board for the experience. In fact, the only people aboard the ship who aren't getting down are the lookouts in the large wooden platforms at the prow and stern of the ship, known as castles. Sad as it is for them to be missing out on the fun, they really have to keep their eyes peeled, because although nothing has happened all day, it could at any minute. The cog Thomas and nearly 50 other ships like it are stationed off the English coast because they're lying in wait. Their target is a fleet of Castilian ships of roughly the same size, commanded by a notorious privateer called Carlos de la Cerda. Over the course of the summer, Castilian ships have been preying on English merchant shipping in the Channel. They've attacked English convoys carrying precious goods to Flanders and Gascony, and their methods have been extremely bloody. Crews have not just been robbed, they've been murdered and their bodies hurled into the sea. Edward has had enough. It's salt in the wound that the Castilians were meant to be his allies, united by a marriage with his daughter Joan. But when Joan died in the Black Death, so did the alliance. So Edward has decided to do something decisive to punish the Castilians and show who the real boss of the Channel is. Over the course of the summer, he's been amassing as many ships and troops as possible with the aim of catching and smashing the Castilians. Now his chance has come. He has it on good authority that the Castilians are going to make a dash from Flanders, where they're holed up in port, down to their home country. That will give Edward one chance to cut them off and take his revenge. The mission relies on a lot of waiting about and then a swift, brutal assault. As the music swells on the cog Thomas, one of the lookouts sees masts on the horizon. First one, then two, three, four. And then more than he can possibly count. His heart thudding, he scrambles down from his post and starts screaming over the music that the enemy has been sighted. And suddenly, the party isn't a party anymore. Anchors are weighed, sails are unfurled. Edward legs it to the bow and squints into the hazy distance. The Castilian fleet is about the same size as the English, but their ships are massively bigger and more dangerous. They also have the wind behind them, and unlike the English, they haven't been partying to German techno all afternoon. But Edward III isn't worried about any of that. He's a guy who likes to tackle danger head on. Literally. So as the vast Castilian fleet comes into view, Edward gives an order that has even his most loyal comrades wondering if he's gung ho or just plain drunk. He tells his captains to plot a course straight towards the biggest ships on the Castilian side and sail right into them. It's called a ram Raid. It's the most audacious military order Edward has ever given. If it works, it'll be a stroke of genius. If it doesn't, Edward and his son and heir, the Black Prince, are going to be fish food. I'm Dan Jones and from Sony Music Entertainment. This is history Season 6 of A Dynasty to Die For Episode 9 the Drunken Sailor in the Middle Ages, guarding your correspondence was fairly simple. If your seal had been broken, someone had snooped. Today it's a lot more complicated to protect our data and our communication. That's where ProtonMail comes in. ProtonMail is the world's largest secure email service. It can give you unparalleled email privacy through end to end encryption. That means only you and your recipient can access your message. It's a private and secure alternative to traditional email services. It provides safeguarding from hacking, surveillance, targeted ads, and it protects you against phishing attempts. I've been trying it out and it's a super simple interface. You can add multiple email addresses and it's got more data than I will ever use. Your data is yours. Keep it that way. With ProtonMail's Privacy first email service, go to Proton Me ThisIsHistory or simply click the link in the description to get started and receive a 38% discount. Did you know that bananas are bad for monkeys? Did you know about all the pubs in the Houses of Parliament? Do you know how to make a curry in space? Mind blowing, but don't take our word for it. We've got a podcast that interviews zookeepers, politicians, astronauts and everyone in between. And if you want hilarious stories and to learn about the weird and wonderful people of the world, then you should go and listen to our show. Things People do with me, Joe Marler and me, Tom Fordyce. Search for Things People do wherever you get your podcasts. For as long as there have been historians, which is going back at least to the time of the ancient Greeks, we've been trying to figure out what the great forces that influence history are. Some historians like to ascribe the big movements of our past to individual greatness or evil. Others like to concentrate on abstract forces, be they environmental, economic or religious. For what it's worth, I think there are a few very basic moving factors in human history that are routinely overlooked. My top three are probably stupidity, horniness and drunkenness. In August 1350 I believe one of the most famous and notorious clashes of the Hundred Years War is forged by the third of those three drunkenness. Because honestly, Edward's order to his ship's captains to run what ought to be a very carefully plotted naval attack like a demolition derby, makes very little sense unless we consider the mindset of a man who's been on the lash all afternoon. But before we get to the nitty gritty of Edward's ram raid, I want to back up a little and explain what gets him to this point. In late August 1350, we're now two years since the Black Death devastated England and really cooled things off. In the Hundred Years War, Edward lost his daughter and basically withdrew to a royal lockdown, coming up with ideas for cool clubs and trying to keep his workforce from falling apart. The French king, Philip vi, had his own tragedy to deal with. His wife, Joan of Burgundy, succumbed to the disease along with thousands of his people. He's been ordering price fixes too, to try and keep the economy going. And he's arranged a new marriage, controversially to his son's