Thank you for listening to The Rest is History. For weekly bonus episodes, add free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much loved chat community, go to therestishistory. Com and join the club. That is therestishistory. Com. As thou art to this hour, was Richard then, when from France set foot at Ravensberg. And even as I was then, is Percy now. Now by my scepter and my soul to boot, he hath more worthy interest to the state than thou, the shadow of succession. For of no right, no color like to write, he doth fill fields with harness in the realm, turns head against the lion's arm'd jaws, and being no more in debt to years than thou, leads ancient and reverend bishops on to bloody battles and to bruising arms. So it's 1403. Henry IV has been brought the news that his old comrade, Harry Hotsper, Harry Percy, is in revolt against him. So is Owen Glendhour in Wales. There is trouble in Scotland. It is all kicking off. And at this moment, Tom, Henry IV has summoned his dissolute son, Prince Howe, from a tavern in cheapside. And he says to him, Listen, you are like Richard II.

You are like that drip that I had to kick off the throne. And Harry Hotspur, your archrival, your nemesis, is like I was back then. He is poised to take over and look at what degradation you have brought our family to with your carousings with full staff and all this in our hour of need, in the hour of darkness.

But Tom- He's being a bit unfair, isn't he?

Yeah, you think this is a bit harsh, don't you?

It was certainly in the context of the play because the Prince of Wales, Prince Howe, he tells his dad, Look, I'm going to meet Hotspare in battle. I'm going to kill him, and I will redeem all this on Percy's head. In other words, all Percy's great achievements, they will then accrue to me.

But who would believe that? All he's been doing is drinking for the last six years or something.

Well, he pulls it off in the play. But I think it's also unfair in reality, because as we mentioned in the previous episode, Henry IV Part One, the Prince isn't actually the same age as Hotspur. I mean, that's what Henry IV is saying, but actually, Hotspur was older than Henry IV himself. And not any of that, but the Prince really hadn't been hanging out in taverns. He's been having this very, very grueling apprenticeship in Wales. On the 12th of July, when Henry IV has brought the news of Hotspur's rebellion, and he's in Nottingham on his way up to Scotland, Henry, his elder son, the Prince of Wales, is two months off his 17th birthday. And he has essentially been fighting the Welsh for three years. So at the age of 14, he'd been sent to Chester, which had been an absolute hotbed of Ricardian support. It's the great place for longbowmen in England. So a place that Henry needs to make sure is behind him. Then he's had Owen Glyndauer's revolt. Owen Glyndauer has claimed himself Prince of Wales, so a direct rival to Prince Hal. And the two princes of Wales have started to of hammering it each other.

On the first of April, 1403, the Prince, who by that point had become his come of age, is given official command of the war. He's shown himself, even though he's only 16, he's pretty good. He's a pretty proficient commander. We mentioned in the last episode, he's wasted Euinkelin Dau's manners in the northeast of Wales. He's relieved seages of Harlech and Aberristwith Castle. I think also this is full of moment for the future, his future career. He is getting to grips with the fact that you can't fight battles without money. The sinews of war are gold. Even as he's fighting, he's also started writing letters to his father saying, Look, we need more money. He writes to Henry IV and says, We have made all the powning we may of our little jewels to defray the debts. He's putting his jewels where his mouth is. He's really understanding that war is about logistics as well as about strategy and tactics. Now, it is true that in this apprenticeship, Henry IV has a very good guardian who is Thomas Percy, the Earl of Worcester, who is the uncle of Harry Hotspur, the younger brother of Northumberland, and he is on hand to guide the young prince.

But I don't think It altars the fact. Yeah, it doesn't alter the fact that he's a very, very impressive young man already.

For two years, he's been in the field, and he's been getting to grips with not just battlefield tactics and stuff, but basically the organization, the political organization, an economic organization that goes into warfare. Those will be enormously important for him when he becomes Henry V, as we will see next week. Absolutely. And takes the fight to a more formidable enemy.

Yeah. As Henry V, of course, he will fight a great war and he will face stupifying odds. Now, in the summer of 1403, he is also facing terrifying odds because Hotspur has turned against Henry IV, has turned against the house of Lancaster, has arrived in Chester, just to the north of where the Prince of Wales is in Schroesbury. Hotspur is claiming that King Richard is alive, that he's the rightful king, which means that the young prince is in deadly peril of being cornered.

If that's the case, Hotspur is saying, for understandable reasons, it's time to get rid of the usurper. King Richard is alive. I will lead the crusade to put him back I know crusade is the wrong word, but anyway, I will lead the campaign to put him back on his throne. Does he have a Richard II? Does he have a pretender in his baggage? Because that's going to be a problem if he wins.

So there is this pretender up in Scotland, the kitchen boy who is claiming to be Richard II. But there is also young Edmund Mortimer, who is being kept in silken captivity in Windsor, who, in the opinion of many people, has a better claim to the throne than Henry IV. And Hotsper is married to Edmund Mortimer's aunt. So there is a family link between Hotsper and the potential new king. And I think almost certainly, the Hotspur is planning to put this young boy on the throne.

But then what would he do about his claim about Richard II being alive?

I think he'd probably bury it. The reason he's making that claim is he's in Chester, where everyone in Chester absolutely loves Richard II. Richard II had always lavished great favor and attention on Chester. And the other reason he's doing that is that the people in Chester, as you said, they have this tremendous record of Longbowmen, and this is what Harry wants to recruit. It's a region with a long record of service in France in the Hundred Yearss War, under Edward III, under the Black Prince. In fact, the key figure in helping Hotspur to recruit men in Cheshire, is a guy called John Massey, who's a night from Tatten, who'd served with the Black Prince. He comes and he joins Hotspur with his two sons. He brings lots of retainers with him. That's brilliant. But of course, Hotspah has also been serving in Wales, where he had been very keen on accommodating Welsh aspirations rather than opposing them, as Henry IV had done. So there are people in Wales also who are very willing to rally to his cause. So even though he had turned up in Chester with only 160 men, he brought them from Northumberland.

