Professor Robert Bartlett tells the extraordinary story of England's most dysfunctional, yet longest-ruling, royal dynasty.
King Henry II forges a mighty empire encompassing England and much of France. His sons, Richard the Lionheart and John, then turn on their father and each other, bringing the dynasty to the edge of annihilation.
King Henry II forges a mighty empire encompassing England and much of France. His sons, Richard the Lionheart and John, then turn on their father and each other, bringing the dynasty to the edge of annihilation.
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00:00In early medieval France, the Count of Anjou became enthralled by a mysterious woman.
00:17They married and had several children, but the Count grew concerned because his wife
00:26always left church before mass was celebrated.
00:35One day he ordered his knights to stop her, but she pulled free and flew out through a
00:46The Countess of Anjou was never seen again.
00:58According to this legend, all 15 Plantagenet kings of England were descended from the demon
01:03Countess of Anjou.
01:05Her blood flowed in their veins.
01:07And over the centuries, this provided an explanation for the fierce temper, the bloody family feuds
01:13and the brutality of the Plantagenets.
01:16Richard the Lionheart himself once declared defiantly,
01:19From the devil we came, and to the devil we will go.
01:28In the medieval world, all politics was family politics.
01:33And the Plantagenet family dominated England for more than 300 years.
01:40Through some of the nation's most famous and infamous kings.
01:46King John, Henry V, Richard III.
01:53They were driven by dynastic ambition, striving to expand their power beyond their French homeland.
02:01In the process, the culture and politics of the British Isles were transformed.
02:07England's distinctive system of justice was established.
02:12Parliament was born.
02:15And the great Gothic cathedrals transformed the landscape.
02:23The Plantagenets developed a new style of warfare in their attempt to claim Scotland.
02:30They conquered Wales and half of Ireland.
02:37And their great royal castles hammered home their power.
02:44When the Plantagenets won the kingdom of England, it was shattered and lawless.
02:48Under their rule, it was transformed into one of the best governed states in Christendom.
02:54But their story is one of intrigue, conflict and violence.
02:58They fought their enemies, but also turned on each other.
03:01Sons made war on fathers, brothers betrayed brothers, powerful queens conspired.
03:07The future of Western Europe would be shaped by this extraordinary dynasty, this devil's brood.
03:28The story of England's longest reigning dynasty begins here, in Anjou, Western France.
03:43Twelfth century France was dominated by its great barons rather than by its nominal king.
03:51And these fertile farmlands of the Loire Valley were the domain of the Count of Anjou.
04:00In 1128, an enraged princess arrived here.
04:04Her name was Matilda and she was the only surviving legitimate child of King Henry I of England and his acknowledged heir.
04:11Her father had commanded her to marry a 15-year-old boy, Geoffrey, the eldest son of the Count of Anjou.
04:18Matilda was outraged.
04:20She was 26 years old, she was the granddaughter of William the Conqueror, she was the widow of the mighty Holy Roman Emperor.
04:26She always called herself Empress.
04:29Geoffrey was the heir of a mere Count.
04:36Matilda was notoriously willful, but in the selection of a husband she had no say.
04:44Empresses were a powerful tool used by Europe's medieval dynasties to expand their territories.
04:51King Henry hoped that the arranged marriage at Le Mans Cathedral would produce a male heir,
04:57who would ultimately become Count of Anjou, Duke of Normandy and King of England.
05:09Things didn't go according to plan.
05:11Both Geoffrey and Matilda were proud and quarrelsome people, and after a tumultuous year they separated.
05:18But this was, above all, a political union, and a reconciliation was soon imposed.
05:24Matilda rejoined her teenage husband and performed her royal duty, giving him three sons in three years.
05:32This ended any doubts about the succession, and also laid the foundations of a powerful new dynasty.
05:45Le Mans Museum contains the only surviving image of Geoffrey of Anjou.
05:52It once adorned his tomb.
05:59The park contains one of the earliest examples of heraldry,
06:02that system of vivid symbols through which the ruling families of Europe were beginning to proclaim their dynastic pride.
06:10The distinctive pattern of blue and white on the inside of Geoffrey's cloak is called verre,
06:16representing the winter pelt of squirrels.
06:19And the golden lions on his shield were adopted by his descendants as the royal coat of arms,
06:25which ultimately became one of the most familiar national symbols of England.
06:33Geoffrey was an energetic, intelligent man with golden red hair.
06:38By all accounts, he was handsome and known as Geoffrey the Fair.
06:44But he also had another name.
06:48It comes from the Latin for the broom plant.
06:54Plantagenet.
06:59No one knows for certain why Geoffrey was called Plantagenet.
07:02One theory is that it's because he wore a sprig of the plant in his hat.
07:06But in any case, for over 300 years, none of his descendants bore the name.
07:10Kings don't need surnames.
