Gone Medieval - Edward IV: A King's Will

Episode Date: June 13, 2025

Inside Edward IV's Last Will: Secrets, Stories, and Medieval MysteriesJourney back to 1475, a time when Edward, undefeated on the battlefields of the Wars of the Roses, prepared for a grand invasion of France, including writing his Will.Matt Lewis is joined by Dr. Euan C. Roger from the National Archives and discovers the untold stories behind Edward's preparations, including the mysterious fate of his will, the detailed provisions for St. George's Chapel at Windsor and the efforts to secure the future of the Yorkist dynasty.They discuss the relics, tomb designs, and extraordinary lengths Edward went to ensure his legacy, and explore the dramatic last moments at his deathbed, surrounded not by family, but by courtiers with their own agendas.MOREThe Wars of the Roses: Originshttps://open.spotify.com/episode/3DHhrD90zRN0IppdA29QXkThe Wars of the Roses: Dynastic Warhttps://open.spotify.com/episode/49FZ4NiUW5XNi1RSh7rkH7Gone Medieval is presented by Matt Lewis. It was edited by Amy Haddow, the producer is Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds.Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Find out who we really were with Gone Medieval. Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval. I'm Matt Lewis. In 1475, King Edward IV of England, a man undefeated on the brutal battlefields of the wars of the roses, turned his fierce gaze toward France, which had supported his enemies. He amassed a huge army to accompany him to Calais in an effort to press the English claim to the French crown. As part of his preparations, Edward wrote a will, just in case he lost his life on the campaign. The will of a king of England is a fascinating document. What can it tell us about a king's preoccupations, what he hopes to achieve in a will,

and how he hopes to shape his legacy? To find out more about Edward IV's will of 1475, and delighted to welcome back to Gone Medieval, Ewan Roger, Principal medieval record specialist at the National Archives. Welcome back to Gone Medieval, Ewan. It's fantastic to have you with us again. Hi, Matt, it's great to be back. We must be doing something not too wrong for you to keep coming back and talking to us again. It's always nice to come and have a chat, yeah.

We're going to talk a little bit today about the will that Edward VIII wrote in 1475, and what that can tell us about all kinds of aspects of what he's thinking around that kind of of time. I wonder if we could just start off with thinking about what the physical evidence for this is. What are we looking at when we're talking about Edward the Fourth Will of 1475? It's a really interesting question because the fact is we don't actually have the physical will anymore. All we have is a transcript that's made at the kind of end of the 17th century start of the 18th century by a man called Thomas Reimer. He is the English historiographer Royal, which is a fantastic title, and I'd love to have it. And he's essentially writing a

series of books called The Feederer, which is a collection of diplomatic documents between the English crown and royal officials. That word is a horrendous one to see written down. I've always wondered how you're supposed to pronounce that properly. I misspell it every single time. I write it down. But it's an amazing collection of documents that are transcribed and translated. And he has this incredible access to the Tower of London, to these kind of English administrative depots for documents. And he's transcribing them. and the only copy we have of Edward the Forcer Will is part of his notes, his working notes.

It doesn't make it into the feederer, it's his kind of collection of working notes that are in the British Library. And he makes this, and it's not been seen since. We know he saw it in probably the Royal's Chapel, so just off Chancery Lane, it has not been seen since. So we don't know what the physical evidence itself is. So we are dealing with something at secondhand, but fairly reliably secondhand.

Yeah, Rhyme is pretty reliable. He does have in this kind of transcription he makes, there are points where he's making queries and the Latin doesn't seem to quite make sense. The text doesn't seem to quite make sense. So we have to have a bit of suspicion in our minds, but he's pretty reliable normally. Where I see these queries, I think it might be that the document's damaged, and he's kind of trying to read bits that have been damaged since. It was written at 1475, but it's fairly reliable, yeah. And another missing document we can hope maybe one day comes to light.

I'm desperate to find it. I've been tracing through. We have these kind of inventories of the Tower of London of the Royal's Chapel. And I've been trying to work out when it disappears. But unfortunately, no luck yet. Yeah, me and you go on a trip to the Tower of London and see what we can find, maybe. Sounds great. And why then, in 1475, why is King Edward IV sitting down to make a will?

Why is he thinking about that at that moment? So the context of this is that he's about to go to war with, France. He's about to go his first proper overseas campaign. And it's quite traditional that English kings will make a will when they're going overseas in case the worst happens, in case they don't come back. So, for example, Henry the Fifth makes several wills each time he goes to France on campaign. So it's very traditional in that sense. He's about to go. If he doesn't come back, we need to know what's going to be happening in the realm. You know, we're moving towards the 550th anniversary now of this planned invasion of France.

and the writing of this will. Just to put it in a little bit of context for us as well, why is Edward invading France in 1475? In a way, he's trying to emulate Edward III, the great conqueror of the Hundred Years' War, he goes across and states his claim, and to the extent Henry V as well. So, in a sense, it's trying to make that historic claim.

