Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised, Hi, everybody,
Speaker 1: welcome to a very special episode of Noble Blood. I
Speaker 1: am so excited to be here talking with the incredible
Speaker 1: historian Helen Carr, who wrote a really wonderful book called
Speaker 1: The Red Prince all about John of Gaunt. I would say,
Speaker 1: one of the less explored sons of Edward the Third Helen,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: What brought you to John of Gaunt? And for those
Speaker 1: who maybe don't know, how would you, probably more eloquently
Speaker 1: than I just did, describe who he was in medieval history.
Speaker 1: So I came to John of Many many years ago.
Speaker 1: I had just moved to London as a postgraduate, and
Speaker 1: I was starting to get used to life in the
Speaker 1: big city and being such a history geek, as I
Speaker 1: always have been my whole life. One of the things
Speaker 1: I wanted to do in my time off was going
Speaker 1: to explore some of the lesser known areas of London
Speaker 1: and historic areas of London, and so I spent my
Speaker 1: weekend sort of walking around the Tower of London, really
Speaker 1: cool places that I suppose is such a luxury for me.
Speaker 1: I get to just go and do that, but I
Speaker 1: suppose a lot of your listeners won't be able to
Speaker 1: just go to all these incredible castles and things. But
Speaker 1: it is really cool and there is so much history there.
Speaker 1: And I heard about this place called the Savoy Palace,
Speaker 1: which I knew was around the area of the Savoy Hotel,
Speaker 1: which is a very famous hotel in London if you're
Speaker 1: familiar with it, and I wanted to go and see
Speaker 1: if anything remained. And when I got there, I found
Speaker 1: it remarkable that there was literally nothing that was there
Speaker 1: apart from like a few plaques, and one of the
Speaker 1: plaques said this was the home of John of Gore,
Speaker 1: the Duke of Lancaster, and famous people who resided here
Speaker 1: were included Jeoffrey Chaucer and King John of France. And
Speaker 1: the story of how the Savoy Palace burned down and
Speaker 1: why John of Gaunt was such hate figure in this
Speaker 1: period is really what fascinated me, and I went on
Speaker 1: to write a whole dissertation thesis about it, and then
Speaker 1: from then I knew that I just had to explore
Speaker 1: his character further, so He was the third surviving son
Speaker 1: of the third who is better known, probably is more
Speaker 1: of a warrior king. It's very famous king. He was
Speaker 1: probably one of the longer reigning kings of the Middle
Speaker 1: Ages as well. John of Gaunt was also the brother
Speaker 1: of the Black Prince, who is again another famous figure
Speaker 1: in medieval history. And even though the Black Prince didn't
Speaker 1: live nearly as long as John of Gount, he's certainly,
Speaker 1: of the two of them, the far more famous brother.
Speaker 1: So just to refresh people's memories who maybe haven't listened
Speaker 1: to that War of the Roses episode of Noble Blood
Speaker 1: in a little while, what is happening with Edward the
Speaker 1: third sons, because someone would hear, oh, a king has
Speaker 1: a bunch of sons. That sounds great and it is
Speaker 1: not going to lead to conflict it all. No. Actually,
Speaker 1: they got on very very well. And one of the
Speaker 1: big issues that people in this period, in the second
Speaker 1: half of the fourteenth century had with John of Gaunton
Speaker 1: was that he was actually such a loyal member of
Speaker 1: the royal family. He was so loyal to his father,
Speaker 1: so loyal to his brother, and he was a staunch royalist,
Speaker 1: and as a unit they were incredibly close and powerful,
Speaker 1: and the third m O was really to sort of
Speaker 1: establish his sons in various sort of power pockets across Europe.
Speaker 1: John of Gaunt at one point went off to try
Speaker 1: and become king of Castile. He installed his son Lionel
Speaker 1: in Italy. The Black Prince was the only son who
Speaker 1: sort of married outside of that by marrying a woman
Speaker 1: of the noble class in England. But he did then
Speaker 1: go on for a time to govern Aquitaine, which was
Speaker 1: territory that belonged to England in France. So his whole
Speaker 1: kind of intention was really to sort of extend this
Speaker 1: Plantagenet influence into Europe overseas, making England a much stronger
Speaker 1: power in the Middle Ages. We're going to get back
Speaker 1: to John of Gaunt's life, but just to fast forward
Speaker 1: for people to understand sort of why he's important in history.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us a little bit about what's going
Speaker 1: to happen down the line with his children. Yes, So
Speaker 1: famously he fathered a line of children called the Beauforts.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure we'll go on to talk about who
Speaker 1: that was with later on, but that was with his
Speaker 1: first mistress and then later wife Katherine Swinford, who will
Speaker 1: come into it much later. But Beauforts were particularly famous
Speaker 1: because it was through Margaret both At his great great granddaughter,
Speaker 1: I think great great granddaughter. She was the mother of
Speaker 1: Henry Tudor, who then obviously went into the War of
Speaker 1: the Roses by winning the Battle of Bosworth and therefore
Speaker 1: found of the Tudor dynasty, which is like the most
Speaker 1: famous dynasty in English history, British history. We've all heard
Speaker 1: of the Tudor. Who has that's yeah, well first also
Speaker 1: for a modern listener, who maybe is like where or
Speaker 1: what is gone? Where was gone? So confusingly also pertually,
Speaker 1: but i'd probably arguably not confusingly. This time there were
Speaker 1: so many often you know, royal children, that many of
Speaker 1: them either shared the same name or they were quite
Speaker 1: difficult to differentiate from one another, so they would offer
Speaker 1: be named after the place of which they were born. So,
Speaker 1: for example, the Black Prince was Edward of Woodstock because
Speaker 1: he was born in Woodstock, and John of Gaunt was
Speaker 1: actually born in Ghent, which swear Gaunt comes from, so
Speaker 1: he was effectively John of Ghent. But over time he
Speaker 1: has become known by his monica John of Gaunt. He's
Speaker 1: the medieval Bryce Dallas. How So, who was John of
Speaker 1: Gaunt as a person, you know, not just as a
Speaker 1: son and a family tree or a Dutch who was
Speaker 1: he sort of as an individual? So he very much
Speaker 1: lived under the shadow of his older brother, the Black Prince.