He very soon has an army numbering in the thousands, maybe 5,000, 6,000.

So this is looking pretty bleak for Prince Al, right? His father is a long way away because his father has been marching north. Where is he? He's in the Welsh marches or on the border somewhere.

No, he's in Schroesbury. In Schroesbury.

But that is the Welsh marches.

Yeah, he's camped out in Schroesbury. Compounding his danger is, of course, I just said that his guardian, his second in command, is the Earl of Worcester, Hotspur's uncle, and it's not yet clear what his take is. The Prince of Wales is relying on him to stay loyal, but he doesn't. As Hotspur has recruited, he's raised his army and is now advancing south from Chester towards Schroesbury, which is only about, what, 40 miles south, I think. And as he's doing this, the Earl of Worcester slips out of Schroesbury. He has taken 800 archers from the Prince's retinue with him. So the Prince is now even more even more stripped of men. Basically, he only has about 1,000, maybe 1,200 men with him. He's got this vast army descending on him. When the rebels approach the outskirts of Schroesbury, late on the 19th of July, 1403. There's nothing really that the prince can do to oppose them. Hotsphe's army is able to lay waste a few outskirts, things like that. But there's nothing that the prince can do. He's defiant.

He's 16, right?

Yeah, he's almost 17. He's very young, and he's facing this enormous army. Now, if he gets captured, that's very bad. It's probably terminus for him. He will be dispatched. The situation looks incredibly bleak, except there is one ray of sunshine, one advantage that the Lancastians have, and that is because the Persies do not know where Henry IV is. They think he is in London, and London is too far away.

Yeah, multiple days march.

For Henry to come and relieve Schroesbury. But in fact, as we said at the end of the last episode, he's been marching northwards to Scotland, and the news had reached him in Nottingham. And the moment he gets it, he starts marching towards the Welsh marches. On the 19th of July, even as Hotspur's troops amassing on the outskirts of Schroesbury, the King is about 30 miles away in Lichfield, and he has brought news that his son is in desperate peril. So they make a massive force march through the night. And by the 20th of July, Henry's army has arrived outside Schroesbury. The Prince is able to join up with him, and the two armies are facing each other. And Hotsper realizes that his intelligence has been faulty. He drops back, retreats a few miles northwest. The King's army advances northwest to follow him, camps out in the vicinity of a great Abbey to the northwest. And they're now about seven miles apart that evening. Then the next day, the next morning, the 21st of July, which is a Saturday, the two armies slowly advance towards each other till they were within sight of each other, but not within the reach of their arrows.

Amazing scenes, Tom.

So as yet, they're not ready to clash. And the King and Worcester, they hold a parley. This happens in the play, Henry IV, Part One. And the Percy's bottom line is that Henry down and accept Edmund Mortimer as king. So there's your answer as to who they want. They're not really going for Richard II. They're going for Edmund Mortimer. And obviously, there's no way that Henry IV can accept this.

They're wasting their lives making that offer.

Absolutely.

He's never going to accept that.

At the same time, the Persies can't really trust the king when he says that he'll forgive them. They know that he will finish them off very quickly if they do that. But Worcester, nevertheless, continues the negotiations, and it becomes increasingly clear to Henry that Worcester is essentially playing for time. The reason for that is that because it's a Saturday, if Worcester can keep the parley going until dusk, the following day will be a Sunday, and it's forbidden by the church for armies to fight on the Sunday. So you'd then be looking at Monday, and it's possible that even more reinforcements might come by that time, maybe from Owen Glendower, maybe from the north, maybe from Chester, who knows. And so Henry IV isn't having any of this because he probably outnumbers the rebels who are what, 5,000, 6,000. He probably outnumbers them 2 to 1. Nevertheless, the rebels do have advantages. So they have all these archers from Cheshire, and they're the best archers in England. They have highly seasoned commanders, so they've got Hotspur. They've got Worcester, and they have the Earl of Douglas. Their prisoner. Terrifying Scottish noblemen who'd been taken prisoner by Hotspur.

Know, a year earlier, but has now come down with him and is keen to have a crack at the English king. Why not?

They basically said to him, let's bury the hatchet and why don't you give us a hand? Yeah. Just to give people a sense. So they're on the higher ground. Yes. And as a disruptionated myself, I have to say the battlefield of Strosby is an excellent battlefield to visit. Tom? It is, yes. It's got a tremendous farm shop. It has a bird of prey center, if you like birds of prey. And on the other side of the road is the two Henry's Pub and Grill. So that's nice.

I think you can get Hot Spur Honey, can't you?

You can get all this all-black branded stuff. It's a great farm shop complex. Nice butchers, very good stuff in jars. Love it. And they've got a little exhibition. It's actually a very good exhibition about the battle.

And you can see the lay of the land, can't you? You can see the hill. You totally can. And you can see why Henry might have hesitated at the thought of advancing up it because it's potentially treacherous ground, not just because it's high, but because there's a pea field. And these pees, there are lots of stakes that have been driven into the ground, and the pees have grown up around. These stakes protrude maybe four or five foot out. So they are quite a barrier as well. But Henry decides he can't afford to let things dangle. So towards the hour of Vespers, so that's looking... I mean, it's quite late in the day.

Yeah, the sun is setting.

He decides he has no choice to attack, and he cries out, In the name of God, take the banners forward. And the Royal Army army advances. And the thing that is terrifying for both sides, but perhaps particularly for the royalists who are having to do the attack, go uphill, they're faced with all these stakes, is the fact that this is the first time that an English army has faced Longbowmen.

