WEBVTT - Eleanor Cobham, Necromancer Witch 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:05.040 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:13.080 and Mild from Aaron Mankie. Listener discretion advised. The year 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:16.680 was fourteen forty one and Eleanor Cobbham was one of 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:21.520 the wealthiest and most powerful women in England. Her scent 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:26.400 had been astonishingly quick. Eleanor had been born the daughter 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:30.160 of a Surrey knight, and now she was a duchess 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:34.880 married to Humphrey the Duke of Gloucester. And Gloucester wasn't 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:37.880 just any duke. He was the brother of the late 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:41.800 King Henry the fifth, and the uncle and counselor for 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:46.199 the young King Henry the sixth. And because Henry the 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:50.919 sixth was still young and unmarried, obviously with no children 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:55.480 of his own, there was something else incredibly important about 0:00:55.480 --> 0:00:59.400 the Duke of Gloucester in fourteen forty one. His only 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:04.400 other surviving older brother had died a few years earlier, 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:08.080 which meant that if anything should happen to his nephew, 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:13.200 Henry the sixth, he Gloucester was next in line to 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:17.600 be King. Eleanor Cobbham, daughter of a knight, was a 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:22.160 heartbeat away from being Queen of England. It was a 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:28.720 medieval Cinderella story. Perhaps Eleanor was reflecting on how far 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:33.199 she had come that summer the afternoon of June twenty ninth, 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:38.840 fourteen forty one. Sure she wasn't necessarily popular among the 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:43.680 other nobles. Those who rise quickly seldom are, and certainly 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:48.560 her husband's position of favor seemed to be temporarily ebbing, 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:53.360 as jealous rivals sought to undermine his influence. But it 0:01:53.400 --> 0:01:56.360 was hard to worry about that when Gloucester was quite 0:01:56.480 --> 0:02:00.520 literally next in line for the throne. When Eli had 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:04.640 been made a duchess, she had buckets of royal honors 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:08.679 bestowed upon her. Young King Henry the sixth gave her 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:13.520 personal gifts. Her position had already brought her family more 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:17.680 wealth and prominence than they had ever seen before she 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:24.079 was a duchess, and even better, her astrologers had informed 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:29.160 her secretly that King Henry would become deathly ill in 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:33.320 a matter of months. If they were right, she was 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:39.840 practically queen. That afternoon, Eleanor was dining in cheapside, enjoying 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:44.400 a meal outdoors, when a messenger crested the horizon with 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:48.840 a dazed and nervous look in his eye. He told 0:02:48.960 --> 0:02:54.519 Eleanor that her astrologers, Thomas Southall and Roger Bolingbrooke, had 0:02:54.560 --> 0:03:02.400 been arrested. The charge treasonable necromancy. Consulting with dark spirits 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:05.640 and the dead in order to predict the future is 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:09.120 one thing heresy, but to do it in order to 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:13.000 predict the death of a king will that was a 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:20.760 charge that meant certain and violent execution. Eleanor ran. She 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:23.840 knew that officials would be coming for her next and 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:27.120 so in order to protect herself, she fled to the 0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:33.480 legal sanctuary of Westminster. The consequences of Eleanor's ambition were 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:37.400 now just outside the doors of the chapel, and there 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:42.440 was only so long she could keep herself safe. This Halloween, 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:47.000 it's time to tell a story of necromancy, of treason 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:54.000 and magic, because, like so many ambitious women, Eleanor Cobbham, 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:59.480 Duchess of Gloucester, was accused of being a witch. I'm 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:07.720 Danish shorts and this is noble blood. Eleanor Cobbham was 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:12.360 actually the Duke of Gloucester's second wife, and to understand 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:16.040 the full picture of Eleanor's story, we actually need to 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:18.920 zoom back a little bit and talk about his first 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:23.520 wife for just a moment. Her name was Jacqueline, Countess 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:27.719 of Hainault, and she was an incredibly important heiress in France. 