The text narrates the history of English monarchs from 1066 to the early 20th century. It highlights key figures, such as William the Conqueror and Henry VIII, and details significant events, including wars, rebellions, and changes in the relationship between the monarchy and Parliament. The narrative emphasizes dramatic personal stories, including love affairs, betrayals, and murders, interwoven with broader political and social shifts. The evolution of the monarchy’s power and the development of the British constitutional system are central themes. Finally, the account explores the enduring fascination with the British monarchy and its role in national identity.

The Kings and Queens of England: A Millenium of Surprises

Short Answer Questions

Instructions: Answer the following questions in 2-3 sentences each.

1. What significant event occurred in 1066 and why is it considered a turning point in English history?
2. How did William the Conqueror consolidate his power after his victory in 1066?
3. Explain the conflict between William the Conqueror’s sons after his death and how it impacted the English crown.
4. Describe the key elements of Henry I’s approach to governance and how it differed from his predecessors.
5. What events led to the period of civil war known as the Anarchy?
6. What were the primary aims of the Magna Carta and how did it impact the relationship between the king and his subjects?
7. How did Henry II and Thomas Becket’s relationship deteriorate, leading to significant tension between the crown and the church?
8. What led to King John’s conflict with the Pope and what were the consequences for England?
9. Describe Simon de Montfort’s contributions to English governance and how his actions influenced future political developments.
10. How did Edward I use nationalism and military force to expand his kingdom?

Short Answer Key

1. Answer: The Battle of Hastings took place in 1066, resulting in the death of Harold Godwinson and the victory of William the Conqueror. This marked the beginning of Norman rule in England, bringing about significant social, political, and cultural changes.
2. Answer: William confiscated land from English nobles, granting it to his Norman followers. He also commissioned the Domesday Book, a comprehensive survey of landholdings, to establish a system of taxation and control. This centralized power in the hands of the king.
3. Answer: William’s sons, Robert, William Rufus, and Henry, fought amongst themselves for control of England and Normandy. This power struggle destabilized the realm and highlighted the ongoing issue of succession. Ultimately, Henry I seized the throne, establishing a stronger hold on both territories.
4. Answer: Henry I focused on strengthening royal administration, relying on capable advisors and implementing legal reforms. He introduced the Exchequer system for financial management and traveled the country to personally oversee justice. This contrasted with the more militaristic approach of his predecessors.
5. Answer: Following Henry I’s death, the succession of his daughter Matilda was contested by Stephen of Blois, sparking a civil war known as the Anarchy. The conflict arose from questions about the legitimacy of a female ruler and ambitions of powerful nobles seeking to exploit the instability.
6. Answer: The Magna Carta aimed to limit the king’s power by establishing legal principles and protecting the rights of certain groups, particularly the barons. It asserted that even the king was bound by law, laying the groundwork for future constitutional development in England.
7. Answer: Henry II appointed Becket as Archbishop of Canterbury, hoping to control the church. However, Becket became a staunch defender of the Church’s independence, clashing with the king over legal jurisdiction and royal authority. This conflict culminated in Becket’s murder, creating a major crisis between the crown and the Church.
8. Answer: King John clashed with Pope Innocent III over the appointment of the Archbishop of Canterbury. John’s refusal to accept the Pope’s choice led to his excommunication and England’s placement under an interdict, suspending religious services. John was eventually forced to submit to the Pope, weakening royal authority.
9. Answer: Simon de Montfort, during his brief period of control, summoned a parliament that included not only barons and bishops but also knights and representatives from towns. This innovative move laid the groundwork for a more inclusive system of governance and a greater role for commoners in political life.
10. Answer: Edward I exploited nationalistic sentiment to garner support for his military campaigns in Wales and Scotland. He utilized brutal military force to subdue the Welsh, executing their leaders and establishing English control. He also attempted to conquer Scotland, capturing their king and removing the Stone of Destiny to London, stoking Scottish resistance.

Essay Questions

1. Analyze the evolving role of the English monarchy from William the Conqueror to the death of Edward I. How did the relationship between the king and his subjects change over this period? What factors contributed to these changes?
2. The reigns of King John and Henry III saw significant challenges to royal authority, including the Magna Carta and the rise of Simon de Montfort. Discuss the factors that contributed to these challenges and assess their long-term impact on English governance.
3. How did the Hundred Years War transform the nature of warfare, the role of the English king, and the relationship between the crown and Parliament?
4. Compare and contrast the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII. How did they consolidate their power? What were their major achievements and challenges? How did their approaches to religion and governance differ?
5. Analyze the impact of the religious and political turmoil of the 16th and 17th centuries on the English monarchy. What factors led to the English Civil War? What were the lasting consequences of the revolution and the restoration of the monarchy?

Glossary of Key Terms

• Domesday Book: A comprehensive survey of landholdings in England commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1086 to establish a system of taxation and control.
• Exchequer: The system of financial administration established by Henry I to manage royal revenues, a precursor to the modern treasury.
• Magna Carta: A charter of rights signed by King John in 1215, limiting royal power and establishing certain legal principles. It is considered a foundational document for English constitutional development.
• Parliament: A legislative body in England, initially composed of barons and bishops, later evolving to include knights and representatives from towns. It gradually gained power in relation to the monarchy, eventually becoming the supreme governing authority.
• Hundred Years’ War: A series of conflicts between England and France from 1337 to 1453, primarily over control of territories in France and economic dominance. It transformed the nature of warfare and had a profound impact on the development of English national identity and the relationship between the crown and Parliament.
• Reformation: A religious movement in 16th-century Europe that challenged the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, leading to the establishment of Protestant churches. In England, King Henry VIII broke with Rome, establishing himself as the head of the Church of England.
• English Civil War: A series of armed conflicts from 1642 to 1651 between supporters of King Charles I and Parliament, primarily over issues of religious and political authority. It resulted in the execution of Charles I and the establishment of a republic under Oliver Cromwell.
• Restoration: The return of the monarchy in 1660 with the accession of Charles II, marking the end of the republican experiment and the reassertion of royal authority.
• Glorious Revolution: The events of 1688-89 that led to the deposition of James II and the accession of William and Mary, establishing Parliament’s supremacy over the monarchy and laying the groundwork for a constitutional monarchy.
• Hanoverian Dynasty: The royal dynasty established in 1714 with the accession of George I, a German prince who inherited the British throne due to his Protestant lineage. The Hanoverians presided over a period of significant political and economic change, including the rise of the prime minister and the expansion of the British Empire.
• Jacobite Risings: A series of rebellions in the 18th century aimed at restoring the Stuart dynasty to the British throne, primarily supported by Scottish Highlanders and some English Catholics. The risings were ultimately unsuccessful, solidifying the Hanoverian hold on power.
• Prime Minister: The head of government in the United Kingdom, appointed by the monarch but responsible to Parliament. The position evolved gradually during the 18th century, becoming increasingly powerful in relation to the monarchy.
• Reform Bill of 1832: A landmark piece of legislation that expanded the franchise, redistributed parliamentary seats, and reduced electoral corruption, marking a significant step towards a more democratic system of government in Britain.
• Victorian Era: The period of Queen Victoria’s reign (1837-1901), characterized by rapid industrialization, social change, and the expansion of the British Empire.
• Commonwealth: An association of independent sovereign states, most of which were former British colonies, that share common historical ties and values. The British monarch is the symbolic head of the Commonwealth.

Briefing Document: A Thousand Years of British Monarchy

Source: Excerpts from the documentary, “A Thousand Years of British Monarchy”

Main Themes:

• The surprising and dramatic nature of British monarchical history: The documentary emphasizes the unexpected twists and turns in the lineage and evolution of the British monarchy, highlighting stories of conquest, rebellion, love affairs, religious conflict, and political maneuvering.
• The transformation of the monarchy: From absolute power to a more symbolic role, the British monarchy has undergone significant shifts in its power and influence throughout history. This evolution is closely tied to the changing relationship between the monarch, parliament, and the people.
• The role of personality and circumstance: The documentary explores how the personal traits and choices of individual monarchs, alongside specific historical events, have profoundly shaped the trajectory of the monarchy.

Key Ideas and Facts:

Norman Conquest and its Legacy (1066 – 1216):

• William the Conqueror establishes a new form of kingdom, with the monarch owning all the land and wielding absolute power.
• The issue of succession leads to power struggles and violence between William’s sons.
• Henry I attempts to establish order through legal reforms and centralized government.
• The tragic sinking of the White Ship throws the succession into chaos, leading to the Anarchy of Stephen’s reign and the eventual ascension of Henry II.
• The struggle between Henry II and Thomas Becket underscores the conflict between secular and religious authority.
• King John’s clashes with the Pope and the Barons result in the signing of Magna Carta, marking a crucial step towards limiting monarchical power.

From Magna Carta to the Tudors (1216 – 1485):

• The documentary highlights the ongoing tension between the monarch and the Barons, with the Magna Carta serving as a touchstone for limiting royal authority.
• The reign of Henry III sees the rise of Simon de Montfort and the first attempts at establishing a parliamentary system.
• Edward I conquers Wales and lays claim to Scotland, further solidifying English power.
• The reign of Edward II is marked by his controversial relationship with Piers Gaveston and his ultimate deposition.
• Edward III’s claim to the French throne inaugurates the Hundred Years’ War, changing the nature of warfare and the monarch’s role.
• The documentary traces the tumultuous period of the Wars of the Roses, highlighting the deposition of Richard II by Henry Bolingbroke and the eventual triumph of Henry Tudor, ending the dynastic struggle and paving the way for the Tudor era.

The Tudor Dynasty and Reformation (1485 – 1603):

• Henry VII’s seizure of the throne marks a new era of Tudor rule. He shrewdly uses propaganda to legitimize his claim and establish stability.
• Henry VIII’s desire for a male heir leads to the English Reformation, a dramatic break from the Catholic Church and the establishment of the Church of England with the monarch as its head.
• The reigns of Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I are marked by religious turmoil and the consolidation of England’s Protestant identity.
• Elizabeth I skillfully navigates complex political and religious landscapes, establishing a golden age for England and laying the foundation for a global empire.

The Stuarts and the English Civil War (1603 – 1688):

• James I’s belief in the divine right of kings sparks tension with Parliament. His policies and personal life contribute to growing discontent.
• Charles I’s continued clashes with Parliament over taxation and religious policies culminate in the English Civil War.
• The execution of Charles I marks a radical shift, with England briefly becoming a republic under the rule of Oliver Cromwell.
• The restoration of Charles II sees a return to monarchy, but with a clear understanding of the limits of royal power.
• James II’s attempts to reassert Catholic influence lead to the Glorious Revolution and the establishment of a constitutional monarchy under William and Mary.

The Hanoverians and the Rise of Parliament (1714 – 1837):

• The accession of the German-speaking George I marks the beginning of the Hanoverian dynasty. The rise of the Prime Minister reflects the growing power of Parliament.
• The reigns of George II and George III are marked by political maneuvering and the expansion of the British Empire.
• George III’s resistance to reform and his handling of the American colonies contribute to growing dissatisfaction with the monarchy.
• The Regency period under George IV sees a shift towards a more symbolic role for the monarch, with the rise of popular pressure for political and social reform.
• William IV’s reluctant acceptance of the Reform Bill of 1832 signifies the irreversible shift towards a more democratic system.

The Victorian Era and the Modern Monarchy (1837 – 1936):

• Queen Victoria’s long reign sees the height of the British Empire and the development of a powerful image of monarchy as a symbol of national unity and stability.
• Despite republican sentiment, the monarchy’s influence is bolstered through strategic marriages and the skillful promotion of imperial grandeur.
• Edward VII’s reign is marked by his popularity, his social conscience, and his role in shaping international alliances.
• George V navigates the challenges of World War I and the rise of socialism, using his influence to maintain stability and even secretly intervening in government during the economic crisis of the 1930s.

From Abdication to the Present Day (1936 – Present):

• Edward VIII’s abdication in order to marry Wallis Simpson demonstrates the changing social mores and the limitations of royal power.
• George VI provides a steadying influence during World War II, bolstering national morale.
• The accession of Elizabeth II marks a new era for the monarchy, adapting to the changing world of the post-war period and the decline of the British Empire.
• The documentary highlights the challenges and transformations the monarchy has faced in recent decades, from social and cultural shifts to media scrutiny and republican sentiment.

Quotes:

• “England had become a new kind of Kingdom one which was owned Lock Stock and Barrel by its king.” (Regarding William the Conqueror)
• “The story we’re telling through this series The Story of a thousand years of English History is the story of this alien conqueror and his successes to the throne…and how in that transformation they survived through tides of Revolution and republicanism so that today…they alone still lay claim to Majesty.”
• “Henry’s coronation at Westminster was an attempt to ensure his authority to rule…as the anointed king he held special divinely granted Powers.” (Regarding Henry I)
• “When they saw that the King was a good-natured and kindly man who inflicted no punishment they committed all kinds of terrible crimes.” (Regarding Stephen)
• “So came the second French invasion of England in 1216. It was about the same size as the invasion of 1066 and Louie landed unopposed…and Louie got rubbed out of the list of England’s monarchs because his acclamation was with hindsight withdrawn.” (Regarding Louis, King of England for a year)
• “Henry was the first king to speak English as his native tongue…but without legitimacy he was clinging to Power by his fingernails.” (Regarding Henry IV)
• “The story of the Tudors…is a tale of passionate love affairs and what happens when love and high politics collide.”
• “The crown of England was found lying under a bush at the end of the battle of Bosworth and placed on Henry judah’s head and Henry understood how you rule England not by winning over great Nobles…but by winning over public opinion…the pen is mightier than the sword especially when it tells the story of what happened.” (Regarding Henry VII)
• “Henry was effectively all powerful…and the countryside was controlled by justices of the peace who served the government…no one needed a fortified house under the protection of a great king…and it was all at Henry’s pleasure.” (Regarding Henry VIII)
• “England’s last little piece of France had been lost just before Mary’s death. England had become an island and its Queen would have to be an island too.” (Regarding Elizabeth I)
• “England having failed to be a republic had failed to be a monarchy. It was a bit of a Puzzler.” (Regarding the period after James II fled England)
• “The crown that had belonged to Normans, French, Plantagenets, Welsh Tudors, and Scottish Stuarts had now passed to the German Hanoverians.”
• “The efficient part was headed by the queen…whose only purpose was to make people feel loyalty. The actual power was entirely held by the efficient party which he said was a secret committee called the cabinet.” (Regarding the Victorian era)
• “Victoria became the logo of the British Empire…turning her into the Queen Empress.”
• “Elizabeth II coming to the throne 51 years later would be the first of her successors who had no personal memory of her.”

Most Important Ideas:

• The documentary challenges traditional narratives of British monarchy, presenting a more nuanced and surprising account of its history.
• It emphasizes the evolving relationship between the monarch, Parliament, and the people, highlighting the gradual shift from absolute to constitutional monarchy.
• The documentary explores the enduring tension between the desire for strong leadership and the need for limitations on royal power.
• It demonstrates how historical events, individual personalities, and political maneuvering have shaped the trajectory of the British monarchy.
• The documentary concludes with a reflection on the continued relevance of the monarchy in the modern world, acknowledging both its symbolic significance and its inherent contradictions.

FAQ: The History of the English Monarchy

1. How did the Norman Conquest of 1066 change the nature of the English monarchy?

The Norman Conquest marked a pivotal shift in the English monarchy. William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, claimed the English throne by right of conquest, establishing a new precedent for monarchical authority. Unlike previous English kings who were elected, William asserted ownership of the entire country, confiscating land and establishing himself as the supreme landlord. This introduced a feudal system where the king held ultimate power and land was granted in exchange for loyalty and service.

2. How did Henry I and Henry II contribute to the development of the English monarchy?

Both Henry I and Henry II played significant roles in shaping the English monarchy. Henry I, William the Conqueror’s son, focused on consolidating royal power and establishing a more organized system of government. He implemented legal reforms, introduced a centralized financial system (the Exchequer), and curtailed the power of the barons. Henry II, the first Plantagenet king, further developed the legal system with the introduction of common law and trial by jury. He also sought to reduce the influence of the Church, leading to conflict with Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

3. What was the significance of the Magna Carta?

The Magna Carta, signed by King John in 1215, is a landmark document in English history and a cornerstone of constitutional law. It established the principle that the king was not above the law and that his power was subject to limitations. The Magna Carta guaranteed certain rights and liberties to the barons, including protection from arbitrary imprisonment and unfair taxation. It laid the groundwork for the development of parliament and the concept of limited government.

4. How did the Wars of the Roses impact the monarchy?

The Wars of the Roses, a series of dynastic conflicts between the Houses of York and Lancaster in the 15th century, had a profound impact on the English monarchy. The wars decimated the old nobility, weakened the power of the barons, and paved the way for the rise of the Tudor dynasty. Henry Tudor, a descendant of the Lancasters, emerged victorious and established a new era of monarchical power.

5. What were the defining characteristics of the Tudor dynasty?

The Tudor dynasty, which ruled England from 1485 to 1603, was marked by strong monarchs who asserted their authority and centralized power. Key figures like Henry VII, Henry VIII, and Elizabeth I navigated complex religious and political landscapes. Henry VIII’s break with the Roman Catholic Church and establishment of the Church of England was a defining moment. Elizabeth I, known as the Virgin Queen, oversaw a period of stability, economic growth, and cultural flourishing.

6. What led to the English Civil War and the temporary abolition of the monarchy?

The English Civil War (1642-1651) was a clash between King Charles I and Parliament over the limits of royal power. Charles I believed in the divine right of kings and sought to rule without parliamentary consent. Parliament, on the other hand, demanded more control over taxation and government policy. Religious tensions between the king’s High Anglicanism and Puritanism in Parliament exacerbated the conflict. The war ended with the defeat and execution of Charles I and the establishment of a republic under Oliver Cromwell.

7. How was the monarchy restored and what changes were implemented?

The monarchy was restored in 1660 with the return of Charles II, son of Charles I. The restoration marked a return to traditional forms of government, but with a greater understanding of the limitations of royal power. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 further solidified the principle of parliamentary supremacy. William and Mary, invited to take the throne, agreed to the English Bill of Rights, which guaranteed individual liberties and limited the power of the monarch.

8. How did the role of the monarchy evolve in the 18th and 19th centuries?

During the reigns of the Hanoverian and Victorian monarchs, the role of the monarchy gradually evolved into a more symbolic and constitutional one. The rise of parliamentary power and the development of a modern government structure led to a decline in the direct political authority of the monarch. The monarch became a figurehead, representing national unity and tradition. This shift was further solidified during Queen Victoria’s reign, when the monarchy embraced a more ceremonial and less politically active role.

A History of the British Monarchy

Timeline of Events:

Norman Conquest and Early Norman Rule:

• 1066: William, Duke of Normandy, invades England, defeats Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings, and is crowned King of England on Christmas Day.
• 1066-1087: William the Conqueror consolidates his power, confiscates land, implements the Doomsday Book, and establishes Norman control over the Church.
• 1087: William the Conqueror dies, leaving Normandy to his eldest son, Robert, and England to his second son, William Rufus.
• 1087-1100: William Rufus rules England, facing challenges from his brother Robert and dealing with discontent among the barons.
• 1100: William Rufus dies in a hunting accident, possibly murdered by his brother, Henry.
• 1100-1135: Henry I becomes King of England, defeats Robert in battle, and imprisons him. He establishes a more stable and centralized government.
• 1120: Henry I’s son, William, dies in the White Ship disaster, throwing the succession into turmoil.
• 1135: Henry I dies.

The Anarchy:

• 1135-1154: Civil war breaks out between Henry I’s daughter, Matilda, and his nephew, Stephen, for the English throne. This period is known as “The Anarchy”.

Plantagenet Rule:

• 1154: Henry II, son of Matilda, becomes the first Plantagenet king of England. He restores order and strengthens royal authority.
• 1154-1189: Henry II clashes with Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, over the power of the Church. Becket is murdered in 1170.
• 1189-1199: Richard I (the Lionheart) reigns, spending much of his time on crusade.
• 1199-1216: King John reigns, facing opposition from the barons and conflict with the Pope. He is forced to sign the Magna Carta in 1215.
• 1216: King John dies.

From Magna Carta to the Hundred Years War:

• 1216-1272: Henry III, a young boy, becomes king. The country is ruled by regents, including William Marshal. The Magna Carta is reissued.
• 1272-1307: Edward I (Longshanks) becomes king. He conquers Wales, attempts to conquer Scotland, expels the Jews from England, and develops the role of Parliament.
• 1307-1327: Edward II reigns, facing rebellion and conflict with Scotland. He is deposed and murdered.
• 1327-1377: Edward III reigns, starting the Hundred Years War with France. He establishes the Order of the Garter.

Later Plantagenets and the Wars of the Roses:

• 1377-1399: Richard II reigns, facing challenges from the nobility. He is deposed by his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke.
• 1399-1413: Henry IV, the first Lancastrian king, reigns, facing rebellions and challenges to his legitimacy.
• 1413-1422: Henry V reigns, successfully continuing the Hundred Years War. He wins the Battle of Agincourt.
• 1422-1461 (and briefly restored in 1470-71): Henry VI, a weak king, reigns during the Wars of the Roses, a conflict between the Houses of York and Lancaster for the throne.
• 1461-1483 (and briefly restored in 1471): Edward IV, the first Yorkist king, reigns.
• 1483: Edward V, a young boy, briefly reigns before disappearing in the Tower of London, along with his brother.
• 1483-1485: Richard III, Edward IV’s brother, reigns, but is defeated and killed at the Battle of Bosworth.

Tudor Dynasty:

• 1485-1509: Henry VII, the first Tudor king, ends the Wars of the Roses and consolidates royal power.
• 1509-1547: Henry VIII reigns, breaking with the Roman Catholic Church and establishing the Church of England. He marries six times.
• 1547-1553: Edward VI, a young boy, reigns, promoting Protestantism.
• 1553: Lady Jane Grey briefly reigns before being deposed and executed by Mary I.
• 1553-1558: Mary I reigns, attempting to restore Catholicism and earning the nickname “Bloody Mary” for her persecution of Protestants.
• 1558-1603: Elizabeth I reigns, consolidating the Church of England and overseeing a golden age of English culture and power. She defeats the Spanish Armada.

Stuart Dynasty:

• 1603-1625: James I of England and VI of Scotland reigns, uniting the crowns of England and Scotland. He faces conflict with Parliament and the Gunpowder Plot.
• 1625-1649: Charles I reigns, leading to civil war and his execution.
• 1649-1658: Oliver Cromwell rules as Lord Protector during the Interregnum.
• 1658-1659: Richard Cromwell briefly succeeds his father as Lord Protector.

The Restoration and the Glorious Revolution:

• 1660: Charles II is restored to the throne.
• 1660-1685: Charles II reigns, restoring the monarchy and enjoying a period of relative stability.
• 1685-1688: James II reigns, attempting to restore Catholicism and facing growing opposition.
• 1688: The Glorious Revolution: William of Orange and Mary II, James II’s daughter, are invited by Parliament to take the throne.
• 1689-1702: William III and Mary II reign jointly.
• 1702-1714: Anne, Mary II’s sister, reigns, presiding over the Act of Union that formally unites England and Scotland as Great Britain.

Hanoverian Dynasty:

• 1714-1727: George I, a German prince, becomes the first Hanoverian king.
• 1727-1760: George II reigns, continuing the tradition of conflict with his son, Frederick.
• 1760-1820: George III reigns, overseeing the loss of the American colonies and struggling with mental illness.
• 1820-1830: George IV reigns, known for his extravagance and unpopularity.
• 1830-1837: William IV reigns, reluctantly granting electoral reform.

Victorian Era:

• 1837-1901: Queen Victoria reigns, presiding over a period of industrial and imperial expansion. The monarchy undergoes a revival in popularity.

20th Century and Beyond:

• 1901-1910: Edward VII reigns, known for his lavish lifestyle and diplomatic efforts.
• 1910-1936: George V reigns during World War I and faces the rise of socialism and republicanism. He plays a key role in averting a naval mutiny during the Great Depression.
• 1936: Edward VIII abdicates to marry Wallis Simpson.
• 1936-1952: George VI reigns during World War II, providing a symbol of stability and resilience.
• 1952-present: Elizabeth II reigns, adapting the monarchy to a changing world and becoming the longest-reigning British monarch.

Cast of Characters:

Norman Dynasty:

• William the Conqueror (reigned 1066-1087): Duke of Normandy who conquered England in 1066. A ruthless and ambitious ruler, he established a new political and social order in England.
• William Rufus (reigned 1087-1100): Second son of William the Conqueror, known for his ruthlessness and unpopularity.
• Henry I (reigned 1100-1135): Youngest son of William the Conqueror, known for his administrative abilities and his efforts to centralize royal power.

Other Key Figures in the Norman Era:

• Harold Godwinson: Last Anglo-Saxon king of England, defeated and killed by William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings.
• Robert, Duke of Normandy: Eldest son of William the Conqueror, who inherited Normandy but challenged his brother William Rufus for the English throne.

The Anarchy:

• Matilda: Daughter of Henry I, who claimed the throne after his death, leading to the civil war known as “The Anarchy”.
• Stephen: Nephew of Henry I, who contested Matilda’s claim to the throne, leading to the Anarchy.

