"Subtitles corrected by SirGawen." "(cheering)" "Medieval kings can be divided into three sorts." "There was the good... the bad... and the ugly." "Now is the... (Booing)" "Amidst all the uncertainties of history, one thing we can be sure of." "We know who our medieval kings were and what they were like." "or do we?" "We're proud to be able to reveal for the first time on television the name of a king of England nobody's ever heard of." "King..." "Actually, I'll tell you who he is in a minute." "First, the story of the lives of every single king of England." "Well that is, every single king of England who went by the name of Richard." "There's good King Richard I," "Richard the Lionheart, the dashing heroic crusader." "Bad King Richard II, tyrannical, megalomaniac, narcissistic." "And ugly King Richard III, misshapen, demonic and evil." "If there were a poll for best English king," "Richard the Lionheart here would probably come out somewhere near the top, if not top!" "Heroic, virtuous and christian." "That's how I was taught to regard him at school." "And it's how the Victorians, who put up this statue to him outside the House of commons, saw him." "But was he a good king of England?" "Richard the Lionheart was a Frenchman." "He was born in oxford, but he was brought up in Poitiers in the court of his formidable mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine." "Richard became Duke of the region and, according to the chronicles, the great nobles of Aquitaine hated him because of his great cruelty." "He carried off his subjects' wives, daughters and kinswomen and made them his concubines." "That didn't stop him being crowned King of England in Westminster Abbey, in September 1189." "He'd fought his father, King Henry II, and seen off his brother John, to get the English throne, but actually, he detested the place." "At his coronation, the London Jews arrived, bearing valuable gifts, but they weren't allowed in." "Instead, they were beaten up, and there were anti-Jewish riots." "Well, Richard must have been furious." "After all, his only reason for being King of England was how much he could make out of it." "He had an agenda." "And it wasn't governing some God-forsaken island, full of sheep, where it rained all the time." "(Battle sounds )" "Richard was much more interested in what was going on a few thousand miles away." "Saladin had just recaptured Jerusalem from the Christians and crusade fever was sweeping Europe." "It was Richard's chance to shine." "The battlefield was where Richard was in his element." "He thought fighting was fun!" "For example, when he went on honeymoon, he took his bride to Cyprus, and not for the sun and sex, but for the slaughtering, ravaging and pillaging." "A crusade to Richard was like a sweet shop to a kiddy, and since it was warfare on behalf of the church, no one could complain about the expense." "And expensive it certainly was." "His only interest in England was to use it as one big Piggy bank to fund his crusade." "He even said he'd sell London if he could find a buyer." "However, despite his massive army, and its equally massive cost, things didn't really work out for him in the Holy Land." "He failed to recapture Jerusalem, although he did manage to massacre nearly 3,000 Muslim hostages in cold blood." "Then, on his way home, Richard was captured and spent two years in prison." "To pay for his ransom, his subjects were bled dry." "His Get out of Jail card cost the country £100,000." "That's almost the whole income of the English Exchequer for the previous eight years." "Richard continued to spend, spend, spend in pursuit of his military ambitions." "A lot of it went on this castle in Normandy, chateau Gaillard." "State-of-the-art residence, built in 1198, to defend his territory in northern France." "Historian Pamela Marshall shows me around." "Richard was besotted with this castle." "Remember, he's a military man, that's his main interest." "And this is his opportunity to design his own castle." "(Terry ) Was Richard pretty pleased when he'd done it?" "(pamela ) Oh yes, he was as pleased as punch!" "And as it was nearing completion, he got his best mates in to come and see his... his "daughter of a twelvemonth"." " so he calls the castle his daughter." " He calls the castle his...his daughter, yeah." "He was as proud as a new father of this castle." "And, as fathers often do with daughters," "Richard spared no expense on her." "He Poured £11,500 into the building of chateau Gaillard." "That's more than ten times what his father used to spend on new castles." "chateau Gaillard dominates the valley." "Richard clearly intended it to be seen as a potent symbol of his overlordship of the region." "In the tower, at the very top of the castle, Richard had his command center." "It only has one huge window, very ruinous now, but it must have been a magnificent window, stepped back, and it's my belief that when Richard was holding court, he would have sat in this window" "with his vassals paying homage to him as if he were in the proscenium arch of a theatre." "The light behind him, very dramatic." "But he didn't enjoy his castle for long." "About a year after castle Gaillard was finished," "Richard was killed in a typical squabble with one of his vassals over some buried treasure." "Having nothing better to do, Richard attacked the vassal's castle, and one of the defenders, using a frying pan as a shield, shot him with a crossbow." "To get him out of prison, his subjects had stumped up a fortune, literally a king's ransom." "And now Richard goes and throws his life away over nothing." "Richard had