Gone Medieval - The Murder of Henry VI

Episode Date: June 27, 2025

An investigation into the dramatic siege of London in 1471 and the controversial and mysterious death of Henry VI. Matt Lewis is joined by Andrew Boardman to unpack Thomas Neville's assault on London, a rebellion that set the city on fire and led to panic within its walls. They explore the aftermath and the evidence that Edward IV made a calculated decision to end Henry VI’s life to quash future rebellions.Was Henry VI's death due to 'pure melancholy' as reported, or something more sinister?MOREThe Hundred Years Warhttps://open.spotify.com/episode/3UQkEb0MTdJdwYmJB333RXTower of London: Most Infamous Prisonershttps://open.spotify.com/episode/21EtfN6sWWVsA0fWwD89u2Gone Medieval is presented by Matt Lewis. It was edited by Amy Haddow, the producer is Joseph Knight. 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://uk.surveymonkey.com/r/6FFT7MK Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 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 Matt Lewis. Welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We've got the most intriguing mysteries, the gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the printing press, from kings to popes to the crusades. We cross centuries and continents to delve into rebellions, plots and murders to find the stories big and small that tell us how we got here. Find out who we really were with Gone Medieval. Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval. I'm Matt Lewis.

The death of a medieval king is always a moment of crisis, upheaval, and for some people, opportunity. In a complex and superheated politics of England in 1471, this was particularly true. Two dynasties, the House of Lancaster and the House of York, are vying for the crown. Only one can win, and in the spring of 1471, it looks like it's York, and its patriarch, King Edward VIII. He's taken back the crown he'd lost six months earlier. He's destroyed his enemies on the battlefield, and he's ensured that the only heir of Lancaster is dead. Now, all that remains is the ageing King Henry the 6th. In many ways, the antithesis of Edward, but also his greatest remaining problem.

When Edward got back to London after the Battle of Chukesbury, keen to move on from the blood, sweat and turmoil. He might have been shocked and disturbed at what had been happening there. It's a moment that's often glossed over, but there was a siege of London by a famous soldier, and it might just have sealed the fate of poor Henry. Today's guest is Andrew Baldwin, a medieval military historian whose latest book, The Rose, the Bastard and the Saint King,

The Murder of Henry VI, is out now. And Andrew is going to help us uncover this important but overlooked moment in the wars of the roses. Welcome to God Medieval, Andrew. It's fantastic to have you with us. Thanks for inviting me, Matt. Great to be here. I'm very much looking forward to get stuck into some of my favourite bits of history in the Wars of the Roses. This can be really interesting. I wonder if you could just paint the scene for us a little bit to get us started.

We're in 1471. What is going on? Why is this a moment of crisis? Well, we're still in the Wars of the Roses. He's the first Jockey's King. He's been driven into exile by Warwick, his former friend, and Warwick has restored Henry the Six to the throne, which brings in a period of about six months, which is known as the re-adeption,

where Henry the Six is on the throne and Warwick is controlling him to a certain extent. So that's in 1470. With Edward being over in Burgundy, he's in a position where he obviously wants to come back to England and he's trying to cam for some support. He eventually does that. He lands back in England again. and he marches on London. There's a couple of things that happened in between that period.

But basically he marches on London. Warwick follows him with an army. Edward marches out of London, fights the Battle of Barnet. Warwick is killed. And then soon after that, Queen Margaret, who has plotted with Warwick before this time, including plotting the why I call the Pinta movement, which is Falkenberg's involvement on the sea,

and Warwick and the Commons of Kent, which is canvassed with propaganda, to march on London and then overwhelm Edward again. When Margaret lands, she marches into England, Edward marches out of London, the fight at the Battle of Chewkesbury, Henry's heir, Prince Edward is killed on the Battle of London, Field and then Edward marches on Coventry, unaware that there's something happening in London.

I mean, you've just explained something in under three minutes that I would normally take about an hour to explain to anybody. The readaption is such a fascinating, complex period. And I think even in the context of the time, in terms of medieval England, and even in terms of the Wars of the Roses, this is a really frantic moment where the throne is changing hands at a new pace, isn't it? kind of, Edward's been on the throne for 10 years, he's kicked off for six months and Henry's back and then Edward's back again and you've got this kind of increasingly uncertain, fragile situation. You know, we know that eventually Edward will win out of this, but it must have been pretty unclear to anyone in 1471, precisely what was going to happen next. Yeah, I mean,

