The Plantagenets - Episode 3 - Death Of Kings (History Documentary)
Professor Robert Bartlett charts the downfall of the Plantagenet dynasty. In the last century of their rule, four Plantagenet kings are violently deposed and murdered by members of their own family. It is the bloodiest episode in the entire history of the English monarchy. As the Plantagenets turn in on themselves, England is dragged into decades of brutal civil war.
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00:00In October 1399, a prisoner was secretly taken from his cell in the Tower of London.
00:23He was the eighth Plantagenet king to rule England.
00:29Richard II.
00:35It was said that as he was taken along the Thames, he was wailing and loudly lamenting
00:42that he had ever been born.
00:46Three months later, he was found starved to death.
00:56The man responsible for Richard's downfall was another Plantagenet, his cousin Henry
01:00of Lancaster.
01:02Henry had deposed Richard and installed himself as king.
01:07It was a kind of original sin from which the Plantagenets would never recover.
01:12The French chronicler Warren commented, something acquired wickedly cannot last long.
01:18The House of Plantagenet was now fatally divided along lines that would never be reconciled.
01:28The usurpation and murder of an anointed king violated sacred taboos and undermined the
01:34foundations of Plantagenet power.
01:39The right to rule of future Plantagenet kings would now be in doubt and they would have
01:45to fight to keep their grip on the throne.
01:51Plantagenet turned against Plantagenet in the battle for the crown and they dragged
01:57England into decades of brutal civil war.
02:04Within less than a century, four Plantagenet kings met violent deaths at the hands of their
02:09own relatives.
02:10This was the bloodiest episode in the whole history of the English monarchy.
02:15In this death of kings, this royal bloodletting ended in the complete destruction of the Plantagenet dynasty.
02:46In the summer of 1381, thousands of armed peasants stormed the city of London.
02:54They set fire to palaces and property.
02:59Nobles, lawyers and foreigners were hunted down and killed.
03:05This became known as the Peasants' Revolt, the greatest uprising in the history of medieval England.
03:14The Plantagenets were confronted by the most serious threat the lower classes had ever
03:18posed to royal power.
03:27And sitting on the throne was a boy king.
03:31Richard II had been crowned four years earlier at the age of ten.
03:38He was forced to flee from his own subjects.
03:44Richard was just 14 years old. He sought refuge here in the Tower of London.
03:49It must have been terrifying as he looked out from the top of a turret to see his capital engulfed in flames.
03:56And everyone looked to him to bring an end to the violence.
04:00This was the first real test of his kingship.
04:05A new tax had triggered the riots.
04:08It was levied in the name of the king to pay for the Plantagenets' war against the French monarchy.
04:16It was a poll tax imposed on every man and woman over the age of 14, regardless of income.
04:27It inflamed resentment against the great inequalities in medieval society.
04:33According to the chronicler Henry Knighton, the rebels outside were demanding
04:37that every man in the Kingdom of England should be free and remain free of the yoke of servitude forever.
04:43A particular target of their hostility was the boy king's inner circle,
04:47the councillors who had been ruling on his behalf.
04:50These powerful officials were responsible for levying the reviled poll tax.
04:56And they would face the wrath of the rebels.
05:01One of the king's closest advisers and his chancellor was Simon Sudbury, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
05:09In terror, he'd also taken refuge in the tower.
05:15On the third day of rioting, he was here in St John's Chapel, praying for his life.
05:22The insurgents broke in and seized him, along with the king's treasurer.
05:31Their heads were hacked off and paraded through the city on pikes.
05:41On the fourth day, in a bid to end the riots, Richard rode out to negotiate with the rebels.
05:52Some open ground here, just outside the city walls, was chosen for the meeting.
05:57A place called Smoothfield, or Smithfield, used for tournaments, fairs and festivals.
06:02The king was meeting the people on their own territory.
06:06This was a promising start.
06:08But with the royal forces vastly outnumbered by the rebels,
06:11Richard was placing himself in a perilous position.
06:18The peasant's leader was called Wat Tyler.
06:23He approached the king and repeated the demands for freedom and equality.
06:29The king agreed, but then a scuffle broke out.
06:34Tyler lashed out with his dagger, and the mayor of London plunged his sword into Tyler's neck.
06:47These are the gates of the priory that stands on the edge of Smithfield.
06:50Just behind me was where Wat Tyler was stabbed and was seen to fall from his horse.
06:56The rebels drew their weapons to avenge him.
06:59At that moment, the future of the Plantagenet dynasty hung in the balance.
07:04But Richard took the initiative.
07:06He spurred his horse forward into the crowd and pledged,
07:09I will be your king, your captain and your leader.
07:16The mood changed.
07:19With the added assurance of a charter granting them pardons and freedom,
07:23the rebels began to disperse.
07:29Richard had single-handedly turned the tide of rebellion.
07:35And he'd seen for himself the impact of his royal power.