Speaker 1: Because this period in the Middle Ages, this this second
Speaker 1: part of the fourteenth century was in the early stages
Speaker 1: to kind of best points of the Hundred Years War,
Speaker 1: which was a century long war with a few gaps
Speaker 1: in between wages between England and France. And it began
Speaker 1: in thirteen seven, three years ye is before John of
Speaker 1: Gornt was born, and he was born very much into
Speaker 1: this conflict, and this part of the conflict it all
Speaker 1: changed a bit later on. This part of the conflict
Speaker 1: was all about chivalry and glamor and making war something
Speaker 1: that everyone kind of wanted to be part of. And
Speaker 1: Edge of the Third did a very good job at
Speaker 1: propagandizing war. He set up jails and tournaments, and he
Speaker 1: made it all about King Arthur and his nights at
Speaker 1: the round table. He established the Order of the Garter,
Speaker 1: all of these things to make it look like something
Speaker 1: everyone wanted to have get in on and be part of,
Speaker 1: and So for John of Gorne, he really wanted to
Speaker 1: do that. He wanted to be a warrior like his father,
Speaker 1: and very much like his older brother, the Black Prince.
Speaker 1: I mean, anybody who knows about the Black Prince knows
Speaker 1: that he got his reputation really from being this warlike figure.
Speaker 1: There's rumored that he was called that because his armor
Speaker 1: was black and he was the victor of the Battle
Speaker 1: of Crescy when he at aged sixteen, was like righting
Speaker 1: the songs of battle, and he went on to win
Speaker 1: the Battle of Party. So these are like a couple
Speaker 1: of major battles that took place in the Hundred Years War.
Speaker 1: And what people don't really know is very few battles
Speaker 1: actually took place in the Hundred Years What was really
Speaker 1: a war where the French kind of avoided English soldiers
Speaker 1: as much as they possibly could because largely battles went
Speaker 1: in English favor, so they tried to pretty much avoid them,
Speaker 1: so only a few actually took place. So John of
Speaker 1: Gaunt was desperate to be a warrior like his brother
Speaker 1: and his father, but unfortunately for him, he wasn't very
Speaker 1: good at it. But he was a very good diplomat.
Speaker 1: He was incredibly clever, he was forward thinking, he was likable.
Speaker 1: He was very well liked at the French court and
Speaker 1: places that he went off to do a lot of
Speaker 1: diplomatic missions on behalf of his father. At one point
Speaker 1: he was so good at it that he was actually
Speaker 1: touted for a potential candidate to be the heir to
Speaker 1: the Scottish throne because there was so much conflict at
Speaker 1: this point still enduring on the English and Scottish border.
Speaker 1: So he was a really well used pawn by Edward
Speaker 1: the third. But he was very trusted. His father trusted him.
Speaker 1: His father saw him as a very astute figure. He
Speaker 1: had a lot of nows when it came to politics
Speaker 1: and what it meant to govern. I feel like in
Speaker 1: any symbolic knights life, there are certain challenges. In your book,
Speaker 1: you do a really wonderful job sort of tracing his
Speaker 1: life and you focus a little bit on the peasant revolt.
Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about what happens then,
Speaker 1: what the peasant revolt is, and how John of Gaunt
Speaker 1: handled it. So for me, the peasant revolt was the
Speaker 1: catalytic moment in Gaunt's life, so so much of his
Speaker 1: life was focused on European politics. So the hundred Es
Speaker 1: wore the war in France. His intention to go to Castile,
Speaker 1: which I should say was part of what we now
Speaker 1: know was Spain. It was one of the four kingdoms
Speaker 1: that made up Spain. So much of his career was
Speaker 1: dedicated to this European politics. But actually he also had
Speaker 1: an extraordinary amount of land and wealth and title in England,
Speaker 1: and he was known as the Duke of Lancaster, and
Speaker 1: he was really a second to the monarch in regard
Speaker 1: to power and wealth and status. He was extraordinarily wealthy.