07:13But it's proved a useful label for historians to describe that long line of monarchs
07:18inherited from Matilda and the young Geoffrey of Anjou.
07:24Fifteen Plantagenets would be crowned kings of England.
07:28But they had to fight to win the throne.
07:33Henry I had named Matilda his heir.
07:37But when he died in 1135, the English throne was seized by Matilda's cousin, Stephen.
07:49The Plantagenets fought back.
07:53Geoffrey led a successful invasion of Normandy, which had been part of Henry I's dominions,
07:58while Matilda crossed the Channel to claim her crown.
08:01This started almost two decades of civil war.
08:04Government virtually collapsed, and England descended into a period of bloody conflict
08:09often called simply the Anarchy.
08:14The Peterborough Chronicle describes England's fate
08:19as the Plantagenets fought to secure their birthright.
08:23God and his saints slept.
08:27Every powerful man built his castle and filled it with devils and evil men.
08:34They grievously oppressed the wretched people of the land.
08:41They tortured them for their gold.
08:45And when the people had no more to give, they plundered and burned.
08:57In the winter of 1142, the war turned against Matilda.
09:02Her cousin Stephen besieged her here in Oxford Castle.
09:06Her garrison held out for three months.
09:09But with their supplies running low, they were close to surrender.
09:16One wintry night, Matilda wrapped herself in a white cloak.
09:21Camouflaged against the heavy snow, she slipped out of a side gate.
09:29She crossed the frozen river in front of the castle
09:33and managed to pass unseen through the ranks of Stephen's army.
09:40Matilda trudged for seven miles through the frigid night.
09:44She eventually made it to the safety of Wallingford Castle.
09:48Now she was free to continue her struggle.
09:52For another decade, civil war ravaged England.
09:56The fighting could only be brought to a stop when her eldest son came of age,
10:01a male heir, a direct descendant of Henry I.
10:10Matilda's son Henry was a charismatic young man
10:13who'd inherited Matilda's determination and temper,
10:17along with Geoffrey Plantagenet's red hair, intelligence and boundless energy.
10:25Henry also inherited his parents' claims to the English throne
10:29and much of northern France.
10:32As a young man, he was granted Normandy.
10:37Later, he inherited Anjou.
10:41He then expanded Plantagenet territory again
10:44through a profitable and unexpected marriage.
10:50This is the great hall of the ducal palace in Poitiers,
10:54home of the court of Aquitaine,
10:56that vast and wealthy principality that encompassed a quarter of the French lands.
11:01The duke had an only child,
11:04a beautiful and well-educated daughter called Eleanor.
11:08When she was about 15, her father died unexpectedly.
11:12Eleanor of Aquitaine was now the greatest catch in Europe.
11:20The king of France, Louis VII, snatched the prize.
11:25But Louis couldn't hold on to Eleanor or Aquitaine.
11:31The king was a pious man,
11:33but his new queen was ambitious and worldly.
11:40Eleanor once said,
11:41I've married a monk, not a monarch.
11:47And there was another problem.
11:49The French king needed a son,
11:52and Eleanor gave birth only to girls.
11:56After 15 years and two daughters,
11:59Louis persuaded the church to declare the marriage void.
12:07The great heiress was once again available.
12:10Suitors circled, eager to obtain her hand and her lands.
12:15But Eleanor was headstrong and independent.
12:18She was determined to marry the man
12:20who could help her fulfil her own dynastic ambitions,
12:23Henry Plantagenet.
12:30Eleanor sent word to Henry to meet her in Aquitaine.
12:36As she made her way there from Paris,
12:38Eleanor had to evade kidnappers
12:40who wanted to marry her forcibly and lay claim to her lands.
13:00Henry and Eleanor married in a hastily arranged ceremony
13:03in Poitiers Cathedral.
13:07This was a scandalous marriage.
13:10Henry was 19, Eleanor around 30,
13:14and Eleanor's union with the king of France
13:17had been annulled only two months earlier.
13:23The French king had been outmanoeuvred
13:25by his ex-queen and Henry Plantagenet.
13:28He was humiliated by the scandal
13:30and he'd also lost half his territories.
13:33By inheritance, by conquest and now by marriage,
13:36Henry had built up an enormous conglomeration of lands in France
13:40and soon he and Eleanor would have four sons
13:43to secure the future of the dynasty.
13:45But the French king never forgave the Plantagenet upstart.
13:50The Plantagenets were still fighting for their birthright in England,
13:55but the dynasty was thriving.
14:02A decade after Henry and Eleanor's wedding,
14:05this cathedral was completely rebuilt
14:08in the new Gothic style sweeping across France.
14:13Structurally stronger pointed arches
14:16Structurally stronger pointed arches
14:19allowed these dramatic soaring vaults
14:23and vast windows.
14:30Henry and Eleanor graced the new cathedral
14:32with the gift of this wonderful east window.
14:35It's one of the oldest stained-glass windows in France.