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:31.479 Her father died without any sons, and she was legally 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:35.200 allowed to inherit one of his territories, Hanault, an area 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:39.159 which today covers the border between Belgium and France, but 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:44.159 her father's other lands, Holland and Zealand, went instead to 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:50.200 the next living male relative. In this case, Jacqueline's uncle, Gloucester, 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:54.600 was in her first spouse ei there. First, Jacqueline had 0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:58.120 married a man named John the fourth, the Duke of Brabant, 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:01.440 and they, to he Gathers, a couple had tried to 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:06.599 fight Jacqueline's uncle for control of those territories, but Jacquelin's 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:10.560 husband was a terrible leader and a weasley guy in general, 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:14.800 and he basically sold the rights to those contested territories 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:19.640 to Jacqueline's uncle behind her back, And then when John's 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:25.720 financial situation got really bad, he also gave Jacqueline's uncle Hanault. 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:29.360 That was the final straw for Jacqueline, who made the 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:34.120 perfectly reasonable decision to try to get a formal separation 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:39.839 from her terrible husband Jacqueline's uncle conquered her last loyal city, 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:44.680 she was defeated, and so she fled to England. The 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:47.600 king at this time was Henry the fifth, and he 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:52.200 gave Jacqueline a glittering reception at English court, and when 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:55.880 Henry's son, the future King Henry the sixth, was born, 0:05:56.360 --> 0:06:00.640 Jacqueline was actually made godmother. In the mean time, she 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:04.440 got a sort of legally gray zone divorce from her 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:08.720 weasley husband that was kind of only legal in England. 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:14.719 Jacqueline tried to get that marriage officially annulled, adorably appealing 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:17.919 to both Pope Martin the fifth in Rome and the 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:22.240 anti Pope Benedict the thirteenth in Avignon, but before she 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:25.360 was able to do that officially, in a move that 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:31.719 shocked the world, in fourteen twenty three, Jacqueline remarried into 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:40.000 an incredibly controversial alliance. She married Humphrey, the Duke of Gloucester. Gloucester, 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:44.280 of course, was brother to King Henry the Fifth, and 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:48.760 once Henry died, Gloucester was the uncle and lord protector 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:52.760 to the baby King Henry the sixth. At this point, 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:56.800 Gloucester was one of the most powerful princes in Europe, 0:06:57.240 --> 0:07:01.039 and the alliance between him and Jacqueline did not make 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:05.760 France very happy at all, because Jacqueline and her new 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:10.000 incredibly powerful husband were going to try to fight for 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:13.880 her lands back. Ultimately, this is going to have some 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:17.240 real ramifications for the One Hundred Years War, because at 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:19.560 this point the Duke of Burgundy is the regent of 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:23.400 those lands, and England and Burgundy had an alliance, but 0:07:23.440 --> 0:07:27.040 that is not relevant to our story. What is relevant 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:30.720 to our story is that when Jacqueline and Gloucester land 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.560 in Calais, high on new love and the potential for 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:39.440 lands to be reconquered. In Jacqueline's retinue, she had a 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:49.520 young lady in waiting named Eleanor Cobham. Gloucester was gallant 0:07:49.560 --> 0:07:52.120 in his attempt to try to get Hannault back for 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:54.960 his wife, and he did get some of it back, 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:58.520 but then the Duke of Burgundy advanced and the locals 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:03.120 turned against the strange English interloper and sided with Burgundy. 