Plantagenet Dynasty:

• Henry II (reigned 1154-1189): First Plantagenet king of England, known for his legal reforms and his conflict with Thomas Becket.
• Richard I (the Lionheart) (reigned 1189-1199): Son of Henry II, known for his military exploits on crusade.
• John (reigned 1199-1216): Brother of Richard I, known for his unpopularity and for being forced to sign the Magna Carta.
• Henry III (reigned 1216-1272): Son of John, who reigned during a period of baronial unrest and the reissuing of the Magna Carta.
• Edward I (Longshanks) (reigned 1272-1307): Son of Henry III, known for his military conquests in Wales and Scotland, his legal reforms, and his expulsion of the Jews from England.
• Edward II (reigned 1307-1327): Son of Edward I, known for his weaknesses and his eventual deposition and murder.
• Edward III (reigned 1327-1377): Son of Edward II, who initiated the Hundred Years War with France and established the Order of the Garter.
• Richard II (reigned 1377-1399): Grandson of Edward III, who faced challenges from the nobility and was deposed by his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke.

Key Figures in the Plantagenet Era:

• Thomas Becket: Archbishop of Canterbury who clashed with Henry II over the rights of the Church and was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral.
• William Marshal: Powerful baron and regent during the reign of Henry III, known for his loyalty and military skill.
• Simon de Montfort: Earl of Leicester who led a rebellion against Henry III and established the first English Parliament that included representatives of the towns.

Wars of the Roses:

• Henry IV (reigned 1399-1413): First Lancastrian king, who deposed Richard II but faced challenges to his legitimacy.
• Henry V (reigned 1413-1422): Son of Henry IV, known for his military victories in the Hundred Years War, particularly the Battle of Agincourt.
• Henry VI (reigned 1422-1461 and briefly restored in 1470-1471): Son of Henry V, a weak and pious king who lost the throne during the Wars of the Roses.
• Edward IV (reigned 1461-1483 and briefly restored in 1471): First Yorkist king, who defeated the Lancastrians in the Wars of the Roses.
• Richard III (reigned 1483-1485): Brother of Edward IV, who seized the throne after his brother’s death but was defeated and killed at the Battle of Bosworth.

Key Figures in the Wars of the Roses:

• Margaret of Anjou: Wife of Henry VI, a fierce and determined leader who fought for her husband’s claim to the throne.
• Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury (Warwick the Kingmaker): Powerful baron who played a key role in the Wars of the Roses, switching sides and helping to install both Edward IV and Henry VI on the throne.

Tudor Dynasty:

• Henry VII (reigned 1485-1509): First Tudor king, who ended the Wars of the Roses and established a strong monarchy.
• Henry VIII (reigned 1509-1547): Son of Henry VII, known for his six marriages, his break with the Roman Catholic Church, and his establishment of the Church of England.
• Edward VI (reigned 1547-1553): Son of Henry VIII, a sickly boy king who promoted Protestantism.
• Mary I (Bloody Mary) (reigned 1553-1558): Daughter of Henry VIII, who attempted to restore Catholicism and persecuted Protestants.
• Elizabeth I (reigned 1558-1603): Daughter of Henry VIII, known as the “Virgin Queen,” who consolidated the Church of England, defeated the Spanish Armada, and presided over a golden age of English culture and power.

Key Figures in the Tudor Era:

• Cardinal Wolsey: Powerful advisor to Henry VIII who played a key role in the English Reformation.
• Thomas Cromwell: Chief minister to Henry VIII who implemented the dissolution of the monasteries and furthered the break with Rome.
• Thomas Cranmer: Archbishop of Canterbury who helped establish the Church of England and wrote the Book of Common Prayer.
• Anne Boleyn: Second wife of Henry VIII, whose marriage led to the break with Rome. She was later executed on charges of treason.

Stuart Dynasty:

• James I (of England and VI of Scotland) (reigned 1603-1625): Son of Mary, Queen of Scots, he inherited the English throne after Elizabeth I died, uniting the crowns of England and Scotland. He faced conflict with Parliament and the Gunpowder Plot.
• Charles I (reigned 1625-1649): Son of James I, his conflicts with Parliament led to the English Civil War and his execution.
• Oliver Cromwell (Lord Protector, 1653-1658): Leader of the Parliamentarian forces during the English Civil War, he became Lord Protector after Charles I’s execution and established a Puritan republic.

The Restoration and Glorious Revolution:

• Charles II (reigned 1660-1685): Son of Charles I, he was restored to the throne after the collapse of Cromwell’s republic.
• James II (reigned 1685-1688): Brother of Charles II, his attempts to promote Catholicism led to the Glorious Revolution.
• William III and Mary II (reigned 1689-1702): William of Orange, a Dutch prince, and Mary II, daughter of James II, were invited by Parliament to rule jointly after the Glorious Revolution.
• Anne (reigned 1702-1714): Sister of Mary II, she reigned during the War of the Spanish Succession and presided over the Act of Union that united England and Scotland as Great Britain.

Hanoverian Dynasty:

• George I (reigned 1714-1727): A German prince who became the first Hanoverian king of Great Britain. He spoke little English and relied heavily on his ministers to govern.
• George II (reigned 1727-1760): Son of George I, who continued the tradition of conflict with his heir apparent.
• George III (reigned 1760-1820): Grandson of George II, his reign saw the loss of the American colonies and his struggles with mental illness.
• George IV (reigned 1820-1830): Son of George III, known for his extravagant lifestyle and his unpopularity.
• William IV (reigned 1830-1837): Brother of George IV, who reluctantly supported electoral reform.

Victorian Era:

• Queen Victoria (reigned 1837-1901): Niece of William IV, her long reign saw a period of industrial and imperial expansion and a revival in the popularity of the monarchy.
• Prince Albert: Husband of Queen Victoria, a German prince who played a key role in promoting science and technology and in shaping the image of the Victorian monarchy.

20th Century and Beyond:

• Edward VII (reigned 1901-1910): Son of Queen Victoria, known for his lavish lifestyle and diplomatic efforts.
• George V (reigned 1910-1936): Son of Edward VII, who reigned during World War I and faced the challenges of social and political change. He played a key role in averting a naval mutiny during the Great Depression.
• Edward VIII (reigned 1936): Son of George V, who abdicated the throne to marry Wallis Simpson, an American divorcée.
• George VI (reigned 1936-1952): Brother of Edward VIII, who became king unexpectedly and provided a symbol of stability and resilience during World War II.
• Elizabeth II (reigned 1952-present): Daughter of George VI, the longest-reigning British monarch, who has adapted the monarchy to a changing world.

Key Figures in the 20th Century and Beyond:

• David Lloyd George: Prime Minister during World War I, who implemented social reforms and negotiated the Treaty of Versailles.
• Ramsey MacDonald: First Labour Prime Minister, who formed a National Government during the Great Depression.
• Winston Churchill: Prime Minister during World War II, a towering figure in British history.

This detailed timeline and cast of characters should help you understand the key figures and events in the history of the British monarchy, as presented in the provided source.

A Thousand Years of English Monarchs

The English monarchy is unlike any other monarchy in the world, as the sovereign has always come from a foreign family since 1066 [1]. The monarchs of England have changed and survived through revolutions and republicanism, unlike in other parts of Europe [2].

The history of English monarchs is full of surprising events. For instance:

• One of the most trusted Chronicles details a King of England’s proposal to make Islam the national religion [1].
• King Louis, who ruled England for over a year, has disappeared from historical records [3].

The story of the English monarchy is a thousand years of tales of:

• Lust
• Betrayal
• Heroism
• Cruelty
• Mysteries
• Murders
• Tragedies
• Triumphs [1, 3]

The history of English monarchs is also a story of how the power of the monarchs changed over time.

• William the Conqueror took all the power into his own hands, confiscating all privately owned land [4].
• Henry I started to recruit government officers and judges from the church, undercutting the power of the great barons [5].
• Simon de Montfort invented an entirely new form of government, based on the English principle of consent, which included a parliament with representatives of the church, the countryside, and towns [6].
• Edward I presented himself as a new King Arthur to unite the country behind him [7].
• Edward III needed to raise money for the Hundred Years’ War, leading to the development of new financial systems and the persecution of Jews [8, 9].
• Henry VII further consolidated power in the crown, using Parliament to grant him authority as the Supreme Head of the Church in England [10].
• The Glorious Revolution of 1688 redefined the basis of royal power, limiting the power of the monarchy and giving more power to Parliament [11].
• By the time of Queen Victoria, the monarchy had transitioned from being a powerful political force to a more symbolic and ceremonial role [12].

The history of the English monarchy also highlights the importance of legitimacy and public opinion.

• Henry VII understood the need to win over public opinion and carefully crafted the narrative of his reign to secure his legitimacy [13].
• Queen Elizabeth I, unable to marry and produce a male heir, carefully cultivated her image as the Virgin Queen and relied on the support of her people [14].
• The Hanoverian monarchs struggled to maintain popularity due to their German origins and their political maneuvering [15, 16].
• George III’s attempts to assert his authority led to the American Revolution and contributed to the rise of republicanism [16, 17].
• Queen Victoria’s long reign and carefully managed public image helped to restore the popularity and stability of the monarchy [18].

The relationship between the monarchy and Parliament has been central to English history.

• From the Magna Carta onwards, there has been a struggle to define the limits of royal power [19].
• The English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution established the principle of parliamentary sovereignty [11, 20].
• The modern monarchy has adapted to this constitutional framework, playing a more symbolic and ceremonial role while leaving the actual exercise of power to elected politicians [21].

The story of the English monarchy is one of constant adaptation and evolution. From absolute rulers to constitutional monarchs, from warrior kings to symbolic figureheads, English monarchs have had to change with the times in order to survive. The future of the monarchy remains uncertain, but it is clear that the institution will need to continue to adapt in order to remain relevant in the 21st century [21].

English Royal Succession: Power, Legitimacy, and Evolution

Royal succession has been a complex and often contentious issue throughout the history of the English monarchy. The sources illustrate how different methods of succession have been used, leading to disputes, power struggles, and even civil war.

Here are some key points and examples from the sources regarding royal succession:

• Early Succession: The crown of England was not initially inherited but awarded [1]. When King Edward died, Harold Godwinson had himself elected king [1], but William Duke of Normandy claimed he had a right to the throne based on a promise Harold had made [2]. This dispute led to the Norman Conquest of 1066 [1, 2].
• Succession Disputes and Violence: The sources are rife with examples of succession disputes leading to violence and war. When William the Conqueror died, he divided his lands, giving Normandy to his eldest son, Robert, and England to his younger son, William Rufus [3]. This sparked a struggle for power among the brothers, with Henry, the youngest, constantly changing sides [3].
• The question of succession remained a matter of brute force [4]. Henry I tried to secure the succession of his daughter Matilda [5], but after his death, his nephew Stephen of Blois claimed the crown, leading to a period of civil war known as the Anarchy [6].
• Role of Parliament and Recognition: Over time, Parliament began to play a more significant role in determining the succession. When Henry IV, the first Lancastrian king, seized the throne from Richard II, Parliament confirmed his right to rule, even though he was not the direct heir [7]. This set a precedent for Parliament’s involvement in legitimizing monarchs.
• Legitimacy and Propaganda: Henry VII, the first Tudor king, understood the importance of public perception and historical narrative in securing his claim to the throne. He married Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV, to unite the warring houses of York and Lancaster [8]. He also went to great lengths to destroy documents that challenged his legitimacy or supported the claims of rivals, such as the Act of Parliament that declared Richard III the rightful king [9].
• Shifting Principles of Inheritance: The principle of hereditary succession was not always straightforward. In some cases, as with Matilda, attempts were made to establish female inheritance [5, 6], but these were often met with resistance. The concept of primogeniture, where the eldest son inherits, was not always strictly followed. John inherited the throne despite having older brothers [10].
• The Act of Settlement and Protestant Succession: The Act of Settlement in 1701 established that the crown would pass to the Protestant descendants of Sophia, Electress of Hanover, ensuring a Protestant succession [11]. This led to the Hanoverian dynasty, with George I becoming the first Hanoverian king of Great Britain [12].

The sources demonstrate that the rules and practices of royal succession in England evolved significantly over time. Force and power played a major role in the early centuries, but the importance of legitimacy, public opinion, and Parliament’s recognition grew over time. The story of English monarchs is intertwined with the ongoing development of the concept of succession.

The Evolution of English Kingship

The power of the English king has been a central theme throughout English history, evolving dramatically from absolute authority to a more limited and symbolic role. The sources showcase this evolution through various examples and events, highlighting the constant push and pull between the monarch, the nobility, the church, and, eventually, Parliament.

Early Kings and Absolute Power:

• William the Conqueror established a system of absolute monarchy, seizing all privately owned land and making its occupants tenants of the crown. His power was virtually unchecked, as demonstrated by his brutal punishment of the north of England for their rebellion. [1]

Checks on Royal Authority:

• Even in the early period, there were limits to the king’s power. William the Conqueror recognized the need for the English to keep the country running, upholding the laws of King Edward and respecting old traditions. This established the precedent of a king’s oath to uphold existing laws, a concept that would become fundamental to English coronations. [1]
• Henry I further limited the power of the great barons by recruiting government officers and judges from the church. This marked a shift towards governance by a system rather than solely by the king’s will. [2, 3]

Magna Carta and the Limits of Power:

• King John’s reign saw the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215, a landmark document that codified limits on royal power, particularly in terms of taxation and legal charges. The Magna Carta, largely driven by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, introduced the idea that the king, like everyone else, was bound by the law. [4]

Parliament and the Rise of Shared Power:

• Simon de Montfort’s establishment of Parliament in 1265, with representatives from the church, the countryside, and towns, marked a significant shift towards a more inclusive and representative form of government. This challenged the king’s absolute authority and introduced the concept of government by consent. [5]
• Edward I’s need to raise funds for his military campaigns led to increased reliance on Parliament. He recognized the value of having merchants in Parliament to agree to taxes, further solidifying Parliament’s role in financial matters. [6]
• The Hundred Years’ War under Edward III necessitated a professional army, shifting the king’s role from a feudal warlord to a professional commander. This change required new financial systems and highlighted the king’s dependence on Parliament for funding. [7, 8]

Religious Authority and the Reformation:

• Henry VIII’s break from the Roman Catholic Church during the Reformation significantly expanded royal power. He declared himself the Supreme Head of the Church in England, granting him control over religious matters and immense wealth. [9, 10] This solidified the king’s authority within England, eliminating the competing power structure of the papacy.

The English Civil War and the Redefinition of Kingship:

• The English Civil War (1642-1651) dramatically reshaped the relationship between the king and Parliament. Charles I’s attempts to assert his absolute authority led to conflict with Parliament, ultimately resulting in his execution. [11-13]
• The Interregnum period, following Charles I’s execution, demonstrated the country’s struggle to define its governance without a monarch. The instability of the republic, particularly under Cromwell’s military rule, highlighted the enduring desire for a traditional system of governance, albeit one with limitations on the king’s power. [13-15]
• The Glorious Revolution of 1688 solidified the principle of parliamentary sovereignty, establishing clear limits on royal power and ensuring that no monarch could rule without the consent of Parliament. [16]

Modern Monarchy and Symbolic Power:

• Since the Glorious Revolution, the power of the monarchy has continued to decline, transitioning from a powerful political force to a more symbolic and ceremonial role. The modern monarch, as exemplified by Queen Victoria and subsequent monarchs, has focused on maintaining public image and representing national unity. [17-20]
• While the modern monarch retains some influence and plays a role in advising the Prime Minister, their power is primarily symbolic. The sources highlight the evolution of this symbolic power, from the carefully crafted narrative of Henry VII to the media-driven image management of the 20th and 21st centuries. [19, 21, 22]

The sources illustrate the dramatic transformation of the king’s power throughout English history. From absolute authority to limited and symbolic power, the monarchy has adapted to changing political landscapes and societal expectations. The struggle to define the limits of royal power has been a central theme, shaping the relationship between the monarch and the people, and ultimately contributing to the development of the unique constitutional monarchy that exists in Britain today.

A History of the British Monarchy

English history, as depicted in the sources, is a captivating tapestry woven with threads of invasion, conquest, religious upheaval, power struggles, and societal transformations. It is a story of how a small island nation evolved from a feudal kingdom to a global empire, grappling with questions of power, legitimacy, and national identity along the way.

The Norman Conquest and Its Legacy:

The Norman Conquest of 1066 marks a pivotal turning point, ushering in a new era of English history. William the Conqueror’s victory at the Battle of Hastings reshaped the political landscape, establishing a system of absolute monarchy and introducing Norman culture and language. This event set the stage for centuries of interaction and integration between Anglo-Saxon and Norman traditions.

Consolidation of Royal Power and Early Challenges:

• The sources highlight how William the Conqueror and his successors consolidated royal power. They confiscated land, established a centralized administration, and exerted their authority over the church. However, challenges to royal power emerged early on. Succession disputes, rebellions, and the enduring influence of the Anglo-Saxon legal system served as checks on absolute monarchy.

Magna Carta and the Limits of Royal Authority:

The signing of Magna Carta in 1215 stands as a landmark moment in English history. It established the principle that the king was not above the law and guaranteed certain rights and liberties to the nobility. This document, born out of a power struggle between King John and his barons, laid the groundwork for the development of constitutional monarchy in England.

The Rise of Parliament and Shared Governance:

• The emergence of Parliament in the 13th century marked a significant shift towards a more representative form of government. Simon de Montfort’s “parliament,” which included knights and burgesses, broadened political participation. Edward I further solidified Parliament’s role by seeking its consent for taxation, particularly to fund his wars. This growing reliance on Parliament for financial and political support gradually eroded the king’s absolute authority.

Religious Upheaval and the Reformation:

• The Reformation in the 16th century dramatically impacted English history. Henry VIII’s break from the Roman Catholic Church had profound religious, political, and social consequences. It led to the establishment of the Church of England, the dissolution of monasteries, and the seizure of church lands. This upheaval also fueled tensions and conflicts, including rebellions and the persecution of those who resisted the king’s religious authority.

The English Civil War and the Redefinition of Kingship:

• The English Civil War (1642-1651) represents a defining moment in the evolution of English monarchy. The conflict between Charles I and Parliament over the limits of royal power culminated in the king’s execution and the establishment of a republic under Oliver Cromwell. This period highlighted the deep divisions within English society regarding the role of the monarchy and the balance of power between the crown and Parliament.
• The restoration of the monarchy in 1660 under Charles II did not fully reverse the changes brought about by the Civil War. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 further solidified the principle of parliamentary sovereignty, establishing that the monarch ruled by the consent of Parliament and was bound by the law.

From Empire to Constitutional Monarchy:

• The 18th and 19th centuries witnessed the rise of Britain as a global empire, fueled by industrialization, trade, and naval power. This period saw the development of a sophisticated system of parliamentary government, with the monarch’s role gradually shifting from active political involvement to a more symbolic and ceremonial role. Queen Victoria’s long reign (1837-1901) exemplified this transition, as she became a symbol of national unity and imperial grandeur.

The Modern Monarchy:

• The 20th and 21st centuries have presented new challenges and opportunities for the British monarchy. The loss of empire, the rise of mass media, and evolving social values have forced the monarchy to adapt to maintain its relevance. The modern monarchy, as embodied by Queen Elizabeth II, has navigated these changes by emphasizing its role as a symbol of national identity, continuity, and stability, while respecting the principles of constitutional monarchy.

Themes of Continuity and Change:

The sources emphasize the dynamic interplay between continuity and change that has shaped English history. While the monarchy has endured for over a thousand years, it has undergone profound transformations in its power, function, and relationship with the people. The enduring appeal of the monarchy, despite these changes, speaks to its adaptability and its ability to resonate with deeply rooted cultural and historical sentiments.

English Royal Families: Power, Succession, and Legacy

The history of royal families in England, as presented in the sources, is a complex narrative filled with power struggles, shifting alliances, and the enduring quest for legitimacy. From the Norman Conquest to the modern House of Windsor, royal families have shaped the political and social landscape of England, leaving an indelible mark on the nation’s identity.

The Sources Highlight Several Key Themes in the History of Royal Families:

• Conquest and the Establishment of Dynasties: Royal families often emerged through conquest, imposing their authority on existing power structures. William the Conqueror’s victory in 1066 established the Norman dynasty, replacing the Anglo-Saxon monarchy. This pattern repeated throughout English history, with new royal families often claiming the throne through military might and strategic marriages.
• Succession and Power Struggles: The issue of succession has been a constant source of tension and conflict within royal families. The sources provide numerous examples of disputes over the rightful heir to the throne, often leading to civil wars and bloodshed. The Wars of the Roses, for instance, epitomize the brutal consequences of succession crises within a royal family. The lack of a clear and universally accepted system of inheritance created opportunities for ambitious rivals to challenge the ruling monarch, often resulting in violence and instability.
• Marriage as a Tool of Power and Diplomacy: Royal marriages have rarely been simply matters of the heart. The sources demonstrate how royal families used marriage as a strategic tool to forge alliances, secure territories, and enhance their power and prestige. Examples include:
• Henry I’s marriage to Edith, daughter of the King of Scotland, aimed to improve relations with Scotland.
• Henry II’s marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine, who brought vast territories in France under his control.
• Henry VII’s marriage to Elizabeth of York, uniting the warring houses of Lancaster and York.
• Victoria’s strategic arrangement of her children’s marriages, creating a network of royal connections across Europe.
• The Role of Legitimacy and Public Image: The sources underscore the importance of legitimacy for royal families. Establishing and maintaining a credible claim to the throne was essential for securing power and ensuring dynastic continuity. Royal families employed various strategies to bolster their legitimacy, including:
• Propaganda and historical revisionism, as seen in Henry VII’s efforts to legitimize his claim to the throne by rewriting history to his advantage.
• The manipulation of religious authority, with monarchs like Henry VIII leveraging religious power to solidify their position.
• The cultivation of a favorable public image, with monarchs increasingly relying on public perception and popularity to maintain their authority.

The Evolution of Royal Power:

• The sources illustrate how the power of royal families has evolved over time. From the absolute authority of early monarchs like William the Conqueror to the more limited and symbolic role of the modern monarchy, royal families have adapted to changing political and social contexts. The rise of Parliament, the Reformation, the English Civil War, and the Glorious Revolution all contributed to a gradual erosion of royal power, leading to the development of a constitutional monarchy where the monarch’s authority is constrained by law and custom.

Royal Families and National Identity:

The sources suggest that royal families have played a significant role in shaping English national identity. From promoting a unified language and culture to serving as symbols of national pride and continuity, royal families have become intertwined with the historical narrative of England. Their stories, filled with triumphs and tragedies, have captured the public imagination and contributed to a sense of shared history and collective memory.

The Enduring Fascination with Royal Families:

Despite the decline in their political power, royal families continue to fascinate the public. Their lives, filled with grandeur, drama, and scandal, provide endless fodder for media speculation and popular culture. The sources, particularly in their discussion of modern monarchs like Victoria and Elizabeth II, highlight the enduring appeal of the monarchy as a source of entertainment, national symbolism, and a connection to a rich historical past.

