The Rest Is History - 123. World Cup of Kings and Queens part 1

Episode Date: November 22, 2021

Oliver Cromwell. Queen Victoria. George V. All contenders for the title of England's greatest monarch, a poll for which took place on a twitter over the last week. We know that Athelstan went on to win, but in this episode Tom and Dominic run through the sovereigns who fell at the first hurdle. *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. sport sport sport it's all that we've been talking about it's all that the national media has been talking about in the aftermath of the astonishing kings and queens of england world cop and dominic we've had several i'm sure you said do you know I'm so excited and I'm so shattered from the drama of it all that I can barely remember how to say it in English You're like a trembling wreck The adrenaline has coursed through your...

I am a trembling wreck World Cup Have you kind of come to terms with the drama of it all? Have you processed it? Well, so for those people who don't know What the hell are we talking about? We ran a World Cup of Kings and Queens of England on Twitter processed it um well so for those people who don't know what the hell we're talking about yeah we ran a world cup of um kings and queens of england on twitter and 84 000 people voted or rather there

were 84 000 votes i think it's probably slightly more accurate to say and uh in the end some of us could have been voting under multiple identities yeah not that we were um but um at the end uh athelstan prevailed over elizabeth the final by the absolute tiniest margin. By the barest of margins. So 50.5%, 49.5%. And the lead changed hands several times. The game was extended overnight so people in America could vote. And Athelstan, who was unseeded, prevailed.

It was very exciting. And it's a fun way to get into the subject of talking about the kings and queens of England, which is something that i grew up you know so many people who got into history they're sort of the structure the scaffolding if you like were the stories of the kings and queens weren't they they're still the way in which actually we structure um english history the reign of so-and-so the elizabethan age tudors yeah whatever yeah so we thought it was a fun way to sort of get into this subject and what we're going to do so we have done a podcast already on the

winner on the unexpected winner who was athelstan and tom what we thought we'd do today was to talk about the people who got knocked out in the in the first round didn't we yes because i think i think the the value of this from the point of view of um you know of of history the academic value of this as opposed to the massive sports excitement which we in no way want to underplay um is that uh it it enables us to look at the kind of the institution of the monarchy and how it's evolved and changed and what i think also what people's reactions how they vote and so on what that says about our attitude to history to monarchy and so on but it does also enable us to provide various kind of short portraits of uh significant figures exactly in english history and i think that's what we should focus on today so the tomorrow's

episode we'll we'll look a bit more at the kind of the institution the historiography that kind of stuff um but today we should so so there were there were we we began with... Obviously, there'd been kind of knockout rounds, but 16 had made the actual World Cup. Well, that was controversial in and of itself, wasn't it? It was. So we didn't have Alfred the Great for reasons that we have discussed in great length in our preview podcast,

because England did not exist when Alfred the Great was king. He was king of Wessex only. That was your ground for excluding him, but also because you were worried he wouldn't win. You love Alfred the Great so much. And it king of Wessex only. That was your ground for excluding him, but also because you were worried he wouldn't win. You love Alfred the Great so much. It's clear now that he probably would have won. But we did include Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector, because

we said he was a bit like a king, and he filled a king-shaped hole, and also because we knew it would get people talking, which it did. So we had some absolutely outraged listeners. A man called Capel Loft, one of our, formerly a friend of the show, I think now.

An adversary of the show. A bit more semi-detached. He mounted his own rifle World Cup. Yes, he did. With lots of kind of Hanifarians. We didn't have any of the Georges. We left out William III. We are going to do an episode later next year,

just about the Georges, aren't we? Just for capital love. To show that we listen to our listeners. We're the People's Podcast, aren't we? We are the People's Podcast. I will just say one thing, which is I know that his alternative World Cup was not featured in The Times. Unlike some World Cup second mention. But if he's feeling cross and he's about to cancel us again, I will repeat, we are going to do a podcast about the hanoverians anyway let's so basically

you know we'd we're forgetting about edward ii richard ii henry vii edward viii all these duds who are out of the tournament i did like the idea that somebody suggested that we should do one on the worst kings and queens the worst kings would be hilarious so that'd be fun wouldn't it yeah that's something perhaps forward to um so we're going to crack on so the kings that we're talking about today have done very well to get to this round but they fell at the first major hurdle so we should just list the seeds so it was Elizabeth I

Henry VIII William I Victoria Edward III Charles II Elizabeth II that was the order and then the others were

Edward I, Henry II, Henry VII, Knut, Richard I, Cromwell, Athelstan, George V.

And the opening rounds, the first match to be played was Elizabeth I, the top seed, against Edward I. And unsurprisingly, absolutely hammered him. Absolutely hammered him. Soed him so the question here

is would which is appropriate because of course his nickname is hammer of the scots so the hammer got hammered was he going to lose no matter who he played in this round i think he probably was going to lose wasn't he ever the first he he was and i think one of the one of the things of course it's interesting is that if if you grow up in England, reading English books, going to English schools, is that you get an English perspective on your kings and queens. Of course.

And doing competition like this brings home very, very forcibly that people elsewhere may not entirely have quite the perspective that you do. And of course, Edward I is famous as Hammer of the Scots. He's Longshanks,

same name because he's enormous size the villain of braveheart yeah but he's also the king the english king that completed the english conquest of wales and so he's not regarded with huge enthusiasm in wales either uh so i think this the scots and the welsh were never going to rally behind him but an undeniably impressive king though tom i mean i know he crashed out but by medieval standards so he is in many ways the model of a medieval king isn't he edward i he comes in after his father henry iii who's been a bit of a sort of a bit useless a bit of a dithery sort of jelly um fighting simon de montfort and the barons

rising up against him edward i am i right in thinking that he really reasserts royal authority and sort of... Yeah, well, he's huge. He looks a king, kind of massive. He's been on a crusade. He's very good at fighting. And he's a very, very able administrator. And yes, absolutely. In a way, he's the kind of the model.