07:42Richard's encounter with his subjects at Smithfield was a defining moment in the young king's reign.
07:47A few years earlier, at his coronation, he'd been anointed with holy oil,
07:51which was believed to set him apart from his subjects, making him God's anointed.
07:57Triumph here at Smithfield confirmed Richard's self-belief in his God-given right to rule,
08:02a conviction that dominated the rest of his reign.
08:10In the Middle Ages, it was believed that kingship was ordained by God.
08:15And Richard had complete faith in his divine right to rule.
08:23He tried to demonstrate his elevated status not through war,
08:27like many of his Plantagenet predecessors,
08:31but through royal displays of ritual and ceremony,
08:36architecture and art.
08:39This altarpiece reveals how he saw his place in the world
08:44and his relationship with God.
08:49This is the Wilton Diptych,
08:51one of the most beautiful paintings ever produced in medieval England.
08:55It was commissioned by Richard II in the 1390s,
08:58although it shows him as a much more youthful figure,
09:01perhaps at the time of the meeting with the rebels in Smithfield.
09:05Behind him stand his patron saints,
09:07John the Baptist, Edward the Confessor, and Edmund, King and Martyr,
09:12the last two, like Richard himself, English kings.
09:16Opposite them stands the Virgin Mary holding the Christ Child,
09:20surrounded by angels.
09:22Every angel wears a badge of the white heart, Richard's own symbol.
09:29Christ is blessing this altarpiece,
09:33Christ is blessing this banner,
09:35which has at the top a red cross flag and a tiny orb.
09:41Analysis under a microscope has revealed that within that orb
09:45is a painting of a green island with a white tower set in a silver sea.
09:52England.
09:56Richard is receiving his kingdom from Christ himself.
10:03This perfectly expresses Richard's exalted sense of kingship,
10:07but his high conception of royal status
10:10led to a political earthquake that destroyed him
10:14and would ultimately result in the extinction of the Plantagenet dynasty itself.
10:24Richard's sense of superiority as God's anointed ruler continued to grow.
10:29He demanded to be treated with ever-greater reverence
10:33and devised elaborate new court rituals to set himself above his nobles.
10:41Richard was the first English king
10:43who insisted on being addressed as Your Highness.
10:46One chronicler describes how he had a throne set up in the chamber
10:49where he sat after supper,
10:51watching everyone but addressing no-one.
10:53When he arrived, he was greeted by the Queen,
10:57but addressing no-one.
10:59Whenever he looked at anybody, however grand they were,
11:02they had to bend the knee.
11:06But the men he was abasing included some of the greatest nobles in the land.
11:10They were outraged by his arrogance.
11:15Like all Plantagenet kings,
11:17Richard's power was dependent on the support of his nobles.
11:21He relied on them to supply him with money and troops.
11:27But Richard made no effort to win their favour or respect.
11:32He alienated them still further
11:34by surrounding himself with a clique of favourites,
11:37many of low birth,
11:39on whom he lavished land and titles.
11:43In 1387, the established nobility,
11:46as well as members of Richard's own family,
11:50took up arms against him.
11:53When Richard was 20, a group of his nobles,
11:56including his cousin, Henry of Lancaster,
11:58seized control of the government by force
12:01and executed his favourite knights.
12:07But Richard had his revenge.
12:10Within 11 years, all his chief enemies were either killed or exiled,
12:14including Henry, who was banished for 10 years.
12:20Henry was the son of England's wealthiest
12:23and most powerful landowner, the Duke of Lancaster.
12:28He was Richard's first cousin
12:30and they had played together as children.
12:33But they grew up to be very different.
12:37Henry was a great knight,
12:39a champion jouster,
12:42and popular with the nobility.
12:45He had four sons, while Richard was childless.
12:51Seeing Henry as a threat,
12:53Richard resolved to remove him.
12:57Henry's 10-year banishment was a terrible punishment,
13:00but he still expected to inherit his father's lands,
13:03the great duchy of Lancaster.
13:05But Richard took yet further revenge.
13:07When Henry's father died,
13:09the king confiscated all the lands that should have come to him.
13:12With nothing left to lose,
13:14Henry determined to return to England and reclaim his inheritance.
13:22When Henry arrived in Yorkshire in July 1399,
13:25barons from across the country flocked to his banner.
13:30They feared that if Richard could confiscate his own cousin's lands,
13:34then no-one's property was safe.
13:38They began to back Henry as a replacement for the king.
13:45Henry's timing was perfect.
13:47Richard was away in Ireland, fighting to maintain English rule.
13:51In his absence, Henry could muster support unopposed.
13:55When Richard finally got back to England,
13:57he found that even his closest friends and household retainers
14:01were beginning to desert him.
14:03Richard realised his support was collapsing.
14:07According to the Chronicle of Dulacre's Abbey,
14:10he set off secretly in the middle of the night,
14:13accompanied by only 15 companions.
14:21He fled from castle to castle, looking for refuge and support.
