Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00I'm Susanna Lipscomb. I'm a historian, and I'm fascinated by the history of the royal family.
00:09I'm not just interested in the pomp and circumstance, but in the less respectable side of the story.
00:17I mean, this is just shocking. This is shocking.
00:21From medieval to modern times, our monarchs have been at the center of scandals throughout history.
00:28I want to understand what makes a scandal.
00:33The public would be absolutely astonished at the level of involvement that the royal family have.
00:39And what role the press, parliament, and the public played in generating outrage and rumor.
00:46Who do you think did it?
00:49I'll be investigating some stories you might know, and some you might never have heard of.
00:54He feels like the key suspect.
00:56Absolutely.
00:56But at the time, they were the talk of the town.
01:01There's very few people that could survive in a 19th century asylum.
01:05Sorry.
01:05It's awful.
01:07From marriages to infidelity, opulence to suspicious deaths, I want to discover how bad judgment, bad behavior, or even bad luck, led to some of history's biggest royal scandals.
01:22Monarchs have always used their wealth to enhance their power and dignity.
01:48Looking like a king or queen is a crucial part of the job.
01:51But there's always been a question about where all the money to pay for that magnificence comes from.
01:57How, on what, and on whom they're spending it.
02:00And whether it's really their wealth at all.
02:03And what's the line between upholding the dignity of the crown and needless extravagance?
02:09It's a question that feels very timely.
02:18With a new monarch on the throne, who's talked of wanting to streamline the royal family, the question of the value of the royals feels particularly pertinent.
02:27But our attitude to royal flamboyance has changed over the course of history, and discussions about the value of the monarchy are actually quite recent.
02:37If you think about it, most people believed the monarchy is chosen by God to be king or queen and head of the church.
02:46So then cost-benefit analysis is not appropriate.
02:50But oddly, now, that is exactly the kind of language that's being used.
02:55The cost of the monarchy per person in Britain per year comes out of something like 82 pence a person or something like that, which they're very proud of.
03:05They think it sounds like great value for money.
03:08But it does move away from this mystic, the monarchy is beyond discussion type approach and makes it more like buying apples in a shop.
03:21In the modern world, where we count royal budgets down to the pennies, the monarchy are more susceptible to scandal than ever.
03:31Retired royal correspondent Stephen Bates knows all about the delicate balance which the royal family have to maintain.
03:40There's a sense in which people want the royals to be kind of magnificent and they enjoy the pageantry that goes with them, but they worry about where the money's coming from.
03:50Well, that's certainly true.
03:52They want the pomp and circumstance and the fancy uniforms, but they don't like the thought that they're actually paying for it themselves.
04:01And what has been thought to be too much?
04:06Ostentatiousness is the thing.
04:08Prince Andrew always used to be known as Air Miles Andy because he would take a helicopter to a golf match.
04:15On official business, I don't think so.
04:18That sort of extravagance is very much frowned upon.
04:23One reason why the Queen was so admired was that plastic box of Weetabix on the breakfast table.
04:31The fact that occasionally, under very stage conditions, she went on public transport.
04:36The royals need to be sensitive to that all the time.
04:39As a society, we're far more questioning of perceived overspending by royals than we used to be.
04:48But back through the centuries, the general population didn't have that much say over how a royal used their money, even in cases of extreme overindulgence.
04:58But even a monarch who was not known for taking the feelings of others into account could go too far.
05:04Renowned Tudor monarch Henry VIII had an extraordinarily lavish lifestyle.
05:13On his clothes alone, he spent the equivalent today of over £1 million a year.
05:19And on his first Christmas celebration as king, he splurged the equivalent of £13.5 million, most of his annual revenue, on food, entertainment and gifts.
05:30Perhaps the best example of this extravagance is the three-week Peace Summit come party that was known as the Field of Cloth of Gold.
05:41This happened in June 1520.
05:44Henry VIII met with the French king, Francois I, on English soil in northern France.
05:50And they celebrated the fact that they had made peace.
05:53Each had with them a retinue of 6,000 people, and we know they were all housed in tents of cloth of gold.
06:02Cloth of gold is made from actual spirals of gold through which the fabric, the silk, is threaded.
06:09Henry, of course, had to do one better.
06:11He had a temporary palace thrown up of brick and glass and timber.
06:16It was 300 square feet.
06:18There was jousting, there was feasting.
06:21The food for the English alone cost £8,839, two shillings and four pence.
06:30That's the equivalent of about £4.6 million today.
06:36As well as a lavish feast, the guests were treated to huge wine fountains, which ran freely for hours at a time.
06:44And when you step inside the first courtyard at Hampton Court, you get a glimpse of that Tudor revelry.
06:56This is a faithful recreation of the fountain that was erected in front of Henry VIII's palace at the field of cloth of gold.
07:03And it's an amazing one because at the very top, you've got a figure of Bacchus, the god of wine, sitting on a wine barrel and drinking his fill.
07:13Because this was a fountain that ran with wine, which is why it says,
07:17Make good cheer who wishes.
07:19And even the same in the French.
07:20Fait go cher qui voudra.
07:22And everyone's taking it quite seriously.