Speaker 1: He was not only a prince, but he was a
Speaker 1: duke and he inherited this dukedom through his first wife,
Speaker 1: Blanche of Lancaster, and it's her father who was the
Speaker 1: first Duke of Lancaster, and brought with him like a
Speaker 1: huge amount of territory I think probably like a third
Speaker 1: of the of the country and also lands in France
Speaker 1: as well. So this can you imagine kind of all
Speaker 1: of his income being generated from his lands. He was
Speaker 1: super super rich. He had a good marriage. He's a
Speaker 1: good marriage. He was. Yeah, he was super super rich,
Speaker 1: and he was a prince, like what a catch. He
Speaker 1: naturally through his wealth and titling status. He had a
Speaker 1: few enemies. This became really bad when I talked earlier
Speaker 1: about him being loyal to his family, loyalty his father
Speaker 1: a staunch royalist. This became about around this time because
Speaker 1: it was just after the death of Edward the Third,
Speaker 1: and just before Edward the third died, he was starting
Speaker 1: to come slightly more popular. He was sort of losing
Speaker 1: control of the country a bit. As he died, the
Speaker 1: country well into the hands of his nephew, Richard the Second.
Speaker 1: And some people might know of Richard the Second because
Speaker 1: he's notoriously not a great king as he got older
Speaker 1: and was eventually deposed, but he was the surviving son
Speaker 1: of the Black Prince. Now by this point, the Black
Speaker 1: Prince had passed away. He died of an illness that
Speaker 1: sounds a lot like dysentery, but he had it from
Speaker 1: a really long time, like maybe ten years, so it's
Speaker 1: likely it was more like some kind of degenerative disease.
Speaker 1: So the Black Prince and his father died within a
Speaker 1: year of each other. So John of Gaunt was left
Speaker 1: basically running the country, and Richard was a child. He
Speaker 1: was he was only twelve around the time that he inherited,
Speaker 1: and famously child kings do great in England, easy, totally
Speaker 1: smooth succession. So he had to oversee the infancy of
Speaker 1: Richard's reign and in doing so he made enemies. So
Speaker 1: he made enemies from various different classes within English society,
Speaker 1: but mostly the merchant classes, because, to put this very simply,
Speaker 1: as the crown was losing money, they had to borrow
Speaker 1: lots of money from the merchant classes, and John of
Speaker 1: Gaunton didn't like that. He was a royalist. He believed
Speaker 1: that the merchant classes were the merchant classes as they
Speaker 1: were very much answerable to the king, and so you've
Speaker 1: got a lot of these kind of merchant groups sort
Speaker 1: of infiltrating court positions, which he really didn't like. So
Speaker 1: he made enemies with them, and then he started to
Speaker 1: fall out with the clergy. This was largely all in
Speaker 1: London that this was happening. It was in the city
Speaker 1: because London was a very multre cultural city at the time.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of change. It was quite dynamic.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of sort of i suppose social
Speaker 1: mobility forward thinking in which was slightly different to some
Speaker 1: of more of the county politics. Outside of London. It's
Speaker 1: quite similar, to be honest, as it is today if
Speaker 1: you think of like Brexit and how you know, London
Speaker 1: were like can we just still be in the EU?
Speaker 1: It was kind of the same set up as it
Speaker 1: was in the Middle Ages. So he wasn't very popular
Speaker 1: in London, and there are a couple of counts of
Speaker 1: him having things like his arms reversed by the people
Speaker 1: of the city, which is like the sign of a traitor.
Speaker 1: What does that mean? What does that actually look like
Speaker 1: to have your arms reversed, like to turn it upside down? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so you would basically turn it around so you couldn't see.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, your shield would be would be turned around
Speaker 1: and you're facing away, placing a wall away. It's like
Speaker 1: someone for like a graduation speech, turning their back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I'm picturing for a little sigil. Yeah. Effectively, effectively,
Speaker 1: people who were his retainer, so that people who worked
Speaker 1: under him they had their own insignia and if people
Speaker 1: were seen wearing it, they'd be attacked in the streets.
Speaker 1: And his property of the Savoy Palace, which was his
Speaker 1: major home in London. It was beautiful palace crenulated which
Speaker 1: means it was looked like a castle with the sort
Speaker 1: of dipped roof, beautifully built, and it was sort of
Speaker 1: loomed over the Thames, and it was described as this
Speaker 1: camelot type palace, like you know, super super wealthy, like
Speaker 1: the Mansion one of the mansions of London. But it
Speaker 1: was just this sort of rising tension. But the reason
Speaker 1: for the peasant's revolt was because when Richard the Second
Speaker 1: was in the sort of infancy of his reign, there
Speaker 1: was a series of poll taxes on the people and
Speaker 1: they became so crippling that the poor could just not
Speaker 1: afford to pay their taxes, and so they rebelled. It
Speaker 1: started in a town called Brentwood. In essence, I'm so
Speaker 1: sorry to interrupt, just if Edward the Second is a
Speaker 1: is a child king at this point, who do you
Speaker 1: think was the major force in putting these poll taxes up?
Speaker 1: So this is interesting. So John of Gaunt was very
Speaker 1: much one of his advisers. But Richard the Second was
Speaker 1: represented by what was called a continual Council, so it
Speaker 1: was a board of members effectively who sort of oversaw him.