But I think probably more importantly, it's a chance to get all of his nobles together after years of civil war and infighting and actually go and fight someone else for a change. Go and have grand campaigns with chivalric deeds. I think it's an attempt to bring them together by going off to fight that traditional enemy, the French. Yeah, and Henry V does the same thing, doesn't he?

You know, distract from the internal upheaval of his father's reign and all the questions about who's the rightful king. The best way to do that, stop everyone fighting each other in England, is to get them all together and take them over to France and encourage them to fight there. Exactly. And it ties in with ideas around things like the Order of the Garter. So Edward III uses the Order of the Garter really effectively to kind of get his knights

play fighting as it were at tournaments rather than fighting amongst themselves. And I think we see Edward the Forth harking back to that tradition. Because in a sense, it's quite hard when you're in a civil war to kind of reward your knights for their chivalric deeds because they're not very chivalric if you're fighting your countrymen. So this is a chance to really celebrate the English knights. and aristocracy. Yeah, and I guess the Wars of the Roses as well has highlighted the difficulty of rewarding people

when you're taking it off someone else who you might want to give it back to later if they come back into the fold of it, whereas if you go to France, everything's up for grabs there. Exactly, exactly. And we see he's been, by 1475, he's been kind of promising this campaign for several years as well.

In Parliament, trying to get money. So actually, there's a real impetus to be going in 1475. He's talked about it long enough. It's time to actually go and fight them. Yeah, and I guess the part of this is Edward wanting to get back at the French for what he perceives as their support for the Lancasterian cause for Henry the 6th in the Wars of the Roses that Louis the 11th in France has backed his enemies. So here's a chance to go and have that out with Louis. But we probably also need to strip ourselves of a little bit of the hindsight because we view the 100 years war as ending in 1453. To Edward VIII, that distinction probably isn't made.

So this is an effort to kind of reignite the 100 years war again. Oh yeah, 100%. I think we can't take away Edward's ambitions when he's playing this campaign to reunite the crowns, to have himself crowned in reams. I think he's definitely thinking that, that it's going to be a grand campaign and it's going to be successful. He's going to get back at people who supported his enemy. Yeah. And we're here mostly to talk about his will, but we ought to just deal with how does the campaign play out. Is it successful? Well, it depends how you define success, I suppose. They go out to France. They're kind of reliance. They're kind of reliance. on support from Burgundy, from Brittany, which never doesn't materialise at all, really. They're actually going through and the Burgundians aren't allowing them into the towns that they control. So there's really no support coming, which means that Edward ends up making secret terms with the King of France and essentially getting rewarded financially, pensioned off,

as it were, with a grand sum of money to go home and not come back for a while. So for Edwards, it's very successful, but we do see, I think, discontent amongst, some of his army about the fact they don't actually get to fight anyone. They're just sent home and a bit of a payoff, but it's a bit cheap, really. Yeah. And I do think it's an interesting example of, you know, how do you define a win? Because as you say, Edward would say, I mean, he pitches the pension that he gets very much as a tribute, doesn't he? Almost like a Roman tribute from a vassal kingdom almost. He's desperate to portray this as a huge victory. It does make the English crown solvent for the first time in anybody's memory as well.

But as you say, everybody that's been promised all this chance to club together and go and attack the French and get all of the booty and the land and everything else that might come with that kind of has to go home disappointed with next to nothing. You know, apart from the nobility you get similar sort of pensions as well, everybody else kind of goes home with nothing but the lost promise of what they might have had if Edward had done it. So Edward is desperately trying to pitch this as a success while lots of other people are feeling quite put out and frustrated by it. Yes, exactly. And you can see Edward celebrating it at St George's Chapel, which I'm sure we'll talk about throughout this kind of conversation. He actually has a Missouri cord built for the chapels. This is the bit that goes underneath the seats and the stalls, depicting the treaty epiquany, which is when this kind of payoff is made. So you can see him physically celebrating that success in his chapel. But as you say, the lower status members of the army aren't quite getting that payout in the same way. And it's important as well to recognize the investors, that's gone into this campaign. So we have lists of guns that are made and never fired. So there's kind of that element to it as well, that they are investing in this campaign that never comes to fruition.

Yeah, I always find it an interesting episode because Edward kind of almost since the re-adeption, he comes back to the throne in 1471 after he's been kicked off a little bit. Henry the Sixth is put back on the throne for kind of six months or so. Edward gets it back in 1471. And almost immediately he's saying we're going to go and bash the French. He's starting to make treaties around Europe to secure things. So this is almost like four years in the buildup and the making.