absolutely no interest in the business of government." "His attention span was strictly limited for anything that didn't involve people getting killed." "He was King of England, but he was scarcely an English king." "The empire that counted for him was Anjou, Aquitaine and Normandy." "England was just an appendage that he used as a milch cow." "He was a failed crusader, and, by all accounts, a thoroughly nasty piece of work." "so, why do we think of him as a good king?" "Well, the medieval monkish chroniclers gave him a good press because he promoted the crusades." "The Victorians admired him as an empire builder." "But it's curious that the English banner should still contain the three lions that was the badge of a man who had nothing but contempt for England." "And here he is at last, the king nobody's ever heard of." " King..." " Wait, wait, wait, wait!" "There's another Richard we need to look at first." "people often forget about him, but in many ways, he's the most interesting!" "Richard II was a hated tyrant, justly deposed by Henry IV." "Well, that's what I was taught." "Not only bad, but mad, treacherous, vindictive, megalomaniac and vain." "The first English monarch to commission a realistic Portrait of himself." "A contempPorary poet described Richard as wicked, greedy, poisonous, infatuated, false, cunning, two-faced, juvenile, oh, and offensive to one and all." "Not much change out of sixpence there." "In 1397, he exiled the Duke of Warwick, executed the Earl of Arundel and had the Duke of Gloucester murdered" "What on earth, I can hear you ask, could possibly be said in defense of a monster like Richard?" "Well, quite a lot, actually." "Richard was just a boy of ten when he was crowned in Westminster Abbey." "When he was still only 14, he faced an extraordinary test." "His barons had levied punitive taxes on the laboring classes to pay for the wars in France." "The people rose up in arms." "The climax of the revolt came when thousands and thousands of peasants confronted the young king at Smithfield." "The Mayor of London suddenly turned on the peasants' leader Wat Tyler and killed him." "Taking his life into his hands, the 14-year-old Richard rode forward, shouting," ""I am your King, your leader and your chief"." "He then issued Pardons to everyone because, according to one chronicler, of his abhorrence for the shedding of civil blood." "Doesn't sound cowardly or vindictive to me." "After the peasants' Revolt," "Richard determined to end the war with France that had been lining the pockets of the barons while ruining the rest of the country." "Doesn't sound very wicked or greedy." "So, was Richard a vain megalomaniac?" "Well, he certainly made everybody call him Your Majesty and he insisted on everyone bowing the knee." "(cheering)" "And he was always staging lavish displays, in which he was the focal point." "one clue as to how Richard saw his role as king can be found at the National Gallery." "The Wilton Diptych is probably a portable altarpiece which Richard would have used for his private devotions." "so what does this tell us about Richard's concept of kingship?" "Well, an enormous amount." "The way he's chosen to present himself, kneeling here in front of the heavenly court," "Jesus, Mary, the angels here, presented by three saints, two of whom are effectively his predecessors." "We've got Edward the Confessor in the middle, and St. Edmund behind him, both of them kings who had become saints." "so he has holy predecessors." "He is in a holy line." "And they are sort of putting their voice forward to have him as king." "And so he is worthy to be king." " He's worthy to be king." " "We're vouching for him."" "Absolutely!" "And at the same time, with one exception, everybody in the painting is either looking at, or pointing to Richard." "And all the angels on the right-hand side, they're wearing his personal emblems, the white hart badge." "And it's like the whole heavenly court is come out and saying," ""Look, look, pay him attention."" "But it's really saying that kingship is a sacred trust." "Yes, I think so." "Look at the gesture of Richard down there, he's got his hands open, it's almost a gesture of receiving as if Jesus is just instructing the angels to hand this flag over to Richard." "He is being given England effectively, to look after, and it's Jesus and Mary who are giving it to him, effectively." "so it's not vain glory, it's as much reminding himself that "This is a sacred trust that I've got and I've got to take care of."" "yes, absolutely." "In the 14th century, people were very concerned about the difference between a king and a tyrant." "According to the political theorists of the day, a legitimate king ruled in the interests of his people, whereas a tyrant acted entirely in his own interests." "It was a mantra that was repeated in the books of rules for princes that every author of note, including Chaucer, felt he had to provide as part of his civic duty." "Many thinkers, such as Dante, for example, insisted that for a country to be at peace with itself, the king must be the most powerful force in the land." "Richard tried to concentrate pPower into his own hands." "Now, to us today, that sounds like megalomania." "But, back in the 14th century, things looked a bit different." "A country in which the warring barons held the power was not a happy place." "Richard's real enemies were not his peasants but his barons." "They hated Richard's guts." "They hated his arty-farty way of life, they hated his wife, who was foreign, and they hated the way he kept them out of power." "But most of all, they hated his policy