So you sent me some notes before we started. I'm not going to give away all our methods to the listeners. But when I look under Edward I, on the notes that you sent me, I see the words genital mutilation. What's all that about? Well, so one of the themes of medieval history, actually, no, I mean, it's a theme right the way through, is the awkward relationship that heirs to the throne tend to have with their predecessors. Yeah. And Edward initially causes trouble for his dad because his dad is facing a baron's rebellion led by a guy called Simon de Montfort. Yeah. And Edward initially sides with the rebellious barons, but he then changes sides, leads the royal forces, defeats Simon de Montfort at the Battle of evesham uh which is an incredibly bloody battle probably the bloodiest battle since hastings and uh simon de montfort dies in this battle

and he gets uh brute he he gets um dismembered mutilated and his genitals get hacked off all right well that's nice so touch isn't it so uh that's the kind of the measure of of edward edward doesn't do that personally presumably presumably. I think he probably orders it. The Lord Edward, as he's known. I mean, he's not a guy that you want to get on the wrong side of. He then goes on the crusade. Yep. He comes back.

He gets involved. Heading back to England, he gets involved in a massive tournament at Channels where various enemies try and gang up and murder him. But because he's tremendously cool and very good at fighting, he just wallops them. in a massive tournament at chanel where various enemies try and gang up and murder him but because he's because he's tremendously cool and very good at fighting he just wallops them right then he comes back to england gets crowned and it's just it's chaos because uh all the loads of scottish lords come and uh in the the party spirit they let all their horses loose so that people can you know you can pick up a horse and you can have it. And then all the English lords do it. So it's just London is

full of horses galloping everywhere. It's great fun. Right. Okay. That's a very strange, that just seems very strange. He gets crowned with the crown of Edward the Confessor. Because of the name? His name. Yes. Just a quick question about his name. Why is he called Edward? Henry III is a huge fan of Edward the Confessor, who has founded Westminster Abbey. And Henry III rebuilds Westminster Abbey. So the Westminster Abbey we have now is basically, it's Henry III's creation.

But Edward the Confessor's tomb lies at the heart of it. And so he names Edward after this Anglo-Saxon king. Isn't it a strange thing that Henry III, who is a bit of a drip, has this son who basically is, you know, Heracles, whose own son is then back to the drip again.

Yeah. There's this kind of cycle there, isn't there? There's a weird cycle. Yeah. Yeah. So Edward is, so one of the many,

many things that, that Braveheart gets wrong. And I always remember John O'Farrell's witty comment on it, that the only way it could be more inaccurate was if it featured a plasticine dog and was called William Wallace and Gromit. But one of the many ways it gets it wrong is that Edward is shown as sleeping around

and exercising Dorada Senor, but in fact, he's very, very... Luxurious. Like Nero, according to you. Like Nero, yes. So he married Eleanor of Castile uh and she died and he's so distraught that when her coffin is brought back he builds eleanor crosses the whole way yeah is that charing cross yes yes yeah it's that's a victorian kind of rebuilding of it i

think there are three that that basically survive um the the original one at Charing Cross was destroyed by Cromwell. So he obviously also conquers Wales. Conquers Wales, yep. And there's more genital mutilation there because he basically introduces hanging, drawing and quartering. And the brother of Llywelyn at Griffith, who is the last native,

the Welsh Prince of Wales, he gets captured, hung, drawn, courted, and the drawing involves genital mutilation. Nice. Also, he does have a bit of a blot on his discussion, doesn't he, about expelling the Jews? He expels the Jews. Yeah, he does that as well.

So that's to do with the sort of anti-Semitic climate that's grown up around the Crusades, is it? Do you think that he's sort of drunk deeply of that? I think that helps. I think it's basically he wants to take their money because he's waging all these wars. Yeah. And so he's fighting the Welsh, he's fighting the Scots. So he needs the money.

So basically he grabs the money and chucks the Jews out. And then, of course, he continues to need money. And so one of the reasons why Edward I's reign is so important is that actually, we mentioned Simon de Montfort, who, in a way, is kind of traditionally cast as the father of parliaments. Edward I really is the father of parliaments, because there's one key parliament, the model parliament in which the commons as well as the lords come. And this essentially establishes the idea that parliaments should should should involve both commons and and lords right uh so very very influential um but um i mean not clearly not a very not a very pleasant man no but i mean very very powerful very domineering very effective uh very influential but but not the kind of guy who's going to be Elizabeth I.

No, but clearly, I mean, despite, as you say, unpleasantness in various areas, no doubt his contemporaries, an incredibly impressive king, you know, a very formidable figure. I think the kind of the model of what a king should be. Yeah. And he dies at Burmarsh, which is on the Solway Firth. And anyone who's walked along Hadrian's Wall will remember the memorial to him, to the place where he died, that stands there.

Very nice. So very formidable fellow. And the next king to bow out was also a very formidable medieval king. Arguably, I mean, some people would say, Twitter tournaments aside, one of the absolute 24-carat sort of... Top kings. Top definitive kings, Henry II, who ruled from 1154 to 1189. So he's the great...

He lost to Elizabeth II, so all the seconds, but amazing. He is a great, a titanic. I mean, he's the founder, basically, of the Plantagenets, isn't he? Yeah. Yeah, so his dad, mean, he's the founder, basically, of the Plantagenets, isn't he? Yeah. Yeah. So his dad, Geoffrey of Anjou, had a sprig of broom, which in Latin, plantagenista.

