How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - Was Richard III a failure?

Episode Date: April 7, 2026

He died at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. And we haven’t been able to stop talking about him since. Yes, it’s time to consider the story of England’s last Plantagenet king, Richard III — a centuries-old tangle involving alleged murder, Shakespeare, vanquish and one mighty rediscovery. In this debut episode of History’s Greatest Fails, Dan Jones and Elizabeth Day argue that the story of Richard’s rise and fall (and rise again) is much more modern that you’d first believe. Not least because of the reality-TV-style discovery of his remains under a Leicester council car park in 2022. In many ways, Richard’s alleged ‘failures’ — which include allegedly killing the Princes in the Tower and overseeing the demise of Plantagenet rule — overshadow Richard III as the reformer that also existed. He introduced trial by jury and translated many laws into English. But those facts are not often what’s associated with him. He’s more likely to be seen as the villainous caricature of Shakespeare’s Richard III. So in this episode, we’ll discover: What Richard's story tells us about failure in the present. How Tudor propaganda codified his ‘failure’, and how How those failures have been revised over over the centuries And the chain of events that propelled the search for his bones – As always, Dan’s royal favourites can chime in anytime on the royal court on Patreon at patreon.com/thisishistory. And don’t forget to listen to this season’s accompanying bonus episodes for this miniseries, where Dan and Producer Al are dissecting the biggest historical failures as submitted by the royal favourites. This episode, they discuss Wat Tyler’s failed Peasants Rebellion, Tulip Mania, and the South Sea Bubble of 1720. – A Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices –– Presented by Dan Jones and Elizabeth Day Producer - Alan Weedon Senior Producer - Dominic Tyerman Executive Producer - Simon Poole Production Manager - Jen Mistri Production coordinator - Eric Ryan Head of content - Chris Skinner Special thanks to Alex Lawless, Hannah Talbot, and Selina Ream Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I should have brought it, but I found a photograph. I was clearing out a box of photographs, which sounds like a task that only happens in novels, but I was actually doing it. I found a photograph of you in my parents' kitchen. I don't know what you were doing there. I do know. It was my 21st birthday party.

I remember that party. Do you? Yeah. And when I was looking at the photos, I didn't really remember much, but I was like, no, there's Elizabeth. I don't think I really knew you that well up until that point, because how we met, we were both at university together, and I was dating your friend.

You were. But I remember you being the year below, and at that stage in life, it feels like a really big age gap. And I was like, who's this young? And I don't think we ever really spoke that much, but I was just aware that you're in the vicinity. And Rick, my then boyfriend, referred to you as dollar. He did. That was your name as far as I was concerned. But then I was invited as Bricks Plus 1, your 21st.

And it was really lovely because, as you say, it was in your family home. There was a marquee. I remember thinking, well, that's grown up. You're making me sound a bit posh. And over the years, we've fallen in and out of contact because our friendship was only really established through podcasting. And that's when we reconnected. And I feel like that's when we had our first proper conversation. And during the course of that conversation, I remember Richard.

She's the third coming up. I'm Craig Melvin. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. I've always been a glass half full kind of guy. And now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way too. Some really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, their challenges.

Their stories are funny and quite candid. So I hope you'll join me each week. And who knows, you might just come away with your own glass half full. Search Glass Half Full with Craig Melvin from today on YouTube. wherever you get your podcast. So that comment, yes, I remember the conversation. There were two things that we spoke about. The first was Peloton.

Yes. Our other obsession. And my exercise bike radar went off. And the second was you, I think, admitted to straight off the bat to being a Ricardian. Yes. There's no admission to it, Dan. I don't need to admit. I don't need to confess it.

I'm not ashamed of it. Well, maybe you should be. I know you think that because you are obsessed with the Tudors. You have such a hard-on for them that you've fallen for every single piece of Tudor propaganda you could do. And that's why I'm thrilled that we're having this conversation. Because not only have we bonded over the years as friends, but we're both history graduates. Both history graduates. And as any history graduate will tell you, there are two sides to any argument, one right and one wrong.

We will establish which side of those. rely on. Why don't we start? Hello, this is history's greatest fails with me, Dan Jones. I'm a medievalist broadcaster and author. And I'm Elizabeth Day, a fellow author and podcaster. We're old friends and fellow history graduates and in this podcast we're going to dig into failures of historical proportions. To understand why

failures make history. Now, before we begin, some housekeeping. Yes, if you were expecting how to fail, don't My podcast hasn't changed. As this is our first collaboration, we're marking this very special moment by giving you the debut episode of History's greatest fails on both of our feeds.