fiance. But by the start of this year, things are starting to calm down enough for both kings to start thinking about non pandemic issues again. And for Philip, well, he's got one thing on his mind. Calais. Remember, Edward snatched Calais after a momentous 11 month siege three years ago. And, and as it happens, three episodes ago, after the siege, Edward turns Calais into an English military base. And Philip absolutely hates it. So as soon as the pandemic starts to wane, Philip makes a rare decision. He's going to try and take Calais back. Besieging the town is out of the question. Philip doesn't have the men or the patience, so he tries a different approach. One of his trusted generals, a guy called Jeffrey Dashani, makes contact with an Italian mercenary soldier working inside Calais garrison. He offers this guy a fat bribe to open the gates on New Year's Day when everyone might be a bit sleepy and hungover. Not a bad plan. But the Italian mercenary double crosses the French and rats out the plan to Edward. So in late December, just before this planned attack, Edward, the Black Prince and nearly a thousand other troops sail to Calais and reinforce the city on New Year's Day, when de Charni brings his own force close to Calais and sends a few dozen men at arms to infiltrate the gate that the Italian is supposed to be opening. The English surround them and then counterattack. Edward joins the fighting himself, going incognito under the banner of one of his mates, Walter Manny. Now, strictly speaking, Edward doesn't need to do that, but he's been starved of action for a while and despite being the King, he doesn't mind putting himself in harm's way. There's a bloody battle on the marshes outside Calais which the English win in style. Calais is saved and Edward comes home a hero. He's taken bold, decisive action, tackled the enemy in person and saved the day. And doesn't he just know it? Now, I'm telling you this for two reasons. The first is that the Battle of Calais in January 1350 makes it clear that the peace brought in by the Black Death is well and truly over. The second reason is that it's a reminder that Edward may be creeping up on his 40th birthday, but he still has the same appetite for tackling danger head on that he did at the time of the Nottingham castle raid back in the day. Which, along with his taste for fine wines, is going to be a big part of what goes down in August 1350 in the English Channel. So let's get back to that. Now, as I said earlier, the ships that Edward is lying in wait for aboard his Ibiz style party boat are crewed by Castilians led by Carlos de la Cerda. There are several dozen of them, and they've been causing havoc in the Channel ever since the start of the year on August 29th. They're not actually out for raiding. They're trying to make a dash from Flanders down to Castile, laden with cargoes they've robbed at sea or traded for in the merchant towns of northern France. That might make them sound vulnerable, but whether they're weighed down with fine goods or not, they're still mightily intimidating. Castilian ships are known for their massive size. One chronicler writes that comparing them to English vessels is like comparing castles with cottages. Castilian ships sit much higher in the water, which in the 1350s is a big advantage in a sea battle. Tactics are still pretty rudimentary. Crews shoot arrows and crossbows, chuck rocks and bits of metal at each other and try to board each other's ships to fight hand to hand. So being higher up means your crew can chuck stuff down onto enemy decks. Gravity alone makes the difference. The Castilians have also pimped their rides, hanging little rowing boats from the crossbeams of their masts so they can have men sit up there in makeshift snipers nests. They fitted out their ships with catapults and they've hired Flemish mercenaries to back them up. In other words, on paper, they are formidable opponents yet either Edward doesn't rate them or he's too jazzed on the party vibes and the wine to care. As far as we can tell from the Chronicles, he doesn't even change out of his natty beaver skin hat and smoking jacket for the fight. He's happy to let his 10 year old son John, a gaunt, hang around, even though the kid is underage and too young to even have armour on. And of course, Edward gives this crazy order to treat a naval battle like it's a joust in the tournament lists. In fact, that's exactly the order he gives to the ship's steer for that ship for I want to joust with her, the chronicler Jean Froissart explains what happens next. He says the captain is too scared to disobey the king, so he takes aim at one of the first massive ships in the Castilian line. The king's ship was strong and maneuverable. She and the great Spanish vessel struck with such force that it sounded like thunder. The knights on board are thrown from their feet. There's a huge huge splintering of wood and a wrenching as the front of one of the ships collapses. Holes appear in the bowels of the other and water starts to rush in. No English king in history has ever taken such a crazy risk in battle before, and in the chaos, it's not hard to see why. The first blow of the battle has been struck and already there are men fighting, flailing in the sea and screaming. But which ship is it that's damaged the worst? It's hard to tell. It's obvious that Edward's love of putting himself in harm's way, exacerbated by his love for wetting his whistle, has influenced his battle tactics. But now he's committed. This sea battle has become a real coin toss. Will this be Edward's moment of supreme triumph? Or has this Plantagenet just gone full kamikaze?
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NPR's Throughline podcast sort of feels like stepping into a time machine. Each episode, our Peabody Award winning show travels beyond the headlines to answer the question how did we get here? Listen to one of Apple's favorite podcasts of 2024 by searching for Throughline on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app.
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Queen Philippa squints as she tries to make sense of what she sees on the horizon.
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Foreign.
