485. Henry IV: The Usurper King (Part 1)
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Under pressure. I always love the story about Churchill when he became prime minister in 1914. It's all kicking off. The Germans are invading in the east. And he says that that night he went back home and he slept like a baby because the pressure that this was the culmination of everything he'd been planning for. And actually, he was at his best under enormous pressure. This is the moment that he lived for.

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Babbel.com slash Spotify podcast. Spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash Spotify podcast. Rules and restrictions may apply. Oh sleep, oh gentle sleep, nature's soft nurse. How have I frighted thee that thou wilt no more weigh my eyelids down and steep my senses in forgetfulness.

Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast, seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains in cradle of the rude, imperious surge, and in the visitation of the winds, who take the ruffian billows by the top, curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them with deafening clamour in the slippery clouds, that with the hurly death itself awakes?

Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose to the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude, and in the calmest and most stillest night, with all appliances and means to boot, deny it to a king? Then happy low, lie down, uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

So those are the words of the dying King Henry IV in Shakespeare's play, Henry IV, part two. And Tom, we were talking about this just before we started recording. Shakespeare's plays, Henry IV, part one and two, are my favourite Shakespeare plays. And mine. Oh, Tom. Well, we know this, don't we? Because we went together to see Richard's

Rich II, Henry IV Part I, Henry IV Part II, and Henry V in one day at the Roundhouse. And I've completely forgotten that I went with you. You did. Apologies for that. We were remembering that we'd both seen the production and you were talking about it clearly as though you'd been with somebody else. And I was slightly offended by that. I'd been eclipsed in your recollection. No, I'm very sorry. And then you described it as an ordeal. A pleasant ordeal. Yeah, there was a lot of Shakespeare, to be fair.

Four plays. That's a lot of plays. That's a lot of my Lord of Worcester doth come kind of stuff. It was. But I agree. The Henry IV part one and two, I think are, I mean, among his greatest plays. And they are indisputably the greatest plays set in a period of history, I think, ever written. And I think that it constitutes a dramatic epic that no other nation has. A series of plays that have been performed since they were first staged.

And the consequence of that is that the period of history that we embarked on when we did Richard II and we'll be going through the 15th century, people are familiar with it in a way that they're not with other periods of medieval history. So it has this kind of incredible resonance and power. Do you think? I think it absolutely does. I think you have Henry IV, the usurper. So people who listened to our previous series about medieval history will remember that he kicked Richard II out as king of England, his cousin.

And you have the whole drama of the usurper taking power, very George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones, you know, uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, all of that stuff. I mean, one of his most famous lines. Yeah. But then running through these plays and indeed running through this series that we're going to be doing, the relationship between Henry, the usurper, and his son, Prince Hal, in the plays, who goes on to become the great hero King Henry V,

And it's that relationship in the plays that elevates them because it's kind of paralleled by Hal's relationship with their tremendous character. I think it's fair to say, even though he hasn't appeared in the rest of his history, he will be a great friend of the rest of his history. Sir John Fullstaff. Yeah.

Yeah, because Prince Hal is off supposedly wassailing with full staff and all the lads down in Cheapside and everything. And so one of the reasons why these plays are so brilliant is that you do have lots of, you know, the Earl of Westmoreland rushing in with four score men and that kind of thing.

but you also have these incredible portraits of life as it is being lived down in the seamy underbelly of London with this incredibly entertaining figure, Falstaff, who we'll be talking about later in this series in Henry IV Part II, if you like. And just to say that if people haven't seen either of these plays or read them,

A very easy way to have some familiarity with them is to watch a film that Orson Welles made in the mid-1960s, very groovy, called The Chimes at Midnight. And I think his best film after Citizen Kane, it's lots of people in kind of New Avengers leather. And you've got Jean Moreau looking very glamorous, kind of Dolly Bird. It's really, really good. It has one of the best medieval battle scenes you will ever see.

kind of mist nights looming out of it's really brilliant anyway so absolutely one of my favorite films Henry IV but one and two my favorite plays so hugely looking forward to this if people are really interested there's also a BBC version called the hollow crown taking those words yeah that's great as well and that's Tom Hiddleston as Prince Hal and my favorite actor of all Simon Russell Beale as Falstaff so you can watch that as well yeah but anyway Tom

We're not just a podcast that advertises other people's productions. We have productions of our own. I'm expecting a top performance here because we've set the bar very high with the talk of the roundhouse and Tom Hiddleston and whatnot. Okay, well, no pressure. So you're going to be taking us through it, but there's a paradox here, isn't there? Which is that Henry IV...

parts one and two are very famous plays but Henry IV himself is a slightly obscure figure and will be to a lot of our listeners and to many of our overseas listeners I'm guessing will probably never have heard of him and have no sense of him

Why is that, do you think? When he's actually got such an interesting story, he topples his cousin, he takes the crown, he's a usurper, he's insecure, his son goes on to be the great hero king. Why don't we know more about Henry IV? It is interesting because in the Henry IV plays, I mean, he's quite a shadowy figure. He's very kind of weary, he's careworn. I mean, he's almost kind of irrelevant to all the great drama of the sweep and churn of rebellion that is convulsing England.

And you're right that by and large, he hasn't been the subject of many biographies. So the classic academic study by Chris Given-Wilson

Gibbon Wilson says in that, that he's the most neglected of England's late medieval monarchs. I think you could almost say he was the most neglected of all England's monarchs. But the interesting thing is that he seems to be having a bit of a moment right now. So as well as Gibbon Wilson's amazing biography, there's one by Ian Mortimer, which is very good, very readable. And there's a brilliant...

paired biography of Richard II and Henry IV by Helen Castor that is coming out next month, which I've had a chance to read, which is really good. So if you're interested in this, that's unmissable. And I think that all these books have fixed on the fact that obviously Shakespeare did as well, that actually the story of the reign is really dramatic.

But more than that, he himself is actually a much more interesting figure than people might think. So as you said, I mean, the story of his coming to power is incredible. He launches an invasion from France and topples a king. And...

The previous monarch to do that was William the Conqueror. And he then eliminates the king. He has to kill Richard II. So there are shades of Cromwell as well as of kind of earlier medieval regicides there, as we'll see, because it opens up a kind of constitutional can of worms. But more than that, I think in and of himself, he's a very, very impressive figure.