there was two kings, so Henry the 6th, he'd been in prison since 1465. So he'd been in the Tower of London, not in a cell, but locked up in apartments. And so Heming the Six is in the tower. Edward has been exiled. So there's two kings there. And then there's Warwick in the middle scheming which way it will fall. And as you say, at that time, it was very uncertain which way that would go. We're going to talk about the 1471 siege of London, which is the focus of your your book, the events that take place in London in 1471, while Edward is gone on that campaign around the Battle of Chukesbury. I wonder if you could tell us to start off with it. I think this is a moment that quite often gets kind of glossed over, passed over. People never seem to

spend much time thinking about what happened and how important it was. Why do you think, given that we're talking about a siege of the capital city, why do you think it gets so little attention? I'm not too sure, actually, because it's quite a large event. There's the Commons of Kent and Essex, Surrey and Sussex, are all up in arms in rebellion. If that isn't a serious crisis, I don't know what isn't. So I think the reason why it's been glossed over, it's not that there isn't enough accounts, because in my book I do detail a lot of accounts that can support the evidence. So it's not that. It's just that most historians have tended to go straight on to the 12 years of peace after the Battle of Chooksbury.

They'll obviously mention Henry the 6th as well. But this is one of the reasons that I got really, really interested in the book. I was looking at that time and looking at what might have happened and what actually happened. Because I think what people tend to do is they tend to look at it and gloss over the event and they're not looking too deeply into it, which I wanted to do. which I wanted to do. I wanted to look into it deeply

and see if I could find out what actually happened and not just at this age of London, but to Henry the Sixth. In fact, who killed him? I mean, I often wonder whether it's one of those points at which the King is away, Edward VIII is away, fighting another battle,

which is what everybody is focusing attention on, and it almost becomes just another event too much. It's a bit too much complexity to add into the situation so people tend to just gloss, just gloss over this and not worry too much about the fact that it happened. But it is a significant moment that has effects and after effects and consequences that we need to think about if we want to properly understand what's happening at this point in the Wars of the Roses. Yeah, I think you're right there. It's just these things are happening all at the same time.

Yeah. So there's a simultaneous sequence of events that are happening. It isn't one thing after another. It isn't like Barnett and then Chooksbury. It's like at the same time as Chooksbury's before, things are happening in Kent and things are happening in London. And Edward is unaware of it. Yeah. Which is interesting. I found that really interesting, that the king wasn't really aware what was going on. Yeah. Yeah, it was a bit of a shock for him. Could you introduce us to the main protagonists when we're talking about, the siege of London when we get to the actual siege. Who are the main opposing forces?

Right. So outside London, you've basically got Falkenberg, Thomas Neville, member of the Neville family, but a bastard. So he wasn't sort of like it didn't seem to figure much in the wars prior to this event. But I found some evidence that he did actually work with his father. and also with the Neville family on the sea because it was a mariner. It was a pirate, basically.

So I found quite a lot of evidence that that was happening. So you've got Thomas Neville and then you've got other parts of the country that actually leading the rebellion. So in Kent, you've got people like Nicholas Fond who's the Lord Mayor of Canterbury. obviously figures quite a lot in the rebellion and you have people like Sir Geoffrey Gate and you have people like Sir George Brooke who was involved in the Callagarrison

and you've got then a lot of miners entry in the south that are leading that particular rebellion. On the other side in London itself you've basically got the people that Edward VIII left in London and didn't take to Chooksbury. So you've got some elder gentlemen who are trying to organize, the hear of Falkerberg's Rebellion, they try to organize themselves. And they do that to a certain extent, but I fall down on the side of the alderman and the Lord Mayor of London as being responsible for actually protecting London. But you've got the Earl of Essex, for instance. He's quite old.

You've got Lord Dudley, who's quite old. you've got Lord Juras who he didn't actually go and then you've got the main guy which is Lord Rippers. Lord Rivers was wounded at the Battle of Barnet whether that is the reason why he didn't go to Chooksbury I'm not sure

but Lord Rivers is the man that we look to as being the savior of London but whether that's true or not he's open to debate So that's the two sides. We'll find out. And Lord Rivers is Anthony Woodville, who is Edward the Force Queen's brother.

So he's kind of the Yorkist King's brother-in-law, who's remained behind in London, as you say, for some reason or another. And I wonder if you could talk us through a little bit more about who Thomas Neville is. So we've mentioned that he's a son of Lord Fokkenberg. Where does that put him in the Neville family? What relation is he to Warwick, who people may well be better, acquainted with? Well, I mean, basically, he's a cousin. So with being a cousin, a bastard, it's probably not seen, there's no detriment there, but it's just that Thomas can't really inherit

property. It's a sad state of affairs, really, but he can obviously marry well. It can become a soldier. It can become part of the clergy and get help. But I think I believe that the Neville family did help Thomas and his brother. Because of course, Lord Falkenberg had two bastard children, William and Thomas, who worked together. And we don't hear very much of William. We don't hear very much of Thomas, but we don't have very much of William. And he does figure in the story. So, if I go back a little bit, Lord Falkenberg was like Edward of the Fourth's right-hand man. It was elderly man, even when he fought at Tauton, and he was in charge of the archers at Tauton, and he more or less won, I believe, he more or less won Edward the throne.