Yeah, the Cheshire Longbowmen, the best in England.

And therefore, the world. So you're probably facing the most terrifying military force in the whole of Christendom. And this is clearly a terrifying prospect. These are the archers who had wiped out the French at Crecy and Poitiers. Only the year before, they'd wiped out the flower of Scottish chivalry at Humbleton Hill. And now the royalists, Henry IV's Army, the Lancastrians, are clunking their way up the hill through the pees, past the stakes, and the arrow are just raining down on them. Thomas Walsingham, this chronicler who we've been drawing on throughout our episodes on this period, he was a key source for the Peasants' Revolt, among other things. He has this very atmospheric description of what It happens to Henry's army. Men fell on the king's side as fast as leaves fall in autumn after a whore frost. So people are just in the royal line are falling the length of it.

And the right side of the royal line buckles, doesn't it? And they begin to break.

Yeah, it does.

So the king is in the middle. The king with his big banner standard. And Prince Howe, what's happened to him? He's over on the left, and a terrible thing happens to him, Tom.

Yeah. So he is hit in the face by an arrow. And whether it goes through have a slit in his visor or whether he's opened up his visor to try and get a sense of the topography, a helmet on your head, it's very close and oppressive. But either way, the arrow pierces his left cheek just below his eye and it remains embedded in the bone. And amazingly, he doesn't retire from the battle. I mean, I find it hard to believe that he continues fighting or directing the battle. Although there are chroniclers who say this, but his division and the king's division, they do not collapse, and they hold firm. And now, increasingly, it's Hotspur who has the problem because his archers have begun to run out of arrows. And here is a lesson for the young prince, even though he's got an arrow in his head, don't run out of arrows. Hotspur's flank also has begun to disintegrate because, very Rupert of the Rime, they followed the fleeing Lancastrians down the hill, and so Hotspur's own line is starting to disintegrate, and they're outnumbered. And the way rate of numbers on Henry's side is starting to bear down.

So essentially, Hotspare realizes he's only got one option of victory, and that is to charge and kill the king himself.

That's very Battle of Bosworth, isn't it?

Yes, exactly. We said this in the last episode, had they succeeded in killing Henry IV, then Henry IV's memory would be very much that of a Richard III. So Thomas Walsh, writes, Henry Percy, leader of the opposite army in the Earl of Douglas, the fiery Scott, than whom no one was ever more spirited, in spite of the rain of arrows and the dense bodies of horsemen, urge them in against the king's person alone and concentrated all their arms on him. Two problems. There are various people who've been dressed up in the king's surcoat, so it's not immediately clear where Henry IV is. And this is, again, very good in Shakespeare's play. Douglas is rushing around, killing people. Another King, they grow like Hydra's heads. Right.

So they're doubles, basically. Exactly. It's like Vladimir Putin with his doubles.

Yes, their doubles. But also by doing this, he's pulling people away from the line that had been facing the Prince of Wales division. And that leaves them open to an attack on the flank by the Prince of Wales men. So they crunch into the side of Hotspur's line. So now he has no choice but to kill the king because otherwise, he's going to be wiped out. And it becomes increasingly clear that Percy and his men are not going to win because Dominic, as dusk gathers and When the moon comes out, there is an eclipse and the moon is blotted out.

The moon is blotted out.

And this is a clear sign that the Percy is going to lose because the Percy livery badge is a crescent moon.

I'm sure this definitely happened, Tom.

Of course it did. Of course Did. And then in the fighting, Hotspur is killed by whose hand is not known, Walsingham writes. What?

But in Shakespeare, I know from Shakespeare that it was Prince Al. But actually, if Walsingham says, We don't know, it could have been Prince Al.

Well, it couldn't because Prince Hal has a massive great arrow in his head.

But you've said that. Now, Edward Hall, who I believe, implicitly says, The Prince Henry that day helped much his father, for though he were wounded in the face with an arrow, yet he never ceased either to fight where the battle was most strongest or to courage his men when their hearts were daunted. I believe Edward Hall implicitly.

You don't believe in eclipses, but you believe that a bloke with an arrow in his skull would be charging around the battlefield.

I believe if he is the greatest warrior king in England's history, and he has a history of such conduct, then I absolutely believe it.

Well, we will see. We'll come to Henry's wound in a minute, but the level of carnage at Schroesbury is terrifying. As we said, this is the first time that rival English armies have been facing longbowmen, and the slaughter is terrible. So maybe 2,000 bodies, perhaps more are buried in a mass grave. A further 3,000 have suffered terrible wounds, often So far more people will die.

That's just a regular morning's work in the French Revolution.

Well, as in the French Revolution, contemporaries are particularly shocked by how many members of the nobility have been wiped out. Oh, dear. That doesn't normally happen. Among the nobility who've been killed, of course, is Hotsper himself. So his body is salted to preserve it, and it's then exposed in Schroesbury marketplace, and it's wedged between two millstones, and it's then quartered, and the various quarters are sent round the various four reaches of England. And his head is chopped off and it's impaled over one of the gates in York. Worcester is executed, and his head is stuck up on London Bridge. Douglas, he's already been captured once after falling off his horse and getting an arrow in his eye. And now he falls off his horse again. And this time he crushes one of his testicles, which is on a rock.

Very painful. On a rock? Is it on a rock or a stone or something?

Yeah.

That seems very unfortunate.

So he's had a terrible year. But so also, of course, has the poor Prince of Wales. So we have an account of the operation and the wound that he'd suffered from this surgeon who got someone from London, a man called John Bradmore, who left an account of it. So he said of the wound, he was struck in the face with an arrow beside the nose on the left side, which arrow entered from the side and the head of the said arrow, after its shaft was extracted, remained in the back part of the bone of the head to a depth of six inches. So So again, I put it to you as this makes it all the more impressive that Henry was fighting with such bigger.

