The Rest Is History - 138. The Princes in the Tower Part 1

Episode Date: January 17, 2022

Who killed the Princes in the Tower? The inspiration behind Shakespeare's Richard III, their murder is one of the greatest mysteries in English history.  In the first of two episodes, we start with the princes' father, Edward IV. Tom and Dominic discuss the remarkable parallels between Edward IV and his grandson, Henry VIII, and why Edward's brother, Duke of Clarence, is certainly not a friend of the show. All this, plus Tom's case for why he does a better prince impression than Brian Blessed. Producer: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor *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.othered in the tower. Let us be laid within thy bosom, Richard, and weigh thee down to ruin, shame and death. Thy nephew's souls bid thee despair and die. That, um... I can barely speak after that out of terror uh because of course you told me that so welcome everybody to the rest of history we're doing this podcast about

princes in the tower tom holland has absolutely got me here under false pretenses because he told me that he was going to do a devastating impersonation of a creepy boy they were creepy boys i mean i defy anyone to listen to that and not be terrified scared out of their wits i can imagine even now that listeners are carrying behind the sofas or under their beds out of dread so that wet that was it wasn't it was terrifying it was despair hello birds hello sky despair and die

terrifying and they were of course the princes in the tower Edward V and his younger brother yeah

Richard of Shrewsbury who in Shakespeare's play Richard III appeared to him on the eve of the Battle of Bosworth along with the ghosts of everybody else that Richardard has murdered uh and or or has he yes well in shakespeare's play he yes

he has i mean there's no question about that okay and they of course he has absolutely uh and um it's the uh actually the second quotation from uh rich the third that's featured in recent weeks because we also had one from Clarence's dream before Richard murders him by having him dunked in a butt of marmsy on Bart Van Loo's sensational episode about the Dukes of Burgundy so this is we've moved from Burgundy back to England and Dominic the question that we're asked well actually the theme is Princes in the Tower but of course there is the question which is what happened to them? Were they murdered? And if so, who murdered them?

It is the absolute greatest mystery in English history, isn't it? I mean, it's the one that everybody has heard of. It's the most romantic. It's the one that sort of amateur historians still try to solve. And obviously, well, we shouldn't give away our answer because we do have an answer, don't we? Collectively, I think we do. Is it fair to say that we've solved the mystery?

I think that might be going too far, but I think we have arrived at a consensus as to who we think did it. Yeah. And we should say that the focus is on, the title of this episode is Princes in the Tower rather than Richard III or Henry VII or whatever, because we thought that would be a kind of interesting angle. So, Dominic, the Princes in the Tower, let's look at the eldest of them, Edward, who becomes Edward V.

And he is born on the 2nd of November, 1470. And it's not the most propitious circumstances is it for him no he's born in so he's born at a place called Cheney Gates which is the house of the abbot of Westminster it's basically next to Westminster Abbey it's above the Croysteads isn't it I think yeah I think so and his mother so he is the son we're in yeah 1470 he is the son. We're in 1470. He is the son of King Edward IV and his wife, Elizabeth Woodville. But he is born in sanctuary because his father has currently fled and is effectively in exile in the latest twist of the colossal Game of Thrones inspiring saga that is the Wars of the Roses. Yes. And so his wife, his queen, Elizabeth Woodville,

has taken sanctuary there, as indeed she will do again subsequently. And we'll come to that. So there's a lot of people claiming sanctuary in this episode. But you mentioned Wars of the Roses. So let's look at Edward'sward's two parents edward the fourth and elizabeth woodville let's look at edward the fourth first so i mean he he has this kind of strange reign he he comes to power um and he rules and then he goes into exile and then he

comes back again and that's kind of unique really in the history of english kings so he is the son of someone who we mentioned in the 12 Days of Christmas episode, Richard of York, who gave battle in vain. Yes, in a way this is a kind of sequel to that, isn't it? Richard of York who died at the Battle of Wakefield and his head was put on the gates and crowned by Margaret of Anjou. So in a way our story picks up straight after that. So Richard of York is the Yorkist claimant

to Henry VI's throne. So the English nobility is kind of divided between Lancastrians and Yorkists. And when Richard dies, his claim passes to his eldest son, who is Edward, Earl of March, I think it was before.

Who is this, so he's 18 I think it was before, who is this. So he's 18 years old when his father dies. He is a scrapping lad. He is extremely, he is the grandfather of Henry VIII, isn't he? As it turns out. So if you listen to our Six Wives of Henry VIII podcast, he is very, very similar, actually. His trajectory is very similar to Henry VIII's, isn't it? You can definitely sort of see the genetic inheritance because he's huge.

