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Royal Witch: Eleanor Cobham with Philippa Gregory

October 27, 20260 comments♥ 0
00:01 From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries
00:27 with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanorianaga and welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to popes, to the Crusades.
01:03 we delve into the rebellions, plots, and murders that tell us who we really were. And how we got here. In the 15th century, what did it take for a woman to be labeled a witch? Spells and potions? Prophecies and secret rituals? Or simply getting too close to power? And what a royal court wanted to bring down a man it could not easily touch. Where did it strike?
01:44 Sometimes, it seems, the answer was by striking the woman at his side. In November 1441, one such woman was forced to walk barefoot through the streets of London, carrying a lighted taper. Crowds jeered at her and threw things. Only months earlier, she had been one of the most powerful women in England. Now, Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gros of Gros of her, Gloucester and wife of the king's uncle was paraded before the city as convicted sorceress. Her fall was as extraordinary as her rise. Eleanor was the daughter of a minor Surrey knight.
02:27 Yet she made it to court as a lady in waiting to Jacqueline of Hainold, and then became the mistress and eventually the wife of Jacqueline's husband, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. He was uncle to the boy king Henry VI and, for a time, one of the kingdom's most powerful men. Then, in 1441, astrologers in Eleanor's circle predicted that the king would suffer a dangerous illness that summer. Suddenly, their prophecies were treated as evidence of treasonous sorcery. The machinery of justice closed in. One of Eleanor's clerks was hanged, drawn, and. and quartered. Another died in the tower. Eleanor escaped the flames only by fleeing to sanctuary
03:20 at Westminster Abbey. But sanctuary would never mean freedom for Eleanor Cobham. So what was really going on? Was Eleanor the victim of a political conspiracy aimed at destroying her husband? Or was there something more mysterious going on? A genuine belief in magic, prophecy, and the power to change the future. My guest today is the best-selling novelist Philippa Gregory. I've spoken to her before OnGa Medieval about real medieval women, so do go revisit that episode if you get the chance. Philippa's new book, Royal Witch, brings Eleanor Cobham to life.
04:02 Philippa says that she wanted to write about Eleanor for years, only to discover a woman who was far more complicated and interesting than she had expected. And I have to say, I have been waiting for years to read more about Eleanor Codham, too. So I can't wait. Well, Philippa, welcome back to Gone Medieval. Oh, thank you for having me. It's real pleasure to be back with you and medieval. Oh, I am absolutely delighted that you're here and even more delighted, as I already mentioned before we began recording, that I was allowed to read a fiction book for work.
04:37 And this one is another. Banger, as we say around here. So thank you for that. But I was just, I was so, so excited because when I was told that this book was coming out, my first reaction was just to say, oh, that's brilliant. Because I think Eleanor Cobham is just one of these women who is so incredibly interesting, but very, very overlooked in general. You know, in the Wars of the Roses, she kind of comes up as an interesting footnote in terms of, how things get off to a shaky start, but she's such a brilliant woman in her own right. And I think that, you know, she's just heaven to read about. And so thank you very much for that. But I guess we kind of need to begin at the beginning with her, don't we? Because she's such an interesting life. And I don't think that where she ends up in terms of the lofty heights of her career, if that's what we can call a life at court and I do, I think that it's quite interesting. because the circumstances into which she's born, it's certainly nobility, but it's not necessarily
05:48 consort levels of nobility, right? Oh, it's hardly nobility. She's sort of, they don't have a middle class, but if they did, should be middle class. You know, it's a castle, but it's a small castle, and it's a noble family, but they're very minor nobility. He's been, you know, he's part of the sort of upper class cannon fodder. So he's, he had, he had. He has, he had, has served, but not to any great distinction. And they don't have big connections, which is why their children don't marry particularly well. And why I think Eleanor is unmarried at the time for mother's death, which is for her big opportunity. And this is such an interesting set of choices that she makes because I think that she plays the lady in waiting game really brilliantly.
06:37 in terms of, you know, this is how one does make connections or climbs the ranks. You know, we're used to seeing members of the lower nobility. And as you say, this is sort of the lowest wrong. This is kind of like clinging on to the sirs, as it were. But she manages to get a start in political life by attaching herself to an incredibly interesting house. Can you talk a little bit about how she comes. to make this decision in the book because it's one of these things where we don't really know in real life. And so as a result, you were able to kind of put this together brilliantly.
07:19 In a way, this is sort of forensic writing that research, we don't know, we don't know at all, we don't know much about the cobens. We know their address. And we know the date of the death of her mother. We know that her brothers and sisters' approximate birth order, but we don't know their ages. But what we do see is that the older sister is married not very well to a much older man and that the brother stays at home and that there's another brother at home and that there's another sister who goes very early on to Barking Abbey, which is a sort of posh Abbey.