The Original Text

[Music] the story of the kings and queens of England is more surprising than you might think it’s a fine drama a thousand years of tales of lust and betrayal of heroism and cruelty of mysteries murders tragedies and triumphs but there’s more than that for example one of the most reliable Chronicles describes how a king of England proposed adopting Islam as the national religion this episode the first of six includes that tale it tells the story of the English crown from 1066 to 1216 from one French Invader William to the next Louie yes Louie another surprise a king of England who’s pretty much disappeared from history it’s easier to say where the history of the English Monarchy ends than where it begins it ended on the 14th of October 1066 here at what became battle Abbey on senlac Hill near Hastings we all know that this was where Harold was killed and replaced by William the Conqueror and Harold was the last Englishman to be crowned King from then on the The Sovereign would always be from a foreign family right down to Queen Elizabeth II so a history of the kings and queens of England isn’t like the history of kings and queens anywhere else in the [Music] world what happened here on that October day started a completely new history which is why it’s the one date in history that everybody knows 1066 the story of that day was spelled out in a strip cartoon probably stitched for Williams brother Odo by English seamstresses here’s Our Hero’s first appearance in the story that’s William Duke of Normandy about 37 years old in 1064 he’s being told that Harold godwinson Earl of wesix at the time has been Shipwrecked on the French Coast one of these guys is godwinson I think it’s the chap with the handlebar mustache he’s about 6 years older than William and the most powerful man in England after King Edward these are both pretty hard men survivors in a very tough [Music] World Williams spent his whole life fighting for survival and was good at it by the time he was 20 he’d established complete control over Normandy for from then on he was fighting to hang on to what he had he got Harold to help him in one of those battles capturing mon Sam Michelle and then apparently as the price of letting him go home had Harold swear to support him in becoming the next king of England which as the tapestry very clearly shows is not what happened [Applause] [Music] when Old King Edward died Harold as we all know had himself crowned instead actually to be a bit more precise he had himself elected King the crown of England in those days was not inherited but awarded in William’s view this had all gone very badly wrong so he set about putting it right the Norwegian ruler Harold hardrada took a similar view there was an old Norwegian claim to England which he decided to revive by launching an invasion of his own their two fleets arrived within a few days of each other one in the north of England one in the South both fleets were probably about the same size about 500 ships King Harold rushed North and destroyed hadad’s Army only about 34 ships made it back back to Norway then he rushed South and this time of course he failed to pull it off we don’t know for sure that the man with the arrow in his eye is Harold but he certainly died at the Battle he and his ax wielding spear carrying Army of Danish and Anglo-Saxon noblemen were simply Swept Away in their place were the new rulers of England Normans on Horseback and William was their master Master of the country he owned [Music] it he was not an elected King when he went to London to be crowned on Christmas Day the population thinking that was their Duty now tried to elect him they claimed him with loud shouts the Normans not knowing what was going on thought this was some kind of Uprising they rushed out of Westminster ABY and burned London down England had become a new kind of Kingdom one which was owned Lock Stock and Barrel by its king the story we’re telling through this series The Story of a thousand years of English History is the story of this alien conqueror and his successes to the throne it’s the story of how they changed England and changed with it eventually to turning into puppet rulers symbols of power they cannot wield and how in that transformation they survived through tides of Revolution and republicanism so that today while they’re not quite the only surviving Royals in Europe they alone still lay claim to Majesty now how did that happen the story of Williams Reign is really the story of a warrior Lord taking all power into his hands he confiscated all the privately owned land in the country its new occupiers were tenants of the king bound to him people of the north of England with their Viking Capital at York were much more bound to Scandinavia than to Normandy they refused to submit he punished them by destroying all animals and all crops between York and Durham according to the Chronicles he C celebrated Christmas 1070 in the ruins of York the inhabitants were reduced to starvation even cannibalism 16 years later when all the land in England was accounted for and valued in his doomsday survey there were places in North Umbria that were still utterly worthless the church too was made Norman and old Anglo-Saxon and ways crushed at glastenbury archers were stationed inside the Abbey and orders given that the old chant should be replaced by new ones from France 21 monks were shot and yet there were limits to his power a few thousand Normans most of them not even understanding the language of their new country couldn’t run the place they needed the English to keep everything working and William understood that perfectly well his coronation he made an oath to uphold the laws of king Edward to uphold good law and renounce bad the old courts would continue to function and old traditions would normally be respected this oath would become fundamental to the coronation of any King the question though would be who got to wear the crown when William died bloated and exhausted at the ripe age of 60 his attendants stripped his body and Scattered What mattered now was who would hold the land he’d conquered and how it had all been his and it was he who decided on his deathbed in Normandy he handed out the spoils he gave his eldest surviving son Robert his duy of Normandy but it was the younger son the redhair William William Rufus who the Conqueror willed should be acclaimed King of England and the youngest Henry was told he would have to be content with £5,000 but Henry was his father’s son content with £5,000 was that [Music] likely the key to the plotting that followed was that of of course none of the brothers was content Henry stirred The Brew of resentment that made Robert try to take the kingdom of England from William and William tried to take the duy of Normandy from Robert and Henry was always changing sides weakening them both eventually Robert tiring of the whole struggle decided it would be more satisfying to fight sarin than his brothers and went off on Crusade William was now secure and Powerful and Henry changed his policy he was now William rufus’s very best best friend the bishop of linol later said that when Henry praised anyone he was sure to be plotting that person’s destruction it does seem as though Henry concentrated on quietly stirring up discontent among churchmen and Barons in England which was not hard as William Rufus needed their money and had little to offer in return except to give to some what he’d taken from others others and besides William Rufus wasn’t their kind of chap he didn’t marry he had no children and as one Chronicle puts it all things that are loathsome to God and to Earnest men were customary in this land in his time and therefore he was loathsome to well nigh all his people and abominable to God which is of course homophobic Chronicles speak for being gay on the 2nd of August in the year 11 00 both William and Henry were hunting separately in the New Forest it was the last day of William rufus’s life His companion Chell immediately fled and disappeared abroad William’s body was abandoned where it lay at a spot still marked by this Stone the next day local peasants took it in a cart to Winchester Henry had arrived before them Winchester was where the Royal treasure was kept he demanded the treasury keys from the guards they refused to hand them over saying that Robert his elder brother was the rightful Heir Henry Drew his sword and declared that no one should stand between him and his father’s scepter resistance collapsed and when the peasants arrived with their cart the Lords of England were busy electing Henry as their King the the first elected ruler of England since Harold [Music] godwinson the bishop of Winchester refused to give the corpse a Christian burial out of respect for his Royal status William Rufus was nevertheless interred under the cathedral Tower and when that collapsed a few years later everyone said told you sir Henry’s coronation at Westminster was an attempt to ensure his authority to rule he was 32 years old his father had won the country by force of arms and his Barons backed him for Rich rewards but why would anyone want to King now alongside his sanctification by the church he issued a charter promising that he would not overtax the church or his tenants in Chief and that they must treat their tenants as he treated them he claimed that the crown changed his nature he was no longer an ordinary human being as the anointed king he held special divinely granted Powers his touch was supposed to cure scrofula swollen neck glands from tuberculosis this magic power which became known as touching for the king’s evil was practiced by English monarchs for the next 700 years as proof of of their Divine Authority he also quite smartly understood that it was a good idea to promote new people to positions of power those who were already great Barons didn’t need a king but men on the make would support him by the time Robert was able to mount a challenge to Henry it stood no chance he agreed to recognize Henry as king of England in exchange rep pension of course it didn’t last Henry ended up invading Normandy in 1106 and imprisoning his brother for the rest of his life this is his tomb in gler Cathedral the question of who was entitled to succeed to the crown was still when you came down to it a matter of Brute Force but Henry’s Victory had a profound symbolic meaning because it changed the status of the English crown under his father England had been a property seized and owned by the Duke of Normandy now Normandy was a property seized and owned by the king of England Henry was a naturally cheery person just after his coronation he married Edith the daughter of an English woman and of the King of Scotland and he encouraged the Normans he was promoting to marry English women the great Barons regarded this with contempt and referred to their king and queen as godric and gadiva a style statement which roughly translates as siden Gladis as sturdy Warriors they also didn’t appreciate the fact that he was literate in three languages his other nickname HRI boair means Henry the SWAT but those great Barons were having their power undercut as Henry recruited his government officers and judges from the church he supervised his kingdom by moving his court from one Center to another it was a great traveling performance like a circus with no permanent home he spent half his time in Normandy but when he was away the kingdom was run by a totally reliable civil servant Roger the bishop of Salsbury who was called the justiciar the idea of government by a system rather than by a man was beginning to take shape he sent judges on their own tours of the country and enforced the laws harshly which seems to have been quite popular according to the chroniclers but his punishments were often based on the idea that people were guilty until proved innocent and there was no time to do that were England’s Lanes really full of blinded and mutilated men muttering um but fair you’d think so from the sources we have they liked a strong King and he managed to keep the treasury well stocked with money which meant he could buy loyalty when he needed to the key to this was his system for checking his income twice a year sheriffs and Royal officials from all over England had to bring their money to be counted by being shunted around in piles on a checkered cloth like a chess board checked it was called the ex Checker the system worked so well that the cabinet minister in charge of the nation’s finances is still called the chancellor of the ex cheer and we still use paper chits called checks by a combination of force and diplomacy he controlled and to some extent colonized Wales relations with Scotland were fine three of his wife’s Brothers became Kings there England was becoming a peaceful stable and successful Kingdom Henry sent his young daughter Matilda to Germany to marry the Holy Roman Emperor and in 11:16 he held a great assembly at Salsbury where all the Barons Nobles and Bishops swore homage to his son William as his successor to the crown in 1120 young William was a star an enthusiastic Warrior a keen Huntsman and The Heir Apparent he’d been in Normandy with his father fighting the king of France and the whole party was returning to England William and his Pals were traveling in a brand new ship the white ship they were the 12th century English Jet Set the millionaire nightly lads who were heirs to most of England and Normandy once they got on the ship there was a terrific party alcohol was taken and how soon it became really Rowdy the huray Henry’s yelling at one another and throwing off a bunch of priests who’d come to bless the voyage William’s cousin Steven of BL had an upset stomach and he felt he needed a bit of peace and quiet so he decided to go ashore and take a later Ship by the time they got to see it was already dark and the other ships were way ahead the wind was light William decided to catch up with the King and ordered the chaps to start rowing the master was as drunk as anyone else so they began to speed into the dark 50 ORS pushing this state-of-the-art Longboat at a terrific lick that was when they sailed straight into a rock and smashed the ship [Music] open the rock of parur was a well-known Hazard to navigation the cries of the drowning company were heard onshore and on the king ship but everyone thought the party was still in full swing in fact the future of England had just been destroyed in the equivalent of a drunken car crash it’s said that Henry never smiled again you can see why six years after the fatal crash not knowing what else to do Henry obliged the Barons Nobles and Bishops of England to swear fty to his daughter Matilda as his successor just as he’d had them swear to his son but there was of course a huge difference no woman had ever ruled in her own right in either England or Normandy her husband the emperor was dead but for strategic reasons he had Matilda marry the son of the count of onju this was not a family with a power base in England Henry’s sleep was filled with nightmares of peasants and Barons complaining that he’d failed them all and then Henry went and died of a surfit of lampis how does that happen a lampri is a Paris fish that looks as if it belongs in a bush Tucker trial Henry loved him his doctor had put him on a diet that involved not eating lampas and he got a fever and died after ignoring the advice and the doctor said as doctors do I warned him by the time Henry died in 1135 it was all falling apart he was 67 years old and he’d gone a long way towards defining the job of a king of England but the fundamental problem who was entitled to that job had still not been [Music] solved Matilda was in onju with her husband and then up popped Steven of bla who sailed from Normandy to England and claimed the crown Steven who’ been saved from drowning on the white Ship by an urgent need for a lavatory he was the son of Henry’s sister a legitimate grandson of William the Conqueror he’d also been the leading Baron to swear fty to Matilda as the air apparent but that was then and this was now he was 38 years old backed by his very tough mother and one of his brothers was the bishop of Winchester with the keys to the Royal treasury the wife of the count of onju was not a popular choice with the Barons Steven was a Norman this besides he seemed a malleable sort of chap brave enough and high-spirited he was also generous courteous and affable and would probably do as he was told which was of course a recipe for disaster according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle when they saw that the King was a good-natured and kindly man who inflicted no punishment they committed all kinds of terrible crimes all had done homage and sworn Oaths of fty but were [Music] kept meanwhile Matilda was enraged and of course had her own supporters England was moving rapidly to Civil War Steven was insecure he surrounded himself with people from near BL Flemings which didn’t go down well with the Barons he bought loyalty until he had emptied the treasury and then began confiscating property so that he could pay his supporters by the time Matilda landed to claim her throne in 1141 Steven was trying to put down Rebellion after Rebellion he was a brave even ferocious fighter but his support melted away and he was captured in a battle at Lincoln Steven was Matilda’s prisoner a church Council declared that he was deposed by the Manifest Judgment of God and recognized Matilda as Queen Matilda proceeded to Westminster and was all set to be crowned and then something went peculiarly wrong something that carries an extraordinarily clear message about the job of being the monarch of England all Matilda’s understanding of monarchy had been learned in Germany where she’d been Empress since she was 12 years old she had been popular and successful there after the emperor’s death when Henry the had brought her back to England some German princes of the Empire followed her to demand her back as their Sovereign but the sovereignty she had Learned was absolute power the emperor’s will was law the only possible higher law was the church that was not how it worked in England even the Conqueror had promised at his coronation to respect the laws of England but Matilda flatly refused she didn’t need a coronation to be Queen in her view she already was she behaved imperiously which might mean magnificently in German but meant int ably in English and when the citizens of London petitioned her for a renewal of King Edward’s laws she not only refused to listen but demanded a heavy tax from them so they threw her out Steven was released from prison and resumed his battered kingship in fact he had a second coronation Matilda roamed around the Midlands in the west country fighting for a throne that she was entitled to but could never have in 114 3 just before Christmas Steven finally had her trapped and Starving in Oxford Castle but unbelievably Matilda and three nights got away it had snowed and that night dressed entirely in white they dropped over the walls to the frozen water below they moved silent and invisible in the fresh snow right through Steven’s [Music] Camp it was another 5 years before Matilda gave up and returned to Normandy but she simply handed the torch to her son Henry who came to England when he was 16 to carry on the struggle and so the fighting went on year after year and the country was in effect without law and without government as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle said castles were filled with devils and evil men Christ and all his saints were asleep Steven naturally intended his own son Eustace to succeed him but in 1153 both Eustace and Steven’s wife fell ill and died Steven had had enough at the end of the year Steven and Henry rode together into London there the king proclaimed a new foundation for the kingdom Henry was now his own adopted son and would be his successor as king of England although Steven would remain King For Life Henry would take over the government [Music] immediately the next year utterly worn out king Steven retired to his grave on the 19th of December 1154 there was a double coronation in Westminster Abbey the 21-year-old Henry III was crowned King and his 33-year-old wife Ellen was crowned queen consort Elena Duchess of aquatan knew all about being a queen when she was 15 orphaned and the richest Damsel in France she was married to the heir to the French throne and a few days later the pair became king and queen of France the king of France was a saintly figure with perhaps a rather low sex drive Ellena came from a family of lordly troubadors whose Court was dedicated to interesting love affairs she later said that she thought she’d married a man but had married a monk she had a series of Affairs including one with Matilda’s husband Jeffrey ofu he rather dashingly wore a sprig of broom plantag genista in his hat so people called him plantagenet eventually all the anvin the whole family line wore it on their Crest she then had an affair with Jeffrey’s son the attractive young Henry a bright well-educated athlete with Vitality intelligence freckles and money according to a contemporary chronicler Henry’s father had warned his son off her saying that she’d been his lover and she was the wife of Henry’s Overlord Henry was Duke of Normandy but Jeffrey died in 1151 and in 11:52 Henry got Ellena pregnant Louie who probably didn’t know that detail had their marriage anull and she married her Toy Boy of course she did all she could to encourage his efforts to become king of England and make her a queen again the coronation of 1154 must have been most satisfying for her he didn’t make his mother’s mistake of claiming to be above the law instead maintaining proper form he issued a charter confirming all the Liberties that were in force under his grandfather Henry I the combination of his lands and elers meant that this king of England ruled more than half of France though as the vassel of the French King it would have been too much for all almost anyone but Henry was a man of extraordinary Restless energy who traveled vigorously around his Realms and would order his court to hit the road with no notice whatever he got England up and running with astonishing speed he had all newly built castles destroyed so that individual Lords could not stand against him and got the law functioning again he organized government into Ministries with the chancellor of the exch playing the role we would now recognize as prime minister the chap in question was the son of a London Merchant he was Henry’s closest friend and colleague they joked and drank together and he lived as the greatest Lord in the country Thomas Becket between them they reformed the currency Finance government and began the changes in the judicial system that would lead to the system of trial by jury England was beginning to develop a commercial life towns were growing the population was becoming better educated the new system for running Royal courts asked groups of local people often peasants to report and decide the facts of the case the system that had worked for the Conqueror allowing the people to run their own country was at the heart of Henry’s way of getting everything up and running again perhaps that was why he needed a Londoner at the heart of his government the next stage in his reforms was to reduce the power of the church which had been become the only functioning judicial institution during the chaos of Steven’s Wars anyone accused of a crime who could read a line of Latin was deemed to be a church man that made them immune from the Royal Court they could only be judged and punished by the church of course the church wouldn’t agree to give up its privileges so when the Archbishop of Canterbury died in 1162 it seemed a smart idea to install Thomas as the new Archbishop then he would deliver the church to Henry actually it seemed a pretty terrible idea to Matilda who warned Henry not to do it what did his mother know look what a mess she’d made of things Elena was also against it and she hadn’t made a mess of anything she’d been a very competent Regent when Henry had been abroad and must have seen what Henry had not seen that Thomas Beckett’s driving force was not loyalty to Henry oh surely not she was just jealous that Henry spent more time with Thomas than with her Henry was sure it was a really good idea of course it was a really bad idea why did Becket become fanatically committed to the church as soon as he got the job why did he wear Hessian underwear with lice and lash his body why did he oppose the king’s plans more fiercely than any other Bishop he ended up excommunicating the Bishops of London and Salsbury and sacking the Archbishop of York for not opposing the king he’d already acquired all the Earthly power and wealth possible now he had a bigger ambition he was arguing that The Church Must rule everyone including the king this was especially dangerous as Becket was hugely popular Henry was given to rages and the situation was bound to enrage him who will rid me of this turbulent priest on the 29th of December 1170 four of Henry’s loyal Knights did just that slicing off the top of his head at the altar of his cathedral in the words of an eyewitness the red of the blood mixed with the white of the brains like white of the Lily and the red of the Rose this was shocking Henry had to distance himself from becket’s murder and win the hearts and minds of his subjects [Music] Beckett was immediately the most popular martyr in the country a 100,000 pilgrims flocked to the sight of his death he would obviously be made a saint as soon as possible the danger of course was that the pope would excommunicate Henry and pronounce an anathema against him as the murderer of England’s primate the population would turn against him in England and the King King of France would seize his vast lands across the channel Henry immediately fasted went into extravagant mourning and bended Penance prostrating himself before the Canterbury altar he was publicly lashed by a monk it worked he saved his kingdom from the pope saving it from Elena was much more difficult elanar and Henry had drifted apart partly because of his love affairs and partly because she feared that Henry’s adventure with Becket threatened her own beloved aquatan she had gone back there she set up her own Court the court of love and that was where she raised her sons as romantic Warriors and plotted against him Henry imprisoned her there for 16 years but her plots continued unabated she supported her older Sons in Rebellion against Henry trying not only to ensure her control over her own life land but to take over from him the only one who remained loyal was John the youngest in 1189 the oldest surviving son Richard inflicted a major defeat on his father Henry met Richard near the Lis to arrang peace terms but when they publicly embraced Henry quietly growled may the Lord spare me until I’ve taken Vengeance on you back in his own shadow Henry asked for for all Richard’s supporters to be read out the first name on the list was John’s Henry was heartbroken he died in Delirium a few days [Music] later Elena’s imprisonment was over Henry had recognized Richard as his Heir and Richard intended Ellena to rule inland he had more important things to do [Music] Crusade Elena had been on Crusade when she was young as the wife of the king of France but also as the leader of her own feudal Army and now the sarens had reconquered Jerusalem Richard the Romantic Richard the lionart was a totally Fearless Warrior whose whole upbringing had been B based on ellena’s idea of chivalry poet and swordsman Christian Knight and tournament hero a handsome and dashing leader of armies Richard tried to live out the Fantasy Life of one of the heroes of Arthurian literature from the stories told and sung in the court of [Music] love he came to London for his coronation but only so that he could collect the funds to pay for his great crusade to recover Jerusalem from Saladin he went off on his Crusade declaring that he would sell London if he could find a [Music] buyer The Crusade itself the Third Crusade was a sequence of great heroic and daring actions that completely failed to conquer Jerusalem associated with bursts of extreme brutality Saladin quite rightly pointed out that while Richard might be able to get an army into the city if he wanted to hold on to it he would have to spend the rest of his life there the two men never met but they fascinated and respected each other when Richard was Ill Saladin sent his doctor the final truce ensured that Christian pilgrims would be free to visit the holy city but that had actually been saladin’s policy before the Crusade even began Richard typically decided to make the journey home in 1192 into an adventure traveling alone and IND disguise that was how he got captured and ended up imprisoned by dukee Leopold of Austria a man he’d repeatedly insulted during the Crusade the king of England had been found in an inn in Vienna unconvincingly disguised as a kitchen Nave The Ransom leopo demanded was £1,000 about 8 years income to the ex cheer Richard’s recklessness was crippling for the kingdom and eventually fatal for him as a storybook hero he always seems to have expected a happy ending and would sometimes even forget to put on Armor that was how he got killed in the end taking a stupid chance at an unimportant Siege in 1199 a crossbow bolt wound became infected while he was dying the man who’d loosed the shot was captured and delivered to him and Richard carried on behaving as though he was in a story book making a great gesture of releasing the man and giving him money Richard had no Heir he named his brother the 32-year-old JN as his successor Richard aged 41 died in his mother’s arms England’s hero King who detested the country and had spent six months of his Reign there and the man who’ killed him was rearrested and flayed alive [Music] his little brother John was never meant to be king his father had called him John Lackland because there was originally no part of the huge Anin Empire left for him and the three problems that lurked at the core of monarchy in England now became crises how did succession work what was the balance between the king of the church and what legal limits existed on Royal power especially when it came to taxes to begin with was he really Richard’s proper successor one of his Elder Brothers Jeffrey had died leaving a son Arthur and there were Barons in Oru and Maine who argued that this 13-year-old was the proper successor they were supported by Philip King of France the only way to settle a succession dispute was by violence so John went to war his men captured the boy and he was never seen again it was generally believed that John Dr him which was the wrong way to solve the problem it guaranteed that Arthur would not be king but it left a very nasty smell it didn’t stop the king of France from keeping the war going and by 1205 John was driven out of most of France including aquatan and even Normandy the issue of church power also came up again it was John’s bad luck to be confronted by an exceptionally militant and aggressive Pope Innocent III innocent maintained that Kings had to submit to popes when the Archbishop of Canterbury died innocent announced that Steven Langton who happened to be English was the new Archbishop John refused to accept the Pope’s man Rome wouldn’t give ground and neither would John in 129 the Vatican excommunicated the king of England and his whole Kingdom back in England John attempted to carry on regardless the pope declared John deposed and that anyone who even spoke to him was excommunicated according to one chronicler John decided at this point to join the enemy in 1213 he sent a delegation to the Emir of Morocco offering to adopt Islam and turn England into an Islamic country in return for protection that would have turned history upside down is it true the Emir according to the story told the envoys not to be so silly in fact John was reduced to Total surrender the pope demanded that he submit himself as a vassel of the church and that England should become a Papal Thief instead of a sovereign Kingdom so in 1213 Steven Langton the new Archbishop of Canterbury took up his post as a repres reprentative of the new Overlord of England in that capacity he decided to sort out the third issue the limits of the king’s power over his subjects Barons were now virtually an organized political party this is the Seal of the Barons of London Langton presented them with the charter issued by Henry I and suggested that they demand something along the same lines but a bit clearer the Magna this famous document was signed in June 1215 John and Richard had both tried to meet their costs by Massive increases in feudal dues and legal charges and most of the Magna carter is an effort to reverse [Music] these but there are also other Clauses that show that Langton and the Barons thought that laws must bind the king himself as well as everyone else there was a notion of proper kingship in England and the Magna cataa tried to spell out what that meant if lton had not been an Englishman the magnata would probably have looked very different and it was certainly incomprehensible to Pope Innocent who saw it as a baffling and immoral limitation on the absolute power of the feudal Lord of England who was of course himself so innocent issued a bull excommunicating anyone who stood by or tried to carry out Magna carter and Steven Langton found himself suspended from his job and recalled to Rome and job marched through England at the head of an army composed largely of foreign troops crushing the Barons and destroying their property and that’s why the Barons went to France and got a new king of their own Louie the son of the king of France [Music] and so came the second French invasion of England in 1216 it was about the same size as the invasion of 1066 and Louie landed unopposed he was greeted with General enthusiasm and was hailed as king of England in a high mass at St Paul’s Cathedral he set up his own government and his army began its pursuit of John’s dwindling forces John was assembling an army to Stage the great final battle and was traveling along the seashore from Lynn to Lincolnshire a miscalculation of the tide was all he needed his whole baggage train was washed away including his treasure and the crown Jew s distraught broken he made his way to an ABY at swine’s head where he was comforted with the Monk’s latest experiment in beer making which seems to have brought on dentry fever and death [Music] the story of the kings and queens of England is more surprising than you might think it’s a fine drama a thousand years of tales of lust and betrayal of heroism and cruelty of mysteries murders tragedies and triumphs but there’s more than that this episode begins with a king of England who ruled for over a year but who simply vanished from the record and it ends with a boy whose claim to the throne was based on fictions that became historical Orthodoxy we begin in the year 1216 