07:25This poor chap shows you what happens if you have too much.
07:28But look at that man over there.
07:31He's being sick.
07:37Clearly, no expense was spared in the festivities.
07:41But what was the point of all this spending in the name of peace?
07:45The two kings didn't just want to outdo each other.
07:48By displaying their wealth so ostentatiously, they were also hinting that, should they want to,
07:55they had plenty of money to go into battle again.
07:58Which is precisely what happened.
08:03Within two short years, England and France were at war again.
08:08The campaigns of 1522 and 1523 in France cost £400,000.
08:14That's the equivalent of £208 million today.
08:18And the money for it was raised by loans, short-term enforced loans on the general public that Henry promised he would repay, but never did.
08:29When in 1525, Henry wanted to invade France again, he sent his right-hand man, Thomas Wolsey,
08:36to send commissioners out to the provinces to ask for another additional tax.
08:40The people of England were scandalised by Henry's request.
08:49In Kent, one commissioner reports that people were saying despite the infinite sums of money the king has spent on the campaign,
08:58he hath not one foot more land in France than his noble father had.
09:03In Cambridge, people refused to pay.
09:06In Suffolk, there was a full-scale revolt.
09:08Sir Henry didn't go to war in 1525, but he hardly stopped spending.
09:16This is what he spent his money on in the 1530s.
09:20Tens of thousands of pounds, millions of pounds today, building palaces like this one at Hampton Court.
09:28Next, I explore the home of the biggest spender in royal history.
09:40Wow!
09:41And reveal his mind-boggling amount of debt.
09:46That's 23 million pounds.
09:48When we look back to some of our monarchs from centuries ago, like Henry VIII,
10:00it might appear that money was simply no object.
10:04But some of the most extravagant royals in history have found their bank balances and their reputations in serious danger.
10:14Perhaps none so much as George IV.
10:18What many people probably know about George IV comes from Hugh Laurie's depiction of him
10:24as the dim and self-absorbed Prince Regent in Blackadder,
10:28barely tolerated by his manservant.
10:32Unfortunately for George, the lack of respect that his butler has for him there
10:36was pretty much what most of his subjects felt about him in real life.
10:43George was one of the least popular royals in the whole of British history.
10:47In his youth, as the Prince of Wales, he was viewed as lazy and ill-suited to the hard work of state matters,
10:55preferring a debauched and very expensive lifestyle.
10:58Much to the annoyance of his father, George III, the Prince of Wales liked to spend his time with those who drank and gambled.
11:08Even in his youth, he accrued vast debts, which were caused chiefly by his absolute commitment to the finer things in life.
11:15Besides partying, George's other passions included architecture and design.
11:21When the young Prince came of age in 1783, his father gave him Carlton House as his London residence,
11:30along with a huge renovation budget to keep him occupied,
11:33and perhaps to try and instill a sense of responsibility in his wayward son.
11:38Little did he know that his generosity would rather have the opposite effect on George,
11:45who wasn't one to compromise on budget when it came to his artistic vision.
11:51I've come to Brighton Pavilion, one of George's greatest surviving building projects,
11:57to meet curator Dr Alexandra Loska, to get a taste of George's appetite for extravagance.
12:04This is incredible.
12:13What we see here is almost a complete vision.
12:17This is George.
12:19This is his take on chinoiserie, this sort of very flamboyant, very playful style,
12:25taking inspiration from other cultures.
12:27And if you put to one side for a second how much it cost,
12:33you think, this is his personality inscribed on the walls.
12:41The flair George manifested in his building projects
12:44was matched only by the seriously decadent parties he hosted.
12:49He didn't accede to the crown until the age of 57,
12:52leaving him with decades of time to kill
12:55and plenty of opportunities to entertain.
13:00What the Pavilion Brighton was always about
13:02was about inviting people,
13:05wining and dining and singing and dancing.
13:08And you can really tell what is most important to George
13:10because the two largest rooms are the banqueting room
13:14and at the other end of the building, the music room.
13:17But unsurprisingly, places like Carlton House and Brighton Pavilion
13:22didn't come cheap.
13:24The chandelier alone in the Pavilion's banqueting room
13:28cost £5,000.
13:30To put that in perspective,
13:32a maid at the time would have earned £50 a year.
13:36Perhaps the best example of George's spending habits
13:39is the Pavilion's jaw-droppingly elaborate music room.
13:43This was probably the most expensive room
13:46to furnish, to decorate,
13:48and it cost at least £45,000.
13:52It's not building it, it's just decorating it.
13:55I mean, that would just be a mind-blowing amount
13:57to spend today on decorating a room,
13:59and this is in the 1820s.
14:02I mean, it's just...
14:03Let's talk about these sums of money
14:05because I can't quite get my head around them.
14:06So how much money was he given to live on?
14:10Well, he was the future king of England.
14:12He would have expected to have an income from Parliament,
14:15and he wanted £100,000 a year.
14:20In 1783, his father, King George III, said,
14:26I will only give you £50,000,
14:28but you'll also have the income from the Duchy of Cornwall,
14:31and you may get some extras along the line
14:33for certain projects.