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:08.080 To make a long story short, Gloucester's invasion was ultimately 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:12.240 a failure, and he returned to England in April fourteen 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:18.320 twenty five without his wife, but conveniently enough, with her 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:23.800 lady in waiting, Eleanor Cobbham. Eleanor was described by a 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:30.080 contemporary French chronicler as quote beautiful and marvelously pleasant. She 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:35.040 was attractive, smart and charming. So it wasn't really any 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:38.760 surprise that while Gloucester's wife was back in France waiting 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:41.520 to hear if the Pope would grant an annulment from 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:46.120 her first marriage, Gloucester began to have an affair with 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:51.240 Eleanor Cobbham. Three years later, in fourteen twenty eight, Pope 0:08:51.240 --> 0:08:55.439 Martin the Fifth made his determination and ruled that Jacqueline's 0:08:55.440 --> 0:09:00.600 marriage to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester was entirely invalid because 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:05.720 she was still legally married to her first, weaslely husband, John. 0:09:06.640 --> 0:09:10.280 The convenient thing for Jacqueline was that her terrible first 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:15.040 husband died the year before, so in theory, Gloucester could 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:19.640 have just swept back to France and remarried Jacqueline legally. 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:24.160 The English public certainly wanted him to do that, at 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:28.880 least the women. You see, when Gloucester retreated back to England, 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:32.120 the Duke of Burgundy had swept in and conquered every 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:36.040 territory that Jacqueline had ever held. The Duke forced her 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:39.520 to concede her administrative rights, and he put her under 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:45.040 an incredibly confining legal situation. Jacqueline became something of a 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:51.120 pre modern Princess Diana figure, a scorned aristocratic wife disposed 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:55.000 of by her husband in favor of his mistress. Early 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:58.720 in fourteen twenty eight, a well dressed and well to 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:02.800 do group of London women came to Parliament to send 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:08.840 letters quote containing matter of rebuke and sharp reprehension of 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:12.200 the Duke of Gloucester because he would not deliver his 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:16.600 wife Jacqueline out of her grievous imprisonment, being then held 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:20.400 prisoner by the Duke of Burgundy, suffering her to remain 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:27.040 so unkindly, and for his public keeping by him another adulteress, 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:31.400 contrary to the law of God and the honorable estate 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:35.960 of matrimony end quote. But whatever the will to do 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:40.920 women of England thought, Gloucester did not care. He did 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:46.280 not go back to France, and he did not remarry Jacqueline. Instead, 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:56.400 he married that adulteress, Eleanor Cobbham. Imagine the scandal. Gloucester's 0:10:56.400 --> 0:11:01.040 marriage to Jacqueline had come at tremendous diploce mad cost. 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:05.360 It had sent shockwaves throughout Europe, and now just a 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:09.720 few years later, Gloucester had cast her off a duchess 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:14.720 in favor of a lowly lady in waiting. But it 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:17.560 was easy for the new Duke and Duchess of Gloucester 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:21.280 to tune out the malicious gossip. The two of them 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:25.840 moved into a gorgeous renovated manner called the Palace of Placentia, 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:30.800 a veritable castle with stone towers on the Thames, surrounded 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:35.479 by hundreds of acres and a pleasure garden. The residents 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:39.080 would later become known as Greenwich Palace, and it was 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:44.000 there that Eleanor and her husband invited their glamorous friends 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:47.960 to pass the time dining and drinking with the most 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:53.120 brilliant scholars and most dazzling musicians and poets of the day. 