And I kind of get the sense that Brittany's support doesn't materialise in the way that Edward is hoping. But also, if we think forward a bit to his grandson, Henry VIII, there was almost a sense that he gets bored before he's even done it. It's taken too long to get there. If he could have done it in 1471, it might have been a completely different kettle of fish. But all of this planning is just not very Edward. Yeah, exactly. I think it's in his mind, it's a chance to go and do something a bit more.

more fun, rather than the kind of mundane life of plotting nobles against you and trying to manage, as you say, as an economy, the Crown's insolvency at this time. On that point, actually, it's interesting. One of the main biographies of Edward VIII really entertainingly describes the time when he comes back from France as a quiet year. And that's kind of like it. That really, for me, ties into how Edward's thinking about this campaign and he's kind of something fun to do, as it were. Yeah, yeah. And just thinking that, you know, we're it, 550 years, a bit of an anniversary for it. Is there a legacy, do you think, to that 1475 campaign? Because kind of nothing happens, Edward does try to claim this victory in financial terms,

but does that campaign have any kind of a legacy? In a sense, no. I think it kind of always gets forgotten. But as you say, it is, it sets up the next years of Edwards, the second half of Edwards' reign, really, all this money coming in and he's able to do things that he wouldn't have been able to do otherwise. So I think it has that legacy, but it's almost been forgotten about because it is this kind of damp squib, as it were, they come back and there's nothing's really happened. But it ties into things like the Building of St. George's in Windsor, which really is Edward's legacy going forward. So it's tied in, but it often gets forgotten in that sense. And I wonder whether it's just, it reminds us, as I say, that we need to be careful with hindsight

and thinking the 100 years war is over because, again, you know, his grandson, Henry VIII, will desperately try to invade France to press that claim in a similar way. So we think it's been over for 20 years by the time Edward tries this. In contemporary minds, it's still very much an active claim is there to be had. So it kind of reminds us that we need to put ourselves a little bit in the mindset of these people when they're planning these things and we're thinking about why they're doing these things. But we should probably get back to the actual will, to the will that Edward wrote before he goes off on this campaign. I kind of generally, what does a medicate evil king's will look like? What kind of thing is he detailing? Because for me, I think there's a

big issue with the fact that almost everything the king owns belongs to the crown, so it will go to his air. So is there much he can actually deal with in a will? Yeah, it's an interesting question. As you say, most of the king's goods, incomes is passed down automatically. So there's not much that can be done except in terms of the details, as it were, of what exactly needs to be set aside, particularly from the Duchy of Lancaster revenue streams, which the king has a bit more control over than others. So things like commemoration. If he does die, how is he going to be remembered? Where is he going to be buried? How is he going to be buried? A lot of things like that can be tied in. Any particular family bequests can come into. In this wheel, we see a few items, clauses pertaining to his children,

but also kind of charitable, arms giving aims are very particular for certain kings. And that really comes out in Edward's will in 1475, I'd say. Okay, so there is a bit of a distinction between the vast majority of the Crown property and some stuff that Edward might consider personal that he can leave to his children or to a specific request to people he wants to be remembered in his will. Yeah, it's all tied into things he has to do. So not all of that Duchy of Lancaster revenue can just be given out to people. There's certain expectations.

But within that, there are things he can do, there are amounts he can spend in a kind of personal way, as it were, rather than just being king. And does Edwards will give us any kind of an insight to what he's thinking about the future of his dynasty? He's the first king of the New Yorkist dynasty. Does his will give us an insight into how he's pitching his dynasty to continue after him or how he's pitching his dynasty to remember him? I think what we see very clearly in the will is this kind of idea that St George's Chapel at Windsor is going to be his legacy. It's a grand, in his kind of mind, it's a grand new Yorkist mausoleum. It's going to be

charitable hub. It's going to be his big thing to leave behind. And as I say, there's a few clauses about his family. But otherwise, this kind of lengthy will is almost entirely about Windsor. And exactly how he wants his new chapel to be laid out, how he wants it to function. And that's, I would say very much, that's his legacy. It's still there today. It's still functioning as a major royal church. So I think this is what he's seeing. And you see that in the timing of the will as well. So he writes this in Sandwich on the way for crossing the channel on the 20th of June. And he's just kind of issued the letters patent to Richard Beecham, the Bishop of Salisbury, to start building the chapel on the 12th of June. So it's very clearly in his mind at this point. And I think that's what's

driving much of the will. Yeah. Also, I'm going to talk a bit about Windsor in a second. but there's always an elephant in the room when I talk about this period of history and that's Edward the 4's young son we know that Edward will survive this campaign he will live for another eight years afterwards his son will still come to the throne then as a minor does Edward do anything in his will to deal with the fact

that his son is at this point a four-year-old boy there is necessarily going to be a minority if he is killed on the campaign there are a few elements there's not much that's kind of brought in about Prince Edward at this point. So before the will has come in, we know he's been made keeper of England. As you say, he's four years old. There's not much he can do. So he's keeper of