So some of our listeners will have heard of the civil war between Stephen and Matilda. Christ and his saints slept. Exactly. The anarchy. That's the anarchy, isn't it? And the sort of deal that they do is that Stephen will be king and Matilda's son, Henry, will succeed. So Henry is ruler of – he's got these vast possessions in France, the kind of Angevin Empire, but he's also got England. And he, again, is the absolute model, isn't he, Tom, of a formidable, reforming, powerful, centralising medieval king.

Archbishop murdering. Well, there is that. Yes, there is that. Well, you know why I'm keen on him? The sacral? No, he wasn't very sacral. I mean, he murdered an archbishop. Cricketing king?

Salisbury. So one of his favourite places was a hunting lodge that he built into a palace called Clarendon, which stood just outside Salisbury. That's where he issues this famous, the Constitutions of Clarendon. Isn't that one of the... Yes.

So he's a bit like Edward. He's a great lawgiver. And he's the kind of the origins of the English legal system, the common law and all that kind of thing is often attributed to him. And I'm not sufficiently qualified to say whether that's accurate or not. But one of the ways in which Edward is trying, Henry is trying to impose his authority on England is by reining in the degree to which clerics are kind of immune from secular prosecution. And he issues these Constitutions of Clarendon in 1164, which attempt to place limits on the authority of the clergy and the Pope and so on. And this is where the bust up with Beckett happens, Thomas Beckett. He's best known for the fact that I've played him on stage.

Have you? Of course. Yes, of course. Teenage bishops and trainers did not exactly convey the majesty of the medieval church, said the Scotsman. What does the Scotsman know? Edward I would have had no truck with the Scotsman. No, no, no. He'd have given us a great review.

Okay. So quickly, just tell us about Henry II and Thomas. Oh, God. I should never have said that. On the basis of you having played him. So as I recall, well, I played him as a very, very – it's hard to sum it up in one podcast, actually, because it was such a sophisticated –

Rich nuance. Rich nuance portrayal. So Beckett is kind of his creature, isn't he? He's his great pal. Then he becomes a cleric. And then the version that I was... Cardinal Wolsey. Exactly.

By the French playwright Jean-Henri. Beckett then kind of basically is sort of semi-born again or something, as I remember. And then is converted to the cause of the church. He falls out with the king. And then the king famously sends these men or doesn't send them, depending on what you believe. So what happens before that is that Becket reluctantly agrees to the constitutions of Clarendon, then goes away, then decides that he's done the wrong thing

with his conscience. Henry absolutely explodes. Becket ends up going into exile where he cozes up to the French king, who was the great rival of Henry II in France. So that doesn't go down well. Becket comes back to Canterbury. It's all been negotiated.

He then, he kind of, what does he do? He kind of refuses to do something that Henry wants. And Henry explodes and says words to the effect of, who will rid me of this turbulent priest? And four knights rush off. And they cut him down. What is it? I think the 29th of December.

And they kill him by slicing the top of his head off as though it were an egg. Well, as regular listeners will know this extraordinary portrayal on the stage in Edinburgh almost got me the role as Paddington. Yes. Because it was directed by the guy who went on to direct the Paddington films. And if only history had taken a better course.

I know. Tom would be doing this podcast with Ben Whishaw. And I would be playing a bear. Peruvian bear. I think for that, Lady Henry II deserved to do better. Yes. Although possibly, possibly, one reason why he didn't do better is that Henry II is the English king who first intervenes in Ireland. Right. I don't think that cost him anything.

I know, but a kind of rumbling backdrop to the World Cup has been Irish voters with justifiable complaints against certain figures in English history. Basically all of them. Well, Cromwell obviously featured English history. Basically all of them. Well, Cromwell obviously featured. Elizabeth I too, of course. But Henry II, actually, I didn't see anyone complaining about Henry II. But 1171, he leads this invasion. And then he gives Ireland to John.

It's kind of the worst thing. That's the worst thing that's ever happened to Ireland, right? Being given to John to be counted terrible um but Henry Henry gets paid back for that because his sons turn against him uh he's got Eleanor of Aquitaine his wife yeah we should have mentioned her very impressive woman absolutely formidable she is impressive but she's also a bit of a baggage isn't she are we allowed to say that I don't know well she kind of i mean she's kind of goes off with her her wussy french king husband and decides that he's too much of a drip so jumps ship she shacks up with henry ii then turns against him encourages all his sons to rebel against her i mean she's she is impressive but she's all i mean kind of a bit of a nightmare yeah but anyway uh henry ii i

think no one stutters him in schools so that's sort of an identikit, impressive medieval king, so people didn't vote for him. Do you know what David Hume said about him? I do, because I've got it written down on the next one. Okay, do you want to read it out? Yeah. The greatest prince of his time for wisdom, virtue, and abilities. But David Hume has been cancelled now, hasn't he?

So, I mean, that doesn't count. David Hume is around. No, no, I think that still counts. So, that's the end of Henry II. We are going far too slowly, Tom, because Tom's actually got to go on the radio, a real radio programme, in half an hour.

So we have to rattle through them. Rachel, you will ask. So Henry VII was the next. Now, I'm a huge admirer of Henry VII. I think he was a very impressive king. Do you know who else? Yeah, I do. Okay, so there are two.

There are two key figures in English cultural life at the moment. One is Jonathan Wilson. Yeah, and the other Okay, so there are two. There are two key figures in English cultural life at the moment. One is Jonathan Wilson. Yeah, and the other is George Osborne. The other is George Osborne. Both of them. Henry VII is their favourite key. Henry VII admirers, yes.

And the reason for that, obviously, is that Henry VII is famously careful with his money. Careful with his money. Yeah, I'm not going to – I mean, Jonathan Wilson may take offence. But I think Jonathan Wilson is well-known for being a very – he's very canny. He's a canny operator. Yeah, I'm not going to... I mean, Jonathan Wilson may take offence, but I think Jonathan Wilson is well known for being a very... He's very canny. He's a canny operator. Yeah, a canny operator, yeah.