Speaker 1: And this range from the Archbishop of Canterbury to various
Speaker 1: members of his father's friendship group, I suppose would be
Speaker 1: a good way putting it. So it wasn't actually John
Speaker 1: of Gaunt that suggested this poll tax be raised. It
Speaker 1: was initiated in thirteen eighty, just before Christmas, and then
Speaker 1: it was imposed in one and it very very quickly
Speaker 1: went very wrong. So the tax collectors started to get
Speaker 1: chased down and you know, they had to flee the
Speaker 1: towns in which they were collecting the tax rum, somewhere attacked,
Speaker 1: somewhere killed. So there's a movement started to grow. It
Speaker 1: started to go really from this particular pocket of England,
Speaker 1: so you have emerged in Essex. But then there was
Speaker 1: also another faction that emerged from Kent. So this point
Speaker 1: is when you get start to hear of these main leaders,
Speaker 1: one called what Tyler, who's very famous, and another called
Speaker 1: John Ball, who was this sort of leveling priest that
Speaker 1: he didn't believe in the idea of lords and ladies
Speaker 1: and then there was no social hierarchy according to God.
Speaker 1: So that is really who led this revolts and most
Speaker 1: famously what Tyler, and they were kind of egged on
Speaker 1: by sermons from this priest John Ball, who famously said
Speaker 1: when Adam delved and Eve Span who was then the Gentleman.
Speaker 1: That's very compelling. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's quite This
Speaker 1: was massive and what a lot of people previously of
Speaker 1: called this, and I have to say peasants revolt is
Speaker 1: a bit of a misleading moniker for this, because it
Speaker 1: really wasn't peasants. You had quite a lot of very
Speaker 1: successful people joining this revolt and what they were fighting
Speaker 1: against was this really just this massively unfair tax that
Speaker 1: was being imposed on the poor to pay for these
Speaker 1: wars in France that they weren't really doing very well
Speaker 1: in at this point. So John of Gont being effectively
Speaker 1: quote unquote regent, he was the younger king. He was
Speaker 1: also very unpopular because of his his attempt, as I
Speaker 1: sort of briefly mentioned earlier, to try and get into Castile.
Speaker 1: So it was a bit like unsure what his deal was.
Speaker 1: People didn't really trust him. So there was this big
Speaker 1: march on London, this huge, huge marks of thousands of people,
Speaker 1: and it gathered pace as they moved through Canterbury along
Speaker 1: the Pilgrim Roads, and it became quite violent at times.
Speaker 1: People were collecting all sorts of arms they could find.
Speaker 1: Few people own things like swords, but some people had things.
Speaker 1: Some people had like axes, bows and arrows, pitchforks, anything
Speaker 1: they could get their hands on. Sides, and you had
Speaker 1: people who were thatchers of houses. You have low order clergymen,
Speaker 1: your bailiffs. You had all sorts of people joining women,
Speaker 1: all sorts of people joining in this, this march really
Speaker 1: on London. And all they wanted to do is march
Speaker 1: to London, get the ear of the king. Say this
Speaker 1: is unfair, we're against this. Please can we put a
Speaker 1: proposition to you? A little bit like a sort of
Speaker 1: Magna Carter situation. That was their idea in their head
Speaker 1: as to what they wanted to achieve by this rebellion.
Speaker 1: It sounds pretty reasonable, you know it was, And actually
Speaker 1: I think over time the chronicle accounts of sort of
Speaker 1: you read all these accounts of the revolt and it's
Speaker 1: like they call people baying, like their packs of wolves
Speaker 1: or animals and all of this stuff, and it's like, well,
Speaker 1: actually there were obviously criminals as part of this, because
Speaker 1: then you get these big sort of riots types rebellions
Speaker 1: or riots that happen. You do get people who are
Speaker 1: doing it for just causes, but then you also get
Speaker 1: people who just want to watch the world burn, right,
Speaker 1: so you definitely had that, and there were accounts of theft, murder,
Speaker 1: rape that all happened during this period as this sort
Speaker 1: of influx came into London. But I think unfortunately for
Speaker 1: the royalty and John of Gaunt, when they had hoped
Speaker 1: that the citizens of London, as London was a wall
Speaker 1: city at this point, would shut this rebel horde out,
Speaker 1: they actually at the gates just went now, I think,
Speaker 1: would just let them in because a lot of them,
Speaker 1: of the citizens of London actually agreed with them. And
Speaker 1: it was really in London that this sort of burgling
Speaker 1: hatred for John of Gorne had been bubbling under the
Speaker 1: surface and this was an opportunity to strike. So what
Speaker 1: happened was they got into London through various areas, notably
Speaker 1: London Bridge because that was one of the main access
Speaker 1: points into London at this point. London Bridge doesn't look
Speaker 1: like anything it does now. It's not even in the
Speaker 1: same location, and it had lots of houses and things
Speaker 1: on the bridge, so it was really built up and
Speaker 1: it was looked more like a dirt road that went
Speaker 1: into the city and the city. We then had a
Speaker 1: gate that you had to go through, and some of
Speaker 1: the bad behavior I supposed happened on London bridges, accounts
Speaker 1: of brothels on London Bridge being torched and burnt down
Speaker 1: because they were sort of centers of impunity. But they
Speaker 1: managed to get into London and they had a few
Speaker 1: points of attack, and one of the places that they
Speaker 1: had targeted was the Savoy Palace, this beautiful crelated Caro
Speaker 1: lot like property on the banks of the River Thames,
Speaker 1: which was this sort of great artery that all of
Speaker 1: the travel came in and out of London, so it
Speaker 1: was the main sort of access point to London. So
Speaker 1: it's very busy. It's got lots of ships and vessels, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So it was really the Savoy Palace was in a
Speaker 1: great position, had its own little port so boats would
Speaker 1: come in and get all the wares coming into the
Speaker 1: palace from the river. Had its own pleasure gardens filled
Speaker 1: with roses. It was beautiful. It was an incredibly sumptuous palace,
Speaker 1: but it was really badly guarded, so the rebels really
Speaker 1: had no problem getting inside the palace. It was richly easy.