So before he comes to power, he's absolutely kind of fated as England's great model of chivalry. He's the most impressive knight, the most celebrated knight in England. And I think even as king, because of the circumstances in which he comes to power, he has a very troubled reign.

And I think it would have destroyed most other men. So Helen Castor in her book describes his grip on power throughout his reign as being white knuckled. There's a sense he's clinging on for his bare life, but he comes through it. And although there are lots of people who hate him, who think that the circumstances of his coming to power

essentially mean that he's illegitimate. There are others who really think, wow, this is an impressive guy. So there's the prior of a monastery in Kenilworth who's a bittery on him.

Few were his equal, many were his followers and never was he defeated in battle. And that's, I think not unfair. It says it all. I mean, I think for people who like, who admire great politicians, you know, people who are adept at gaining and wielding power and do it with a kind of natural aptitude.

He's a great model, right? I mean, he's a really impressive, in a very dangerous world, in a very difficult situation, he plays his cards really well. Helen Castor in her new book, The Eagle and the Heart, sums it up really well. She says, Henry had everything Richard lacked, all the qualities of a sovereign, bar one, birthright. And in her book, she teases out the fact that this inevitably generates a sense of tension between Henry and Richard and that they are cousins and

And they are the only people of the English royal family of the same age. So Henry's kind of three months younger than Richard. And they don't actually meet one another until they're about five or six. But...

There is tension there from the beginning. Well, let's remind ourselves where we are, Tom. So in England at the end of the 14th century, Henry was born in 1367. He is three months younger than Richard II. People who remember our Hundred Years War series remember Edward III. Richard II is his young successor. He's a boy when he becomes king. And grandson. Yes. So Edward III, I mean, Edward III has lots of children. He has five sons, but there are three sons for our purposes, the purposes of this story for listeners to keep in mind.

So he has his best known son, Edward the Black Prince, the winner of Poitiers, the great model of chivalry. And Richard II is the Black Prince's son.

Then his second son is a guy called Lionel, who's the Duke of Clarence. And he has a daughter, not a son. And this daughter, Philippa, marries a very distinguished nobleman called Edmund Mortimer, who is the Earl of March. And so, Dominic, he has a great tranche of lands and the border between Wales and England. So very much your stamping ground. My neck of the woods. Yeah. Yeah. You would have been his bannerman. Or he would have been mine. I don't think so. Because I've

of course, you know, he is, he's married to the daughter of, the granddaughter of a king. Yeah. Okay, fine, fine, fine, fine. And they have two sons. The elder is called Roger and the younger, confusingly, is called Edmund. And Roger is seven years younger than Richard and Henry. So he is ahead of Henry, it might seem, in the chain of succession, except for the fact that Edward III in 1376 had specified that Henry

his descendants via the female line shouldn't inherit the throne. So that then means that Henry, who is the son of the third son of Edward III, John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster, I mean, he's kind of behind John of Gaunt and behind Richard in the line of succession. But given that John of Gaunt's older, that means that Richard and Henry are natural. They're not rivals, but there's a kind of tension there, right? Yeah. Yeah.

So when, whenever the third dies, John of Gaunt effectively rules as regent. So people who listened to our episodes on, um, on Richard the second will remember that he's a very, very impressive, controversial figure.

And effectively, it means, as you say, that Henry grows up kind of third in line to the throne. And so I think that that focuses why there's an inherent awkwardness between Richard and Henry. But I think it's also down to the fact that Henry, as this model of chivalry, he has the admiration not just of people in England, but of people across Europe in a way that Richard doesn't. Richard...

Despite being the son of the Black Prince, he's not a model of chivalry. He's not a man of action. He's not galloping around doing heroic things. He's understandably jealous of his cousin for having the kind of the glamour. So, I mean, just a very brief synopsis of how Henry cuts a dash in late 14th century Europe. So,

His great stunt is that in 1390, he goes and attends the most famous tournament of the age, which is held just outside Calais at a place called Saint-Anglevert. And it is hosted by probably the most famous knight in Christendom, close contemporary of Henry's.

And this is a guy called Jean Lemagre, who is better known as Boussico. And this is a figure that we'll be meeting throughout our story. And he is one of three champions who have summoned a challenge to everybody to come and see if they can match them in a tournament. And Henry leads a retinue of English champions. And among this retinue of champions, there is the son of the Earl of Northumberland,

called Harry Percy, who has the nickname Hotspur. So they go out, they all perform very creditably. Henry has 10 goes in the lists against Busico.

tremendous. They get on very well. Bousko invites him on a crusade. Henry does go on a crusade. He goes to the Baltic to fight the pagans, the pagan Lithuanians. He goes to Jerusalem. He gets given an ostrich in Prague. He gets given a galley by the Venetians. He ends up going to the Holy Land. Richard the Lionheart, Edward I, they are both kings who had been to the Holy Land

but neither of them had actually got to Jerusalem. Henry does get into Jerusalem itself. He goes and visits the holy city. And he's got a leopard, he's got a parrot. He's got a leopard, he's got a parrot, he's got his ostrich. I mean, it's all very, very glamorous. And it's unsurprisingly that back in England, people just think this is brilliant. I mean, he's absolutely...

absolute hero. So John Gower, who is a great poet alongside Geoffrey Chaucer, he has this poem, Confessio Amantis, and he dedicated it to Richard II. But when Henry comes back, he scrubs this dedication and dedicates it to Henry of Lancaster instead. Henry of Lancaster, the high God has proclaimed him full of knighthood and all grace. So you can imagine that

You know, slightly annoying Richard II. Richard, as we discussed before, is a man of great sensitivity, but also one of great vindictiveness and kind of, he's a hater, isn't he, Richard? He is a hater. And he feels resentment of his cousin's tremendous exploits and all of that stuff.

Which presumably for any king would show you up, right? Because you're not a martial man and you're anxious that you're not seen in the same light. Right. And I mean, people who heard our episode on the Hundred Years' War, Edward III, the reason Edward III is seen as a great king is because he's very good at all the things that the nobility love. So fighting, tournaments, all that kind of stuff, which Henry is as well. And Richard simply isn't.

