Britain's Bloodiest Dynasty: The Plantagenets - (Watch Full Series Below) https://dailymotion.com/playlist/x8qybs
Britain's Bloodiest Dynasty: The Plantagenets:
Out of the chaos, darkness, and violence of the Middle Ages, one family rose to seize control of England. Generation after generation, they ruled the country for more than three hundred years, ruthlessly crushing all competition to become the greatest English dynasty of all time. They were The Plantagenets.
Episode 4 - Tyranny:
Historian Dan Jones concludes his part-dramatised history of the Plantagenet dynasty by examining the extraordinary story of Richard II, who ascended the throne when he was 10 years old. He won respect for his actions during the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 when he rode out to meet the rebels, but his belief in the divine right of kings led him to become one of the most brutal tyrants in English history. Richard's rivalry and clash of personalities and politics with his cousin Henry Bolingbroke plunged the country into civil war, leading to Richard being deposed in 1399.
Britain's Bloodiest Dynasty: The Plantagenets:
Out of the chaos, darkness, and violence of the Middle Ages, one family rose to seize control of England. Generation after generation, they ruled the country for more than three hundred years, ruthlessly crushing all competition to become the greatest English dynasty of all time. They were The Plantagenets.
Episode 4 - Tyranny:
Historian Dan Jones concludes his part-dramatised history of the Plantagenet dynasty by examining the extraordinary story of Richard II, who ascended the throne when he was 10 years old. He won respect for his actions during the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 when he rode out to meet the rebels, but his belief in the divine right of kings led him to become one of the most brutal tyrants in English history. Richard's rivalry and clash of personalities and politics with his cousin Henry Bolingbroke plunged the country into civil war, leading to Richard being deposed in 1399.
Category
đź“ş
TVTranscript
00:00Out of the chaos, darkness and violence of the Middle Ages, one family rose to seize
00:12control of England.
00:18Generation after generation, they ruled the country for more than 300 years, ruthlessly
00:26crushing all competition to become the greatest English dynasty of all time, the Plantagenets.
00:41What I love about the Plantagenet story is that it's more shocking, more brutal and more
00:46astonishing than anything you'll find in fiction.
00:50I want to show you the Plantagenets as I see them, real, living, breathing people, driven
00:56by ambition, jealousy, hatred and revenge.
01:01These kings murdered, betrayed and tyrannised their way to spectacular success.
01:07For better and for worse, the Plantagenets forged England as a nation.
01:13This time, the golden boy who single-handedly ended the peasants' revolt.
01:20King Richard II became the most vicious Plantagenet of them all, and his reign of terror brought
01:27the whole Plantagenet dynasty crashing down.
01:50June the 11th, 1381.
02:20Two 14-year-old boys are taking refuge here at the Tower of London as murderous rebels stalk the streets outside.
02:34The first of the boys is the king himself, Richard II, eighth in the unbroken line of Plantagenet kings.
02:41The second is his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, son and heir of the Duke of Lancaster.
02:47They will change the face of England.
02:51But first, they have to survive this bloody crisis, and that's not exactly guaranteed.
02:57The only thing on the king's side is that it's not him the rebels are after.
03:04Richard II has been king since he was ten. Since then, his realm has been ruled by councillors.
03:09Now, in the eyes of the peasants, these councillors are greedy and evil.
03:13And how do you fix a problem like that? Well, you kill them, obviously.
03:27Richard's councillors are the most senior nobles in the land.
03:31Most of them have fled London. The rest are hiding in the Tower with the king.
03:38As the situation deteriorates, the most hated of Richard's councillors hatch a desperate plan.
03:46They send the young king with an entourage out of the Tower and through the streets to create a distraction.
03:53They're hoping the mob will follow, so they can make their escape.
03:59But their cowardice very quickly comes back to haunt them.
04:10The rebels simply let Richard pass. He's not their target. His evil councillors are.
04:18Unfortunately for young Henry Bolingbroke, his dad, John of Gaunt, the king's uncle, is one of those evil councillors,
04:25who puts Henry directly in the firing line.
04:28And worse than that, he's stuck up in the Tower with the two most hated men in England,
04:33the king's chancellor and his treasurer.
04:36And the rebels, massed outside these walls, can smell blood.
04:42It was probably only the king's presence that was holding them back, but he's gone now.