14:35So an income of £50,000 a year.
14:40I don't know what that is today.
14:41Do you have any...
14:42This is the National Archives' Currents Converter.
14:44So where was 1780?
14:461783.
14:47I wouldn't say no to that today.
14:48No, £50,000 would be nice, wouldn't it?
14:50But let's see.
14:51£50,000 plus the money from the Duchy of Cornwall, so...
14:54About £12,000.
14:55OK, £62,000.
14:56A mere £62,000 in 1780...
15:00...is £5,000,000.
15:03£5,000,000.
15:05And yet, that doesn't seem to be enough for him.
15:07It's not enough for him.
15:08It's hard to live on £5,000,000.
15:09It's not enough for him, so he runs up debts.
15:12Within three years,
15:14he has racked up debts of £270,000.
15:18This is 1786.
15:211786.
15:22Computer says, let's see, £270,000...
15:28That's £23,000,000.
15:32Yeah, and this is...
15:33£23,000,000.
15:34And this is before he starts building the Royal Pavilion.
15:36So this is what he's doing in London and all his other hobbies.
15:40For the Playboy Prince to be spending such vast sums
15:44on such an excessive lifestyle
15:46caused more than a few raised eyebrows among the paying public.
15:51Where is this money coming from?
15:53I mean, this isn't his money, is it?
15:55This belongs to the nation.
15:58It is Parliament subsidising or, you know,
16:00financing the royal family, the monarchy.
16:04And he is in constant discussions or arguments
16:07with Parliament and the king.
16:11These arguments happening in the late 18th and early 19th centuries
16:14about how much Prince George deserved
16:17get to the very nub of what feels
16:19like a very modern issue.
16:22To what extent should the public
16:24be funding the lifestyles of the royal family?
16:28Some people thought that the Prince of Wales
16:31was a private citizen
16:33and therefore his father should deal with him.
16:36Others argued that it was the obligation of the taxpayer
16:40to almost invest in him for his future
16:45because he was going to be king.
16:47So they weren't very clear what the distinction was
16:50between private and royal, private and public.
16:54And that problem continues on really to this day.
16:58When Windsor Castle went on fire,
17:00the public were presented with the bill.
17:02And there was a debate about why that was.
17:05More recently, Frogmore Cottage renovations
17:07for Meghan and Harry.
17:09The public paid for that.
17:11But then when they left royal service,
17:14they had to repay that sum of money.
17:17It's a question of why are we paying for these things?
17:19We don't get access to them.
17:21And that, again, is part of this complicated mess
17:25of working out what is royal and what is not royal.
17:28While today's royals might be rather more discreet
17:32about their spending,
17:33Prince George clearly saw it as his right.
17:37By 1795, he'd racked up an astronomical £650,000 of debt,
17:44roughly £78 million in today's terms.
17:48He was mobbed by creditors in the street
17:50and reluctantly forced to marry his German cousin,
17:54Princess Caroline, to clear his debts.
17:56But George wasn't about to change his ways.
18:00He continued his spending spree for years,
18:03even after he finally became king in 1820,
18:07constantly extending and redecorating the building at Brighton,
18:11creating the extraordinary pavilion we know today.
18:15This is the saloon.
18:17It's one of the most formal rooms.
18:19That is rather wonderful, that silk, isn't it?
18:21It's red and gold, and then in combination with silver.
18:26It's really unusual.
18:27It's bling.
18:28It certainly is.
18:30It is bling, and it is really experimental bling,
18:32because if you create a silvered wall decoration, wallpaper,
18:37of course it will tarnish, and it did.
18:40So after a few years, all that silver went black.
18:42Oh.
18:43But George didn't care, because he would just replace it,
18:45or he would have come up with new schemes, with new ideas.
18:49If this shows us George over 50 years,
18:53then he's spending for that entire period of time.
18:58There's no point at which he thinks,
18:59OK, enough is enough.
19:01Everything's great.
19:02I'll stop spending now.
19:04He just carries on.
19:06Think of the French Revolution.
19:08You've got people being beheaded
19:09for exactly this sort of excess just across the channel.
19:13You're absolutely right,
19:14and I think maybe that's one of the reasons why he did it.
19:17You know, why not do it now?
19:18Why not enjoy life now?
19:19Because I don't know.
19:22I might lose my head, too, to the guillotine.
19:26But while George was enjoying life
19:28in the outrageously opulent pavilion,
19:31what did the public think of his projects?
19:34Alexandra and I have access to Brighton Pavilion's archive rooms
19:38to find out what George's subjects thought of his excesses.
19:43So, this is behind the scenes.
19:46We are very much behind the scenes.
19:47We are in what was originally George's private bathroom.
19:52Oh, fabulous.
19:53And where we're standing now was basically a small swimming pool,
19:58a ten-foot-deep plunge pool.
20:01The man knew how to live.
20:03OK, and what are these? These are amazing cartoons.
20:05Well, George had the great misfortune, or perhaps fortune,
20:09to live in the great, great age of political caricatures.
20:14So, we have these incredibly funny, daring comments
20:20on political life, on society.