So, yes, Henry VII is basically an adventurer, isn't he? He's sort of left over from the Wars of the Roses through a very serious of complicated kind of family tree shenanigans. He's the last basically surviving Lancastrian claimant is that fair i mean i know i'm massively simplifying yeah so the york is york is take over in the in the form of edward the fourth then edward the fifth his son who then vanishes in the tower and richard the third takes over um so the lancastrians have basically been wiped out uh but you do have henry and he is uh the grandson of owenor, who married, weirdly, Catherine of France, who married Henry V.

Yeah. I mean, that's quite a come down, isn't it? He's really done well for himself. Catherine of France, really done well. And both Owen and Owen's son, so future Henry VII's father, Edmund, they're both killed by Yorkists. But the key figure for Henry and basically the reason why he becomes the pretender is that his mother, Margaret Beaufort, is descended from Edward III via John of Gaunt. And she had him when she was 13. I know. That's kind of scary, isn't it?

Anyway, so she obviously builds him up, doesn't she? She pushes him forward. She promotes him. She has all the contacts. Yeah. So he flees to France in 1471. And he's kind of, he's not really a significant player at all, is he? I think he's significant enough that the Yorkist kings are trying to get rid of him.

And so he's constantly kind of having to move. He moves from Burgundy to France. But that's really because he's the last loose end. It's not because he has any reputation as a tremendous fellow he's just the last remaining until richard iii's usurpation yeah exactly exactly and that is when it all starts to fall to pieces for the yorkists because people are genuinely shocked by what's happened and so you have the duke of buckingham he launches this initial revolt in association with Henry VII but he launches it too soon

Buckingham gets murdered, gets caught executed and his ghost to this day haunts Debenhams in Salisbury I wondered why you were going on this Buckingham rabbit hole so you could mention Debenhams in Salisbury he haunts the lingerie department apparently Kelser Breeze like Father Ted He haunts the lingerie department, apparently. Kel Sabreeze.

Like Father Ted. So, Henry VII invades. He leads this kind of ragtag band. They arrive at Bostwick. 1485. The Stan is changed sides. Richard III is killed. We're going to do a podcast about the princes and the tower next year. We have it in the diary, so we won't go into too much detail.

Henry VII, crown found in Hawthorne Bush, put on head. He is king. Marries Elizabeth of York. Yes, he does, to unite Lancaster. So the red and white rose are united in the Tudor rose. And then after this dreadful period of basically 70 years, or, well, I mean, a long period of relative chaos, which had culminated in the Wars of the Roses,

Henry VII really restores stability and he cracks down on the barons. Well, it kind of rumbles on though, doesn't it? It rumbles on. It does. So they don't know the Wars of the Roses

have ended in 1485. No, but they haven't entirely ended because you get Lambert Simnel, who pretends to be the Earl of Warwick and who gets defeated at the Battle of Stoke. Doesn't he end up being a pastry cook or something?

Yes, a spit. He turns to spits right in the kitchens and then perking warbeck who claims to be the younger of the princes in the tower and he gets executed so you've got them but yes basically oh and he founds the um the yeoman of the guard nice in the tower but he's very good with he sorts out the royal finances which have been such a problem uh he is he's he's disliked for his heavy taxes so he gets his fork yes so basically morton's fork is if you look morton is one of his ministers if you if you appear to be rich then you obviously have lots of money and you should give more tax to the king if you appear to be poor then you're

obviously hiding all your money yeah you should also give more tax for the king so you can see why George Osborne is such a fan but he yes he's clever he's sinister isn't he well but he's not he's not rapacious and he's not tyrannical I think he's rapacious I don't think he's rapacious I think he's canny

have you read Tom Penn's wonderful book Winter King Winter King exactly yes because that gives very good i mean makes him a sinister figure i think he makes him sinister but i think he slightly overdoes the sinister aspect i think for a lot of people after the turmoil of the previous decades henry the seventh provided welcome very welcome stability okay i i i accept that but i also think that there is a kind of slightly sinister mean quality to him that explains well clearly the voters agreed with explains why he lost to Henry V.

Yes, fair enough. Okay. So we have to do one more before the break, Tom. Oh, goodness. Okay, well, let's speed up. So William I against Cnut. So interesting clash of 11th century invaders and conquerors of England there. Yes.

A Viking heritage. Cnut won. It was a very, very tight battle. Cnut only just lost. Yeah, Cnut only just lost, didn't he? So a lot of people, you call him Cnut, but most of us know him as Canute, which is the ladybird.

Well, Cnut prompts the inevitable joke. Is that why you're doing it? No, because he was Cnut. Canute is a later Gallicism so he's uh danish isn't he son of svain forkbeard svain forkbeard who is son of harold bluetooth friend of the show yeah the viking king who got shot in the ass while having a dump yeah uh svain forkbeard terrifying king had a beard it was forked came over to england conquered england um but dies before he can become king he does become king he forces out Sveinforkbeard, terrifying king, had a beard. It was forked. Came over to England, conquered England. But dies before he can become king.

No, he does become king. He forces out Æthelred the Unready. He flees abroad. Sveinforkbeard is king of England for about five weeks. And he dies according to later tradition because St. Edmund, he's being rude about St. Edmund. St. Edmund tells him,'s being rude about Saint Edmund. Saint Edmund tells him, very politely tells him to stop. Svein Forkbeard basically says, piss off. And so Edmund kills him.

