← THIS IS HISTORY — A DYNASTY TO DIE FOR
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- [00:01]
Dan Jones
It's almost time to call curtains on Richard ii, but I'm sure you have plenty of questions about his delusional and despotic reign. If you're one of our royal favourite subscribers on Patreon, you can keep the conversation going. This is the first season where I've been able to see and hear from the favourites, and I've thoroughly enjoyed getting to know our growing community of bonafide medieval nerds. They've been busy showing me their medieval themed travels and they've been asking some fantastic questions that have kept me sharp as I've crafted this season, I can't wait to see what they have in store next season. If you want to join, head to patreon.com thisishistory now the season finale. A lean, sleek greyhound lopes along a country lane, sniffing at the ground as it goes. It stops to lap at a puddle of rainwater in the rutted track. Then it sits a while, idly scratching with a hind leg, listening to the sounds of an English summer. Once it has rested, the greyhound gets back up again and carries on its way, trotting at a gentle pace, in no special hurry, yet certain of where it's going. If it reaches a crossroads, it sniffs the air, barks a few times, then makes up its mind and carries on. Now and again, the greyhound passes through a village and scavenges for bones, cheese rinds or anything else that smells half decent. Sure, it's used to dining on better fare, but so long as it makes it to where it's heading, there'll be tasty treats on offer soon enough. For the last two years, this greyhound has been the special pet of Richard ii, the Plantagenet King of England. During those years, it's followed him everywhere, having its tummy tickled while Richard lashes out at the humans around him. But now the greyhound has run away. Because in the summer of 1399, all Richard's lashing out is coming back to haunt him. The kingdom has been invaded, and as of two days ago, Richard was in very dire straits indeed. The days of Pedigree Chum with King Nutso feel strictly numbered. So the greyhound has set out to find a new owner who can keep it in the style to which it has become accustomed. Some deep, doggish instinct is drawing it to Shrewsbury in the borderlands between England and Wales, because that is where Richard's cousin, Henry Bolingbroke is currently staying. A dog is supposed to be faithful, but with Richard, it's hard to know what the point is of sticking around. And in that calculation, this wandering pooch has exactly the same instincts as everyone else in England. As the sun starts to set on a long day's walking, the greyhound stops again for a moment and lets out a howl. It's partly a cry of mourning for its stricken former master, and partly a tribute to Henry Bolingbroke Plantagenet England's Coming Man I'm Dan Jones and from Sony Music Entertainment, this is history. Season 7 of A Dynasty to Die For Episode 12AMan Shall Rule.
- [04:15]
Alison Raskin
How many people in your life are married right now? Marriage is this massive institution that until recently, felt like a social necessity rather than an active choice. I'm Alison Raskin, a New York Times bestselling author and relationship coach who has been sharing her entire life on the Internet since Buzzfeed circa 2014.
- [04:32]
John Blair
And I'm John Blair, a former undercover CIA officer turned writer who never thought he would wind up with a social media influencer. But somehow we tied the knot in 2023 and Alison has wrote me into her latest project, an investigation of Modern marriage.
- [04:45]
Alison Raskin
Our new podcast will examine marriage from every angle, both on the macro societal level to the more personal.
- [04:51]
John Blair
So come join us on our brand new podcast, Starter Marriage Everywhere.
- [04:54]
Alison Raskin
You listen to podcasts aptly named because this is both of our first attempts at matrimony, and hopefully our last. But if not, divorce exists for a reason.
- [05:02]
John Blair
Please don't make that our catchphrase.