England in his mother's control while the actual ruling of England is left to the council in England. So not the council, the broader council, much of which is with him in France, but a specific council of England. That's kind of sitting before the will is being made. There's actually not a huge amount in the will about Prince Edward, except to say that he's meant to be nominally putting the will into effect should Edward die and kind of ensuring that the grants that the King's made are honoured and all of these kind of things that are relatively standard for what an heir would do. He's just kind of clarifying in his will, these need to be done. But other than that, there's not a huge amount in. Now, I think we'll probably talk about this later in the

episode, there's this question of whether things that added later on to the will, which would have brought that into play. But in 1475, there's not much actually written out about it. I wonder if that sort of plays into an interesting aspect of a king's will for me is that medieval kings are always keen to portray themselves as kind of immortal. They don't want to think about dying and their death and what comes next. Edward wouldn't want to be writing this will thinking, if I do die, I'm leaving behind a crisis with a four-year-old boy. So he's kind of, he's writing a will, which is an admission he might die, during which he wants to be careful to look like he's immortal and he's definitely not going to die during this campaign. And that even

if he does, he's not going to leave behind a problem, it will be fine. His son will succeed him. It's a kind of a weird jumble of positioning himself, but covering the basis he needs to cover. Yeah. And I think that's particularly the case when you think about the, campaign wills, as it were, because it's very different to a deathbed will where you know you are about to die. This is a, I'm going to fight the French, I will be coming back. He uses his word saying that remembering inwardly that we as other creatures in the world be transitory. So there's this kind of language around the fact he might not come back. But I think you're right, it's very different in this sense that he has to be confident, but also at the same time try and make any

provisions that may be needed should he not come back. Yeah, yeah, interesting. So what are the kind of the main bulk of the provisions? You said he's very concerned about St George's Chapel Windsor. So this is something that has kind of come to the fore since Edward the Third's reign. What is Edward doing to change things at Windsor, to redevelop things at Windsor? What is he focusing on there? So in 1475, he's doing no less than refounding the entire institution. He's building a massive new chapel. As I say, it's only just about started at this point, but there's kind of ideas that this will be a grand chapel. It's huge in comparison to Edward III's chapel. And he's also the same time kind of refounding the college that runs a chapel that lives within the chapel that functions as

its heart really. So we can see him adding in the will to liturgical provisions to the singers that are in the chapel. We can see him giving them huge amounts of new and investment. So they get the hospitalist and Antonies in London essentially annexed to them. And since Edward III's foundation, the college has actually been quite poor because it was promised a thousand pounds worth of endowment. They get about half of that. So they don't actually have the money for most of their life up to this point to function as they should be. So they're in real need of investments from the King. They've tried it before with eating college. They try annex eating college. But this is around the time when Edward VIII is kind of interested in this re-foundation.

but it's still pre-readaption. He's not thinking about his legacy at this point. So they get this huge new investment of about, it's potentially about £300 a year in extra income, which is huge for St. George's. So we can see that grand foundation, but he's also situating himself in it. Several clauses within the will relate to his tomb,

his place of burial. So he says he's pointed out to Richard Beecher, Bishop Salisbury, where he wants to be built. And he talks about all the details of his bodies be laid low in the ground, covered with a slab, an inside slab, details of his name and his death, with a grand chantry chapel above it. And this is a kind of floating chantry chapel above the vaulting. And it's still there today. And within that a tomb, including an image of the king in gold and guilt. And he says, if I can't get gold or silver in guilt, at least copper in guilt. That's the minimum I'll have. So he's kind of situating himself in this and also thinking of.

about charity and armsmen and people that are going to be remembering him, commemorating him. So it's all-consuming for him at this point, this grand new refoundation. I kind of guess if there was ever a King of England who needed lots of prayers said for him after he's gone. It's maybe, Edward, is this him slightly reflecting on the life that he's lived, the way that he's come to the throne, the people that have died to get him there, the sins that he's committed along the way and thinking, actually, I need to do something about this? I think to an extent it is, yeah. I mean, obviously, kind of commemoration and arms and charity

are probably much more common for kings at this time than they might be today. Obviously, modern monarchs still have that sense of charitable endeavor and all of this. But pre-Reformation, we are talking about these are ways to speed your soul through heaven. So they are far more common than they would be today. But yes, I do think we can see this. It's quite large in terms of largesse in terms of what he's giving out. So he has these kind of institutional bits that brings in a group of armsmen, for example, which is a kind of interesting change within Windsor.