And so it's unsurprising that towards the end of his reign, Richard really starts to try and kind of downgrade Henry to try and bump him off the line of succession. So in 1386, he announces that his heir is Roger Mortimer. So the son of Philippa, the daughter of Lionel. So that is to mess up the line of succession that Edward III had decreed.

So Roger is then killed in Ireland in 1398 and he leaves a seven-year-old son, Edmund. So

The question now is, is Edmund Richard II's heir or is John of Gaunt and Henry? It's kind of up for grabs. But just to make absolutely certain that it's going to be the young Edmund, Richard then in 1398 exiles Henry for 10 years. And the following year when John of Gaunt dies, the question then is, will the exiled Henry be allowed to come back and take over his lands and inherit John of Gaunt's title of Duke of Lancaster? And

Richard says, no, he's going to take over all of Henry's lands. And he doesn't award the stewardship of England, which has been held by the House of Lancaster for a century to Henry. And basically he strips him of everything. And it's this that precipitates Henry's return from exile. He lands at Ravenspur just down the Humber from Hull. And within a few months, Richard has been abandoned by his men. He's been captured. He's been deposed. And he ends up

being killed and henry obviously does this for personal reasons when he lands he says i'm coming back to reclaim my lands i'm doing it to uphold the the the laws of succession um and

This is widely accepted because what Richard has done, it's not just an attack on Henry himself, but on the entire basis of succession that underpins the way that England is organized. So all the nobility, when they see what Richard has done, is thinking, well, this could happen to us. This is terrifying. So when Henry takes over,

I mean, Tom, you always like to make this point about an anointed king. You know, it's very special. It's a terrible thing to topple an anointed king, all of that kind of thing. And Shakespeare plays with that in Henry IV, parts one and two.

But do you think that among the elite, people think Henry's in a very difficult position, of course, but he's probably done the right thing. Richard had to go. We don't like it, maybe, but we just have to live with it. Yes. I mean, most of them do. Most of the nobility swing behind him. As I said, they're worried that...

They don't want their own lands being confiscated. Richard's out of control. They feel that Richard is essentially instituting a tyranny, a despotism. And the family that particularly swing behind Henry are the Percys, who are the great power in Northumberland, the guardians of the Northern Marches against the Scots. But there's also a sense in which Henry is...

reaching out beyond the nobility to the people. And when he becomes king, he does it not by right of succession, but by election. So there's a sense almost that he is, I mean, I think that the closest that you get in the whole of medieval English history to a prime minister coming in and replacing a kind of clapped out administration. The sense of election that Henry has been chosen is really, really important. And that's why Henry, unlike any other English king,

really has to work hard on the propaganda to kind of justify how and why he's become king. You know, he pulls out all the stops. He promulgates prophecies by Merlin that he's going to be a great king. There's a tremendous story that is told by a Welsh priest called Adam of Ask, who we'll be meeting throughout the story.

who says that there was a greyhound who was a bit like the octopus in the World Cup. You know, you can kind of choose winners. This greyhound had abandoned a duke who was about to die, goes to Richard, and then when Henry comes, the greyhound abandons Richard and goes to Henry, you know, absolutely gazed up at him with great big brown eyes full of love. And then subsequently when Henry meets Richard, the greyhound comes.

completely ignores Richard, can't even remember him. And this is an infallible proof that Henry has been chosen to be king. Right. And that story sounds like it's definitely true, doesn't it? Who would question that? Completely. But I mean, it's definitely the case that when Henry ends up capturing Richard, they process into London and

Henry is cheered. He's greeted as a kind of conquering hero. And when he's elected king, he plays it very, very well. And he rises from his seat and he makes the sign of the cross and he commends himself to God. And he delivers his claim, not in French, not in Latin, but in English. And Chris Gibbon Wilson in his biography says, you know, this is the first declaration by a king in the English tongue.

It's the equivalent of the Prime Minister standing outside Downing Street and making his first address to the nation. But doing it in English is sending a message that he's not going to be as remote and as autocratic and as Frenchified.

as Richard. Is that what it's basically saying? I think it is, but I think it's also saying that he is the people's king. Because this matters in a way that it doesn't. It hadn't for any previous king. Because in a way, public enthusiasm for him, both among the nobility but also among the great mass of the English people, is the key to his legitimacy. It's the only source of legitimacy that he has.

because he can't rely on the rules of succession because there's this problem that there's this eight-year-old Edmund, the son of Roger, the Earl of March. I mean, he's lurking around. And so Henry grabs him and puts him in a kind of silken imprisonment in Windsor.

But he can't harp on his right to the succession. So it has to be about election. And of course, the other thing that it requires him to do is really, really go in hard condemning Richard as a kind of tyrant. And so when he becomes king, again, very like a kind of prime minister, he makes it absolutely clear and he makes it a public proclamation that he's going to respect property rights and he's going to respect the will of the people. So in a sense, you know,

As king, he is the servant of the people. And this is a very, very novel tone. You haven't had this before. I mean, you're still doing a great job of selling him, actually, to the listeners, I would imagine. Well, I...

But he's in an incredibly invidious position because this isn't the kind of thing that a king should have to do. A king ascends by right. Do you know what, Tom? In a way, I mean, a lot of people will bridle at this comparison, but we did a podcast about the princes and their tower. Richard III was in a really tough position then and he had to kill his nephews. And you know that some people associated with this podcast commend him for that.

But Henry IV was in a similarly difficult position. He was. It was like win or bust. If he didn't topple Richard and basically kill him and take the throne, then he might as well go and live in a hut back in the Baltic or something. Well, yes. And I think that had Henry been toppled, he would be remembered as a kind of Richard III. Yeah. Not just a usurper, but a failure. Yeah, I agree with you. He would have been regarded as a failure. But of course, he isn't a failure.