And to catch the rest of this series, indulge your inner history nerd by subscribing to my podcast, This Is History, a dynasty to die for. Now, let's get stuck in. You, Elizabeth Day, I put this to you, R. A. Ricardian.

You're in love with Richard III in some kind of sick, fetishistic way. And I think that the failure of the last Plantagenet monarch who brought down the glorious House of Plantagenet, which I've been spending season after season narrating the story of on my podcast, this man for some reason you think is totally marvellous. I wonder if you can just explain, first of all,

why you're such a Richard the Third obsessive. I will explain, but before I do, I'd like to point out there that you've done something that many Ricardian women have to constantly, constantly address, which is that you have accused me of being in love with Richard III, which automatically from the outset undermines my historical prerogative to put this case. And one might suggest that your argument is going to be the weaker because of it, because you've gone personal from the start.

And actually, there's an enormous amount of historical fact that I can draw on to put my case. Well, you go ahead. I will. Before you do, can I just say, not just women who are in love with Richard the Third. Okay, that's your defence. That's one of my defences, yeah. I've got a few more. So I became fascinated with Richard the Third at quite a young age.

I think I was around 10 or 11. And I don't know if you remember the erstwhile, much lamented Discovery Magazine. Discovery Magazine. Were you ever a subscriber? Just context for listeners and viewers, Elizabeth as a child, was maybe the geekiest child ever lived. I take that as a compliment coming from you. It was a compliment. Discovery Magazine was a history periodical for kids.

And I loved it so much. I loved it so much. And they did an entire issue on Richard the 3rd and Henry the 7th. And I think there is something somewhat mystical about the allure that Richard the Third has for so many people. And I think maybe it's because it's what we all love. It's an unsolved mystery. It's an unsolved true crime story for many of us. And I, since reading that copy of Discovery magazine, have been obsessed with the fact that Richard the 3rd was wrongly accused of murdering the princes in the tower.

That's one of the things that we're going to address in this episode. but we're also going to address what you have claimed, which is that he brought down the Plantagenets. He had a very brief reign of around 26 months, I think. And so we're going to discuss whether that shortness is in and of itself a failure. But before we do that, let's just for the sake of clarity for listeners, like spell out who Richard was before the rain, because I think that what often happens with discussions of Richard the 3rd is that

They're played backwards. And when you read the story forwards, I think what you see with Richard III is a personal tragedy. And a good object lesson in the way that politics in particular can spiral very badly when you have these decision trees of bad decision leads to two more options for bad decisions and things get worse and worse and worse. But first of all, I think you have to start with who is Richard? Well, Richard, born in 1452, for sort of broad context, the same year as Leonardo da Vinci, for most of his life, he is a significant political success. One of three brothers of Richard Duke of York, one of three sons, sorry, of surviving sons, to significant political adulthood of Richard Duke of York.

The elder of which is Edward VIII, who defeats the House of Lancaster at the Battle of Tauton, 1460 and becomes the first Yorkist king of England. Richard III is actually extremely competent, but probably too, in a way, too competent in the sense that he can't sort of grasp the broader political implications of what he's going to do. So on the death of Edward VIII in 1483, Richard has effectively a binary decision to take.

Does he allow Edward V's son, the young Edward V, who has been effectively captured by the Woodville family, the family of Edward IV's wife. Side note, obsessed with Elizabeth Woodville. Why are you obsessed with Elizabeth Woodville? Because she's called Elizabeth, number one. And she's one of the founders of my Cambridge College, Queens College.

And I find her story fascinating because she was a commoner and she'd been married before. And so brought into this marriage with a king, like children that she already, pre-existing children, his stepchildren. Yeah. And I find that all very interesting. and then the sanctuary in Westminster Abbey of it all.

You really like reality television, correct? I love reality TV, and that's what history is. I totally agree. That is in no way of criticism. And the Woodville marriage with Edward IV is precisely that. It's just a sort of weird kind of jumble of all these oddball people interacting with each other, and then suddenly this is an amazing moment of revelation

where the king turns up and goes, guess what? I've got something to tell you all. Gather around. I got married! to someone completely inappropriate. Yes. Whose brother is a championship jouster. Yeah.