But then he's also giving £200 every year in charity to be given out on the kind of anniversary of his death, which is a large, large sum of money. And he breaks down on the will what that's to be spent on. So it's quite interesting in itself. But within those provisions, he's also rewarding royal servants in particular, and royal servants that have fallen on hard times, perhaps as a consequence of supporting him in this kind of challenging period. So there is a sense, both of the kind of spiritual benefits of this, but also looking after people who have supported you along the way. I think it's just interesting to think about what a medieval king has got on his mind when he sits down to write a will. And as you say, you know, there is a degree of standard piety and expecting masses to be said to speed your soul through purgatory.

But it does feel a little bit like Edward is over-egging that pudding a bit like he really feels like he's got some making up to do. Yeah, I think so. I think so. And interestingly, I think we also have to balance here what Edward is thinking about and who's perhaps influencing him in making these decisions. because I think often we think of Edmund the 4th as not a details kind of guy, but actually in some of these endowments, in some of these changes, they are really detailed. He's specifying the number of choristers he wants to be added to the chapel. So I think we have to, on one hand, weigh up the King's wishes and how he's being influenced. But yeah, I do think he is kind of overrating that pudding, as you said,

by really going hard on the charity to make amends. And beyond the charitable stuff, is there an effort here for Edward to do something in terms of really aligning himself with someone like Edward III, you know, who is considered to be hugely successful, massively powerful monarch with a vast legacy, the man who initially established the order the garter and put a focus on St George's at Windsor. And for Edward to almost say, I'm going to take that and I'm going to make it ten times better. So what is Edward trying to do there? Yeah, I think that's entirely what he's trying to do. And the way he does it is really interesting. So there's a couple of different things that he brings in. So a lot of these are around relics and the relics that the chapel has been given in its foundation.

So we have a couple. One is the Cross Caneph, which is allegedly part of the True Cross that is held in high esteem by the Welsh princes in the 13th century until they're beaten by Edward III. and it's kind of ever the second, ever the, so yeah, it's kind of how,

the cross is this relic that's allegedly part of the true cross, much revered by the princes in Wales in the 13th century until it's taken from them by Edward I,

and then kind of brought into the royal household. And it's given to Windsor at their foundation in the 14th century. And Edward commissions a new roof boss for the chapel,

which depicts him and the Bishop of Salisbury, Richard Beecham, with the cross Geneff. So it's a way of aligning himself, with Edward III's provision for the college. We also see a relic that they have of St. George.

So they have various bits of St. George. They have bits of his heart, bits of his skull. And we have this early reliquary in which this relic sits. And what we see is Edward IV, creating a new version of that made of gold to replace the earlier version. So it's linking himself with that earlier history in a really tangible and visual way

so that people are seeing him reflecting Edward III's original foundation. And I guess you have to wonder how much of that is a big propaganda effort. You know, he has come to the throne as a usurper, as the first king of a new dynasty, who deposed and quite possibly ordered the killing of the previous king. Is he looking to then almost wipe out Lancasterian kingship and hop back to Edward III and say, you know,

we're going back to those bright days when England was conquers, conquering France and, you know, I'm going to be different to what's gone before. I'm going to go all the way back to the huge successes that we used to know. Yeah, I think so. And the interesting thing for me is the choice of Windsor as opposed to Westminster, because I guess he has two choices. You can either really align yourself with that long history of kingship at Westminster, Westminster Abbey, the place of coronations, and also where a lot of kings have been buried over the years.

So you can link yourself to that. But actually he takes a different option and says I'm going to start my own mausolean, my own foundation, my own Yorkist chapel elsewhere. And I'm going to really focus on Windsor rather than that kind of pre-existing commemorative option that was available to him. Yeah. And do you think that tells us anything in particular? Because we've seen previously, so Henry IV, you know, first Lancasterian king gets himself

buried at Canterbury rather than Windsor or anywhere like that. But Henry V is at Windsor. Henry the 6th kind of has less choice about where he ends up for a while at least. So Edward is simultaneously trying to hark back to old kingship, but also start something new with a brand new mausoleum at Windsor. So there's a little bit of a juxtaposition in the message he's trying to put out there, I guess. Yeah, I think so. I think part of it is actually related to the Yorkist's claim to the throne.