20:23And, of course, George was fodder for the cartoonists,
20:34for the caricaturists of the time.
20:36These are just fabulous, because they just give us such insight
20:39into how people wanted to skewer him at the time.
20:43I mean, this one, we've got to talk about this one.
20:45Yes.
20:46This is fabulous.
20:47It's George at the end of his life, really.
20:49He's, by then, you know, obese, and he has various health issues.
20:54He sits on a teapot, dressed like a Chinese Mandarin,
20:59and that's, of course, a reference to where we are here
21:01in the Brighton Pavilion.
21:02Behind him, you can see the Royal Pavilion.
21:04So, what's the teapot all about?
21:07Well, this is the Treasury teapot.
21:10This is where the money is coming from,
21:12and he's quite literally sitting on it, and it's spurting money.
21:15And what's he spending the money on?
21:17Well, the Royal Pavilion.
21:19Changes to Buckingham Palace.
21:21Also, a giraffe.
21:23And the cartoonists call this his plaything.
21:27So, he is a man who should be ruling the country
21:29and looking after his people.
21:30Instead, he's playing with a giraffe.
21:32The giraffe, by the way, was a real giraffe.
21:34He kept this at Windsor Great Park.
21:37It's just such an evocative image.
21:39In fact, he reminds me of the figure from Alice in Wonderland
21:44who sits and smokes his hooker pipe.
21:46Quite.
21:47But this is contemporary comment on it,
21:49and it's saying, look, he's not doing what he's supposed to do.
21:53He's just building and creating and designing,
21:58and he's having fun, but doesn't he have a job?
22:02Exactly.
22:03These cartoons vividly depict how George's indulgent
22:08and ostentatious lifestyle
22:10became the subject of public ridicule.
22:13By the end of his life, he grew morbidly obese,
22:17and suffering from severe gout,
22:19he never salvaged his wretched reputation.
22:26When George died as King George IV in 1830,
22:30few of his subjects mourned his loss.
22:32There remains nothing to be said or done
22:35about George IV, wrote the Times,
22:37except pay, as pay we must for his profusion.
22:43Next, the medieval mistress who went from rags to riches
22:48and found herself in the midst
22:50of one of the biggest financial scandals of the 14th century.
22:55She is the only woman who was put on trial in Parliament
22:59during the whole of the Middle Ages.
23:00So far, I've seen how kings like Henry VIII
23:12and George IV flaunted their wealth.
23:16But some of the most scandalous financial debacles in history
23:20come not from the royals themselves,
23:23but from their mistresses.
23:24And to explore one of the most hotly debated of these stories,
23:28I need to go back to the Middle Ages.
23:35One of the most infamous of all medieval women
23:38was the commoner Alice Perris.
23:40Once the Queen's lady-in-waiting, or damoiselle,
23:44she became mistress to the king, Edward III.
23:47Contemporaries explained this by reference to her
23:50as an avaricious harlot
23:52who used her influence with the king
23:54to manipulate him in his dotage into making her rich.
23:59Alice Perris certainly became an extremely wealthy woman,
24:02and she did so over quite a short period of time.
24:06The question is,
24:07how did she really go from nothing
24:09to being one of the richest people in the country?
24:15It's easy to see where the money came from.
24:18Edward III was a very wealthy king
24:21who had repeatedly triumphed on the battlefield.
24:24His army captured dozens of French and Scottish royals and nobles,
24:29all of whom had to pay enormous ransoms
24:32to achieve their freedom.
24:35His wealth paid for building work at Windsor Castle,
24:38and the original Palace of Westminster.
24:41But how so much of his money
24:43ended up in the hands of his mistress
24:44has been a scandal for centuries.
24:49The trouble with piecing together
24:51the story of Edward's mistress
24:52is that we just don't have that many accounts of Alice's life,
24:56and certainly very few neutral ones.
25:00Most of our information comes
25:01from the blatantly hostile writings of monks,
25:04specifically those at St. Albans Cathedral.
25:08One of the monks, the Abbey's presenter, Thomas Walsingham,
25:13compiled what is aptly known as the Chronicle of St. Albans,
25:17although it's also more commonly known
25:19as the Scandalous Chronicle,
25:20because this is what he had to say about Alice.
25:23She was a shameless, impotent harlot and of low birth.
25:27She was not attractive or beautiful,
25:29but knew how to compensate for these defects by her seductive voice.
25:35Blind fortune elevated this woman to such heights
25:38and promoted her to a greater intimacy with the king than was proper.
25:42So, not exactly an impartial witness.
25:49One person who has dedicated real time
25:52to investigating Alice's true character
25:54is Dr. Laura Tompkins,
25:56whose new research makes us reconsider this medieval mistress
26:00and whether she's been treated fairly by history.
26:05Who was Alice Perris?
26:07Well, Alice was a member of a family of London goldsmiths,
26:12and that's a relatively new discovery.
26:14Previously, because she was the king's mistress,
26:17it was presumed that she was a member of the nobility
26:20or, at very least, the landed gentry.
26:22But actually, I say, she was from this London merchant family.
26:27So, how did someone from that sort of background
26:30become mistress to the king?