They're such a glamorous family. Anyway, I've gone off on a tangent. So Edward Vorth, which interests his marriage, he's got the two children. Up until the point of Edward VIII dying, Richard Duke of Gloucester has been like the right-hand man. But he has this decision to make in 1483 as to whether he's going to allow the new king, to be captured by the other side of the family.

And when he decides he's not that he's going to force himself on the situation, it's where the sort of spiral begins. And every decision he makes thereafter starts to drag him into this sort of zero-sum politics, where if he backs off at this point, if he can't anymore surrender to the Woodfields because it becomes kill or be killed. He has made enough decisions at that point when the princes are in the, Tower that have been extremely ruthless and politically calculated, that it seems to me utterly bizarre and out of keeping with his like 15th century brutal politics head on. And if you've been born in

1452, you know politics is kill or be killed. If he doesn't kill those princes in the tower, he's insane. Let's hypothetically say that I agree with you for the purposes of this. It doesn't have to be hypothetical. Is it therefore fair to say that that was a successful decision? And so this whole notion of Richard III being a failure is irrelevant? I think it's a necessary political decision, but it can also be morally abhorrent. I think the slight red herring about his failure or success is that we zoom in on the princes in the tower instead of the Battle of Bosworth. The Battle of Bosworth is connected to the Princes and the Tower in the

sense that when you fight a battle, you're inviting God's judgment. And so Richard fights this battle against Henry Tudor and God decides. We tend to, I think, when we look at this from our sort of post-enlightenment, rational 20th, 21st century worldview, think that stuff about God, well, yes, they go to church a bit more than we do, but that's the only difference. No, this is like baked into your understanding of the world, which is that by fighting, this battle, God will decide who was right and who is wrong. But anyway, I think it's, the broader point is that Bosworth is the big failure, the failure to defend the crown once he'd won it, and once he'd taken such drastic steps to get it. Allegedly, allegedly,

allegedly taken those drastic tests. Some of the steps aren't alleged, I mean, the killing of Hastings, for example. Yes, let's not focus on the killing so much. Hastings was a grown-up. Titulus Regius, right? So that was an act of of Parliament that was passed that said that he was totally within his rights to be king. So having passed that, was there still the necessary motive to do off with the princes in the tower? It depends on when we think they've been done away with. Exactly. And isn't that interesting because there's no proof, I refer to my earlier point.

And why do you think no bodies have ever been found? Well, two bodies were found under the staircase. and they're in Westminster Rabi in the urn that Christopher Wren sort of rather beautifully made for them. And I don't think it's going to happen in the near future, but I think we're probably closer to it than perhaps we have been, that testing could be carried out on the remains that are in those urns to see if they are indeed the princes in the tower.

Because the late Queen Elizabeth said absolutely not. I think there's a, yes. I mean, this would have to be signed off by the royal family and also by Westminster. But the hypothetical about the remains of the princes in the tower is that even

and this speaks to the whole case of Richard III and our perception of historical failure, I think, even if some hypothetical DNA testing were done on the remains the prince of the tower against known family members

and it said these are definitely the remains of the the princes, it still wouldn't change most people's minds. It's true. Because you'd still go, well, I think Henry, not you, but also you, would say, no, no, well, I think Richard III wouldn't have done that. I think somebody else did it. It doesn't really change because this is a case where the facts are incomplete

and the case is probably unprovable. And so there's enough. space within this discussion, always to make up your mind about what you think and then argue the facts towards that conclusion. Yes, there's a tremendous poignancy to it because either you believe as I do that he was grossly maligned and unfairly so and his body day undiscovered for centuries and he had this, he fought valiantly at Bosworth by all accounts, he was a great warrior, but his body was inflicted with degrading wounds and then history inflicts him with further wounds in terms of his reputation. Or you believe, as you do, that he gradually painted himself

into a political corner because of the desperate amount of pressure he was under. And either way, there's a sense of tragedy to that. Yes, I totally agree. I would like to make the case now more broadly, moving on from the princes in the tower as to why Richard the third does not deserve to be consigned to the failure bin of history. I see. Okay. And I would like to draw attention here to the fact you said that he was an excellent political enforcer and strategist for his brother. And his brother put him in charge of the kingdom in the north.