Yes, it does.

Okay. And this is Bradmore's account of how he removed the arrow. I prepared in you some little tons, small and hollow, with the width of an arrow. A screw ran through the middle of the tons. I put these tons into an angle in the same way as the arrow had first entered, then placed the screw in the center, and finally the tons entered the socket of the arrowhead. Then by moving it to and fro, little by little, with the help of God, I extracted the arrowhead. And having then extracted the arrowhead, he apparently massages therapeutic ointments into Henry's neck.

Do you know Tom, I said to you before we started that Henry Henry V. Reminds me of Alexander the Great. And didn't Alexander the Great? He had an arrow in his side or something, didn't he?

And that had to be- But not beneath his... I mean, not into his skull. I just find it astonishing that Henry survives this. I mean, it's an awful It's a terrible wound. And you know the famous painting of Henry IV, where he's done in profile?

Oh, yeah, with this ridiculous haircut.

I wonder whether the wound was left scarring, that's not mentioned. I mean, it must have been terrible.

He would be proud of such a scar, Tom.

Terrible injury.

I think he would... Any Englishman would be proud of such a scar.

What's amazing is that sepsis doesn't sit in. Yeah. He manages to pull through, but I think he's out of action for several months after this.

So let's go back to Henry IV. Henry IV has won this amazing battle. He has crushed Hotspur. Douglas's testicle has been crushed, and he's dead. Worcester, who you played in a play, he has been impaled.

Well, his head has been impaled.

But this has not settled the issue, has it? No. Because England is still out there rampaging around Wales. So what's going on with him?

So Schroesbury is 14, 1403, and 1404 is pretty much the high watermark of Glenda's rebellion, of his success. So by 1404, he's got the support of the Welsh pretty much across the social classes and from pretty much every part of Wales. So in 1404, he holds his first Parliament, Macintyff.

You can go to that building. I've been there, Mahuntlith. Very nice. Yeah. Yeah.

Love it. Bishops are starting to defect to him, accepting him as king. It's all looking good for him. Meanwhile, in the north, Henry marches up and he's confronting Northumberland Northumberland. Northumberland comes to him and says, Look, I didn't know anything. I had no idea this was going on. Yeah, of course.

A likely story.

Came as a total surprise. I'm shocked, shocked. And Henry decides, Okay, if that's what he's saying, fine, I'll choose to believe him, and pardons Northumberland, but makes a point of stripping back Northumberland's powers and offices and giving them to the Earl of West Merland to be a rival of power.

That's quite smart politics, isn't it?

Do you think? Very smart politics. I think Henry IV is your guy, Dominic. He's a shrewd survivor. Yeah. Thanks, Tom. Very adept at the art of politics.

Let's get into you. This is very nice.

Yeah, he's exactly the man. I think you admire him. I do admire him.

I admire him a lot.

We've done about 7,000 episodes. I know exactly the people who you like and admire. So Henry has decided that because he's got to deal with Wales, England is still seething, the Scots are on border. He can't afford, basically, to take Northumberland out, even though he's clearly guilty as hell. And in 1405, so two years after Schroesbury, a bombshell document comes out. Bomeshell. And this is called the Tripart Indenture by Historians. And it's published by Owen Glyndeau. And by its terms, England and Wales are to be divided into three. So Owen Glyndeau is to get Wales and Dominic, all your region. Troucia, all that. So all the English counties are butting Wales. So there'll be a greater Wales. So you would have been brought up as a Welshman.

I am a quarter Welsh, so it's perfectly possible.

Northumberland is to receive the north and the Midlands. And Edmund Mortimer, who will be crowned king, is to get the rest, so Southern England. And obviously this goes down like a cup of cold sick with Henry IV. Now, the question is, is it authentic? There's absolutely no evidence at all, actually, of Northumberland having gone down to Wales to negotiate this. I think the consensus is that it's basically Welsh propaganda, that it's England practicing the dark arts, trying to set Northumberland against Henry. It works because Henry IV is absolutely furious. He chucks more money to the Prince of Wales, who's now recovered from his arrow wound. The Prince piles back into Wales, very successful. He's recapturing strongholds that the Welsh have taken. He's instituting economic blockades. So again, that understanding that economics is a part of warfare, crucial part of waging war in the late Middle Ages, which as Henry IV, he will demonstrate an absolute mastery of. By 1407, Glyndale's position in Southern and Central Wales is crumbling. By 1409, the Prince has reconquered pretty much the whole of the Principality. In that same year, Edmund Mortimer, the son-in-law of Glyndur, is killed in battle.

Glyndur's own wife and two of his daughters are captured and taken to the tower. And though Glyndur remains at liberty, effectively, he's now a man on the run. He's being hunted down. But it's a tribute to the hold that he has had on Welsh affections that he's not handed over. He's never caught. We don't know when he dies, but he remains on the run for good. Meanwhile, Henry himself has marched north to deal with Northumberland. He comes to York, and at York, he's opposed by an army of some 8,000 men, commanded by a guy called Richard Scroop, who is amazingly the Archbishop of York. Henry, very cross about this, negotiates with the Archbishop of York, agrees terms, agrees to a truce. Scroop stands down his army. Henry promptly arrests him, has him charged with high treason. The Archbishop is convicted of high treason. He's dragged out into a field and beheaded. So that is that. And again, I imagine that that's the robust approach to Troublesome Clerics that you give thumbs up to, wouldn't you?