It struck him on the head a blow from the pain of which he shortly afterwards died, it says here. Yeah. Right, so slapped on the head by a saint. So that's spain dead so canute then takes over and there's this canute is a kind of great uh hero of the scaldic bards um and they him him when he's he's kind of very he's very young he's very precocious kind of raider only a boy you ship batterer when you launched your boat no king was younger than you

and canute fights with um athelred the unready son edmund ironside they basically it's a score draw they divide england up um edmund then uh dies in in 1016 supposedly again a bit like um harold bluetooth uh having a dump oh that's supposedly spiked through a hole in the privy spear up up into his ass so that's him done and um canute then takes over england and to begin with he's absolutely terrible and he imposes this 100 tax rate so that's very the entire tax revenue of england that's very makes off with it that's very dennis healy circa 1975 if he went to 98 didn't he yeah yes yeah that's well 83 i think was the top income tax rate. 98% was on unearned income. But interestingly, so having been murderous

and kind of just nicking everything, Canute then becomes a really good king. So there's a very good Archbishop of York called Wolfstan, as Archbishops of York tend to be. And he gets Canute to swear to uphold the laws of the Anglo-Saxon kings, to be a good king. Canute is actually a very devout Christian. He marries Æthelred's widow, Emma, the daughter of the Duke of Normandy.

So there's a bit of continuity there. Tom, please tell me about the waves. I mean, everyone wants to know about the waves. I think we should focus on more important things, like he was a great patron of Wililton three miles from where i grew up so he went he went on pilgrimage to rome in 27 got kind of lauded by the pope by the emperor and everybody uh buried in winchester so a good a good king by english standards right and the of course for which he is known is the story that um he stands on the

on the beach and tries to stop the waves and that's a story that originates in the 12th century with henry of huntingdon yeah and it's an illustration of the fact that not that canute is kind of insanely uh arrogant and thinks that he can stop the waves it's exactly the opposite um he's showing because flatterers are saying to him uh you you know you're the great king you can do anything you like. And Canute demonstrates by his failure to hold back the waves that only God can do. Well, I think that's, even if he didn't do it, it's still laudable. And display of modesty that never happened, that we can all learn from.

And he absolutely should have beaten William the Conqueror, in my view. Just a far better man. Now, we will have to take a break, and we will return to do this. While the waves lap around the legs of Tom Holland's throne, we will have some advertising and promote things, and then we shall return and talk about the four remaining losers from this round. And we shall see you after the break.

Goodbye. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment. It's your weekly fix of entertainment news reviews, splash of showbiz gossip. And on our q&a, we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works. We have just launched our members club. If you want ad free listening bonus episodes and early access to live tickets, head to the rest of the entertainment.comcom that's therestisentertainment.com now regular listeners will be familiar with our splendid promotional efforts for unheard and how do you spell that dominic i spell it u-n-h-e-r-d.com they're very keen on the spellings they've they've

written that in blue for us to spell out so it's the online magazine you may remember it pushes back against herd mentality and is passionate about independent thinking and sponsoring our podcast very kindly and both of us have written for unheard haven't we tom yeah absolutely which is why very kindly they're offering a special deal to all you listeners out there, Restless History listeners. Three months free subscription, which can be cancelled at any time. It's normally one pound, I guess. Is that a month, a week?

A week, I guess. It's one pound a week, the producer is telling me. One pound a week. We're so on top of our brief here. But what I can tell you is that if you want to claim it, you go to unheard.com forward slash rest. And each week we will pull out some highlights from UnHerd that rest is history. Yes. Might enjoy. Yes.

And this week, of course, Dominic, we've been talking kings and queens. We are talking kings and queens. We're in the middle of the episode. We're doing it right now. And there's a fabulous article written by Henry Oliver about. Named after two kings, of course. Yeah. One uncrowned very very good uh and that is about king charles the third do you think he will be king charles

the third well he's talking about changing his name isn't he yeah i think what would maybe to athelstan the second that would be good wouldn't it that would be great very satisfying but um and and um it's it's a kind of comparison about how he might operate and actually how he might be quite like george v well as you will discover in this podcast that is a tremendous thing to be wears his trousers correctly yes keen on shoes stamps so um essentially charles iii may be may be okay as as king is that sounds great i'm looking forward to it already yeah uh and then also uh i think even even more an even better article i mean it's well this it's it's

an absolutely wonderful article you couldn't really read anything better it's by the wonderful kostika uh bradatan uh who's written an essay privileges the new original sin um and do you know what he argues dominic it sounds a terrible argument i mean he argues yeah he argues, Dominic? It sounds a terrible argument. I mean, I know you're unheard. He argues, and I'm reading here, that today's progressives are as steeped in Christian ideas as both their capitalist and communist forebears. Wow. And who does he reference? What top authorities does he reference in this article? I believe that he references a top historian

who has written the history of Christianity and which goes on about it in podcasts. Yes. No lesser person than Tom Holland, friend of the rest is history. So that is why I have absolutely no hesitation in unreservedly recommending UnHerd, U-N-H-E-R-D. Do spell it out. Yeah. UnHerd.com slash rest.

Go and join the UnHerd. Well, they'll have a herd if too many people they don't want that but let's hope that a substantial minority so that we can carry on a countercultural minority okay uh back to the kings and queens thanks a lot bye welcome back to the rest is history uh we are are talking about the losers in the first round of the World Cup of Kings and Queens, and we are on to the Lionheart himself, Richard I. Tom, were you surprised to see Richard the Lionheart bowing out so soon? Not really, because we talked about doing the worst kings and queens of England.

I think Richard would be a candidate for that as well. I think he's probably the only one who'd feature prominently in both. He's sort of wrong but romantic, isn't he, in he's a very he's um he's he's a very he's a very glamorous figure yeah but he's he's also everyone knows he's terrible so stephen rutzeman the great historian of the of the crusades said that he was a bad son a bad husband a bad king but a gallant and splendid soldier so his rule is king for 10 years and of those 10 years he spends 10 months in england and and the rest of it is basically crusades isn't it and and being captured and and locked up in in uh austria or whatever it is he marries berengaria of navarre who is um famously

reputedly the only queen of england never to have set foot in England. And she features in, I think, is it Lion in Winter? And she has the immortal line, war. What is it, Dominic? It's your favourite one. War, war, war. That's all you care about, Dick Plantagenet. That's right. Exactly.