Now, his bastard children then obviously not inheriting any property, because after Falkenberg wins at Toughton with Edward, he becomes ill of Kent. But that doesn't mean very much to Thomas. But I believe that Lord Falkenberg gave his bastard children quite a good living. We find out that, okay, Thomas is on the sea, it becomes a pirate, but Warwick was a pirate as well. And so was his father, the Earl of Selzbrother. They were all at sea and all raiding foreign shipping, which was a nuisance to England. An absolute nuisance, because foreign trade, you know, was the thing that.

needed to be pursued. And if you have pirates in the English Channel, for instance, then you've got to be a real problem. So Thomas is coming from that angle because he is Lord Falkenberg's son, but Lord Fulkeberg dies in 1464, 63, 64, in the north of England. Yeah, yeah.

So then Lord Falkenberg, it can't pass any title on, but Thomas Falkenberg just, moves towards Warwick and becomes Warwick's man. And that's one of the reasons why the siege happened. Because Warwick formulated a plan, evolving Thomas, evolving Queen Margaret, coming back to England. And I think that's the crux of it, really,

that I reckon, without going to fiction, that Falkenberg was pleased to be under Warwick's tuition. if you like. Yeah, I always think of Warwick, whatever he may or may not have been. He must have been this kind of glittering famous figure that everybody wanted to be like, you know, he was a famous soldier, he's a famous pirate, he's a famous general, he has loads and loads of money, this lavish hospitality, whether you think he's a good guy or a bad guy. He must be someone that everybody wanted to be around, that kind of magnet at the centre of society. But it was the chief of propaganda. I mean, he knew how to handle the comments in Kent, for instance,

and he knew how to, he had these beautiful speeches we hear about in the Chronicles, and he delivers these speeches and appeals to the common people. Yeah, yeah. So by appealing to the common man in a place like Kent, for instance, which had no real nobles that were looking after certain districts, then it became very well liked in care. Yeah. And you mentioned then that there was a kind of a plan that was behind Thomas Neville's assault on London.

What was Thomas Neville doing? Why does he attack London? What's he hoping to achieve? It's hoping that he will free Henry the Sixth from the Tower. So then what will happen is then that will release a lot of closet Lancasterians in London to take London. March on Edward, who's at that time in Coventry, and win back the throne. But there was a spanner in the works because obviously, as I said, Warwick got killed at the Battle of Barney, which Forkerberg knew about, but he didn't dissuade him from attacking London.

He followed what Warwick wanted him to do. Nevertheless, he didn't bank on Edward winning at Tewksbury. even London only got news of that right at the last minute when when Falkenberg and his rebels were encamped on Blackheath. So that would have come as a bombshell. Yeah, and I was imagined people in London at this time must have been so uncertain about what they should do because if Edward wins at Chukesbury,

he's obviously going to be unhappy if they haven't resisted a siege by a relation of Warwick in favour the Lancastrians. But if Edward loses and it's a Lancashire, army with Margaret and Prince Edward who turn up in London, they're going to be fuming if they've held out against the Lancasterian. So you must have been inside those walls with no real concrete news thinking there's two moves I can make. One will be disastrous and I don't know which one it is. Yeah, this is really interesting. I found it interesting. There was certain polarities in London itself behind the walls. So you've got Yorkist and Lancasterians behind the walls. So you've got Yorkist and

Lancastrians behind the walls thinking, as you say, what's going to happen? And then you've got thousands, literally thousands of commons outside the walls hoping to getting them free Henry the 6th. So there's a lot of things happening all at once, which are both political and military. And life and death for the people who are caught up in the middle of it potentially as well. Absolutely. So how does the siege begin. What does Thomas initially do as he approaches London? Thomas relying on an Essex contingent as well, because the Essex men and women were up in arms.

At the same time, as he was able to raise a lot of people in Kent. There was obviously a parallel situation going on where he was coordinating what was happening in Essex as well as what was happening in Kent. and he matched with roughly 10,000 rebels to Blackheath. I mean, it does say in the Chronicles, 20,000, but it tends to be over exaggerated, but at least 10,000, which is much bigger than Cage Rebellion in 1450.