I would. I once played Thomas Beckert, as you know. Got a very disciplinary view in the Scotsman. But I'm very familiar with the work of Troublesome Clerics, and I think you just have to be tough, Tom. Actually, do you know what? Henry IV and Henry V, they're brilliant. I love Henry IV and Henry V, because I admire people who are good at politics. They're really good. They win. Right. Henry IV has a horrendous inheritance. He comes out ahead. Henry IV, if you look at Henry IV in Wales, for example, that campaign could have gone horribly wrong for him. He could have been ambushed or whatever. But actually, he plays his hand.

He pulls through.

Yeah, it's the- But Dominic, just to emphasize, Henry IV has already had a couple of black marks that He's a usurper and a regicide.

But he's now a man who has killed an archbishop. Who cares? The paradox, of course, is that he's actually a very, very devout man. Not the man that you would say would be the first English king to put an archbishop to death, but it is what it is.

Yeah, he did it, and he was quite right to do it.

Well, or was he? Because it's possible that it has a devastating effect, that the wroth of God is visited on him. And I think we'll find out whether that's true or not. After the break. After the break. The football season is back. Join Micah, Alan and me on the Restys football for top analysis, outrageous gossip, and the inside track on everything going on in the Premier League. I'm going to say if Man City get Any injuries.

Jesus, bro. Come on. We haven't even got to Man City yet. Just what are Arsenal going to do? If they get that striker in, I think they'll win the League.

Hold on. You've just done exactly the same as what I've done.

You've just said about if Man City get a lot of injuries, then Arsenal will win. What the fuck does that got to do with it?

I will, of course, be on match of the day. You're on, Allan, aren't you? I am. Mike is not. Mike is because you're doing Sunday, aren't you?

Yeah, Super Sunday. What's happening? I thought you were on with us. I can't work Saturday, Sunday. I'd be two days working.

I'd be knackered. It's even wrong. I can't do both days.

What am I listening to here? I can't do Saturday and Sunday. Sitting in a room with you two idiots for 12 hours during matching. Give your head a wobble, will you? You cold work Saturdays and Sunday's.

No wonder his career petered out. The rest is football. Listen on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts or watch us on YouTube.

Can honor set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honor hath no skill in surgery then? No.

What is honor? A word.

What is in that word? Honor.

What is that honor? Air, a trim reckoning.

Who hath it? He that died on Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. Tis insensible then, yay to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No.

Why?

Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I'll none of it. Honor is a mere scutchen. And so ends my catechism. So that's Sir John Fullstaff. In fact, the critic Harold Bloom, he was Shakespeare's greatest character, the character who invented what it was to be human. Don't you agree?

I mean, I really think he is.

I do agree. I think he's brilliant. That speech, he gives that speech at the Battle of Schroesbury. He is a total coward.

He's a ridiculous figure, a fat man total coward, very Billy Bunter, crossed with flashmen.

He lies down, pretends to be dead. And then after the battle, he jumps up and he says, Oh, and I killed Hotsper. And it's a very confusing scene. Actually, it's a brilliant speech because very Usually, for a dramatist of his period, Shakespeare is giving full staff lines with which a lot of the audience would probably deep down agree that all the talk of honor that Henry V is so supremely embodied is, is actually just hot air. What is honor? Air, a trim reckoning. Who hath it? He that died on Wednesday. That it actually counts for nothing. I mean, that's an extraordinary thing for Shakespeare to have written, I was thinking.

Yeah, and the genius of it is that in Henry IV plays, this has an appeal for Prince Hal, the man who will grow up to become Henry IV. It's seductive. In a way, full staff is mocking everything that Henry IV will become. He is mocking the idea of glory, of honor of military achievement. He's scourning Chevalryck and military ideals. It is incredibly funny, but it is incredibly funny. But it is also, I think, I don't think the audience is meant just to identify with full staff. No, no, no. It's full staff himself. He's a thief. He's a liar. He's a man who deliberately recruits people who are not qualified to fight and who will therefore die and pockets the money. So in a way, he famously becomes the symbol of everything that Prince Howe has to reject to become Henry V. There's this famous line where Falstaff is talking to Prince Hal, and he says, For sweet Jack Falstaffe, kind Jack Falstaffe, true Jack Falstaffe, valiant Jack Falstaffe, and therefore more valiant, being as he is old Jack Falstaffe, banish not him thy Harry's company, banish not him thy Harry's company, banish plump Jack and banish all the world.

Prince Howe famously says to himself, I do, I will.

The thing there is that full staff is pretending to be Henry IV, and he's sat on the throne, isn't he? With the crown on. Prince Howe is paying himself talking to his father.

And again, for people who've never seen Henry IV plays, we recommended Chimes at Midnight with Orson Welles as full staff. The role he was born to play, and this is brilliantly done in that film, so do check that out if you haven't seen it. The other thing, of course, about full staff is he never actually existed. Right. In a way, the question is, where does he come from? Basically, he comes from Shakespeare's imagination, and perhaps that's why he is, I think, Bloom is absolutely right, Shakespeare's greatest creation.

But he doesn't come entirely from Shakespeare's imagination because there are roots for full stuff. Let's in the second half talk about the one character who is emblematic of the reign of Henry IV, who you say didn't exist, John Fullstuff.

Yeah, he didn't exist.

There was somebody called John Fastolf, wasn't there? Yes. Later on, he features Fighting Against Joan of Arc, and he did become a byword for cowardice because he was accused of running away at a battle in the late 1420s. Yeah, unfairly. So he seems the obvious antecedent to Shakespeare's full stuff.