14:27He fled from castle to castle, looking for refuge and support.
14:34He found none.
14:40Eventually, Richard met with Henry's envoys,
14:43who escorted him here to the great castle at Flint.
14:46Their ancestor Edward I had built it during his conquest of the Welsh,
14:50and now it was to be the site of a momentous meeting
14:54between the two Plantagenet cousins.
15:03Henry approached the castle, accompanied by a force thousands strong,
15:08among them the nobles who had deserted Richard.
15:15This display of military might against the anointed monarch
15:19set a dangerous precedent for future Plantagenet kings.
15:24Richard was here inside the keep, and Henry entered to meet his cousin.
15:29Later, Henry's supporters claimed that Richard then promised to renounce the throne.
15:34But given his views of kingship, that's likely to be pure propaganda.
15:39What is not in doubt is that Richard was now Henry's captive.
15:43The king, who had set himself above all others,
15:46was nothing more than a powerless prisoner.
15:54Just six weeks later, on the 30th of September, 1399,
15:59Henry's seizure of the throne was publicly confirmed
16:03at a ceremony here at Westminster Hall.
16:10Parliament assembled beneath the magnificent hammerbeam ceiling
16:14that Richard II had constructed.
16:16It was announced that on the previous day,
16:19Richard, a captive in the tower, had abdicated,
16:23and 39 charges against him were read out.
16:26Then Henry stood up.
16:28I, Henry of Lancaster, claim this kingdom of England and the crown.
16:33The assembled lords gave their consent and led him to the throne.
16:39Henry had won the crown,
16:42but he would have to fight to keep it.
16:45Richard's misrule had turned many against him.
16:49But in an age of deeply held religious belief,
16:52he was still God's anointed ruler.
16:57In deposing him, Henry had committed a grave sin.
17:03Four months later, he was guilty of an even greater crime.
17:10In February 1400, it was announced that the former king had died.
17:15In all probability, Richard had been starved to death on Henry's orders.
17:21Henry had broken the sacred rules of kingship
17:24that underpinned Plantagenet power.
17:28His struggle for legitimacy didn't end with Richard's murder.
17:39Henry had not inherited his throne, but usurped it.
17:43He was deposing and killing an anointed king to do so.
17:47And so his right to his throne was questioned both at home and abroad.
17:51Plots, uprisings and conspiracies marked his reign.
17:54And although he managed to hold on to his throne,
17:57he had broken a great taboo,
18:00and others would find it easier to do the same.
18:05Henry's usurpation created a fatal schism within the Plantagenet family.
18:09Henry's house of Lancaster was descended from the third son of Edward III.
18:16But another Plantagenet line descended from the second son.
18:21In the future, these descendants could claim a greater right to the throne
18:25than King Henry IV and his offspring.
18:39Doubt over Henry's right to rule cast a shadow over his own heir, Henry V.
18:47When he came to the throne at the age of 26,
18:50he was already a famous warrior and a strong, forceful leader.
18:57He was determined to prove his right to the throne through victory in battle.
19:02He decided to go to war to win a prize
19:05that had obsessed the Plantagenets for generations.
19:12The Plantagenets had their origins in the French county of Anjou.
19:16And at its height, their empire included not only England, but most of France.
19:20Since 1340, they'd even claimed to be kings of France.
19:24Henry V determined to cross the Channel and claim his birthright.
19:28He began in Normandy, laying siege to the port of Harfleur.
19:35After five weeks, the town was forced to surrender.
19:43Henry marched at the head of his army towards Calais, nearly 200 miles away.
19:49By then, the French had emerged.
19:51They had captured the city, and were preparing to attack.
19:56By then, the French had amassed a huge army
19:59and tried to prevent him crossing the river Somme.
20:03Henry's forces found a place to ford the river,
20:06but their path was barred by the enemy at the village of Agincourt.
20:13What happened here at Agincourt on the 25th of October 1415
20:17has been immortalised by Shakespeare.
20:19It's the most famous battle of the entire Plantagenet era.
20:23And Henry V displayed qualities
20:25that made him the most celebrated of all the Plantagenet warrior kings.
20:32At the outset, defeat looked certain.
20:36The English soldiers were exhausted, starving and battle-weary.
20:42They were also vastly outnumbered.
20:49The odds were overwhelmingly against the English,
20:53because they believed he had God on his side.
20:56When one of his knights said that he wished they had a thousand more soldiers,
21:00Henry replied,
21:02I would not have one man more, even if I could,
21:05for those that I have here are God's people.
21:08These humble few will conquer the pride of the French.
21:16But Henry didn't rely on God alone.
21:19Henry was a gifted tactician.
21:22He drew his army up between two woods
21:25that stood here on the field of battle on either side at that time.
21:28So the French couldn't outflank him and had to advance on a narrow front.
21:35The French were forced to attack across a muddy field.
21:49Part 2
22:04Their elite cavalry charged,
22:07only to be cut down by the English longbowmen.