26:32What we know is that, actually, her first husband
26:34and a man named Yannim Perris,
26:36he is described in one document as being the jeweller of the king.
26:41And it's possible that Alice met the king,
26:43therefore, through her first husband,
26:45perhaps assisting him with his business at court.
26:50Unusually, as far as medieval kings go,
26:52Edward appears to have been loyal to his wife,
26:55Philippa of Haino, for most of her life.
26:58But when Philippa became very ill in the 1360s,
27:02he began his affair with the young Alice.
27:05Alice bore three of the king's children,
27:08but it wasn't until Philippa's death in 1369
27:11that Alice really started to profit
27:13from her association with the king.
27:17After the queen died,
27:19Alice grew steadily richer and richer,
27:22as this medieval document,
27:24housed at the National Archives, reveals.
27:27I have to tell you what a thrill it gives me
27:30just to sit next to this,
27:31because normally the sort of earliest people let me go
27:33is about the 16th century,
27:34and here we're sitting next to a document from 1372.
27:38It's amazing.
27:40It's an incredible survival.
27:42This is three years after the queen has died,
27:44and during this period,
27:45Alice is able to accumulate vast sums of money
27:49through her acquisition of land.
27:51Her estate amounted to over 150 different parcels of property,
27:57including over 70 manors.
28:00This is huge amounts,
28:01and it was probably somewhere in the region of £2,000 a year,
28:04which at the time made her one of the wealthiest individuals in the country.
28:09This is a charter
28:10in which Alice is actually giving land to Edward,
28:15and in return for this,
28:16she actually gets an even more valuable property,
28:19a manor called Wendover,
28:21and this document is particularly lovely
28:23because it still has her seal attached to it.
28:27That's amazing.
28:28So what is so fascinating about this document
28:32is that normally we would perhaps expect
28:35for mistresses to be only the recipients
28:38of gifts of land and jewels from the king,
28:41but what this is a great example of
28:43is how active Alice was as a businesswoman herself.
28:47She is actively engaged in these land transactions.
28:50The court was outraged
28:56to see Edward publicly showering his low-born mistress
29:00with gifts so unashamedly.
29:03When in 1375 Alice appeared publicly in London
29:07dressed in golden garments as the Lady of the Sun,
29:11the sense of injustice was complete.
29:14By the king's final years,
29:16Alice had become queen in all but name,
29:19leading to vicious rumours
29:21that she was manipulating an ageing and vulnerable Edward.
29:26What's your reading of Alice in terms of her character?
29:31She was an incredibly determined woman.
29:33I don't think she would necessarily be that popular
29:36even if she was around today.
29:39We don't know the accuracy of all the accusations
29:43that are made against her.
29:44We have a series of petitions
29:46essentially accusing her of seizing land
29:49through armed force,
29:52not paying debts on incredibly large scale,
29:56seizing people's property.
29:59And there's a great sense that comes across
30:01in all these documents
30:02that she did this in the knowledge
30:05that she was essentially untouchable through the law.
30:08But to come from the background that she did
30:11to accumulate the amount of wealth that she did
30:14shows an astonishing amount of drive,
30:18business sense, ambition.
30:21And there's a lot to be admired in her.
30:23Ambition often is used about women in a negative way.
30:25But in this situation,
30:28she must have had something about her.
30:29She must have had charisma, intelligence, energy,
30:33all of these things that make someone successful.
30:35Absolutely.
30:36This is someone who's incredibly active and intelligent.
30:40But Alice's heyday couldn't last forever.
30:43When King Edward died in 1377
30:46and was succeeded by his grandson, Richard II,
30:50her fortunes changed dramatically.
30:52So, this is the Parliament role
30:56from the first Parliament after Edward III dies.
31:00And the situation for Alice changes extremely rapidly.
31:04She is essentially found guilty of corruption.
31:08And because of that,
31:09she has the entirety of her state forfeited to the Crown
31:14and she is banished from the realm.
31:16She is the only woman who is put on trial in Parliament
31:20during the whole of the Middle Ages,
31:22which shows how unusual this was.
31:24Gosh.
31:25So, is this the indictment against her,
31:27all of this, the charges made against her?
31:29What we have is a long account of, one by one,
31:34men at court who used to be her allies,
31:38men that she says in this account
31:40will speak for her and defend her.
31:44Instead, what they do is they take to the stand
31:47and they essentially throw her under the bus.
31:50Now, under the new reign,
31:52they want to secure their own position.
31:54So, she's deprived of all her estates
31:56and is exiled.
31:59Is that the last we hear of her?
32:01No, she does come back.
32:02So, at this stage,
32:04she marries a man called Sir William Windsor
32:06and he affords her some amount of protection.
32:09But what's really interesting
32:11is that he gets granted Alice's former properties
32:14rather than her being granted them directly.
32:18All of a sudden,
32:20you see a woman who has,
32:22for the whole of the time of her relationship with the king,
32:25been visible in the record
32:27and being able to operate as a single woman.
32:30Suddenly, you feel the restrictions
32:33and the dangers of being part of a marriage.
32:36Alice has gone down through the years
32:39as having this really dreadful reputation.