Speaker 1: And these are angry people. That's a combination with people
Speaker 1: with like good reason, you know, intellectually, but also in
Speaker 1: effect are very upset and want to show it totally.
Speaker 1: They're really mad and like it is a bit of
Speaker 1: that mob mentality as well. I think some of them
Speaker 1: were probably like, yeah, we're really mad. Who we mad at? Oh,
Speaker 1: we're really mad, and you know, so a lot of
Speaker 1: them wanted to just as I say, destroy stuff and
Speaker 1: have a bit of a party, get inside some of
Speaker 1: these amazing properties. This is the sort of thing some
Speaker 1: people who had never even dreamt of being able to
Speaker 1: access the great Halls and these wine cellars and you know,
Speaker 1: Jon of Gorne's bedroom, like, they actually did manage to
Speaker 1: get into places like this. Oh my god, Yeah, it's extraordinary.
Speaker 1: So they managed to get in, unfortunately for him, and
Speaker 1: part of the reason it was probably so poorly guarded
Speaker 1: was that John of Thorne was actually on one of
Speaker 1: these diplomatic missions and he had gone up to Berrick
Speaker 1: on Tweed to negotiate with the Scots. So definitely fortunately
Speaker 1: for him, he wasn't actually present. But what they did
Speaker 1: is they got in and they started to destroy stuff.
Speaker 1: So they were ripping off tap streets, they were taking headboards,
Speaker 1: and at this point headboards of beds, beds themselves were
Speaker 1: very very expensive pieces of profitable They were sort of jeweled,
Speaker 1: often finally decorated. They were taking clothing out of these
Speaker 1: great trunks, and they were taking finding plate which was
Speaker 1: you know, these expensive plate that would be that would
Speaker 1: have adorned adorned the palace. And they were creating this
Speaker 1: pire in the Great Hall, you know, the center of
Speaker 1: the feasting, and John of Gaunt's diplomacy would have taken
Speaker 1: place in this Great Hall and the Savoy Palace. This
Speaker 1: was a big place. It was an important place. It's
Speaker 1: where King John of France spent most of his captivity
Speaker 1: when he was taken prisoner off the bottle of Poitiers.
Speaker 1: But he had quite a nice imprisonment at the Savoy
Speaker 1: by all accounts, so drinking wine from France and not
Speaker 1: really having to do anything. So yeah, this was Jeffrey
Speaker 1: Chaucer was here for for a period of time as well.
Speaker 1: So it's quite extraordinary that this was the sort of
Speaker 1: last hurrah that took place inside this Great Hall. Was
Speaker 1: this giant pire that was being built of all of
Speaker 1: these goods. And what's interesting about this is these rebels,
Speaker 1: they weren't out to steal. I mean, this was an
Speaker 1: opportunity to generate extraordinary wealth by stealing all of these goods.