22:14Those who survived the arrows were caught in a quagmire
22:18between the two armies.
22:23The battle turned in favour of Henry's humble few.
22:31With victory in their sights,
22:33the English began rounding up French prisoners.
22:36According to the chivalric code of honour,
22:39their lives would be spared.
22:43But a cry suddenly went up that French reinforcements
22:48were about to launch a fresh attack.
22:52Henry knew that his forces couldn't withstand another assault
22:55and secure the prisoners.
22:57He was afraid they would escape and rejoin the battle.
23:01With deliberate ruthlessness, he ordered the prisoners to be killed.
23:07But the second assault never came.
23:13Seeing so many of their men killed,
23:16Henry fled the battlefield.
23:21The prisoners had been needlessly slaughtered.
23:27Henry's desire to win had led him to break
23:30the revered conventions of chivalry.
23:34Victory had come before honour.
23:40Henry's qualities as a brave soldier and a calculating general
23:45made the English win a great victory.
23:48It became a founding symbol of the English underdog
23:51triumphing against the odds.
23:54And in the medieval period, it was believed that the outcome of battles
23:57was determined by God's will.
24:00Henry's victory showed that he had God's favour.
24:03The question mark over the Lancastrians' right to rule was removed,
24:06for the time being.
24:09Agincourt was just the beginning
24:12of Henry's plan of conquest.
24:16Over the next five years,
24:19he took France castle by castle,
24:22town by town.
24:26By 1420, he'd reclaimed many of the lands lost
24:29by his Plantagenet predecessor, King John.
24:33He now controlled more than a third of France.
24:37This was a spectacular triumph
24:40against the Plantagenet's age-old enemy.
24:50Henry owed his success as much to French weakness
24:53as to English strength.
24:56The King of France, Charles VI, suffered from mental illness
24:59and the country was being torn apart by civil war.
25:02All this enabled Henry to win his resounding victories.
25:05And next, he negotiated this extraordinary treaty
25:08with the French king, signed here,
25:11in the heart of Champagne, in the city of Troyes.
25:14Here, Charles promises that after his death,
25:17the crown and the kingdom of France,
25:20with all its rights and depertinences,
25:23will remain with King Henry and his heirs forever.
25:26And here, he commands his nobles that when he is dead,
25:29they shall recognise Henry as their liege lord,
25:33sovereign and true king of France.
25:36Henry was now recognised as the heir to the French throne.
25:39And in the meantime, he would serve as regent of France.
25:48The French king's son, the Dauphin, was disinherited.
25:53And on 2nd June 1420, the Plantagenet's seizure of the French throne
25:58was secured through a magnificent diplomatic marriage.
26:03Henry married the daughter of the French king,
26:07Catherine of Valois, at a dazzling ceremony here in Troyes.
26:14Henry had realised the Plantagenet dream.
26:17He was, in effect, now king of England and of France.
26:20At the wedding, Henry and his English followers reveled wildly.
26:24According to one French chronicler,
26:26it was as if, at that moment, he was king of the whole world.
26:3318 months later, Henry V's new queen gave birth to a son.
26:39The Plantagenet ambition to rule a French and English empire
26:43had finally been achieved.
26:48But Henry's joy was short-lived.
26:50In the medieval period, it was births and deaths in the ruling dynasties
26:54that determined the destinies of kingdoms.
26:57And now, the history of Western Europe was transformed suddenly by two deaths.
27:03While campaigning in France, Henry died of dysentery,
27:06that common disease of soldiers' camps,
27:09and Charles of France soon followed him to the grave.
27:12Henry V's son, a baby of ten months old,
27:16was now king of England and of France.
27:22The English coronation of the young Plantagenet prince, another Henry,
27:27took place in Westminster Abbey in November 1429.
27:31His French coronation, in Notre-Dame in Paris, came two years later.
27:40Henry VI is the only monarch ever to be crowned
27:43both king of England and king of France.
27:48It was a Plantagenet triumph.
27:52But it wasn't to last.
27:55By the time of Henry VI's coronation in Paris,
27:59the tide was already beginning to turn against the English.
28:02The French nobles rallied to the dispossessed Dauphin.
28:05A unified French force was beginning to emerge,
28:08and the English were overstretched.
28:11Only another great warrior king could save the Plantagenet empire.
28:23Henry VI was the House of Lancaster's third Plantagenet king.
28:29As he grew up, the shadow of his grandfather's usurpation
28:33of Richard II's throne seemed to have passed.
28:38But Henry turned out to be no warrior, nor was he a gifted leader.
28:43He was a simple, pious man
28:45who devoted himself to good works and charitable causes.
28:52Unlike his father, Henry didn't lead armies in France.
28:55Instead, he lavished time, money and energy
28:58on this, his personal project, Eton College.
29:02He laid the foundation stone himself
29:04and supervised its development down to the smallest detail.