And Cage Rebellion were big enough. There's a lot of parallels between Falkenberg's Rebellion and Cage Rebellion as well. and when Falkenberg and his men got to sitting bone, he sent a letter to the commonality in London and said, this is what I want to do. I want to march through London and we won't do anything. We won't pillage. We won't take anything without paying for it.

Then we're going to match on and defeat Edward. But of course it was lying. What he wanted to do, according to the Chronicles, again is he wanting to match and attack London, free Henry from the tower, and then release the Lancastrians and match on Edward, with Lancastrian support. So he's telling London he's not going to do any harm, but there's a strong suspicion that that's not entirely true and that he is actually trying to turn London over to the Lancastrians

at a point where it's hedging its bets and trying not to come down too heavily on one side or the other. So what actually happens when he gets to London then? Does he kind of knock on the gates and say, let me in and they say no? They basically march onto Black East, the creator camp, and they receive a message back from the commonality in the Lord Mayor saying, sorry, Falkenburg, but you're not going to come in. And they bar the gates. So they bar London Bridge, they bar all the gates to London, and they raise the militias within London. So all these militias pre-made by the alderman who were in charge of the 26 districts in London. And falcon birds there at London Gate, so wonders what he's going to do.

He basically decides to tell them or to let them know that it means business. So he attacks London Bridge. He attacks London Bridge and he attacks the Great Stone Gate, which is on Southwark. Attacks that, fires it, can't get in. because the troops are doing all so, they're pouring boiling oil on the attackers, they've got plenty of ordnance there, they've got artillery, and Fogelberg retreats, thinks again and decides to march on Kingston, which is the next bridge up the River Thames.

He gets the River Thames and he meets Lord Rivers, who was taken lots of troops up the Thames by barge. and again Falkenberg then he gets bamboozled really because Ruther says watch you out because Edward's on his way and he's got a large army and you don't stand the chance so Falkenberg did I have to know if that was true at that point is that an empty threat from Rivers is he playing it a game it's an I think it's an empty threat because at that time if you look at the dates Edward was still in Coventry. So we know that by just the days.

I think at this point, Edward does know what's happening. Because a rider's gone out, and we know that a rider arrived in Coventry, and the rider, the messenger told them that London's on fire. Because the bridge, of course, is obviously burning. At that time, Rivers saying, be careful. You know, submit to Edward. You're not going to get into London,

because the Lord Mayor's not going to allow it again. And imagine if you, Fokenberg, by this point, you feel like maybe you've gone too far to just back down? You know, what are his options, really? He knows that Edward has won at Chigspray. On the letter that came from the mayor to him on Blackheath, there was a copy of Edward's letter

that Edward sent to London to say, look, I've won at Chigspray, and I've executed lots of Lancasterians. So at that point, I think Falkenberg is thinking, well, maybe I should rethink the situation. In fact, I think he gets told by some of the people that are with him. Nicholas Fon, for instance, I think he's probably thinking, listen, you know, there's 10,000 people here, you know. They're all getting a bit nervous, you know. So I think what Falkenberg then decides to do, and it's written in the Chronicles,

that he takes his army back to London Bridge and decides to split it up. So he splits the army up into two sections. He uses his ships to ferrymen across onto the Essex side. They post that army in charge of two men who we know only as Spicing and Quinton. And they link up with the Essex rebels and they are told that we're going to have out London in sync. And I think that is what Falkenberg's next move was. He decided to do a double attack on London, but these are happening simultaneously. And we know that from the London Chronicle, that these happened both simultaneously on the 14th of May. So Fokkenberg is, you know, he's all in

now, both feet in, he's going for an all out assault on London. London Bridge, again. What happens? How How close does he come to any kind of success? Very close. He actually gets through London Bridge to the centre of London Bridge, to the drawbridge tower. Now the drawbridge is up, so he can't get any further than that. But of course, London Bridge is burning at this time.

There's nearly 100 or houses that are being fired and destroyed, all falling into the Thames. But he can't get any further than that. And again, he gets stopped by Sir Ralph Choslin, who's one of the men, who figures quite prominently in the London Bridge battle. In fact, he becomes Lord Mayor after the event. So he does quite well there, I think.

But as these two things are happening, over on the other side of the Thames, you've got an attack on Allgate, Bishop's Gate and Cripplegate, just on the east side of London. And again, houses are fired, the walls get stormed. It's just Mayhem, you know. I mean, the people in London must have been, wondering what was going to happen.