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:58.280 Regardless of what the public thought about Eleanor, she was 0:11:58.400 --> 0:12:02.520 enjoying a meteoric world in the world of nobility. She 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:05.679 was admitted to the Fraternity of the Monastery of Saint 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:09.120 Albans and the Order of the Garter, and young King 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:14.360 Henry the sixth gifted her incredibly luxurious New Year's gifts 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:18.000 a garter of gold with diamonds and pearls, and rubies, 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:23.280 more exotic gems and jewelry. When Queen Joan of Navarre 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:27.000 died in fourteen thirty nine, who was the dowager second 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:30.680 wife of the late King Henry the fourth, Eleanor was 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:35.880 made a prominent mourner. But the more important royal death 0:12:36.040 --> 0:12:39.320 in Eleanor and her husband's life had been a few 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:44.280 years earlier, in fourteen thirty five, when Gloucester's older brother died, 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:48.560 which made him Humphrey, the Duke of Gloucester, next in 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:52.319 line for the throne. Because the King Henry the sixth 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:56.240 was fourteen years old with no children, it was an 0:12:56.280 --> 0:13:01.520 incredibly powerful position for the Duke and duchess, and Eleanor 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:06.199 wasn't modest about her new status. According to one chronicle, 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:10.400 she rode through the streets of London, glitteringly dressed and 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:15.240 suitably escorted by men of noble birth. Her star had 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:21.280 risen astronomically high, but Eleanor Cobbham was soaring on wings 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:26.520 held together with meltable wax. A few years after Eleanor 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:30.240 in Gloucester got married, the Duke created a jointure for 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:34.200 his wife from his estate, which basically meant that Eleanor 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:39.040 would get full rights to his properties for life. It 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:43.240 would be almost impossible to undo and take that wealth 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:47.600 from her. Of course, one of the only circumstances where 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:50.720 it could be removed from her was if she was 0:13:50.840 --> 0:14:02.560 charged with treason, as Eleanor's rise to prominence had been 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:06.960 her husband. Gloucester was also having a great decade in 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:10.560 addition to becoming next in line for the throne. In 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:13.920 fourteen thirty six, he returned from a battle in Calais 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:17.559 as a hero, given a vote of thanks from the Commons. 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:22.320 Even better, his main rival in the King's Council, Cardinal Beaufort, 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:26.320 was conveniently abroad at a peace conference on the Continent, 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:30.120 which meant that he Gloucester had full control over the 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:34.920 King's ear but status at court, like any sort of 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:40.920 fame or popularity, ebbs and flows. By fourteen forty one, 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:46.720 Gloucester's star was beginning to fade. Cardinal Beaufort had returned 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:50.640 to England and with his small cadre of supporters, began 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:56.720 elbowing Gloucester out of the King's Council. Politically too, Gloucester 0:14:56.880 --> 0:15:01.000 was losing influence. As the One Hundred Years War continued 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:05.720 to rage on, Gloucester's position of no surrender was becoming 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:10.240 less and less popular. His rivals on the council and 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:13.920 among the nobility were looking for a way to take 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:18.680 him down, and, as it so happened, that way would 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:25.120 be his wife, Eleanor. On June twenty ninth, fourteen forty one, 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:28.760 Eleanor was dining at the King's head in Cheapside when 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:32.360 she heard about the arrest of three men. The first 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:36.240 was Roger Bolingbrooke, who was an Oxford priest and Eleanor's 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:40.800 personal clerk. The second man was Thomas Southwell, a cannon 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:46.040 and rector. The third was John Holme, Eleanor's chaplain and secretary. 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:50.920 The charge was conspiring to bring about the king's death, 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:56.520 and it was an incredibly serious accusation. Bolingbrooke and Southwell 0:15:56.600 --> 0:16:02.480 were indicted for sorcery and treason, with Bolingbrooke accused of necromancy, 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:06.560 or communicating with the dead or spirit world in order 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:09.960 to predict the future. The future they were trying to 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:15.400 predict in this case was allegedly if and when King 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:19.120 Henry the sixth would die, making the Duke and Duchess 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:23.600 of Gloucester the new King and Queen, and according to Bolingbrooke, 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:26.960 it was Eleanor who had commissioned them to do it. 