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She'S up on cliffs near Winchelsea, the town closest to her husband's fleet, with her ladies and other courtiers to watch the battle. Only she's not quite sure what to make of it? It looks like Edward's ship has just turned and charged directly at the enormous Castilian fleet. Other ships turn and follow, and soon the sight and the sound is fearsome. The wind brings the sound of the ships slamming into one another, and the first terrified screams of men hurled from their decks, and then the war cries of others as the two fleets engage and fighting starts at close quarters. Then Philippa sees Edward's cog, Thomas, smash into its target, the Spanish ship, splintering both bows and sending up an almighty crash. What on earth, wonders Philippa, is my husband thinking at that exact moment in time? The answer is probably somewhere along the lines of, oh, shit. Edward's ship has been ripped in several places, and he and his men are desperately bailing out water to prevent his cog from sinking. Nevertheless, other English ships are following the same tactic. Drunken English sailors yell for kingdom and glory and steam their ships into the sides of much bigger Spanish craft, hoping to knock them straight out of the fight. But it's not that simple. The chronicler Geoffrey Le Baker picks up the story, describing how sailors on the taller Castilian ships start pelting rock and metal bars down onto the English decks. They made many a frightening attack on our men, repeatedly inflicting deep wounds on many of them by rocks which flew down from the mast turrets as well as by quivering bolts and arrows. Our men had never experienced anything much more dreadful than this frightening conflict. And after the initial impact, things look pretty bad for the English. The Black Prince has taken command of his own ship since the German techno party broke up. His ship is called the Bilbao, and when it crashes into a Castilian ship, the enemy crew throw down grappling irons and start to tow the Bilbao out of the action. The same thing happens to another ship belonging to Edward's ally, the Count of Namur. So this is looking like a bit of a disaster. The ramming does as much damage to the English as to the Castilians. The bombardment with rocks, along with crossbow attacks, stops the English from boarding the enemy vessels. And one last reminder. Everyone on Edward's side is pissed as a parrot. Edward seems to have bitten off way more than he can chew, except he has a secret weapon. It's the same weapon that got him out of trouble so many times before. It's called the longbow. Every English ship has a load of archers on board, and thankfully, they can hold their liquor slightly better than their king. Here's Geoffrey the baker again. Our archers finally manage to pick off their crossbowmen as our our arrows had a longer range than the shorter distance of the bolts of the enemy, the English start picking off the snipers so that their knights can throw out grappling hooks and boarding planks of their own and start boarding the Castilian ships they've collided with. On the Black Prince's ship. The heroics of the archers avert a catastrophe. They clear the way for the prince and his men to fight their way off the bilt Bilbao and seize control of their own target ship. And they do it just in time, because they're barely off the Bilbao before it's swallowed by the waves. There's equally high drama on the Count of Namur's ship, which was being towed from the scene of the battle. On that one, a plucky servant called Hanakin clambers aboard the Castilian vessel doing the towing and cuts the ropes that hold the main sail up so the Castilians lose power and have to stand and fight up on the cliffs. The queen and her attendants watch all this going down with a mixture of excitement and horror, but they don't know the half of it. Fighting from deck to deck goes on for hours, and it's utterly gruesome. Our men cut down with swords and axes the men who stood in their way and in a short time were emptying ships which had been full of Spaniards, writes Lubeaker. Then you could have seen ships painted with blood and brains, arrows stuck in masts, sails, rudders and castles, archers collecting arrows from the wounds of the dead and praying but in vain, for the fight to be resumed the next day. There's no mercy. Once night has fallen, the dead and the wounded are thrown over the bows into the gray seawater, and when the sun finally comes up, the battle is over. The English have seized 17 Castilian ships and their cargoes. The rest have fled yet again. Edward has gambled on a battle, thrown himself into the thick of things, and won. This engagement will be known as the battle of Winchelsea, or more bleakly, the Battle of L'Espanol sur le Mer, the battle of the Spaniards in the sea. It's come at considerable cost. Besides the pounding hangovers, some of Edward's best ships are seriously damaged. The Thomas, the Bilbao, and a massive state of the art cog called the Jerusalem are all so banjaxed that they're in dock for the next six months, and there have been heavy casualties. Let's go one more time to Lubeaker. Edward's troops brought home with them wounded heads bound in bandages to hold them together. Arms and legs pierced by bolts and weapons. Torn out teeth and cut off noses. Split lips and gouged out eyes. Yet spirits are high. Those who were injured rejoiced in the insignia of a glorious triumph and in their escape. Like Schloss 10 years earlier, Winchelsea doesn't make Edward total Master of the Channel. The Castilians aren't going to join forces with him instead of the French. That boat, if you'll pardon the phrase, has sailed. Yet this is all another feather in Edward's nifty black beaver skin cap. He's shown yet again that God is on his side and that it'll take a bold man to tangle with him on land or on the waves. He just keeps on winning. But what really shifts the dial in the Hundred Years War is something else that happens in the same week of the Battle of Winchelsea. Something so game changing that it brings in a whole new phase of the conflict. It's a turn of events that shows Edward isn't just bold and brilliant, he has the luck of the devil behind him too. What happens is. Well, to find out, you're gonna have to come back. Next time on this is History. Ra.