04:48The mob storms the gates.
04:57The rebels tear through the Tower, going from room to room, looking for the men they hate.
05:04They find the treasurer, Sir Robert Hales.
05:08And then in this chapel, they find the chancellor, Archbishop Sudbury, cowering in prayer in front of the altar.
05:16Richard's not going to save him.
05:21Both men are dragged out into the street, kicking and screaming in terror.
05:25While all this is going on, Henry's hiding in a cupboard.
05:30And you can imagine him, alone in the darkness, barely daring to breathe, waiting for the rebels to find him.
05:40But they never do. They have their victims.
05:46Sudbury and Hales are beheaded in the street.
05:52Sudbury's head is stuck on a spike on London Bridge.
05:56His archbishop's mitre nailed to his head, so there's no doubt about who they've killed.
06:05England is on the brink of full-blown anarchy.
06:09It's the greatest crisis the country has faced in more than 100 years.
06:14Richard could lose his crown.
06:17In desperation, his ministers start issuing charters of freedom to the rebels, but it doesn't work.
06:23They just murdered two of his top ministers and got away with it.
06:26A few bits of parchment aren't going to stop them now.
06:29The 14-year-old king has one last throw of the dice, to ride out again through the blood-frenzied mob and confront the rebel leaders.
06:38For his whole life, Richard's been told that he alone can save England.
06:43Now he's about to find out if it's true.
06:50The whole future of England is now in the hands of a 14-year-old boy.
06:56He meets the rebels outside the city walls at Smithfield, open countryside near where the meat market is today.
07:14Wat Tyler, the fearsome rebel leader, comes across to make his demands.
07:20They are extraordinary.
07:25What he's asking for is completely outrageous.
07:28No more bishops, no more nobles, common ownership to all lands.
07:32Seven centuries later, you'd call it communism.
07:35In medieval England, it's just bonkers, and it leads to a standoff.
07:42There are conflicting accounts about exactly what happens next.
07:46What we do know is a scuffle breaks out between Tyler and one of Richard's men.
07:53Weapons are drawn.
07:56In the struggle, Richard's man cuts the rebel leader hard across the face and neck with his sword.
08:08Tyler is mortally wounded.
08:16When Tyler's army of Kentish rebels see what's happening, they draw back their bows, ready to fire.
08:21And in that instant, the whole future of the English monarchy hangs in the balance.
08:51Faced with certain death, the king's terrified men turn to flee, but Richard doesn't.
09:12Instead, the young king does something astonishing.
09:21The 14-year-old charges alone straight towards the rebel ranks.
09:33He cries out in English that he is their leader, their captain, and their king.
09:41He commands them to lower their weapons.
09:47Eventually, they do.
09:54It's always been seen as an astonishing act of bravery by the young king.
10:01But I think there's more to it than that.
10:08For Richard's whole life, he's been told that he's the man to save England from terminal decline.
10:15You are God's anointed king. Your people adore you. You will be mighty.
10:20After a while, that sort of thing can go to a kid's head.
10:24So when Richard rides out to meet the rebels, that's what's going through his mind.
10:28My people love me. God will protect me.
10:31And when the rebels kneel before him, it just confirms everything he's ever believed about himself.
10:40From this moment on, nothing will ever shake Richard's belief that God is on his side.
10:47He is the king, he is right, and he is invincible.
10:54When Richard orders the peasants home, they go happily, clutching their charters of freedom,
10:59safe in the knowledge that Richard is their man, their captain, their king.
11:08They are wrong.
11:14The following week, Richard meets the rebels again.
11:18They've come to seal the deal with their new champion.
11:24But Richard's got a new deal in mind.
11:31Richard's planned account of the meeting still exists here in the British Library.
11:37This is the chronicle of Thomas Walsingham,
11:40who was an eyewitness to many of the events of the Peasants' Revolt,
11:43and he records Richard's reaction, but it's not what the peasants were expecting at all.
11:48It's in Latin, Richard says,
11:50Peasants you are, and peasants you'll remain, in permanent bondage,
11:54not as you were before, but in an incomparably harsher state.
11:59Then Richard goes on to say he's going to devote the rest of his life
12:02to tormenting the rebels so much that no one in England will ever dare to rise up again.
12:09So much for being their captain and their leader.
12:11Richard's going to be their hangman.