And by all accounts, he executed that incredibly well. And he was very popular. And he often stood up for the common people against them. which was very rare for that time. He also, as we well know when he was king, introduced trial by jury. He translated a lot of laws into English so that people could understand them. And that for me speaks of such a progressive leader who existed way beyond his, way before his time. And in a way, because of all of the drama around his very short reign, we sort of forget that. When I started this podcast, I honestly felt like I was learning a brand new language overnight.

Scripts, artwork, scheduling, tech. Suddenly, I was the entire team and it was kind of overwhelming. There were so many moments I wished I had a proper business partner to help me figure it all out. That's why I love Shopify. It's the commerce platform behind millions of businesses and it gives you everything you need in one place. You can build a beautiful online store in minutes with hundreds of ready-to-use templates. Their AI tools help you write product descriptions and even polish your photography, which is a lifesaver when you're spinning 100 plates. And you can manage everything, inventory, payments, analytics, without juggling 10 different tabs. Start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify, and start hearing. Sign up for your £1 per month

trial today at Shopify.com.uk.uk slash fail. That's Shopify.com.com.com.com. Okay. When I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice. I want to help my kids, and I want to give back to the community. Ooh, then it's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my out of office has a forever setting. An IG private wealth advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor. at IDPrivatewealth.com. Yes, I agree. And I think that one of the things that, you know,

whenever we think about history, this is a cliche, but it's forgotten a great deal, particularly when history's discussed online in kind of, you know, in social media debate and stuff, as Richard very often is, is that, of course, this is an incredibly nuanced case and that to judge Richard III as either failure or success is, of course, to ignore the arguments on both sides. Yes, there are many ways in which he was an excellent lieutenant to his brother

and had the makings of a successful king, starting out from the worst possible position for a king, which is a usurper with another claimant to the throne very close to him, a whole bunch of enemies, and needing to find a... to battle early in his reign, which, as it turns out, went the wrong way. So, but I think that the great failure to win at Bosworth, if we place these on the historical scales, does outweigh everything else. But I would add to that and say that my sort of premise in this miniseries, in this idea of thinking about historical failures, isn't so much to think about failure or not failure,

do we need to rescue them? It is, as you do so brilliant on your podcast, to say, what do we understand from cases of failure? And if we start from the premise that, no matter how hard Richard tried or how many good things he did, ultimately his reign ended in failure, what do we learn about the way we think of history

from that failure? And here's what I've been thinking about Richard recently, which is, we are always looking back, can you've mentioned Tudor propaganda already? We're always looking back at the 15th century through the lens of the 16th. And a lot of that is through Shakespeare,

but Shakespeare had his sources as well earlier in the 16th century. Once Richard was dead, Battle of Bosworth, we can agree, he at least was dead. And Henry Tudor had taken the throne. It's often said that an enormous amount of Tudor propaganda was pumped out

to blacken the name of Richard III. And I've been thinking about that in the context of the specific politics of the world we're living in today and how cultural propaganda, as it were, works. It's not the case of a sort of early Tudor CIA pumping out siops against Richard III. It's once the fact is he's dead and lost and God has passed his judgment at Bosworth and there's a new regime. That regime is creating a kind of story around itself. Henry Marries Elizabeth of York. They have the sort of white and red rose that implies there were two sides that are now united again. But I think what you also see is that once it's clear, well, this is the new regime, do I want to be in with them or out with them, a narrative starts to emerge, a cultural narrative starts to emerge.

Well, that guy died and seemed, you know, he's dead and gone, and that world is over. And I'm going to start writing the world as I see it now. And you see this evolve throughout the first half of the 16th century, until you get to a about. out the 1540s, Grafton's Chronicle Hall, Hollinschette. And they have these amazing frontist pieces, which see Henry VIII as the sort of the combination of the two houses. And they start to create, I think organically, I think without top-down direction, to create this satisfying narrative that says in 1399, Richard the 2nd was deposed. And that was a sort of original sin. And it splintered England into

these two noble factions of Lancaster and York, and they grew apart. And they grew apart. And then all of the sins of the age were contained within this monster, Richard the third, who then had to be killed to expunge the moral stain. And now we live on the other side of it. Here is the new regime. And people write towards that for lots of different reasons. One, because it offers the opportunity of political advancement and not political persecution. Another because, again, there is this sort of picturesque narrative neatness to it.