Speaker 1: But actually those who did try and steal were cut
Speaker 1: quote a quite cut down by their contemporaries saying, you know,
Speaker 1: we are not here to steal, We're here to prove
Speaker 1: a point. So they literally proved that point by burning
Speaker 1: this wealth. So this great pire goes up in the hall,
Speaker 1: and what they make the mistake of doing is finding
Speaker 1: some barrels in the sellers, thinking they were like either
Speaker 1: jewels or goods or wine, and they roll them onto
Speaker 1: the pire. But little do they know that John of
Speaker 1: Gaunt was preparing a muster for his campaign into Castile,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of gunpowder store. So they roll
Speaker 1: over these these barrels of gunpowder onto this pire. I mean,
Speaker 1: they wouldn't have been a huge amount because they're just
Speaker 1: you know, but there was an amount enough to do
Speaker 1: with serious damage. Meanwhile, there was I love this little
Speaker 1: kind of vignette. There was a faction of these rebels,
Speaker 1: about thirty of them, who had snuck down to the
Speaker 1: wine sellers. You probably get where I'm going here, and
Speaker 1: there were all of these amazing barrels of gascon wine
Speaker 1: that you know, obviously were a big commodity in England
Speaker 1: at this time, and they got really drunk. They had
Speaker 1: a party and they got really really drunken all of
Speaker 1: this wine bar In mind, most people were usually drinking ales,
Speaker 1: something much much lighter than there's quite strong gascon wine,
Speaker 1: so they were drinking, drinking, and then suddenly there was
Speaker 1: this sort of massive boom and the palace walls came
Speaker 1: crumbling down. They trapped these rebels, these drunken rebels inside
Speaker 1: the cellar because the gunpowder came off and the palace
Speaker 1: sort of fell, so it was like devastation basically, these
Speaker 1: drunken rebels. It said that they were sort of trapped
Speaker 1: down in the cellar and screams of the rebels, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So it's pretty pretty b carb situation, but also what
Speaker 1: such a wonderful detail that you can get from some
Speaker 1: of these sources in the fourteenth century. And then they
Speaker 1: went on to inflict all sorts of horrible damage, including
Speaker 1: dragging the Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Sudbury out of the
Speaker 1: Tower of London and after eight blows, managing to finally
Speaker 1: behead him all the while John of Gaunt's son, Henry
Speaker 1: Bolingbrooke is the future King. Henry the Fourth was in
Speaker 1: the town of London hiding in a cupboard so god
Speaker 1: Vid their rebels found him, but he had managed to
Speaker 1: escape with his life on this occasion, and then it
Speaker 1: all ended at a meeting with Richard and the rebels,
Speaker 1: at which quite famously what Tyler was cut down, and
Speaker 1: then the peasants revolt was no more. It's such a
Speaker 1: pity also to imagine this beautiful medieval town house that
Speaker 1: we might have still had that got fully destroyed. It's
Speaker 1: I know, and that that is what I find particularly sad,
Speaker 1: and for me, you know, it takes me back to
Speaker 1: that time where I just really wanted to go and
Speaker 1: and find it and see it and the story behind
Speaker 1: it is. It's demonstrative of, I suppose, the tapestry of
Speaker 1: history that you get in these old towns cities, particularly
Speaker 1: in England and Europe, where there is so much history
Speaker 1: under our feet and so much that has happened there
Speaker 1: that is effectively been flattened by time. And I think
Speaker 1: it's a really good example of that. But why it's
Speaker 1: important for John of Gordon is that he never rebuilt it.
Speaker 1: And this particular palace was hugely important. It was inherited
Speaker 1: as part of that Duchy of Lancaster inheritance that he
Speaker 1: received when he married his first wife. It was the
Speaker 1: center of his administration. It was the center of so much.
Speaker 1: But he never rebuilt it, and I think it was
Speaker 1: a massive knock to his sense of self and his
Speaker 1: sense of place within the construct of English politics at
Speaker 1: this time, and so much changed, and it is what
Speaker 1: is remarkable and what one never usually gets. And it's
Speaker 1: like it's like gold dust, and you get this as
Speaker 1: a historian, this moment that you can see actual evidence
Speaker 1: of something dramatically changing on a personal level for a person.
Speaker 1: So as soon as he heard news that there's this
Speaker 1: revolt had happened, the palace had been destroyed, he didn't
Speaker 1: know where he stood in regard to the king. He
Speaker 1: didn't know if the rebels demands for John of Gaunt's
Speaker 1: head would were going to be sanctioned. He didn't know
Speaker 1: any of this, and he was just there in Scotland
Speaker 1: for the first time in his life, phenomenally vulnerable, and
Speaker 1: he was at the mercy of the Scots who actually
Speaker 1: throughout all of these years of conducting these diplomatic missions
Speaker 1: with them, they took pity on him and they actually
Speaker 1: genuinely looked after him and cared for him, which you know,
Speaker 1: he sort of repaid the favor later on in his
Speaker 1: life and he never forgot that. And he tried to
Speaker 1: travel back down south to England. He was refused entry
Speaker 1: to his castles in the north of England. He was
Speaker 1: refused by the keeper of the north Men called Henry Percy,
Speaker 1: something he did not forget after this point, and he
Speaker 1: thought that he was going to have this party of rebels,
Speaker 1: this this army effectively marching all toward to arrest him
Speaker 1: and have him killed. He thought thousands of rebels were
Speaker 1: on their way north to and so much so he
Speaker 1: the Scots actually offered him an army to go and there,
Speaker 1: like any opportunity, I'll fight with you. Let's just go
Speaker 1: and like take it. Yeah, I'll totally fight with you
Speaker 1: for any opportunity from the Scots to kind of we're
Speaker 1: fighting Englishmen. Great, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: so he did politely refused. He really did fear for
Speaker 1: his life, and one of the notable things that he
Speaker 1: did was he started to become incredibly, seemingly incredibly penitent,
Speaker 1: and he started to make a lot of donations to
Speaker 1: religious houses. He started to I mean practical measures were taken. First,
Speaker 1: he still wanted to sort of make sure he had
Speaker 1: enough word and fortifications for his properties in the north
Speaker 1: of England, et cetera. He knew he couldn't go back
Speaker 1: to London, but he started becoming more penitent, more pious,
Speaker 1: and Jonath Courtne had always been fairly average with his
Speaker 1: levels of piety. It was very normal to have a
Speaker 1: conventional piety at this point if you were a particularly
Speaker 1: if you are a member of the nobility. I mean
Speaker 1: the Middle Ages were ruled by religion. I mean that
Speaker 1: is how everybody lived their life. It was ruled by religion.