12:18In the months that follow, hundreds, possibly thousands of peasants are strung up by the king's men.
12:27His people never dare rise up against him again.
12:33Richard's terrifying ordeal at the hands of the rebels has taught him a lesson.
12:39A king doesn't need to be loved. He needs to be feared.
12:48By 1385, even the country's senior nobles are starting to become nervous.
12:55It's four years since Richard crushed the peasants' revolt, and he's no longer a child.
13:00He's 19, he's married to Anne of Bohemia, daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor,
13:05and he's fed up with people telling him what to do.
13:08He decides to take the lead, and from this point on,
13:11Richard's reign will be dominated by his struggle to do things his way.
13:18Richard and Anne are a great match, and the queen is clearly a good influence on him.
13:26A young court of nobles springs up around them, led by the king's favourite, Robert de Vere.
13:33Like the king, his young court have little time for the old guard,
13:37men like his uncle Gloucester and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
13:42But Richard's under 21, so they can legitimately control his council, the equivalent of cabinet.
13:48They still think of him as a child.
13:55But he's not.
13:58When the archbishop criticises Richard for keeping bad company,
14:02the king makes it crystal clear that he's not interested in his opinion any more.
14:09Then he drums his point home by attacking the old man.
14:18He's only stopped from doing serious harm by the intervention of his uncle, Gloucester.
14:27This time, Richard's got the upper hand.
14:31But egged on by de Vere and the others,
14:33the split between the king and his old councillors is only going to get worse.
14:41One important young noble's missing from the king's new entourage,
14:45his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, so far best known for hiding in a cupboard.
14:50He's not the only one.
14:54While Richard's swanning about at court with his new pals,
14:57Henry's off fighting in tournaments and learning the business of war.
15:09And Bolingbroke stands to inherit the most powerful duchy in Richard's history.
15:16So despite his absence, Henry will have far more influence on the king's reign
15:20than any of his new friends.
15:28But while Bolingbroke's away, Richard's new pals are still making all the running.
15:34The king's wrestling career is coming to an end.
15:38But while Bolingbroke's away, Richard's new pals are still making all the running.
15:44The king's wrestling control away from the old guard
15:47by replacing them on his council with his new friends like de Vere.
15:53But a crisis in the never-ending war with France is about to undo all Richard's plans.
16:08By the autumn of 1386, the French are poised to launch an invasion.
16:13De Vere and the others do nothing to prevent it.
16:17The old guard have had enough.
16:20They go to Parliament and get them on side against the king and his young allies.
16:27The king's uncle is the man charged with telling Richard to get rid of them,
16:31or the old guard will.
16:34Gloucester delivers the ultimatum to Richard here at Eltham Palace.
16:39Given the king's tendency to blow his top and even the slightest attempt to curb his behaviour,
16:45Gloucester must have realised his nephew was never going to take this well.
16:49All the same, Richard's reaction absolutely floors him.
16:55He accuses his council and Parliament of treason
17:00and threatens to seek help from the French.
17:04If the old guard don't yield, he'll invite in the country's deadliest enemy to destroy them.
17:11Gloucester doesn't rise to the bait.
17:16He simply asks Richard to think about his great-grandfather, Edward II.
17:23It's an explicit threat.
17:27Gloucester has called the king's bluff.
17:30In a bloodless coup, all Richard's ministers are removed.
17:34Gloucester and the old guard retake control of the council and the country.
17:40But if they think they've got Richard under control, they're dead wrong,
17:44because the king is more devious, more cunning and more ruthless than anyone has dared to imagine.
17:57Richard and De Vere organise a secret meeting of judges.
18:02The king sees the actions of the old guard as treason.
18:08Unfortunately, that's not what the law says.
18:12Richard has a simple solution to that.
18:16Change the law.
18:19No sane judge would ever agree.
18:22But then, it all depends on how you ask them.
18:35The judges rule that any opposition to the king is equivalent to treason.
18:40It's basically a tyrant's charter.
18:43Do what I say, or you'll be strung up.
18:49Richard thinks he's cracked it. This judgement threatens everyone.
18:53And to Richard, that's what being a king is all about.
18:57Intimidation.
19:00The old guard have a stark choice.
19:03They can let Richard's treason laws stand, in which case the king can kill them whenever he likes.