07:51 So you get there exactly if you're a cobham. So you're in the nobility but you're not doing great. And she's not there as a sort of senior nun. She goes as a very junior nun as a young woman. And so I think Eleanor kind of just got missed. out of the whole social connection. And so I imagine that she makes her own way because only someone with absolute determination could get to court under these circumstances. Obviously, she has some kind of allowance from her father. Obviously, she has some kind of family support,
08:25 because you couldn't arrive in court as a single woman. But she doesn't have enough to get herself opposed to, say, Queen Catherine, it's Catherine of Valois, who is Queen at the time. So she's, you know, she's not, she's aiming as high as she can go, and all she can get is Jacqueline of Heinalt, who's a visiting countess, who has come, run away from her oppressive uncle and husband, who have captured her kingdom, bizarrely, of Heinolt, Zealand and Northern Holland. And then the sort of pince of movement of patriarchy, the two of them working together have taken her property. And so Jacqueline comes to England to try and get Henry V to use his, you know, incredibly successful army to help her recapture her own country. So she's a great lady of Europe, but she is currently very much on her uppers. And that's all Eleanor Cobham can get to be a lady of waiting to.
09:23 So when she starts a court, she thinks, oh great, I've got myself a good place, and this is a friend of the Queen's. So I'm going to be in the Queen's rooms and like this is all going. well for me. And then she realizes that Jacqueline of Heinalt is here pretty well as a refugee and as a supplicant. And I've found this bit so delightful in the book. And just as a side note, I would like to ask that you eventually write a book about Jacqueline of Heinelt because I think that she is an incredibly interesting woman in her own right. But she is interesting, because as you say, she is here essentially in England as a supplicant because of all of these
10:00 intrigues with her own lands. And she's here, I think, playing an incredibly interesting political game because she has to fend off on one side, one of my least favorite people of all time, John of Luxembourg, terrible, Holy Roman Emperor, and also the interests of her husband, John the 4th, the Duke of Brabant. And so she's sort of looking at what's going on with the 100 years war and saying, okay, well, I suppose I'll go to England, right? Because We need to play our cards as best we can. And I think it's actually a really brilliant move on her part to do this. I agree.
10:41 And also they're the only army in town, really, but the French are insufficiently powerful to stand up against Burgundy. They're sort of standing up against Burgundy as allies with England anyway. She's not got a lot of cards to play. And what she does is an incredibly decisive, courageous, risky journey across Europe to the court of England in the hopes that Henry V will see the extraordinary opportunity of perhaps invading France, his enemy, from Holland, Zealand and northern France, which strategically makes complete sense. But it would mean that he was up against
11:22 the Dukes of Burgundy. But she has to have that happen because the Dukes of Burgundy are her enemy. So it's a real understanding of the real politic. And when you say you'd like a novel about her, couldn't agree more. She has an extraordinary life from birth. She has an extraordinary life. And she is so little regarded in our history, in English history, which is understandable that she comes in. She's a English countess, Duchess, and then she goes to Heinlewt and we don't really see her again. But in her own country, she is known as the woman with four husbands. And I mean, you tear your hair, is that the most interesting thing about her that she is married, without her consent particularly, without her planning four times? And only the fourth one is the one that
12:07 she marries for love. And still, that's politically very astute also. It's, I don't know. I mean, you would think by now that when I came across the embedded misogyny of history, I would go like, yeah, I know. But I still find it shocking. Yeah, as you say, it is so incredibly frustrating because, you know, men often marry four times, five times. We see this across medieval Europe. You know, if a wife dies in childbirth, if you're high enough up, you just simply go and get another one. And that goes on with nary a comment. And you know, but the minute a woman does it, then suddenly it's a scandal that's the thing about her, where this is a woman playing politics at the absolute top of her game. And I just think she's fascinating. And I found this bit of the book just lovely as well.
12:56 because, you know, this is, I suppose it's a pairing I've thought about a lot, Jacqueline and Eleanor, because the idea of this court, of these incredibly intelligent, forceful women spending time together is so interesting to be. And it is, again, one of those things that we just don't get to know that much about it, because, as you say, the embedded misogyny of history and how sources. survival works. And it was just really nice to kind of spend time and pretend I was there, I guess. Absolutely. I mean, isn't it a joy? And when you get Catherine of Valois, in a sense, developing into a person of authority because she's, you know, the mother of the next king of England and she has him in her possession, you know, you just go like, everybody knows about
13:50 Humphrey Duke of Closter and John Duke of Bedford and them as Regents of England and France. But as the exact mirror image of that, you have a queen of France, a princess of France, currently Queen of England, and Jacqueline of Heinalt, a countess of huge lands in Europe. And Eleanor Cobham, who is less interesting in that point, but you have these big players in the women's rooms, and we never glimpse into the women's rooms except in fiction. And Heinald is such an incredibly wealthy part of the world, and it's so interesting in the fact that they do allow, women to inherit. And, you know, that's the one bit of her possession that no one manages to really get their hands on because they accept women as rulers. And, and as you say, you know,
14:35 we're constantly talking about the Duke of Gloucester, not to put Gloucester down or anything, but if we're talking about international financial players, it's certainly Jacqueline all day, you know, that she's a real, real person. Well, and military as well. Oh, God, yeah. Absolutely. I mean, it's her, organizes the army and takes it to the invasion of, of Heine, I'm sure, Humphrey is literally dragged along faintly protesting, as he, I think, is in all the subsequent military actions that we know we give him so much credit for. I don't think he wants to be at any of them, and he certainly doesn't stay very long. I mean, if England was to be defended by Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, would have lost it
15:15 even France was to be defended by Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, England would have lost it even earlier. He does one mission after his brother's death. I mean, Henry V is obviously a genius medieval king, but his death leaves an absolute vacuum of power. And I think what people don't see is that is in many ways filled by the women who don't declare themselves. Absolutely. Well, you know, successful medieval women, you know, at court, you don't get to hear about what they're doing. That's the frustrating thing.
