Dan Jones

speaker

216 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Apr 2026 last heard 7 Apr

Dan Jones’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Apr 2026 with 1.

Appearances

newest first · ▶ plays the moment

How To Fail With Elizabeth Day · Elizabeth's New Show: History’s Greatest Fails · 7 Apr 2026 podcast

And when you read the story forwards, I think what you see with Richard III is a personal tragedy.

And a good object lesson in the way that politics in particular can spiral very badly when you have these decision trees of bad decision leads to two more options for bad decisions and things get worse and worse and worse.

But first of all, I think you have to start with who is Richard?

Well, Richard, born in 1452, for sort of broad context, the same year as Leonardo da Vinci,

For most of his life, he is a significant political success.

One of three brothers of Richard Duke of York, one of three sons, sorry, surviving sons to significant political adulthood of Richard Duke of York.

The elder of which is Edward IV, who defeats the House of Lancaster at the Battle of Towton in 1460 and becomes the first Yorkist king of England.

Richard III is actually extremely competent, but probably in a way too competent in the sense that he can't grasp the broader political implications of what he's going to do.

So on the death of Edward IV in 1483...

Richard has effectively a binary decision to take.

Does he allow Edward IV's son, the young Edward V, who has been effectively captured by the Woodville family, the family of Edward IV's wife, widow.

You really like reality television, correct?

I totally agree.

That is in no way a criticism.

And the Woodville marriage with Edward IV is precisely that.

It's just a sort of weird kind of jumble of all these oddball people interacting with each other.

And then suddenly this is an amazing moment of revelation where the king turns up and goes, guess what?

I've got something to tell you all.

Gather round.

I got married to someone completely inappropriate.

Showing 41–60 of 216 · page 3 of 11