32:43Why do you think that is?
32:45The main reason for this
32:46is that the main source of evidence
32:49that we have about her
32:51is written by monks
32:53who disapprove of Alice on many different levels.
32:57She gets accused of using witchcraft.
33:00There's a famous story by Thomas Walsingham
33:02that she steals the rings from Edward III
33:05whilst he's lying on his deathbed.
33:08And it's really those stories
33:10that give this really very clichéd picture
33:15of, you know, the manipulating mistress.
33:18It's interesting, isn't it,
33:20that throughout the centuries,
33:22that cliché has come down to us,
33:24whether it's Alice Paris or Anne Boleyn,
33:27or Wallis Simpson.
33:29It's the same picture
33:30that people impose on women.
33:33She must be a grasping woman out
33:35for everything she can get.
33:36Absolutely.
33:37And really, it is that sense of
33:41that threat to the social order.
33:47There's no doubt that Alice Paris
33:49was a brilliant,
33:50sometimes ruthless businesswoman,
33:52and was probably not always easy to deal with.
33:56But in this case,
33:58the real outrage seems to have been caused
34:00not by the business deals themselves,
34:03but who was doing them.
34:05Men of status found the idea
34:07that a woman of low birth
34:08could have real influence
34:10over a king's financial affairs
34:12deeply unpalatable.
34:13And, historically,
34:16she's not the only royal mistress
34:18to provoke scandal for doing so.
34:23Next, I meet another royal companion
34:26who found herself up on the stand
34:28for her dealings with the king.
34:31Here we have Mary Ann Clark
34:32addressing the House of Commons.
34:35So all the sins of the world
34:37were being exposed here.
34:39The story of 14th century Alice Paris
34:51makes it clear that,
34:52in the Middle Ages,
34:53being a wealthy and business-savvy
34:55royal mistress
34:56could make you pretty unpopular
34:58with the public.
35:00But even if you fast-forward 400 years,
35:03society had become no kinder
35:05to women using their connections
35:07to the crown for their own gain.
35:10In 1809, Prince Frederick,
35:13Duke of York,
35:14found himself in the middle
35:15of a financial scandal
35:16which rocked the British establishment.
35:19And at the heart of it
35:20were some scandalous dealings
35:22by his mistress.
35:25Frederick was the second son
35:26of George III
35:27and had an important role
35:28in the military.
35:30I'm meeting Professor Matthew McCormack
35:33outside Horse Guards Parade,
35:35the historic headquarters
35:36of the army,
35:37to find out more
35:38about this Duke of York.
35:40He was commander-in-chief
35:41of the army from 1795.
35:44I think he was fairly popular.
35:46He was probably George III's favourite son.
35:49He was seen as a reformer
35:50and a moderniser within the army,
35:52so he had a pretty good reputation.
35:53How, then,
35:54is this popular son,
35:56who tends to be doing pretty well,
35:58involved in this massive scandal?
36:01What happens?
36:01Well, he becomes embroiled
36:03in an issue around
36:05the sale of military commissions.
36:09In the early 19th century,
36:11it was standard military practice
36:12that you could pay money
36:14to obtain an officer commission
36:15and move up the ranks.
36:19But in 1809,
36:20it was revealed
36:21that some of these sales
36:22weren't going through
36:23the proper channels,
36:25and the Duke of York
36:25found himself in hot water
36:27when it was claimed
36:28he might be involved.
36:32He became involved
36:33in the selling
36:34of military commissions
36:36by his mistress.
36:37People were coming
36:38to his mistress
36:38in order to buy a commission,
36:40and she was using
36:41her influence with him
36:42in order to acquire that.
36:44So there was a sense
36:45that there was
36:45some elite corruption going on.
36:49Frederick's mistress,
36:50Mary Ann Clark,
36:51was offering backhanders
36:53for her own profit
36:54and for a cheaper rate,
36:56using her connections
36:58to turn an already
36:59seemingly corrupt system
37:01into a lucrative income stream
37:03for herself.
37:06The London Library
37:08holds some of the secrets
37:09as to who this crafty
37:11courtesan was
37:12and how her shady deals
37:14ended up being
37:15front-page news.
37:17Welcome to one of my
37:19favourite places
37:20in the whole world.
37:20So, tell me,
37:24who was Mary Ann Clark?
37:27Well, we have a picture
37:28of her here.
37:29It's the frontispiece
37:31of this book.
37:32So, that's what she looked like.
37:35Oh, very fashionable.
37:37She came from fairly
37:38humble beginnings herself.
37:40Although she looks
37:41very glamorous here,
37:42she came from a
37:43kind of a trading background.
37:45She had been married
37:46to a stonemason,
37:47but clearly that
37:48wasn't the life for her.
37:50And she became
37:51a courtesan.
37:52So, she became
37:52a kept woman.
37:53She was kind of
37:54supported by
37:55wealthy gentlemen.
37:57And by 1803,
38:00that was the Duke of York.
38:01She'd reached
38:02the very top of the tree.
38:03So, this looks like
38:04a fairly cushy number
38:05for her.
38:06What went wrong?