19:09Or they can raise an army against him.
19:15Unsurprisingly, Gloucester and his allies go for the second option.
19:23In response, De Vere, Richard's best pal, raises an army to defend the king.
19:31With the situation escalating, all the leading nobles have to choose a side.
19:37And that brings a decisive new player into the game.
19:42The king's cousin, Henry Bolingbroke.
19:48Until now, Henry's been pretty loyal to Richard,
19:51even if the deal with the judges was quite hard to swallow.
19:54But he can't stand De Vere.
19:57Not only has De Vere chucked his wife, who's Henry's cousin,
20:00he's also been poaching Henry's lands.
20:03Henry knows De Vere couldn't have done any of this without Richard's approval,
20:07and an attack on De Vere is effectively an attack on the king.
20:11But he's had enough, and so as De Vere tries to cross Radcliffe Bridge here in Oxfordshire,
20:16Henry Bolingbroke is waiting for him.
20:22Henry is a battle-hardened veteran,
20:25so when De Vere's army run into Henry's troops, they basically run for the hills.
20:30When De Vere flees to France, he never returns.
20:35Settling his score with De Vere means that Henry has now sided with the barons against the king.
20:41And with De Vere gone, nothing stands between them and Richard.
20:48The king is forced to offer peace talks at the Tower of London.
20:54Along with four other senior nobles, Gloucester, Arundel, Warwick and Mowbray,
20:59Henry heads to the tower, where Richard's waiting.
21:02They take 500 soldiers with them,
21:04just in case the king gets the mistaken idea that this is a friendly chat.
21:09On top of twisting the treason laws,
21:11they've discovered that Richard has been negotiating for peace with the French,
21:14without Parliament's knowledge.
21:16They enter the tower to confront the king...
21:21..and lock the doors behind them.
21:24For three days, Richard is locked up in the tower with his enemies
21:29and forced to watch as the five of them decide what to do with him.
21:34Deposing the king is undoubtedly on the table.
21:38After all, Gloucester's already threatened Richard with it once.
21:46When the doors finally open, the king is sent to Parliament to await his fate.
21:54It's a packed house as the five lords return from the tower
21:58to deliver their verdict.
22:03Everyone is expecting them to force Richard to abdicate.
22:11But they don't.
22:14Instead, all five bow low and swear allegiance to the king.
22:20Despite everything he's done, Richard survives.
22:24It's an astonishing turnaround.
22:30No-one knows exactly what happened in that tower,
22:33but I think Henry and the others were actually going to depose Richard,
22:37and in the end, the only thing that stopped them was the fear of civil war.
22:41Richard is now in the hands of the French,
22:44who are actually going to depose Richard,
22:46and in the end, the only thing that stopped them was the fear of civil war.
22:52The chaos and slaughter of the inevitable fight
22:55over who should be king instead would tear the country apart.
22:59The reality is, leaving Richard in place is simply the least worst option.
23:07So how does Richard feel?
23:09Grateful? Lucky? Humbled?
23:12In Richard's mind, this is further proof that whatever he does, God will protect him.
23:19After the tower, Richard keeps a low profile, but he's just biding his time.
23:24He's now 21.
23:26Theoretically, he can take full control of the country any time he likes,
23:30and then God help the men who stood against him.
23:43MUSIC PLAYS
23:46MUSIC CONTINUES
24:09With Richard in charge, the old guard probably fear the worst,
24:14and forgetting the power he's always craved seems to calm him down.
24:20Astonishingly, peace breaks out.
24:25The king agrees a truce with France,
24:27and in Henry's absence, he even makes up with Gloucester and the others.
24:32It looks like Richard's grown out of his youthful malice.
24:37But he hasn't.
24:39While all this public peace and reconciliation is going on,
24:42Richard's quietly doing something that will completely alter the balance of power in the kingdom.
24:47He's raising a private army in the north of England.
24:50But this isn't an army paid for or approved by Parliament,
24:53it's a band of private mercenaries with no loyalty to anyone but Richard himself.
24:59The emblem he chooses for his soldiers is the white heart.
25:05Strange, isn't it? This is more like the behaviour of a warlord than a king.
25:12But what's he up to?
25:14Well, incredibly, more than six centuries on,
25:17there is a way to peer inside the mind of Richard II,
25:21and it's here at the National Gallery.