- [05:06]
Dan Jones
When my kids were in nursery, that's Kindergarten American Friends, one of the teachers there used to have a good way of explaining to the kids why they shouldn't be little brats. If you do X disagreeable thing, she would say, you'll have no friends and nobody will play with you. The thought of that seemed to work wonders on my children's tiny minds, and by and large, they learned early on to rein in their most obnoxious and antisocial traits. I'm not saying this to make any special claims for my daughters, I'm just observing that there's a basic human calculus that most of us learn as children. If you act like a complete jerk, the chances are that by and by all your would be friends will tire of you and you'll end up on your own, with everyone who wearied of your misbehavior looking the other way. For Richard ii, however, the king who was told as a kid that he was second only to God, the saviour of the English realm, and the golden boy who could literally do no wrong. It takes until the age of 32 for him to see this lesson staring him in the face. And even then, I'm not totally sure he takes it on board. Last time we left Richard in Dublin, Ireland, having received news that his cousin Henry Bolingbroke, had broken his exile in Paris and come storming back to England with a small band of troops at his back, determined to take back what Richard had wrongfully taken from him, his dad, John of Gaunt's Duchy of Lancaster. Needless to say, Richard does not love this one bit. His first action is to send Bolingbroke's eldest son, 12 year old Henry of Monmouth, off to the great Norman castle at Trim. He's taken the young boy to Ireland as leverage in case something exactly like this happens. Richard's decided not to harm him. Satisfying as it might be, even Richard can calculate that he's in a very weak position and he's not exactly going to appease his cousin Bolingbroke by killing his son and heir. But Richard needs to get back across the Irish Sea to deal with this shit show in person. The trouble is, Richard has been caught with his royal pants around his ankles in Ireland. His army is spread out all over the place and in no position to be shipped back to England at the drop of a hat. So Richard dithers a bit before making a plan that involves him sailing back to Wales from Waterford, then marching to Chester, the HQ of his fearsome Cheshire Archers, and hoping that by the time he gets there, events will have turned his way. Even the first stage of that plan takes Richard a fortnight. He receives the news that Bolingbroke has returned at the start of July. It's July 24th before he lands in Wales. A week later, he's still in Wales, having only made it as far as Carmarthen Castle. It's at this point his pet greyhound makes him for a loser and abandons him. Richard has never been a military leader, has never had to act decisively on his own accord, and has only ever been prepared to take action when a situation is stacked in his own favor. Now it all shows he hasn't just got his pants around his ankles, he's wearing them on his head and someone has painted kick me on his back while he wasn't looking. In his absence, the kingdom has been left rudderless and disillusioned, making Henry's return not a conquest, but a homecoming. Not that Henry has been taking it easy. When Henry lands at Ravenspur in Yorkshire and marches up the shore of his native land, the North Sea waves lapping behind him, he's figuring out who he needs to bring on side. Top of that list is the most powerful lord in northern England, Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland. Bolingbroke makes early contact with Percy and the two of them come to an understanding. Percy won't block Bolingbroke, and with his backing, it's likely that others will fall in line too. With this alliance in place, Bolingbroke is able to march triumphant and unchallenged around England. His dad's old followers in the Duchy of Lancaster welcome him back with open arms. He pitches up at symbolic locations like Warwick Castle, which was seized from the Earl of Warwick when he was exiled, and rips down the King's banners flying there. Henry and Richard's uncle, Edmund Langley, Duke of York, were supposed to to be minding the kingdom while Richard was away. But he rightly concludes that he's backing the wrong nephew. At a parley near Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire, the spot where Langley's grandfather, Edward ii was murdered. After being deposed, he lets Bolingbroke know that he's on his side. Now, according to one chronicler, Langley reasons that he does not wish to attack a man who's come in a just cause to regain his rightful inheritance. That's pretty much how everyone in England is feeling. There are, of course, a few exceptions. Three of Richard's most toady advisors, a group of courtiers called William Scroop, John Bushy and Henry Green, are captured at Bristol. Bolingbroke has all three put to death. Around this time, Henry hears that Richard is back in Wales. He figures the King is going to try and head north to get to Chester, probably via the huge fortresses of North Wales, originally built by Edward I. Bolingbroke decides to head in the same direction and try to cut his cousin off. When he gets to Shrewsbury, he's met by a large and tired looking greyhound, which licks and nuzzles him and insists on sleeping on his bed at night. Bolingbroke has the King's dog. He has the free run of the kingdom. All he's got to do now is track down Richard himself. In theory, when they meet, it could still be a reconciliation, but in reality, it's going to be a show.
- [12:08]
Jonathan Van Ness
When we first launched my podcast, this.
- [12:10]
Dan Jones
Is History, back in what now actually.
- [12:12]
Jonathan Van Ness
Feels like the Middle Ages, Naturally, all my accounts were worked out on an abacus. My scripts were written with quill on parchment and I sent them over to my producer on a raven. It was a slow, overwhelming and lonely process with so many different hats to wear and so much to do with so little time. If only I'd had Shopify as my business partner to get me started and help me keep up with the pace. Finding the right tool that not only helps you out, but simplifies everything can be such a game changer for millions of businesses. That tool is Shopify. Turn your big business idea into With Shopify on your side, sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.co.uk sell 23 try go to shopify.co.uk sell23 try.