The only thing is he's promising this great new start. But as we know with any incoming prime minister, to use your analogy, there's no such thing really as a clean break, is there? So is he wrestling with the same problems that Richard was, basically? He is, but there are also advantages to this. So again, for comparison with the prime minister, one of the things that is working to Henry's advantage is the fact that by this stage,

England is basically the most centralized kingdom in Europe, meaning in turn that it's the most manageable. And so you effectively have a kind of cadre of civil servants who are working in offices that are based in Westminster, the Chancery, the Exchequer, these frameworks of government that government today has essentially inherited from this period. And so as a result, despite all the convulsions, the toppling of Richard II, the coming to power of Henry IV,

government goes on as it does today. You know, one government falls, another government comes in, but the civil service continues. So that's, that's a positive. But as you say, there is also, he's essentially inherited the problems that Richard II was facing. You know, how do you deal with, with financial shortfall? Richard II had burned through money. Parliament was very reluctant to vote him money. And Henry IV has the problem that

believe that he has promised there will be no more tax rises. So, I mean, again, very familiar. This is always the way with incoming prime ministers. Exactly. So he's seen as having made as part of his pitch that there will be no tax rises. And in fact, shortly after he's crowned,

In Somerset, there's a tax collector who's beaten to death because, and I'll quote, his demands were contrary to the promise, excusing them from such payments which the king had made to them at the time of his happy return. So people across England are saying, brilliant, we've got this new king, we don't have to pay taxes, it's fantastic. But this is a real problem for Henry because he really needs money. I mean, he's king now. There's also the problem that he needs to keep power.

The Percy's in particular on board, right? If he loses them, he's in real trouble. Yeah. And there's also the fact that England is surrounded by enemies. So officially still at war with France, uh,

But there are also enemies actually on the island of Britain. So there are the Scots, the Weasel Scots, as Shakespeare describes them in Henry V, always sniffing out trouble in England. And there's also hints of kind of trouble in Wales, which has been under English rule for a century. So these are all problems. But I think the biggest problem, which we've already kind of hinted at, is that having come to power as a usurper,

Henry then has to rule as a regicide because with the deposition of Richard II, he's bundled him off to one of the great Lancastrian castles, Pontefract, and wants to just basically leave him there. But there are conspiracies. There are people trying to overthrow Henry, bring back Richard II. And there's one in particular, it's called the Epiphany Rising because it happens in the season of Epiphany.

And Henry treats this very, very brutally, even though he has a reputation for clemency. He can't afford to show any mercy here. So our friend Adam of Ask, the Welsh chaplain, he describes that he was in London at the time after the execution of all the conspirators in this. And he describes seeing that their bodies being carried through London, chopped up like the carcasses of beasts killed in the chase, partly in sacks.

and partly on poles slung across pairs of men's shoulders. That's sending a message, Tom. Well, sending a message, but essentially sending a message that his regime is pretty unstable.

And so the question is, as a usurper and a regicide, how is Henry going to cope with all the challenges that are clearly coming his way? And just before we go to the break, one quick question. If I met Henry IV at this point, what's he like? I mean, you've said he's very glamorous. He's obviously very brave. He's

He's a bit of an alpha male because of all the tournaments and the crusades and stuff. But you then said a reputation for clemency. So he's a man that other people admire. He is a man who other people admire. Yes. He's, he's also very literate. He's very smart. He's deeply Christian. He thinks very profoundly about his faith. So in all kinds of ways, he's admirable. But I think his tragedy is that he,

All these qualities which had helped to bring him to the throne, after he's come to the throne and after he's been responsible for the murder of Richard II, people don't believe them anymore. And he's in a desperate struggle to stop the entire situation, as we will see, from collapsing. What a cliffhanger. So come back after the break to see if he can stave off disaster.

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Thou mak'st me sad, and mak'st me sin in envy, That my lord Northumberland should be the father to so blest a son, A son who is the theme of honour's tongue, Amongst a grove the very straightest plant, Who is sweet fortune's minion and a pride.

whilst i by looking on the praise of him see riot and dishonour stain the brow of my young harry oh that it could be proved that some night-tripping fairy had exchanged in cradle clothes our children where they lay and called mine percy his plantagenet then would i have his harry and he mine

So Tom, we were talking about Henry IV, Shakespeare's great plays, parts one and two. That's at the beginning. That's the character we've been talking about, King Henry IV, and he is riffing on one of the great themes of the play. So this is the contrast between his own son, Prince Hal, who is this

hard-drinking, jape-loving, wastrel. A fan of riot and dishonour. Riot and dishonour, yeah. The kind of person who would be being hurled out of nightclubs today and just disgracing himself in the gutter. That's Prince Hal. And parallel to him...

is another Harry, you've mentioned him already, Harry Hotspur, the son of Northumberland, the great magnate in the north of England. And Hotspur is everything that Hal isn't. Hotspur is dutiful, serious, he's incredibly brave, he fights like a demon, he's not like drinking with a load of wenches and sort of ladies of the night down in the docks of London or whatever. He's rushing around attacking Scots and being heroic and generally being a massive lad.

And is this true? So the whole thing depends in Shakespeare on hot

Hotspur and Prince Hal being contemporaries, a bit like Richard II and Henry. This is the tension. But this isn't true because, as we said, Hotspur had actually accompanied the future Henry IV to this great tournament in France when they were young men. So he's a contemporary of the king. In fact, he's three years older than the king. He's not a contemporary of Prince Hal. But I think the thing about Hotspur...

for Henry IV, and I think this is something that Shakespeare possibly has picked up on, is that Hotspur is a reminder to Henry IV of kind of how fun it was not to be a king. Hotspur is a reminder to Henry of the man that he was before he usurped the throne. He has fun.

in Chimes at Midnight. You know, he's got a kind of very groovy Beatles hairstyle. He's rushing around. It's all this kind of thing. Leather jerking. It's all brilliant. It's absolutely fun. He would totally wear a gilet. Oh, completely. I mean, effectively, he does wear a gilet in Chimes at Midnight. But yes, he'd be a massive man for a gilet. You know what he'd love?

He'd love rugby. He would. He'd love going to rugby, cheering on England at Murrayfield. Yeah. He'd be all over that. He's a man. His dad's got a box at Twickenham. Yeah. They've got like barber jackets coming out of their ears, like hampers. And then they're off. Like he's, then he's going to post.