14:47The royal couple are themselves depicted on it
14:50along with their four sons presenting their gift to God.
15:03It proclaims the piety of the Plantagenet dynasty
15:06and their family solidarity.
15:10Henry now set his sights on winning the greatest prize of all,
15:16the English crown.
15:31Crossing the channel with a small army,
15:33Henry found England devastated.
15:36by nearly two decades of the civil war
15:39between Stephen and Matilda's supporters.
15:46His arrival persuaded many barons
15:49to join the Plantagenet cause.
15:55Henry's and Stephen's armies
15:57confronted one another here at Wallingford Castle.
16:00These few mounds and walls
16:03These few mounds and walls
16:05are all that remain of one of the mightiest fortresses of medieval England.
16:09Stephen was besieging the castle
16:12and Henry had come to relieve Matilda's loyal forces.
16:15The armies faced one another across the river.
16:18A contemporary chronicle, The Guest of Stephanie,
16:21describes what happened next.
16:25It was a terrible thing
16:27to see so many armed men with drawn swords
16:31ready to kill their relatives and fellow countrymen.
16:40And so the chief men on each side
16:43shrank in horror from civil war
16:48and the destruction of their kingdom.
16:55MUSIC
17:02Because the two armies refused to fight,
17:04Stephen and Henry were forced to talk.
17:07According to the chronicles, they met outside the castle,
17:10one on either side of the stream.
17:13And eventually they came to an agreement.
17:16King Stephen would continue to rule
17:19but he recognised Henry as his lawful heir.
17:23The very next year, Stephen was seized
17:26by a terrible pain in the gut and a flow of blood.
17:31The king was dead.
17:33The negotiations that began here
17:36would lead to more than three centuries of Plantagenet rule in England.
17:44On 19th December 1154,
17:47Henry II became the first Plantagenet king of England.
17:54This French-speaking monarch now ruled a vast empire
17:59that stretched from the Scottish borders...
18:04..to the Pyrenees.
18:13Henry's first priority was to restore peace and order.
18:18He tore down hundreds of the barons' castles.
18:26Then, to extend Plantagenet power across the country,
18:30Henry turned to the law.
18:38This manuscript, which is more than 800 years old,
18:41is one of the treasures of Balliol College, Oxford.
18:44It contains a text known as Glanville,
18:47the earliest guide to the workings of the English law.
18:51It was written during the reign of Henry II
18:54and is one of the foundations of the English legal system.
18:57These are its opening words.
19:00Royal power should not only be adorned with arms
19:03to fight rebels and hostile peoples,
19:06but also with laws to rule its subjects in peace.
19:10Henry inherited a complex judicial system
19:13where cases could be heard in a variety of local courts.
19:17In order to concentrate power in his own hands,
19:20Henry introduced swift and consistent royal justice,
19:24as set out here in Glanville.
19:31Henry established central courts at Westminster
19:34and sent nobles to govern them.
19:37Henry established central courts at Westminster
19:40and sent newly appointed royal justices
19:43on a circuit around the country.
19:47These circuit judges would meet regularly
19:50and agree to follow one another's decisions,
19:53thus ensuring common practice throughout England.
20:01A distinct method of lawmaking emerged.
20:04It evolved through precedent as well as royal decree.
20:11Disputes over land were important in this agricultural society.
20:15Traditionally, they'd been determined by trial by battle,
20:18in which the opponents exchanged blows to resolve the issue.
20:22Only the king could summon a body of men
20:25to give a verdict on oath.
20:28So royal justice could offer a new, non-violent alternative,
20:32not available in the baronial courts, trial by jury.
20:37Every free man can retain his right in his tenement
20:41and avoid the doubtful outcome of a duel.
20:45When the 12 knights have been chosen,
20:47they are to be summoned to come to court
20:50to swear on oath which party has the greater right.
20:54This legal revolution was motivated
20:57by Henry's royal and dynastic ambitions,
21:00but it laid the foundations for the common law,
21:03the system that still governs legal practice and procedure
21:07in England and in the United States to this day.
21:13Henry's imposition of Plantagenet control
21:16alienated many English barons.
21:19It also provoked a power struggle between crown and church.
21:26It came to a head in a bitter conflict
21:29between Henry and one of his most loyal friends,
21:33Thomas Beckett.
21:37Beckett was the son of a London merchant
21:39who'd enjoyed an extraordinary rise to power.
21:42Henry had made him his chancellor
21:44in charge of the day-to-day running of the government on the king's behalf,
21:47and he'd acquired enormous wealth.
21:49While Henry disdained luxury and pageantry,
21:52his chancellor revelled in it.
21:54But the two were close friends.
21:56William FitzSteven, who later served as Beckett's clerk,
21:59says that the two of them hunted, joked and played together like boys.
22:10The unexpected reverse in the friendship came in 1162,
22:14following the death of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
22:19The king was convinced that Beckett would make an ideal replacement,
22:24someone who would support him
22:26in curtailing the judicial powers of the church.