And that's pretty much, I mean, that's pretty accurate. Basically, fighting is all he does. So he's born in England, but he spends very little time in England. He's basically in Aquitaine with his mum. Yeah. And he just fights. He's just obsessed with the crusades isn't he he fight well he's he fights against his dad yeah he's poor henry the second i mean henry the second basically dies of of despair and grief because richard is such a nightmare and then no soon as you become king then he's basically trying to flog london and raise vast amounts of money so he can fund a crusade so he goes off on the third crusade and he's a tremendous success on that i

mean he doesn't capture jerusalem but he captures acre he's he he gets him he becomes admired by saladin defeat saladin great star i mean he's very brutally slaughters lots of prisoners but he blazes a path. He cuts a dash. But all the other European monarchs hate him, don't they? The fellow from Austria, Leopold, and Philip of France. Well, yes, because they capture Acre. They capture Acre.

And he's there with Philip II of France, Philip Augustus, and Leopold of Austria. And the three of them put up their banners. And Philip and Richard are furious because Leopold of Austria isn't a king so they hurl it down Richard hurls it down into the mud and then when he comes back from the crusade of course he gets captured yeah and Leopold takes him prisoner and so all Richard's subjects in France and England have to raise another massive amount of money to get him out. Yeah, that's poor behaviour.

I mean, I can't imagine the current Queen behaving that way. No. And Philip II, who's his compadre on the crusade, but is his great rival because Philip wants to take back the Angevin Empire. And he's been working in cahoots with John, who everyone will remember from Walt Disney as the evil cowardly lion um philip when when when richard the lionheart finally gets released sends this message look to yourself the devil is loose but what do people in england think of i think they

think he's kind of dashing but a bit of a pain but i think the the the long run the evidence for what people in england think about him is all those stories that that the robin hood stories yeah where it's richard the lionheart turns up and he's the absolute hero and he saves the day so sean connery in yes exactly exactly robin connery bizarrely playing an english king yes yeah yeah um so that's richard the lionheart so that suggests the people actually quite like him but obviously not enough to um oh and he gets he he um he he founds this great castle chateau gay are which kind of provides you know it's the cutting edge of castle technology and then he's besieging a rather useless

castle where he gets shot by a boy that's right parents dies in such a banal way yeah he just gets shot through and that richard's last um dying last dying words is that he forgives the boy when it's brought before him. Which is very touching. But do you know what then happens? The boy is hung, drawn and quartered? He's flayed. He's flayed alive. Isn't there a quick question?

Before we move on, isn't there a question about Richard's sexuality? Yes. So some historians argue that he was gay. others say that uh he it's this is anachronistic uh yeah i mean how can they possibly know i mean what are they basing this on i suppose the fact that he didn't have a child with his with berengaria right but i mean that's he did he did he did he certainly fathered fathered certainly i think one child right okay so he didn't win anyway so that's enough of him now let's talk about our next king or was he a king certainly off of the crown um certainly filled the the boots of a king uh he is of course ollie oliver cromwell um who was my tip

for the top but the public sadly didn't agree um we did a podcast about him with Paul Ley. So we did a podcast on his terms law protector. Yes. And of course, the reason that we, you know, we said this in the preview, but the reason that we wanted Cromwell in and felt he deserved to be in wasn't just to generate clicks. It was because he filled a king-shaped gap in the Constitution that's been left by the execution of Charles I.

But yes, so we have actually covered the protectorate in another episode so if you want to know more about that um we did that with paul lay author of a fabulous book on uh cromwell's protectorate uh do suggest that so i think and i think that we're going to look i mean we're going to come back we're doing an episode on the excuse on the trial and execution of charles i we are i will simply say i think cromwell was very hard done by in this tournament. I think he was an extremely effective ruler of England. He was feared abroad. He left the country on a sound footing. I just think he was a fine fellow.

I like Oliver Cromwell a lot. I know that some listeners absolutely find that absolutely despicable. He obviously, there are large numbers of people who feel very very passionately about him of whom people in Ireland are obviously absolutely at the top of that list

but also royalists and a capital law for instance very cross about Cromwell's presence. Yeah, I would rather have a plain russeted captain that knows what he And a capolò, for instance. Very cross about Cromwell's presence. Yeah. I would rather have a plain russeted captain that knows what he fights for and loves what he knows than that which you call a gentleman and is nothing else. I beseech you in the bowels of Christ, think it possible,

you may be mistaken. See, I think I could have... I know I played Beckett, but I think Cromwell was the part I was born to play. I would love to go around, you know, ordering major generals to stamp out fun. I mean, that's my thing. Well, there's a vision.

So anyway, he lost, didn't he? Who did he lose to? He lost to Charles II. Charles II, of course, in that derby. Yeah, classic. I mean, he was never going to win. It was closer than I thought, actually, because Charles II, who was, of course, wrong but romantic again,

he was always going to prevail. So Charles II, I would have thought that he was the seed who was like least dropout. But I thought that Cromwell might beat him. Did you? Because I think Cromwell is such a titanic figure. I mean, much more of a titanic figure than Charles II. But obviously, though, Cromwell, for my money, is the single most interesting person in English history. I think that's entirely true. No, I think that's entirely true.

The most complex, the most controversial, therefore I think the most interesting. I mean, it doesn't make him the most admirable, but I think it makes him the most interesting. We should mention actually Ronald Hutton's absolutely, I mean some listeners will know that Ronald Hutton came on to talk about the history of paganism, but his most recent book is called The Making of Oliver Cromwell.