15:46 Because if you play your cards right, no one should know that you've done it. Exactly. Right. Otherwise, there'll be problems, right? I suppose we'll need to rewind a little bit. Can we talk about the relationship initially between Jacqueline and Humphrey Duke of Gloucester? Because what we know is by 1424, Gloucester is going to France to try to fight for Heinal. That's what we know. So there's the theory. And they at this point in time, Humphrey and Jacqueline are saying we are married. And this becomes a big sticking point, obviously, with Poetton. Martin V, who is saying, well, no, you're not. You had to get a special papal dispensation just to marry your husband, John Dukubraubon, right? And so I don't believe that I ever said that you were able to get divorced.
16:35 So there's this very interesting political situation happening, particularly around this marriage. And, you know, I just feel like poor Jacqueline, she got dealt a bit of a bad hand here. She's absolutely, I think, a victim of men sticking to get. men of power sticking together. So you would not expect her uncle on her mother's side to take her husband's side against her. You know, you would hope that there was a sense that since you had a legal right to inherit, but he would just let her inherit, but he doesn't. He behaves as if on marriage, all of her property belongs to John of Brabant. And then the uncle on the other side, John of Brabant, I mean, when you talk about hateful men in the medieval world, there's
17:21 so many to choose from. But John of Brabant then inconveniently dies and leaves his, you know, his alleged property, which is all Jacqueline's anyway, to her other uncle on the other side who goes like, oh yeah, fine, that's mine then, that's fine. You know, the whole construction of these very, very powerful men siding with each other almost automatically is then reflected in the fact that there are two popes and one of them takes the guy's side. And in a sense, Jacqueline is up against it from birth because she is the only daughter of a wealthy man. And the wealthy man is sure that she is his heir and he raises her as his heir and he tells she's his heir and he leaves everything to her.
18:03 And from that point onward, everyone is just trying to pick her up. And one of the, I mean, glorious moments of her lives is when she marries Humphrey Duke of Gloucester with or without the permission of Pope No. 2. Pope No. 1's okay with it. and does this terrific invasion of Northern Europe, which looks completely successful until Humphrey Duke of Gloucester does what all English military leaders at the time do. They go for a little ride around. He goes for a little ride around and everybody in Northern Europe goes like,
18:38 hell no, we really don't want him here. And then it's just a negotiation of how can we get rid of Humphrey Duke of Gloucester? And it's almost, how can we get rid of Humphrey and stay with Shackerel? We don't mind Jacqueline, but these insane Englishmen, no country can afford them riding around without control. And it's at that point that Humphrey, on his dignity, goes back to England. And with him, rather surprisingly, not surprisingly to us, the readers, but rather surprisingly in history, Eleanor of Cobham goes home too. With the Duke does not stay with the lady to whom she's sworn loyalty. And this is fascinating.
19:18 So I was so delighted. Well, it's one of these things where I think, obviously, Humphrey-Ducke of Gloucester is a bit of a cad. So in real life, you know, I'm down on him because you should be nice to Jacquelina, I think. But of course, I love Eleanor, so what are you going to do? And I know that one way or another, by 1425, they're back in England and Gloucester and Eleanor are a couple. But it was so nice to be able to see an imagining of that, you know, have that fleshed out for me. So for you, what does that look like? What it looks like to me is absolutely fiction, but you go, here is this woman who is married to get this man's army, and she finds that he is not a very good general of his army. He's not the general his brother was for sure. But what she's got is most of what she wanted, which is her country, her main bit of her country, Heinolt, back in her possession. And then Humphrey pulls off this extraordinary claim.
20:18 which I just loved writing about, which was that we're going to fix it all. We're going to decide it all in single combat like we were in a romance. And he persuades everybody of this. He even persuades Philip of Burgundy, who's going to be his opponent of this. And everyone believes it except me, the author. And so what we see is Humphrey going back to England to get ready. And Ellen are going back to England to get Jacqueline stuff. And there's this whole sort of construction around.
20:48 the respectability of them going back to England to get ready for this joust, which will be the biggest act of chivalry ever. I mean, it's going to make Eleanor of Akitaine look like smorgia. And so they're all getting ready for that. And then the voice of reasoning this is a servant at the court of Queen Catherine Ovalua, who says, you know this doesn't happen, don't you? You know this doesn't happen. And that's the moment where Eleanor and I, the author, have a little moment where we go like, hell, no, it's not going to happen because this sort of thing is not real life. This sort of thing happens in books. And so they said, what there's going to be instead is a court of ladies, which is a very typical construction, as you know, of chivalric romances and fiction and poetry, which is that the ladies sit and they decide a point of chivalry, is it okay to give somebody your glove when you're not married to them?
21:45 Or is it okay to steal somebody's glove and wear it in a tournament? These sort of meticulous, pretty little etiquette problems. Well, this is going to be a court of ladies that nobody's ever seen in their life before. The court of ladies, which is going to be Catherine of Valois, her mother, Isabella France, and somebody else who I can't remember, they are going to sit in judgment on whether Jacqueline of Heinle should have her lands back, or Philippa Burgundy, she'll have them. And everybody goes, wow, this is so exciting except me, the author, who goes like, I don't think it's going to happen. And beautiful Owen Tudor, who says to Ellen McCormor, you just think about it.