What is he, six foot four or something? Which is absolutely colossal by the time. I think we may have mentioned this before. I think when and if Prince William becomes king, he's the only king who will be taller than Edward IV. Is that right? I think so, yeah. May have got that wrong.

But Edward IV, everybody says he is a very, very impressive person. And he's a massive lad, isn't he? He is a massive lad. He likes his food, he likes his drink, and he likes his ladies. Yeah, absolutely. And he likes fighting, and he likes his ladies. Yeah, absolutely. And he likes fighting, and he's very good at fighting. He's the sort of model. He's an alpha male, as Henry VIII was when his grandson will be when he's young.

He's a sort of a roistering, slaughtering, hard-living, hard-drinking, womanising. He's basically the guy from the University Rugby Club. Yeah, womanising. He's basically the guy from the university rugby club. Yeah, he is. He's the president of the kind of college sports society and all that. Absolutely he is. And quite quickly after his father's death, he turns it all around.

He wins a couple of battles, most famously the Battle of Towton, which is the bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil. And so by 1461, at the age of, basically by the time he's turned 19, he's on his way to becoming king, to kicking out the Lancastrians. What does he do? He captures Henry VI. And he doesn't kill him, does he?

No. Because Marc de Vangeu and their son, again, What does he do? He captures Henry VI. And doesn't kill him, does he? No. Because. Which is interesting. Marc de Fonjou and their son, again, confusingly called Edward. I mean, basically everyone's called Edward in this episode. So many apologies. So let's call him the Lancastrian Edward. They've gone into exile. So there's no point in killing Henry VI.

And in fact, he's a kind of an insurance policy because he's pretty delally by this point so he's locked up in the tower he's looked after quite well but he's kind of immured away and Edward sets about establishing the foundations of his regime it speaks well Fred would actually he doesn't kill him

I don't think it does at all I think it's pure politics because in due course well of course he does kill him eventually yeah but I mean I think it does I think it's pure politics because in due course he does kill him eventually I think that's reasonable I think Edward is completely ruthless do you know who he looks like Tom

if you look at the portrait he has the face of David Cameron which you know there is something David Cameron-esque about him I mean he's ostensibly a kind of impressive figure. He wins, you know, he's very successful at winning things, but ultimately he becomes a terrible failure. I mean, I hope no spoilers there.

So Dave, if you're listening. No, I agree. Yeah, there is something of that kind of ruddy-cheeked, posh. Yeah. Yeah, I think there is. But I think that Edward IV is a very, very ruthless operator. I think if he has to kill people, he will. But he'll hug a husky first or whatever it is.

All that kind of thing. Yeah, all that kind of thing. So he's ruling as a usurper, basically. And so his regime is inherently precarious. There are lots of people who wish him nothing but ill. And so he has to tread very, very carefully. And obviously, one of the things that a usurping king, fresh on the throne, has to do, and this is absolutely in the context of everything that Bart Van Loo was saying in with the episode on the Burgundians, is that there are a lot of

predatory foreign powers, as well as domestic enemies. And so the key thing that an eligible young bachelor on the freshly minted on the throne of England has to do is to marry advantageously and that means sourcing himself as a really top quality foreign bride well the thing is tom to go back to our bartleham van leu podcast england is is in this dance isn't it with france and burgundy so france and burgundy are the sort of two neighbouring powers and England is flitting between the two of them. And what makes it more complicated, this

issue of the bride, is that Edward owes his ascendancy not just to his own sort of strappingness and his martial ability but to a very, very powerful patron or ally, which is the Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, famously Warwick the Kingmaker. And Warwick is very keen to have an alliance with France.

And he spends a lot of time, you know, once Edward is king and then Castron's been kicked out, he spends an enormous amount of time negotiating an alliance. It's very Henry VIII style. He spends an enormous amount of time in sort of thomas cromwell style enterprise of sorting out an alliance with the french and a marriage alliance and all the rest of it and investing a lot of his political capital in this very publicly and and and he warwick definitely thinks you know edward is a young man he's david cameron he's my puppet um It's very clear I am the power in England. And getting the alliance and the right marriage for his puppets obviously matters enormously to his sense of status and prestige, which is why... When the news reaches him, Edward, rather than going for a French bride or indeed any foreign bride, has married an English commoner.