It's an absolutely fantastic. Yes, the first of a three-part biography of him. Yeah. Yeah, really fabulous. Locating him in the landscape and in the kind of the imaginative world of the 17th century. Just absolutely brilliant. But Cromwell, I had thought that if a seed was going to drop out, it was going to be Charles II. But interestingly, the seed that dropped out was Victoria. And she was up against athelstan who ultimately of course

won uh victoria were you surprised victoria lost so victoria was the number five no i suppose i wasn't well i mean was that you said beforehand that you thought that series that's on tv with jenna coleman playing the young victorian which is very kind of romantic giddy figure would would endear her to the public. But I think Victoria suffers from two things. One is the sort of, she never has escaped the sort of post-death of Prince Albert. Yeah, the widow of Windsor.

The widow, exactly. The sort of, we are not amused, humourless, that sort of image of her, which is of course a bit of a caricature, but has become absolutely, you know, it's embedded in our national imagination. And I think the other thing is the one thing that people would once always have held up and said, hurrah, hurrah for Victoria. Britain was at its zenith, the empire, she was Empress of India. You know,

she's a figurehead of greatness. That's now, you know, a lot of people don't sign up to that anymore. So in other words, she's lost a bit of her natural constituency. Yes, I think that's true. I think that's true. And also, of course, I mean, this is something we'll probably talk about in tomorrow's episode, is that all the kings and law protectors that we've discussed so far were very powerful agents in their own right. Yeah. We also have George V and Elizabeth II who were constitutional monarchs. Victoria is the kind of intersection point because she effectively, the power of the monarchy is ebbing away. But she still tries, doesn't she?

There's a very famous moment in 1839 when Lord Melbourne, who was her first prime minister, who she adored, he resigned. And his replacement, I think, was going to be Peel. And he wants to change the ladies of the bedchamber who always change when the administration, when the ministry changes. But she won't have it. So Melbourne comes back in and then soldiers on for another two years to 1841. And that's one of the last moments when a monarch genuinely changes the course of political history. But that's the last gasp against the tide. Yeah, exactly. And I think, certainly, she hated Gladstone,

another friend of the show. Loved Israeli. Loved Israeli. But Gladstone keeps winning elections, so there's nothing she can do about it. And she has to put up with him and she complains, oh, he speaks to me as though I'm a public meeting and they have this terrible, frosty relationship.

But she is powerless. Certainly by the end of her reign, she's almost completely powerless. But I think it scrambles the measures by which you're judging her. So, you know, Henry II or whoever, Cromwell even, these are actors and you're judging them by what they achieved in their own right. Elizabeth II, I mean, she does well because she's the kind of model of what a constitutional monarch should be. But Victoria, more ambivalent, I think.

Well, she survived a lot of attempts to assassinate her. She survived a great upsurge of Republican feeling in the sort of middle to later part of her reign. The one thing she did do, though, Tom, was to almost in some ways invent the modern monarchy yeah she invents the idea of the the idea she married albert doesn't she and both of them have come from very unhappy kind of broken backgrounds and they create this model of domesticity exactly that becomes hugely hugely she becomes a middle-class queen exactly as

historians have said you know it's the blend of the domestic and the spectacular, the ordinary and the extraordinary, that becomes the sort of, as it were, the magic, the formula, I guess, of the British monarchy. And she creates that formula and is actually, when you look back, despite the fact that she was often controversial and indeed unpopular, she's very successful at a time when other monarchies are crumbling, at putting that at the centre of British kind of political culture. And I think that, I mean, I think she's a complex character, isn't she?

She's full of contradictions. She is. I mean, she's very passionate. Yes, very passionate. She's not, you know, this idea of her as a sort of humorless, withdrawn figure. I mean, obviously, when she's grieving after Prince Albert, you can understand that. But for a lot of the time, she's actually a very impulsive character. Well, there are a lot of jokes made about that, aren't there?

So she's very, very keen on Lord Melbourne. And so people barrack her and shout out Lady Melbourne at her when they cross with her. And then there's all the stuff about after Albert's died and she's kind of grieving with with uh john brown and then later on there's an indian servant called the munchie yeah so she has a series of crushes on people i think it's probably fair so i mean yeah i think i mean i think she's she's obviously such an important figure such a fascinating figure that we should do uh we absolutely do an entire episode on it's ridiculous to try and sum her up in now talking a fascinating figure that we should do an entire episode on. It's ridiculous to try and sum her up in five minutes. Now, talking of fascinating figures.

Yes. So the final match. Here's my favourite, one of my absolute favourite historical figures. So the final match featured Henry VIII, a man of gargantuan appetites who killed his wives, who basically did whatever he wanted to. Probably the most famous, not just English king, but most famous king who's ever lived. And who is he up against, Dominic?

He was up against another titanic figure in George V. I love George V, but it is fair to say that George V is possibly one of the most boring men who's ever walked the earth. So George V was the second son. His older brother was called Albert Victor. v was the second son his older brother was called albert victor he was the second son of edward the seventh so he's victoria's grandson he becomes king in 1910 because his brother had died a little bit earlier leaving him as the heir he has a tattoo of a dragon um he's a very naval character so he's got a tattoo and that's why he that's why and we have we had there's a wonderful tweet from andrew harrison

um who listened to a podcast on george v which failed to mention the key issues of trouser creases and the kaiser's deck shoes sadly lacking in top punditry will stick to the rest of history quite right yeah so he creases his trousers in the naval fashion doesn't he yes at the sides rather than which you've mentioned several times, and he does wear the right deck shoes. Unlike his cousin. The Kaiser. The Kaiser. So he also looks identical to the Tsar of Russia.

So there are all these sort of pictures of him and the Tsar smiling happily together. Little do they know what is coming. Well, and notoriously, when the Russian Revolution happens and there's talk about giving sanctuary to the Tsar and the Tsarina, he says no because this might rock the foundations of the British monarchy. Yeah, because Lord Stamfordham and some of his advisors say it will stir republicanism and sort of socialist agitation in Britain if you invite your relatives over.