22:29 You don't have a voice in Parliament. You don't own land in England. You don't have a voice in law, in a law court in England. Why would we suddenly put you in charge of deciding who has the, biggest county in Europe. And she goes, hell it's not going to happen. And lo, it does not happen. And this whole sort of construction of medieval fantasy, which I'm tremendously interested in anyway, because it is the big culture of Europe. And the collision with reality, which is that life is brutal, nasty and short, it happens at that moment. And Eleanor is absolutely
23:12 a pragmatic woman and she understands at that moment that shackling of Heinalt is lost and Humphrey Duke of Gloucester is not going to take responsibility for that and if she wants a job in future she'll either have to go to Heinalt which she would rather die than do or she's going to have to find some posts for herself at court and what she thinks she does in my fiction is she falls in love with a man who she thinks is an adventurer like herself And then when he lets her down as adventurers, believe me, always do. She attaches herself to the useful idiot who is Humphrey Duke of Gloucester. And what a useful idiot he really is for her.
23:54 You know, I guess I suppose what we really do know, you know, the boring brass tacks of it, you know, is that by 1428, you know, kind of fast forward three years from the return to, to, to, England, Eleanor and Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, Mary. So she's gone from sort of mistress to official wife. And part of this has to do with the fact that the, the popes are still not relenting on this whole thing with Jacqueline. And they say, look, you were never married to Humphrey Duke of Gloucester. And I think Jacqueline being pragmatic as she is, is saying, well, and obviously this man
24:35 is not going to help me anymore anyway, so that suits me just fine. you know, I'll take it. And that kind of opens the door for Eleanor to really establish herself within England. Okay. I would take issue, I think, with Shackling going like, yeah, okay, we're not married. I'll let that go. I think we do have letters from her to Humphrey to quite late. I'd have to look up and tell you the exact date.
25:07 but quite late going like, are you going to bring me an army? And then she writes to the Parliament, the English Parliament, as an English Duchess, I am in trouble. You are on a bound to rescue me. So I think she stays with the We Are Married because it's useful for her long after Humphrey has given up on it. And I think the fact that Humphrey and Eleanor also marry in secret is very much part of Humphrey not being entirely sure where his bread is butter,
25:37 at this point. Eleanor is always sure which side her bread is buttered. And so she marries him, I'm sure. But it's touch and go, I think, for quite a long time. The bit that I can't resist reminding you of is that this is the reason for the, as far as we know, the earliest petition of women in England. So the women of London come out in defence of Jacqueline of Heinolt and hold a riot outside Parliament and send in a letter demanding that Humphrey take his wife back and bring her back to England, which is so exciting in terms of women's history, in terms of not history of the stars, but history of the women I call normal women. And that's our earliest recorded women's petition.
26:28 Yeah. And I think it's such an interesting one because, as you say, it's so wonderful to hear from normal women. And it's interesting to see them out here defending this marriage to this absolute trash man, right? You know, it's just, you know, from a modern perspective where like, oh, let him go. He's terrible. But it means so much in the Middle Ages, you know, to have rights as a result of the marriages that you make, right? This isn't necessarily a romance thing. This is about, well, what does it mean if your husband does decide to up and abandon you? And absolute, what does it mean to all of us, given that we, as married
27:10 women, married medieval women, we have no rights in law except the rights that we have been, the rights that we get from our husbands on marriage, which is precious little. But we do have that. And if the Duke of England, a Royal Duke of England, is going to just leave his wife and say, He wasn't married ever in the first place. What does that mean to the Stabilitive Society, which lives off the sacrifice of women in return for giving them the security of marriage? If marriage is not secure, why are we doing all this? Which actually, most divorce women would echo today, I think. Exactly.
27:50 I mean, you're absolutely right, I think. But I think what was so wonderful about the book is being able to kind of make more sense of this, I suppose, because the trouble with all of our records about Eleanor is that they are so incredibly hostile, right? And so, you know, if you hear anything at all eventually about how this particular coupling between her and Gloucester comes about, it's always just, you know, absolutely ridiculous, you know, this is witchcraft, this is sorcery kind of a thing. And it was so nice being able to have a narrative that makes a little bit more sense, even if it is fictional, you know? I do think that a lot of our history makes no sense because, well, really, you know, if you read it. I mean, partly it is often written in a way which is terribly boring. But also, it makes no sense because you haven't included the women in it.
29:18 So this whole story of Jacqueline of Heinalt and Eleanor Cobham and Humphrey Duke of Gloucester and it's all nonsensical. And a lot of it seems very fantastical because it involves witchcraft and people, you know, calling up the devil to get their own way and things like that. You go like, this is nuts. This makes, not only is it fantastical in the sense, it makes no sense because it's fantastical, but it also makes no sense because what you are not describing in the conventional history is the motivation and the behaviour of the people who are doing it.
