Dan Jones
speaker
253 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2026
last heard 11 Jun
Dan Jones’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford · Presenting...This is History: A Dynasty to Die For · 11 Jun 2026
podcast
Pembroke Castle is a grey, forbidding fortress which sits by the water on the south-west tip of Wales, whipped by the gales that blow in from the Atlantic Ocean.
In late January 1457, it's as bleak as it gets.
Not only is this the coldest time of the year, today the castle is also taut with the tension of a young woman giving birth.
She's a very young woman.
Margaret Beaufort is 13 and a half.
That's perilously young to be labouring a child in any age.
And Margaret isn't just young, she's also physically tiny.
The rooms she's lodged in at the castle have been comfortably set up for childbirth, the fires stoked and the windows and doors sealed to prevent dangerous vapours from getting in.
There's a full staff of female midwives and attendants on hand to help Margaret through her ordeal.
But there's no ignoring the fact that her body and even her life are in real danger.
Not that Margaret's panicking.
She's a determined girl and she's putting on a brave face.
Others may worry about her safety, but she's only concerned for one thing, her child.
In the nine months that she's been carrying this baby, plague has been sweeping around South West Wales.
It killed her husband, Edmund Tudor, striking him down last November at the age of 26.
If plague gets into the birthing chamber, all Margaret's toil is going to be in vain.
She can't let that happen.
Why not?
Well, as well as the fierce maternal instinct that's alive in young Margaret, this baby will have royal blood in its veins.
Margaret is a granddaughter of John of Gaunt, legendary prince of the Plantagenet dynasty.
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