38:08Well, eventually
38:08the money stops.
38:10So, for a while,
38:11her lifestyle
38:12is being funded
38:13through the sale
38:13of commissions.
38:14He's paying her
38:16a kind of an annuity
38:17in order to support her.
38:20But after a while,
38:20he cuts her off.
38:22And this causes a problem
38:23and presumably
38:24makes her rather jealous
38:27and out for revenge.
38:29It might seem strange
38:31to modern ears
38:32for a mistress's income
38:33to be such
38:34a formal transaction.
38:36But for 18th century
38:37courtesans
38:38like Mary Ann Clark,
38:39these kind of arrangements
38:40were very much
38:41par for the course.
38:44If you were
38:46intending to make
38:47your fortune
38:48as a courtesan
38:49or a kept woman
38:50or a mistress,
38:51the end goal
38:53was finding
38:54a very rich lover
38:55who would basically
38:56pay for your lifestyle,
38:58that they'd put you
38:59up in your own apartments,
39:00they'd pay for your clothes,
39:01they'd pay for your jewellery.
39:02But it was absolutely expected
39:03for a wealthy man
39:04to be able to do that.
39:05And not only expected,
39:07but it was actually
39:08a sort of a status symbol.
39:09It was an arrangement.
39:11It was.
39:11That doesn't mean
39:12that there wasn't
39:13genuine love,
39:14feeling and affection
39:15between them.
39:15Often there was.
39:17But what you have
39:18to remember
39:18is that women
39:20were in really,
39:21really precarious positions.
39:22They have been
39:22all throughout history.
39:24And if you make
39:25your money
39:25by basically
39:26being a professional
39:27mistress,
39:29you need some sense
39:30of security
39:31about that,
39:32which is why
39:33it was dealt with
39:34like a transaction,
39:36like a business deal.
39:37because the guy's
39:38got all the wealth,
39:39he's got all the power,
39:39he's got all the agency.
39:40And if he can just
39:41turn you out
39:42at a moment's notice,
39:43then you're in
39:44a lot of trouble.
39:46When Mary Ann Clark
39:47found herself
39:48facing this dilemma,
39:49she hatched a plan.
39:51She decided to reveal
39:53to the nation
39:53that Frederick,
39:54Duke of York,
39:55had been involved
39:56in taking bribes
39:57from British officers.
39:59There must have been
40:01some difficulty
40:02with breaking
40:04a story like this,
40:05though,
40:05because of all
40:06the very strict
40:07libel laws at the time,
40:08especially if you're
40:09dealing with a member
40:10of the royal family.
40:11Absolutely.
40:12So the way that they
40:13could potentially
40:13get round that
40:14was if it was
40:15raised in parliament,
40:16because then it would
40:16be covered by
40:17parliamentary privilege
40:18and it could also
40:19be reported freely
40:20in the newspapers.
40:21There was an MP
40:22called Colonel
40:23Gwilym Wardle,
40:24so he was himself
40:25from a kind of
40:25a military background
40:26and cared very much
40:27about this issue.
40:28And he kind of
40:30proposed a motion
40:31in parliament
40:32that they should
40:33look into the conduct
40:34of the Duke of York
40:35regarding the sale
40:36of commissions.
40:37So as a result of this,
40:39parliament conducted
40:40an investigation.
40:41He didn't have
40:42to attend himself,
40:43but Mary Ann Clark did.
40:46How did she fare?
40:48Well, she fared
40:49remarkably well.
40:50I mean, this,
40:50she was probably
40:51the only woman
40:51in the space,
40:52but nevertheless,
40:54she really stood up
40:55for herself
40:56and we can get a sense
40:57of what kind of
40:58questioning she withstood
41:00in this source here.
41:02So for example,
41:03somebody asks her,
41:05are you a married woman?
41:06To which she replies,
41:08you have no reason
41:09to doubt it.
41:10And upon the question
41:11being repeated,
41:12she says,
41:12I am a married woman.
41:14And of course,
41:15everybody knows
41:15that she's a courtesan,
41:17but nevertheless,
41:18she's being quite
41:19kind of feisty
41:20in the way that she's
41:22dealing with these questions.
41:23Absolutely.
41:24You have no reason
41:25to doubt it.
41:25It's all my answer
41:26in the future.
41:30The court case
41:31may have been
41:32carefully documented,
41:33but the way the public
41:35learnt about the scandal
41:36was chiefly through
41:37satirical cartoons
41:39displayed in shopfront windows.
41:43So,
41:44this is a caricature
41:45by James Gilray,
41:47probably the most famous
41:48caricaturist of the day.
41:50And here we have
41:50Mary Ann Clark
41:51addressing the House of Commons.
41:54So,
41:55as you can see,
41:55she's been depicted
41:56as Pandora opening her box.
41:57So,
41:58all the sins of the world
41:59were being exposed here.
42:01They're the opposition
42:02on that side
42:03and they're loving it,
42:04as you can see.
42:05They're really,
42:06really enthusiastic about this.
42:07On the other hand,
42:08you've got the government benches
42:09and the government
42:10are not enjoying it.
42:11They're holding their noses.