And not just any commoner, but a woman who has already been married and has two sons already. And this, it cannot be overemphasized, is not how English kings are supposed to behave so I suppose you could say I mean isn't um so so the person he marries is uh a woman called Elizabeth Woodville and basically she's she's the kind of so Elizabeth Bowes Lowen bows low lion how do you bow's lion bow's lion the queen mother the queen mother who marries george the sixth she marries him when he is not expected to become king that's right yes um so really the only other um the person who's expected to become king who's married a commoner is again prince william who keeps popping up in this conversation so um kate middleton is you've met prince william that's presumably the reason why

you keep bringing him up and you're both aston Aston Villa supporters. Yes, we had a chat. As is David Cameron, actually. That was back when Villa were beating Manchester United. The three of you should get together and do your own Rest Is History. Yeah, we should, shouldn't we? We get Nigel Kennedy and Tom Hanks along. That would be great. We could all bleed Claret and Blue together.

Well, I think the parallel here. So I think the marriage to Elizabeth Woodville. But Dominic, I just mentioned that because I think it emphasises how weird this is. I agree with you completely, Tom. And I think the marriage to Elizabeth Woodville is in many ways the absolute most important foundation point for this whole story, for this podcast. It's a fracture point from which the entire structure will kind of disintegrate. It's so unusual unusual as you say clearly what's happened is that edward has been uh has has he is motivated by and he's infatuated with elizabeth woodville and i think

what is so fascinating about this whole story but you know what tom what's you the last time you did that impersonation full force was in our six wives of him the eighth podcast yeah and i think what's so interesting about this entire story about the marriage to elizabeth woodville about the succession of a very of a young boy as king is is the parallels with what happens a generation it's a marriage isn't it marriage is absolutely like the heart of this whole story because the elizabeth woodville is not unlike anne boleyn in that she refuses to be, she basically will not be the king's mistress. Edward has a lot of mistresses, but she wants a marriage. So he marries her.

And that's the point at which, as in the sagas of Henry VIII with the Boleyns and the Seymours and so on, she brings her family because that's what you do. Well, hold on. So let's look at her family. So who is Elizabeth Woodville? Her mother is actually quite classy, isn't she? She's a jaqueta. That's right.

Claims descent from Charlemagne, related to Bart Van Loo's Dukes of Burgundy. And she had actually, she'd had a good marriage. She'd married the brother of Henry V, John the Duke of Bedford. But then he dies and she then marries a guy called Richard Woodfill, who's basically an elite sportsman. He's common, but he's an elite sportsman. He's a great, great jouster. A bit like me, I suppose. But he's basically, I mean, he's not, I mean, even by the standards of the English. He's not an ability. Yeah. So even by the standards of English snobbery, he's kind of quite low down the social scale.

And really, I suppose that, you know, kind of the intriguing parallel is Catherine of Valois, who had married Henry V, who then marries Owen Tudor. Yes, he drops down a bit of a few levels. So kind of similar thing. So anyway, so Jaquetta marries this guy, Richard Woodville, who is a tremendous jouster. And he becomes Lord Rivers. He fights at the Battle of Towton against Edward IV, but his partner. Yeah, they're Lancastrians, aren't they, originally? Yeah. And so Elizabeth, his daughter, she is also married to a Lancastrian,

Sir John Gray, who had died at the Battle of St. Albans in 1461. So back in the Richard of York days. They've got two children. And she's basically, she has a kind of predatory mother-in-law, doesn't she? And she decides to to appeal to the king and she does that in the full knowledge that basically you know she's um that that she has attributes that will appeal to the king well she's 28 he's what is he 22 i think so she's a milf I believe oh god I can't believe you've gone there Tom oh well um anyway yes well I think Edward IV is you know just to reiterate he is a massive lad who allows his libido to lead him yeah and she plays her cards very I mean she plays her cards as Anne Boleyn

Duds a generation later she basically no, I have to marry you. That's the deal. He's like, great, let's do it. And when Warwick hears the news, Warwick is absolutely furious because Edward has thrown away the chance of the marriage alliance. He's made Warwick look like an idiot. But also what's happened is that by introducing the Woodville family, because she brings with her inevitably her brothers her father the this kind of uh

it's all about networks isn't it medieval politics it's all about patronage networks she brings in this whole load of people who are going to need offices and lands and everything and they upset the balance and actually that's the what are we 1464 so 20 for 20 years that balance is basically upset that's's, that's absolutely true. But, but just to stick up for Elizabeth Woodville, she, I think she's an incredibly impressive figure.