in the reign of King Louie of England yes King Louie not the most famous King of England at the request of the Barons and with the enthusiastic support of the population of London he’d come to England from France to take over the crown from John and John struggling to fight back had fallen ill and died Louie who’ been acclaimed King at a mass in St Paul’s Cathedral now had the throne to himself he had no coronation as the Bishops had been excommunicated but rulers are created in England by acclamation not coronation which is why the uncrowned Edward VII was a king and Lady Jane gray who did have a coronation was not Queen and Louie got rubbed out of the list of England’s monarchs because his acclamation was with hindsight withdrawn that was because the Barons had not expected Louie to appoint his friends from France and Flanders as his chief counselors they’d expected to be given much more control over what went on and then they thought there’s a better option John had a 9-year-old son Henry of course no child had ever been King but there’s a first time for everything and if the King was a child and one of the Barons was Regent then the Barons really would be running things of course Louie controlled London but the child was at cor castle and they could at least get him to the nearest Abbey Gloucester to Crown Him of course they didn’t have the crown but they could use his mother’s gold neckband actually they didn’t have an Archbishop available to do the coronation never mind the bishop of Winchester was available and had the keys to the treasury it wasn’t a well attended ceremony not even all of John’s Executives could get there but it would have to do [Music] naturally little Henry III was not actually exercising the powers of King that was the job of a baron the Regent the chat that got the job was a 70-year-old Earl of Pembrook William Marshall a safe Pair of Hands if ever there was one Old Faithful Marshall had long ago been a bold young Knight in in the days of Henry the the child’s grandfather he’d worked his way up the greasy pole of advancement by the simple if very unusual principle of loyalty to his Lord and total trustworthiness everyone trusted him and now the Barons expected him to get rid of Louie and rule on behalf of little Henry and Louie was roundly defeated in the end he agreed to go back to France and agree he’d never been King of England at all and all the Barons and Bishops who declaimed him as king agreed that they’d never done anything of the sort everyone became patriotic for the first time since the Norman Conquest the French were being described as foreigners looting the English the Barons all spoke French and they had nothing in common with the villains on their lands but they were beginning to feel English and William Marshall reissued Magna carter and said that all the old laws and rights of England were exactly what Henry III wanted to uphold William Marshall died the grand old hero of England in 1219 and Henry was given a proper coronation at Westminster the following year as Henry grew up the Barons and Bishops had no intention of letting him get away from them he learned to do as he was told and that pretty much defined him as a king what the Barons and the Bishops hadn’t thought about was that one one day he would be listening not to them but to his wife perhaps one of them should have married him instead in 1236 he married Elena a younger daughter of the count of provance he was 29 she was about 19 and she wrapped him round her finger she arrived with her Uncle who immediately started running the King’s life and carted huge amounts of treasure off to his homeland then she got another Uncle installed as Archbishop of Canterbury her physician became the bishop of Durham and large sums of money supposedly going to her mother were actually funding the wars of her brother-in-law the Duke of onju she was inevitably staggeringly unpopular and however little money the king had he always seemed able to support her relatives abroad paying for their courts and their armies in 1263 the population of London Rose in Rebellion their target were Flemish Bankers Jewish financiers and queen Ellena she was in the Tower of London London’s Royal Palace and got away from the Watergate to slip down the TS to Windsor as her boat approached London Bridge she was pelted with missiles by a crowd shouting drown the witch she managed to get back to the safety of the tower the kingdom had become ungovernable at least by this king and queen this was not the same same country it had been in 1066 towns had grown trade had grown London had grown with The Baron’s losing influence and londoners angry the crown itself was in danger England was on the edge of Revolution enter the Revolutionary a Frenchman on the make the Charming clever younger son of a powerful and ruthless Norman Lord a chancer with style Simon De monford France was now ruled by King Lou’s Widow on behalf of their young son she was a shrewd woman who decided that young Simon was dangerous stuff and forced him to escape abroad he’d come to England in 1231 when he was about 23 intending to recover land his family had lost years ago and he was really good at it he became the best of friends with the impressionable Henry in no time and Henry’s sister fell for him in 1238 they were married and he was given back those lost family lands he was Earl of Leicester the English were suspicious of foreigners so Simon completely converted into an Englishman in 1239 Henry and Elena had a son Simon sponsored the baptism they chose the name Edward after the great Anglo-Saxon King Edward the Confessor this French royal family had adopted England English patriotism but as the political crisis deepened Simon became increasingly committed to the total reform of government eventually the crisis became a full-blooded Civil War and by the time the war ended in 1264 Henry and his son Edward were Simon’s prisoners and he took over the country Simon Now set about inventing an entirely new form of government one which was based on the deeply rooted English principle of consent in 1265 he summoned a meeting of the country a parliament at Westminster to endorse his government he summoned not only Barons and Bishops but also two knights from each Shire and most extraordinary representatives from all the burs the towns he said he was acting in the king’s name but the king didn’t have much to do with what was going on in fact Simon had established what we might see as a modern State there was a written Constitution a symbolic King a powerful leading Minister and there was a parliament with representatives of the church the countryside represented by great land owners and gentry and of towns we might see it like that they didn’t to most people at the time this was clearly the tyranny of Simon De monford by now Prince Edward was a grown man 25 years old and it was his job to overthrow this tyranny and restore the crown first of course he had to escape imprisonment at heret Castle the prince was allowed to exercise his horse on the common so he wore out his guard’s horses racing with them and then jumped onto a fresh horse that had been brought for the purpose and disappeared into the distance what followed is known as the battle of eam at the end of which Simon De monford was chopped up into pieces Henry was back on his throne but it was Edward who was now running the country This Tall muscular Warrior he was called long Shanks had the military skill to crush the remaining Rebels and the good sense not to punish them afterwards he understood how to make peace and accepted the proposition that the king must respect legal limits on his power and consult with the nation he also habitually spoke English the first Royal to do so since 1066 Parliament made him the steward of England deont for’s Revolution had left its [Music] Mark the Old King died in 1272 having reigned for 56 years Edward’s main interest in life was chivalry and warfare his natural costume was armor it had been since he was a child when Henry Died Edward was out of the country on Crusade he came home to be crowned with his Queen yet another Elena in 1273 the daughter of the king of Castile she’d already borne Edward six children they would have 10 more England now had something like a settled system of government Edward confirmed the existing Charters including Magna carter and was able to leave the business of government and Justice to his Council and judges his main concern was how to gather the money to conduct his military interests without provoking more rebellions in 1190 the monks of glastenbury had found Graves which were believed to be those of King Arthur and queen gwy the bones had been placed in the lady Chapel now 88 years later King Edward carried the bones of Arthur and queen Elena those of gwiin they put the legendary remains in a magnificent tomb in the main Church Edward presented himself as a new Arthur all this was part of a wider campaign to give his kingship the power of myth and so unite the country behind him him this Unity was going to be needed when he claimed Supremacy over all Wales it worked when the Welsh princes rejected his claim he was able to raise the money to make an enormous military effort he became the first English king to totally conquer this mountainous territory one of its princes thellin was killed in battle his head was mounted on the Tower of London the other David was put on trial treason before Parliament and sentenced to be drawn hanged beheaded and quartered this was a savagery previously unknown in English law the English system of shes and hundreds was now extended to cover all Wales and the conquest was emphasized by huge state-of-the-art royal castles like this one at canaran Edward’s warchest was based on a new source of Royal Finance in 1275 Parliament granted him the right to charge customs duties on wool see how useful it was having a parliament with Merchants to agree to taxes nevertheless popular Rhymes suggested trouble was brewing the king he wants to get our gold the queen would like our lands to hold his War chest had come from Jewish money lenders but now they had no more to give never mind the Jews could serve another purpose Italian Bankers would provide advances on the customs duties and collect the taxes themselves and Edward could unite the country behind him in persecuting the Jews 650 years later the Third Reich would adopt his entire program first Edward decreed that they were a threat to the country their movements and activities were restricted to identify them easily all Jews were obliged to wear a yellow patch in the shape of a star next he arrested all the heads of Jewish households over 300 were taken to the Tower of London and executed While others were murdered in their homes finally in 1290 the king banished all Jews from the country by now the armored Overlord was a national hero when his wife Queen Elena died in the same year worn out by child births his own grief was turned into a major display of national mourning her body was ceremonially carried from Lincoln to Westminster and a memorial cross erected at every one of the 12 resting places including here at Charing in London Charing Cross it was time to enlarge the kingdom again in 1296 he led an army to enforce his claim to Scotland Edinburgh was seized and the King of Scotland stripped of his crown was imprisoned in the Tower of London Scottish Kings were crowned enthroned on the stone of schoon or stone of Destiny Edward had it moved to London and put in the coronation chair in Westminster Abbey Edward appointed a trio of Englishmen to run the country actually his rule in Scotland was not noticeably harsh or unjust but that was beside the point his own Conjuring of the de of nationalism was turning against him ordinary Scots began to discover a feeling of national identity a popular Scottish resistance movement grew led by William Wallace better known nowadays outside Scotland at least as Braveheart most of Scotland had broken free before he was defeated and then in 1306 Rebellion began again and Robert the Bruce was crowned King of Scotland by now Edward the Hammer of the Scots was old and sick he tried to lead an army back into Scotland but it became obvious he’d never get there a few miles north of carile on his deathbed he gave instructions to his 23-year-old Heir Edward Prince of Wales a 100 Knights were to Crusade carrying his heart the Army should carry his bones to defeat Scotland and the prince was not to have anything further to do with his very very close friend pierce gaveston the King was dead Edward II was ready to party Edward was physically tall and muscular but his similarity to his father ended there he had no interest in being a warlord his father had taken him on campaign but the prince traveled with a pet lion and a troop of genoise Fiddlers Edward the first had tried to change his character by assigning him a charismatic Squire who was good at tournaments this had backfired [Music] spectacularly Edward and Pier gavon had fallen in love gston was banished but obviously he was now coming back gavon was an elegant Charming artistic Man Who Loved showing off his power over Edward and could still easily beat more Macho men in tournaments this was a recipe for a short life before his coronation Edward married Isabella the sister of the king of France then gavon was seen wearing Isabella’s wedding jewelry at the coronation he showed up carrying the crown wearing royal purple and purples some of the Barons wanted to kill him on the spot eventually of course they did kill him here at blacklow Hill in warshire having chased the king and peers round the country and then then Robert Bruce Renegade King of Scotland set about completing his war of independence he captured Edinburgh and besieged the last English stronghold Sterling in 1314 Edward II set out to relieve the city the battle at vanern just outside the castle was a total disaster for the English Edward’s troubles were made worse by the fact that the climate which had been benign for about 100 years took a dramatic and long-term turn for the worst in 1315 as harvests failed and cattle died the Barons said that his extravagance and lack of Direction was intolerable so the grown-ups took over the Earl of Lancaster head of the council was now acting as king keeping Edward on a daily allowance of £10 but he still had friends he turned to Hugh dispencer and his son dispenser was the only nobleman who had supported gavon eventually they managed to help him break free of the power of Lester and the other great Nobles but no one had a solution to the unending run of bad harvests and the apparent enthusiasm of the dispensers to enrich themselves made Edward’s rule deeply unpopular especially with his Queen Isabella in 1325 she got away to France and refused to come home and unless the dispensers were thrown out worse she’d Fallen passionately in love with an ally of lesters who was hiding out in France Roger Mortimer Isabella and Mortimer gathered an army and invaded England in September 1326 as homophobia turned into mob rule Isabella and Mortimer were joyously welcomed to London in a few months it was all over the Elder dispenser almost 90 years old was hanged without being given time to take off his armor the younger had his genitals cut off then he was disembed the object was for Isabella and Mortimer to rule in the name of her 14-year-old son but the boy refused to accept the crown without his father’s consent so Edward dressed in black was deposed in a solemn ceremony the steward of his household broke his staff of office he broke down and cried he was eventually moved to Barkley castle where he was encouraged to die as soon as possible he was denied sufficient food and clothing he was prevented from sleeping he was crowned with a crown of hay and shaved with Ditch waterer Isabella generally known as the She Wolf of France reproved the guards for their mild treatment popular homophobia had allowed Isabella and her lover Mortimer to brutally and illegally depose Edward II that didn’t make them Heroes for long Edward III in whose name they ruled was their prisoner but in 1320 when he was 18 he broke free they were staying in Nottingham and he put together a plot to lead a band of armed men into the castle through an underground passage They seized Mortimer and Isabella Mortimer was hanged Isabella shut away in Castle rising in Norfolk and England had a king again law and proper government would be resumed under a handsome young man properly entitled to the throne who also happened to be a fine chivalrous Knight who spoke English French and German and who was already married with a baby son what could be better than that oh how about a good War Edward decided on the most extraordinary and significant military campaign since the Norman Conquest he announced that by the laws of inheritance he was the rightful successor to the throne of France it was rubbish wasn’t but he certainly meant to be and in 1337 he began preparing his invasion actually there were two genuine reasons for this and neither had anything to do with the law of succession one was that the French were supporting the Scots and so long as that continued the king of England would never be master of Scotland and Northern England would be constantly threatened by Raiders looters and Scottish armies the other was that England was now a busy commercial country selling wool to Flemish Weavers in 1336 Philip of France decided to take control of this trade he he arrested all English merchants in Flanders and took away the Privileges of the Flemish towns and the craft guilds English merchants pointed out that they lost their income the king had lost his customs duties the kingdom had lost its foreign trade the coast on the far side of the channel was vital to English security and prosperity whatever the cost it must be kept open the same imperative would force Britain to war against Napoleon against the Kaiser against Hitler Edward was the first to have to face it his solution was to claim France and break it this little campaign is known to history as the 100 Years War but this war actually changed the nature of the king’s job because it required a new kind of army ever since William the Conqueror the idea had been that in exchange for their landholding Lords and knights were supposed to turn up in arms and fight for the king when they were needed but this didn’t work very well for a war over seas firstly a night’s service was only meant to be for 40 days at a time that doesn’t work with 100 Years War secondly many Knights felt that they shouldn’t be obliged to go overseas at all they were probably right and thirdly they weren’t necessarily fighting men anymore so Edward needed to have a professional arm Knights who didn’t want to serve didn’t have to they could pay a tax called scoot that would allow Edward to hire professionals mercenaries were quick to see the opportunity for plunder and Ransom and joined up and freed from the need to Pander to Nightly good manners on the battlefield Edward hired thousands of effective deadly archers from the lower classes instead of being a feudal Warlord the King was now a professional Commander he invaded Normandy in 1346 and his professionals destroyed the old-fashioned feudal Knights of France at cresy opening up that vital Coast Cal held out and when it eventually surrendered Edward announced that it must be punished the city Keys must be handed over by Six leading Burgers Barefoot with nooses round their necks to be hanged when they arrived the the queen publicly fell on her knees and pleaded for the Burger’s lives which of course Edward granted this Splendid pantomime was part of the theater of royalty which Edward was now developing to a magnificent art the life of the King was being turned into a public performance his court was the home of chivalry and his Lords and knights were given Parts in the drama it was a brilliant device for Binding Together War Taxation and loyalty the queen was as important in this as the king she led the ladies of the Court the judges of chivalric behavior and she was the source of Mercy tempering her husband’s Justice this was a religious image people were encouraged to show Devotion to the Virgin Mary the Queen of Heaven who would intercede and offer protection against Divine judgment intercession was desperately need needed by people who believed that God punished them with death death arrived at wouth in June 1348 Black Death in less than a year the whole country was stricken no one could have understood what was happening once a person was infected large foul smelling swellings developed in the groin neck and armpit death followed within 2 or 3 days the disease killed killed more than a third of the population and by 1350 the population of England was half that of 1315 in the midst of the dying the theater of royalty grew grander Edward created the order of the gter where two tournament teams played out in Arthurian drama based on St George’s Chapel at Windsor the castle was rebuilt for the show with the nobility bound to him by chivalric dream and the shes and towns granting funds for the war in Parliament the French War could still go on another decisive victory at pitier in 1356 brought France to the point of disintegration but by now the war couldn’t be ended the nobility and troops saw endless vistas of plunder while the king’s only chance of income came not from his withered population but from Rich ransoms this war would last 100 years by the time Edward died in 1377 65 years old the townsmen and peasants of England were sick of the whole thing the king’s oldest son Edward the black prince had been the flower of chivalry and hugely popular but he died a year before the king the successor to the throne was the Black Prince’s 10-year-old son Richard real power though lay with Richard’s Uncle John of [Music] gaun the war had by now turned against England the French were ravaging the English Coast the shrunken working population demanded proper wages they had no interest in performing feudal duties on the land while desperate land owners needed more than ever to enforce them ga’s government needed money and tried to raise it from a pole tax not understanding that the population was Far smaller than before when they failed to raise the money they’ expected they tried again and England erupted Lords Nobles bishops get rid of them all who needs them when Adam delved and Eve span who was then the gentle man the so-called peasants Revolt of 1381 was actually an uprising of the respectable people of towns and Villages across England its aim at least for the rebels that captured London was an end to lordship in church and state just one Archbishop and a king specifically not they added a king called John they detested John of gaunt who went into hiding the dramatic moment of course was the meeting of Richard and the rebels at Smithfield on the 14th of June the rebel leader watt Tyler was talking to the king when the mayor of London cut him down the rebels immediately Drew their bows and the King now 14 years old rode forward to calm them I will be your captain come with me into the field and you shall have all you ask and they dispersed as he told them it was an astonishing lesson in the mysterious power of kingship the rebels should never have trusted him of course once the danger was passed the ring leaders were hunted down and killed villain ye are and villain ye shall remain years later when Richard would need popular support he would find he had none but Richard had been given a dramatic vision of himself he seems to have been convinced that the basis of his power lay in the special authority of sovereignty he was the first English king to have portraits made instead of Wars he offered tournaments accompanied by music and dancing with the ladies of the court but Richard’s choice of companions were not the kind of men that most Barons approved of and above all Richard abandoned the war with France leaving France in control of Flanders unpleasant references were made to Edward II and look what happened to him he found himself up against a group of noblemen who called themselves the Lord’s appellant appealing to have his closest advisor removed and take over the government which is what happened Richard was effectively dethroned he was able to recover power in 1397 as part of his efforts to secure his throne he exiled Henry Bolingbrook John of ga’s son but Bolingbrook came back with a vengeance and Richard found that wherever he turned for support it simply wasn’t there balling Brook captured him demanded his voluntary abdication and then sat on his throne Richard disappeared into a prison in pontif Castle where he was murdered Richard had no children the line of the black prince Edward III’s El son had come to an end the proper heir to the throne was an 8-year-old boy called Edmund living in Ireland the great grandson of King Edward’s Second Son Henry’s father was the third son so Henry was certainly not heir to the [Music] throne but he was a big man with a big red beard and a big army and he was sitting right there in England on the throne not in Ireland not 8 years old so Parliament decided that he was very definitely fully entitled to be king of England oh yes Edmund spent the whole of Bing Brook’s reign as a well-maintained prisoner Henry was the first king to speak English as his native tongue he was personable Brave and a very capable leader in battle but without legitimacy he was clinging to Power by his fingernails anyone who doubted Bing Brook’s right to be king of England could expect to be part hanged and then have their intestines pulled out before being killed his regime became ever more repressive as he became more worried there was an uprising in the north which he put down with real ferocity it was said that he personally killed 30 men in battle and the air hung heavy with the smoke of burning flesh as the English church under this new regime began burning Heretics the usurper needed to rule by fear but the most frightened person in England was him government was taken over by his son also called Henry a young man who’d grown up fighting on his father’s behalf in fact Parliament suggested that the king abdicate in his son’s favor which he refused to do in 1413 the Grim Reaper came with a more convincing offer he was only 45 years old and the 26-year-old Henry V was crowned in April in the [Music] snowstorm Henry VI did all he could to get the country back onto a stable footing he gave Richard II’s remains a proper burial and of course he got back back to the important business of invading France France was still in a state of disintegration ruled by Charles I 6 a man with a severe mental disturbance in a fit of derangement he’d slaughtered his own attendance now he believed that he was made of glass and about to break he actually had iron rods stitched into his clothing it was easy meet and Henry’s overwhelming victory at aenor in 1415 destroyed much of France’s aristocracy the English king was now in control of Paris Charles very fragile agreed to acknowledge Henry as heir to the French throne this meant disinheriting his own son the Doan and Henry took Charles’s sister cathine de Vala as his bride what a great place to end the story England safe Edward III’s plan to take over France France brought to fruition a genuinely popular King and they all lived happily ever after not in 1422 Henry V not yet 35 years old contracted dentry and died England had a new King Henry and Katherine’s son Henry V 6 6 weeks later the king of France also died and Henry V 6 became king of France just one problem his majesty King Henry V 6 was only 10 months old the Duke of Bedford was appointed Regent of France and the Duke of Gloucester Regent of England and the baby’s kingdoms especially France were in serious [Music] trouble the DOA wanted his kingdom back and everything the English had done ravaging the countryside destroy ing all authority and stability and could have been calculated to create a passionate nationalism it was entirely natural for people to believe that jonov AR was on a Divine mission to drive the English out of France and give it its rightful King under her inspirational leadership the doans forces took over oon and Rees and he was crowned King of France in Reams in 1429 little Henry had still not been crowned King Of Anything something obviously had to be done about that so later the same year now 7 years old he had a coronation in Westminster Abbey the idea was then to get him to Reams where kings of France are supposed to be crowned but that just wasn’t safe so he ended up being crowned King of France in Paris it was all a mess in fact English forces were now fighting a losing battle the new factor in the equation was Gunpowder Cannon and handguns changed the whole nature of Warfare and Henry did not grow up to be a warrior a quiet studious young man he never felt it was his job to lead the English forces in battle they were finally destroyed at Cason in 1453 the 100 Years War was over England was left with no possessions in France except C but Henry’s problems had barely begun the taxes needed to fight the war and Corruption among Royal officials meant the country was disheartened and angry and the issues of legitimacy that had Lain pretty dormant in England since Henry Bolingbrook usurped the throne were now coming out of the woodwork Richard II had been the last legitimate King of England if there was such a thing he’d been succeeded by his murderer Henry Bolingbrook the father of Henry V the grand grandfather of Henry V 6 they were all descended from John of gaun dukee of Lancaster but that wasn’t the legitimate line of descent JN of gaun had an elder brother whose descendants were still alive the rightful King of England had not been Henry IV but Edmund the Earl of March and now that Edmund was dead it was his nephew Richard Duke of York Edmund had carefully and probably wisely never made a point of making his claim Henry IV and Henry V had been seriously powerful men but Henry V 6 wasn’t in the same league his interest was not in war but in learning he founded Eaton and King’s College Cambridge and he was a gentle Pious man there were many who believed that he was more a saint than a king Richard Duke of York now 40 years old decided that it was time for the crown to fall into his hands his claim was supported by most of the Barons of Southern England the northern Barons felt all this was codswallop they had the right to choose their King not be passed like slaves to whoever inherited them and then quite suddenly in the summer of 1453 the king went mad he’d probably inherited the strain of Madness in his mother’s family the illness that had racked Charles I 6 the True Legacy of ainor was not the crown of France but a recurring disease that would afflict members of the English royal family for centuries he lost his memory he lost control of his body he lost the ability to speak coherently or understand what was said to him his wife gave birth to their only son but he knew nothing about it with the King incapacitated government needed to be handed to a regent and the man with the backing in the South to take over the Reigns was Richard juk of York the inevitable and disastrous outcome was Civil War Lancaster against York their badges the red rose of Lancaster and the white rose of York gave history the wars of the Roses to begin with it was a war for control not of the crown but of the King Richard didn’t want to be crowned while Henry was still alive nor did he want to kill him but he did want to control the government and be recognized as Henry’s successor the king made a partial recovery but was quite incapable of taking charge of his own defense his Queen made an impressive effort to do it for him Margaret commanded in the Battle of Wakefield in 1460 when Richard of York was killed Richard’s son Edward of York had none of his father’s quals about taking the crown in March 1461 Edward without any parliamentary approval had himself crowned Edward IV [Music] Henry was still alive a husk and became a refugee with his Queen the deposed royal family hid in Scotland then Henry was captured and became a prisoner in London in 1470 an extraordinary upheaval backed by the king of France drove Edward the for from London and Henry was rescued from prison and restored to his throne it’s said that while Edward plotted his return from Exile in Holland Henry had a curious interview with one of his distant relatives a boy of 14 Henry Tuda after the death of his father Henry VI 6’s mother Katherine de valois had an affair with one of her servants a Welshman Owen up maradu upt it was probably King Henry who arranged the marriage of their son Edmund Tudor to Margaret bord a great grandchild of John of gaunt Margaret became pregnant immediately but the bord family were disbarred by ancient Royal Charters from ever succeeding to the throne so why did she call her baby Henry no bord had ever been called Henry no chuda had ever been called Henry it was a king’s name name it suggests that Owen had great plans for the boy and that was obviously what Edward of York thought as soon as he had Owen chudder in his power in 1461 he had his head chopped off his head was displayed lit up with a 100 candles Henry chuda aged four had been taken prisoner but now young chuda was free and according to later stories was looked on as an important figure in the line of succession according to Shakespeare Henry V 6 looked at the boy and said Lo surely This Is He To whom both we and our adversaries shall Hereafter give place the following year Edward IV made his Counterstrike King Henry’s son was killed at the Battle of chesy and Henry V 6 himself was captured a few days later he was murdered in the Tower of London the wars of the Roses were over the competition between England’s Barons for control of the Kingdom had ground to a bloody end with most of the great families of nobles having been slaughtered Henry Tudor was now head of the House of Lancaster he had no claim to the throne of course coming from the debar bowett family so Edward should not have regarded him as a threat in theory just to be on the safe side he fled to Brit Britany but Henry chuda would be back and he would make sure he controlled how the story was [Music] written the story of the kings and queens of England is more surprising than you might think it’s a fine drama a thousand years of tales of lust and betrayal of heroism and cruelty of mysteries murders tragedies and [Music] triumphs and all these figure in the story I’m telling now the story of the [Music] tuders above all though the story of this great dynasty of rulers is a tale of passionate love affairs and what happens when love and high politics collide [Music] [Music] The Story begins with Owen Tudor a hugely ambitious and very handsome young man his father was an outlaw hiding out in the the Welsh Hills but Owen managed to get employed as a servant in the household of the infant Henry V 6 now this household was run by Henry’s mother Queen