of peace with France." "War was their only hope of making money and increasing their influence." "In 1387 the barons, led by Arundel, Gloucester and Warwick, openly rebelled against him." "They may even have deposed him for a few days." "And when they grabbed power they mercilessly tortured and executed the young king's closest friends and advisers." "The wicked barons started squabbling amongst themselves about which of them was going to be king." "And Richard was eventually able to regain power." "The amazing thing was not that Richard eliminated these three barons ten years later, but that he took so long to do it." "And when he did finally get rid of them, he refused to let the bloodshed run any further." "He certainly didn't torture anyone." "If anything, perhaps Richard was too soft on his enemies." "For, in 1399, one of them, Henry of Lancaster, returned from exile, stole his throne and murdered him." "Richard is branded a tyrant." "And yet it could be said, that by bringing peace abroad, by ending the war with France, and peace at home, by crushing the baronial opposition, he was acting in the interests of his people." "He was, in fact, playing by the rulebook." "Richard was a victim of propaganda." "His successor, Henry IV, had treacherously usurped the throne." "Henry had to prove that Richard was a bad king." "He called in all the chronicles to check they said nothing good about Richard and nothing bad about himself." "And writers like John Gower were terrified into writing absurd eulogies to Henry and Producing gross defamation about Richard." "Gower even goes back through his previous work and changes it to fit in with the new regime." "In this book, for example, the confessio Amantis, which he originally dedicated to Richard II." "In this edition, he claims to have dedicated it to Henry." "you can see here, he's written," ""I send this book unto my own Lord which of Lancaster is Henry named."" "And a bit earlier in the poem, he claims to have made the dedication in 1393." "But it's a lie." "He couldn't have done, because Henry didn't become Henry of Lancaster until 1399 when his father John of Gaunt died, and he inherited the title." "Gower even seems to recognize the impossibility of the dedication." "Because he writes here," ""I dedicate it to Henry of Lancaster" ""who, of course, was Henry of Derby at the time."" "The whole thing is a fiction designed to make it look as if Gower has been supporting Henry for longer than he has." "political spin was just as alive in the Middle Ages as it is today." "I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion cheated of feature by dissembling nature" "Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time" "Into this breathing world, scarce half made up... ooh!" "such fun playing Richard III." "The archetype, medieval, tyrannical king." "I want to do some more." "But since I cannot prove a lover" "To entertain these fair, well-spoken days" "I am determined to prove a villain..." "The trouble with shakespeare's Richard III is that most of it is made up." "I mean, Richard didn't even have a hunchback." "What?" "Not even a small one?" "This portrait was painted 35 years after his death." "An X-ray shows it had been altered to make the shoulder higher and so, some claim, to give him a hunchback." "Hmm. could be Tudor propaganda against Richard or modern propaganda against the Tudors." "yeah, but you wouldn't expPect an official portrait to include a deformity like this, would you?" "yeah, but we've got contemporary eyewitness descriptions of Richard, and they don't mention any hunchback." "Aaaah!" "spoilsport!" "It looks like one of the biggest baddies in history could have been the victim of a smear campaign." "But who would have wanted to do that to him?" "At the dark heart of the legend establishing Richard III as a monster, are two dead children." "When Edward IV died in 1483, he intended his 12-year-old son to succeed him as Edward V." "Someone was needed to act as protector and Richard, as an able leader and the young Prince's uncle, was the obvious choice." "However, the ex-king's widow, Elizabeth Woodville, fancied the job of protector for herself, so she tried to get her son crowned as quickly as possible." "once he was safely on the throne, she and her horde of ambitious, upwardly mobile relatives would be in control of King and country." "Richard foiled the Woodville takeover plot." "He placed the Prince and his little brother in the Tower of London to keep them out of their mother's clutches." "An act most people approved of at the time." "No one wanted the Woodvilles, mere commoners, to have that much Power." "parliament then voted Richard as protector." "At some point, Richard decided to make a play for the throne himself." "We don't know whether he intended this all along or whether he just saw the opportunity and took it." "All we know is that a senior bishop suddenly and conveniently announced that the late King's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was invalid and that the two Princes were therefore bastards and hence, surprise, surprise, ineligible for the throne." "This left Richard as next in line." "Bit of luck, really." "And he was duly crowned in Westminster Abbey." "Most people probably thought it was all for the best." "However, at some point, the two Princes vanished." "Nobody knows what became of them or even if they died during Richard's lifetime." "Their probable murder became one of the key planks in building the scaffold on which Richard's reputation hangs twisting in the wind." "But even so, our concept of Richard, the hunchbacked