So it's kind of saying, we have this claim through the line that goes back to Edward III. and actually that's a stronger link than perhaps might be made elsewhere. Yeah. And so we are pretty clear then that Edward is planning to set up St George's as the New Yorkist mausoleum. So he will be buried there. His successors will be buried in this kind of new place. Yeah, it doesn't come out in the will as such. We know that it's very much where he's going to be buried. It's in the later years that we see this kind of development of the Yorkist mausoleum. But I think the earliest seeds are being sown here. It's not just the real family. It's also people like William Lord Hastings, kind of has space set aside for his

chantry there and kind of pointed out, this is where you're going to be, you've got permission to have your chantry here. So you can see the kind of the wider Yorkist contingency coming together at Windsor. Yeah. And I guess hopefully it's not a spoiler for anyone, but Edward the fourth doesn't die on the campaign in 1475. He makes it back. Interestingly, All of this work that he's been thinking about and planning at Windsor still goes on. He makes sure all of that happens for the rest of his reign. So does that show that this is something that he really genuinely is committed to? So it's not just that he's thinking about commemoration and masses that might be said for him after he's dead.

He is thinking longer term about what St George's could mean for him and his kingship. Yeah, and that's even brought out in the will itself in 1475. he makes these contingency plans. So he says he has various money available to him that's come in through the minority of several heirs, through a tinder of someone else. So he has these kind of cash sums. And he says, this is to be continued

until my chapel is completed. And where we lose these minorities, say, when the air comes to age, the money should be supplied from the Duchy of Lancaster or other sources. So he's saying, this needs to be finished. It's a provision of my will that this is carried on.

Later on, Richard III kind of pulls those funds when he becomes king. But you can see in Edward's minds that this is something that will carry on into the future and things like the £200 in arms. Again, it's forevermore. It's meant to be continuous.

It's meant to be long term. And there are provisions made in the will to try and ensure that. It's interesting to wonder if Edward IV had died on that campaign. Would we have the St. George's Chapel that we see today? Because kings, wills don't always

play out the way that they had hoped they were. could have been abandoned for lack of money or lack of will or, you know, in the midst of a minority crisis, who's really worried about building a splendid new chapel at Windsor? So it's interesting to think that for all of this care and provision in his will, it might be the fact that he doesn't die that means we do have the St. George's Chapel we see today. Yeah, I think certainly by the time of his death in 1483, it's far enough along that it can't just be completely abandoned, as it might have been. As said, Richard the 3rd kind of pulls the funds. Henry the Seventh doesn't give the funds back, but kind of relies on the order

of gas to pay for it instead. But yeah, I think you're right. The fact that it's at least partially completed by 1483 means that it's been built enough to kind of carry on to the modern day. There's been too much invested in it, too much done, too much royal input into it for it to fail entirely. Yeah, yeah. And so I guess the final question is Edward dies in 1483, famously with lots of other side effects that we're not going to talk about in any kind of detail today. How much of his will do we see

still being put into action in 1483, how much of what he wanted to happen still happens? And you mentioned a little bit earlier, what do we know about potential changes to his will in the intervening eight years? This is the big question. And the answer is we don't really know. There's a lot of chats towards the end of his life,

well, in the aftermath of his death. that there had been several codicils added to the will. And I think these fundamentally change what's in the will. So the things that have been brought in like the annexation of St. Anthony's, that happens during his life, so that's fine. But anything that's still to be resolved at the time of his death, it could be affected by these codicils and we don't really know. So one example is the poor Knights of Windsor.

So this is a military, charitable military order set up by Edward III. is meant to look after knights who have found themselves impoverished as a consequence of the French wars and then it meant to be looked after. They're really problematic because they're really expensive most of the 14th and 15th centuries. So Edward VIII actually says, okay, I'll make new provision for you in 1483,

dies before that can be put into place, and they claim that he had a codicil in his will setting up a new foundation for them, but it never materialises. So it's really hard to say exactly what these codicils might have added or taken away or changed from the original will. And of course, the big question which we don't have from these codicils is whether the Duke of Gloucester, Richard III as he will be, is named Protector or not. That's the kind of thing that would have been potentially in a codicil, but we just don't have that copy of the will. It's probably destroyed at some point during Richard's reign or later.

we just simply don't know. And it's frustrating, but also intriguing to think what those codicils might have been. Because it sounds like people are essentially crowding around the King's deathbed to get them to sign off on the changes that they want to be made and the provisions they want to be made, that none of that is recorded in a way that survives today. Because it's odd when Edward dies, you know, all of the sources talk about this being completely unexpected,

that, you know, lots of the sources seem to talk about him having a cold, You know, something that you wouldn't have expected to do away with a normal person, never mind a king, never mind the humongous warrior king that is Edward the 4th. So it's unexpected, but it's also going to lead to the crisis of a minority. So there must be, I guess, it's surprisingly he doesn't make a whole new will, but maybe that's a lack of time. And as you say, there is a sense that these codicils could be like a muddled, panicked effort to get Edward to sign off on things while he's. he's still able to make small changes. So rather than rewrite the whole will, do we see these kind of piecemeal changes that perhaps reflect people's concerns other than Edwards at the point when he's about to die? Yeah, it's an interesting question because the will is quite long,