Katherine de valoir a very sexy Widow who fell for Owen completely there’s no record that they ever got married but they did have five children when Catherine died in 1437 Henry VI 6 was still only 13 and the Barons who ran the kingdom in his name put Owen in prison but when Henry came of age he brought his stepfather Owen chuda back to court and gave eroms to his Step Brothers Edmund and Jasper chudo Owen ensured Edmund’s marriage to a girl from Henry’s family Edmund died very soon after the marriage but his 13-year-old bride Margaret boett was already pregnant their son was born at pemr Castle he was named after the King Henry [Music] Judah and Owen had a grandson with a blood connection to the House of Lancaster the family of the king they weren’t actually the legitimate line Henry of Lancaster Henry Bolingbrook had deposed his cousin Richard II in 1399 to become Henry IV the Thrones of his son and Grandson Henry vith and 6th rested on that shaky Foundation which crumbled in the wars of the Roses when the true heirs to the throne the house of York began to battle for their inheritance Owen chuda stood squarely with the Henry’s the lancastrians that after all was where he had invested all his hopes he fought for them and in 1461 died for them beheaded by yorkist in Herford Marketplace he was the last Tudor to lose his head but as we all know the chuds would take up this approach to problem solving themselves you might say with a [Music] Vengeance Edward of York seized the throne Edward IV and Owen’s four-year-old grandson Henry chuda began what would be Decades of living on the run or as a refugee but 3 years later King Edward did something that would eventually give Henry chuda everything Owen had wished for he fell in love and that began a chain of events which altered all England’s history when Edward was about 20 he was whay by an attractive Widow of about 25 who was trying to recover her late husband’s property Edward 6’3 tall and really very good-looking wanted to help and he became boted it seems she persuaded him to secretly enter into a contract to marry her her name was Elena Butler about a year later in 1464 another attractive Widow 26 years old pulled the same stunt and Edward did it again unbelievable this time the lady was called Elizabeth Woodville and this time it wasn’t just a contract to marry it was a full marriage to a commoner when Elizabeth Woodville was crowned in Westminster Abbey the whole of Europe was scandalized marriage was all about alliances of power and property marrying a penniless woman for love was simply disgusting the negotiators trying to arrange a proper Royal marriage were humiliated and when Edward heaped honors wealth and titles on Elizabeth’s relatives the River Family the nobility of England were outraged they were quite frankly getting completely above themselves if anyone had known about Edward’s promise to marry Elena Butler things would have been even worse but she was quietly shut up in a Convent and died in 1468 as it was Edward lost so much support that in 1470 he was actually driven out of England and Henry V 6 came back to the throne a few months later Edward came back into London and regained the crown thanks to the strong support of London merchants to whom he owed money and even more it was said of their wives and daughters who really seemed to have found him romantically interesting which face it Henry V 6 certainly wasn’t unless you fancied an elderly saintly scholar who’d lost his mind in the battles that followed Henry’s son another Edward was killed and King Henry himself captured disappeared into a prison and was never seen again the whole male line of the House of Lancaster the descendants of the sons of John of gaun was now extinct except for one fragile thread Margaret bord and her 15-year-old son Henry chuda not that they had any claim to the crown of course the Lancaster Dynasty had begun by simply usurping the throne but on top of that Margaret’s grandfather was illegitimate a law had been passed to make him legitimate but it also so barred him and his descendants from the succession and that would probably have been that if it hadn’t have been for Edward’s little secret which didn’t emerge until Edward himself was dead he was only 41 when he fell ill and died his son the Prince of Wales also called Edward was just 12 years old everyone refers to this young man as Edward V but he was never crowned [Music] the dead King’s will was clear Prince Edward would be his successor of course but he would be in the care of a guardian and protector of the Kingdom that person was Edward IV’s Brother Richard Duke of Gloucester we all know him as the most evil King in English History the war oped and twisted Richard III Richard had been in effect King Edward’s Vice Regent in the north based in the city of York and no one at that time said anything bad about him at all but the queen thought there was someone even better to run her son’s Kingdom her King Edward IV had died at Westminster Elizabeth immediately sent her brother and other members of her household rushing up to Ludo where Prince Edward was staying the idea was to hustle him to London and install him before Richard even knew what was going on then she and her family the rivers would have control of everything Richard of course did find out what was going on and said he would meet up with the party as they brought the prince through Northampton okay okay except that when he got to Northampton he found that the rivers didn’t have the prince with them alarmed Richard took them prisoner and found their baggage stuffed with arms and armor there was plainly an attempt being made at a coup Richard nipped it in the bud he found they’d secreted the prince in Stony Stratford Elizabeth’s family home this was before blue plaques had been invented Richard escorted the prince to London and installed him in the Tower of London while he set about organizing the coronation and then came the bombshell the dead King’s contract to marry Ellena Butler had been made in front of a priest who now decided it was time to speak oops if Edward really had been betrothed to Elena his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was bigamy and the Young Prince couldn’t be king because he was illegitimate was this true this man Robert sington was no ordinary priest Edward had promoted him and trusted him making a bishop and Keeper of the privy seal and then Chancellor of England but then stillington became awfully friendly with King Edward’s ambitious brother the Duke of Clarence and Clarence could not be trusted an inch if Edward’s children were illegitimate Clarence would be next in line to the throne Edward quickly had his brother sentenced to death and executed in private with no chance to make a public statement instead the world was told clar had drowned in a butt of Momsy a barrel of sweet wine such a sad accident and stillington spent a year locked in the tower after his release perhaps nervous of the power of strong drink he kept his mouth shut until Edward was dead but now he spoke and Parliament believed him with Edward’s children illegitimate and clarence’s disinherited when he was executed Richard was left as the proper successor he reluctantly accepted well he [Music] accepted and the Tower of London changed from the prince of wales’s Palace into his prison he shared it with his brother neither was ever seen again did Richard have them killed no one knows but later the evidence was going to be shaped as far as possible to make him guilty he’s been said to have personally killed Henry V 6 and Henry’s son whose Widow he married and done the dirty deed with Clarence and the momy quite apart from the murder of the princes in the tower the picture of Richard that’s come down to us the hunchbacked Sinister and ruthless Tyrant is a caricature painted after he’d been deposed and immortalized by the chuda’s greatest propagandist William Shakespeare one of the buildings inside the Tower of London was even given the name the bloody Tower to associate it with Richard’s foul murder of the princes though they almost certainly were in a different building anyway he’d certainly been a popular figure in the north of England where his brother had charged him with healing the divisions of the wars of the Roses but it only took 4 months for a rebellion to emerge against him the Rival candidate was of course the boy across the water now not such a boy Henry chuda the house of York was now as extinct as the House of Lancaster Henry chuda was all there was for disappointed yorkists as well as lancastrians and there were plenty of disappointed yorkists Richard gave positions power and wealth to Men He trusted whom he’d got to know in the north of England leaving a lot of Southerners out in the cold who thought they could do much better under a more sympathetic figure and now he came with a force of 2,000 refugees and French soldiers oen chuda’s grandson landed at Milford Haven in Wales on the 1st of August 1485 3 weeks later when he came to do battle at Bosworth his Force had grown by just 3,000 men Richard came to the battlefield as rightful King of England before the battle began he held a coronation ceremony restating his right of true succession to the crown Crown a right which Henry Judah did not possess at all the crown of England was found lying under a bush at the end of the battle of Bosworth and placed on Henry judah’s head and Henry understood how you rule England not by winning over great Nobles they’d pretty well all been wiped out but by winning over public opinion the pen is mightier than the sword especially when it tells the story of what [Music] happened firstly he must not be accused of killing a king So Richard III was not King on the day of the battle of Bosworth Henry chuda dated his Reign from the day before the battle it was Richard who’d been fighting against the king not Henry Henry was King it was Richard who was the traitor got that secondly he must deal with the question of his legitimacy as a ruler so he married Edward IV’s daughter she was the legitimate line of descent from William the Conqueror a true plantagenet their son when they had one would be the legitimate Heir by every possible standard well so long as Edward IV’s daughter was legitimate so that had to be dealt with all documents ments relating to the business of Edward’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville being invalid were destroyed all documents relating to the illegitimacy of their children were destroyed including the act of Parliament that had spelled out why Richard should be king these orders were carried out so efficiently that only one copy of the ACT has ever been found that’s how we know about it other evidence may have existed destroyed even more efficiently and if the children were not illegitimate then of course Prince Edwood had been the true king of England and Richard was a regicide what a villain assuming of course that Richard had been responsible for the boy’s death well he couldn’t be alive because if he were he and not Henry Juda would be the rightful King there are some nasty people who suspect that if the princes in the tower were still alive before the Battle of Bosworth Henry would have disappeared them Richard III became the Saddam Hussein of chudah propaganda never mind the legitimacy of the war to destroy him it did the world a favor of course the consolidation of power was not only a matter of creating favorable propaganda it also involved getting rid of a few people Clarence for example the Momsy drowner had a young son the Earl of Warick a nephew of both Edward IV and Richard III he had been barred from the succession but so had the man now on the throne so there was no security in that he went straight into prison in the Tower of London but then a priest in Ireland suddenly produced a 10-year-old boy who he said was the rescued Earl the boy looked right spoke right had all the right manners he was solemnly crowned in Dublin Cathedral as Edward v 6 and a force of Irish supporters backed by Flemish troops then landed in the north of England they were supported by the Earl of Lincoln John de lapole who was also a nephew of Edward IV and Richard III he was their sister’s son in fact Richard iiii who had no children had designated John as heir to the throne John knew perfectly well that the child was an impostor called Lambert simel who had been carefully trained for the project and the rebels had obviously assumed that Henry had killed the Earl of Warick so wouldn’t be able to prove that simnel was an impostor they were wrong The Prisoner still alive was put on public display and the rebels were crushed but never missing a trick Henry forgave the child and gave him a job in the Royal Kitchen he grew up to be a royal Falconer another imposter appeared in 1492 this time claiming to be the younger of the princes in the tower Richard Duke of York his real name was Perkin warbeck and he stayed on the continent collecting support from anyone who fell out with Henry Henry had persuaded Parliament to set up a special Court to try members of the nobility who were a threat to the crown a number of warbeck supporters suddenly found themselves arrested tried for treason and facing execution this court was to become the notorious Court of the Star Chamber Perkin was a constant irritant first trying to invade from Ireland then teaming up with the King of Scotland and finally in 1497 he raised a rebellion in Cornwall which Henry crushed and promising leniency persuaded Perkin to surrender Perkin was imprisoned in the tower which of course already housed clarence’s son the Earl of wari and of course it wasn’t long before evidence appeared that the pair of them were plotting a joint escape and that was the end of both of them the there was one other person with a claim to the throne Henry chuda’s mother Margaret in fact whatever claim he had she must have a better one but no woman had ever ruled England in her own right and Henry needed a son to inherit the throne his eldest was named Arthur this child of the blood Royal was to be linked not just to the plantagenets but to patriotic English Legends but Arthur died in 1502 leaving his younger brother brother Henry as the chudah heir and in 1509 when the 52-year-old King died Henry VII succeeded to the [Music] throne he was the perfect king a king out of the story books he was 17 years old extremely well educated extremely good-look with polished manners and the style and physique of an athlete he also had an unchallengeable claim to the crown and to secure the succession Henry VII married the woman to whom he’d been betrothed for seven years Katherine of aragan his dead brother’s widow the Spanish worried that this was against Church rules and so the pope granted a dispensation in fact this was all rubbish while the Bible specifically forbids a man from sleeping with his brother’s wife he’d actually insists that he must marry his brother’s widow anyhow 2 years later Catherine gave birth to a son but the infant soon died so did the next in fact the marriage only produced one child that lived a girl called Mary Henry was effectively all powerful there were no great Barons anymore in England and his father had left a well stocked treasury Parliament consisted to a large extent of men who depended one way or another on Royal favor and the countryside was controlled by justices of the peace who served the government you can see the change in the very nature of power from the home of Henry’s Chancellor 50 years earlier Edward IV’s Chancellor had been a Neville the son of the Earl of Salsbury in those days an englishman’s home had been his castle Middleton Castle actually it was his father’s home and that great Lord had also been Chancellor independently powerful men based in a mighty fortified Palace but under the chuds the great power of the Nevels had been broken Middleton Castle was in the hands of the king when Henry VII’s Chancellor woy built himself a home it certainly wasn’t a castle it was This Magnificent Palace Hampton Court glass windows instead of Arrow slits and chimneys instead of crenellations no one needed a fortified house under the protection of a great king and it was all at Henry’s pleasure if Woolsey didn’t deliver what the king wanted he was entirely dispensable and that of course is what [Music] happened the Royal marriage was haunted by the ghost of their dead Sons by the end of the 1520s Katherine was in her late 40s had stopped getting pregnant and there was still no male Heir just a daughter and England had never been ruled by a woman woman Henry determined to have a male air must get rid of his wife then he would be free to take a younger bride and make a baby boy the bride in question and berin was already well installed in Henry’s life Henry who’d already enjoyed her sister as his mistress had wooed Anne with enthusiasm he married her in 1533 her coronation didn’t seem to impress londoners their entwined initials on the banners produce shouts of haha she was visibly pregnant and gave birth to a child trat another girl she was named Elizabeth and little Mary was declared illegitimate the legality of this marriage must be sorted out before her next baby that was wse’s job he had to persuade the Pope that his predecessor should never have allowed the marriage to Catherine Henry fancied himself as a theologian he’d written an attack on Luther which became a bestseller and the pope had declared him a defender of the faith a proud boast which he stuck on the coinage and has remained there ever since every English Monarch is FID deaf so he told woy exactly how the argument should be put to the pope woy could probably have swung it if he’d been left alone as it was he failed and lost his job and the pope had also failed so Henry the defender of the faith filed the pope to achieve this dras IC act having himself legally declared the Supreme head of the church in England required an extraordinary shift in power he had to find a way of giving the nation a voice so that it could say what he wanted that way was through Parliament the church’s wealth and power was hugely unpopular the notion of no longer paying Church taxes to Rome was really very cheery but it wasn’t as simple as that some people believe that the Pope really did represent Divine Authority and for many others there was a fear that the pope might excommunicate their customers on the continent if they continue trading with him with the effective help of a new chief minister Thomas Cromwell and a new Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas cranmer parliament passed the necessary acts by the end of 1534 the king of England had become legally the total overall supreme ruler of the whole shibang he closed down all the monasteries and nunneries there weren’t all that many people in them less than 10,000 over the whole country but there may have been 10 times that number dependent on them and in areas such as Lincolnshire and Northumberland there was armed Rebellion one of the Rebel leaders was John Neville from that great old family of Barons but the Nevels were no threat to the modern crown the rebellions were [Music] crushed and monastic lands were sold off cheap to bolster the treasury make Henry more popular and allow successful businessmen to turn themselves into grateful country Gentry who would loyally support the crown the old struggle for power between the papacy and the monarchy had now been decisively settled Becket the 12th century Archbishop whose defense of church power had led to his martyrdom had been the most popular Saint in England Henry ordered Becket to be declared no saint to be tried and convicted of treason and for his bones to be burned burned and the dust scattered in the air who’s in charge now eh what’s more in 1536 Catherine of aragan died meaning that the problem of the ex- queen had gone away he and amberin dressed in bright yellow to celebrate but four months later he was told that Anne had committed adultery Henry was surrounded by courtiers jockeying for influence forming alliances factions to do down those who might damage them and Anne became a victim of an organized campaign by those who felt endangered by her faction whether it was true or not no one knows because Henry’s Fury was so total that her trial and those of her supposed lovers was a travesty she might indeed get pregnant with a boy but then its parentage would be in doubt and she might not she’d miscarried at least twice since Elizabeth’s birth without a legitimate son it had all been for nothing Anne was imprisoned in the Royal lodgings in the Tower of London Henry had extended them before their coronation and now she was occupying them for the first time not as his wife but as his prisoner after 18 days she was beheaded and Henry married Jane [Music] Seymour England after the death of amberin was a kingdom like no other Henry ruled in England as head of the church as well as king like some Pagan priest king he was the judge of heresy as well as crime he held the keys to Heaven as well as to Earthly promotion that chap in the Vatican was now just referred to as the bishop of Rome to even think the wrong thoughts in this Kingdom could be treason that was how the new Chancellor Thomas Moore found himself imprisoned in the bell tower of the Tower of London not for what he did or even what he said but for thinking that the king should not be head of the church he was publicly executed on Tower Hill Henry was terrifying magnificent generous dangerous and in most people’s eyes the best King England had seen in a very long time and Jane had a son Edward sadly she died in childbirth but the throne was safe his only problem was abroad and by 1539 it did begin to look as though the bishop of Rome might be lining up some muscle against him but there were now well established and Powerful Protestant princes in Germany and on the fine old principle that my enemy’s enemy is my friend Henry married into their world he got Anne of cleaves for a wife the defender of the faith intellectual scourge of the lutherans had married one actually neither of them was much interested in in theology or in each other Henry now fat with an ulcerating leg and a vicious temper thought his 23-year-old wife was plain smelly and lacking in all The Graces he called her a flanders’s mayor and they both quickly agreed the marriage was a terrible mistake fortunately it was soon discovered that she had a pre-contract of marriage with someone else and so there never had been a valid marriage to Henry the only casualty was Thomas Cromwell who’d set the whole thing up and who now went to the block well him and one of Anne’s ladies in Waiting Katherine Howard her destruction began when Moors ended she was a kind of well-connected Monica Linsky figure a teenager with sex on her mind who wanted to seduce the most powerful man around and he fell for her and married her and when she carried on being sexy and had had sex with other men he flew into another tempestuous rage and had her beheaded her Lover’s heads were mounted on London Bridge Henry then decided to marry John Neville’s Widow Katherine par she was extremely nervous but had no choice she worked hard at trying to keep Henry’s temper in check moderating his ferocity towards people he thought were traitors or Heretics and persuading him to acknowledge Mary and Elizabeth as his legitimate children his death 4 years later in 1547 was obviously a huge [Music] relief Henry had succeeded in leaving a son but only just Jane’s son Edward v 6 9 years old was a sickly child he was educated as a Renaissance Prince a human and as a Protestant far more so than his father he was only a child and government was in the hands of a council but in a world of Royal tyranny this child wielded terrifying power he was precocious much too interested in Theology and not nearly interested enough in other people he had a child’s indifference to signing death warrants he died in 1553 when he was 15 having declared declared his successor to be Lady Jane gray uh who Lady Jane gray King Edward’s closest adviser was a chap called John Dudley duuke of Northland he like everyone else knew that the next in line to the throne was Edward’s older sister Mary and Mary was a committed Roman Catholic which meant that when she came to power John Dudley would be in serious trouble well dead actually so John had been talking things over with his Royal little highness and they cooked up this bizarre proposal to hand the throne to John Dudley’s daughter-in-law the 15-year-old Jane gray she was Edward’s first cousin once removed not exactly next in line for the throne but Protestant the hereditary principle was a bit well a bit medieval don’t you think give that girl a crown Jane knew absolutely nothing about what was being planned for her and when she found out that she was to be Queen She fainted in shock England had been swindled and knew [Music] it Jane came to London as Queen but was she everyone’s eyes turned to Mary throughout all that had happened since Henry had disowned her Mary had very publicly maintained her Catholic faith and the public celebration of the mass she’d become a symbol of resistance to tyranny and whenever she appeared in public she was mobbed and cheered and now Mary announced that she was the proper heir to the throne and she was going from her home in framlington in Su to be crowned in London the journey Was A procession through Villages and towns filled with cheering crowds she entered London to the greatest Street party the city had ever seen the dancing drinking and bell ringing went on all night after just 9 days as the first woman to rule England Jane was placed under arrest by her own father who was supposed to be her Chief Defender she was imprisoned and Mary felt obliged in the end to have Jane executed it didn’t help that her father joined a rebellion against Mary but by then 6 months after her Triumph many people were ready to rebel against Mary the defiant woman who’d stood against tyranny was now on the tyrant’s throne the English didn’t actually like the papacy but Mary did the English didn’t like Spain but Mary did she married its King Philip II and the English didn’t like being forced to subscribe to religious belief on pain of death Mary had 277 people burned alive because of their religious opinions Bloody Mary unable to have children a bitter invalid England’s second queen died in 1558 42 years old the most detested ruler in all England’s history there were celebrations almost as fervent as had greeted her arrival 5 years before [Music] [Music] her sister Elizabeth came to sit in that terrible seat and be crowned by the grace of God Queen of England France and Ireland defender of the faith and supreme head of the Church of England and Ireland even though there was not a single yard of French soil actually ruled by England C England’s last little piece of France had been just before Mary’s death England had become an island and its Queen would have to be an island too she couldn’t marry because that would create a king who would be either a foreigner like philli or an opportunist courtier who’d come trailing faction and enemies in his wake she would be both queen and king the Virgin Queen ruling from a tyrant’s throne over a people whose support was essential monarchy in England was a paradox and Elizabeth’s solution to the Paradox was wholly bizarre the Tuda monarchy had been shaped by the need to create a line of valid legitimate male successors that had not materialized and now Elizabeth would choose to have no child at all how would the crown survive in fact her survival through Mary’s Reign had depended on her being free of any association with anyone else the slightest hint of her involvement with other people could have made her seem to be connected with plots against Mary and would have led to her execution she stayed mute giving no sign of a religious political or emotional attachment that might destroy her by the time she came to the throne the persecutions of her predecessors had left it a stark and lonely Place nine Bishop Ricks were vacant there was only one Duke Left Alive and the treasury was empty she had no clo close relatives Left Alive the heir to the throne was her aunt’s granddaughter Mary Queen of Scots a Roman Catholic no one knew whether Elizabeth was a Roman Catholic or a Protestant the first test came over the oath of Allegiance Elizabeth insisted that like her father people must acknowledge her as head of the church the Bishops Roman Catholics appointed by Mary said that in that case none of them would allow her a coronation well all except for the bishop of carile he did the honors and the popular acclamation for the new Queen was terrific and she shouted back God have mercy good people Elizabeth interpreted her religious role in a new way she declared that she didn’t mind whether her subjects were catholic or Protestant so long as they were loyal she’d survived by being very careful about what she said and did and that was how she coped with sovereignty she dared not marry or be touched by Scandal but her every move was watched like any modern Royal maybe more so to the extent that her laundresses were bribed by ambassadors who wanted to know whether her periods had stopped in case she was [Music] pregnant she made herself look Splendid held magnificent pageants and eventually seemed to be holding the kingdom together without the rebellions persecutions and massacres that had become regular features of English life she managed this in partnership with an immensely loyal and capable Minister William cile and constantly teasing the world with a showy flirtation with the Earl of Lester Robert Dudley but the love affair she really encouraged was to have the nation adore her in poetry paintings and theater she was Gloriana the magical Beauty to whom loyalty and love were equally due and who had no lover or husband to distract her gaze the main threat facing her was the possibility of a Catholic plot to replace her with one of the grandchildren of Henry VII’s Sister Margaret either Mary Stewart Queen of Scots or Henry Stewart The Earl of darnley both of them had a valid claim as Not only was Elizabeth excommunicated she was arguably illegitimate they were carefully encouraged to maneuver themselves into helplessness Mary was the more dangerous she’d been queen of France until her husband’s death and the ruler of Scotland who had French backing would be a danger to England even without the religious issue but Mary’s education had been unlike Elizabeth’s she’d not lived in fear of her life but in the indulgent French Court this was not a good preparation for life in Britain a land of conspiracies and killings darnley was a weak man in a weak position a good-look unstable lout what happened next looks like a cunning plan Elizabeth pretty much much obliged the 19-year-old Darley to visit the 22-year-old Widow Mary having ordered him not to marry her the result was totally predictable and Darley was a total liability to Mary dimwitted and resentful of his lack of power he was also furiously jealous and when he thought her adviser Rito was having an affair with Mary he joined a plot that had Rito murdered in front of her she now view darnley the Patsy in all this with hatred and contempt and was herself complicit in the plot that murdered him with an explosion she ended up fleeing her own kingdom and throwing herself on Elizabeth’s Mercy ultimately a bad place to be Elizabeth was half the time sure that Mary should be executed to deprive Catholic plotters of a candidate for the throne and half the time sure that she should do no such thing ruling Queen were rarer than hen’s teeth for one to kill another really wasn’t good she signed the death warrant but in a state of real distress Mary and darnley had a son James and he was now the virtually incontrovertible heir to Elizabeth’s Throne she wrote to him confirming that and apologizing for what she’d done to his mother the very idea that it was legitimate to kill a crown Sovereign was extremely dangerous Elizabeth was deeply concerned with the rights and Powers the prerogatives of The Sovereign she was very wary of parliament which in her view treated every request for taxes as a blackmail opportunity to give itself powers of government so she tried very hard not to ask for taxes and her government was parsimonious mean as possible and then some she was determined to protect Royal Authority she refused to allow Parliament refer to England as a state she said it sounded too much like something to do with the states General the Parliamentary body that ruled the Dutch Republic that Republic born out of a rebellion against the king of Spain was in Elizabeth’s eyes an unfortunate novelty it was her Ally in her struggle to keep England out of Spain’s clutches but she was nervous that its political ideas might be catching England was a kingdom it happened to be ruled by a queen but as she famously said one who had the heart and stomach of a king of course Elizabeth’s greatest moment was when she managed to see off the Spanish Armada when Philip II by far the most powerful ruler in the world assembled a vast Fleet to collect an invasion Army from the low countries and bring England back into the Roman Catholic Church the English Fleet genuinely patriotic genuinely daring skillfully harried the Armada to prevent it finding a safe Anchorage where it could make contact with the landing [Music] Force when the Spanish decided to sail home they were hit by strong winds and Heavy Seas that were too much for many of these Mediterranean cargo vessels so far as the English and the Dutch were concerned God had blown them away Philip himself saw it as a baffling defeat that meant God was not on his side but Elizabeth was still not prepared to ask Parliament for the money to pay her Victorious sailor wages they were not due to be paid until they came ashore so their queen left them rotting at anchor and when Messengers came to court to plead for the starving men who’d saved England they arrived in the middle of extravagant celebrations of the Victory and were turned away Elizabeth died the grand grandest of all England’s rulers in 16003 her successor was Mary’s son James Stewart already ruler of Scotland he had inherited Glory but with it an empty Treasury and an isolated [Music] Kingdom the story of the king and queens of England is more surprising than you might think it’s a fine drama a thousand years of tales of lust and betrayal of heroism and cruelty of mysteries murders tragedies and triumphs and the story of the Stewarts is when you think about it the most surprising of all it’s the story of a country deciding that it should abolish the monarchy and become a republic and then then without any outside force or pressure overthrowing the Republic and making itself a monarchy again that never happened anywhere else why did it happen here James became King of Scotland when his mother Mary fled to England in 1567 he was one year old when he was crowned James I 6 he grew up learning how to steer a