monster and tyrant, is a total fabrication." "The real man was rather different." "Richard grew up here, in the North of England, where he seemed to be more at home than he was in London." "probably the weather." "And his brother Edward IV obviously knew he could trust him because he gave the 19-year-old the rather tricky job of keeping the wild and woolly North on side." "Records kept in Richard's Power base at York reveal him as an effective negotiator, a successful peacekeeper and a champion of the poor." "Thomas Langton, the Bishop of st." "David's, wrote in 1483," ""He contents the people where he goes best that ever did prince." ""For many a poor man that hath suffered wrong many days," ""hath been relieved and helped by him."" "As king, Richard introduced major reforms to the legal system." "Dic mihi, Terenti, accuratus, quantum biberas ea nocte?" "For a start, he insisted it should be conducted in English rather than Latin." "Now, just exactly how much had you been drinking that night, Mr. Jones?" "Richard's law reforms were really pretty impressive." "He introduced a kind of legal aid for the poor and he also addressed a very pressing problem, he took steps to make sure that juries weren't intimidated." "When Richard made his first visit to York as king, the city put on a hell of a show." "These streets were lined with tapestries and Arras cloth, and there were pageants and speeches and feasting." "The city also had a whip round, and parting with hard cash is not something people round here do lightly." "Here in the city archives, they've still got the record of who paid what." "Let's see, this is John Newton, Mayor, he's paid £20, that's two Xs." "And elsewhere someone's paid £30," "£20, £10." "Now, £10 was a lot of money in those days." "It was equivalent, say, to a year's income for a country parson or four to five years' income for a laborer." "so these people are parting with quite a lot of cash." "In fact, some people thought it was a bit too much." "you can see down here, Thomas Cater, he's been put down for £20, that's been very firmly crossed out." "Imagine the scene - (Yorkshire accent) "oh come on, Thomas," ""we're gonna put you down for £20, then, come on, lad."" ""Hey I haven't got £20, I can't pay it."" ""Well I've put you down now for £20." "cross it out!"" ""No, it'll look bad in t'records."" ""I don't care." "Nobody's gonna see it, are they?"" "But we are, 500 years later." "And there are other records which proved that the city of York genuinely admired Richard." "When news of Richard's death at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 reached York, the council notes, "King Richard late mercifully reigning upon us" ""was piteously slain and murdered" ""for the great heaviness of this city. "" "Now that's not a conventional eulogy." "Richard's enemies were now in power and to be seen to be siding with the late king was potentially suicidal." "And yet these men felt so strongly about him they were prepared to put their names to that statement in the records." "So why have we ended up with this view of Richard as an evil monster?" "The verdict on Richard was written by his enemies." "He was defeated in battle and killed by Henry Tudor, who had himself crowned as Henry vii." "And in order to justify this illegal regime change," "Henry needed to convince the world that Richard was the very epitome of evil." "The disappearance of the Princes made it a piece of cake." "Shakespeare toed the line of Tudor propaganda, and in so doing created one of our most enduring stage villains." "But I am in so far in blood that sin will pluck on sin" "Tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye..." "Which brings us to the king of England that no one's ever heard of." "Well, have you ever heard of King Louis the first and last?" "No?" "Well, that's not surprising, really, because he's been kind of airbrushed out." "The story starts in 1215, when bad King John was locked in a struggle with his barons." "Rather than let them take over the country, he surrendered it to the Pope." "The furious barons retaliated by inviting prince Louis, heir to the French throne, to come and replace him." "John retreated to Winchester," "Louis was hailed as king in London and celebrated Mass here in st. paul's cathedral." "Roger of Wendover wrote in his chronicle," ""Louis received the homage and fealty of all the barons" ""and the citizens who were awaiting his arrival there."" "For five months, John and Louis fought tooth and nail across the country, until John lost the crown jewels in the Wash." "And lost his life in a bout of dysentery." " (Groans ) - (Toilet flushing)" "Leaving Louis as the effective ruler of England." "But of course the pope wasn't gonna allow that." "(Battle sounds )" "And he helped to organize the opposition." "Louis and his forces were eventually crushed at Lincoln castle in 1217." "But for nearly a year, he'd run most of England." "He'd received homage as King from most of the barons and from the King of scotland." "Which sounds pretty much like a king to me." "so why doesn't Louis figure in the royal roll call?" "." "perhaps he is not on the list because he never actually had the crown stuck on his head." "But then neither did Edward V or Edward VIII, and they're on it." "or is it just too embarrassing to admit to a second French invasion?" "The point is, history isn't necessarily what happened, it's very often what somebody wants us to think happened." "so I suppose we shouldn't believe everything we're told." "Even if it's as set in stone as the names of the Kings of England." "Subtitles corrected by SirGawen."