Paul Zethel rock with Tabby for the weekend. That's exactly what's happening. Yeah, I mean, he would absolutely be going to Murrayfield to cheer on the boys. He's a brilliant fighter against the Scots, and it's actually the Scots who are the first to call him Hotspur. He's become a Knight of the Garter by the age of 24. He's made a brilliant marriage to Elizabeth Mortimer, who is the sister of Roger and Edmund Mortimer, and therefore aunt to the young Edmund.

Edmund Mortimer, who is the guy who's been appointed by Richard II. Just to make our listeners feel a little bit better about themselves. I'm also confused about the Mortimers, so don't worry. And in Shakespeare, Hotspur's relationship to his wife is brilliantly done. It's incredibly funny. Yeah, but quite moving. They have a very close relationship, don't they? Yeah, because Hotspur never says he loves his wife, but you can see that he completely does. It's really, really wonderfully done. But essentially, his wife is the arsehole

aunt to the alternative heir to the throne, this young boy, Edmund Mortimer. So that's basically what you need to keep in mind. And he's basically, he's the greatest warrior in England. He's a tremendous lad. And so Henry IV, I think, admires him. They're companions in arms. And so he gives Hotspur responsibility for the two most potentially unstable parts of his kingdom,

One of which is clearly the Northern frontier, always unstable. Scots are a constant source of trouble for the English King.

But also the Welsh Marshes. So this is the north part of Wales, the last bit to be conquered, the hardest for physical reasons because it's so mountainous. It's the hardest to kind of stop rebellion happening. And also because it's near to Cheshire, which is the most pro-Richard part of the country. Right, where Richard II had built up his own affinity, just like a magnate, yeah. So everyone in Cheshire loves Richard II, very resentful that he's been toppled. And also Cheshire is the

the place more than anywhere else in England that is famed for its longbowmen. Its archery is peerless. So these are potential flashpoints. Hotspur is not the only member of his family to be given signal honours. Northumberland, his father, who had the head of the family, he's been made the constable of England.

And he's been given responsibility for young Edmund Mortimer's inheritance. So he, in a way, is kind of Edmund Mortimer's guardian. And then there's Northumberland's brother, the Earl of Worcester, who I played in a production of Henry IV Part I, who's a sinister Machiavell. And he is made Admiral of England. And both men, like Hotspur, are Knights of the Garter. So Henry IV is really kind of lavishing honors on them. And

These aren't just marks of gratitude for the fact that the Perses had rallied to his cause when he came back to claim his inheritance. It's also the fact that he really, really needs to keep them on board because they're by far the most powerful magnates in the kingdom. Yeah. I mean, you lose them, you're in real trouble, right? They control the north. Right. So that's them. What about Prince

Prince Hal is Prince Hal dressing up and attacking people on country byways is he getting drunk with madams roystering with full staff yeah is he doing all that is that any truth in that at all well he's only 13 when his father is crowned yeah so he's very young he does do a kind of Penny Mordant and carry a sword at his father's coronation poor Penny Mordant where's she now yeah where's she gone so

So he does that. And then two days after Henry's coronation, he is made Prince of Wales. He's made Duke of Cornwall, all of which is, you know, traditionally the, the, the eldest son of the King and he's made Earl of Chester. Right. And that also is a traditional title, but of course, you know, as we said, Chester is the County town of Cheshire. This is the most sensitive part in England, the most hostile, um, to, to Henry, but Henry the fourth,

wants his son in at the deep end you know he doesn't want him to be a kind of richard he wants him going into the school of hard knocks learning his craft as a future king so in the summer of 1400 the young prince who by now is 14 accompanies his father on an abortive invasion of scotland and then in that autumn of 1400 he sent off to chester as the earl of chester basically to you know

see what it's like to be in a very rebellious area of the country. But that surely works both ways, right? So it's good for him, but it's also good for Cheshire because

If Cheshire is rid of the second heartland, you want to make them feel special. Exactly. So by sending your son, you're basically saying, you're still a little bit special because I'm sending my son to govern you. And I'm respecting your difference, as it were. I think that's absolutely right. But in the event, it's not actually Cheshire that is the cause of trouble, but Wales. And Wales is right next to Cheshire. And Wales...

And Wales in the autumn of 1400 erupts into rebellion in a way that, I mean, is really startling. Because as we said, Wales has been conquered for a century, subdued by Edward I, who'd built a chain of great castles across the northern reaches of the principality, had named his son, the future Edward II, Prince of Wales. And that's a title that Prince Henry has now succeeded Prince Hal.

But on the 16th of September, 1400, even before the Prince has arrived in Cheshire, another man, a Welshman, has laid claim to the title of Prince of Wales. And this is a man called Owen Glyndwr. And he is a man who has the blood of Welsh princes in his veins. So Rhys Davies, who's the great historian of late medieval Wales and has written

brilliant book on Glyndwr's Rebellion. He writes, nobody needed to flatter or lie in the recital of Owen's genealogy. It was the finest in Wales. The finest blood in Wales, Tom. Amazing. He has the blood of the two great princely lines.

in his veins. So, you know, great subject for Bardic song, Dominic. Yeah. And I think it's fair to say that Owen Glendower is a great man for a Bardic song. Well, the trouble is that the English, and some people would say this is a theme of Anglo-Welsh history, the English don't treat him with the seriousness that he thinks he deserves. That's right, isn't it?

No, because as I say, Wales has been conquered for a century. He may have the blood of princes in his veins, but he's still only a kind of member of the minor gentry. It's absolutely ridiculous that this upstart should think to challenge the authentic Prince of Wales and the might of the English King. So they do see it as kind of basically a bit ridiculous. And

I think that reflects the fact that Wales at this point is kind of halfway house. I mean, it is still Welsh, but it has been anglicized pretty strongly. And you can see this in the figure of Owen himself. So in lots of ways, he's quite assimilated. He's trained as a lawyer in London. He served in the garrison at Berwick-upon-Tweed.