And by that time, of course, cannons had been unloaded from the ships, from Falkenberg's ships. Falkenberg has gone into like a mode of, well, we'll just storm London and destroy it. So it lines all these serpentine guns on the South Bank and it starts shirring them. He's bombarding London walls and presumably London is firing back at him. And London is firing back, yeah, absolutely. But people again killed in the strings. So it's an epic, it's an epic siege which lasts two days. There's a lot of turning points which you can look at and look at the chronicles to think,

well, who was commanding here? And it does actually say who was commanding at certain points. And then you can look and think, well, you know, is that true? But they actually describe what these people are wary. So these are like eyewitnesses, which is fantastic. fantastic for the Wars of the Roses, because you've got eye witnesses that are telling you what's happening in a battle, which is unusual. Yeah, I wonder what to what extent Fokenberg was relying on the fact that, you know, Warwick, as you said, Master of Propaganda, widely loved by the people. Warwick, in particular, was always welcomed into London in previous times. You know, whenever he bought a Yorkist army and they were assaulting the Lancashrians, London tended to throw its gates open to the Yorkists. And I wonder whether Thomas Fockewarm.

was thinking he would get the same kind of treatment as someone close to Warwick. But it seems like when he didn't get that falling straight back on a military solution, kind of alienates London from him. He doesn't really give them any option but to defend themselves and fire back at him and treat him as an enemy. I think that's absolutely right. I mean, the fact that Falkenberg was in a situation on Blackheath when he first arrived and the Lord Mayor was called John Stockton.

He told him, basically, you're not coming into London. And the Londoners were fearful. They was going to be 1450 Jack Cage Rebellion all over again. So they would get into London. They would execute nobles. They would pillage the streets. From that point onwards, the Londoners had the advantage. Because, of course, what they were doing is they were fighting for the homes

and the families, whereas Falkenberg was leading a rebellion. And this is what I think squared it for Falkenberg and why it didn't actually get into London because the Londoners fought tooth and nail. So you've said we've got two days of a siege. We've got London on fire, London Bridge on fire, we've got cannon pounding away on both sides of the River Thames. How does it come to an end?

Is there a major turning point, or is this just a case of two days in and no one's getting anywhere? No, I think Falkenberg is the chronicle is the out like now witness one of the London

chronicles says that Fulkenberg retreats from London Bridge and he gets chased he gets chased along this ends and he ends up back at Blackheath

with a few of his supporters but they'll leave him alone then incredibly all this time Olga is being pounded and the Essex rebels almost get into London. In fact, they get to the other side of Oldgate. But then what happens is the Port Colosses come down

on top of the troops underneath the bridge and they get trapped. And no matter what happened then, because the portcullises were down, there were two portcullises in Oldgate, then Falkenberg's men under Spicing and Quincy and Quintin retreat back to St. Bottles' Church. And at that point, there's also an escalade from the Tower of London, led by rivers,

with horsemen, that hit the rebels in the flank. And that was the end for the rebels, really. They get chased right up to Stateny and leave of London burning, leave London in flames. But to give the Londoners credit, if they hadn't have stopped that particular attack, then it would have been quite easy for the rebels to get down to London Bridge, free Henry the 6th and complete the mission.

So it did come quite close to success. It's very close. Thomas Neville has made it back to Blackheath. They appear to be leaving him alone. They've chased him that far. What happens to him in the afternoon? aftermath of all of this? I think it gets word then that Edward has dispatched riders, quite a big contingent of riders, 1,500 to come down from Coventry to London and to protect London,

because at that point, nobody knows what's happening, whether Falkenberg has managed to get into the capital or not. And then Edward would be after that with the main army. And I think Porkenberg gets wind of this, he deserts everybody on Blackheath, and he rides to Rochester first, then to Sandwich. And his drugs, his fleet, to arrive in Sandwich, so that he can probably use that as a bargaining.

Presumably Edward, then, when he gets back to London and finds out that this, you know, wrote, because, I mean, the Nevels are also cousins of Edward VIII. You know, their... Fokkenberg is a cousin of the king, part of a family that used to be loyal to him and no longer is. This guy's kind of set fire to London, done his best to take it in the name of, or with the intention of freeing Henry the 6th.

Presumably Edward's not going to let it lie. Presumably he's got to sort Fokinberg out now. Yeah, and it's Richard Juga Closter that gets to London first. So a rich is in charge of the Bower that comes to London. He gets into London. Things to himself, where's the rebels? Because they've all been beaten. So he congratulates everybody,

then goes to the tower and to make sure that Henry's still there. And then he obviously does a rech of attempts to make sure that all the rebels have dispersed and then goes back to London to wait for his brother. And Edward arrives, and the first thing he does on the 22nd of May is knight everybody in the commonality

and the alderman, the sheriffs, he knights them all outside the gaze because he knows how close it was. And we're going to come on to what all of this might have meant for Henry V6th in a moment, but I wonder if we could just close off Thomas Neville's story. What happens to him in the end? Thomas is waiting patiently because everybody's deserted him. A lot of the Calais contingent have gone back over to Calais as rebels.