22:31Once Beckett was in office, he immediately resigned as chancellor
22:35and devoted himself to the interests of the church.
22:38The two of them soon clashed over the proper limits of priestly power.
22:42Beckett supported the church's view
22:45that the clergy should not be subject to King Henry's royal courts,
22:49but should be tried in special church courts,
22:52where the worst punishment, even for rape or murder,
22:55was expulsion from the clergy.
23:02Beckett refused to compromise.
23:05In fear of the king's wrath, he spent six years exiled in France.
23:13In 1170, he reached a form of reconciliation with the king
23:17and came home.
23:20But from the pulpit in Canterbury,
23:23he immediately began to excommunicate all who had crossed him.
23:30This news provoked an outburst of demonic, plantagenet fury.
23:35I have brought up and raised some feeble and wretched men in my kingdom
23:39who are not loyal to their lord,
23:41whom they allow to be mocked so shamefully by some low-born clergyman.
23:46Legend has simplified King Henry's words into,
23:49who will rid me of this turbulent priest?
23:57Four knights decided they understood the king's wish.
24:03In Canterbury, they found Beckett eating in the bishop's palace.
24:09Harsh words were exchanged.
24:13The archbishop then made his way through these cloisters
24:16and into the cathedral.
24:27The four found Beckett here in the north transept.
24:30They attempted to drag him back outside,
24:32but the archbishop clung to a pillar, calling them pimps and madmen.
24:36They struck out.
24:43The first blows felled Beckett.
24:45Then one of the knights hit him with such force
24:48that he sliced off the top of his head.
24:53The sword itself shattered on the paving stones.
25:00The knights spread Beckett's brains on the floor
25:03and ran off, one of them calling out,
25:05This one won't rise again.
25:12BELLS RING
25:29Within days, stories began to circulate
25:32that Beckett's blood had miraculous powers.
25:37Soon, people with fevers, tumours,
25:40swollen legs were being cured by a single drop.
25:47The pope declared Beckett a saint.
25:57Pilgrims came here in their thousands.
26:00They purchased little badges or tokens like this one,
26:03and they would take these home
26:05and wear them on their clothes or on their hats.
26:10Or they might acquire flasks like this,
26:13containing a tiny drop of Beckett's blood diluted in water,
26:17and they would wear them around their necks for protection,
26:20or even drink the water in the hope of a miraculous cure.
26:26These objects show that Beckett was more successful in death
26:30than he had been in life.
26:41BELLS RING
26:48Henry's expansion of Plantagenet power
26:51had turned many nobles against him,
26:54and Beckett's murder shattered his reputation in France.
27:02Henry struggled to hold his sprawling empire together.
27:06He had limitless energy and was never in the same place for long.
27:10King Louis of France once said of him,
27:12now in England, now in Normandy,
27:14he must fly rather than travel by boat or horse.
27:18The French king was always eager to stir up dissension
27:21in the Plantagenet family.
27:23He was still furious about Eleanor's marriage to Henry.
27:26Complicating matters was Eleanor herself.
27:29She may have been Henry's queen, but she was not always his ally.
27:36In fact, the greatest threat to Henry
27:39came from his own wife and children.
27:47Henry and Eleanor had three daughters and five sons together.
27:51Four of the boys lived to adulthood.
27:55Henry...
27:57Richard...
27:59Geoffrey...
28:01and the youngest, and the king's favourite, John.
28:06After John's birth, Eleanor moved back to Aquitaine.
28:11She insisted her favourite son, Richard, be made duke.
28:16Her scheme was to rule her homeland in his name.
28:21But Henry frustrated Eleanor and his teenage son.
28:28Plantagenet's sons were impatient to exercise real power.
28:32They had been brought up to command, trained in deadly warfare,
28:36their political marriages often arranged in infancy.
28:39At the age of 20, Henry himself ruled half of France
28:43and had been promised the throne of England.
28:45His sons were equally ambitious.
28:52Henry and Eleanor's eldest son, Henry the Younger,
28:55sparked the first great Plantagenet family implosion.
29:00His father had agreed to let him be crowned joint king of England,
29:05but refused to trust him with any authority or independent income.
29:12Encouraged by Louis of France,
29:14young Henry raised a rebellion against his father.
29:19His younger brothers, Richard and Geoffrey, also joined the revolt.
29:24They were supported by disaffected French counts
29:28and some of England's most powerful barons.
29:33Then Eleanor joined the fray.
29:39Medieval kings often faced rebellious sons.
29:42A rebellious queen was less common and more shocking.
29:46So when Eleanor was caught attempting to cross France to join her sons,
29:50Henry regarded this as the greatest betrayal of all.
29:53Perhaps even more shocking was the fact that she was disguised as a man.
30:11This is the ancient chapel of St Radagonde.