Yeah, so he does get accused of cowardice. He complains about this. He demands basically a an inquiry, and the inquiry does exonerate him. But the taint lingers. Fasdolf then goes off to East Anglia, where he amuses himself in his old age by engaging in rouse over property with the Pastons author. Yes, of course. The most famous letters of the 15th century. The character of Sir John Falstaffe, and clearly the name John Falstaffe comes from this guy, John Fasdolf. But in the original version of the play, he was called Sir John Old Castle. Shakespeare only changes that name after getting pressured by one of Old Castle's descendants, who's a figure of some power. And so the question is, who was Sir John Old Castle? Sir John Old Castle, the historical John Old Castle, was indeed a friend of the Prince of Wales, of Prince Hal, as Shakespeare portrays him. But he was not a coward. He was a very proficient soldier who had fought in Wales alongside the Prince and become a very close companion in arms to the Prince. But in Shakespeare's play, when Prince Harold becomes Henry IV, he banishes Jack full stuff. He rejects him.Tragic scene.I know the not old man.Yeah, terrible.

He leaves the taverns behind and he goes off to conquer France. The historical John Old Castle is also spectacularly repudiated by the Prince after he becomes Henry V. John Old Castle ends up being imprisoned in the tower. He then escapes it. He foments a rebellion against Henry IV. He escapes into the Badlands of the Welsh marches, Dominic, your neck of the woods. He gets captured. He gets brought back to London. He gets brought to just off Charing Cross Road, just by Foyle's Bookshop. They put up a scaffold and they light a fire underneath it, and Sir John Old Castle is hanged while simultaneously being burnt. None of this goes into Henry the Fifth. You may wonder what has Sir John Old Castle does. There is a clue in Henry IV Part 2, because Shakespeare, in an epilog, he talks about full staff, and he says that in the sequel, which will be about the reign of Henry the Fifth, Full Staff Shall Die of a Sweat. Like a fever. Then he adds, For Old Castle died a martyr, and this is not the man. Shakespeare is saying, This guy isn't Sir John Old Castle because Old Castle died a martyr.

Why did Old Castle die a martyr. The reason is that he was seen by Shakespeare's contemporaries as being a proto-protestant. Sir John Old Castle, Dominic, was a lollard.

So the lollards. Let's talk about the lollards a bit. We have mentioned them before. They turned up in the Peasants' Revolt. Historians still argue about the lollards. Did they exist or were they a little bit like the Cathards, the invention of the authorities who conflated a lot of dissenters or marginalized heretics? But you think they did exist?

Well, I do because they're also called Wyclifites. And they take that name because they are inspired by the teaching of a man who definitely existed, who was an Oxford scholar called John Wycliffe, who'd been dismissed from the university in 1381 for heresy.

Baylian man like Rory Stuart and Ted Heath.

A Baylian man. And he'd preached a very radical, again, proto-protestant anticlericalism. He denied the authority of the Pope. He demanded that the Church be stripped of its property and possessions. So that was something that had obviously appealed to the rebels in the great revolt. Very hostile to icons, to pilgrimages, to clerical celibacy, he doesn't believe in purgatory. So again, a presaging of the Reformation. And also a presaging of the Reformation, at its most radical, there's a denial of the fact that the bread and wine of the Eucharist are turned literally into the body and the blood of Christ. And the reason for this, as in the Protestant Reformation, is a sense that it's not the Church, but the Bible that should be the great central driving force in their lives. There'd been a decades long campaign against them. This is why Wycliffe gets- Kicked out of Oxford. Gets kicked out of Oxford, gets dismissed, There's an ongoing campaign to try and extipate this heresy. But Henry IV's reign sees a escalating campaign. In 1401, a chaplain called William Sautry is burned for his views on the Eucharist, his denial of the fact of the real presence of Christ in the bread and wine.

He's the first heretic to be burned in England for 70 years. This is really being pushed by Parliament. Eight days after this guy is burnt, they pass a statute that they call for the burning of a heretic, which essentially licenses the Royal authorities to target the Lollards more fully.

Okay, so why is this crackdown? Is it because this proto-protecetism in a time of great political turmoil, high political turmoil, is gathered strength because authority is maybe under question or it's broken down in some way. We're not that long after the Black Death, by the way, or the Peasants' Revolt. Or is it because there's a new mood of intolerance towards stuff that previously might have just gone unpunished.

I think it's partly because Parliament is in a position to require Henry to take steps that they want to. And there's a lot of opposition to the Lollards in Parliament. But I think it's also because there's been an incredible outbreak of heresy in Bohemia. The Hussites. The Hussites, yeah. And Jan Huss, who in our episode on Luther, we talked about, again, as a precursor of Protestantism And Huss had been very, very strongly influenced by Wycliffe. So I think there's an incredible anxiety as the Hussite rebellion starts kicking off. There's a big anxiety that this might happen in England. But having said that, it's not like there's a sudden great wave of burnings. So the next person to be burned in England for Lollody, it's not for nine years. And it's a tailor from Evesham called John Bradby, who's condemned for declaring that the Eucharist is of less value than a spider, since a spider Spider is a living creature. He says this in his trial, and it's recorded in the transcript of the trial, that as he says this, a large black spider appears on the heretic's lips, and Bradley tries to wipe it away, and the spider scuttles over his face and then vanishes down his mouth like alien.

That definitely happened.

Definitely. Well, it was convincing enough that the poor guy gets handed over to the secular authorities, and he gets taken to Smithfield, outside the city of London. He gets chained to a stake, great heep of fagots piled up around him, and he gets ringed by a great throng of people that includes the Prince, Prince Henry. And The fire gets lit and the flames start licking and heading towards this poor guy who's chained to the stake. And he cries out. And the prince thinks maybe he wants to recant. And so he orders the flames to be put out. And he offers this poor Taylor, I'll give you a life pension of three pence a day if you'll recant. Good offer. And the Taylor refuses. Mad. So he gets burnt, turned to ashes, and the Prince watches it. And people may be wondering, Well, why is the Prince attending this execution? I think, undoubtedly, it's to signal his backing for the measures taken by the Church. But what about his personal take on this? I think there are two possible alternatives that would explain that. The first is that he is a committed to persecution of Lollards.