But Thomas is left in sandwich. So Edward and his brother Gloucester, right. out with an army and put it to Falkenberg that if he surrenders, then it will be given a pardon. Incredibly. Sounds a little bit too good to be true. It could look at it from Edwards' point of view. He wants his fleet back. There's 47 shicks in sandwich, which could have been fired.

They could have been destroyed. So he wants his fleet back and is willing to do that. if Falkenberg submits to me. So he does, and he's given a pardon. So Falkenberg then, he gets the freedom of the city. He lives in Westminster for quite a while the same year, and then he gets a summons with Gloucester to go to the north and work with Gloucester in the north, managing the north.

But then Falkenberg reverts back to his old ways, and he escapes with his brother. and goes back to sea. It puts in it at Southampton, and it gets captured again, gets sent north again with Gloucester, and then it gets executed by Gloucester, as Constable of London.

Yeah. So, in effect, as a rebel, it gets his just deserts, but you can't feel you some sympathy for him. Yeah, it's so tricky when people are, you know, they engage in these acts of rebellion, they somehow managed to get pardoned.

And instead of thinking, I have had the luckiest escape that anyone ever had, I'm going to sit in front of a fire with my feet up for the rest of my days and be grateful. They seem determined, almost compelled to go back into rebellion that will ultimately lead to them being executed. It's slightly, I find it hard to make sense of it, to be honest. Yeah, that's the amazing thing about it, really, I think. that a lot of the time it's to do with politics. So for instance, after Toughton, for instance,

if we go back 10 years in the Wars of the Roses, Edward tries to make friends with the North, so he'll do anything to get some support. So he pardons lots and lots of people. If you look at London, for instance, he's got quite a lot of sympathy as Falkenberg, even though he's attacked London. He's got a lot of sympathy in Kent.

Because, of course, everybody's gone back to the homes, and there's been a long list of people that are getting executed because they're committed treason. So there's politics where Edward is unsure what to do with Falkenberg, because he doesn't want another rising. He doesn't want anything else to happen in Ken. you don't want any more trouble. So I think that's one of the reasons

why the pardons are there to placate the Commons in this instance or in Townsend's instance to placate the nobles, the northern nobles, which of course they never did. It never placated them.

Yeah, Edward the Fourth seems quite keen on giving people second chances but it rarely seems to work for him. Yeah, unfortunately, it's quite astute. It's quite clever. But in the Wars of the Roses, as we know, there's lots of twists and turns which go against that. I wonder if we could just kind of close off Thomas's story with a thought about what his tale tells us about illegitimate children during this period. You mentioned he's not in a position where he can inherit anything.

And that makes him, to some extent, slightly more dangerous. He's got much less to lose than some of his other relatives who could be attainted and could lose lots of land. but he does seem to have been, you know, involved by the Neville family in military activity and some of their political activity and things. So is he useful to the Neville family, but somehow more dangerous to Edward once he rebels because he's illegitimate? In retrospect, I think Thomas was a true rebel. It was a rebel with a cause, if you like. Warwick's cause. he was recruited by Warwick

Warwick said that he was the captain of Kent and of the fleet so it was like the admiral of Warwick's large fleet what more do you want as a rebel he's got a force that he can move around

the country carrying guns and troops so it's massive it's a massive appointment for Falkenberg and it was true to Warwick right to the end yeah he had his

doubts about whether you should attack London, which he did anyway. But once Warwick was killed and he followed through. You've got to give him great there. He could have gone home. Yeah, he's a fascinating character that people don't know well enough, I don't think. Absolutely. And I guess we should then get onto the kind of the final part of the three parts of your title, which is our Saint King. Yeah, the juicy stuff. I wonder how much of an impact you think this episode of the Siege of London has on what happens to Henry the 6th? Does it really drive home for Edward the problem of having Henry sat there as a potential figurehead for everyone else and kind of compel him to deal with Henry?