So he doesn't. And he feels guilty about that. Tom Hollander played him on TV in a brilliant thing called, I think, The Lost Prince by Stephen Poliakoff. And it's an amazingly moving scene when he finds out that his relatives have all been murdered, which has always led me to think well of George V. Now, Harold Nicholson said of him, for 17 years before his accession, he did nothing at all but kill animals and stick in stamps. Is that fair? That is fair, actually. I was reading a thing this morning about how he killed 1,000 pheasants in a day

and afterwards wrote in his diary something. I feel we may have gone a little bit too far. So he was a great fan of hunting, country sports, countrymen, a great philatelist. So the world's greatest philatelist, some people might say. Yes. The world's greatest stamp collector. Wasn't there some courtier who said, I've just read in the paper that some damn fool has paid £4,000 for some damn fool's stamp.

Yeah, that's right. And George V said, well, the damn fool is me. Yes, that's absolutely right. Yeah. And he was a real stickler for the formalities. So people, if they wore the wrong shoes at court, you would have been in terrible trouble. Because if you wore the wrong shoes, you weren't invited. You weren't invited.

So hence the First World War. Yeah. Yeah, you weren't invited. So hence the First World War. Yeah. Yeah, you weren't invited. Deck shoe carnage. But the great thing about George V, actually, he's, again, in an incredibly unstable period. He is a beacon. He is a bulwark of stability.

So this is why you and Tracy Borman, between you both nominated. I didn't. Yeah. I thought it was ridiculous. This is a point at which he the monarchy could easily have been blown away but also tom he does a couple of things that are very important um he urges conciliation and moderation during the irish war of independence in the early

1920s so he is horrified by the fighting in ireland and that's why um he he he stops lloyd george from calling a battle no churchill perhaps, a battleship, the Oliver Cromwell. Exactly, all these kind of things. So there's that. There is, during the general strike, again, he urges moderation. So he says to, I don't know if this is apocryphal, but he's said to have said to some Tory ministers or something about the striking miners and so on,

try living on their wages before you judge them. So if you did say that's very good for him in 1931 he creates in them as the great depression is hitting he basically creates a national government of some ramsay mcdonald the lady gets on well with labor doesn't he doesn't exceed any well with labor so when the first labor government comes in i mean this has always been the case labor leaders always seem to get on well with mollusks yeah it's pretty it's pretty true actually so he gets an exceedingly well with the first labor government um they have a guy called uh what's his name jimmy jimmy i can't remember what his name i can't remember anyway um he's a

um former railwayman and he gets on absolutely tremendously with george v and they tell dirty jokes to each other and have an absolute whale of a time so he's very good at bringing labor into the kind of into the sort of political mainstream if you like uh what's edward the eighth who is his son so he had a dreadful son obviously he'd be a lead contender for the worst worst king edward the eighth that feckless feckless nazi yes well i mean yeah i'm not going to make the i'm not going to make the inevitable analogy with a current member of the Royal Family. But anyway, Edward VIII was that man. So he'd currently be in California.

And he said of his father, his beliefs were God, the invincibility of the Royal Navy, and the essential rightness of whatever was British. I mean, you'd think that would be enough to get him to the later rounds of the competition, wouldn't you, Tom? What's gone wrong? What's gone wrong? Oh, and also he changed the family name to Windsor, didn't he? He did, of course. Prompting the family name to Windsor didn't he he did of course

prompting the Kaiser's famous joke and of course he dies so there are can I just say the Kaiser's famous joke go on then oh yeah go on go on

I know what you're going to say he was off to see the merry wives of Saxe-Coburg very good basically the Kaiser's only joke I think isn't it

yes probably so he dies in he has he spent time recuperating in Bognor, hadn't he? Yeah. So hence Bognor Regis. Bognor Regis.

So before that, in 1935, he had a tremendous jubilee. Very successful. And he said, I can't understand it. After all, I'm only a very ordinary sort of fellow. That's so soundproof. That's a nice thing to say. That's so soundproof. He'd done the first royal broadcast as well, didn't he?

See, that's what I say about the success of the rest is history. Yeah, so he changed the name to Windsor. He established the Royal Broadcast. He established the idea of being boring is a good thing. Yeah, exactly. He established the template for the 20th century. And then he dies in 1936. He's dying.

And his doctor famously administers a fatal dose basically to kill him off and to get him in the times right so that it will be reported in the times rather than the the more down market evening papers um and so there are three different accounts of what he said one one is that somebody said to him you'll be right as rain soon you can go back to to Bogner Regis. And he said, bugger Bogner. The official thing that he was meant to have said was, how is the empire? Somebody said, it's great. And he said, he smiled and died.

But apparently one of the doctors wrote in his diary that actually the last thing he said was a nurse gave him a sedative or something. And he just said, God damn you. That sounds more more probable it definitely sounds more probable yes so he bowed out i think very unfairly um because i'm the eighth i mean well i wanted him to be henry yeah of course so they were the um they were the first fallers now tom holland has to go off right now um to talk to the nation about to address the nation about athelstan the winner um on the

on the bbc so we will bring this podcast to a close but coming up yes we've got we've got the the quarterfinals so we've got elizabeth the second against henry the fifth we've got william the first against henry the eighth we've got elizabeth first against charles the second we've got athelstan against edward the third uh so we've got um we've got lots and lots more to talk about. And we'll talk about the changing nature of kingship as well. That's very exciting. So we'll be doing all that tomorrow. Stay tuned.

And we will see you then. Goodbye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Thanks for listening to The Rest Is History. For bonus episodes, early access, ad-free listening, and access to our chat community, please sign up at restishistorypod.com. That's restishistorypod.com.