Oh, I'm not knocking her. I mean, she plays very cleverly. I think she, she's a superb queen. So I think the whole thing, so,

so she and Edward get married on May day, which is, you know, the romantic day par excellence. This is the age when Mallory is writing the Mort Darthur. There's the great romantic narratives of knights falling in love with ladies. And I think that that provides a kind of context that Edward will absolutely use. But Elizabeth does as well.

She's very, very good at playing the gracious queen. Yeah, she plays the part very... The people who don't like her are their factional rivals. They don't necessarily censor the public. Absolutely. They've turned against her. But Elizabeth herself is very alert to basically how impoverished her husband's court is. He's a massive spendthrift.

I mean, obviously, he's exactly the kind of guy who blows enormous quantities of money on all kinds of stuff. Doublets. Pies. So Elizabeth Woodville recognizes that she has to look like a queen. So she's very, very happy to spend money on looking like a queen. But otherwise, she makes economies. You're right, of course. It's the problem that she brings all these kind of relatives that is the issue but she does bring um one particularly i think tremendously

cool relative who's her brother anthony woodville who in due course will become well he's he's very clever isn't he's a great scholar and so on but again also a great sportsman so he's a patron of caxton you know who sets up yeah the first printing press and he's actually translated a whole compendium of sayings of philosophers from the French that is one of the very first books that Caxton publishes. But he also has this tremendous duel with a guy called the Bastard of Burgundy.

Do you know about this? Oh, yes, I did. Yeah, it's in Bart Van Loo's book. It's in Thomas Penn's book, The Brothers York as well. Yes, and, I did. Yeah, it's in Bart Van Loo's book. It's in Thomas Penn's book, The Brothers York, as well. Yes, and that as well. They spent about 300 pages organising this massive tournament. So the bastard of Burgundy, which comes no surprise to anyone who's heard the episode on the Burgundians,

is the son of Philip, the good of Burgundy, who, as Bart reminded us, tended to get bastard every time he went on his travels. And, yeah, they set up this kind of incredible showcase of jousting. Because these are the two, you know, the bastard of Antoine, the bastard of Burgundy is the greatest jouster in Burgundy. And Anthony Woodville has a reputation as the greatest jouster in Englandland and they have this kind of two-day combat in london um where basically anthony woodville wins i mean edward has to kind of step in and stop it and he's very very cool and he's

on his um his uh his tent he has this phrase la nonchalance so he's a he's a kind of he's a very cool guy that's very cameroon, isn't it? To pursue the David Cameron analogy. Oh, come on. No, I think he's a kind of laid back, mellow, smart sportsman. But the thing though, Tom, is that he, okay, he is very, he's very impressive. He's very clever.

He's very, you know, he's very cultivated and all the rest of it. But because he's from the Parvenu family, that stuff makes enemies. And the thing is, being a medieval king is all about, you don't have absolute power or anything like it. What you have is this very complicated machine and these incredibly convoluted and elaborate and intricate networks of kind of regional loyalties absolutely and associations and you upset that at your peril you know you need to keep that machine ticking along and basically divvying out the rewards the

offices the lands and making sure that everybody's happy want and and you know i mean you can go down one route and basically pick a side kill the others or whatever but then you have to do it really ruthlessly otherwise you have to keep things in balance and you could argue that I mean we had quite a few questions about this is Edward IV

a failure because he basically allows the system to get out of balance I mean I suppose I would argue Yeah so Peter Davies could you outline Edward IV false failures in allowing such factionalism to lead to regicide the king who never lost a battle but lost the war i think wouldn't you say tom that such factionalism is inherent in the system you're always going to have different factions and keeping them in balance i mean edward keeps them in balance actually well quite well he makes one very big mistake which in 14 what is it 14 70 71 doesn't he when the facts

get completely out of balance which is which is the backdrop for for why his son the future of the fifth has to be born in sanctuary and perhaps we should um come to that after a break okay i'm marina hyde and i'm richard osmond 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 therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com Welcome back to The Rest Is History. We are proceeding at a somewhat glacial pace towards the story of the princes in the tower. So we're just approaching the moment where the first prince is going to be born.

That's Edward V. So, Tom, we ended the just before the break i'm talking about edward iv and factionalism and obviously edward iv is going to he's in for a shock because he's offended the earl of warwick by marrying elizabeth woodville and this is about to it's basically about to blow up in his face in In 1469, I think, you have the first real signs that the Earl of Warwick has basically allied with Edward's brother, George,

who is the Duke of Clarence. And George and Warwick feel very aggrieved at the intrusion of the Woodvilles into the kind of factional machine. And they're starting to get very restive and you start to get this sense that there's a great cataclysm coming.