- [13:08]
John Blair
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- [14:13]
Dan Jones
The gate of Carmarthen Castle creaks open and a little party sneaks out a small group of servants and among them a rather sorry looking priest. It's night and for the next few days they're going to be doing a lot of travelling. Under cover of darkness they kick their horses and before long they've picked up the coast road running north for the next 120 miles or so. They'll have the roar of the sea on their left hand side. It's good that there's something to listen to, because none of them are exactly in the mood for cheery conversation. The priest is Richard II in disguise. It's amazing how far he's fallen already. Just six weeks ago, he was at his most imperious, swanking about in his finery, giving orders which carried the threat of instant death in case of his displeasure. Now, as everything comes tumbling around him he's discovering in real time that he's friendless and virtually alone. Yet Richard has been in some pretty tight scrapes before, and he still has a hope of wriggling out of this one. He sent one of his courtiers, the Earl of Salisbury, ahead of him from Ireland to try and rustle up some troops in Chester. If Salisbury's done that and brought them to Conwy Castle in North Wales, then the fight back against Bolingbroke could be on. The nearer the huge stone edifice of Conwy comes, the more Richard has to hope that Salisbury has done his job. And when he gets to Conwy on the 6th of August, he's overjoyed to find that Salisbury is indeed there. The trouble is, he doesn't have anything by way of the army he was supposed to be raising. He tells Richard that although the Cheshiremen were ready and waiting to rise to the royal banner, they got fed up waiting for the King to arrive, and most of them have now deserted. It's a disaster. And now Richard is running out of options. Three days after he arrives at Conwy to find no army waiting for him, he hears that Bolingbroke has taken Chester, the heartland of his private militia. Richard sends out envoys to go to Bolingbroke, promise him his Duchy of Lancaster back and ask him to submit to Richard's royal authority. After which, they'll say no more about this embarrassing little incident. He's so out of touch with reality, it's almost funny. The envoys never come back. Instead, a few days later, Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, Bolingbroke's backer in northern England, arrives with a detachment of troops. Percy tells Richard that Bolingbroke is ready to negotiate and asks him to come with him to another nearby castle at Flint. There, Richard is held, to all intents and purposes, a prisoner clad in full armor. Bolingbroke arrives and tells Richard that everyone knows that for more than 20 years he has misgoverned England. Bolingbroke offers to help him repair the damage he's done. Richard has no choice but to agree. It's the last thing he does as a free man. In the morning, Richard ii, Plantagenet, King of England, is taken out of Flint Castle and and escorted to Chester, now in Bolingbroke's hands. From there, he's eventually moved south under heavy guard to London, where he's locked up in the Tower. In London, Henry sends out orders for a parliament to decide what to do with the King. It's to meet in September. Richard has been in the Tower before which, with Bolingbroke weighing in on what his fate ought to be, that was back in the 1380s when he was still little more than a teenager. Now things are very different. Yet for all this, Richard still doesn't seem to have totally grasped what has gone wrong in England. One night there's a dinner in the Tower of London. Richard receives visitors, among them a chronicler called Adam Uske. Usk writes an account of Richard's state of mind at this point. For a start, he is incredibly miserable and full of self pity. Yet the thought of taking any responsibility for the pickle he's in doesn't seem to occur to him. After dinner has been eaten, says Usk, the king begins to discourse dolefully saying my God, this is a strange and fickle land. And going on to explain how the English have a terrible habit of doing over their rulers. The land has exiled, slain, destroyed and ruined so many kings, so many rulers and great men. Richard has plenty of historical examples which he thinks back up his case. But at no point does he seem to clock that it is he who's been doing all the exiling, slaying and destroying of the great and good. He brought this disaster on his own head and he's the only one who just can't see it.