Henry is very devout, very Orthodox. In 1415, by which time he's become, of course, Henry IV, it's the year of Ashencourt, there's a Frenchman who says, This king looks more like a priest than a warrior. And he's named by the Lollards, the priest's king. So there's a sense that he is perhaps more committed to the campaign against Lollady than his father.

Some of the academics who've written about Henry IV recently have really played that up, the fact that he is really, really pious Yeah, he is. And is absolutely committed to religious orthodoxy in a way that a lot of other medieval kings, maybe they mildly cared, but they didn't care that much. Whereas he is, there's an austerity about him in the fifth, isn't it? There's a moral austerity to him.

There is. But there's also something perhaps that Shakespeare was in the end making play with, a sense that before he became king, perhaps his attitudes to it was more complicated. Because remember, Sir John Old Castle, who is the most notorious laulard of his This is a guy who ends up leading a laulard rebellion against Henry IV. He's not just mildly Lollard. He's full-blown. His last words before he gets burned are a prophecy that he's going to rise on the third day. He's all in as a heritor. It is weird that this very devout, this very Orthodox prince, should be friends with such a man. What sharpens the sense of mystery is that the house of Lancaster, historically, had actually had a record of empathizing with Wycliffe's teachings. People who listened to our episode on the Peasants' Revolt may remember that we talked about how John of Gaunt, Henry V's grandfather, had been Wycliffe's patron, and Henry IV's confessor, a guy called Philip Reppingdon. The person who Henry IV is turning to in his deepest hours of need, his moments of particular spiritual anguish, he'd been a follower of Wycliffe, even though he'd recanted this. Nevertheless, he's very familiar with Wycliffe's theology and teachings.

It's evident that in the previous episode said, Henry is questioning as a Christian. He's not a passive Christian. He's interested in all kinds of doctrine and theology and spiritual practice. He owns a copy of the Bible in English, for instance. He stands up for academic freedom in Oxford. He's very committed to the idea that the Church needs reform. In his own personal life, he's committed to the simplicity of behavior that is typical, if you like, soft lola di. I just wonder whether there's a hint in the Prince's friendship with Old Castle of how it ultimately comes to be interpreted as being a king who, on ascending the throne, repents of something that he feels a bit embarrassed about, a bit ashamed about, and banishes all his former companions.

That totally, psychologically, would make sense. That he had flirted with this stuff, maybe, or he'd been-I don't think he'd ever-Not flirted, that's the wrong way. He'd been curious about it, maybe.

He'd been soft on someone One who was- You know what it is?

It's Keir Starmer and Jeremy Corbin. I know the not old man. That's exactly what it is, Tom.

But if so, I think that's not the only explanation for the full staff story and everything and the idea that Henry IV had been a great enthusiast for riot as a young man. Because there's also a clue, I think, in another very famous story that is told about him as the Prince of Wales, which happens just before Henry IV dies. So the 20th of March Which in 1413, Henry IV is on his deathbed and he's lying in bed and beside him on a pillow is the Crown, and the Prince is outside. The King's attendance think that Henry has breathed his last. And so they go out and they tell the Prince, You are now the King. You are now Henry IV. And so he goes in and he sees the Crown and he picks it up, puts it on his head, wanders off to go and start being a king. And then it turns out Henry IV Lord isn't dead. And he sits up and says, Where's the Crown? And he's told, Oh, the Prince of Wales has gone off with it. And he's furious and he summons the Prince back. And the King says to him, And how, my son, do you have any right to it?

For as you well know, I never had any. And the Prince answers him, You held it with your sword, my Lord, and for as long as I live, I shall do the same. And the King replies, Very well, then. The rest I leave to God, and I pray him to have mercy on me. And these are his last words, and then he dies. Now, this is a story story that is told about 20 years after the event it reports to describe.

It also smacks of the story that is told about Kings in all cultures.

It's a great story, though. So Christopher Ormond, who's written a brilliant biography of Henry V. I mean, he says of this story, There's never smoke without fire.

I mean, for an academic, that is the most shocking line. Oh, well, there's no smoke without fire. Probably happened. I mean, come on.

This is a great scholar, Dominic. Let's not dis him. What this story draws attention to is that actually in the final years of Henry IV's reign, he is a very sick man, and he'd been a sick man long before his death. You were a great enthusiast for murdering archbishops, chopping their heads off. I'm all over it. But contemporaries blamed this illness of Henry IV on his crime in beheading an archbishop.

I'm going to tell you now, that's not how illnesses work.

Dominic, it is. They were mistaken. It is because on the eighth of June 1405, which is the very day that the archbishop has been put to death, Henry IV rides out of York. He's heading up north to go and sort out Northumberland. The wind starts screaming, clearly the marker of the anger of God. Rain starts scudding in. Henry diverts. He goes off to a manor, the manor of Green Hammerton. He's put up in the best bed in Green Hammerton. They light a fire. He goes to sleep. Then in the middle of the night, he starts screaming, Traitor, traitors, you have thrown fire over me. And his servants come running and they find that he's absolutely... His face is burning up. His skin is full of pustules. And from this point on, he is incredibly sick. So what do you say to that?

It's obviously just total demerition tosh, isn't it?

That's absolutely not.

I can well believe, because he does have this disease that keeps recurring, right?

A skin disease. Yeah. So Adam of Usk, our old friend, the Welsh Prince, says it's a festering of the flesh and dehydration of the eyes. And if that's not a punishment sent by the Almighty, I don't know what is.

I think people do You have festerings of the flesh who have not executed archbishops. I mean, that to me seems like a giveaway, right?

Lots of people in the French Revolution.

Right. Mirabeau, Marat, pretty much all the characters we discussed actually had faces like craters of pustules. None of them had executed archbishops or not yet executed archbishops anyway.