And when you get to Shakespeare, looking back through the lens of all of that writing, I think, well, Shakespeare writes Richard the Third. What is he aiming to do with the play Richard III? Is it to yet again make the case that Richard III was guilty? Really? He's not in the business of making historical arguments. He's in the business of making moral arguments, right? Of saying, I want to tell a story that's about some deep element of humanity. And I want my audience in whichever sort of Southwark theatre it might be.

to engage with that. And I need a story that's instantly familiar. They don't need to just bother with the plot. It needs to be as simple as Batman or whatever. Every time we watch a new

Batman film, you can know, the Joker's the bad guy, Batman's the good guy, it's Gotham City, you know, going to fight each other. Commissioner Gordon,

I know all these characters, now tell me this story again and draw some new morality out of it or give me a new kind of brilliant performance from it. And I think that's what Shakespeare's doing with Richard. He's like,

I want to explore the concept of how evil and power interact with each other. I'm going to use a story of Richard the Third because literally everybody knows it by now and they know the shape of this story. And so when that's being done, it's taking this historical failure

and using it for an artistic purpose. But now here we are sort of 500 years later, we kind of crunch all those things together and say, you guys, bloody, Shakespeare, Tudor Shill out there blackening the name of Richard the third for political purposes. Shakespeare had a,

political bone in his body with regard to the 15th century. Also, the fact that we are sitting here talking about Richard III, all of these centuries later, and the fact that figures like Philippa Langley exist. Your friend, yeah. Your friend and mine, Philippa Langley, who is one of the foremost Ricardians of our age. I think she'd be offended by one of the, I mean, the foremost Ricardian of our age. And essentially single-handedly responsible for finding Richard the Thirdians. third's body under an R sign for reserved in a council car park in Leicester. And it was the first day of

that dig. She had raised, I think it was 36,000 pounds from members of the public. And they had enough money, I think, to exhume six bodies. And it was the first day within the first few hours, minutes even, that they disinterred what would later be proven to be rich of the third's skeleton. And his feet were not part of that skeleton because the wall to a council building had been built. The foundations had chopped off his feet basically. If that wall, if that council building had been sort of two inches to the left or the right, we might not have found it. It's an extraordinary thing. And the fact that we're still talking about that and the fact that so many of us watched that documentary of Philippa walking across the car park, seeing the art. And

painted on the tarmac and thinking, I have a feeling that it's here, in a way, that's a kind of success. There are so many historical figures that have forgotten about. And actually that we're still talking about him is in and of itself really interesting. And carry on down. No, I was going to totally agree with you. And I think that actually we... Say that again. I'm going to totally agree with you.

Click that. Just that. You make all your preposterous Ricardian statements, and I say I totally agree with you. Failure is more interesting to us, I think, in terms of history. Or if not failure, isolated, then the rise and fall. You know, the story of the Knights Templar, you know, world dominance around the Mediterranean, at any rate, and then calamitous collapse. You know, Napoleon conquers Europe and then ends up exiled and Helena.

You know, these stories like this have, again, that sort of the tragic shape to them are just deeply fascinating to us as people. But I also wanted to ask you about Philippa Langley and about the dig and the sort of weird funeral of Richard's, because you reported that when you were on the observer. Yes. Newspaper. Before we get on to that, I just want to say something about failure, which I think is really interesting, that you, ultimately believe that Richard the 3rd's reign was a failure because it ended at the Battle of Bosworth.

And that is true, but also... Can we just clip that bit? How interesting. Ultimately, failure is also about taking risks, managing risk, and living boldly and taking the risk that you might fail spectacularly.

But there's a broad argument to be made that isn't it better to live that way than to play it very safe. Is that the question? I don't know. I don't know if it's a question of more of a philosophical musing. Yes. Because I actually also don't think that things are failures just because they end. That ultimately what you have contributed in this case to history, to trial by jury,

to the fact that we're still discussing his legacy now in this podcast studio, surrounded by busts. His historic stone sculptural busts is just a, it's a, it's a, It's a fascinating thing. So I would say that things aren't failure simply because they end, but I think your argument would be it's the nature of the ending. Yes, I think I'll come back to Philippa Langley. Yes, please do. I think I mostly agree with that. And maybe this will bring us back to Philippa Langley. I wonder if Richard the Third's time is really now. I think we're living in an age that is more and this is everything that how to fail and your philosophy is about.