path between religious Fanatics and the violent Scottish nobility and at the same time acquired a serious scholarly education he was very proud of that he pleaded for his mother’s life but accepted the fact of her execution by the English Queen Elizabeth business was business and he had no memory of Mary he’d been taught that she was a Scarlet woman and she had after all murdered his father and taken a lover he was the recognized heir to the English crown and he wasn’t going to put that in danger and so in 16003 when Eliz isabeth the Virgin Queen eventually died the oldest monarch England had ever had he came from Edinburgh to London for his [Music] coronation he was openly bisexual the word in London was that Elizabeth had been a king and now they had James the queen in Latin of course by the accident ident of heredity England and Scotland were now United in a single Kingdom Britain everyone had high hopes of James especially the Roman Catholics who thought that his distaste for bossy Scottish Presbyterians would encourage him to lift Elizabeth’s restraints on their worship they were wrong about that so A group of well-connected Roman Catholic terrorists plan to blow up the entire political structure at the the opening of parliament in 16005 they brought over an explosives expert from the low countries he organized placing 2 and 1/2 tons of gunpowder in a Cellar under the Palace of Westminster it’s a sign of how secure England became that for the last 200 years November the 5th the anniversary of guy folks’s capture has been simply an excuse for a fun night of pretty explosions today of course in the shadow of 9/11 511 has a more chilling resonance alqaeda terrorism has tainted many people’s idea of Muslims which perhaps makes it easier to understand how Fork’s terrorism affected people’s idea of Roman Catholics actually James himself was more sympathetic to high Church than to low because the followers of protestant sects did not want priests and Bishops to do religion on their behalf in the Protestant View The Godly man has his own Bible the devil’s agent is a priest with a Catholic prayer book James felt that people who didn’t have respect for hierarchy in church would be equally disrespectful of authority in general no Bishop no King was his fear and the authority of the King was very dear to him he spelled out his ideology in masks theatrical balls in his new banqueting house in whiteall his intellectual take on the job was that he was God’s deputy and that he ruled by divine right as the absolute Sovereign power in England having been raised in Scotland he was rather baffled by the idea of common law the notion that law was in the hearts and minds of the people expressed through the presidents of the courts and their juries of ordinary folk but this was the essence of the English system it had been a essential for the Normans to operate that way as foreign rulers in a land they didn’t know and it had become embedded in the fabric of English life Henry VII and Elizabeth had the position of tyrants but their tyranny required popular consent they had to be popular in order to rule James wasn’t good at being popular he was head of a court a place of factions and favorites and was Grand in a very private way one example of his sense of power and Duty was in his treatment of tobacco it had been introduced from America by water Ry and Elizabeth had felt rather alarmed by it it made her feel [Music] ill she bet Ry that he couldn’t weigh the smoke that came out of a pipe Ry knew how to perform he weighed an ounce of tobacco smoked it weighed the Ash and the missing weight was the smoke Elizabeth laughed and paid up saying she’d seen men turn their gold into smoke but this was the first time she’d seen smoke turn to Gold James’s whole approach was different he disliked smoking and felt it was his duty to protect his subjects but he was a rational man a teacher so he wrote a pamphlet count a blast to Tobacco explaining that it was loathsome to the eye hateful to the nose harmful to the brain dangerous to the lungs and in the black stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible stigant smoke of the pit that is bottomless he wanted to persuade people by the force of his argument so he published it anonymously of course no one took any notice so as the white wise and kindly father of his people he banned the growing of tobacco in England and increased the customs duty on Tobacco by 4,100 per. and reissued the pamphlet with his name on it his whole approach was based on rational thought not an English habit and what he saw as the absolute authority of a king also rather foreign to them and his author was not backed by any army and his income was too small to run both the court and the government the regular Royal income came from rents on lands feudal dues and customs duties but the flood of gold and silver coming to Europe from the new world had created inflation reducing the real value of that income medieval government was designed for rather static farming economies and vast Estates towns run by Common folk with special Liberties granted in Chargers had been useful little add-ons but now International and InterContinental trade had blossomed the Nobles had declined the towns had become major Financial Centers inflation the growth of protestantism a lack of respect for traditional Authority the emergence of assertive members of parliament none of this was restricted to England but in England it had a slightly different flavor everywhere else the ruler made the law he was the law but not in England kingship existed under the law James simply didn’t understand this he was certain that the job of King meant being Above the Law and being James he not only understood this was the problem but said so as a matter of principle and when the Lord chief justice disagreed the Lord chief justice got the sack James W’s people said the wisest fool in chrom he needed to raise taxes but taxation was always regarded as a special event taxes might be levied if there was an emergency need for cash but the law said that this could not be done without the agreement of parliament which gave the commons the chance to present demands to him they expected what was called redress of grievances before granting him supplies and these were exactly the kind of people who tended to be Puritans low church with no real sense of proper deference to people better born than themselves so he avoided that as much as possible his way of life didn’t help either his diversions were hunting an obsession and pretty young men another Obsession right at at the start of his Reign he took up with a pretty young Scott who’d been his page Robert Carr was given the estate of the executed water Ry and quickly became a vicount and a privy counselor when Carr decided to Wed the married 17-year-old Countess of Essex who hated her husband James helped to sort out the divorce the countess’s family the Howards detested car but realized this was the best way to get into favor at court car’s close friend Sir Thomas overbury tried to warn him off that filthy bass woman which annoyed the Countess so the sweet young couple poisoned Sir Thomas which opened the door eventually to the Howard’s enemies who exposed the murder plot to James while providing him with another very beautiful young man George Villas to take Carr’s Place Carr and his wife were sentenced to death and Villers whose legs were wonderful became the dukee of Buckingham and the murderous couple were pardoned by the time King James died age 58 in 1625 the king and the Puritans were set on course for a direct collision and his son Charles wasn’t going to change direction the new King was 25 years old go with a nervous stammer but deeply conscious of his place as God’s anointed ruler of Britain the new new father figure and he played the part of absolute ruler as well as he possibly [Music] could of course it was not the part that the Puritan merchants and gentry wanted played they refused to Grant taxes without being allowed a roll in government so Charles tried to manage on the sources of revenue that didn’t need parliamentary approval the most celebrated example was when he levied ship money an ancient law was Unearthed obliging sea ports to provide ships in times of War true there was no war but there were pirates weren’t there in 1634 Charles made his demand and told the ports they could pay cash instead ship money this engraving was published to make people proud of paying up and then the next year he extended the demand to Inland communities otherwise it would be unfair it was obvious that if he got away with this he’d have reinvented taxation under another name and would never need Parliament at all the entire nation had steam coming out of its ears one wealthy buckinghamshire man John hamen MP refused to pay and was hauled into the court of exer hundreds of people tried to jam into the court to watch of the 12 judges seven found for the king and five for Hampton since the king had thought he controlled the Judiciary this was a moral victory for hamon things were made worse by Charles’s actions as head of the church he regarded puritanism as fundamentally seditious which made many people think he was really a closet Roman Catholic he wasn’t but he was determined to impose a uniform system of worship which was decidedly High Church and that simply added to the anger of a growing Puritan class and in Scotland it was met by direct [Applause] Rebellion without the money to hire reliable troops and with popular hostility in London making life positively dangerous Charles had to accept restrictions on his power which were to him intolerable in 1641 he agreed acts of parliament which took many powers from him including the right to olve Parliament and the right to raise customs duties without its consent in January 1642 in a state of confused desperation he tried to arrest five members of The Commons by actually turning up there with armed guards he failed and faced with violent anger in the streets he fled from London in November the now inevitable Civil War [Music] began people were called upon to choose between their King’s determination to break the pretensions of Parliament and parliament’s determination to limit the power of the king most people actually didn’t think they wanted to get involved but the war grew with a murderous logic of its own and gradually became more bitter and more [Music] inescapable it’s now reckoned that possibly a quarter of a million people died in battle of starvation of disease as a result of the fighting out of a population of about 5 million that’s a far higher death rate than in the first world war when the war ended in 1646 with the defeat of Charles’s forces an attempt was made to negotiate a settlement but Charles was a dishonest negotiator simply using this opportunity to try and organize the conquest of England from Ireland and Scotland and then something quite new happened in the brief and decisive second war the Parliamentary Army developed a revolutionary will of its own when Charles was recaptured in 1647 Parliament tried to disband its forces but General Fairfax and his men proclaimed that they were not a mere mercenary Army and flatly refused to go home their job wasn’t finished the revolution had to be completed they said it had to be established that the House of Commons was the supreme authority of England and the King was but at the most the chief public officer of this Kingdom and accountable to this house that was in September 1648 the commons said don’t be so silly you are exceedingly deceived for God gives the king his authority the Army wasn’t happy with that so it crushed Parliament it occupied London used some Pauls as the Cavalry stables and looted the treasury 45 MPS were arrested 146 were barred the rump that remained were in effect the members chosen by the Army who would do what it wanted which was to put Charles on trial for treason for levying war against the Parliament and Kingdom of England the rump Parliament as people called it resolved that they could make laws without the consent of the king or of the House of Lords and then passed a law setting up a court to try the King Charles said that he didn’t recognize the court that someone needed to explain to him what Authority it possessed on the 27th of January 1649 this court condemned him to death Charles was taken to the banqueting house that theatrical set built by his father for dramatic presentations in which the scripts were all about the glory of royal power it was no longer used for those masks Charles had commissioned Rubin to make paintings for the ceilings and they were too precious to be damaged by candles smoke the ideology of the performances had now been put on permanent display by rubben the painting celebrated James’s absolute rule casting out war and Discord bringing peace Harmony order and prosperity to grateful [Applause] people Charles the small dignified stuttering man who’ commissioned the work and presided over the reality that flowed from it was marched out through a window onto a specially constructed platform he wore a thick vest so that he would not shiver with cold which might be mistaken for Terror and on that stage he knelt with calm dignity and his head was cut off Britain no longer had a [Music] king a week after the execution Charles II was proclaimed King in Scotland but Charles the First’s 18-year-old son wasn’t there he was in the Netherlands he’d fled to France with a group of supporters four years earlier and his one brief attempt to provide military help to his father in the second Civil War had been a failure his object now was to find a way of recovering his father’s throne and to hell with that stuff about being an absolute monarch he landed in Scotland in 1651 and was prepared to sign up to whatever was asked of him including agreeing to his father’s blood guilt and his mother’s idolatry and becoming Presbyterian if that’s what it took to be proclaimed King do it the new English Republic wasn’t going to stand for this of course the Army commanded by Cromwell took over Scotland Charles’s forces were finally defeated at Worcester if he’d been caught he would probably have been killed the story of his Escape disguised as a Worcester yokul became a famous Legend at one point he spent all day hiding with a companion in an oak tree while the roundhead searched for him below it became a celebrated story in a way that didn’t bode well for the Republic Charles looked dashing and daring while The Roundheads looked ridiculous incompetent and heavy-handed after the execution of Charles I England was a republic look at what happened to the design of the Great Seal the official mark on statutes and proclamations here’s Charles’s seal the Seal of a king he cans on Horseback with his Greyhound running alongside and the Latin motto means Charles by the grace of God King of Great Britain France and Scotland defender of the faith after his execution the new Republic was in theory ruled by the House of Commons so instead of a king’s seal the Great Seal was the Seal of the House of Commons it shows the Commonwealth a map of Britain and on the other side are the commons themselves and the motto simply says 1651 in the third year of Freedom by God’s blessing restored in English didn’t last though because the real power wasn’t the House of Commons it was the Army for a while the Army was too busy to take much notice of England it was occupied with the destruction of Ireland where a large part of the population were irredeemably loyal to Catholicism and the monarchy but when it finally turned round and looked at England it found that there still hadn’t been a thoroughgoing Puritan [Music] Revolution so in 1653 Cromwell the Army’s most powerful General cleared the Commons at sword point and installed a new Parliament which he thought would be more capable of bringing about a revolutionary transformation of society his own chamber of righteous Puritans the so-called nominated Parliament turned out to be no more to his liking and he dismissed that too installing himself as the Lord protector and the Great Seal was now his own it shows Oliver Cromwell on Horseback just like Charles but stepping out very stately rather than cantering with a greyhound and the motto says by the grace of God the Republic of England Scotland and Ireland and the protector Oliver in in in what sense was this a republic however unwillingly and he kept protesting his unwillingness Cromwell was driven by his own belief in the divine right of Revolution to run the country as a militarized kingdom for Puritan Saints there were now 11 districts each run not by the people but by Major generals these military Ayatollah collected taxes ran the courts and controlled public morality theaters were closed along with brothel and gambling dens horse racing and fights were banned everyone had to go to church stay sober and morally upright Pagan festivities like Christmas were banned mince pies were forbidden oh it must have been great in 1656 a newly elected Parliament made it clear they wanted to return to the old Constitution they reopened the House of Lords and offered Cromwell the title of King he seriously considered it and although he turned it down perhaps because the Army would have turned against him two years later on his deathbed he nominated his eldest surviving son as his successor like any other king very few people cheered Lord protector Richard Cromwell who was he not crowned not acclaimed not the leader of an army people called him Tumbl down dick and that’s pretty much what happened early in 1660 one of his father’s commanders General monk seized London and summoned a special Parliament to invite Charles II to return to the throne if you’re going to have a king it might as well be one with the right credentials tumbled down dick became a private citizen he changed his name and became a lodger in chant 30 years later he wrote to his daughter that his safety was to be retired quiet and Silent he would have made a good constitutional Monarch but while the English may not have been quite sure what they did want they now knew exactly what they didn’t want anything run by soldiers or Puritans no matter what else would happen in the world England would never again let a military man have any political power and a deep and abiding suspicion had been created of anyone who looks like a revolutionary or a religious Enthusiast actually this explains a lot about English History most countries were at some time in the last 300 years infected by revolutionary fervor or ideological passion but England it seems has been vaccinated it’s been pretty much immune to political feverishness still is I [Music] think Charles was really a very popular King his manner was light and easy his court dissolute and cheerful his sexual enthusiasms generous and very very unur as those great historians sers and yatan put it in 1066 and all that not so much a king more a monarch the years since his father’s execution were called the interregnum and the idea was to pretend that nothing much had really happened the Parliamentary records for those years were torn up an act of parliament gave the new king control of the Armed Forces and Parliament agreed to give him an inadequate annual revenue turn of the people people who’d been involved in the execution and trial of Charles I were themselves put on trial and then hanged drawn and quartered Cromwell and three other military commanders of the Parliamentary Army were also put on trial they didn’t put up a very convincing defense being dead their bodies were dug up and hung in Chains at tyburn it was all good popular entertainment and theaters reopened and mapoles were back in business merry England had been restored Charles had given a written promise of Pardons AAR of army pay and what was called Liberty of tender consciences in religious matters he also confirmed land purchases made during the internum which helped maintain stability but was a bit of a blow to Cavaliers who’d lost their wealth and their land by being on the wrong side in a way the sense of a new beginning was strengthened by the destruction of the cap Capital by plague and fire plague was a Swift and grotesque disease which had erupted frequently before but in 1665 it took a firm grip and killed about 20% of the City’s population London was largely turned into a ghost city as the survivors [Music] fled the king who’d moved to Hampton Court gave £1,000 a week to London charity and then London began to burn the king returned to the city with his brother James the Duke of York to take personal charge of firefighting in the streets everyone knew that the mayor had been too timid to pull down houses that might have created fire breakes until he was directly ordered to do so by Charles it certainly helped the Royal image though it didn’t help London much the old rotting disease structure was purified by an inferno that simply burned the place away as thoroughly as if it had been blasted by a nuclear weapon and a lot more cleanly and the new city that arose was a classic image of the political settlement of the restored monarchy the old medieval structures had gone but Christopher Ren’s plan for a brand new city of patas and arcades was rejected [Music] that was the sort of Renaissance princely City that existed on the continent they were the stages on which state ceremonies could be impressively performed by Grand leaders not needed here Ren was allowed to build a new modern Cathedral and a s of churches in which altar pulpit and congregation are positioned to be equally important not too Roman Catholic not too Puritan but the the old Street plan was retained everyone could rebuild their own place on their own plot and the narrow streets and little alleys of medeval London that still existed in everyone’s memories regrew From the Ashes even now neither German bombs nor modern developers have quite destroyed them there mustn’t be another fire laws would insist on flat fronts no overhangs more brick but the old city that had no overall plan not even a basic map reappeared with modern improvements designed not for a new life but for a better continuation of the old one exactly there was a general desire to better continue things as they had once been rather than invent something new or imitate something foreign there was one other marker in the rebuilt London that showed what kind of country this now was this fine column it marks the site where the fire had begun it shows the destruction of the city there’s Charles surrounded by Liberty genius and science giving directions for its restoration and there was originally an inscription explaining that the fire had been deliberately begun by papists in order to the carrying on their horrid plot for extera the Protestant religion and our English Liberty and the introducing popery and slavery it was nonsense but a French watchmaker was hanged for his part in the non-existent plot Robert Uber he wasn’t in London when it happened there was a pathological fear of papists awkward Charles had a pension from the King of France given when he’d promised to convert to Roman Catholicism the trick to being a king in this situation was Charles understood very well not to say exactly what his job was there was a parliament and it was beginning to form parties one pro- Monarch one anti but Parliament didn’t actually rule the country that was done by the king’s ministers a kind of Cabinet Government referred to as a cabal which meant that Charles wasn’t seen as entirely responsible for things going wrong which they quite often did the Earl of Rochester wrote a mock epito on Charles’s bed chamber door here lies our Sovereign Lord the king whose words no man relies on who never said a foolish thing nor ever did a wise one Charles saw it next morning and said quite right my words are my own but my acts are the acts of my ministers Charles died in 1685 54 years old on his deathbed he he converted to Roman Catholicism he had no legitimate Child Left Alive the next in line to the throne was his brother James who was already a Roman Catholic this really wasn’t going to [Music] work the restoration of the monarchy had obviously not been welcomed by everyone in the southwest especially Puritan religious feeling remained strong and suspicious especially with a Roman Catholic King Charles II had an illegitimate son the Duke of Monmouth who was a Protestant rumors began to spread that he was actually legitimate the true heir to the throne Mammoth came over from the low countries and began AR rising in the Southwest where he was proclaimed King MTH the rebellion was crushed James determined to make an example of the rebels ordered the arrest and Punishment of everyone involved at each center Dorchester Taunton exitor Bristol Wells people were rounded up for a special Court known as the bloody assis punishing not just Rebels but anyone who was accused of even helping the wounded [Music] around 230 people were executed some hanged drawn and quartered and about 850 were sent to labor in the West Indies for 10 years and many more of course were fined and had property confiscated and James did not disband the army that had been formed to put down the rebels England had a standing army again just as it had under Cromwell and he appointed Roman Catholic officers to run it people began to murmur and when the House of Lords expressed discontent he dissolved Parliament and as he continued to appoint Roman Catholics to public and church offices public support began to EB away from him at his instigation for instance all the fellows of morling College Oxford were dismissed and the college was turned into Catholic Seminary James had two daughters who were both Protestants the Elder girl Mary was married to William of Orange ruler of the Dutch a Protestant head of state the heir to the throne would reverse James’s whole policy but early in 1688 James’s Queen gave birth to a son who would be raised as a Catholic this was he thought excellent news it made him more secure he was wrong it sealed his fate well that and the fact that he seemed to be preparing for a joint war with Catholic France against the Protestant Dutch and now it became evident that the Civil War really had changed the place of the king in England he ruled by permission of Parliament and Parliament wasn’t going to put up with this one a group of leading members of parliament sent a secret invitation to William of Orange to save the country from a Catholic takeover by bringing them military assistance William brought over a fleet carrying a large professional Army James tried to block it with his own Fleet but the winds were against him and William landed unopposed in November 1688 at T Bay the West country had its own score to settle with James and James simply panicked the Army wasn’t behind him Parliament wasn’t London wasn’t he was going the same way as Tumbl down dick in the middle of the night he scurried out of whiteall Palace by a secret passage he got down to shess throwing the Great Seal into the temps on the way H that’ll Fox him didn’t Fox anyone he was captured by local fishermen eventually William gave him permission to go to France and no one had the faintest idea what to do next William hadn’t come to depose James but to give military backing to Parliament in their quarrel with him James had quite obviously quit abdicated gone taking his son with him England having failed to be a republic had failed to be a monarchy it was a bit of a Puzzler perhaps William should declare himself King by right of Conquest he didn’t think so Parliament wanted Mary to take the crown James’s daughter after all but she insisted that her husband was boss and he didn’t intend to play the Duke of Edinburgh role two paces behind the ruling lady this short stooping asthmatic man with bad teeth was tough and shrewd he was himself a grandson of Charles the first and wouldn’t make a humble consort in the end a deal was struck they would both be sovereigns Mr and Mrs King and Queen by the inv ation of [Music] Parliament and they had to sign up to some basic rules no standing army unless Parliament agreed to it no raising of money without parliament’s approval no royal power to lay down the law the king and queen couldn’t appoint or punish judges they couldn’t make war without parliament’s consent and Parliament would decide who could could have the crown and it wouldn’t be a Roman Catholic all the questions posed by the Civil War were finally answered and it was called the Glorious Revolution because in the end the whole basis of royal power was redefined without anyone being killed at all except in Ireland of course James with French backing decided to make a comeback through Ireland it was after all one part of Britain where a Catholic King could expect some enthusiasm Protestant settlers had been brought into ster and they held londondary and Enis skillin against the Catholic regiments eventually in 1690 there was a showdown between Williams anglo-dutch Danish Army and James’s Franco Irish one at the river Bo James was beaten in a battle which has cast a gresly long Shadow over ster the annual celebration there of the Protestant victory has never lost its 17th century passion the irony is that this was not a religious War at all it was a war to contain the Ambitions of France and the pope was actually firmly on the side of William of Orange the Vatican was more anti-f French than it was anti-protestant the orange men at the Battle of the bo were actually fighting for the pope as well as king Billy and Billy of course was not exactly English his native tongue was Dutch William a serious man ended up spending much of his time on the continent so in effect Mary did become The Sovereign of England but at the end of 1694 she died of small [Music] poox England was now in effect ruled by an oligarchy through Parliament the king had a role but by no means commanding one part of that role as he saw it was to push forward religious tolerance in a fundamentally intolerant country another part was to smash the French who were obviously a danger to everyone and everything tolerance does have its limits at his death in 1702 the question of the succession had already been agreed and settled the crown passed to Mary’s Sister Anne [Music] Anne was married as Mary had been to a foreign Prince but her husband Prince George of Denmark was no William of Orange He was a lazy alcoholic and while Anne was willing to let him be naturalized as an Englishman and notional head of the Army and Navy she was was Queen and he was a subject no married Queen had ever ruled alone before an and she played it very regly she was very keen on the ceremonial and quasim magical position of royalty holding ceremonies where she touched people with scrofula swollen neck glands from tuberculosis it was called The King’s evil and the power to cure it was supposedly the magical sign of true royalty she was the last Monarch to try it Kings had male favorites and had female favorites the first and closest was Sarah Churchill the wife of the dukee of marbor they called each other by pet names the queen was Mrs Freeman Sarah was Mrs moley Mrs moy’s husband was England’s leading military commander and the architect of a stunning victory at the Battle of Blen him that placed England in a dominant position in Europe but England’s Queen did not decide who to fight or when to fight or how to fight politics was no longer really her business even when in 1707 England and Scotland were formally and permanently United by the act of Union it was not an’s doing but parliament’s and did it was true refused to sign one act of parliament at around that time but it was a very minor technical issue not a real challenge to the power of the politicians her life was spent more playing cards chatting being ill and having 19 pregnancies these pregnancies were watched with Fascination by an elderly lady in Hanover Sophia The electrc Duchess of Brunswick lunberg she was James I’s granddaughter and because there were so few Protestants of the blood Royal Left Alive she was by Act of parliament next in line to the throne If Anne died childless and if she lived long enough one by one Anne’s pregnancies came and went 14 miscarriages and still births five live births but by the time Anne was widowed in 1708 all of them were dead Sophia aged 78 now just had to outlive the 43-year-old Anne to become Queen of England Anne was a sick woman soia was tough as an old boot she knew she could do it but in 1714 sopia received an outrageous letter from Anne Anne had somehow got the impression that sopia was going to secretly send her son George to England in some kind of plot and she told sopia that would not be allowed sopia now 84 was shocked and the shock killed her just nine weeks before Queen Anne died sfia had failed but her son George would now be king in theory a very weak constitutional Monarch but that hardly explains why 65 years later English men launched a new war against Royal tyranny and thousands were [Music] killed the story of the kings and queens of England is more surprising than you might think it’s a fine drama a thousand years of tales of lust and betrayal of heroism and cruelty of mysteries murders tragedies and triumphs and it’s also quite unlike the history of other countries royalty the thing about the kings and queens of England is that they’re totally different from anywhere else which probably explains why they’re still in business when almost everywhere else they’ve either been given the chop or have stopped being Regal this program looks at England’s monarchs from the death of Queen Anne to the ession of Victoria well Britain’s monarchs actually and if you look at Europe at the start of this story in 1714 you’ll see just what I mean a European king is an absolute ruler Louis the 14th Peter the Great Philip I of Spain Frederick William of Prussia all men of unlimited power it’s not like that in Britain Queen Anne has died there are no Protestant Stewarts left the Protestant line to the English Throne now passes through James’s granddaughter Sofia who had married a German Prince with the title of elector of Hanover and then from her to her son George Lewis who’s inherited that Antiquated title into one quarter of the royal coat of arms pops the amazingly complicated device of a 54-year-old German prining and when he comes to England for his coronation he knows perfectly well that he’s not going to be anything like those other rulers he will be most powerless so it really doesn’t matter that he can’t speak a word of English at the opening of parliament King George stood in silence while his words were read by the Lord Chamberlain the crown that had belonged to Normans French plantagenets Welsh Judas and Scottish stewards had now passed to the German hanoverians the new King’s son George Augustus arrived from herrenhausen to take his seat in the House of Lords as duke of rothy heir to the throne before leaving Germany he proudly declared I have not a drop of blood in my f which is not English Ry of course