His wife is of English descent, but he is also full of seething resentments, which are entirely legitimate because Wales is subject to laws that were instituted by Edward I that have basically imposed a form of apartheid on the principality. The Welsh are legally penalized irrevocably.

in all kinds of ways. They're stopped from wielding power. Their economic opportunities are very much inhibited by the economic rights that are given to English settlers. And I think that these have always been resented by the Welsh aristocracy. And you might say, Dominic,

that the kindling is in place and that Owen's claim to be the Prince of Wales is the striking of the match. But it's not the spark.

that he has a row with his neighbor. Correct. Lord Ruthen, Reginald Grey. Yes. It's always the way that it's your neighbors, the people you really have to fear. Yes. So they've basically been, they hate each other. They've been kind of quarreling over, you know, ditches. Argueing about a fence. Yeah. Cows wandering into each other's lands and all that kind of thing. And, and,

Basically, Owen has this blazing row with Lord Ruthyn, and it's this that prompts him to go storming off and saying that he's the Prince of Wales, which is obviously a brilliant way of upstaging his near neighbor. But there is no question that in doing that, this argument over who's building the fence on the lower field, it explodes because there is this incredible Welsh sense of nationalist resentment. And the moment he's made this announcement,

It's not just his own feudal followers, but people from across Northern Wales who kind of flock to his banner. And they just go on the rampage. They kind of go sweeping off. They burn all Ruthen's fields. They go off and they attack all kinds of English settlements across Northern Wales. And Rhys Davies says from the beginning, Owen's crusade was anti-English, that this is a kind of proto-nationalist rebellion. Yeah. And-

Henry, when he's informed of this, I mean, he takes it seriously, but not too seriously. Because despite the fact that, you know, a lot of fields are being burnt, Owen Glendower and his followers are in no position to kind of capture castles, to actually seize towns permanently. And seven days after he's proclaimed himself Prince of Wales, he's defeated in a skirmish. So it looks like actually, you know, it's blazed up and it's going to die down again.

But then what happens is that in Anglesey, so the island off the northwest of Wales, another uprising is launched. And this is launched by two brothers, Rhys and Gwilym Aptuda. It's a name to conjure with. Yeah, a name to conjure with.

So therefore you have these two kind of uprisings in Wales and they must surely have been coordinated. Right. I was going to ask about that. Yeah. Do we know whether they are writing to each other or sending messages, the Tudors and Glendower? We don't for sure, but I think so. Okay. I think the consensus would be that, yes, this is a coordinated uprising. So in October of 1400, Henry...

marches into the north. He goes all the way to Caernarfon on the coast of Wales, the northwest coast of Wales. He boosts up the garrison of all these kind of castles that had been built by Edward I, the fetters that had been thrown over the Welsh. He executes various rebels that he's taken prisoner and the rebellion seems over.

But it isn't because on the 1st of April, April Fool's Day of the following year, which is also Good Friday, the captain of Conway Castle, one of these great Edwardian castles,

It's Good Friday. He goes off to a church service. He takes all but five of the garrison with him. So essentially there's only a kind of skeleton staff. And while he's at church, Gwilym Tudor, who's still very much on the scene, he's got 40 men with him. They sneak their way into the castle and they seize control of it.

And, you know, this is an amazing stunt. It seems to have come from nowhere. And they managed to hold out for two months, even though both Hotspur and the Prince, so Prince Hal and Hotspur working together, you know, they lay siege to it.

And it's only at the end of May that William Tudor negotiates a surrender. And the terms are that they have to hand over nine of their defenders who were predictably put to death very horribly, but the rest of them march out. And it's just a tremendous propaganda coup. And it's talked of across Wales.

And so the impact of this on the Welsh is to make them think, brilliant, we could have a crack at the English. This is the kind of the boldness, the daring that might actually enable us to throw off the English yoke. And in England, it causes outrage. And so in London, the parliament says, we've got to come down hard on this. And memorandum

And members of parliament in London, they force through all these very, very kind of retributive laws, the penal laws they're called, which are explicitly anti-Welsh statutes and ordinances. And Rhys Davies says, you know, they are utterly racist and also completely counterproductive because that sense of

a kind of certain commonality between the Welsh and the English. A sense that the Welsh are becoming English, that the English are becoming Welsh. It tears it up. The two sides become completely polarised again. So here's your classic example of a kind of proto-colonialist administration.

not winning hearts and minds. And, you know, such administrations win when they persuade the bulk of kind of non-aligned opinion to support them. But what the English have done here is driven them away. Yeah, and I think that, you know, to a degree, the English had succeeded in persuading the Welsh to, you know, assimilate. And Owen Glendower being a kind of example of that. But this just totally explodes that. And...

The rebellion escalates and escalates and escalates, and it spreads from North Wales, which had always been the hotbed of Welsh resistance, down into the central Wales. And even, you know, there are kind of bushfires of rebellion in southern Wales. So Henry IV launches another invasion, but the Welsh just kind of melt into the hills and the

And the moment Henry IV is withdrawn, Glyndwr pops out again from his mountain fastnesses. And this time he's got an absolutely brilliant banner and it's a golden dragon on a white field. So not a red dragon. No, apparently it's a golden dragon, but there are lots of red dragons. I mean, basically there are dragons everywhere. Yeah. And it's all tremendous excitement. And there are prophecies and, you know, more prophecies from Merlin and it's all kicking off. And the following year, there are two brilliant victories for Owen, for

for Glyndwr. So in the first of them, he captures his old enemy, Reginald Grey, Lord Ruffin. And Grey is kind of led away on a donkey, bound tightly with thongs, the chronicler says. He's now bitterly regretting that boundary dispute that kicked the whole thing off. Yeah, he really is. He should have just let them have the ditch.

And then shortly after that, there's an even more extraordinary victory for the Welsh. And this happens at a place called Pyllith, which is just inside Wales. And I visited it actually a few weeks ago. I did a road trip from Rye to Aberystwyth and we stopped at this place and it's a church on a hill and the Welsh had occupied it. And the guy who comes to attack them is Edmund Mortimer, who is the uncle of

The younger Ed... It's so confusing. The younger Edmund Mortimer, who's the heir to the throne, who's stuck in Windsor. Yeah. It's his uncle. Okay. Another Edmund Mortimer. Yeah. It's his uncle. And he goes and attacks the Welsh. And it's a very steep hill. And it's a mad thing to do when you see it. And he charges up a hill. And his men get wiped out. And he gets captured. And English dead are left scattered all over the hillside. And this...

features in the very opening of Henry IV, part one, where the description of the English dead, it's beastly, shameless transformation. And what Shakespeare means by that is that they're all genitally mutilated. The Welsh women, it is said, go out and just kind of hack off the genitals of the dead and dying English. Now it has to be said that

Rhys Davis says that this is just English propaganda. A number of English historians that I've read all say, yes, this happened. So kind of interesting, interesting perspective, difference of perspective there. It wouldn't be unusual for it to happen, would it? I mean, I think back to the series we did about the American West, there was an awful lot of that kind of carry on there. I think the reason why Rhys Davis would say it was English propaganda is... Is he's Welsh? Yeah.