And then it does come, doesn't it? In 1470, yes. Where Warwick basically changes sides, unbelievably having been... As also does Clarence. False, fleeting, perjured Clarence, as Shakespeare has said, has it. So Warwick's treachery is, I mean, kind of understandable because Edward has basically shafted him with this marriage in all kinds of ways.

Clarence, I think, is less forgivable. But anyway, so Edward, to his astonishment, I mean, it all kind of just melts away incredibly fast. And Edward basically finds that he, despite being king for basically a decade and actually playing the role of king quite well, he's not very popular. Support melts away.

And he and his youngest brother so there are three brothers edward the fourth george duke of clarence who has sided with warwick and the younger brother richard who become duke of gloucester in fact is he duke of gloucester by this point i can't remember so so richard who is who is the youngest brother doesn't betray Edward, sticks with him. And together they flee England and they go to Burgundy where Edward's sister, Margaret, has married Charles the Bold. That's right. Again, listeners may remember from the Burgundians. It's a place against the backdrop of this Franco-Burgundian rivalry.

So the French are backing a Lancastrian restoration with the Earl of Warwick, and the Burgundians are basically offering Edward IV and his brother Richard sanctuary in time to kind of rebuild their forces. So England is basically prey, to some extent, to the sort of great power ambitions of France and Burgundy, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. And it's with Burgundian support that Edward and Richard are able to return to occupy London. There's a terrible battle that is fought in Barnet in north london in this in the

fog heavy fog in the fog um richard um outflanks warwick there um there's great slaughter warwick is killed well warwick is very you know tom i i loved warwick the kingmaker when i was a teenager when i was kind of well we're going as kind of 11 or 12 when we did this at school i was a very passionate admirer of warwick the Kingmaker, and I've always felt he was very unlucky because don't his soldiers mistake some of their allies in the fog for Yorkists, and they open fire on them, and it all goes horribly wrong,

and Warwick is kind of butchered by Yorkist soldiers. To me, it always seemed a great tragedy that this very impressive magnate had such a... And how do you feel now you're less less of a fan i don't i don't i don't care um i don't well i mean they're all they're all brutal and horrible yeah they're all exactly exactly yeah but there's kind of horrible stories of people back in london waiting for news and people start drifting back and they've kind of lost their noses and you know oh god eyes and kind of horrible details that That's medieval battles for you, Tom.

It's medieval battles for you, yeah. Don't get involved if you want to keep your nose. So that's what... And by this point, also, we should say that Clarence has again switched sides and has been reconciled with Edward. He's very much, I think it's fair to say, not a friend of the show. Well, yeah.

I don't think you want Clarence as your friend. Because you know he'd stab you in the back at some point. He definitely would. Well, he's permanently aggrieved, isn't he? Yes. I mean, he really is the sort of... The middle son. He has a terrible sense of entitlement and of victimhood,

and everybody's against him. He's like the one in The Godfather. He's Fredo. He's Fredo. He's actually the classic middle brother, as I think Fredo is. Yeah. Yes, I think heo is I wonder if that was kind of inspiration as well because it's all there in Shakespeare Al Pacino kissing Fredo

Al Pacino made a whole film about Richard III so who knows looking for Richard it all connects get Al Pacino on your Aston Villa podcast with Cameron and Prince William dynamite so that's Warwick knocked out of the way but there's still the issue of margaret vanjou and um her son edward who she sees as the prince of wales and they need to be

got rid of and edward goes storming off um and they kind of shadow each other up and down uh the line of uh the seven um and they they finally meet at Tewksbury yeah and there is a bloodbath absolute bloodbath and um Edward the Prince of Wales is killed Robert of Anjou flees and this is when Henry VI is finally dispatched in the tower. Yeah. Now, we mentioned that in the first half. I think it's kind of shocking that Henry VI, who has lost his mind and just a sort of doddering, sort of doted that he's killed. But it completely makes sense that Edward IV does this

because Henry VI is a focus for opposition. You know, the Lancastrians have had one comeback attempt that has failed. It sort of makes sense that Edward IV now gives the order. Basically, as soon as the Battle of Shakespeare is over, okay, get rid of Henry VI. So in Shakespeare's play Henry VI

Part 3, it's Richard who does it. It's Richard who murders him. There's absolutely no evidence whatsoever for that. Well, there is. Richard is said to have been present in the tower of london when henry is killed uh but the tower of london is a is a major of course it's a major complex yes it's the major kind of complex in london so of course of course there are probably lots of people present in the tower yes but then he is the son you know he is the the uh the the youngest and most trusted brother of the king,

I would have thought he probably was complicit in the murder of Henry VI. But there is no question that the order came from Edward IV. And there's no specific reason to think that, apart from later Tudor propaganda and Shakespeare, to think that Richard wasn't... I mean, it's perfectly plausible. I think there is.