29:51 Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, I think, is mostly done too. So if you describe the entire history from his point of view, it's like, God, that happened, and then that happened, and then, whoa, I'm suddenly in Northern Europe, and now I'm home again, and now I'm married to somebody else, and now she's a witch, and shoot, you know, now I'm dead. But if you read, you know, the traditional history, the conventional history, which focuses entirely on men, it is a sort of string of inexplicable events.
30:22 But if you create and you have to create because it's not recorded, if you create a women's history, that explains why these extraordinary things are happening to these men. You know, as we know, often when you don't know why something happened, it's because you don't understand the cause of it. But the way we write history in so many instances is as if we're determined not to understand the cause of it because the cause of it is a woman getting her own way.
30:48 I was also delighted in reading this because, so, I mean, Eleanor, she does what I would do if I suddenly became an incredibly wealthy medieval woman, which is she sets up this brilliant court at La Plaisance, you know, in Greenwich. And then she is like, I'm getting scholars in. I have musicians. I have poets. And this is 100% where if I had money in the medieval period, This is what you would find me doing. But then also, I think ultimately this is sort of the key to her destruction, right? Because scholarship at the time, you know, it does focus very heavily on astrology and astronomy. That is one of the quadrivium, right? If you're going to be a doctor, you have to get really good at astronomy and they take it very seriously. and there is this ongoing understanding of the universe
31:49 is directly connected to humans and this idea that the microcosm within each of our bodies is connected to the stars. And I think that's where the trouble is. But also, you know, but I want it. You know, I want this court of scholars. I want the poets. I want the musicians, you know. I think that's about not accepting the limitations of,
32:13 that are put upon women in the medieval world. I mean, what we see, John Duke of Bedford has exactly the same enormous library, scholars working for him, clerks working for him, astronomers working for him. He has a whole refinery, he has forges and distilleries, because he is trying to find the philosopher's stone, which would give him limitless finance to conquer France. Humphrey Duke of Gloucester is doing just the same thing but in England, and his wife, Eleanor, takes an interest in it as well, because it is where everything is at. It's like, I don't know, being a nuclear scientist at the end of the war years,
32:54 it's like, do you want to be Oppenheimer? Yes, I do. You know, like, absolutely I do. And also, of course, with Eleanor books, all of this study, all of this clerical material, it's incredibly beautiful. It's also the top luxury in Europe. This is a renaissance. Everybody's trading in books and I.
33:14 and beautiful substances and new ways of enameling metal. Science is part of the culture in a way that we can barely understand anymore. So, of course, she wants it all. It's part of the luxury of being a great lady, is to have your own library. And, you know, I am delighted that you feel that you would do what she does. I have to point out that she takes a little far. So it does go from science. of the time and the study of the time to literally calling up a devil. And I think that's the point
33:50 where it's a continuum, isn't it? That is exactly the way that I would put it, because we do see this as an ongoing thing from the medieval period. And, you know, the number one group of individuals that are attempting to call up devils are monks, right? It's a time, modern, monastic practice. we see this all the time in manuscripts that survive to us. And when you think about the fact that they've survived to us, that's incredible because you're not supposed to be going around doing necromancy. You know, the church takes a pretty dim view on that. So the fact that manuscripts that have necromanic magic survive to us in the numbers that they do shows us that actually rather a lot of people were doing it. Right. And it is these monks and it is these people who have these interests in, as you say, science. But for them, there isn't this, you know, we have a demarcation now. We say, well, that's not science. That's magic. And, you know, in the early modern and late medieval period,
34:51 there is no such distinction in the same way, you know. Yeah. I've been thinking about, of course I've been thinking about this, but I wonder if quantum physics, let me preface this by saying, I know nothing about quantum physics. But I wonder if quantum physics is in a way how we should understand, magic in that like I understand that there are things that it does that the people who work with it cannot understand. And they don't say that the devil caused it. They just go like we haven't
35:24 figured out the law that sits behind it. But what they don't say is like if I don't understand it, it can't be true. Whereas what we tend to do in the modern world with all of this magic stuff is like, I don't understand it. It doesn't fit the laws that I believe in. Therefore, it has to be fantasy. And I'm not suggesting that Eleanor Cobham really did call up a devil, but I'm absolutely sure she thought she had and that what she was doing would call up a devil.
35:52 And that was, in a sense, a real lived experience for her. And in that way, it's valid for me as a novelist to write it as a real lived experience. I don't have to put a footnote that says, you know, don't try this at home. This isn't true. No, you're completely right. And that is one of the things that I always attempt to stress to people when I'm discussing magic in the medieval or early modern period is that fundamentally it's one of the ways that they organize the universe. And there are all sorts of things that we have sort of proven by science now that they cannot prove at the time. So, you know, things like how magnets work, where they see them and say, oh, well, it's magic. And magic. is just sort of a way of saying, well, we don't understand it, but it's clearly happening. And so I think that that's absolutely back on. But I guess that we have to sort of get into it.
36:44 Can we talk a little bit about how Eleanor's research interests become a problem? Because, so essentially, I guess, the timeline of what we do know is that in 1435, Gloucester's brother, the Duke of Bedford dies, right? And this means that Gloucester becomes region. This is sort of where all hell breaks loose, right? Yeah, I mean, I think it's a starting gun, really. It means Gloucester's regent, but I think more significantly, it means that he is out of the throne if the young king dies. And the young king is a bit weedy.