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:33.800 Eleanor fled to the sanctuary of Westminster Saint Stephen's Chapel, 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:37.280 and though she was told to await her hearings at 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:42.800 Leeds Castle, she was, as you can probably imagine, reluctant 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:47.560 to leave religious sanctuary. Eleanor even pretended to be ill 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:50.480 to try to escape in August, but in the end 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:54.720 members of the king's household captured her and escorted her 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:58.680 to Leeds, where she stayed for two months before facing 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:02.720 a tribunal. As it happened, Eleanor would appear before an 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:07.280 ecclesiastical council and not the secular authorities, which had the 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:11.560 benefit for her of not using the death penalty. One 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:15.480 peculiarity about Eleanor's trial was that she was a peeress 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:18.600 of the realm, and there was a blind spot in 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:21.800 the law about what would happen if a peeress was 0:17:21.920 --> 0:17:26.679 charged for felony and treason. That oversight would be corrected, 0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:31.320 but fortunately for Eleanor only after her trial. In the end, 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:35.560 she was charged on five counts, and she confessed to one. 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:39.800 She denied the necromancy and the plotting about bringing about 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:44.240 the king's death, but she did admit to witchcraft, or 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:49.399 at least to using witchcraft. Eleanor confessed to soliciting the 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:54.120 services of a woman named Marjorie Jordemain, also known as 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:58.760 the Witch of the Eye. That nickname is only slightly 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:01.960 less cool than it sounds, because the Eye was a 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:06.240 name for a geographical area in Westminster. But Marjorie was 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:09.800 a known witch who had actually been imprisoned for it 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:14.639 already and released on good behavior. She was particularly well 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:19.520 known among a certain group of women looking for love potions. 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:25.680 Eleanor confessed that she had used Marjorie's services back before 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:29.159 she and Gloucester had gotten married to get him to 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:33.040 love her, and that she had also used Marjorie's witchcraft 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:36.760 to try to get pregnant. The two still did not 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:40.760 have a child together. As for the charge that she 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:44.480 had instructed Bolingbrooke and Southwell to try to predict King 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:47.960 Henry the sixth death, well, she denied it, but I 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:53.080 will say it's not entirely unreasonable. There are actually no 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:57.600 contemporary sources that speculate that the trial was a complete 0:18:57.760 --> 0:19:04.040 fabrication in order to politically undermine Gloucester. It's plausible that Eleanor, 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:08.280 with a few men closest to her, let the possibility 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:11.199 of power go to her head a little bit and 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:15.879 tried to engage in a little secret prognostication, with the 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:19.680 assumption that no one would ever find out. There had 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:24.160 actually been another incredibly powerful woman who had also been 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:29.119 accused of treasonable witchcraft in living memory while Eleanor's trial 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:33.520 was going on. Do you remember that dowager Queen Joan 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:36.960 of Navarre, whom Eleanor had been a prominent mourner for 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:43.359 Will Back in fourteen nineteen when Joan's stepson Henry the 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:48.040 fifth was king. She Joan was accused of witchcraft, but 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:53.760 never actually tried. She was imprisoned, but comfortably and temporarily, 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:58.920 and her massive dowry was significantly reduced, which was very 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:02.159 convenient for Henry the fifth as he was waging the 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:07.359 expensive one hundred Years War. But now twenty two years later, 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:12.679 another noble woman was being accused of witchcraft, and whether 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:16.199 or not she was guilty, there was no denying that 0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:21.359 it was all very convenient for her husband's political rivals. 