Michael Jones

And he actually tells his father, I'm tired of doing things that compromise my honor.

So I think it was a rather frosty period between father and son.

Of course, Edward III was running after this attractive young, originally a lady-in-waiting of his wife, Alice Perez, and making rather an idiot of himself.

And the prince genuinely believed that Alice Perez had put him under a spell.

Witchcraft was the reason his father had just changed for the worse.

But whatever one makes of that, it's all gone terribly wrong.

Right at the end, very movingly, Edward III says, look, the black prince was at this palace of Kennington.

He says, come to Westminster so I can nurse you personally.

Prince agrees, there's a reconciliation, and crucially, the king pays off the prince's debts, which was rather important because the prince was always running short of money.

But right at the end, they make up, which I like because it went wrong, but it was fundamentally a very positive relationship.

But of course, the king himself will die a year later, leaving the young Richard II to stumble around.

Unfortunately, yes.

I think so.

Yeah, a huge imprint.

Firstly, if he'd retained his health.

got his spending a bit more under control, I think he'd have made a very good king.

But the crucial thing in a way is that by dying when he did, and when you go to his tomb, I think this is what's so fascinating, that Edward III's memorial in Westminster Abbey shows the king from a death mask.

So you can see the paralysis after the stroke of 1370.

And he's looking his age.

But when you pay tribute to the Black Prince, although he has a memento mori that says, basically, watch out what I have become, you will also suffer the same fate.