30:15Carved into the stone,
30:18carved into the cliffs below the Plantagenet fortress of Chinon in Anjou.
30:26It's been a place of worship since Roman times.
30:33In 1964, this 12th-century fresco was discovered under centuries of grime.
30:43It's widely agreed that they are the Plantagenets.
30:46It could be significant that their cloaks have the same blue and white lining
30:50as we find on Geoffrey Plantagenet's funerary plaque.
30:53But it's not quite certain who they are.
30:55It could be Henry II and his four sons.
30:58The first crowned figure being Henry II
31:01and the other crowned figure being Henry the Young King,
31:05who was the only son of an English king to be crowned in his father's lifetime.
31:09But one scholar claims to see Eleanor of Aquitaine
31:13being led off into captivity in England.
31:16Where she was, in fact, held a prisoner by her husband for the next 16 years.
31:38With his formidable wife imprisoned in England,
31:41Henry did battle with the French king, the rebel barons
31:45and his own sons for 18 months.
31:51The rebels claimed that Thomas Becket, the new martyr, was on their side.
31:55And Henry sought to ward off the martyr's anger
31:58by a remarkable act of public atonement for the murder.
32:01At the height of the rebellion, the proud Plantagenet king came to Canterbury.
32:06Here, at the West Gate, he dismounted,
32:09removed his shoes and walked barefoot through the crowded streets.
32:24Henry made his way to the shrine of his murdered friend.
32:30He removed his cloak to reveal a hair shirt
32:33and submitted to being beaten bloody by the bishops and monks.
32:40He spent the night prostrate on the bare stone floor.
32:48Henry's salvation came quickly.
32:51The very next day, his troops won a stunning victory over his enemies
32:55and soon they were all brought to submission.
32:58But Henry had been forced to abase himself before the clergy
33:02and recognise the authority of the church.
33:05Tension between monarchy and church was never fully resolved,
33:08but the Plantagenet settlement with the Pope held for the next 350 years.
33:17There was no settlement between the Plantagenets and the French monarchy,
33:22despite a new king, Philip, taking the throne.
33:26He encouraged Henry the Younger and his brother Geoffrey to rebel again.
33:36This time, they attacked their brother Richard's Duchy of Aquitaine
33:40and occupied the city of Limoges.
33:47Henry II marched on the city
33:50and rode up to the walls, hoping to reason with his sons.
33:55Henry the Younger ordered archers to fire on his own father.
34:02An arrow narrowly missed the king.
34:11A few months later, young Henry was struck down with dysentery.
34:15He was taken to the hospital,
34:17where he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital
34:21A few months later, young Henry was struck down with dysentery.
34:25To fight against your father and against the king was a sin,
34:29and Henry believed that his illness was divine retribution.
34:33As an act of penance, he gave away all his possessions.
34:36He lay on a bed of ashes, dressed in a hair shirt,
34:40with a noose around his neck like a common criminal.
34:43Young King Henry died with nothing but the sapphire ring
34:47that his father had sent him as a token of forgiveness.
34:50When he heard of the death of his eldest son,
34:53old King Henry said,
34:55''He cost me much, but I wish he lived to cost me more.''
35:04Now it was Richard's turn to betray his father.
35:09And once again, the French king was the family traitor's ally.
35:15The two spent the summer pursuing the ageing Henry around France.
35:24They eventually besieged him here, in his birthplace, Le Mans.
35:33In order to deny his assailants supplies and a base,
35:37Henry ordered that the suburbs outside the city walls
35:40should be put to the torch.
35:42But the wind changed,
35:44and the flames leapt over these ancient Roman walls into the city itself.
35:50Henry was forced to abandon Le Mans.
35:53Ill and exhausted, he had to submit to his treacherous son.
35:58But as he gave Richard the kiss of peace, he whispered in his ear,
36:02''God grant that I do not die until I have avenged myself on you.''
36:13Too sick to walk, Henry was carried here to Chinon Castle.
36:20He was shown a list of those who had rebelled against him.
36:25At its head was the name of his youngest and favourite son.
36:32''Is it true,'' he said, ''that John, my heart,
36:35''whom I've loved more than all my other sons, has abandoned me?''
36:38''On the 6th of July, 1189, betrayed by his wife and every son,
36:43''Henry, the first Plantagenet King of England, died.''
36:47His last words are said to have been, ''Shame, shame on a conquered king.''
36:58The King of England's body was buried here,
37:01in the Abbey of Fontevrault, in Anjou.
37:05CHOIR SINGS
37:16The Plantagenet's future now lay in the hands of Richard,
37:20a dynamic and bloodthirsty warrior.
37:25One of Richard's courtiers said, ''He was furious in arms,
37:29''rejoicing to travel only on bloodstained roads.''
37:33But when he arrived here, to stand vigil over his dead father's body,
37:38he is said to have wept bitterly over the king he had betrayed.