37:20 And, yeah, there's a medical textbook replies. So the king is a bit weedy. And Eleanor has every reason to do two things. One is, if she possibly can, to have a son. who would then be the next generation of the Plantagenets, and would in a sense make Humphrey look more kingly, because there's your royal line going on after that. Now, if she could have a son and the prince, the young king,
37:50 the young king, was to pre-decease Humphrey, then Humphrey would be king and she would be queen, which would be nice for her also, and her son would be the next king. And that, in terms of ambition from a girl from Sturbera Castle, that's the jackpot. There's nothing in the world, in her world, bigger than that. And she's really got a very good chance at it.
38:11 So I think she does explore with Marjorie Chaudemain, who is the sort of midwife to the women of court and herbalist and healer and trader in little magicy sorts of goods and charms and powders. Yeah, exactly. I was about to say nonsense. But you know what I mean? Like sort of like the court chemist. You know, she's like magic boo.
38:33 So it makes sense that Eleanor consults her. She admits to consulting her for help with conceiving a child, which is her duty as a wife also. And then I think from there she gets also enmeshed in the scholarly circles that are around her palace, which include Roger Bolingbroke, who is the great philosopher by which they mean sort of scientist, by which they mean probably occultist, probably a magician of the age. And he's really tapped into all of the new learning, which is the Renaissance in Europe.
39:14 He's famous throughout Europe for his scholarship and his learning and his knowledge. And Eleanor is, he's patronized by Eleanor and her husband, and he is living at their palace and he is working in their library. Their library is at this stage bigger than the University of Oxford's library. It's a real centre of genuine authentic learning. And I imagine that at some point or another, the conversation turns to, how is Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, our patron,
39:44 going to run the country when the king gets to be, which is his majority, in which case we can expect him a very young and very weedy young man to make all sorts of mistakes, none of which will increase our wealth or success. And so I think bit by bit, the conversation goes to, well, in that case, can't Humphrey be King instead of his nephew? And then more and more, how could that come about? How would that be likely to come about?
40:12 And so they cast the King's horoscope, which is, from their point of view, you know, your acid test, would I do it? I mean, I think I would, because I think it's information that you really want to know. And they cast his horoscope to see when he's going to die. And that is in itself treason. So they've taken a massive step. into treason at that point. And then they go a step further, which is that they summon up a fallen angel. It's why churchmen do it,
40:41 because they're not calling them devils. They're not summoning up Satan. They're summoning fallen angels to help them with the alchemical processes they're going through. And whether our chemical process was to conceive a child or whether it was to kill the king, we don't know. And nobody tells us,
41:00 not even in their trial. And they're certainly caught with the evidence of a candle wax, a sort of little wax, statue a little, possibly a baby, possibly intended to be the king, which two of the clerks in Eleanor's household are burying at midnight in what is thought to be a black mass, in what they're accused of being a black mass. And so they all end up in court. Roger Bollingbroke, the philosopher, the midwife, Marjorie Giordaigne, and the two chaplains, and Eleanor Cobbom. I think that Eleanor plays a bit of a blinder here, though. Because everyone else sort of gets taken very quickly to court.
42:06 And she manages to make this incredible flight into sanctuary, which I think just goes to show, A, I think she had a plan. The way that I react to that is that I think she knows how close to the edge she was playing it. She knows that what they're doing is. is incredibly dangerous. But she's got a plan to save herself. I mean, everyone else less so. I think we could say that.
42:35 Yeah, absolutely less so. They don't, everyone else does not behave in a way, which is likely for them to get off. And she really does. But also, you know, she's a duchess. She's got the outrider. She's got the horses. She's got the household.
42:50 She can just say, right, I'm going to Westminster Abbey now. And nobody's going to say, Nobody's going to say you can't come in. She gets in and she goes into a really, she goes with the Abbott's own quarters and she then starts negotiating for her life. And even so, she lives, whereas everybody else either kills themselves or is executed. But she doesn't get off likely at all. She ends up in permanent imprisonment. And I think that this is such an interesting part of her life because, you know, one of the things that happens as a result of these trials, you know, she's accused of necromancy and witchcraft,
43:30 which is an interesting point as well, because the Renaissance is so interesting because, yes, we see these new inquiries into science and interests in science. But it's also the birth of this concept of the witch that we just don't have in the same way in the earlier medieval period, you know, this idea that there's women speaking to Satan and riding off at night and that sort of thing. It comes along. It's sort of the shadow against all of the science. scientific progress that we see at the time. And she's one of the most high-profile women ever accused of
44:01 it. But she lives, she lives, which is also the difference between witch panics in the kind of late medieval period and the early modern period. You know, she manages to make it through. But she gets accused of having bewitched Gloucester. And they say, oh, that's how you managed to make this particular marriage work. He wouldn't have looked twice at a poor. girl like you. And so as a result, they end up divorced, kind of against the wishes of Humphrey. He's sort of like, I didn't want that to happen. And what we see, though, as a part of this punishment that Eleanor has, you know, as you say, she's a permanent imprisonment. She's kind of moved from castle to castle. And as a part of this as well, she's forced to undergo ritual humiliation, a number of times that you
44:55 here where she has to kind of go out on market days barefoot in a shift and basically be mocked. And it's interesting because despite all of these accusations, despite the fact that she's, you know, seen as this terrible woman who wanted to kill the king and was calling up devils and what have you, people react to this and are like, you should leave her alone, right? So she clearly has a kind of force of personality. she's clearly a nice person. No. Do you not think so? Because why do you think ordinary people will kind of take to her?