29:10Henry founded the school in 1440
29:12to educate children selected from the lower ranks of society.
29:19There were plans to build the largest chapel in England,
29:23where people would gather to pray for the soul of the king.
29:29Here in the college library are the original charters for the school.
29:36These documents describe everything,
29:38from the services that were held in the chapel
29:41to the dimensions of the building.
29:45And in this magnificent charter, we see Henry kneeling
29:48beneath the royal arms and his crown,
29:51presenting the college to the Virgin Mary.
29:54This was clearly something very close to his heart.
30:00And this page records instructions made by the king
30:03about the dimensions of the church.
30:06And sometimes there are crossings out and corrections.
30:10The church was getting bigger.
30:13And Henry's approval of all this
30:15is recorded by his signature at the top of the page.
30:21This was a worthy project.
30:24But many saw it as a dangerous distraction
30:27from more important royal duties.
30:30While Henry was worrying about the exact dimensions
30:33of the buildings here at Eton,
30:35the French territories conquered by his father
30:37were slipping from his grasp.
30:40By this time, the French had crowned the Dauphin
30:43as Charles VII of France.
30:46He created France's first standing army.
30:50His soldiers equipped with the latest artillery.
30:56Meanwhile, Henry was caught up with his school for the poor.
31:02His own parliament became exasperated.
31:04They said the cost of Eton was extravagant and vexatious.
31:08They wanted him to continue hostilities.
31:11But Henry, driven by his own piety, sought peace.
31:15In 1444, in an attempt to secure a truce,
31:18Henry made an extraordinary secret deal with the French.
31:23He agreed to marry Charles VII's niece,
31:26Margaret of Anjou.
31:30Here in the college library is a rare picture of Margaret.
31:34She's shown kneeling next to her husband, the king,
31:37in the college chapel.
31:40Usually, when there's a war,
31:43usually, when the terms of a dynastic marriage were hammered out,
31:47the bride came with a handsome dowry.
31:50Not this time.
31:51Instead, in a startling move,
31:53Henry promised to hand over the strategic French county of Maine
31:57to his bride's family.
31:59This was where the first Plantagenet king had been born.
32:02No Plantagenet had ever surrendered land in France so easily.
32:06And it didn't bring peace.
32:09The French were rapidly reclaiming Plantagenet territory.
32:14In 1448, Maine was formally ceded to France.
32:20Two years later, Normandy fell.
32:25Then, in 1453,
32:27the Plantagenet's oldest and most prized French possession was taken.
32:32Gascony had been in their hands since the formation of the dynasty.
32:36Now, it too was lost at the Battle of Castillon.
32:41All that remained, under English rule,
32:44was a tiny enclave around Calais.
32:48In just one generation,
32:50Henry V's spectacular legacy had vanished.
32:56The Plantagenet lands in France were lost,
32:59and they would never be recovered.
33:01But future English kings were slow to abandon their claim,
33:06It wasn't until 1800 that George III finally acknowledged reality
33:11and gave up his official title, King of France.
33:16For Henry VI, news of the fall of Gascony was devastating.
33:20Within a week of the terrible defeat,
33:22he collapsed into a catatonic stupor.
33:29His condition may have been inherited from his maternal grandfather,
33:33King Charles VI of France.
33:36He wasn't even aware when his wife gave birth to a son,
33:41a new Lancastrian heir to the throne of England.
33:48France was lost and the king was mad.
33:51The absence of royal leadership showed once again the fragility of dynastic rule,
33:55a system that was only as strong as the king or queen who sat on the throne.
34:00And with Henry VI mentally ill,
34:02doubts about the Lancastrian regime came back to haunt the Plantagenets.
34:06Waiting in the wings was a cousin who thought he had a claim to the throne
34:10just as good as Henry VI and his young son.
34:18Richard, Duke of York, was a descendant of Edward III's second son,
34:22and he believed his right to the throne was greater than Henry's.
34:27Henry of Lancaster had taken the throne through military might.
34:31Now Richard of York felt empowered to do the same.
34:38He signalled his intent to take power by calling himself Richard Plantagenet.
34:45He was the first to use the Plantagenet family name since the foundation of the dynasty.
34:51Ludlow was one of his most important powerbases.
34:54As Henry VI lapsed into mental illness,
34:57Duke Richard began to advance the claims of his branch of the Plantagenets.
35:01St Lawrence's Ludlow contains hidden evidence of his family pride and his dynastic ambition.
35:08Richard of York's ancestors had worshipped in the church in Ludlow for generations.
35:20These small, decorative ledges are known as mistletoe.
35:24The mistletoe is a type of tree that grows on the edge of a cliff,
35:28and is often used as a place of worship.
35:32The mistletoe is a type of tree that grows on the edge of a cliff,
35:36These small, decorative ledges are known as misery cords,
35:38and they were carved onto the back of choir stools for weary choristers and clergy to lean on during long services.
35:49All kinds of scenes are represented.
