Dan Jones
speaker
338 appearances
6 recordings
5 series
first heard Aug 2024
last heard 1 Jul
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 — 3 in all, peaking in Feb 2026 with 2.
Appearances
In 1422, medieval England finds itself at its apex.
It's richer, it's bigger, and now it rules over France too.
But in a blink, this will all unravel spectacularly
because England is moments away from tearing itself apart in a civil war called the Wars of the Roses.
That's all for you to discover with me, Dan Jones, on Season 9 of This Is History, A Dynasty to Die For, wherever you get your podcasts.
From the New York Times, I'm Anna Martin.
I ain't saying you treated me unkind. You could have done better, but I don't mind. You just kind of wasted my precious time. Don't think twice, it's all right.
Yeah, well, I mean, the story of Henry V takes place across the late 14th, early 15th century. And by that point, nobody has really known in England any other form of government than a monarchy, a monarchy sort of limited and in some senses assisted, in some senses resisted by institutions, parliament.
councils of nobles and the church and so on but but monarchy is like age old at this point i mean you think about the regnal numbers of english kings we're talking about henry v richard ii henry iv these date back to a very specific time and that's the norman conquest of 1066 when william duke of normandy william the bastard as he became known william the conqueror came invaded England.
And from that point, kings are numbered one, two, three, according to the frequency of that name in the succession. There had been kings long before that as well. The great challenge prior to the Norman conquest had been to impose a single kingship on the whole of England. The great break of the Norman conquest is that
from that point on kingship really does apply to the whole of england there'd been these phases where kings alfred the great had tried to hold the whole of england but then the thing had splintered you'd had invasions from denmark and scandinavia it's an age-old system by this point but really that i mean the the moment everyone's numbering things from is 1066
Right. I mean, so that the... Basic principles, we're talking about a dynasty that today we call the Plantagenet dynasty. They had been in power in England since 1154, Henry II, and there had been a sort of England being part of an empire, for want of a better word, which included parts of France as well and claims over Ireland and Scotland and such.
By the time we get to the late 14th century, there's been a pretty lineal descent of kings, actually. In the 14th century, a great king, Edward III, great by the acknowledgement of the people of his day and thereafter, rules England, wins lots of victories in the wars against France, has a lot of children. Edward III dies after a 50-year reign in 1377 and is succeeded by his grandson, Richard II.
Richard II is the eldest son of the eldest son of Edward III. The missing link, therefore, is Richard II's father, known to history as the Black Prince, a great warrior, but died before Edward III. So in 1377, both Edward III, his son, the Black Prince, die, and they leave as king, therefore, a young boy for Richard II, who's 10 years old at the time that he inherits the throne.
10 years old is not a great time to become a king. In some ways, it's much worse than any other age to become a king because you're entering the cusp of adolescence. There will be times in the Middle Ages in many kingdoms where inheritance falls on a baby, completely incapable of even understanding the job, let alone performing it.
And oftentimes that's okay because you have ruling councils who rule in the name of that child. The child won't get involved. Having a boy of 10 upwards to 18 on the throne is a real problem because they have some understanding, some political will, but they're also constrained by the law not to be able to fully exercise their office. So it's a very awkward period.
Richard II also grows up knowing no example of kingship because he's only 10 when his grandfather dies because he never sees his father rule.
he has no model for what kingship looks like he's told in 1377 when he comes to the throne he's the messiah basically he's going to come and save england the last years of his grandfather edward iii's reign have been years of corruption of decay of losses in the war of edwards the king then sliding into age-related dementia senility so richard's told that he's he's going to save the kingdom
Well, that's also a dangerous thing to tell a child. You don't really want to tell a child that they're the messiah. That's parenting 101 as well as like politics 101. But he grows up sort of imbued with this sense and is then doubly outraged at all moments in his reign thereafter when he's thwarted or stymied because he's like, I thought I was the messiah.
I thought I was the God-given savior of this country. And now you're telling me I can't do X. Okay, so Richard II, despite this, grows up. His reign consists of a number of crises. There's a populist rebellion in 1381 known as the Peasants' Revolt. There is a phase of political resistance of various lords in his realm trying to corral, constrain him, force him to rule properly.
Showing 241–260 of 338 · page 13 of 17
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