but a lot of it has already been put into place by Fortune 83. So it could theoretically be cut quite easily, where a new will to be pulled together. So I do think it sees kind of people around his bedside trying to get these small things changed rather than trying to endeavor to get a whole new will kind of created by the king and signed off because that's that's quite tricky. I think we can almost see a parallel here with Henry VIII on his death and the kind of the attempts to make changes, make visions, get things signed off in the king's dying hours, weeks, days. So I think that's the kind of similarity we can see here. People trying to scrabble and get the best of the situation that they can. It's slightly sad from a human point of view, isn't it,

that, you know, yes, he's a king, there's lots of business to be thinking about, but this is a man at the age of 40 dying unexpectedly and all he's surrounded by his people saying, just sign this, you know, just don't, don't read it, just sign it, you know, you're wondering whether people are taking advantage in that moment? I think they quite possibly are. I think this is something that is always going to be the case with a dying king. The future is uncertain, as you said, with a minority. People are trying to make the best of the situation as they can. And it is quite sad that he's kind of surrounded then,

not by his family in those final hours, but potentially courtiers trying to get their own wishes set aside. Yeah, just desperately trying to squeeze a few more pennies out of the king before he passes away. It's very sad. Where are we going to find this, Will, Ewan? When are we going on our trip to find this, Will? I'm hoping it's going to be in our salt mine in Cheshire somewhere amongst the miscellaneous collections.

So if fingers crossed, it will come to light at some point. The unfortunate thing is it will not shed any light on these codicils, because I think that version's long gone. But at least we know this was there in the 17th century, and provided it's not been destroyed or taken away to some private collection at some point in the 18th century, we have hoped that it will one day resurface. Yeah, yeah. And presumably those codicils,

are likely to have been done away with simply because there is then a regime change. Let's not get into the detail of the regime change. There is a regime change followed by another regime change pretty shortly afterwards as well. So kind of the old king's will and the things that he wanted to happen or envisaged happening or the ways that he wanted to spend money are simply no longer relevant. There's no point having those papers around. I think it's less a fact of relevancy. I think the fact it's more that Richard is making this claim that either Edward V is illegitimate

or Edward the fourth was illegitimate or whatever the kind of arguments that are being made. So actually, it's not that it's not relevant in terms of its clauses. It's not relevant as a king's will in the perception of Richard III and his regime. Yeah, yeah. So it almost needs to be invalid. It's frustrating that, you know, destroy the paperwork. Just keep it for us, you know, future historians would quite like to read some of this stuff. Or at least a copy. A copy would be fine. Yeah, yeah. Just squirrel it away.

Maybe Crowland Abbey, you know, there's a lot of stuff in that Crowland Abbey that cropped up, isn't it? Yeah. Me and you, I say, yeah, we'll have a trip to Crowland Abbey, and then we'll have a trip to the salt mines. Sounds great. We'll see what we can find. I mean, there must be so much fascinating stuff in those salt mines anyway.

Yeah, still so much to come to light in the future. Yeah. I mean, I talk to people sometimes about, you know, the National Archives. Obviously, you guys have a massive treasure trove of stuff, but people are quite often not aware that you actually have. way, way more. It's like the tip of the iceberg is at Q Gardens, isn't it? At Q at the National Archives. The rest of it is immense and largely uncataloged. And there's still plenty of stuff coming to light. We've found stuff in recent years that kind of sheds new light

on the reademption. And it's just been found amongst papers from Henry the 7th Court, where it shouldn't be, but it's ended up there. And that stuff that's been cataloged. So what more can we find from the uncatalued unsorted material? There's a there's plenty of scope for discovery. Fascinating. I'm going to get my minor's helmet on and drag you down there. Well, thank you so much for joining us, you. And it's been fascinating to talk about this around the 550th anniversary, to think about that invasion of France, and to think about what a King of England thinks of when he sits down to write his will. The impact that that might have and might not have, and the fallout from his ultimately unexpected death.

It's been absolutely fascinating to get into all of that. So thank you so much for joining us. Well, thanks for having me. It's been great to be back. It's been a pleasure. Thank you. Ewan's research and his book will make for fascinating reading. While we're thinking about the death of Edward IV, here's a little taster of a series that we did, unbelievably, three years ago now,

covering the Wars of the Roses in three episodes, with a bonus fourth episode on Margaret Beaufort thrown in two. 1471 marked the end, or at least an end, of the Wars of the Roses. It was no longer a dynastic dispute between the houses of Lancaster and York, because one was extinct. Some resistance remained. John Devere, Earl of Oxford, hated Edward VIII with a passion. Edward had executed Oxford's father and older brother, and the Earl remained bitterly opposed to Edward for the rest of his life.