Yes, massive, massively. The two things, the siege of London and the death of Henry are the same. There isn't one without the other. although when Edward came back to London, he must have thought to himself, I'm not going to have this again. This is not going to happen. I've got rebellions up and down the country,

but I need to do something with Henry. I think he was willing to let Henry live. Right from 4065, I think it was willing to let Henry live. I suppose a holy man, I've got no other word for it, really. but politically it was so important even though it was in prison

it was so important just sitting there in prison it was massively important to the Wars of the Roses up until that point I guess any attempt at rebellion has a kind of default figurehead that they can turn to in opposition to Edwards anyone who decides on Monday morning

that actually they don't like Edward anymore has a ready-made replacement they can transfer their allegiance to, and that's always going to be a problem for Edward if he's trying to be tough. Now, I thought in the book, when I first started researching this five years ago, it was a case of, yeah, of course Edward's going to do that. Of course Edward's going to execute the ex-king. But then I thought to myself, is there anything else? Is there something else that I'm missing? And the first thing was the siege of London that would have massive implications. And the second thing was Henry himself.

Henry maybe died, wasn't executed, but maybe he did die of melancholy, grief, anger. As the arrival, Edwards official chronicle tells us, is it that, or is it that someone went in like Gloucester and killed him with a sword or a dagger? That's a nice segue into the next question I was going to ask because there is this official story that comes out of the Yorkist government that Henry dies of, in air quotes, pure melancholy. You know, when he's told that his son's been killed, his queen's been captured, his dynasty is over, his cause is done, that he, you know, because of his poor mental health and his ailing physical health from the descriptions of him when he comes out of the Tower of London in 1470, that he collapses and dies.

Yeah. Do you think there's any mileage in that, or are we just talking about Yorkist? propaganda here. That's a really good question. I still have my doubts. The only thing I can say is that I do know from two accounts that Queen Margaret, when she arrives with Edward underguard, is allowed to go see Henry in the tower. And it does say that Margaret visited him at that time that Henry didn't know anything. So he didn't know his son had been killed at Junksbury. He obviously and knew about the siege, because he would have heard it. But he didn't know that his cause was in ruins,

that Lancasterins had been executed. He didn't know anything about that. He didn't even know whether he was about to die. Because, of course, it must have thought that. There's nothing left. There's just me. Is Edward, after all this time, going to kill me in the Tower of London? So I think you needed to look at the strands from a different angle.

What is going on and why Henry might have died of a stroke or a heart attack? Because it was so weak. It'd been in prison for five, six years and been in Comedicado. It really only got his servants looking after him, which diminished over the years. Yeah, I do tend to feel like the Yorkist story that Henry dies, as you say, of a stroke or a heart attack or just collapses somehow, is kind of too easy to cynically push aside. It's hard to believe it does come across as propaganda. But, you know, this is a guy who's been in really poor mental health for 15 years by this point, who the descriptions of him in 1470 when he comes out of the tower suggest he wasn't being physically cared for very well while he's in Edwards' custody. So this guy is a shambles.

And I think it's impossible to completely write off the notion that he died of natural causes, even if you were to think that him being murdered is more likely. Henry, if you look into the history of the wars, of the roses, he had a disability, and we know that he was the Mab King. But he had some disease, which I believe was acute, intermittent porphyria, which if you look medically, it's got like neurological symptoms. It can cause seizures, confusion, memory loss. Everything points towards this disease or a disease of catatonia,

where basically it can't communicate with anyone when he's in this stupor. Now, one of the takeaways from this disease is that you're prone to seizures and heart attack. Now, if Henry obviously got to know about his son's death, Lancaster in Fall at Chooksbury, did he have an heart attack in the town? And I was madder responsible. Interesting to wonder about, I guess. I mean, you have subtitled the book, The Murder of Henry the Six. So where do you fall down? Do you think he's murdered rather than being a death by natural causes? I think Edward decided to get rid of him. He was basically... too directly involved. He's almost certainly the icon of the Lancasterian cause still, and he had to get rid of him, or face another rebellion, or face another group of nobles who want to unseat Edward. So I think he's got to get rid of him. And I guess the big

barrier up until this point, so Edward keeps Henry in prison for five years, the biggest barrier to doing away with him any earlier, even if Edward had wanted to, is Henry's son. So while there's this young prince out there who might turn out to be more like his granddad, Henry V, who knows, what this kid's going to grow up to be.

While he's out there, if you kill Henry, what you're doing is renewing the Lancasterian cause in this young prince who is not in Edward's custody at this point. He's in France. So in some ways, keeping Henry alive as this kind of useless figurehead works for Edward because

if people want to oppose Edward, they've got to follow Henry, but everyone knows Henry's a bit rubbish. But once Prince Edward is gone, his air is gone, and then you throw in the siege of London, all of this is kind of coming together to force Edward's hand and now Prince Edward is gone, he's got the freedom to do it as well.

Yeah, I think Henry was a hostage. It was a hostage situation when he was in prison because there was always there. If, for instance, Edward needed to bring him out of the tower, Put him in front of the troops like he did at Barnet, for instance, and then get a few more troops, Lancasterian troops, into the army. Then it was there.