Well, no, it's the fact that this is not the kind of behaviour that is expected of the defeated on a Christian battlefield. And it's casting the Welsh as sinister, pagan, barbarous savages. So I'm not qualified to say whether it happened or not. But certainly the English thought it. I think this happens all the time in history. Yeah, well, maybe. Yeah, I don't think it's unusually Welsh. I just think it's standard conduct, actually. I don't think it is.

I don't think that after a battle, women come out and hack off testicles in medieval Europe, by and large. Dominic pulling a face. Because it causes a scandal. If they didn't, I feel like they should have done. Anyway, let's continue. Okay. All right. So it's lots of bad blood in England because people are telling the story and believing it.

And so Henry leads another expedition. And this one is even worse because there's an incredibly violent storm and it flattens the king's tent. There's great lightning bolt incinerates it. And Henry could very easily have died. And of course, everyone in Wales says that this has been conjured up by Glendower's magicians.

So there's a general sense. This is great. You know, we're hacking off testicles. We've got storms. We've got dragons. It's absolutely brilliant. Just on the magicians. So magicians didn't play any part. You did a series about the Hundred Years' War with the Third. I don't recall any magicians in that series. No. Do the English genuinely believe that the Welsh have magicians on their side, kind of druid figures or something? Because in Shakespeare's play, Owen Glyndaur is a kind of comedy magician, isn't he? Yeah.

Not exactly a comedy. Well, maybe that's just the productions I've seen generally play it for laughs. Hotspur laughs at him. Yeah. But there's a sense that he's a very, actually, I mean, I think Shakespeare presents him as being very formidable. He's called the great magician. Yeah, I think there is.

I, and I think that the English play it up as a way of showing how the Welsh are just, you know, they're just savages and the Welsh play it up because it's, it's a way of intimidating the English. And also it's true to traditions that the English don't have. So I think it, it's, you know, for all these reasons, the idea that, uh, Glendower, uh,

has access to supernatural powers that, you know, the lumpen English in their plodding armor don't have is an important part of his image. And

Henry is, for the moment, powerless to do anything about it. His style of fighting is inadequate to cope with the kind of guerrilla warfare that Ernst Glendower is the master of. But now he's facing trouble on another front, isn't he? Because it's not just the western border, but up north, in your neck of the woods, Tom, near your country estate, there's all kinds of ructions going on. Yeah. So, of course, because the Scots...

you know, they're kept informed of what's going on in Wales.

And they think this is a perfect opportunity to launch a great raid on the North. So this happens in September 1402, and it's led by the most formidable military figure in Scotland, who's a guy called the Earl of Douglas. And he leads his men across the Tweed and heads southwards down towards Newcastle, plundering and looting as he goes. And Hotspur, who's in Wales, is sent news. He goes galloping up using

using his hot spurs to join his father.

and the two men meet up. And although they are ready to oppose the Scots, it's clear that they are full of festering resentments against Henry. So Hotspur is going not just to oppose Douglas, but to have a council of war with his father. So Hotspur disagrees with Henry IV's strategy of fighting Owen Glynda. He thinks that there should be negotiations, an accommodation should be arrived at.

He feels that the Prince of Wales is stepping on his toes that, you know, as Prince Hal gets older. So he's starting to muscle in on a sphere of activity that Hotspur feels is his own.

And most incendiary of all, there is the fact that Edmund Mortimer, who is Hotspur's brother-in-law now because Hotspur is married to Edmund Mortimer's sister, he's not being ransomed. Henry IV is refusing to ransom him and is refusing Edmund Mortimer the right to ransom himself. And the reason for this very obviously is that the Mortimers are potential rivals. So

Henry, you know, actually having him captive by, you know, in Welsh hands is really good. But Hotspur is very, very resentful of this. And so he and his father consult. But before they can decide what to do about Henry IV, the immediate challenge, of course, is to oppose this great Scottish invasion. So what Hotspur does is he raises the forces of the Percys. And he's told that the Earl of Douglas has sacked Newcastle, stripped it bare, and is heading back north up the Great Road

towards the Tweed and Scotland. And what Hotspur does is to draw up his men in the shadow of this great Iron Age hill fort called Humbleton Hill.

blocking the road north to the Tweed. And again, Dominic, I've had an absolute time of it recently with early 15th century battlefields because I went and visited this as well just a few days ago. It's very, very dramatic. You've been walking the ground. I have been walking the ground like my brother does when he goes off to Dunkirk or Arnhem or whatever. So I went off to Humbleton Hill. And when Douglas sees the English lined up in front of him,

He withdraws up into the foothills of this Iron Age hill fort and kind of sits there and waits for the English to disperse.

But the problem for him is that Percy has an enormous number of longbowmen. And so the longbowmen just line up and fire volley after volley after volley at the Scots up on their hill and completely wipes them out. So a chronicler describes the Scots as looking like a hedgehog. They've got so many kind of arrows sticking out of them. And essentially the entire army is wiped out. There's a desperate charge at the end as, you know, led by Douglas, but it doesn't work. Douglas gets hit in the eye.

loses an eye. A thousand prisoners are taken, including Douglas. And again, a chronicler celebrates this and says the flower of the fighting men of the whole realm of Scotland. So it's a brilliant, brilliant victory. And for Henry IV, of course, you know, this is a rare bit of good news. He's had all these kind of troubles all over his kingdom. So this great victory of the Scots, fabulous. Or is it? Because even here, it kind of goes wrong because Henry

The fact that all these prisoners have been taken on one level is wonderful because it's a source of income. They can now be ransomed off and this money can then be used to fight the Welsh. Yeah, because it's expensive to fight wars. So fighting the Welsh is really expensive. And also there's been a visit to England by, amazingly, a Roman emperor, the emperor of Constantinople. Manuel II. Brilliant. Yeah.