Yeah, so listeners can decide. So contemporaries say that it's leprosy, and this is what in Shakespeare's play, Henry IV is described as suffering from. We don't really know what it was.

Do we know? Do academics have a theory about what it really was?

No, they don't, because I think there's a general trend now to think that it's quite dangerous to try and use medical records from the past, partly because they're so inexact, and partly, I think, because it may be that there are illnesses that are no longer current. They've mutated or changed or whatever. Whatever it is, it keeps recurring. In 1408, Henry IV collapses at Mort Lake, and he's confined to bed for a month. January 1409, he has a relapse, thinks he's dying. And for the rest of it, the four years that follow that until he does finally die, his health is very, very precarious.

But Tom, you don't need to go on about archbishop to explain why this is. When we described his character, he's been to the Baltic, he's been to the Holy Land. He's led a very, very active, stressful, action-packed life. It's not implausible that as he reaches middle age, late middle age, his constitution cracks, and he begins to pay the price for all his adventures.

Yeah, but equally, it might be the hand of God. I mean, either way. Yeah, it might be. Let's just leave it open. He's very ill. And so Chris given Wilson in his biography of Henry IV says, After 1406, especially after 1408, when he has his relapse, Henry's kinship gradually shaded into Lancasterian family government. And the reason that this is possible is that Henry IV has not just Henry, his eldest son, but three other sons as well. And these are very, very competent people. So K. B. Mcfarlon, the great historian of the 15th century, he really knows what he's writing about, says that they were the most bookish group of royal princes in medieval England. So they're very literate. They read and they think. But certainly the three eldest, so Henry, Thomas, and John, and the youngest one, Humphrey, who will go on to found a famous library. But Henry, Thomas, and John are very, very seasoned. They've done a lot of fighting. They're very habituated to how you get things done, and they are on hand to keep the show on the road. So So in this context, it's unsurprising, perhaps, that there would be tensions between a very sick Henry and the Prince.

And certainly in the last two years of Henry IV's life, there do seem to be tensions. It seems that Henry IV's favorite son was actually Thomas, who becomes the Duke of Clarence. And Henry's enthusiasm are deliberately ignored by Henry IV. And so I think that that's where the story of him coming in and trying on the Crown works out.

So he's ill, he's on his last legs. But he dies in 1415.

1413.

With his dynasty secure, with the realm stable. Finances, they're never brilliant, but they're in a better shape than they could have been.

A lot better than they were.

His son is able to succeed effectively unchallenged. You could argue that this is a remarkable act of political management, that he had a really tough gig in 1399, and 16 years later, he's done a bloody good job to be where he is.

I think you absolutely I mean, it really is a formidable record. I think very few people who did what he did, usurpt the throne, kill a king, kill an archbishop, would have survived to die in his bed and be succeeded by his son and leave a very very stable, effective system of government.

It's him who dies in the Jerusalem chamber, isn't it?

That's right. Yes. He traveled to Jerusalem before he became king, and he dreamed of going on crusade. And the story goes that it had been prophesied that he would die in Jerusalem, and He thought it meant the city and the Holy Land, but it ends up being this room called Jerusalem in Westminster Abbey, and so he dies there. But I think as well as the fact that he leaves behind an astonishingly stable system of government, there is also a sense that his reign has been very troubled, that it's been a dark time, and people do invest their hopes in the young Prince of Wales, who is now Henry IV, and hope that his coming to the throne will presage better, nobler, more glorious times. And again, I think that that is something that Shakespeare is picking up in this whole story of full staff and Henry rejecting him. So should we finish this episode by... Do you want to read? Sure. Henry V's Rejection of Full Staff? Because I think it's one of the great speeches in all of Shakespeare, and it's the perfect curtain raiser for the series that we'll be doing next week when we look at the reign of Henry V, which has at its center, of course, the great victory over the French at Agencourt.

Well, I think we're all looking forward to that. But just before we get to Ashencourt next week, let's have a little bit of Hal and Full Staff. So thank you very much, Tom. That was, dare I say, a tour de force.

I see.

I know thee not, old man. Full to thy prayers. How ill white hair's become a fool and jester. I have long dreamed of such a man, so surf it swelled, so old and so profane. But being awakened, I do despise my dream. Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace. Leave gourmandising. No, the grave doth g ape for thee, thrice wider than for other men. Reply not to me with a full-born gest. Presume not that I am the thing I was. For God doth know, so shall the world perceive that I have turned away my former self. Will I those who kept me company.

Goodbye. Bye-bye. And there you have it. Dr Al Bamaoui is not responsible for the death of Lord Hamza. British Podcast Award Nominy for best new podcast. We simply must ask ourselves who planted the idea in Lord Harmson's head that He was stunned by a bee. Who was in the hospital garden that very morning to do so, and who was sleeping with his wife? British Podcast Award Nominy for Best Fiction. Dr. Sir Michael Wyn Stanley. British Podcast Award Nominee for the Listeners Choice Award. Officers, take Dr. Sir Michael away. Show him to his cell.

He could do with a lie down.

He's been a busy little bee.

No, please. It's okay. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. What? It wasn't recording. Oh, what?

Stupid, stupid mic. Everything okay?

No.

Why not? The adventure didn't record. We only have the end. But that was the best adventure yet.

Yeah, I know that.

From Goalhanger, the break next series Gen Z is on, says the Times. Okay, got it. Let me hold your weight.

Okay, I'm going to do no carb November, so I might be a little heavier than usual. Shut up and get on with it.

Very funny, mildly swearry, and hugely popular, says the Guardian. Okay, okay. I'm on. Excellent.

All right. Not that bad.

No, not at all. Sherlock and Co. The adventure of the Red Circle begins Tuesday, the 20th of August. Catch up with the show now wherever you get your podcasts.