35:51Here is the medieval ideal of womanhood.
35:56A little bit further down, a countryman is warming himself by the fire,
36:00while his winter stocks and stores hang around him.
36:04And here is a wrestling match, a popular sport in the Middle Ages.
36:12But some of the carvings have a much more political edge.
36:19There's a white heart, emblem of Richard II,
36:22the king whom the Lancastrians had deposed and killed.
36:27And here is a superbly carved falcon and fetterlock,
36:31the personal badge of Richard, Duke of York.
36:37And here is the white rose, the famous symbol of the House of York,
36:41under which they fought as they made their bid for the throne.
36:50In his catatonic state,
36:52Henry VI was incapable of ruling on behalf of the Lancastrians.
36:57But this would be no easy takeover for the Yorkists.
37:04The king's wife, Margaret, struggled ferociously to secure her son's right to the throne.
37:11Shakespeare would later call her the She-Wolf of France.
37:17In their dynastic wars with France,
37:20the Plantagenets had united England by harnessing a growing sense of nationhood.
37:27But now, as the dynasty split into warring factions,
37:31the country was divided by the houses of Lancaster and York.
37:38Once again, the Plantagenets dragged England into civil war.
37:45The nobility was forced to take sides.
37:48Many members of the leading families were killed,
37:51and the power struggle became ever more bitter, bloody and vengeful.
37:57The war raged across England, no side able to gain a decisive victory.
38:04After five years of conflict, the Yorkists were gaining the upper hand.
38:09But then they suffered a devastating defeat.
38:13In 1460, Richard, Duke of York himself, was killed in battle at Wakefield.
38:18His head cut off and displayed on the walls of York,
38:21wearing a paper crown, the only crown he ever wore.
38:25But the Yorkist torch was taken up by his son, Edward.
38:29Aged just 18, tall and handsome, he would prove to be a formidable warrior.
38:34After the Battle of Wakefield, he seized control of London and had himself proclaimed king.
38:39There were now two Plantagenet kings in England, but only one crown.
38:52The battle to determine which Plantagenet was the rightful king
38:56took place here, at Townton in Yorkshire, on Palm Sunday, 1461.
39:03In the midst of a snowstorm,
39:06almost every man of noble birth in England turned up with his army.
39:12Tens of thousands of men.
39:17This would be the bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil.
39:28The Yorkists were drawn up on the ridge behind me.
39:32They were led from the front by Edward, an imposing sight at 6'3", and a brave fighter.
39:38But Henry, the Lancastrian king, was far from the battlefield.
39:42Unwarlike and mentally unstable, he had sought safety in York, along with his wife and son.
39:48It was up to his loyal nobles to defend his cause.
39:51The Lancastrian king was supported by the majority of the nobility
39:56and commanded the greater army.
40:00But Edward's men had the advantage.
40:10The wind was behind them and carried their arrows into the midst of the Lancastrian lines.
40:17Lancastrian arrows, firing into the wind,
40:23fell short.
40:27They were forced to charge.
40:39The Plantagenet army, led by Edward,
40:42was defeated.
40:45The Plantagenets had created a rift through the nation
40:51that even tore families apart.
41:01There was great killing on both sides, wrote one contemporary,
41:04and for a long time it was unclear who would have the victory.
41:08So furious was the battle, and the slaughter so great and pitiable,
41:12for father did not spare son, nor son father.
41:20The turning point came as dusk fell.
41:25Yorkist reinforcements arrived and attacked the Lancastrian flank.
41:32Henry's men fell into confusion and fled.
41:38The Lancastrians were pushed back by the Yorkists and began to fall down the hill.
41:42Thousands of panic-stricken men were now seeking an escape.
41:46As they tumbled down the slope, they found they had to cross the river
41:49that runs at the foot of the hill through the woods.
41:54In the mayhem, many were crushed or drowned,
41:57many more killed by their enemies.
42:04The dead began to pile up in the river.
42:07The retreating Lancastrians were forced to clamber
42:10over what one chronicler called bridges of bodies.
42:18Another contemporary wrote,
42:20many a lady lost her best beloved in that battle.
42:2628,000 men were reported dead.
42:30Even 300 years later, it was noted that farmers
42:33oft discover the miserable remains of soldiers.
42:42In 1996, workmen digging foundations
42:45came across a medieval mass grave.
42:5040 skeletons were identified.
42:53Men and boys between the ages of 15 and 50.
43:01The butchered victims of Towton.
43:06The evidence of these skulls shows that these men died
43:09from savage blows to the head.
43:12Here, a sweeping cut across the forehead.
43:16And here, a crushing blow to the head.
43:20This one has the characteristic square wound
43:23inflicted by a war hammer.
43:31On occasion, there are cuts on the side of the skull,
43:34which might suggest, perhaps, that an ear was cut off
43:37as a trophy.