37:43As he did so, blood began to pour from his eyes,
37:47and he began to weep bitterly.
37:51As he did so, blood began to pour from the dead king's nostrils.
37:56According to medieval beliefs,
37:58this was sure sign of the presence of a murderer.
38:05The traitorous son would become the great English hero,
38:08Richard the Lionheart.
38:11But he could speak barely a word of English.
38:15He visited his kingdom only briefly for his coronation,
38:19and in the ten years of his reign,
38:21spent only six months in the country.
38:27The moment he became king,
38:29Richard had his mother Eleanor released from captivity
38:32and made regent of England.
38:37Richard, the favourite son, bestowed on his mother
38:40the power of doing whatever she wished in the kingdom.
38:43He himself regarded England primarily as a source of money
38:47to fund his wars, to assert plantagenet power in France,
38:51or to win glory and spiritual merit on crusade.
38:54He once said,
38:56I would sell London if I could find a buyer.
39:04Europe had been gripped by crusading fever
39:07since Jerusalem had fallen to Saladin's Muslim forces.
39:11The prestige of reclaiming the holy city
39:14was irresistibly appealing to the warlike new king.
39:19Philip of France also vowed to go on crusade.
39:24The two kings arranged to meet here,
39:27at Vézelay Abbey in Burgundy.
39:33The Chronicle of the Third Crusade
39:35describes how these hills and valleys were filled
39:38with the tents and pavilions of two vast armies.
39:41It looked like a new city.
39:49Richard and Philip spent two days here planning the campaign.
39:55They considered their crusade an armed pilgrimage.
39:59Their hardships would earn them absolution for their sins.
40:04They swore a sacred oath,
40:06agreeing to divide the spoils of war equally.
40:11The two great pilgrim armies then set out for the Holy Land.
40:18But on the way, the grand alliance forged here turned sour.
40:33In Sicily, Richard caused outrage
40:36by reneging on a childhood betrothal to the French king's sister.
40:41The old feud between the Plantagenets
40:44and the French monarchy was reignited.
40:47The armies then made their way separately to the Holy Land.
40:52Philip arrived first and joined a Christian siege
40:56of the strategically crucial port of Acre.
41:01The Plantagenet army arrived seven weeks later.
41:05Richard immediately assumed command
41:08and re-energised the faltering assault.
41:15Richard already had a reputation for ferocity
41:18and his name struck fear into the Muslims.
41:21The King of England was a very powerful man,
41:23wrote one of Saladin's officials,
41:25a man of great spirit and courage.
41:27He'd fought many great battles and had a burning passion for war.
41:31Muslim mothers told their children,
41:33be good or the King of England will get you.
41:37Within two months of his arrival,
41:39the city that had held out for two years surrendered.
41:47Once again, a French king was humiliated by a Plantagenet.
41:52Announcing his crusade complete, Philip returned to France.
41:58Richard fought on.
42:02But his arrogance turned many allies into enemies.
42:07After 18 months, Richard headed home.
42:10But en route was captured and imprisoned by the Duke of Austria,
42:15one of the enemies he'd made in the Holy Land.
42:19The Plantagenet Empire was left in the hands of his mother
42:24and his younger brother, John.
42:29It had always been difficult to fit the youngest Plantagenet son
42:33into the family plans.
42:35There had been no territories left to award John
42:38and he'd been nicknamed Lackland.
42:41Henry had finally managed to make him Lord of Ireland.
42:46But John wanted the English crown.
42:50He began plotting with Philip of France.
42:55In exchange for his backing, John agreed to hand him
42:58the strategically vital Vexin region,
43:01guarded by this great border fortress of Gisors.
43:05Gisors protected the gateway
43:07between the lands of the King of France in that direction,
43:10which began just south of here.
43:12The lands of the King of France in that direction,
43:14which began just beyond the castle walls,
43:17and Plantagenet, Normandy, with its capital at Rouen,
43:20just a day's ride away in that direction.
43:23John was making a terrible mistake.
43:26By agreeing to surrender the Vexin,
43:28he was leaving Normandy defenceless.
43:34John and Philip did their best to make sure Richard stayed in his prison.
43:40But Eleanor was doing all she could to free her favourite son.
43:46Eventually, Eleanor managed to raise the enormous ransom,
43:5034 tons of silver, a king's ransom indeed.
43:55Philip sent John word,
43:58beware, the devil is loosed.
44:05On Richard's return, John was forced to submit.
44:09Richard then set about reconquering what John had lost.
44:14In 1197, Richard confronted Philip's army
44:18before the walls of Gisors.
44:24Richard is said to have ridden at the French,
44:27just as a raving lion, starved of food, runs on his prey.
44:32As they fled, Philip and his knights crowded onto the bridge at Gisors
44:36in such numbers that it collapsed.
44:3820 knights drowned.
44:40King Philip was dragged out alive,
44:43but was said to have drunk of the river.