is a Scottish jum George Augustus did share one trait with his father’s English subjects a hearty dislike of King George and for the same reason 20 years before George became king of England something very mysterious had happened to his wife’s best friend The Dashing count konigsmark his wife Princess Sophia Dortha had come to detest her husband who spent his time either engaged in Endless European Wars or enjoying his various Mistresses kernig’s Mark tried to help her escape from Hanover he failed the count simply disappeared from the face of the Earth actually his body was shoved under the floorboards of the princess’s dressing room and the princess was banished and imprisoned her son George Augustus never forgave his father in fact fatherson detestation would be the defining Mark of the hanian dinasty they thrived on it the English weren’t too keen on that sort of behavior either they might have been more sympathetic if they’d approved of the two mistresses that George brought with him but they called them the mapole and the elephant and decided they were simply greedy Germans with their snouts in the trough and there were Scottish noblemen who thought that with George lacking support in England this might be an opportunity to hand the throne back to the Stuart family and in particular to James the second’s son living in France and known as The Pretender the French thought this would be a great idea Louis the 14th’s mistress Madame de Mantino even presented him with a song to be sung on his accession it had originally been written for Louie to celebrate his recovery from a surgical procedure on his bottom she translated it for the man who should she thought be James II of Scotland and why not James III of England God save gracious King Long Live a no King God Save the King the song turned out to be a bigger hit than the man Jacobite rising of 1715 was a complete flop and after spending a couple of months wandering around the highlands James went home to France George’s Throne was safe he spent every winter in Hanover and left the government of England to his ministers his own work was done by a new figure the Prime Minister a politician acting as a king’s substitute the first man to take on this role was Robert Walpole since Walpole didn’t speak German the pair of them communicated in school boy Latin King George died a sudden death in 1727 while in Hanover age [Music] 67 his son was living in Richmond forbidden by the old man to take any part in court life or even to see his own children when Walpole came with the news of his father father’s death George II appears to have regarded it as a wind up that is one big lie but the outcast Prince was indeed now George II by the grace of God King of Great Britain France and Ireland defender of the faith elector of Hanover Duke of brunsick lunberg and Duke of cah when he’d been convinced he came here to leester square at the time it was Lester house where he’d been running his own Court and here he was attended by the Archbishop of Canterbury who formerly presented him with his father’s will Royal Wills had once been the most powerful documents in the world when William the Conqueror and Henry II died their Wills established who would rule after them George took his father’s will and instead of opening it shoved it in his pocket it was never seen again to the great disappointment of his father’s Mistresses George II’s wife Queen Caroline had very firm ideas on what should happen next and her husband was quite obedient the result was that everyone who’ been hoping for their own promotion in a changed government was disappointed Walpole remained prime minister he’d promised her that she would get a personal Grant of £100,000 a year double the offer his opposition came up with and very little actually changed at all that included the traditional hostility between anyone called King George and his his son the son in question was now of course the son of George II Prince Frederick according to Queen Caroline he was the greatest ass the greatest liar the greatest Canali and the greatest beast in the whole world and we heartedly wish he was out of it she would have said it in German George agreed with the queen and refused to allow Frederick to marry princess Willamina of Prussia on the entirely sensible grounds that I did not think that engrafting my halfed cockcum upon a mad woman would improve the breed Prince Frederick’s view of his father was by contrast quite balanced and objective he’s an obstinate self-indulgent miserly martinette with an insatiable sexual appetite obstinate yes self-indulgent a fair point Miser well he had SL Frederick’s allowance to make him less of a social Rival martinette Well certainly a man of Relentless and determined regular routine and the sexual appetite we assume that is his right for instance he began seriously lusting after the beautiful young wife of the count of voden when he met her in Hanover in 1735 and he told the queen that you must loves valm for she loves me the popular viewer of the King was that he was a Randy buffoon he seems to been flattered by the jokes about his sexual efforts as his father had once done Frederick ran his own alternative Court which was far more popular than the king’s King George the second didn’t like that my God popularity always makes me sick but this makes me vomit the pair of them even patronized rival operatic outfits the king and his Entourage went to see h at the Hay Market handle had written George’s coronation anthems his music was Grand and glorious altogether suitable for magnifying the greatness of a self-important royal [Music] personage The Prince and his crowd stayed away they went instead to the theater Royal in Lincoln in fields that was where Opera was being transformed into popular musical theater the biggest hit was the beggar’s Opera a vigorous tale of the criminal classes which lots of people said was intended as a satire on the court and walpole’s government when you send the age be cautious and Sage lest the cautious offended should be if you mention VI so bribe T So Pat to all the tribe each cries that was leveled at me it was all very entertaining watching royalty playing out their family quarrels but they were not quite reduced to the level of powerless performers King George was a fighting man like his father head of the army and very much engaged in the quarrels between the rulers of Continental Europe Walpole tried hard to keep him out of Wars but in 1739 the king got his way and England went to war with Spain this was the start of a steadily growing involvement in the past struggle between France Prussia and the hapsburg Empire its culmination for George came in June 1743 he found himself under attack by the French at a German Village called deham his horse bolted but George stood in front of his troops waved his sword and made a rather ponderous but actually rather Brave Little speech now boys now for the honor of England F and behave bravely on the French with soon run and so he became the last English king to lead his troops in battle it was a fierce fight and George emerged a bit of a hero but he didn’t rule the country governments of ministers came and went not because he wanted them but because Parliament wanted them in fact George called himself a prisoner on the throne in 1745 he played no part in the battles of Preston pans or kudon which were far more important to the throne than in the Battle of dettingen after all they were battles for the throne itself Bonnie Prince Charlie to his supporters Charles Casmir was 25 years old pale thin romantic and brave and he decided that George was so unpopular it would be a dodle to take over he turned up at his own expense in the herdes and some of the Scottish Clans most of them responded but out of a combination of loyalty and Des operation rather than [Applause] conviction but things went rather well for the rebels they were enthusiastically welcomed into Edinburgh and roundly defeated the government Army at Preston pans the news created a passion of patriotism when it reached London the city might have lampooned the court and sneered at it but this was different that evening the King was visiting the theater The King’s theater Drury Lane and the orchestra struck up a tune which they just got hold of God gra King Long Live a no King God save the the audience loved it none of them knew that it had been the old Pretenders music or the king of France’s the song had changed sides and became the national anth [Applause] [Music] actually it became everybody’s anthem at one time or another Frenchmen Germans Russians Swiss Len Steiners swedes Danes and Americans have all swelled with patriotic Pride to exactly the same tune but when God saved the king became London’s big hit it was because no one could see how the king would be saved any other way Marshall Wade the best officer in the government Army said that Scotland was lost and England would fall prey to the first Comer Lord grant thatall Wade May by thy Mighty a victory bring may he SED hush and like a t Rush rebellious gos to crush God Save the King the rebels took Manchester then Derby London trembled but not as much as the clansmen they marched expecting England to rise in their support and the French to invade instead they had no support at all most fundamentally they realized that the English would never accept a Roman Catholic King they’d outflanked a large English army but it was now on their tail and another was coming up from London so back they went and the clansmen were finally slaughtered Ed in their thousands at kadon in April 1746 Charles hid out for months in the Scottish islands hunted through the mountains by troops and with a price on his head but protected by tribal loyalties until he finally escaped back to France and the clan culture of the Highlands was systematically and ruthlessly exted clans were dispersed their leaders imprisoned or executed plaid and weaponry and bag pipes were banned the Woodby Charles III made a bizarre secret return to England in 1750 where he converted to protestantism and expected this would encourage his supporters to have more hope they were more impressed by his degree of attachment to the bottle not so much the king over the water as the king under the table King George was in no danger now George also found his other great enemy removed his son Frederick died in 1751 he’d been hit hard in the stomach by a tennis ball and the resulting abdominal ulca burst and killed him the new heir to the throne was a 12-year-old child Frederick’s son George but the great problems of the Kingdom were outside the king’s grasp his country was now a great Imperial trading power with huge involvements in India the East Indies North America and the Mediterranean so was France at the same time Continental Europe was constantly boiling over into war and Hanover was in the middle of that in 1756 the great Powers finally locked horns in a Do or Die struggle that would girdle the whole world this would become the Seven Years War it was truly the first world war Britain fought in the name of its king but that King now neither directed policy nor took part in the battles a new world in fact Affairs were so far out of the king’s control that when he dismissed ministers he didn’t like they came right back again so far as the English were concerned this was just how things ought to be Englishmen were entitled to Liberty the despots were on the other side Catholic France and Austria their whole life Commerce industry and fighting force was directed by Royal tyrants who ruled over starving and Powerless peasants and on the other side Protestant Britain whose commerce was run by men of business whose industry was directed by free Tradesmen whose Army and Navy were run by Heroes and manned by Proud free men and whose Court was the center of society not of autocratic power and that was how many of the British really did see it of course they were also fighting on the side of despotic Prussia but that was a minor detail the general perception was that this was a war of free Britains against European despots poor George died at the height of the war in 1760 and it didn’t matter at [Music] all his grandson now George III was 22 years old he had been brought up by his mother a German princess in her imitation of the very differential Court of Hanover he learned the European idea of what a king should be an enlightened despot whose power was absolute and was to be used for the benefit of mankind this was of course very far from the English notion of kingship in which the King was the leading figure in society but whose power was entirely controlled by Parliament he immediately set to work as a bossy quick-speaking managerial King deliberately folish I will have no Innovations in my time what what he read widely he was fascinated by machinery and agriculture he was a man delighted by the Agricultural and Industrial revolutions and he was determined to restore the crown to what he saw as its proper position a position abandoned in his view by George’s 1 and two unlike them he’d been born in England and spoke good English even if his grasp of grammar was ropey and he had no old or young Pretender to challenge him at the opening of his first Parliament he declared born and educated in this country I glory in the name of Britain Parliament was controlled by one party the wigs effectively an oligarchy of rich men who ran the country by a system of bribery patronage and nepotism George felt that it was his job to improve matters and so began the most catastrophic Reign since James II if it hadn’t been for George II’s attempt to turn back the clock the inhabitants of New York might still be using British passports and the inhabitants of Los Angeles and Miami Spanish ones now there’s a thought to break the power of the wigs he set about creating what was almost his own political party a group of MPS known as the king’s friend friends he took back the power of Distributing positions and favors from the government and did it himself so he soon built up a collection of political dependents his first objective was to bring an end to the war he didn’t at all share the anti-french views of the wiek Prime Minister William pit it took a lot of political manipulation but in 1763 with pit removed from Power a peace treaty was signed by this stage the war had actually been won Pit’s policies had resulted in Britain becoming the dominant colonial power in the world Britain was more or less Undisputed ruler of North America India the Caribbean and much besides and George took the credit the glory and tried to take control at the end of the S Years War in 1763 the king of England ruled over more of the world than any man since genis Khan an empire about five times larger than Rome of course he wasn’t in the position of an Asiatic Tyrant or even your common or garden European despot his control would have to be through Parliament his power was limited to choosing ministers and even that wouldn’t work if Parliament and the country wouldn’t stomach them as George kept finding out his solution was to do all he could to increase his own influence in Parliament in effect get stuck right into Political intrigues since it was illegal to report parliamentary debates people became very suspicious I of what was going on he spent huge sums on trying to influence elections and would even personally go out canvasing on one occasion for instance bustling into a draper shop saying the queen wants a gown wants a gown announcing who to vote for and rushing out again and since George was closely engaged in politics people naturally blamed him personally when things went wrong when Parliament rejected a a bill that would have helped the spittle fields Weavers the Weavers marched off to find the king at Wimbledon shaded of the peasants Revolt George listened to their complaints and persuaded them to go back home but when they realized he wasn’t going to help they rioted and he personally ordered out the troops he said he would put himself at the head of the army or do anything else to save his country he also had a hand in creating the notorious Stamp Act of 1765 which tried to make the English colonists in America pay attacks on paper this was the moment at which the whole language of politics began to change one Virginia colonist declared Caesar had his Brutus Charles I his Cromwell made George III profit from their example the cromwellian revolution of the previous Century had certainly been driven by the connection between Taxation and Liberty the issue now was that the 13 English colonies in America had their own government run by their own local oligarchies and raising their own taxes the idea that they could be taxed by the oligarchy in London headed by the King was totally outrageous they would have no way to influence what was done or what they had to pay colonists who supported the government were threatened by their compatriots some were tarred and feathered and by the time the ACT came into effect there wasn’t a single person who’d accepted the job of commissioner to collect the tax it had to be repealed there was similar alarm in England as in his attempt to control Parliament George arrested his leading critic there John wils mobs rioted in the name of wils and Liberty and threatened the King wils was released and it was established that there was a legal right to report and criticize what happened in Parliament but by 1770 he had created the political system he wanted the political parties had collapsed and he had a docile chief minister Lord North with a parliamentary majority through whom he could run things the way he thought they should be George liked running things popularly known as farmer George he took a very close interest in modern farming methods developing animal breeds and new crops these were the same modern farming methods which by enclosing common lands and creating large self-contained Farms were breaking up Village communities all over England and creating creting a new class of half starved landless wage laborers bad Harvest didn’t help nor did a collapse in trade the colonists in America were showing their anger by refusing to import anything from Britain Lord North decided the best thing to do was repeal all the taxes on them except for a symbolic tax on tea 3 years later he arranged another Act of parliament to try to help the East India Company sell more tea in America and radicals in b Boston retaliated with a symbolic tea party at which men dressed as Native Americans dumped the tea in the harbor the reaction in England stirred by the popular press was that the colonist must be punished George certainly shared that view blows must decide whether they are to be subject to this country or independent misunderstanding the strength of feeling and of organization against them the Government tried to use too little force and triggered a fullscale rebellion the rebel colonists proclaimed their independence in 1776 and with the backing of a large part of popular opinion in England George was determined to fight them and crush them the result as many less warlike Englishmen had been warning was disaster for England even Lord North wanted out but George was in charge the American Revolutionary War became a campaign not against unjust government or English rule but against the very principle of monarchic government George’s determination to be active in government and place himself at the heart of politics created a new Republican movement a language in which to attack the rule of Kings the pece of Versailles in 1783 forced Britain to recognize the United States of America six years later their host at versailes Louis V 16th of France was himself self called on by a revolutionary crowd who carried him off and set up their own Republic the process of destroying monarchy was underway did George understand what he’d done he certainly Fred about the American disaster and perhaps it was his own sense of failure that made him display signs of mental disturbance in 1788 talking incessantly and behaving oddly his doctor thought making him bleed would help when that failed the Prince of Wales took over the treatment the Prince of Wales was 26 years old a dashing if rather fat man about town and in the grand tradition of their Hanoverian ancestors King George and his son hated each other the prince lived in the house bought for his mother the Duke of Buckingham’s magnificent home near St james’ park it was still called Buckingham house he liked it so much he eventually built a the dull Palace around it when he came of age he’d set up his home in clarence’s house taken his seat in the House of Lords and set about being a thorn in Daddy’s flesh partly by opposing his father’s ministers and partly by his wildly extravagant social life in the course of which he secretly married a glamorous Widow Mrs Fitz Herbert after a passionate wooing process that included theatrically stabbing himself to safely produce as much blood as possible the marriage was illegal he wasn’t allowed to Wed without the king’s consent it was also significant that the lady was a Roman Catholic in 1780 anti-catholic riers stirred up by Lord George Gordon had taken over London for a week eventually dispersed by troops on the king’s orders the Gordon riots ended with 290 people dead and 25 ring leaders hanged not of course Lord George priny as his friends called him spent his time in gambling clubs in the company of dandies like Bo brumel and put much energy into building the bizarre and spectacular Pavilion in Brighton that’s where he was when he heard that the King was mentally ill and he hurried off to Windsor to take over 28 years old he was going to be Regent when the king saw his son he physically attacked him he threw priny against the wall the poor boy burst into tears there was then a huge political battle over what powers the regent would be allowed to have his own bunch of politicians led by Fox on one side and the Kings led by pit on the other Fox’s supporters saw pit as a sort of fungus with as many arms as an octopus growing on and taking over the Royal dungill and the prince of Wales brought in his own physician to treat the king or torture him the Royal Physicians blistered the king’s forehead to draw the poison out of his his brain forced him to take useless drugs ordering servants to sit on the King when he resisted and refused to let him have a fire in his room during the terribly cold winter all this when the country was anticipating French invasion and radical revolution and volunteer regiments were being formed as a desperate line of defense very desperate finally new Physicians were brought in who gave the king gentler treatment and he recovered in 18 1901 before the arguments over how the Regency would function had been resolved the King was back in charge but not in the way he had been the American defeat had been a personal disaster for him and dramatically weakened his political position in an effort to reassert it he’d installed a 24y old as prime minister and Chancellor of the exer thinking that here at least was a politician he could control but William Pit’s son pit the younger was shrewd capable and fully understood that George depended on him so he held all the cards and it was pit who had to decide how to deal with the spread of revolutionary Republican ideas from America and France into England the same ideas that had been voiced in America about no taxation without representation were being heard in England where huge new manufacturing towns had grown up which had no Member of Parliament 3 years after the French Revolution political reform societies called corresponding societies were founded in England riots were breaking out in the Midlands in East Anglia in Scotland attempts were made to kill the king he was booed and stoned in London and the French legislature passed a fraternal decree offering Aid to all people seeking to throw off the chains of tyranny the king himself was actually quite popular he was generally seen as a kind-hearted slightly buffer is sort of a person but he was still ultimately in charge of what was going on and when even pit insisted that Catholics would have to be allowed the same rights as Protestants and permitted to stand for Parliament George forced him to resign the issue had come to the four because of Ireland if england had some potential revolutionaries how many more had Ireland a land where an oppressed Catholic majority were ruled by imported Protestant colonists and an ideal staging post for a French invasion in 1801 Ireland was incorporated into Great Britain creating the United Kingdom it was an attempt to make Ireland more secure the fact that at the same time the king forly abdicated his meaningless title of King of France shows exactly where the threat was coming from but if Ireland was to be truly United with England there would have to be Catholic emancipation and King George wouldn’t have it whatever might have happened could not have been worse than what did Ireland still bleeds now the shadow of George III Lies Over The History of the World more Darkly than most people realize as with the American disaster it seems as though one part of his mind was determined to make him feel the full weight of his responsibility and once more his mental state degenerated he made a slow recovery enough to sack his ministers in 1805 when they tried to lift the restrictions on Catholics becoming Military Officers but he was becoming blind and infirm and in 1810 his mind finally collapsed no one’s quite sure what was wrong with him but a strain of hereditary Insanity had run through the royal family ever since Henry VI’s marriage to cathine De valoir blind and deaf suffering from abdominal pains and dementia his body lived on but his Reign was over priny took over at [Music] Last by this time European monarchy had been transformed the enlightened despots had fallen Napoleon’s empire had swallowed them up replacing them with dict haters from his own family or under his control even Hanover had been overwhelmed the SAR still survived but Napoleon was about to invade Russia Britain stood virtually alone and in Britain the ancient principle of the royal prerogative was now in the fat clammy hands of a gambling massively indebted roly poly Dandy with a passion for show and splendor but the military Genius of Wellington and Nelson didn’t need a king to guide it so under his uninspiring even ridiculous leadership Napoleon Was Defeated and the de crowned heads of Europe were brushed down and put back on their Thrones why the ruler of the United Kingdom even became king of Hana priny had been against everything his father stood for but now he was in power he suddenly adopted all his father’s political principles especially his determined opposition to letting Catholics have civil rights and to any reform of parliament elections were basically a fast with some MPS representing constituencies with almost no voters and the vast majority of people unrepresented the king thought this was fine lots of other people didn’t and this became a desperate issue in the years after the Napoleonic War there were thousands of unemployed ex soldiers there was an agricultural depression made worse by the the terrible summer of 1816 and there was increasing unemployment due to the use of new machinery and the prince of wales’s appetite for luxurious silverware and Furniture grew mountainous graffiti appeared saying death or the Regent’s head at the end of 1816 there was a fullscale riot in London aimed at setting up a radical government the next month the prince Regent’s Carriage was mobbed on his way to open Parliament the Grim apparatus of repression was revived the death penalty was restored for unlicensed public meetings printers of seditious material were to be seized there was plenty of seditious material the prince Regent was a laughing stock the flood of caricatures and satires was Unstoppable his extravagance was spectacular a few years earlier the government had agreed to clear his hugee debts on condition that he made a legal marriage the victim selected was his cousin Caroline of Brunswick a Charming friendly and unassuming young lady who was also a bit of an exhibitionist he spent the wedding night drunk after 9 months to the day Caroline gave birth to her daughter but by then her husband had long abandoned her he devoted himself to the pursuit of motherly Mistresses and treated Caroline with a cold brutality which really defined his personal style he was more of a passer than a regent and the Brighton Pavilion made that declaration loud and clear George III finally died in 1820 having notionally reigned for 60 years the longest Reign until Victoria and he was 81 the longest life of any British ruler so far [Music] priny was now King his wife Caroline now decided to come to England from her Exile on the continent and take her place at her husband’s coronation an immediate attempt was made to pass an act of parliament divorcing the royal couple but it was dangerously unpopular and had to be abandoned she turned up for the coronation at Westminster Abbey but the door was closed in her face the coronation fabulously expensive was performed in complete privacy she went away brokenhearted and died Less Than 3 weeks later her body was to be returned to Brunswick for burial the king nervous of a riot insisted that the coffin should not be transported through the city of London but it was seized by londoners who staged their own funeral procession with it and were gunned down by the house guards at hide Park [Music] Corner afraid of being attacked and afraid of being laughed at because of his great swollen body from 1823 King George IV avoided being seen in public he even built a tunnel to allow him to get from his rooms in Brighton Pavilion to the riding school in private and of course it was said ever since that it connected to his mistress’s house it became essential for the government to break the king’s opposition to reform especially with regard to Catholics but he held the power of veto the arguments went on hour after hour day after a day with the King becoming more enraged and more ill until finally he broke by February of 1830 he was partially blind and raving convinced that he’d commanded a division at watero and ridden a winning race at Goodwood and so he died and they found 50 years of coats boots and pantaloons and countless bundles of women’s love letters of women’s gloves of locks of his many mistress’s hair why on Earth did Britain need a king what use was he to man or beast why in Heaven’s name wasn’t there a revolution the truth is no one knows some historians think it was a result of methodism becoming popular diverting poorer people’s energy from politics into religion some think it was patriotism in the Age of Empire that king and country was a slogan that helped people pull together against Napoleon but perhaps given the riots rebellions and mutinies it was due more to the efficiency of the police state and the forcefulness of repression and lurking at the back of people’s minds was the distant memory of what it had been like when there had been a revolution the Grim rule of cromwell’s major generals echoed and made more Terrible by the vision of the guillotine in France always keep a hold of nurse for fear of finding something worse despite George’s enthusiastic sexual Enterprise he had only produced One legitimate child and she died in childbirth the heir to the throne was his brother William who was [Music] 54 he had been sent into the Navy as a Young Man where he developed into a severe disciplinarian and a stickler etiquette after he left he took an actress Mrs Jordan as his mistress had lots of illegitimate children and was given to making tactless speeches with not much intelligence he eventually had made a royal marriage to another German Protestant Princess and Mr King and Mrs Queen lifted bushy to the north of London like a quite ordinary couple William in insisted that his coronation should only cost a tenth of his brothers and he was known to give people a lift in his Carriage all this made him rather popular but when it came to parliamentary reform he turned out to be as resistant as any other hanian King by now the popular pressure for changing the voting system into something more representative was virtually irresistible giving more men the vote having MPS for the new towns and secret ballots this would give the commons more power so the House of Lords was resisting it and Williams sided with them by 1832 there seemed a real possibility of civil war or revolution it’s possible that if the royal family were part of the aristocracy as in every other country with a king that would have happened but the king and queen had their family roots in Germany and there was no natural alliance between them and the great aristocratic families will was weak and was forcefully persuaded to give way and Britain was started on the road to democracy after the Reform Bill of 1832 with no more rotten burrow and greatly reduced scope for electoral corruption it was no longer possible for the king to play politics inside Parliament to the same extent the monarchy would now be forced back into its constitutional box and it was no longer sufficiently dangerous to be worth the trouble of a revolution when he died in 1837 William’s legitimate children were already dead the heir to the throne was the daughter of his brother Edward a young girl of 18 she would make a demure and pretty little Queen who could leave the business of running England to the professionals couldn’t she [Music] the story of the kings and queens of England is more surprising than you might think it’s a fine drama a thousand years of tales of lust and betrayal of heroism and cruelty of mysteries murders tragedies and [Music] triumphs oh you’re probably thinking that applies to medieval kings all right but this programs about the modern monarchy from Victoria to the home life of our own dear Queen and there’s not much of that sort of thing going on here oh really keep watching what you may Wonder did lust have to do with the matronly Queen Victoria well she was young once and her husband Prince Albert gave his name to more than just a bridge a concert hall and a memorial no other British royal has a body piercing named after him and we can’t show you where the ring goes in a Prince Albert you’ll just have to get yes kept Victoria happy nine children and this isn’t only a collection of Royal trivia for the tabloids we can reveal for the first time on television that the present Queen’s grandfather George V actually took over the running of the country secret personal rule for a few days in 1931 he believed it was the only way to save the country from Revolution most of the papers relating to this are still how much do we really know about what goes [Music] on in 1867 Walter Bader wrote a book on the British constitution which said that it had two parts the efficient part and the dignified part the dignified part was headed by the queen it was a piece of theater whose only