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:30.080 Marjorie Jordemayne was burned at the stake. Bolingbrooke was hanged, 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:34.800 drawn and quarters Southwilt died in the Tower of London, 0:20:35.240 --> 0:20:40.600 allegedly quote of sorrow, but more likely of poison because 0:20:40.680 --> 0:20:43.680 he knew it would be more pleasant than the alternative. 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:48.320 The third man involved Home was actually only indicted for 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:51.520 being aware of the treason his activities and not doing 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:56.280 anything about them, and he was pardoned. Eleanor Cobbham was 0:20:56.359 --> 0:21:00.639 found guilty, and though she wouldn't be executed, she would 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:05.919 be punished. On November sixth, fourteen forty one, a commission 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:10.359 of bishops ordered that Eleanor of Gloucester would be forcibly 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:15.560 divorced from her husband. Had her husband tried to free her, 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:19.240 or had he just been so shocked and outraged by 0:21:19.240 --> 0:21:22.360 the charges leveled against his wife that he cast her 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:26.840 out of his heart entirely, we don't know. After their 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:31.640 divorce the two would never see each other again, and 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:37.360 then Eleanor's penance began. On November fourteenth. She was forced 0:21:37.440 --> 0:21:42.159 to walk through London from Westminster to the Temple landing stage, 0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:46.440 dressed in black, with no cap covering her hair, holding 0:21:46.520 --> 0:21:49.120 a taper in her hand that she would offer at 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:53.679 the high altar at Saint Paul's Cathedral. Two days after that, 0:21:53.960 --> 0:21:57.800 she had to do another walk of public shame, holding 0:21:57.880 --> 0:22:02.359 another taper and walking from Swanpierre on Thame Street to 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:07.000 christ Church. Two days after that, from Queen helped to 0:22:07.240 --> 0:22:11.400 Saint Michael's. Eleanor, who had once ridden through the streets 0:22:11.760 --> 0:22:15.440 glittering and magnificent as one of the most powerful women 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:20.400 in England, was now on foot, with hordes of citizens 0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:24.919 lining the streets on both sides to witness her shame 0:22:25.040 --> 0:22:31.000 and humiliation. In January, with her three walks complete, Eleanor 0:22:31.119 --> 0:22:34.400 was sent to Cheshire, with the King making a special 0:22:34.480 --> 0:22:37.520 note that even if she were sick, she was not 0:22:37.560 --> 0:22:41.840 to be delayed. Perhaps he speculated that she might be faking. 0:22:42.840 --> 0:22:45.800 She was transferred from there to Kenilworth and then to 0:22:45.920 --> 0:22:49.720 Peel Castle on the Isle of Man. Eventually she was 0:22:49.760 --> 0:22:54.080 sent to Beaumrie in Wales, where she died July seventh, 0:22:54.600 --> 0:23:00.600 fourteen fifty two. Eleanor Cobbham was all but forgotten by history. 0:23:00.680 --> 0:23:04.879 At this point, no chroniclers wrote about her. We only 0:23:05.080 --> 0:23:08.800 rediscovered the date and place of her death in the 0:23:08.840 --> 0:23:19.480 twentieth century. In nineteen seventy seven, Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth is 0:23:19.520 --> 0:23:23.119 one of the most famous and enduring female characters in 0:23:23.160 --> 0:23:26.400 all of English literature. If it's been a while since 0:23:26.440 --> 0:23:30.320 you are ap English class, or since you dove into Shakespeare, 0:23:30.720 --> 0:23:34.160 let me quickly refresh your memory. In the play Macbeth, 0:23:34.400 --> 0:23:38.400 the titular Scottish general is given a prophecy from three 0:23:38.480 --> 0:23:42.199 witches telling him that he will become a King of Scotland. 0:23:42.720 --> 0:23:46.560 When his wife hears about the prophecy, she becomes consumed 0:23:46.680 --> 0:23:50.320 with ambition and go to her husband into murdering the 0:23:50.400 --> 0:23:53.639 current King of Scotland so that he can take his place. 0:23:54.359 --> 0:23:57.320 I'll avoid spoiling a play about four hundred and fifteen 0:23:57.440 --> 0:24:00.359 years old and merely say that it doesn't end well 0:24:00.520 --> 0:24:06.400 for either Macbeth or for Lady Macbeth. Even though Shakespeare 0:24:06.480 --> 0:24:10.800 was loosely inspired by a real eleventh century Scottish monarch, 0:24:11.320 --> 0:24:15.800 his play is pretty much all fiction. In fact, given 0:24:15.840 --> 0:24:19.160 that just a few years before it was performed, King 0:24:19.240 --> 0:24:22.639 James the first and sixth became King of England, it 0:24:22.680 --> 0:24:25.080 could be argued that the play itself is one of 0:24:25.119 --> 0:24:29.320 the best historical examples of sucking up, given that it's 0:24:29.359 --> 0:24:32.720 set in King James's home country of Scotland, and that 0:24:32.800 --> 0:24:35.720 it features a scene in which King James's real life 0:24:35.840 --> 0:24:40.040 ancestor Banquo, is told how his descendants will nobly rule 0:24:40.080 --> 0:24:45.720 for generations. But two hundred years before Shakespeare wrote his tragedy, 0:24:46.240 --> 0:24:50.439 a real life woman