In fact, in 1473, Oxford, who had turned to piracy in the English Channel, stormed and seized St Michael's Mount off the coast of Cornwall. When Edward heard that Oxford was using the Tidele Island as a fortress to recruit in the south-west, he sent Sanry Bodrigan to lay siege to the Earl. Imagine his annoyance when it was reported that every day at low tide, Bodrigan allowed Oxford's men out of St Michael's Mount to resupply. It was literally the opposite of a siege. Edward sent Richard Fortescue to replace Bodrigan,

and although Walkworth's Chronicle insists that the mount could be held indefinitely by 20 men. Offers of pardons caused Oxford's men to leave him until he was forced to surrender on the 15th of September 1474. Oxford was sent to Ham's Castle at Calais, where the pirate earl would remain a prisoner for 10 years. In many ways, this should have been the end of the story. In 1883, the House of York fell in upon itself when Edward IV died unexpectedly aged 40. His 12-year-old son was proclaimed Edward V and then declared illegitimate. It was Edward IV's youngest brother, the Duke of Gloucester, who instead became King Richard III.

That story is told in more detail in a previous episode on Richard III, and the story is complex and divisive today. Henry Tudor, the son of Lady Margaret Beaufort, won at the Battle of Bosworth on the 22nd of August 1485. The Tudor name that his dynasty made famous belied his royal Beaufort connections. For many, that's another end, the definitive end to the Wars of the Roses. But it isn't. Where it ends is as stickier topic as where it begins.

Bosworth wasn't even the last battle of the Wars of the Roses. The Battle of Stokefield took place on the 16th of June 1487 as part of the Lambert-Sindle affair. History generally paints this as an end. effort to place Edward Earn of Warwick, the son of George Duke of Clarence, onto the throne using an imposter. I think it was an uprising in favour of Edward V. Then there was Perkin Warbeck, or Richard of England, as he called himself. He spent much of the 1490s claiming to be Richard Duke of York, the youngest son of Edward IV. Did Richard III really murder the princes in the tower? Whatever you believe today, people in England in the 1490s weren't so sure

he had. Whoever he was, he was executed in 1499 alongside the Earl of Warwick. Beyond this, the sons of the Dillipole family would trouble the Tudors for years more. Edmund Dillopole fled onto the continent with his brother Richard and began to call himself the White Rose, the rightful king of England. Both were sons of one of Edward IV and Richard III's sisters. He was handed over by the Holy Roman Emperor in a prisoner exchange for the Emperor's son who was held captive by Henry the 7th. Henry VIII then executed Edmund on the 30th of April 1513. Henry did this in spite of his father's promises that Edmund would not be harmed and on the eve of an invasion of France. I suspect Henry was trying to craft parallels to Henry V, who executed a rebel member of the House of York

on the eve of sailing for what would become the Agincourt campaign, perhaps because Henry was a vicious tyrant desperate for fame right from the very beginning of his reign. Richard de Lephole then took up the mantle of the White Rose and was trying to gain military support when he was killed at the Battle of Pavia in 1525. When news arrived of Richard's death and the King of Francis' capture, Henry VIII reportedly rejoiced more at the former than the latter. Incidentally, their other brother, William de LaPole, was put in the Tower in 1502 when his brothers fled. He died there in 1539. His 37 years as a prisoner is still the longest term anyone has ever served in the tower's history.

Even that isn't the end. The Pole family became the next focus. of Yorkist ambition. They were the children of Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, the daughter of George Duke of Clarence. The family became caught up in Henry VIII's growing paranoia. Margaret's eldest son, Henry, was executed for treason, and she herself was beheaded in 1541, aged 67. One of her sons, Reginald, was a churchman who was on the continent. He enraged Henry by refusing to support his break with Rome, and papal plots began to centre on marrying Reginald and Mary Tudor in an effort to restore the House of York. Perhaps a real end date for the Wars of the

Roses finally came on the 17th of November 1558. Coincidentally on that day, both Reginald, then Archbishop of Canterbury and Mary, then Queen Mary the First, England's first Queen Regnant, died. 30 years of Lancaster and York fighting for the Crown? How about 150 years of feud spilling into violence that swell the dynastic dispute and defined a century and a half of English history? That's closer to the real Wars of the Roses, a complex tangle of sharp thorns

that I've barely scratched the surface of. You can find that series as well as episodes on Richard III and on the princes in the tower in our back catalogue if you'd like to explore this period further. You can also find Ewan's previous visits to Gone Medieval to discover other fascinating documents from the incredible collection at the National Archives. There are new installments of Gone Medieval every Tuesday and Friday,

so please come back and join Eleanor and I for more from the greatest millennium in human history. Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. can sign up to History Hit to access hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week and all of History Hits podcasts add free. Head to historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Go on. You know you want to. Anyway, I better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis and

we've just gone medieval with history hits.