It was there to do that. But it just outlived his usefulness. Yeah, yeah. It's hard not to feel sorry for him at this point in his own story. You've got to feel sorry for him. A lot of people say it was mad. I think it was a man that was born in the wrong time. Yeah.

Shakespeare famously gives us the wicked Richard Duke of Gloucester, the future, Richard the 3rd, kind of reveling in stabbing Henry to death and doing away with the old king. If Edward has decided this has to be done, do we have any kind of idea, any kind of evidence about who might have done it or how it might have been done? I think if you look at all the chronicles that mention his death, mention Henry the 6th's death, the take home from that is that others were there. And I'm pointing to... others in parentheses, because nearly every chronicle mentions Closter, apart from the arrival, which is official Yorkist propaganda.

Every chronicle mentioned these others that were there, almost watching as Henry gets killed in the tower, watching the execution. I believe these others are real. I really do believe they are real, real. but somebody must have killed him. Somebody must have killed Henry. I don't believe Gloucester did it himself.

He had no reason to do it himself. He's no reason to hold the dagger himself. So who did it? And then I started researching who might have done it. And I'm still investigated, but I've come up with quite a few suggestions of who might have done it. But of course, Gloucester was Constable of England. it was only doing his job if he did organize Henry the sixth murder in the tower.

Edward says, I want him killed because of this, because we can't afford this to happen ever again. Gloucester goes off, finds somebody and has it done. So ultimately the book has got to stop with Edward. Yeah, and unfortunately, Gloss is in the middle, as he usually is. it was tasked with executing Falkenberg. You know, can you get rid of Falkenberg for me, Richard? Yes, I'll get rid of him.

Because he's too dangerous. So he does away with Falkenberg. When you mention that these others are there fairly consistently amongst the Chronicles, it does kind of make you wonder whether what we're thinking about here is rather than some kind of dirty scene in Shakespeare where Richard is wickedly ramming a knife into Henry himself because he wants to, because he really wants to kill him. Are we looking at here a witnessed execution, maybe with some form of court martial trial, something like that, but an execution which people can witness so that they can take away from

this, that Henry is now dead. He's gone. I believe so. As odd as it might seem and as sort of like American, if you like, as it might seem, because you have witnesses when people go get executed in America, for instance. You have lots of, lots of witnesses and you have judges and deceive it's done properly. Maybe that is exactly what happened. Somebody was tasked to do it and was rewarded afterwards.

Robert Radcliffe, who I'm investigating at the moment, he got well rewarded for some unknown reason, not just with money, but with land. He got lots and lots of land. He got a captaincy of the governorship of Calais, Garrison. He married into Edwards family, the Wells' family. And it's just like, why is this guy getting all these... It's quite interesting. Because if I couldn't link him to Henry the 6th, then I would understand.

But I can link him to Henning the 6th. Because he looked after him. And so did William Sayer. and a few others who looked after Henry the Six in the tower before his death. And Robert was the last man to look after him. When the amount of people, the amount of servants that Henry the Sixth had, to bring you food to clean him, to look after him, but he wasn't in a cell, whether that was him,

whether he knew him, he knew who it was. whether Henry knew, Robert, who's really well. And perhaps someone in Henry's mental and physical state, it would be less terrifying, I guess, if someone you know well who you're used to come into your room all the time comes in, even if you're not aware that he's perhaps there to end your life on that occasion. But I do believe, and it needs to be a take home,

that Richard actually organised it. Yeah, yeah. So we've got kind of, Edward gives the order. Richard is organising it as constable, but potentially there is an executioner out there still to be found. Yes, there is, and I'm doing my best. Well, when you find him, you'll have to come back and tell us, because I'm keen to know who it was now. Thank you so much for joining us, Andrew. It's been fascinating to pick apart this moment that people quite often skip over in the Wars of the Roses. We will know Barnett and Chukesbury, and we will know that Edward gets his throne back.

We perhaps miss this critical few days in London that decide the fate potentially of Henry the 6th. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks, Mark. Great. I hope you've enjoyed this episode. Andrew's book, The Rose, The Bastard and the Saint King, The Murder of Henry the Sixth, is out now if you'd like to understand this moment in more detail. And you can find several episodes on the Wars of the Roses in our back catalogue if you'd like some context for this episode, or a refresher on the wider Wars of the Roses. There are new installments of Gone Medieval every Tuesday and Friday. So please come back to 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. You 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 HistoryHitt.com forward slash subscribe. Go on. You know you want to. Anyway, I'd better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis and we've just gone medieval with history hits.