was cast in that metaphorical Lady 0:24:50.560 --> 0:24:55.000 Macbeth role. She was decried by contemporaries for her ambition, 0:24:55.160 --> 0:24:57.520 and in the end it would be her faith in 0:24:57.600 --> 0:25:02.000 witchcraft that caused the downfall of both her and her 0:25:02.040 --> 0:25:08.040 noble husband. But is eleanor Cobbham the seductive and powerful 0:25:08.119 --> 0:25:11.480 vixen that we so often imagine Lady Macbeth to be, 0:25:12.520 --> 0:25:16.119 or was she an unfortunate victim in a man's war 0:25:16.240 --> 0:25:21.919 of shifting alliances and opportunism. If there's ambition to be 0:25:22.000 --> 0:25:26.600 criticized here, I would say from a moral standpoint, they're 0:25:26.680 --> 0:25:29.639 certainly more blame to be had in the actions of 0:25:30.160 --> 0:25:35.040 Gloucester's ambitious enemies who began this whole well witch hunt 0:25:35.080 --> 0:25:39.280 in the first place. In their efforts to undermine Gloucester 0:25:39.400 --> 0:25:43.240 to bolster their own positions, they led to the deaths 0:25:43.320 --> 0:25:48.240 of three people and the lifelong imprisonment of another. Sure 0:25:48.520 --> 0:25:53.159 Using love potions and quote necromancy to try to predict 0:25:53.240 --> 0:25:58.480 the future is bad, but it's also not real. Even 0:25:58.640 --> 0:26:02.679 if Eleanor and her advice were secretly speculating on the 0:26:02.760 --> 0:26:08.280 death of the king, yes treason, yes bad, but they 0:26:08.320 --> 0:26:14.280 didn't actually hurt anyone. Shakespeare actually wrote about Eleanor Cobbham. 0:26:14.720 --> 0:26:18.480 She's a character in his play Henry the Sixth Part two. 0:26:18.640 --> 0:26:22.000 In the play, Eleanor pushes her husband into asserting his 0:26:22.080 --> 0:26:25.760 claim to the throne, and she is manipulated by one 0:26:25.760 --> 0:26:30.679 of her husband's rivals into performing the necromancy that ultimately 0:26:30.800 --> 0:26:35.760 leads to her and her good husband's downfall. Gloucester is 0:26:35.840 --> 0:26:39.479 the good and noble man who tried his best to 0:26:39.560 --> 0:26:43.680 resist his wife, but who ultimately was out maneuvered by 0:26:43.720 --> 0:26:52.760 political opponents. Eleanor is just a piece in Gloucester's tragedy. 0:26:54.000 --> 0:26:58.600 The real Eleanor Cobbham, whoever she may have been, spent 0:26:58.720 --> 0:27:02.600 a decade in prison alone and in the cold and dark. 0:27:03.160 --> 0:27:06.359 She was a woman who had done everything she physically 0:27:06.440 --> 0:27:10.360 could do in the fifteenth century to secure her own position, 0:27:10.600 --> 0:27:14.199 to reach a state of comfort and power, but in 0:27:14.240 --> 0:27:18.199 the end she was a woman. She would spend the 0:27:18.280 --> 0:27:22.840 rest of her life in prison, with no agency or freedom, 0:27:23.320 --> 0:27:27.400 her destiny entirely controlled by the ambitions of the men 0:27:27.600 --> 0:27:33.080 around her, like her husband's enemies had predicted, and Leonor's 0:27:33.119 --> 0:27:38.119 scandal ruined Gloucester's political career. He retired from public life, 0:27:38.160 --> 0:27:41.520 and he himself was actually arrested a few years later 0:27:41.920 --> 0:27:44.359 in fourteen forty seven, on his way to a meeting 0:27:44.359 --> 0:27:48.800 of Parliament on charges of treason, possibly for trying to 0:27:48.880 --> 0:27:52.760 free his former wife, Eleanor Cobbham. He died just a 0:27:52.800 --> 0:27:58.080 few days later. One detail about this entire tragic ordeal 0:27:58.240 --> 0:28:01.720 that I find a little charming in spite of myself, 0:28:02.080 --> 0:28:06.160 is that back after Eleanor was arrested, when the details 0:28:06.160 --> 0:28:09.479 of her alleged necromancy were coming to light, it was 0:28:09.520 --> 0:28:13.359 told that her astronomers had predicted that King Henry the 0:28:13.400 --> 0:28:19.600 sixth would die later that very summer August fourteen forty one. Four. 0:28:19.840 --> 0:28:24.639 Young Henry the sixth, probably very nervous hearing that, hired 0:28:24.680 --> 0:28:28.680 his own astronomers, who were able to correct that prediction 0:28:28.880 --> 0:28:31.560 and tell the king that he would actually live a 0:28:31.800 --> 0:28:36.680 very long life if those astronomers saw that Henry would 0:28:36.720 --> 0:28:40.280 die before he turned fifty in a prison cell after 0:28:40.360 --> 0:28:44.200 losing his wits as a prisoner to the Yorks. They 0:28:44.600 --> 0:28:56.320 very smartly didn't mention anything. That's the story of Eleanor 0:28:56.400 --> 0:29:00.320 Cobbham and her dalliance with witchcraft. But keep listening after 0:29:00.400 --> 0:29:04.840 a brief sponsor break for a spooky little Halloween haunting. 0:29:14.480 --> 0:29:18.760 Over Eleanor Cobham's decade long imprisonment, she was moved between 0:29:18.960 --> 0:29:22.719 several castles. In the summer of fourteen forty six, she 0:29:22.840 --> 0:29:25.360 was moved to the Isle of Man, where she was 0:29:25.440 --> 0:29:28.400 kept on a small islet on the west coast of 0:29:28.440 --> 0:29:33.040 the main Isle, in a place called Peel Castle. By 0:29:33.080 --> 0:29:37.200 this point, years into her captivity, the former Duchess was 0:29:37.280 --> 0:29:43.719 reportedly stormy and anxious. Eleanor was irritable and angry, constantly 0:29:43.840 --> 0:29:47.120 under the watchful eyes of guards preventing her from both 0:29:47.280 --> 0:29:53.120 escaping and taking her own life. It's in those dark, 0:29:53.400 --> 0:29:57.560 cold halls in the castle on the Irish Sea that 0:29:57.720 --> 0:30:04.280 Eleanor's spirit, alleged still roams. They say, if you listen closely, 0:30:04.440 --> 0:30:08.280 and if you're very very quiet, the sound of the 0:30:08.360 --> 0:30:14.080 sea can transform into the sound of lonely footsteps walking 0:30:14.160 --> 0:30:18.120 up the stairs leading up from the dungeon. The ghost 0:30:18.280 --> 0:30:21.400 of a woman who became a casualty in the political 0:30:21.480 --> 0:30:25.680 aspirations of a man. A woman who dared, for a moment, 0:30:25.920 --> 0:30:35.040 to dream that she might control her own life. Noble 0:30:35.120 --> 0:30:39.560