S10 E4 | The Kingmaker Strikes Back
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Hello friends, and welcome to another episode of This Is History, A Dynasty To Die For. Before we launch into this episode, I need to warn you that it contains pretty much a full house of medieval mayhem. Bloody battles, brutal sieges, questionable marriages, inveterate schemers, bad royal uncles, and a long-winded, foul-mouthed gag about things you really shouldn't do in a farmyard. Don't say I didn't warn you. As ever, if you want to find out more about the history behind this episode, then do listen to this week's bonus episode, where producer Al and I will be taking a trip down backstory lane by way of the fascinating Paston letters. And on Patreon this week, we're also giving away signed copies of my book The Plantagenets on our Medieval Jokes thread.
Patreon.com forward slash thisishistory for all of that. But first, let's go to Calais. after this short break.
Ever wonder how people actually get rich? Like, actually? I'm Molly Sims, and on my show, Lipstick on the Rim, I sat down with Haley Sachs, a.k.a. Mrs. Dow Jones, to talk money, mindset, and why getting rich actually starts with how you think about yourself. We get into the money habits nobody wants to talk about, the mindset shifts that actually stick, and how to stop feeling weird about wanting more. Listen to Lipstick on the Rim on Spotify and Apple Music or wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.
Ah, yes, hello. I'm Simon Mayo. Ah, yes, hello. I'm Mark Kermode. What is coming up on The Take this week, Mark? We have reviews of Eli Roth's Ice Cream Man, Love Me Tender, a French drama, The Summer Book, starring Glenn Close, and there's also a reissue of The Hunt for the Wilderpeople with our special guest...
Who is the one and only Taika Waititi. Do not miss The Take because it's great. Every single second is marvellous.
Out of the great Gothic cathedral of Notre Dame, in the English town of Calais, there comes a wedding party. It's July 11th, 1469, and the Plantagenet military and commercial compound in northwest France is buzzing. The wedding party leaving the cathedral is led by George Neville, Archbishop at York, the second most senior churchman in England. Close behind him is the beaming father of the bride, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, the most powerful non-royal nobleman in the realm. Behind him come the newlyweds. And what a lovely young couple they are. The bride is 17-year-old Isabel Neville, a pretty young woman with a high forehead and large, heavy-lidded eyes. She's the elder of Warwick's two daughters, and since he has no sons, she's his heiress.
Her husband, as of about five minutes ago, is George, Duke of Clarence, the 19-year-old brother of England's Yorkist king, Edward IV. He's a fine figure of nobility too, with tousled brown hair, ruddy cheeks and a characteristic long plantagenet nose. What's more, since King Edward has no sons yet, Clarence is heir presumptive to the throne. So, as all the revellers in the wedding party know, this is a sensational match-up. It's created a power couple who could convincingly claim the crown if anything should happen to the king. Or indeed, if nothing should happen to the king. Because back in England, rumour mongers have been spreading the word that Edward IV might not actually have as watertight a claim to the throne as he makes out.
The gossips, encouraged by father of the bride Warwick, are putting it about that when Edward was born, his father and mother weren't married, that he's a bastard, unfit to rule. Whether that's true and relevant, or more likely untrue and irrelevant, Warwick doesn't much care. Because ever since Edward married his queen, Elizabeth Woodville, in 1464, Warwick has been nursing a festering grievance against the king. Earlier this summer, it burst into the open. Warwick gave his secret backing to a series of rebellions in Northern England. And now, right at the moment when the king asked him for help in suppressing the disorder, he's come here to Calais with Isabel and Clarence to make a dynastic move.
The wedding is the start of a full-blown coup.
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