25:26This is the Wilton diptych.
25:29It's a portrait painted for Richard at around this time.
25:35And everything you see in it, every aspect of the symbolism,
25:39is here because Richard wants it here.
25:43But even though this was painted when he was a fully grown man,
25:46he's presented here as though he was still 14 years old,
25:50the age of his greatest triumph in the peasant revolt.
25:53Behind him we have the saints, St Edmund, Edward the Confessor, John the Baptist.
25:58And here we have the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus,
26:00both looking adoringly down at Richard, giving him their blessing.
26:05But what's most interesting are these 11 angels,
26:08all wearing the symbol of the white heart as the symbol of Richard's private army.
26:13It's saying,
26:14''Even the angels wear my badge. God is on my side.''
26:19This is a painting of a man who truly believes he can do whatever the hell he wants.
26:29Three years after leaving England, Henry Bolingbroke returns.
26:34The kingdom has changed a lot.
26:36Richard may have brought peace to the country,
26:38but the white heart, symbol of his personal power, is everywhere.
26:43On flags, buildings, statues, windows, and, of course, on the king's private soldiers.
26:51And they're everywhere too.
26:54It seems threatening, with good reason.
27:00Henry must have been sweating it.
27:02The last time he saw his cousin, he all but deposed him.
27:11But Richard graciously welcomes him back.
27:14The nasty business in the Tower of London seems forgotten.
27:19He even makes Henry a trusted counsellor and diplomat.
27:23After all, they are cousins.
27:33Despite Richard's disturbing track record,
27:37he's now ruled his country in his own right peacefully for more than five years.
27:45But all that's about to change.
27:56Richard's queen, Anne of Bohemia, dies suddenly at just 28.
28:03The king is utterly inconsolable and properly unhinged.
28:11I think Anne was some sort of stabilising influence on him.
28:16Now she's gone, there's nothing holding him back.
28:22And that's apparent straight away when Arundel, one of the five from the Tower,
28:27turns up late to her funeral.
28:33CHANTING
28:41The peace-loving image the king's cultivated is ripped away.
28:51Here, in Westminster Abbey,
28:53there's direct evidence of the real Richard that emerges.
28:59This is an incredible piece of history.
29:01It's the earliest surviving portrait of a British monarch to be taken from life,
29:05and it was painted around the time of Richard's wife's death.
29:08And it shows you the king not only as he wanted to be seen,
29:12but as his subjects really did see him,
29:14because the Richard that's shown here is a seriously nasty piece of work.
29:18He really did sit like this on a high throne above his court, staring around.
29:24It sort of feels like his gaze is on me now.
29:27And if he looked at you, you were supposed to throw yourself to the ground
29:30or face his wrath.
29:32This was a really dangerous atmosphere.
29:35But I don't think this is a new personality.
29:38Richard's always had this in him.
29:40Think about his bloody crushing of the Peasants' Revolt,
29:43his attack on the Archbishop,
29:45his abuse of the treason laws,
29:48his build-up of a private army.
29:52I think Richard's always been a tyrant.
30:01Backed by his private army,
30:03the king reinstates his version of the treason law.
30:07Anybody who opposes him now faces death.
30:12The monster has been unleashed.
30:26Ten years earlier, in that tower over there,
30:29Richard humiliated the king and threatened to rip his crown away from him.
30:33Now, one way or another, Richard's going to crush them.
30:37This is a vendetta, pure and simple.
30:40Richard's tried being a nice guy. He didn't like it.
30:43As one chronicler of the time wrote,
30:45this is the year that Richard's tyranny began.
30:50The Earl of Warwick was one of the five who humiliated Richard in the tower.
30:57He should probably have thought better of going back there for dinner with the king.
31:03When the meal is finished, so is Warwick.
31:08And Richard's just warming up.
31:15Gloucester, England.
31:18Gloucester was the ringleader of the five who threatened him.
31:22Now Richard rides through the night to return the favour.
31:26Ah, mon cher oncle.
31:29The king greets him as fair uncle and has him arrested on the spot.
31:39Gloucester is packed off into the custody of Thomas Mowbray, another of the five.
31:48To atone for his sins, he's now the king's hatchet man.
32:05The fourth man, Arundel, is arrested and imprisoned as well.
32:10He too is charged with treason.