44:46Richard had Philip on the run.
44:54Richard had survived many savage campaigns far from home.
45:00But in the spring of 1199, his luck ran out.
45:11While laying siege to the castle of a rebellious baron in Aquitaine,
45:16he was struck by a crossbow bolt.
45:20Returning to his tent, he broke off the shaft,
45:23but the head was too deeply embedded in his shoulder.
45:27The wound festered.
45:29Richard wrote a last letter to his mother, Eleanor,
45:32asking her to come to him.
45:34But it was too late.
45:36His body was buried alongside his father in the Abbey of Fontevraud.
45:40The heart of the lion, said to be the lion's heart,
45:44was buried in the Abbey of Fontevraud.
45:47The heart of the lion, said to be of great size,
45:51was interred in the Norman capital, Rouen.
46:01John was now the only surviving son of Henry and Eleanor.
46:07His older brother Geoffrey had died in 1186.
46:12But just as the English crown seemed in his grasp,
46:16there was another contender for the throne.
46:19Geoffrey's teenage son, Arthur.
46:24John quickly secured his coronation at Westminster.
46:28But yet again, the French king provoked a plantagenet family feud
46:32by supporting Arthur's claim to the English crown.
46:38Wicked uncles are a common feature of medieval dynastic politics.
46:43Like John, they're usually younger brothers.
46:46They watch from the sidelines
46:48as an older brother attains the exalted position of king.
46:52But if that brother dies, it's understandable that they might think,
46:56I could tolerate being subordinate to my older brother,
46:59but not to my snotty-nosed nephew.
47:02And in this violent world, it's not surprising
47:05if the uncle sometimes decides that the nephew must be eliminated.
47:14In 1202, Arthur led an army into Anjou,
47:18hoping to capture his grandmother, Eleanor.
47:23The great plantagenet matriarch was now 80.
47:29John rushed to Anjou to free her.
47:33And young Arthur was captured.
47:39No-one is certain what happened to Arthur after that.
47:42But a contemporary chronicler claims that Arthur's own jailer
47:46told him of the boy's fate.
47:48According to him, John at first kept his 16-year-old nephew a prisoner.
47:53But then one night after dinner,
47:56when John was drunk and full of the devil,
47:59he went to Arthur's cell and killed him with his own hands.
48:03Then tied a huge stone around the corpse
48:06and tossed it into the River Seine.
48:13Philip of France refused to make peace with John
48:17until Arthur was handed over alive.
48:22He probably knew this was impossible.
48:28One by one, John lost the plantagenet's French domains.
48:33In 1204, Philip conquered plantagenet Normandy.
48:38After 300 years, it was now fully part of France once again.
48:44Soon, all that remained of the plantagenet's continental empire
48:48was Gascony, a fragment of Eleanor's great duchy of Aquitaine.
48:56Eleanor spent her final years here in Fontevraux Abbey.
49:00She lived to see her only surviving son, John,
49:03lose the great European empire she had founded and fought for.
49:07She died as the French king was closing in for his final assault on Normandy.
49:12She was buried here, alongside Henry, the husband she had betrayed...
49:19..and Richard, the son she loved the most.
49:30With France lost, John was determined to tighten his grip on England.
49:37He dispossessed barons who opposed him
49:40and exploited his royal powers to accumulate vast personal wealth.
49:48Like his father, John also resented Rome's power in his realm,
49:53and in 1206, he refused to accept the Pope's latest choice of archbishop.
50:00In retaliation, the Pope deployed his most fearsome weapon.
50:04The Kingdom of England was placed under an interdict.
50:07This meant that all church services in England were suspended.
50:11The churches and cathedrals stood empty.
50:14No baptisms or marriages could take place in church.
50:17The dead could not be buried in churchyards.
50:20No church bells were heard in England.
50:22And this lasted six years.
50:24For believers in a so-called Age of Faith,
50:27this must have been deeply disturbing.
50:30But it made John rich.
50:35John hit back by confiscating the clergy's possessions.
50:40Here at Lincoln Cathedral, the bishop received a letter from John
50:45informing him that royal custodians would seize everything owned
50:49by clergy refusing to perform their duties.
50:56John had a malicious sense of humour.
50:59He ordered that all the priests' mistresses
51:02should be locked up and held to ransom.
51:05The King and the Pope eventually came to terms.
51:08John would accept the Pope's nominee as archbishop,
51:12but he would keep all the money that he'd squeezed out of the church.
51:20But John wanted more money.
51:23He was determined to fund an army
51:26to win back his Plantagenet birthright,
51:29the territories he had lost in France.
51:33His English barons didn't share his dynastic ambition
51:37and were not enthusiastic.
51:40But John began to squeeze them dry,
51:43extracting what he needed through draconian taxes
51:47and by exploiting the royal courts his father had established.
51:53John soon became richer than any English king before him.