purpose was to make people feel loyalty the actual power was entirely held by the efficient party which he said was a secret committee called the cabinet everyone believed bad’s book the government encouraged people to believe it so did the royal family then and now well they would wouldn’t they the truth has been rather different obviously when the 18-year-old Victoria came to the throne in 1837 she wasn’t in much of a position to try to run the country she’d had a rather odd upbringing her father had been a brother of George IV and William IV but he died when she was a baby her mother was a straight-laced German princess who was determined that her daughter should not be part of the disreputable life of the court or murdered as her mother thought possible by one of her terrible uncles who wanted the throne himself she was brought up in isolation in Kensington Palace which in those days was rather cut off from London her main interest on becoming Queen was to finally cut free of her mother and supervisor and move out of her mother’s bedroom and when she was 19 she fell hopelessly utterly in love with her first cousin the 20-year-old younger son of the Duke of sax cobber [Music] go he’s excessively handsome such beautiful eyes my heart is quite going he certainly tried hard to look good that notorious ring piercing if it did exist no one can be quite sure was attached to a chain to assist in smoothing the line of his Brites they married in 1840 she wasn’t hugely popular at the time headstrong willful she actually blocked a change of government because it would have upset her domestic Arrangements the Prime Minister Lord Melbourne had given her the wives and Daughters of his own own supporters as the ladies of her bed chamber when his wig government fell and Robert Peele came to power Peele insisted that the queen should replace at least some of the ladies so that the court wasn’t a complete one party State Victoria refused Peele felt forced to resign and Melbourne came briefly back to Power people didn’t like what she was doing they didn’t like her and they didn’t like the stiff German Prince Albert peel came back to Power and refused to Grant him much more than half the allowance Victoria demanded saying that people were very hard up which they were the position of the throne seemed pretty shaky it didn’t seem likely that this would become the most secure and richest monarchy in the world how did that happen when Victoria came to the Throne all she had as her own was the revenue of the duche of Lancaster £27,000 a year the Sunday Times rich list for 1990 showed Elizabeth II as being worth £ 6.7 billion that’s nearly 10 billion in today’s money the richest person in the land by a huge margin it’s true that the latest rich list shows her being worth a mere 250 million has she lost 97% of her money on the horses did she give it all the way to charity no the latest figure is a guess based on an instruction to the Sunday Times not to count anything she holds on trust for the nation obviously she can’t sell the crown jewels and pocket the proceeds but actually most rich people hold much of their wealth in trust yet it’s still treated as theirs because they have the use of it the Royal move into profit began when Albert took charge of the royal finances he wasn’t allowed to be king there was deep suspicion of him but Victoria let him manage her own Affairs and he did an astonishing job of it the Royal household was an incredible Gothic antique to clean a window in Buckingham Palace was a job for the Lord Chamberlain staff unless it was a kitchen or scullery window then they had to call on the Lord Steward and neither could touch the outside of the glass which was looked after by the office of woods and forests laying a fire was the Lord Stewart’s job but lighting it the Lord Chamberlain’s as their staff were not on good terms the queen froze other Palace staff were paid for jobs whose very purpose and even existence had been forgotten enter Albert with boiling water and a hatchet he sorted that lot out and cut Victoria’s costs dramatically he had a huge capacity for work and organization so when he came up with the idea for a great exhibition of the world’s arts and Industry no one should have doubted that he could make it happen of course they did doubt it they had no confidence in the exhibition Hall the Crystal Palace a giant Greenhouse erected by a gardener and when they realized that thousands would congregate there they thought that it would be a rallying point for revolutionaries the opening of the great exhibition on May the 1st 1851 was a thrilling day for the nation and for Victoria the royal couple began to be viewed with some enthusiasm and it was quite understandable that the next year an eccentric Miser should leave the queen half a million pound in his will Albert’s influence in Government Rose visibly which of course soon put an end to his popularity by 1854 it was generally believed that Albert The Foreigner was a traitor in League with Russia forcing loyal ministers out of office crowds gathered around the tower under the impression that Albert and Victoria had been arrested for treason that frenzy died down but at the back of it were two things that were going to be permanent problems one was that the queen and her consort must have some role in running the country but that couldn’t be squared with any kind of representative government and the other was that people were realizing that the Monarch was making a profit and they didn’t like it the solution was to conceal what was really happening under a cloak of secrecy and that cloak is still in place when I was researching a book on the most sensitive part of this story I needed to see some papers that should have been released by the ministry of Defense the then Navy Minister David Owen read the file and released it but the crucial documents weren’t there he suggested they would have been treated as the private property of the crown and kept in the Royal archive private I wasn’t allowed in Albert’s own role was pretty secret he was in reality acting as king of England but that was behind the scenes the title he was eventually given in 1857 was just prince consort when Albert died Victoria uttered a terrible shriek she never recovered she retired to Scotland and went into what seemed to be Everlasting mour she and Albert had built a number of Retreats for themselves Osborne on the aisle of white Sandringham in norfol and her favorite balm here she hid for months at a time with the faithful Highland retainer John Brown he was allowed enough familiarity for the queen to be widely referred to as Mrs Brown Victoria herself could see no reason to take part in public ceremonies like the opening of parliament she thought that her hidden role as the head of her government was enough but that of course led many people to wonder why they had to pay for her upkeep at all she received as she had done from the start of her Reign £385,000 a year from the government it was more than she needed her Court was nowhere near as expensive as for instance George IV’s had been and without her being visible many people could see no point in her having this money by the 1870s there was a strong Republican movement expressing itself in newspapers large public meetings and in Parliament the nature of the country was changing dramatically new industrial cities were darkening the landscape with smoke and soot a new kind of society was formed a society of factory workers and lowp paid Artisans of Builders and Miners and Metal Workers these were people outside the political world with no natural attachments to traditional political structures and there were a lot of them the anti-royalist head of steam built up every time Parliament was asked for extra grants to Victoria’s children when they came of age or married but in fact it was very probably these children who saved her throne no British Statesman wanted to see the royal family given its marching orders when their marriages offered such a useful back door into the chancellor of Europe Victoria’s eldest daughter was married to the heir to the Kaiser of the new German Empire and was a strong and use useful influence on her husband and a thorn in Bismark flesh the heir to the British throne Albert Edward had married Alexandra daughter of the king of Denmark and sister of the king of Greece the Greek Crown had actually been offered to another of Victoria’s Sons Alfred the Greeks had sacked their own King and held a national vote on who should get the throne 95% of them voted for Alfred who was at the time an 18-year-old Shipman in the Royal Navy the government made him turn it down because they had promised to keep their hands off Greece never mind it went as a sort of hand me down to the son of England’s good friend the king of Denmark and in 1874 Alfred married the daughter of tar Alexander II which was Jolly useful given the anglo-russian competition on the edges of India these were marriages that would produce many many well-distributed children by the time Victoria died in 1901 she had over 90 living descendants it was a full-time job just getting them birthday presents the rulers of Germany Greece Romania Norway Russia Yugoslavia Spain and Sweden would all Trace their descent from this Stout little lady there was a downside to all this Royal intermarriage Victoria was a carrier of Hemophilia the condition that prevents blood from clotting and the Spanish Russian and Russian royal families were consequently affected by it but even if the British government had known about that they wouldn’t have shed many tears over it as a system for exercising influence abroad the monarchy was well worth the money it also ought to have the advantage at home of inducing people to be loyal to their country even if they detested its government which was obviously very useful if you ran that government but to sell monarchy to the British public that monarchy needed Rebrand ing enter in 1867 a new Tory prime minister Mr Disraeli just the man to do it he flattered flirted and lured Victoria out of mourning and back to public life creating her Empress of India turning her into the queen Empress Britain was now a world power with an international trade that dwarfed all others its Navy dominated the oceans and its Empire expanded on the simple principle that trade follows the flag and if the Union Jack is flying in each remote corner of the globe then other flags aren’t the problem was for a small country with a very small army to rule ever more of the Earth’s surface that rule couldn’t be maintained by force it required the consent of the Govern and the grand theatricality of disraeli’s Victorian imperialism invited people throughout the Empire to take pride in being subjects not of a bunch of industrialists and politicians but of a prim and matronly great [Music] Sovereign Victoria became the logo of the British Empire her portrait spread all over the world thanks especially to the introduction of postage stamps her statue would appear in virtually every ambitious town and city of the British Empire and where there was no statue there would certainly be a Victoria Street or Victoria Park or Victoria something the whole process came to a glorious climax in her golden jubilee of 1887 the great processions in London of Representatives of her dominions were followed by an eruption of ugly public Halls clock towers fountains and statues disfiguring public spaces over about a quarter of the planet by the time Victoria died hardly anyone even remembered that her throne had once seemed endangered and she’d reigned so long 64 years that hardly anyone could even remember any other Sovereign her death in 1901 22 days into the new century seemed portentous she’d become synonymous with Britain and its Empire and now Britain would leave the 19th century without the security of the great mother hen [Music] Victoria would cast a long Shadow Elizabeth II coming to the throne 51 years later would be the first of her successors who had no personal memory off her her oldest son Albert Edward the new King Edward iith was already 59 years old the funeral of the queen empress and Edward’s coronation involved a huge invention of traditions and ceremonies and in this atmosphere it’s not surprising that Edward was granted an annual allowance even greater than Victorious a few voices said that it was unnecessary for the king to have as big an income as Andrew carnegi the Bill Gates of his day but no one took much notice Edward had been given a miserable and oppressive childhood Victoria had measured him by The Impossible yard stick of her hero worship of the perfect man his father naturally young berti had rebelled of course his first visit to a prostitute shocked his parents deeply it happened to be followed by Albert’s fatal illness which Victoria had inevitably blamed on her Wicked son she had arranged his marriage shortly afterwards in the hope that domestic discipline would Reign him in Princess Alex of Denmark was beautiful but she was also deaf and dull company with nothing much else to do berti had become the living epitome of the life of the Bell Pock a life of champagne drinking cigar smoking horse racing gambling and entertaining show girls and pretty married ladies he was naturally drawn to the company of Outsiders not just Shady characters but Jews and Catholics bankers and foreigners and he was outspokenly outraged by the Casual racism of the Empire because a man has a black face and a different religion than our own there is no reason why he should be treated as a brute he sat on a commission on workingclass housing and even invited a member of the working class to stay at Sandringham admittedly the man in question was an MP and a fellow member of the commission and he had to eat in his bedroom because he didn’t have the right clothes to come down to dinner but still by the time Edward came to the throne he was a big fat old man with a social conscience and a comforting mistress Alice Keel who understood him perfectly Edward saw himself as something like a nursery rhyme Monarch magnificent and jolly caring and helpful in 1903 completely ignoring his government he went to France and started negotiations for a treaty that would become The onon Cordial isolating Germany he detested his nephew the Kaiser he persuaded the press and then the government to back a treaty which guaranteed that if Germany attacked France Britain would go to war so that’s what happened in 1914 he determinedly resisted any increase in democracy in Britain and was a firm opponent of votes for women the crunch over his reactionary views came when Lloyd George planned to introduce old age pensions in 1909 to raise the cash there would have to be new taxes on income the Tory majority in the House of Lords voted down what was called The People’s budget and when the liberal government Drew up legislation to take that power away from the Lords they voted that down too obviously so the Prime Minister told the king he needed to create about 250 new peers to swing the vote Edward was not enthusiastic would he actually defy the government in May 1910 in in the middle of the battle he died in 1910 Edward’s 44-year-old son George inherited the [Music] throne he was the late King’s Second Son he’d worked as a commander in the Navy to which he was deeply attached but in 1892 his elder brother Clarence had died died and he’d unexpectedly become heir to step into his brother’s shoes he’d left his job and married the woman who’d been betrayed the Clarence a relative called Princess Mary of tech he now inherited a fortune worth around 140 million in today’s prices and a political crisis as part of the deal with the government to pass the budget and cut the powers of the House of Lords it was agreed that the crown could stop paying any income tax in return the king would pay for his own trips abroad the new constitutional deal drew the teeth of the House of Lords whatever the elected government in the Commons decided to do it now could do the only possible break on its power was now the king and the question was of course whether he would ever exercise it and what would happen if he tried at first the crown was too weak to try when War began with Germany in 1914 George was seen naturally enough as a German which he was he kept a bit quiet about his courtesy titles of field Marshall general of the Prussian Army and admiral of the Imperial German Navy to make himself seem more British and therefore more secure in July 1917 George felt forced to change his family name from sax cobber Goa to Windsor and stopped being a German Prince and Duke of Saxony Revolution was a real danger cousin Nikki the saw of Russia was deposed in February 1917 the new Russian government asked Britain to give him Asylum and Lloyd George agreed to it but King George was terrified of being associated with a man now labeled Tyrant by revolutionaries so he forced the government to withdraw the offer the Bolsheviks took over Russia in October and Nicholas and his family was slaughtered to protect the king’s reputation it was put about that Lloyd George had refused to rescue them despite the king’s pleading then in November 1918 a German Revolution forced the Kaiser cousin Willie to abdicate and Germany gave up the war the whole political landscape had been transformed there had been six Emperors when George was crowned by 1925 he was the only one left and his world was not exactly safe most of the Southern Irish were committed Republicans attempts to hold that country by force were disastrous and in 1922 the Irish free state had come into being King George had lost a considerable chunk of his kingdom the wealth of the royal family continued to grow due largely to Queen Mary’s enthusiasm for collecting valuable trinkets at special prices the romanovs hadn’t been allowed to join the British Royals but a substantial chunk of their jewelry did people began hiding their Treasures if the queen was coming to call as she would hint strongly that she expected to be given them and sometimes take them anyway so that embarrassed AIDS had to quietly return them later in 1924 Ramsey McDonald became Britain’s first labor prime minister the old political establishment had been given a kicking no one knew where this might lead and then came the Wall Street crash of 1929 and financial disaster the government needed huge loans which were conditional on Cuts in unemployment benefit and the pay of public servants and the armed forces the labor cabinet wouldn’t do it and McDonald went to the king to resign George was pretty sure sure this was a decisive moment if these harsh policies were forced through by conservatives class war would probably break out everything including himself might very well be swept away so he refused to accept the resignation he persuaded Ramsey McDonald that it was his patriotic duty to stay on as the leader of a new coalition government to force through the cuts that way they were more likely to be accepted this was an extraordinary exercise of royal power and it wasn’t over yet when the cuts were announced in September 1931 the entire Atlantic Fleet went on strike this was the most powerful military force in the world and it was gathered at inor there was total panic in the admiralty Mutiny the intelligence Services warned that it was a communist plot and that the sailors were going to march to London rallying all the disaffected including the police on the way the financial markets went into a tail spin and the bank of England was forced to stop exchanging pounds for gold going off the gold standard the admiralty Drew up plans to bombard the mutinous fleet from the land and sink its own ships and the King decided he had to save the Navy and the country he knew Sailors they weren’t revolutionaries they just needed to be spoken to in the Right Way in complete secrecy he took control appointing a retired Admiral to deal with the situation Admiral John Kelly was not appointed by the government or the admiralty and was instructed not to report to them but directly to King George he offered the sailers a deal if they sailed back to their home ports the king would see to it that their grievances were taken seriously and they would not be punished it was a sensible approach and it worked but all evidence of the king’s role and Kelly’s appointment was hidden we’re not supposed to know what power royalty can wield of course the bit about mutineers not being punished was a lie once the danger was passed the leaders were identified and quietly removed the following year 1932 King George gave the first Christmas radio message he was now a presence in homes throughout his Empire the Empire had changed its form of course and in 1931 the dominions the white bits of the Empire Canada Australia and so on had become legally independent of Westminster they were the Commonwealth and The Sovereign was its institutional core as part of his program to make the monarchy seem British and so he hoped more secure he decreed that his children need not marry partners of royal descent this would indeed transform the position of the monarchy but not in the way he expected in 1936 when George was 70 and dying his doctor Lord Dawson decided to ensure that the death would not be reported first in the vulgar evening papers you’ve heard of Lord dwson of Penn he’s killed any number of men and that’s why we sing Oh God Save the King from Bertrand Lord Dawson of Penn Lord dwson met the times’s deadline by giving the King a fatal injection called a whizbang George was told he would soon be convalescing in Bogner his last words were bugger Bogner the times was told he’d said how is the [Music] Empire his successor his son Edward was 38 the poorly educated child of rather dysfunctional parents the queen had been completely distant and King George famously said my father was frightened of his father I was frightened of my father and I’m damn well going to see to it that my children are frightened of me Edward had escaped by traveling widely and as the world’s most eligible bachelor enjoyed affairs with a number of married women culminating in the love of his life the twice married elegant American Wallace Simpson at the time of Edward’s succession the affair was in full swing and her husband had resigned himself to a divorce the British press completely censored the whole subject while the rest of the world was fascinated by it Edward insisted that he was going to marry Wallace and make her Queen the Prime Minister and the Archbishop of Canterbury said the country wouldn’t stand for it were they right probably not Edward was actually pretty popular he wanted to go on the radio and appeal to the nation but he wasn’t allowed to do that he was told it would be unconstitutional without a written document the Constitution is what the government can get away with they had their reasons these went beyond the court gossip that Wallace was said to be a lesbian or a man engaged in a sedom masochistic relationship with Edward The crucial issue wasn’t even that the head of the church shouldn’t marry a divorce or that SEC investigators had reported that Wallace Simpson had two other lovers a car salesman and an Irish peer the real reason only came to light in 2002 secret documents show that the FBI told the British government that Wallace had another lover the German ambassador Von ribbon trop in fact the FBI said she was a Nazi agent that was why the government insisted Edward must give her up to keep the throne Edward chose love rather than the Crown he abdicated and took Mrs Simpson to live in France the coronation went ahead but with his brother Albert sitting on the [Music] throne Al Albert was crowned as King George V 6 he was 18 months younger than Edward and completely lacked his brother’s social Grace he stammered he was shy but at least he was safely married to Elizabeth Bose lion the daughter of a minor Scottish Aristocrat the first Royal to legally marry a commoner since Henry VII [Music] George V 6 and Queen Elizabeth that’s the woman we remember as Elizabeth the Queen Mother refused to allow themselves any doubt as to the outcome of the second world war when Buckingham Palace was bombed the queen said she was glad it meant she could look the East End in the face at least it meant the royal couple wouldn’t be booed anymore when they visited other people’s bombed out homes actually while they spent their days in London they retreated for the night to Windsor which was considerably safer nevertheless they did have one really narrow Escape as the war went on the royal couple became more and more identified with Churchill as the spirit of Britain dogged in their determination to see Nazism defeated when the victory celebrations came in 1945 it seemed natural that they should revolve around Buckingham Palace by the time of his premature death from smoking in 1952 this shy Country Gentleman and his Queen had gone a very long way to restoring the monarchy to its central place in British life it had vanished virtually everywhere else there had been 16 monarchies on the continent of Europe when Victoria died now there was only Sweden monarchs were restored to Belgium Holland Norway and Denmark but as a pale shadow of the old European royalty [Music] the new Queen the 25-year-old Elizabeth II seemed to be a fairy tale remnant of a lost world of Glamour her coronation was a celebration of pageantry itself in a country that was a vast bomb site four houses out of 10 had been damaged or destroyed it was even shown on the new medium of Television though the Archbishop of Canterbury feared men would watch in pubs without removing their hats by her side in the coronation coach rode her husband like Albert he would never be crowned Philip dukee of Edinburgh was from the Greek and danish Royal House of sches Holstein sonenberg glurg he had no surname he was was given the name of one of the branches of Elizabeth’s family Mount [Music] baton there was no question of the queen becoming a modest Suburban Sovereign like the restored European Royals George’s Widow was sure her daughter should be Regal and Grand royalty required flunkies and castles and palaces and golden coaches she herself made do with six cars three chauffeurs five chefs two pages three footmen two dressers and 30 secretaries Maids treasurers and housekeepers and she was absolutely dead set against royalty paying tax for a long time this was met with an extraordinary degree of complicity from the governments of the day in 1947 when labor came to power amid all the nationalizations and the class war Declarations of We Are The Masters now had come in agreement that the government would take over the cost of running Buckingham [Music] Palace now the conservatives said the government would take over the cost of the royal train and Royal visits abroad and freed the queen from paying tax on property apart from rates on Sandringham and Balm moral in Edward Heath’s time as prime minister it was officially stated for the first time that the queen pays no tax in 19 1973 she was Exempted from the new companies bill that could force shareholders to identify themselves even if they hid behind the names of nominees her Shares are hidden in a company called the bank of England nominees which can only be used by heads of state and is uniquely exempt from disclosure laws and in 1965 when a labor government introduced capital gains tax they declared that the queen is exempt under these Arrangements immense and unknowable riches were built up she has for example 600 works by Leonardo da Vinci we’re told these riches are not really hers because she’s not free to sell them but most of the royal collection is never publicly displayed why whose interest is being served it obviously means the monarchy can put on a heck of a show that goes far beyond their demand on the public purse and they don’t need to run the risk of asking us to fund the whole thing from taxes we each contribute 61 p a year at the last count that money just over £ 36 million is not enough to put on the grand Regal show which the British Monarchy seems to be about certainly for a very long time it was simply not permitted to suggest that the monarchy should be anything less than Grand in 1957 Lord Lord Ultram wrote an article arguing for a modernized monarchy he called the court complacent and out of touch said the queen was a priggish school girl and said that the monarchy should not be as it was intimately associated with the upper classes wow the dukee of argil said that he should be hanged drawn and quartered and the BBC immediately dropped him from any questions in fact alram had got it wrong lavish Splendor was just what most of the public wanted from their monarchy they would have despised a queen on a bicycle they wanted to be deferential they probably still do and there were 20 more years of this kind of thing to come in 1977 the year of the Queen’s Jubilee The Sex Pistols Anthem God Save the Queen and her fascist regime was banned from being broadcast even when it outsold all other records the puzzle becomes even more intriguing when you look at the Apparently shrinking role of the crown in public affairs the Imperial title had already disappeared in the days of George V 6 when India and Pakistan became independent the Empire became the Commonwealth and of the 58 past and present members of that vague organization only 16 have Elizabeth as their head of state and falling why did it matter so much to protect and sustain royalty partly perhaps it’s more to do with the queen herself than the institution of monarchy Elizabeth the Victoria Elizabeth II the rule of elderly matriarchs seems to be particularly proper to the English and it may provide important social glue as the population of Britain became more heterogeneous with substantial immigration from commonwealth countries by people who feel excluded from political life and often from the legitimate economy perhaps there was a hope that the queen would be a focus of patri otic attachment after all she’s the lynchpin of the Commonwealth its graciously enthusiastic figurehead and promoting the image of a glamorous and golden royalty above and outside politics that is synonymous with Britain may be a very useful way of creating legitimacy for a state that might otherwise look rather shabby the last great moment of this ceremonial Royal progress through history came on July the 29th 1981 the wedding of the heir to the throne Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer over 700 million people watched the 20-year-old princess descend from a glass coach to marry her 32- year-old Prince the wedding had been arranged by the Queen Mother and Diana’s grandmother each of them felt for their own reasons that it was the best arrangement possible it turned out Charles was having an affair with a married woman Mrs Camila Parker bols Alice ke’s great-granddaughter Diana said that on the honeymoon he was more interested in Reading eight books by lawren Van depost than in her and he wore Charles Camila cufflinks and when she became distressed she felt strongly that the royal family turned against her in 1992 it all blew apart in what the queen called her anos horis her second son Andrew separated from his wife Sarah Fergus who was pictured topless being kissed by her financial advisor her daughter Princess Anne divorced Captain Mark Phillips Charles and Diana split up with spectacular accusations being made in the press and on television and Windsor Castle caught fire that was when the ground really began to shift at least when it was explained that the 40 million repair bill would be paid by the public there was a huge Collective breath of no it won’t and so the queen decided it would be much the wisest thing to offer to pay 70% of the cost she opened up some of her homes to the public to raise the cash there was still astonishingly little direct criticism of the queen in an age when television and the Press have the power to pull down anyone the queen and her mother were treated with respect even devotion but the rest of the royal family had become fair game and were subjected to a ferocious assault of public humiliation why did we support the royal family and all their wealth why were we giving them all this money the Press pack was baing at their heels that’s when the queen agreed that she should voluntarily start paying income tax and refund the Parliamentary allowances received by other members of the royal family but things didn’t get any better and the Queen herself began to be criticized in 1997 when Princess Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris we all remember the shock and horror and the debate about the lack of public reaction by the senior members of the royal family there was a widespread feeling that at that moment they were not in fact part of the nation was the program started by George V of integrating the monarchy into the life of the nation coming unrest Tred instead of the Monarch playing the role of warning and Advising the Prime Minister which is supposed to be her constitutional role the Prime Minister warned and advised The Sovereign to take public action she had to be seen to grieve or the monarchy itself might be in danger and now we wait to see what happens next the heir to the throne and his mistress are forever tainted with the image of the princess that was publicly destroyed the queen is an old lady with a Reign that begins to rival Victoria in length can anyone be certain that the country would accept her son as king there’s always been a bargain at the heart of monarchy in this country the Monarch has always been dependent on the people that bargain has been the key to survival it began when William the Conqueror realized that he and his friends couldn’t actually run a country where they didn’t speak speak the language or know the laws Traditions or even the geography it was restated in a series of crises in which monarchs who tried to rule without consent were simply dumped Matilda Jane gray Richard Cromwell James II and to give that consent people need to feel that The Sovereign is entitled to be there and respects laws even though no court can enforce them laws which today probably incl include having to pay tax partly of course the institution is sustained by the character of the queen herself faced with enormous pressures and a job from which there is no possibility of rest she has retained a calm resilience and exquisite constitutional carefulness which guarantees her a respectful place in history then what the British Monarchy is certainly a great addition to the gayety of Nations partly as a soap opera partly as a walking talking anachronism that makes other heads of state visibly uneasy but it does come at a price and whether the price is too high for the continued survival of this most extraordinary form of government well that of course will be the surprise ending [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music]

By Amjad Izhar
Contact: amjad.izhar@gmail.com
https://amjadizhar.blog

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