So the first visit to Britain by a Roman emperor since the fourth century. That's amazing. That is amazing. Yeah. Henry IV had an amazing life. Went off to the Baltic, went to Jerusalem, welcomed a Roman emperor. Had an ostrich. Yeah. Interfered with the Welsh. I mean, incredible career. Yeah.

Anyway, continue. Yeah, so that had been very expensive. And now he's got this rebellion in Wales. So basically, he's got massive financial drain. Parliament is resentful. Remember, he'd come to power saying he wouldn't be screwing money out of them. And now all he does is ask them for money. Mobs in London are starting to get resentful. They're turning against the king. And inevitably, rumours are starting to spread that Richard II is alive now.

So there's this kitchen boy called Thomas Ward who's appeared in Scotland claiming to be Richard II. So...

Henry IV is facing a host of problems and at the root of all of them is a lack of money. So unsurprisingly, when he gets the news from Hamilton Hill, he writes to the Percys and says, you know, you are not allowed to ransom any of your prisoners without discussing it with me. And you have to send your highest ranking prisoners, including obviously Douglas, to Westminster.

So Hotspur, very resentful of this. He sends seven prisoners, but he doesn't send Douglas because he's really getting fed up with Henry IV. And he's the kind of guy who, when he gets fed up, he shows it.

And even when Hotspur does come down to London, summoned by Henry, he still doesn't bring Douglas. So the King and Hotspur have an absolutely blazing row. And remember, you know, they are old, old comrades in arms. So this is like old teammates, aren't they? Who've fallen out. There are old teammates. Yeah. Yeah. So Hotspur blames Henry for refusing to ransom, um, Edmund Mortimer. Henry brushes this accusation aside and,

But it's clear that he has an additional reason now for not ransoming Edmund Mortimer, which is basically that Edmund Mortimer, who's stuck with Owen Glyndawar, has decided to switch sides. And in November 1402, completely shocking news reaches London that Edmund has married

Owen Glendower's daughter, Catherine, which in turn means that Hotspur is now related by marriage to Owen Glendower. Yeah, that's a twist. Both of them are married to, you know, Edmund Mortimer has married Owen Glendower's daughter. Hotspur is married to Edmund Mortimer's sister. So, you know,

this isn't looking good for Henry IV at all. But despite all this, you know, he doesn't want to think that the Percys are going to turn against him. He wants to believe that they will stick by him. He can't afford to have them turn against him. So going into 1403, Henry essentially tries to kind of bribe the Percys back into supporting him. So on the 1st of March, the Earl of Northumberland, Hotspur's father, is

He's given the earldom of Douglas, so essentially all the Douglas' lands, a vast swathe of southern Scotland, with the implication that it's now the Percy's responsibility to stop faffing around, you know, dabbling their fingers in potential rebellion, but to go off into southern Scotland and conquer it for England and for Henry and for themselves. But to be fair, you could argue that is very smart statesmanship. He's giving the Percys...

a hell of an incentive to stick with him because he's saying you will increase your domain by an enormous margin. You'll take a huge chunk of Scotland. I mean, you'll be even more powerful than you are already. I mean, I think that it's a good offer. There's a slight problem in Wales where the prince has now come of age. He's now 16. So he has to be given command of the Welsh war.

But again, Henry IV is careful not to tread on Percy toes. And so he makes the Earl of Worcester, the Admiral, the younger brother of Northumberland, Hotspur's uncle, he makes him the second in command. So basically, you know, I mean, he's got responsibility for the prince. He's essentially his governor.

And so between them, Worcester and the Prince, they're starting to have some successes. There's been a siege of Aberystwyth, a siege of Harlech. They managed to relieve those two sieges. And they also march on Owen's estates, which amazingly up until this point hadn't been burnt and they absolutely waste them, flatten them. So conditions aren't great, but Henry IV in London must be thinking, come on, it's going to be all right. The Percys are going to stick by me. And to make absolutely sure of this,

He decides that he is going to march northwards to join Northumberland in this great war of invasion of southern Scotland. Before he can set off, he gets very alarming news from Wales.

He's told that Owen Glyndawr has erupted out of central Wales, which by this point has been conquered by him, and is heading southwards, which is the most anglicised stretch of Wales. It's been under English rule for a very long time. And messages say, you've got to come to Wales or else we're going to lose the whole principality.

But Henry ignores these. He's trusting the prince. He's trusting Worcester that they can handle the situation. He sends them £1,000 to kind of boost the fighting fund. But meanwhile, he remains committed to the invasion of southern Scotland. And he writes to Northumberland,

saying, I'm coming northwards in order to give aid and comfort to our very dear and faithful cousins, the Earl of Northumberland and his son, I.E. Hotspur, of the battle honorably to be undertaken by them for us and our realm against our enemies, the Scots. So the Prince, Prince Hal, he's fighting in Wales. Henry IV is marching northwards from London up towards the frontier with Scotland. And on the 12th of July, he reaches Nottingham in the Midlands. And there, Dominic,

He is given bombshell news. Bombshell. He is told Hotspur is not in the North. Hotspur has gone to Chester, that kind of hotbed of Ricardian support.

And there, Hotspur is proclaiming that Richard II is still alive. What? And is summoning people to join him in a war against the usurper. Wow. Devastating. What a twist. That's very George R.R. Martin. So Hotspur has turned against Henry IV, his old friend, his old comrade-in-arms, and

It's all going to pieces in Wales. Who knows what's going on in Scotland? Extraordinary scenes. Listen, if you want to hear the next part of Henry IV, Henry IV Part 2, in fact, and find out how this plays out, the Battle of Shrewsbury, the moment that the young Prince Hal, later Henry V, explodes onto the national stage, you can actually hear that episode right now by signing up at therestishistory.com and becoming a member today.

of our much-loved Rest Is History Club. If you don't want to do that, you'll have to wait till Thursday and we'll fool you. And on that bombshell, Tom, thank you very much and goodbye. Bye-bye. One for sorrow, two for joy, three for girl, four for a boy.

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