Speaker 1: So he was no different, but he was never extreme
Speaker 1: with it, and he was slightly more extreme than he
Speaker 1: would be normally. But the most significant thing that he
Speaker 1: did was he ended his relationship with a woman called
Speaker 1: Catherine Swinford, who was his long term lover, mistress, mother
Speaker 1: of his before both of the children, future mother of
Speaker 1: Henry Tudor. Well, yes, the sort of future sort of
Speaker 1: great great great great grandmother of Henry Tila so She
Speaker 1: was hugely important to him. She was originally the governess
Speaker 1: or what's called in the sources is the make stress
Speaker 1: of his of his daughters by his first wife. And
Speaker 1: he was having a long term extramarital affair with her,
Speaker 1: been lasting a decade, and I think that they were
Speaker 1: in love. I think he very much cared for her,
Speaker 1: admired her, loved had looked after her. But he ended
Speaker 1: it like immediately, he ended his relationship with her because
Speaker 1: of course, naturally it did invite negative press, negative attention.
Speaker 1: Of course, the clerics were not very happy about this.
Speaker 1: He was supposed to be married to the Castilian Princess
Speaker 1: Constance of Castile, who he had number two wife number two,
Speaker 1: who he had married really for political game. They didn't
Speaker 1: have a relationship. But he ended his relationship with Catherine,
Speaker 1: which is extraordinary. And what he did do though, which
Speaker 1: is testament I think to how emotionally difficult this was
Speaker 1: for him, but he knew he had to do it.
Speaker 1: Almost immediately a month after the rebellion, he invested in
Speaker 1: the building of a shrine is one of his properties
Speaker 1: in theirsbro to St. Catherine, which I think really is
Speaker 1: some is like a sort of eulogy in Stone to
Speaker 1: their relationship and a demon's stration of his fidelity to
Speaker 1: her in his heart. And so after that his main
Speaker 1: focus was it was this massive turning point in his life.
Speaker 1: His main focus was Castile, Castile's Castile. I'm going to
Speaker 1: become king of Castile. I'm going to lead campaigns to Castile,
Speaker 1: and that was his major objective. He has had no
Speaker 1: interest in London. He didn't want to be part of
Speaker 1: the court, he didn't want to be part of the
Speaker 1: political circle. He had to be to a certain extent,
Speaker 1: but he was far less than he was before. His
Speaker 1: relationship with his nephew after this point was incredibly fractious.
Speaker 1: I mean, Richard was a little nightmare. He was like
Speaker 1: it was like having like a teenager basically being somewhat
Speaker 1: in charge of you, and like a very spoiled teenager
Speaker 1: at that. And John of Gornton was probably the only
Speaker 1: person who stood up to him and was like, no way.
Speaker 1: But he wasn't very popular with his nephew for doing so.
Speaker 1: And there are all sorts of like continuing effectively plots
Speaker 1: to assassinate him, and then Richard saying, you've plotted to
Speaker 1: assassinate me, and it was just was ridiculous really. So
Speaker 1: eventually he did manage to get to Castile. He tried
Speaker 1: to lead a campaign, but he failed to take the throne.
Speaker 1: He returned to England quite broken, and about four or
Speaker 1: so years before he died, he married Catherine, so they
Speaker 1: came back together at this point. That's sort of beautiful.
Speaker 1: He he ended it out of piety, but then when
Speaker 1: he was able to marry her did but can you
Speaker 1: walk us through? I mean, he had those children out
Speaker 1: of wedlock, what what happens then? Yeah, so it all
Speaker 1: sounds very romantic. And there is a wonderful novel that
Speaker 1: has written about their romance called Catherine, which many of
Speaker 1: your listeners will have read because it was very very
Speaker 1: popular by a lady Annie Seaton. And she doesn't capitalize
Speaker 1: on the romance of this, and I mean, who wouldn't.
Speaker 1: It is wonderful. But I think that there was much
Speaker 1: more sort of prudent thinking behind it. So I think
Speaker 1: that he knew he had to end his relationship with
Speaker 1: her because he really his main thing, his main love
Speaker 1: was was power, and he wanted to get to Castile.
Speaker 1: He wanted to take this throw. He couldn't do that
Speaker 1: when he was anchored down by this relationship, however invested
Speaker 1: he was in it, however much he loved her. That
Speaker 1: sounds very cold. I really do think he loved her,
Speaker 1: and there are demonstrations of that. I think he married
Speaker 1: her in the long term because he was, above all things,
Speaker 1: incredibly duty bound and loyal. I mean, yes, he was
Speaker 1: obviously having an affair somebody other than his wife, but
Speaker 1: generally speaking, he was incredibly duty band. He wanted to
Speaker 1: see to the safety of his children and his all
Speaker 1: his children, not just his legitimate children, but all of them.