32:18Gloucester, Warwick and Arundel have their trials set for a parliament in Westminster.
32:27Just like today, Westminster Hall is under construction,
32:30so Parliament's held in a wooden hall next door.
32:33It opens with a sermon from Ezekiel.
32:35There'll be one king over them all.
32:37And indeed there is, because towering above them,
32:40on a specially built high throne, is Richard,
32:43with 300 of his white-heart archers at his back.
32:46The message is simple. You're either with the king or you're against him.
32:50There is no politics now, just life or death.
32:55Graphic proof of this comes when Mowbray reports that, unfortunately,
33:00Gloucester can't stand trial...
33:03Your Highness...
33:05..on account of being dead.
33:07..the news of Gloucester's sudden death.
33:11The news is that Gloucester is dead.
33:14The news is that Gloucester is dead.
33:17The news is that Gloucester is dead.
33:21Luckily, before he died, he made a full confession,
33:25admitting to all Richard's charges.
33:31In reality, of course, Richard has had him tortured to death.
33:36HE SCREAMS
33:40He's been tortured to death.
33:43He's been tortured to death.
33:46He's been tortured to death.
33:50Henry Bolingbroke was the fifth man in the tower,
33:53and not for the first time, he has to choose a side.
33:58Join with the king or share Gloucester's fate?
34:09Henry chooses life.
34:11He makes a speech condemning his old ally, Arundel.
34:16Arundel is sentenced to death, Warwick banished for life.
34:21Of the five who stood against the king,
34:24only Henry and Mowbray remain.
34:28And they must know they're not safe.
34:31The king has just murdered his own uncle, a royal duke.
34:36Anybody could be next.
34:40Three months later, as fear and paranoia stalk the land,
34:45Henry is called to a secret meeting.
34:59Mr Bolingbroke, I'm sorry.
35:02I'm sorry.
35:04I'm sorry.
35:07Mowbray tells him that the king is plotting against them.
35:15Mowbray may well be telling the truth,
35:18but this could easily be a trap.
35:25Henry can't risk it.
35:28He goes straight to the king and denounces Mowbray.
35:33But since it was a private conversation,
35:35there are no witnesses to prove who is telling the truth.
35:41This is perfect for the king.
35:44He declares the case can't be proven and exiles them both.
35:50Henry for ten years, Mowbray for life.
35:55In one fell swoop,
35:58In one fell swoop, the last two of the five from the tower are gone.
36:05Richard's revenge is complete.
36:08He believes no-one can challenge him.
36:13But Henry Bolingbroke will now be watching the king's every move
36:17from exile in France.
36:19Richard should have killed him.
36:22What happens next shows just what a ruthless tyrant Richard's become.
36:26With Bolingbroke and Mowbray out of the way,
36:29Richard sends his thugs round to the houses of all the other nobles he suspects
36:33and forces them to put their seals on pieces of blank parchment.
36:37Once he has those, he can write on them pretty much anything he wants.
36:41I'll give the king ÂŁ10,000.
36:44I'll leave the king my lands and all my castles.
36:47I am a traitor.
36:49If anyone puts a foot out of line, or even if they don't,
36:52Richard can destroy them.
36:57A year later, Richard's tyranny is in full swing
37:01when Henry Bolingbroke's father, the Duke of Lancaster, dies.
37:12This is what remains of Pontefract Castle in Yorkshire.
37:17Just one of more than 30 castles Henry Bolingbroke should now inherit
37:23as part of the largest duchy in the kingdom.
37:27It will make Henry the most powerful noble in England.
37:31But given the history between the king and his cousin,
37:34there's no way Richard can allow that to happen.
37:37So with Henry still banished, Richard just takes the lot for himself.
37:41But in doing so, he undermines the whole basis of law and order in England,
37:46the right to property and inheritance.
37:49And he's given Henry Bolingbroke the excuse he's been waiting for
37:53to take the king down.
38:20May 1399. Richard is in Wales.
38:25He's got exactly what he always wanted.
38:28Everyone in his kingdom fears him.
38:31But even that's not enough.
38:33So Richard is heading for Ireland to extend his tyranny there.
38:38It's a massive miscalculation.
38:41There's a fundamental flaw in Richard's whole idea of kingdom.
38:45He doesn't understand that the strongest kings have always governed by consent.