It's like that failure is not something to be ashamed of, failure is something to learn from and grow from. We're unusual in that being a sort of a dominant cultural understanding. It's a sort of quite progressive, modern way of thinking. And for most of my instinct is that for most of history, failure is sort of shameful and all sorts of other negative connotations. And so we've just sort of entered this period where Richard is really the perfect character because there are questions about his supposed guilt. I've started calling it supposed guilt. You might have won.

There are sort of issues around his disability. He is a sort of the perfect character to be re-examined, loved, fetishized, back to Philip Langley. That is so beautifully put. Thank you. Yes. Well done. I didn't even have something sarcastic to say after that.

Well, okay. Then we're drawing again. And I sort of feel that's what's amazing about history. You describe them there as a character. This person actually existed. Yes. And in this person's reputation and legacy, we can put all of our own feelings of inadequacy and failure.

and failure and shame and humiliation and embarrassment, all of those petty grudges, all of those reputations that we want to save about ourselves, we can put into this historic receptacle. It's why I love these stories. Philippa Langley, so I was, for many years, a staff feature writer on the Observer newspaper here in the UK.

And a very good one, may I say. Thank you. You may say. I will. And I got, sent to meet Philippa Langley in the Leicester car park and go to the University of Leicester and speak to the scientists who'd done the DNA testing on Richard the Third Skeleton and chat to the dean of Leicester Cathedral because they were preparing for this

essentially a kind of state funeral for Richard. I don't think it was quite state funeral, but I think kind of is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence, yes. It was a sort of I mean it depends how kind we want to be. It was, It was a dignified laying to rest of his remains or a deranged pantomime. Guess which side dance on. But I, and I know that Philippa Langley has been the subject of so much ridicule, and I think an enormous amount of that is deeply sexist. I really enjoyed meeting her, and I thought she was great.

One of the things that really struck me when I wrote the piece was a series of serendipitous coincidences. And there was one in particular that has always stayed with me, which is that Rich the 3rd, as you well know, Dan, was killed on the 22nd of August at the Battle of Bosworth, 1485. So far so good. Now, his skeleton was discovered in that car park under that painted letter R on the 22nd of August, 2012 by Philippa Langley and her team, 527 years later. It was a bank holiday in 2012. And in order to exhume and identify the body, they had to seek permission from the Ministry of Justice. Stay with me.

But because it was a bank holiday, they had to wait three days before the Ministry of Justice reopened its doors and said, yes, you're fine to go ahead. So Rich the Third's body was removed on the 25th of August. Now, if we go back in time 527 years from that point, Richard the 3rd, his body was displayed for three days after he was killed at Bosworth. His body was displayed for three days until he was buried.

So it's exactly the same dates, if you think about it. Now, isn't that amazing, Dan? Not really the same dates, though, because of the shift in the Julian Gregorian calendar. You are such a buzzkill. Thank you very much. It is time is a human construct, but sometimes the universe sends you mysterious messages from the edges of consciousness. And I find something very romantic about the idea that his body needed to be found and it needed to be found in this echo of time on the day that he was killed at the Battle of Bosworth. That is truly romantic.

And brings us really to the end of our discussion of Richard the third, but is also a wonderful segue to our discussion. next week, Elizabeth, it's been such a pleasure talking to you about Richard III. Next week we're going to be talking about failed romances of world history. We're going to be talking about Anthony and Cleopatra, Edward and Wallace, and of course, everyone's favourite, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, the Ross and Rachel of early modern history, if Ross chopped Rachel's head off. That's almost all for us this episode. But Dan, where else can we find more failures? I'm so glad you asked, yes. If you're one of my This Is History Royal favourites, listen to this week's both.

bonus episode to hear me and producer Al dissect your favourite historical failures. Listen at patreon.com forward slash this is history. And Elizabeth, what about you? Yes, do you subscribe to my podcast How to Fail, where I've had Pamela Anderson, Kate Winslet, John Bon Jovi and so many more, tell me about how they've survived failure in the present. And if you're listening to History's greatest fails on my feed, How to Fail, do subscribe to This Is History to get the rest of the series. And if you've got a question about anything we've discussed on history's greatest fails so far, my royal favourites can DM us on Patreon or email us on This Is History at sonymusic.com. Now, friends, let's make history. Let's fail again next time.

Next week, I will bring my Ouija board. Please do.