Of course there is. Of course there is. Richard is Edward's trusted younger brother and he's present in the tower when Henry VI is killed. It's a major, major decision. It's a major policy step. I think Richard absolutely

would have been complicit in it. But I don't think the idea that you get in Shakespeare that Richard comes galloping back from the Battle of Tewkesbury, kind of cackling and limping and dragging his hunchback and murders him just for the fun of it. I don't buy that kind of model of Richard as a villain, but I do buy the idea of Richard as a villain. But I do buy the idea of Richard as a ruthless henchman

of a ruthless king, because it's a ruthless age. Here's where I'd meet you halfway, Tom. I would say, if Richard wants to be part of the regime, he's 18 years old, if he wants to be part of his brother's regime, and obviously he does, then clearly he's complicit in the decisions taken by Edward IV,

as are all the other Yorkists. Yes. I mean, basically, all the Yorkist elite must know that Henry VI is about to be rubbed out. They think it's reasonable. They fought this long war. It's madness to keep him on as a sort of focus for opposition, get rid of him.

The idea that Richard would have personally carried it out seems to me implausible. I'm not saying he personally killed him, but that he may well have had a kind of supervisory role. And the reason that I think that actually Richard's role is probably greater than that of, say, other Yorkist henchmen, is that Richard becomes Edward's, you know, is Edward's most trusted partner in rule.

But he becomes his most trusted partner because he went into exile with him. Absolutely. Because he's a blood relative. Yes, absolutely. He doesn't need to have killed Henry VI for that to be. I think it's improbable that he wouldn't have done. I mean, it's a key.

Should we just talk a tiny bit about richard at this point so he's 18 years old what we know about him is that he is he is small slight he probably has scoliosis um not a massive hunchback or anything like that but he's he definitely is not he's not so sort of to use a shakespearean word kind of misshapen that he can't fight in battle and be a very effective warrior. He's very serious. He's very pious. He has all these religious books that he annotates

kind of almost obsessively. He spends a lot of time in the north. So he's effectively a northerner. Well, he becomes it, doesn't he? Because when Edward gets back on the throne, he sent, so Clarence and Richard have both married daughters of Warwick. Which has created a lot of bad blood,

hasn't he? Because Clarence didn't want Richard to marry a Warwick daughter because he knew it would mean sharing the great Warwick, the Neville inheritance. And so there is again, a kind of fracture point there which edward solves by basically giving clarence um you know a great chunk of lands including warwick's lands in the midlands and richard gets installed as um effectively the ruler of the north yeah and richard is much more effective than Clarence. And Clarence ends up, notoriously, he gets put in the tower. And as in the Shakespeare, the version of the Shakespeare play is that he gets drowned in a butt of Malmsey.

He gets dispatched. But Richard proves himself a loyal and able servant. Do you know what Malmsey is? It's a kind of wine, isn't it? Do you know where it comes from? Malmsbury. No. No, I don't.

No. I thought it was Malmsbury. Malmsbury. It comes from Monemvasia. Oh, of course it does. Yes, in the Peloponnese. Yeah. Yes, of course.

I went to Monemvasia on holiday this summer, last summer. Did you taste carrots? We bought a bottle of it. I have it downstairs in the kitchen. It's a kind of sweet wine. It's very nice. Is it? Yeah.

There's now a producer in... I should be taking money for this. There's a producer in Mononvasia that is now producing, once again, proper Mononvasium Malmsy wine. Clarence. So there you go. The Clarence vintage.

Yeah. Well, the fact that in the shop that was owned by, they sort of muttered something about, there was a very famous Englishman who was drowned in it. And I knew the story. So it was a lovely moment. Anyway, you had to be there.