43:41The way these men were slaughtered,
43:44the way they were buried,
43:48the way these men were slaughtered indicates
43:51the brutal vindictiveness of the Battle of Towton.
43:54There was no magnanimous chivalry here.
43:57Many of the men fighting in the battle were out to avenge
44:00their fathers or their brothers or their sons or their friends.
44:03This was family politics on a national scale.
44:06The Plantagenets had torn the country apart.
44:14The Yorkists were victorious.
44:17Henry VI's Queen Margaret and their son fled into exile.
44:25For the second time in less than a century,
44:28the anointed King of England had been usurped.
44:38Edward had all the qualities to be a great king.
44:42He was magnanimous, diplomatic and purposeful.
44:47He won the support of most of his barons.
44:51His accession was seen by many
44:54as the dawning of another golden era for the Plantagenets.
45:01But Edward had a weakness.
45:04The perceptive French diplomat, Comene, says
45:07that he loved his pleasure and his ease more than any other ruler,
45:10for he thought about nothing except the ladies.
45:13He describes Edward as young and more handsome
45:16than any man of his time,
45:19and reports that when the king went hunting,
45:22he had extra tents brought along for all his ladies.
45:28In 1464, while Edward was hunting near the village of Grafton Regis,
45:33he met a young widow named Elizabeth Woodville.
45:40Chroniclers described her as the most beautiful woman in England.
45:45Edward became infatuated with her.
45:51According to legend, this is where Edward and Elizabeth met.
45:54It's said that she resisted his advances,
45:57and according to some, that she even drew a dagger to protect her honour.
46:02The only way the young king could have her was to marry her,
46:05and, quickly and secretly, that's what he did.
46:09But Edward had broken a cardinal rule of dynastic politics
46:13by marrying not for a great dowry or political advantage,
46:16but moved by passion.
46:21Marriage was a crucial opportunity for the great families of Europe
46:25to advance their political and dynastic ambitions.
46:30Every Plantagenet king had gained advantage
46:33through marriage to a wealthy high-born woman from Europe.
46:36Most of them French.
46:42Now, for the first time in more than 400 years,
46:46the King of England had married an Englishwoman
46:49from the lower ranks of the aristocracy.
46:53She wasn't even a supporter of the House of York.
46:59Elizabeth Woodville had no great fortune.
47:02Her father was a Lancastrian knight,
47:06and her first husband had been killed fighting for the House of Lancaster.
47:09She brought no great political or material advantage.
47:13Even more outrageously, the king had made the marriage
47:16without consulting his great nobles.
47:19Edward's marriage was a major political miscalculation.
47:25Edward didn't even tell his most loyal supporter and friend,
47:28the Earl of Warwick.
47:31He was so outraged by Edward's secret marriage
47:34that he deserted him, sailed for France,
47:37and allied himself with the exiled Henry and Margaret.
47:42In 1470, Margaret of Anjou made a final bid for power
47:45on behalf of the Lancastrian cause, backed by the Earl of Warwick.
47:49They managed to overthrow Edward IV and send him into exile.
47:53But the following year he was back,
47:56and he inflicted a crushing defeat on them.
48:00Henry VI's heir was cut down
48:04as he fled from the battle.
48:07Shortly afterwards, the former king himself was murdered.
48:21After 20 years of civil war,
48:24England now enjoyed a time of peace and stability
48:27under Edward IV.
48:31The king presided over a flourishing court
48:34described by one European visitor as
48:37the most splendid in all Christendom.
48:42Edward commissioned beautiful manuscripts
48:45from the best illuminators in Europe.
48:50And he oversaw the building of a new royal banqueting hall
48:53here at Eltham Palace, southeast of London.
49:01The hall was one of the most expensive
49:04building projects of the age.
49:07It was a statement of the scale and grandeur
49:10of Edward's ambition.
49:14When the hall was complete, Edward held court here
49:17with Elizabeth at his side.
49:20They had two healthy young sons,
49:23and the future of the Plantagenet dynasty seemed assured.
49:26But not everyone at court was happy.
49:29Elizabeth had ten brothers and sisters,
49:32and they did tremendously well out of their beautiful sisters'
49:35new royal connections.
49:38The rise of these new favourites, the Woodvilles,
49:41was resented by the old nobility
49:44and by some members of the Plantagenet family itself.
49:51Richard was Edward's youngest brother.
49:54Although not physically strong,
49:58he was a successful military leader
50:01and he'd been Edward's most dependable supporter.
50:05Now his loyalty was about to be tested.
50:12On 9 April 1483, Edward IV died suddenly.
50:17His 12-year-old son was proclaimed Edward V.
50:22But he was too young to take power.
50:25Richard saw an opportunity to win the crown for himself.
50:32Over the last century, two kings had already been violently deposed.
50:37It's not surprising that Richard felt able
50:40to make a bid for the throne.
50:46Edward's death was followed by a power struggle
50:49between his younger brother Richard and Richard's rivals, the Woodvilles.