42:13It feels that it's like
42:14an issue that's dividing
42:15the country.
42:17Absolutely.
42:17Some people were very much
42:18on the side of the monarchy.
42:20Quite a lot of people
42:21were very critical
42:22of the corruption
42:23that was going on.
42:24So,
42:25lots of petitions
42:26were submitted
42:26from people all over the country
42:28complaining about
42:29the trade and military commissions
42:31and the behaviour
42:32of the Duke of York.
42:33So,
42:33it really did create
42:34a scandal
42:35and a very divisive issue.
42:37And what were
42:37the repercussions of this?
42:39What happened
42:40to the Duke of York
42:40for a start?
42:41Well,
42:42for a while,
42:43it wasn't politic
42:44for him to carry on
42:45as Commander-in-Chief
42:47of the army,
42:48but later he was reinstated
42:50after it had all blown over.
42:51Ultimately,
42:53the inquiry found in his favour.
42:57So,
42:58they did not believe
42:59that commissions had been sold.
43:01So,
43:02ultimately,
43:02he was legally off the hook,
43:04but nevertheless,
43:05it did really damage
43:07his reputation.
43:08This scandal tapped into
43:10this sense
43:10that the ruling classes
43:13were corrupt.
43:14This allowed
43:15the parliamentary reform movement
43:17to gain some momentum.
43:19I mean,
43:19the very fact
43:20that Parliament
43:20sided with the Duke
43:22and let him off
43:24suggested to many people
43:26that Parliament
43:27was unrepresentative.
43:29Mary Ann Clark
43:31may not have triumphed
43:32in Parliament,
43:33but she remained
43:34a shrewd businesswoman
43:35to the end of her days.
43:36She wrote her own
43:38revealing memoirs
43:39and extracted
43:40huge pension payments
43:42from the government
43:42to keep them under wraps.
43:45And despite
43:46the official court verdict
43:47on the Duke of York's innocence,
43:49I have my doubts.
43:50What in the end
43:53do you make of this?
43:54Do you think
43:55he was guilty?
43:57I think he was
43:58certainly involved.
44:00I think the fact
44:00that the government
44:02and the royal family
44:03paid so much money
44:04to Mary Ann Clark
44:05to keep her quiet,
44:06something was going on.
44:07And what in the end
44:08do you think
44:09we should make
44:09of this whole affair?
44:11I think it's quite interesting
44:12in terms of
44:13the reputation
44:14of public figures.
44:16Because perhaps
44:17only a generation before,
44:19if you were
44:20virtuous in your public life,
44:24you were good
44:24at your public office,
44:25but perhaps
44:26you had a mistress
44:27or your private life
44:28was perhaps
44:29a little more colourful,
44:30that was fine
44:31because your public
44:32and your private life
44:33were very separate.
44:34By the time
44:35you get to the end
44:36of the 18th century,
44:37the beginning
44:37of the 19th century,
44:38people are paying
44:39much more attention
44:40to the moral quality
44:43of public men.
44:44And you're expected
44:45to be moral
44:45in your private life
44:47as well as
44:47in your public life.
44:48It's becoming
44:49much more
44:50like a modern way
44:51of seeing
44:52how a politician
44:53or how members
44:54of the civil service
44:55or the military
44:56should act.
44:57Yes, absolutely.
44:57And in fact,
44:58it's quite a modern
44:59political scandal
45:00in that sense
45:01because it concerns
45:02people's private lives.
45:03People are getting
45:04really interested in that.
45:05The Mary Anne Clark affair
45:08does indeed feel
45:09almost like
45:10a modern day
45:11tabloid story.
45:12So much so
45:13that it closely resembles
45:15a scandal involving
45:16another Duke of York
45:18born almost 200 years later.
45:21When Sarah Ferguson,
45:23Duchess of York,
45:24became embroiled
45:24in a News of the World scandal
45:26where she agreed
45:27to accept money
45:28for access
45:29to her ex-husband,
45:31Prince Andrew,
45:32it bore an eerie
45:34similarity
45:34to the conduct
45:35of Mary Anne Clark,
45:37taking backhand payments
45:39and capitalising
45:40on her royal connections.
45:43Over time,
45:44our expectations
45:45of the royals
45:46have changed.
45:48Increasingly,
45:49we've started
45:49to question
45:50not just
45:51how much
45:52our monarchs
45:52are spending,
45:53but the morality
45:54of exactly
45:55what they are
45:56spending it on.
45:57And it feels
45:58like the country
45:59could be at a crossroads
46:01when it comes
46:02to royal spending.
46:03It's a fine line.
46:05Nowadays,
46:05we don't want
46:06our monarchs
46:07to be frivolous
46:08or extravagant,
46:09but neither do we
46:10want them to wear
46:10tracksuit bottoms.
46:11We want them
46:12to look the part,
46:13but we won't tolerate
46:14what we perceive
46:15to be obscene expenditure.
46:18It's rather
46:18a double bind.
46:20In the end,
46:20I think that
46:21whatever they do,
46:22whether it's justified
46:23or not,
46:24we'll find something
46:25to criticise.
46:27We'll see you next time.