Yeah. Anyway, yes, he's, so that leaves Richard really sort of unchallenged, doesn't it? Yeah. And he's very,

he's a very competent administrator. And he's very,'s a very competent administrator uh and he's very he's very pious um and i think all of these are absolutely it's perfectly possible for him to be a competent administrator to be very pious and also when needs be to be incredibly ruthless well because i don't think to be if you want to survive in the game absolutely i don't think that there is any inherent contrast there yeah i agree completely and it's actually 20 or 20th first century back projection to see so many of these people oh he's a good guy he's evil they're all involved in what is a very very frightening

risky dangerous business and they haven't chosen it they've been born into it and they're stuck in it there's no kind of head with the fourth has kind of chosen it i suppose he has but most of them you know richard let's say is is born in the midst of the wars it's it you know it's all kicking off when he was a boy he's he's not no real way of escaping it unless he decided to be a monk or something or to sort of emigrate to iceland well and talking about being born into it of course we should go back to um the ostensible subject of this podcast which are the princes in the tower um so edward you know he'd been in in sanctuary with his mother elizabeth woodville obviously when so this is when yeah so he comes out. All is well.

And Edward IV obviously wants to train him up to be as good an heir as he possibly can. And he becomes Prince of Wales in 1471, so the year after his return. And then in 1473, when he is three years old, he becomes president of the Council of Wales and the Marches. I mean, I don't think you need that much experience to go from Wales. Well, there go all our Welsh listeners. And he's based at Ludlow Castle, which listeners to our 12 Days of Christmas episode will remember was a particular Yorkist stronghold. But I also remember the castle where Arthur Tudor,

Henry Tudor's son, was to die. So this is obviously a standard thing you do. You send your heir to basically establish your presence in Wales, in the marches. But crucially, Tom, I think an interesting sort of straw in the wind or a step towards the tragedy that's going to come later. He sends him with Anthony Woodville, that tremendously impressive person that you talked about earlier.

Because he's impressive. I think, I think not just because he's not just because he's a Woodville brother, but because he is, he's a kind of classy guy to have as your, as your tutor, because he's very, very learned, but he's also very good at knocking people off horses. story because he it means that when his son succeeds him he will be very close he will understandably be very close to the woodvilles and the woodvilles will clearly going to play a significant part in any subsequent regime every every king has to divide and rule so it's always a risk for a king and edward knows this because he's already been sent into exile once that that you have to have regional magnates to look after chunks of your kingdom so

you need you know our man in the north our man in the midlands our man in wales you need that but at the same time you can't afford any one of them to build up a monopoly of power so you have to if you're a king create rival power bases bases. Obviously, Clarence and Richard, as brothers, are absolutely, you know, they have rank and status and now they've been given regional power bases. The Woodvilles can't possibly rival that. But by giving his son, the Prince of Wales, to be brought up by one of the Woodvilles, Edward is, I think, quite deliberately trying to build the Woodvilles up as a kind of counterpoint to his brothers.

Yeah. And he's acting on the assumption that he's going to live. That's exactly what I was going to say. Edward presumably thinks he's going to live to the age of 55 or something. You know, decent age for a medieval king. Possibly he could live 10, 20 years longer than that. So in a way, I suppose you would say, I mean, he could outlive Anthony Woodville. His son may succeed when he's 40. But also, I think it's not just entirely down to cynicism. I think when you look at the prescriptions that Edward IV gives to Anthony Woodville,

it's rather touching, bearing in mind Edward IV's own character. So he's very, very keen that Anthony Woodville raise the Prince of Wales in virtuous learning. Yes, I love all this. Which, you know, woodville has written books about philosophy he yeah he's well qualified to do that to teach him in sport to ensure that there's no swearing um and then towards evening the prince's attendance edward specifies are to enforce themselves to make him merry and joyous towards his bed i think that is i think that is i think that's interesting isn't it that edward the fourth doesn't want his son to be like him because he says i want no one in the household to be a swearer

brawler backbiter common hazard adulterer or user of words of ribaldry yeah which is everything which basically rules himself out which may well be why he's he's packed him off um but is that i do not think there's a i am so struck by the sort of hem of the eighth parallels because hem of the eighth is a terribly sentiment he's both ruthless but he's also very sentimental and i think edward the fourth is like that too he's everybody always says how affable he is you know his his sign is the sun and splendor the sun in splendor one of his mottos is kind of comfort and joy he's quite a sort of he's got quite a kind of rose tinted view of things don't you think edward the fourth i mean i know he's a bastard and he kills

people but obviously when you think about his son he wants his son to kind of you know not have anything and no swearing that sort of stuff no i i think that's true i think that's and actually it goes well doesn't it the the The upbringing seems to go absolutely swimmingly. Everybody says the fifth, the little boy is a tremendous little fellow. And he's got a brother. So, I mean, you know, Edward, unlike Henry VIII, has absolutely done his duty. I mean, there's actually the brilliant thing.