- [20:25]
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- [21:56]
Dan Jones
As the date for the September 1399 parliament approaches, clerks work feverishly away in the libraries of London, scouring through chronicles and histories that have been requested from monasteries all over England. They read and scratch their pens over their notebooks by candlelight late into the night, compiling a list of examples from the past of the best ways to deal with an incorrigible king like Richard II. They study the example of the 13th century emperor Frederick Hohenstaufen, who was declared excommunicate and deposed by the Pope for lack of reason and incapacity to rule. They go as far back as the time of the ancient Britons, long before the Plantagenet period. And needless to say, they study the example of Edward ii, the last and only member of Richard's dynasty to have been kicked off the throne. Eventually, they come up with a list of charges against Richard, which detail all his dirty deeds and frame them as having been completely unreasonable and unkingly, his wicked destruction of the senior repellents, the duel between Bolingbroke and Mowbray, the Blank Charters, the Cheshire Archers and all the rest of it is chucked into a rap sheet as long as your arm. Richard is not only damned for his deeds, but for his character. He's cunning, deceitful and cruel. Well, yeah, that checks out. He's wicked and malicious. Yep. And yep. He's variable at and assimilating to the point that no one can trust him again. That's our boy. The biggest l Richard has to take by far, though, is the accusation that time and again he's broken his coronation oath. When he was crowned, Richard promised to be the guardian of law and justice in England. That's more or less the diametric opposite of what he has been. He's made up the laws as he's gone along, robbed and plundered his subjects and disgraced the office of kingship he was meant to uphold. The thrust of all this is the reverse of what Richard was arguing to Adam Uske when they had dinner in the Tower. The scholars pulling together the accusations against the King on Bolingbroke's behalf are out to prove that it's Richard who has consistently let England down, because that's who he is. Whose side of this debate do we believe? Well, in a sense, it doesn't really matter. The minute Bolingbroke came back to England from his exile, the chances of Richard staying in power fell to somewhere very close to zero. In September, Parliament is ready to start considering what to do with the King. A Group of high ranking nobles and the Archbishop of York go to see Richard in the Tower of London and tell him it's highly likely that he's going to be deposed. Richard angrily asks to see the charges and the next day, when he's read them and the lords come back, he goes off at them, raging that it's impossible for him to give up the crown and asking who on earth is going to replace him? In theory, there are multiple candidates to take over, including the Earl of March. In reality, there's only one guy who has the political backing, the military power, the royal blood and the sense of moral right to take on the job. That's Bolingbroke. Richard is told that he has no choice in the matter. Bolingbroke is taking over and he'd better go along with it. As usual, when faced with stern and united opposition, and with no obvious way to bully his way to a different outcome, Richard folds. He reads out a formal statement abdicating the Crown and the Lords leave him alone. Parliament opens on September 30, 1399 in Westminster Hall. Her story has already been seeded by Bolingbrok supporters that Richard gave up the throne cheerfully and of his own accord, back in Conway Castle in August, signed a statement agreeing that he was the uselessest dun and duffer ever to wear the royal ermine, and gave his signet ring to Henry to indicate that he was the successor. How many of the Lords and Kings Commons gathered for the Parliament believe that is moot. This is happening and for now, that's that. This is the first Parliament to be held in Westminster hall since the whole place has been overhauled, refurbished and given a new roof under Richard's very expensive plans. At one end is a throne draped in gold. To open proceedings, the Archbishop of York gives a sermon and explains what everyone already knows they're here for. Richard's statement of resignation is read out and everyone is asked to officially agree that they accept it. For a few moments, England legally has no king, but only for a few. Once the resignation has been accepted, Henry Bolingbroke stands up. Bolingbroke, Richard's cousin, the boy who was so often alongside him in the days of their grandfather, Edward iii, the friend Richard chose never to have. The teenager he left to face the wrath of the peasants in 1381. The Lord he alienated from his court in favor of one weasels like Robert de Vere, the man he forced to connive in the death of the Earl of Arundel in 1397, the warrior he humiliated at the duel in Coventry, the father he exiled, separating him from his children, the heir he denied his rightful inheritance. Bolingbroke stands up and makes the sign of the cross and announces his claim to be be the next King of England. He's not quite clear on what grounds he does this, but in the moment, no one really cares. No one else puts forward a claim of their own. Instead, the whole assembly roars their approval for Bolingbroke. He steps forward with the Archbishop of Canterbury on one arm and the Archbishop of York on the other. They guide him towards the golden throne and sit him upon it. Then one of the churchmen preaches a sermon, taking as his theme the biblical verse, a man shall rule over the people. Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster, is to be Henry IV of England. Richard II is to be carted off to jail in Pontefract Castle. A new age of English kingship is about to begin. But the drama is only just getting started. Join us for the next explosive chapter in Plantagenet history when we return for season eight of A Dynasty to Die for on this history. Friends, it's time for the final discussion starter for our royal favourites on Patreon. And this is a simple but complex one. After all that we've learned about Richard this season, what's your take on him? Send us your thoughts over at patreon.com thisishistory.