52:01The hostility this provoked was compounded by John's reputation for lechery.
52:06He was accused of sleeping with the wives and daughters of his barons,
52:10and he certainly fathered at least half a dozen illegitimate children.
52:14He was too covetous of pretty women, wrote one contemporary,
52:18and brought terrible shame to the great men of the land.
52:21For this, he was much hated.
52:26John trusted no-one
52:28and made his barons hand over family members as hostages
52:32to guarantee their compliance.
52:36When one of his nobles, William de Bruyeres, prepared to give up his sons,
52:41his wife remembered how the king had treated his own nephew.
52:51William de Bruyeres was the baron who had served as Arthur's jailer.
52:55His wife shouted at him,
52:57I will not hand over my boys to your lord, King John,
53:00because he foully murdered his nephew Arthur
53:03when he should have kept him in honourable captivity.
53:06The king's reaction was savage.
53:08De Bruyeres managed to escape to France,
53:11but John captured his wife and son and imprisoned them.
53:14He commanded that their food be stopped.
53:17After 11 days, they were found starved to death.
53:22The son's cheeks had been eaten away by his ravenous mother.
53:27Plantagenet cruelty had sunk to new depths.
53:35John's invasion of France failed,
53:38and in May 1215, many English barons renounced their allegiance to him
53:43and occupied London.
53:46They demanded a settlement,
53:48liberating the nobility from absolute royal power.
53:55In desperation, John agreed to accept the demands they made.
54:01The agreement was issued in a charter sealed at Runnymede.
54:07Magna Carta, the Great Charter,
54:10is one of the most famous documents in English history.
54:16Only four copies of the original issue are known to survive,
54:21including this one held at Lincoln Castle.
54:29To secure the Plantagenets on the throne,
54:32Henry II had concentrated power in the hands of the monarch.
54:36John's abuse of that power showed the dangers of leaving it unchecked.
54:41Magna Carta was the baron's response.
54:44Some of its clauses seem quite mundane,
54:47like the one fixing the level of death duties,
54:50but this was a royal power that John had exploited for financial gain.
54:55Other clauses have a more ringing tone.
54:59No free man shall be seized or imprisoned
55:02except by the lawful judgment of his peers and by the law of the land.
55:07To no one will we sell.
55:09To no one deny or delay right and justice.
55:15All the clauses are based on the idea that there is a right way of doing things,
55:20enshrined in Magna Carta as the law of the land.
55:24And the most important thing was that it bound both king and subject.
55:29Plantagenet dynastic ambition had provoked a new settlement
55:33between the monarchs and those they ruled.
55:37Magna Carta has become an emblem of liberty,
55:41but at the time it was a complete failure.
55:50The pope called it not only shameful and demeaning,
55:54but also illegal and unjust.
55:59At John's request, he annulled it.
56:02Once again, the Plantagenets plunged England into civil war.
56:07Many barons decided they would rather be ruled by the French than by John.
56:15The rebels offered the English throne to Prince Louis,
56:19son of the Plantagenets' perennial enemy, King Philip of France.
56:24In 1216, Louis landed on the English coast
56:27and was crowned king of England.
56:29In 1216, Louis landed on the English coast
56:32and was warmly welcomed by the rebels.
56:35Some celebrated his arrival as liberation from Plantagenet tyranny.
56:40The madness of slavery is over.
56:43Days of liberty have arrived.
56:45Happy days at last, after so many evils.
56:52In his 17-year reign, John had lost most of the Plantagenet empire.
56:57Now, the English crown was at stake.
57:08John led his mercenary army on a rampage,
57:11attacking rebel-held areas across southern England.
57:19In King's Lynn, he contracted dysentery, but refused to rest.
57:27In October, John took a shortcut here, across the marshes of the Wash.
57:35The wagons carrying his vast accumulated treasures
57:39were cut off by the incoming tide.
57:45As the king looked on helplessly, men, horses
57:48and the treasure he'd acquired so ruthlessly
57:50were swallowed up by the quicksands.
57:53Exhausted and broken, John died three days later.
57:57In medieval Europe, the destinies of nations were determined
58:00by the lives and the deaths of their ruling dynasties,
58:04and John's death plunged the Plantagenets into crisis.
58:08His son and heir, Henry, was a nine-year-old boy.
58:12Half the kingdom that he'd inherited
58:14was in the hands of the French prince who was holding court in London.
58:18The future of the Plantagenet dynasty had never looked so bleak.
58:28In the next programme, the English Empire,
58:32the resurgent Plantagenets fight to expand their dominion
58:36across Wales and Scotland.
58:39They attempt to win back France.
58:44And Parliament is born in a Plantagenet golden age
58:48of pageants and chivalry.
58:58And you can see that at the same time next week.
59:01Next tonight on BBC Two,
59:03exploring the themes of culture, courage and fear,
59:06the culture show looks at the art of boxing.