When he married Elizabeth Woodfill and his mother, Cecily, was absolutely furious about it and then Edward's reply to to his mother was to say well neither of us is like to be barren and that absolutely turns out to be the case Elizabeth gives Edward exactly what a queen is supposed to do large number of heirs one of whom is of course is Edward the Prince of Wales, but the other is Richard. Yeah, Richard, who's born in Shrewsbury, who is actually his sixth child. Edward's sixth child, but his second son.

And we know virtually nothing about him. Well, we know that he's made Duke of York in 1474, and then in 1478, when he is, what, five? He gets married. He marries. He marries.

He marries the Countess of Norfolk. He's also five. Yeah. But also he's widowed quite quickly, isn't he? He's widowed by about the age of seven or something. Yeah, so he's packing it in. He's had an active life. He's seen a lot of the world.

Exactly. He's played by Brian Blessed in the first series of The Blackadder. Is he? And, of course, it's an alternative reality isn't it it's an alternative reality in which he survives and becomes king yeah well like yeah yeah um and of course played by me at the beginning of uh of this episode yeah um are you equating yourself with brian blessed the very different voices there i thought well i'm the young richard and brian blessed is obviously the uh the other one um anyway so all of the all of this it's all looks to be going well for the york for the yorkists they've basically they you know the the rate the yorkist regime is absolutely secure there are the lancastrians

have been wiped out the only conceivableivable line left is the Tudors. You know, this obscure Welsh squire who married a French queen. As you say, so obscure and so unlikely. It doesn't register. So it looks as though the Yorkist regime is absolutely secure. And Edward IV is the model of a king. He's everything that we've been saying. But the problem is, again, a bit like his grandson, Henry VIII.

Very like his grandson. He overdoes it. Yeah, too much fun. Too much fun. So he's... He gets increasingly fat, again, like Henry. And there's this whole kind of... By the 1480s, the early 148080s he's mutton dressed as lamb i mean

he's still ordering all these that's harsh these kind of groovy teenage fashions but he just looks i mean he looks like kind of sausage yeah people kind of when he's elvis isn't he he's elvis in the 19th las vegas squeezed into his leather or his so he's he's he has this he's always been a man for a binge. But I mean, there were records, aren't there, of their sort of orders from apothecaries. And he's ordering an awful lot of kind of drugs. But he's also ordering all these emetics that supposedly he takes during meals.

So he stuffs them all down. Yeah. So that he can have six courses instead of three or whatever. And Dominic, does it turn out well? No, it doesn't, Tom. It doesn't turn out well. down yeah yeah so that he can have six courses instead of three or whatever and dominic does it turn out well no it doesn't tom it doesn't turn out well but but the interesting thing is it's not like people say he's a great balloon he's going to burst at some point people are genuinely shocked when at easter 1483 he falls ill and there's still some nobody really knows what was wrong with him with some people say he had a stroke. Some people say that he had at some point contracted malaria

earlier in his life. We don't know. But anyway, he catches a fever and he dies. And I think this is absolutely crucial for the story. And this is what makes it different from, let's say, the death of Henry VIII, who also succeeded by a little boy in Edward VI.

A key difference is that Edward IV dies very quickly. So within, what, a week, a couple of weeks? So people haven't had time to prepare the ground, to get their kind of networks ready, to work out the balance of forces. So he dies on the 9th of April, and his two sons are 12 and 9,

and immediately you've got problems. Yeah. And there are two key people who are not at court when he dies. And that is the young Edward V's two uncles. So Anthony Woodville in Ludlow with the Prince of Wales himself. And, of course, his surviving uncle, Richard of Gloucester, who is up in the North. Who's up in the North.

He's been fighting the Scots, hasn't he? So that immediately the question comes, you know, the questions raised is, Edward is dead. Edward IV is dead. His son is young.

How are all the various Yorkist factions, how are they going to negotiate this youthful king and that I think is a question that we should leave to answer until tomorrow oh the tension it's such a cliffhanger Tom

I can't believe you would do this to the audience but they love it so we will see you tomorrow when we will talk about Princes in the Tower Part 2 when the princes actually will end up in the tower at last

at least we've managed to get them born and alive I mean that's something it's like Tristan Shandy isn't it the whole thing so we will see you then bye bye

bye We'll see you then. 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.