38:49Iron-fisted consent, maybe, but consent all the same.
38:53If you rule by fear, like Richard, the moment you leave the country,
38:57what is there for your enemies to be afraid of?
39:00What's there to stop them moving against you?
39:04As soon as Richard's gone, Henry Bolingbroke seizes his moment.
39:09He races for the throne.
39:11In Ireland, Henry Bolingbroke seizes his moment.
39:15He races back across the Channel with one thing on his mind.
39:20Regime change.
39:22By stealing his inheritance, Richard has created an enemy with nothing to lose
39:28and alienated every single landholder in the kingdom.
39:32The nobles of England flock to Henry's side.
39:37Richard's White Hart army is no match for the combined might
39:41of the enraged English barons.
39:44By the time Richard makes it back from Ireland, his army is gone.
39:49He's friendless and exposed.
39:53If you're expecting a war, forget it.
39:56It's over before it's even begun, and Richard has lost.
40:01The king is forced to surrender to his cousin.
40:05Henry takes him to London and bangs him up in the tower.
40:1312 years before, Henry Bolingbroke was one of the five nobles
40:17who backed away from deposing Richard.
40:25He won't make the same mistake again.
40:28He won't make the same mistake again.
40:38This time, he's going to take the throne.
40:45According to one chronicler, the king was so enraged that he could hardly speak,
40:50and when he did, it was to make a threat.
40:59This is pretty funny, really.
41:01If there's one thing Richard isn't, it's physically brave,
41:05and even if he were, Henry's been a crusader, a tournament champ.
41:09He'd toast Richard on his own.
41:11All Richard knows is fear,
41:13but without the men or the authority to back him up, he's nothing.
41:17He's reduced to shouting. He's a temper tantrum.
41:22The next day, in Parliament,
41:24250 years after the first Plantagenet king claimed and won the English crown,
41:30Henry Bolingbroke formally claims his cousin's throne.
41:35I, Richard Bolingbroke,
41:38am here to declare that I, Richard Bolingbroke,
41:42am here to declare that I, Richard Bolingbroke,
41:46Henry Bolingbroke formally claims his cousin's throne.
41:51I, Henry of Lancaster,
41:54challenge this realm of England and the crown
41:57with all the members and the appurtenances
42:00that I am descendant by the right line of blood
42:03coming from the good lord, King Henry III.
42:08By claiming the throne not in Latin or French, but in English,
42:12the first king to do so since the Norman conquest,
42:15Bolingbroke is sending a very clear message.
42:20I am not like Richard. His tyranny is over.
42:31There's just one problem. Richard is still alive.
42:35And as long as he is, he remains a dangerous threat.
42:39No-one knows for sure how Richard II died,
42:42but what we do know is that he was being held in a room in this tower
42:46on January 6th, 1400, when the last plot to spring him was foiled.
42:53By February 17th, he's already dead.
42:59Given the stakes involved,
43:01I think it's safe to assume that Henry is behind it.
43:05What he needs is plausible deniability.
43:08It can't look like he's murdered the ex-king.
43:13So knowing just how fast Richard dies,
43:16I think it's pretty obvious what really happens.
43:20Richard II, the boy king who crushed the Peasants' Revolt,
43:24was simply left in a room with no food and no water
43:28and allowed to die of thirst.
43:34It's a grim way to die.
43:37As his kidneys shut down, his blood thickens
43:40and ear-splitting headaches set in,
43:43Richard would have had plenty of time to think about his mistakes.
43:55The king dies without a mark on him.
44:01So technically no-one, especially not the new king,
44:05has blood on their hands.
44:08Richard II is dead.
44:10It's the end of one of the greatest periods in British history.
44:23The Crown of England had passed down legitimately through eight generations
44:27since Henry II established the Plantagenet dynasty
44:31two-and-a-half centuries earlier.
44:33Henry IV's coronation ends that.
44:36From now on, anyone with a drop of royal blood
44:39can theoretically claim the throne.
44:41And that possibility will plunge England into the Wars of the Roses
44:45and half a century of civil war.
44:52Expect to be just as gripped tomorrow night at nine on Channel 5
44:55thanks to the network premiere of Trespass
44:58with Nicolas Cage and Nicole Kidman.
45:01Next tonight, watch a suspension.
45:03It's pothole Britain. Drivers beware.