45:33 I don't think it's because she's nice. I'm doing, you know, finger quotes in the air. I mean, I think, of course, it depends what you mean by nice. I don't, I think she's very physically attractive. I'm sure of that. People remark upon it at the time. I think she's physically very beautiful.
45:50 She does her penitential walks in London and she's made a feature of her career to keep on the side of the Londoners the only time there was a demonstration against her was when it was in favour of Jacqueline of Heinold and she's kind of lived that down I think she's very generous with the Londoner she gives a lot of arms when she gallops about
46:11 and her lovely horse there's always people chucking coins behind her and I think that works quite well and I think also there's a real that's a thing I would do if I was rich, to be honest, as well as the library. I think also there's a sort of a revulsion. We see it also in Jane Shaw when a woman is publicly humiliate, when a beautiful young woman, let's be clear.
46:35 When a beautiful young woman is publicly humiliated, there is a sort of a pushback, I think, from the crowd, which goes like, yeah, she's really bad, but like you're making a walk barefoot in a petticoat carrying a candle. And I think you slip over there from the proper image of the penitent who's done something really bad into something which looks a little bit like martyrdom. And this is a time also, just as it's a time of the rise of witchery, it's an increasing interest in women's victimisation and women's martyrology.
47:08 And I think she catches a bit of that wave. I think also, to go back to what you said, the reason that she gets off, at all is because she is a duchess, because she's got all of this money, she's got all this influence behind her. When she's in court, she's actually in front of men who have been honored to sit at her table and receive her patronage and have gifts from her. So it's not like the old lady in the village where her neighbors say we absolutely hate her and she keeps stealing our apples. You know, it's a, the class element in this is so important that it's part of that difficulty. And there is a royal woman before her mother-in-law, Henry the fifth stepmother,
47:55 who is also accused of witchcraft, who also has a chaplain who's supposed to have drawn up the King's horoscope. And she never gets to trial at all. There's just a gossip about her, and that's why we don't know much about her, but there is the gossip about her, and she's under house arrest, something like seven years, and her chaplain is in the tower and is ultimately killed in the tower. So we don't know much about it. But I, I think it is the accusation of witchcraft is becoming in this period the accusation that you make to get rid of someone you don't like. And that's why it applies in the village to the old lady that everybody can't get done with. And it applies very rarely, but occasionally in the royal courts to a woman who is in a sense outstripped her success.
48:43 She's so successful that she's not taking enough support with her. So it's one of the accusations and Berlin faces. A very similar thing. Woman from not the top aristocracy makes it absolutely the top. What can you say to A, explain her eyes, which is so extraordinary, and B, pull her down. And I think that that is kind of the automatic association. You know, you see Elmer Kauvelm and then you see eventually, you know, what happens to Anne Boleyn.
49:20 And I think also, to me, looking at what happens with Eleanor Copham, it kind of helps you understand why Anne Boleyn might have thought that, you know, she would kind of be okay, all things considered, you know, because, well, Eleanor, you know, what's the worst thing that happened to her? She ends up divorced. I mean, it's not ideal, obviously. Nobody wants to be under house arrest. Nobody wants to be forced out into the market square.
49:44 But also, you know, we do see people who sort of stand up for Eleanor, both at court and ordinary people who will go so far as to go up to the king and say you should leave her alone. So, you know, why wouldn't Adbelin think, oh, I'm not going to get killed over this? I don't. So interesting. I've never thought of that before, but I don't think Anne Boleyn dreamed that there would be a witchcraft accusation because she could see completely clearly. what had the stages by which she had risen. There's no inexplicable bounce upwards in that. There's like taking the eye of the king, manipulating the hell out of him, getting rid of the previous queen,
50:28 and then marrying him. That's, you know, nobody can say there's anything wrong in that. It's so obvious, right? I mean, I guess that's why I find this so incredibly important to talk about, because, again, as you say, you know, if you just look at it from the perspective of women, which we just, we simply don't, right? All of this makes sense.
50:47 And this is what your career is. You know, you kind of have it both ways. You can't say that as a woman, your duty is to make the best marriage possible and to do your best to sort of be a help meet to your husband and help him rise in the world, et cetera, et cetera. And then when women do it, and they're too good at it and get frustrated, right? And I do think that it is this kind of newish thing that we begin to see. around this time, as you say, it's
51:15 when that gets annoying, when people don't like it anymore, you can just begin to lob witchcraft around. And I do think that, you know, as you say, part of the reason she has so many defenders at court is that these are people who connected with her, enjoyed spending time with her. And I think also these are
51:31 probably people who are doing similar things. Oh, I'm sure. And one of the things that's so revealing is that one of the responses by the royal circle is to immediately have a horoscope drawn up for the king that shows he's not going to be sick in the year that they said. You know, you go like, talk about source for the goose.