50:53Fearing that they would be the power behind the throne,
50:56Richard made sure that he got custody of the young king,
50:59Edward V, and his little brother.
51:07The two princes were placed in the Tower of London.
51:12They were never seen again.
51:17The gossip in the courts of Europe
51:20concluded that Richard had them murdered.
51:23It's never been proved, but Richard wouldn't be
51:26the first plantagenet wicked uncle to be accused of killing a nephew
51:30who stood between him and the throne.
51:35On 6 July 1483, Richard was crowned.
51:43With a helping hand from Shakespeare,
51:47Richard was crowned as one of the greatest villains in English history.
51:50But his actions were driven by the same dynastic ambitions
51:53that drove his ancestors.
51:56This latest usurpation, however, would lead directly
51:59to the downfall of the dynasty.
52:06Richard's suspected murder of the young princes caused outrage.
52:12The plantagenets had often been brutal in their pursuit of power.
52:17But the killing of innocent children was an abomination.
52:23Both Lancastrians and some Yorkists now turned against Richard.
52:33The Lancastrians backed a man whose claim to the plantagenet throne
52:36was tenuous, Henry Tudor.
52:40Henry had been living in exile
52:43and had won the support of the plantagenet's perennial enemy,
52:46the French king.
52:52In August 1485, he landed at Milford Haven
52:55with thousands of French troops.
52:59He marched east,
53:02gathering Welsh and English support along the way.
53:05Richard rode out to meet them.
53:08The two armies met near the Midlands town of Leicester.
53:14Richard's forces camped here, a few miles from Bosworth.
53:17Tudor propagandists later reported
53:20that on the night before the battle,
53:23Richard saw hideous images, as it were, of evil spirits haunting him
53:26and they would not let him rest.
53:29Clearly a sign of a guilty conscience.
53:33But for Richard, the battle offered an opportunity
53:36to prove that he was God's chosen monarch.
53:42Richard wore the royal crown on his battle helmet
53:45and declared,
53:48this day I will die as king or win.
53:52His army was far superior in numbers,
53:55but the loyalty of his men was in doubt.
54:03As the battle began,
54:06his soldiers seemed to be fighting half-heartedly.
54:09But then Richard saw an opportunity
54:12to bring the battle to a swift end.
54:16Richard caught sight of Henry Tudor,
54:19surrounded by only a small retinue,
54:22and he charged directly at him with a few loyal knights.
54:25The chronicler John Rouse says that although Richard was small
54:28and physically weak, he fought like a noble knight.
54:31He cut down Henry's standard-bearer
54:34and almost slashed his way to Henry himself.
54:37But then he was betrayed.
54:41One of his most powerful nobles, Lord Stanley,
54:44was watching the battle unfold from a distance.
54:48He commanded up to 5,000 men,
54:51but his allegiance was in doubt.
54:55When he saw Richard isolated and vulnerable,
54:59he threw in his lot with the Tudors.
55:06Stanley's troops were then unleashed
55:09upon the Plantagenet king.
55:14The recent discovery of Richard III's body
55:17in a Leicester car park confirms the chronicler's reports
55:20of what happened next.
55:23The king was abandoned, but he chose not to flee.
55:26The last Plantagenet monarch was cut down
55:29by a lethal blow to the head.
55:32Even his enemies admitted Richard's courage.
55:35They describe him fighting manfully
55:38in the thickest press of his enemies
55:41and describe how, in battle and not in flight,
55:44King Richard died like a noble ruler,
55:47most bold in the field.
55:51The last Plantagenet king of England
55:54was stripped naked and slung over a horse.
55:57His corpse was paraded along the road to Leicester
56:00for all men to wonder upon.
56:05He was later carelessly buried
56:08in a hastily dug grave.
56:17The crown Richard wore into battle
56:20was discovered in the carnage at Bosworth.
56:23It was placed upon the head of the new king,
56:26Henry Tudor.
56:38When the Plantagenets won the English crown
56:41three centuries earlier,
56:44England had been devastated by decades of civil war.
56:50Now a civil war
56:53between two branches of their own family
56:56had brought about their downfall.
57:01But the longest ruling dynasty in English history
57:04had helped transform the culture and politics
57:07of the British Isles.
57:13They'd inspired and provoked the emergence
57:16of many of the country's distinctive institutions
57:20and laws
57:23and adopted symbols
57:26that represent the nation to this day.
57:35For 331 years,
57:38this single family's ambitions, cruelties and achievements
57:41had shaped the history of much of Britain and France.
57:44Now Henry Tudor led England into a new world.
57:48The Tudors sought their empire not in France,
57:51but across the Atlantic,
57:54and they would hunt down any remaining Plantagenet claimants to the throne.
57:57This once mighty dynasty ended in oblivion.
58:00Kim Philby is the most famous double agent in history.
58:16Charming and courteous,
58:19but also a fanatic and a ruthless killer.
58:22He deceived everyone around him.