51:49 You know, like, literally they go like, how can we counter this accusation? You know, how can we counter this dangerous magic? Oh, we'll do our own dangerous magic. But I'm interested what you say about Humphrey Duke of Gloucester because I don't think, I think he just ditches her once it's clear that she's in trouble. And you said you thought that he supported her. Do you or?
52:12 Yeah. Oh, I think thank you. I think that he doesn't support her because he's not strong enough to do that. But I do think that we see some kind of like a vague pining, you know, but he's also a coward. You know, I think that two things can be true. You can sort of wish that all this hadn't happened. But I mean, I think that certainly we see when common people are attempting to stick up for Eleanor, one of the things that they say is, well, you should let her go back to her husband. So it's interesting. I think that there's some kind of belief, at least on a. ordinary level, on a popular level, that this is an actual love match to some extent that has been interrupted by excess. And I suppose that's where I'm going to get from. Yeah, I think you're right. And I think it was projected even at the time as a love match. And she, of course, builds her reputation as an intensely lovable woman. And so clearly she is supporting him. And he has, you know, he has this moments where he looks very heroic. And he is, I mean, he's a real renaissance.
53:13 prints, he clearly is very attracted by the arts and, you know, music and as well as, you know, the new science. And he does have a moment where he's, you know, he's not too necessarily our taste today, but his portraits suggest that he's very beautiful. I mean, that he did, he does have a very agreeable face structure. I mean, I think he's, again, weedy, but that's, I think, so I think he does see himself as a romantic hero. And so I think the idea that his lady might be in distress and he might rescue her would be quite a good way to play it. But I also think it's the genuine belief and the truth that marriage is a form of house arrest. So where can she be safely kept? That isn't cruel to her. Well, she can go back to her husband who can be responsible
54:05 for her behaviour as her husband, as he is bound to do. And, you know, he's still walking around perfectly free, you know. Yes, he is. Though I think he's, I mean, I think his status is very much diminished. But do you buy at all the theory that she never did anything anywhere and this is all a put up job in order to attack him? Oh, no. I think that she was, she was 100% doing astrology at the least, you know.
54:32 Yes. And I think that also certain things like the Clarks and the Wax doll, for example, that would be a weird thing to fake. You know, you don't need to go that far. You're right. It's too much to fake, isn't it? It's a sort of thing that if you faked it, you're certain somebody would say, hey, this is completely fake. And when she has enough, I think, in her library that if you wanted to be ungenerous,
55:02 you could just say, what was all this about the magic circles in these books, right? because it's always, you know, Magic Circle Magic and Necromantic magic is always kind of both licit and illicit. You know, you can see, for example, physicians using charms to prognosticate death all the time. It's incredibly common. And it's just whether or not you get in trouble for it, whether or not someone calls you up on it. So there's always this fine line. So if she was simply a bit annoying and they wanted to get rid of her, they could just say, look at all of these forms of prognostication. that are in her library that she's clearly doing
55:38 and that would be enough. So I think the wax doll does seem as though she's taking it a little bit further. I was so interested when I started, you know, noodling around this to find that where they buried the wax doll, which is Haringay Park, that is, I believe, it's on the zero line from the meridian at Greenwich.
56:05 So, you know, you're literally, you go like, this is not somebody going like, oh, let's do a black mass where it's an empty church, let's set this up. Everything about this is really very thought through. It's very carefully thought through as it would be if you were doing it for real. If you were just messing about with it, you'd bury it in a wood, wouldn't you? Why would you bother, you know, why would you take the risk of going to a deserted church? And why would you choose a church, a deserted church, which was on the same. Meridian line. Yeah, I mean, I think she did it fundamentally.
56:38 I just also think that it's kind of cool. I guess. You know, I'm so bad. You know, I'm like, you know, I love a difficult woman. I'm really drawn to them, you know. And I think that it's one of these things that is frustrating, you know, because it was the old kind of twee adage, you know, the well-behaved women rarely make history.
56:58 But it's true. We don't get to hear about them unless they do something fairly outrageous. Yeah, but I don't believe. there are any well-behaved women. I've never met one myself. True. It's true. I literally, I have never met a well-behaved woman and all of the women that I ever explore, whether they are officially in history and therefore very visible or almost hidden from history in that they're buried in the court records or buried in the archive or almost forgotten. None of, all of them are ambitious, determined, struggling, fighting, often defeated, mostly defeated, always
57:35 coming back for another go. There are no nice women there doing crochet saying like, I'm fine. Oh, God, it's true. Well, Philippa, I can't think of a better place to end this conversation. All I can say is that everyone should go get their hands on this book. It is such a delightful read. And if you're the sort of person who's interested in the medieval period, which I presume everyone is, if they're listening to us, right now, then you will absolutely love an opportunity to flesh out the bits of a particularly annoying woman's life. And by annoying, I mean, devastatingly interesting. Yeah, she is devastatingly interesting. And I mean, and even her end on the Isle of Man is completely fascinating. There's a whole story to behold about Eleanor on the Isle of Man as well.
58:35 Thank you so much. I've really enjoyed this. It's been such good fun. Thank you so much for coming back, Philippa. We always love having you. Thank you. My thanks again to the always lovely Philippa Gregory. And thank you for listening to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries, including my recent film with Matt Lewis, medieval summer, as well as ad-free podcasts by signing up at historyhit.com forward slash subscription.
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