Speaker 1: And he actually had them officially legitimized, which is at
Speaker 1: which point they took on the name Beaufort as when
Speaker 1: they were formally legitimized. So he wanted to ensure to
Speaker 1: their security on his death. He wanted to insure to
Speaker 1: Catherine's security as well, in her reputation. I think he
Speaker 1: felt he owed that to her. So they did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they did eventually marry, and but you know, their relationship
Speaker 1: was very much it was very practical in many ways.
Speaker 1: And I think often when we think about demonstrations of love,
Speaker 1: we think there's going to be jewels or tokens, but
Speaker 1: actually tokens for her were very practical ones would for
Speaker 1: her household, wine property. He wanted to see to her security,
Speaker 1: and for me, that is the most demonstrative evidence of
Speaker 1: a loving relationship. Absolutely so. Just to recap for listeners
Speaker 1: from his first wife, the Lancaster branch sort of of
Speaker 1: the War of the Roses came about his second wife,
Speaker 1: often castile third wife, but through through them Catherine of Arragan,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, yeah, thank you, and then third wife Katherine Swinford,
Speaker 1: who the children were born out of wedlock but then
Speaker 1: legitimized and did that sort of cast a paul on
Speaker 1: their claim even though they were legitimized the fact that
Speaker 1: they were originally born out of wedlock. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: difficult to say. I haven't really done so much research
Speaker 1: into the Beauffits after his death, but I mean I
Speaker 1: don't think so, because they never really had designs on
Speaker 1: the throne and John of count he was the sort
Speaker 1: of patriarch of further dynasties, because if you could sort
Speaker 1: of link yourself back to John of Gorde, it's like, what,
Speaker 1: I've got a claim to this and I'm part of
Speaker 1: the raw phone because of this, Like he was quite
Speaker 1: a significant figure he was a very well respected figure.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if i'd say that, because they
Speaker 1: also got on very very well with their brother. They
Speaker 1: were very close. Henry definitely considered them as as siblings,
Speaker 1: I think because also he had a huge amount of
Speaker 1: respect for Catherine, so that Henry the fourth, who was
Speaker 1: j oldest son, who eventually deposed his cousin Richard and
Speaker 1: became the first Lancastrian king in just after his father
Speaker 1: had died. Um. So I don't think that it did
Speaker 1: sort of taint them. They always quite revered and had
Speaker 1: well respected positions within the noble circles. Oh wonderful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I misspoke earlier. I was like Margaret Beauford daughter.
Speaker 1: Obviously she was a great granddaughter of gone great great
Speaker 1: great great granddaughter I think, great great granddaughter, but like
Speaker 1: it's further down the line. But that is the claim
Speaker 1: that Henry the seventh, Henry Tudor will take, Yeah, exactly that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's sort of like they went up on the family
Speaker 1: tree and they're like, you know, yeah, yeah, I want
Speaker 1: to let you go. This is so fascinating. But there's
Speaker 1: a detail about another thing that was built on the
Speaker 1: state that the Savoy palace had been built down it
Speaker 1: became a hospital. Yeah, that's right, under Henry the seventh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a sort of charitable so there would have
Speaker 1: been there were remains of the palace. It wasn't like flattened,
Speaker 1: so to speak. And you know, also in this period,
Speaker 1: stone was always reused, so even if it was rubble,
Speaker 1: it would have been reused in certain ways. You know,
Speaker 1: good stone was really great commodity, and it would always
Speaker 1: be redeveloped. That's why you saw a lot of like
Speaker 1: Roman brickwork and stuff in later medieval buildings and things. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it did become a hospital. Yeah, hospital, which is for
Speaker 1: the poor. It was like a way of giving arms,
Speaker 1: like a charitable donation, which was something that was often
Speaker 1: the case for sort of members of the ability, especially
Speaker 1: wealthy members, because by doing that sort of thing, you
Speaker 1: basically guaranteed yourself like a that nice little seat in heaven. Yes,
Speaker 1: of course, I just found it very poetic that after
Speaker 1: this peasant's revolt of poor people rising up an anger
Speaker 1: of not feeling provided for, that eventually his descendant would
Speaker 1: turn the side of this palace into a charitable hospital.
Speaker 1: I know, that's lovely, and you know, I've never really
Speaker 1: thought a bit like that. A nice Yeah, it's nice
Speaker 1: little eplog, isn't it. Well, Helen, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: This was such a privilege to get to talk to you.
Speaker 1: Where can the people find you online if they want
Speaker 1: to see more of you? I am I have to
Speaker 1: sort of think about what why Twitter and Instagram handles are.
Speaker 1: I think I'm Helen h Car on Twitter and I
Speaker 1: am Helen Carb with lots of under schools in between
Speaker 1: the letters. Google her you'll find her and goin on Instagram.
Speaker 1: And I've also got a website, so to be honest,
Speaker 1: if you just time Helen Car History and I'll pop up.
Speaker 1: Her book is The Red Prince The Life of John
Speaker 1: of God. You should absolutely read it. Hell is one
Speaker 1: of the most like brilliant writers who makes history feel
Speaker 1: you make it feel like fiction. It's so wonderful. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. Well, sometimes it's so like it writes
Speaker 1: itself through this too. Well. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining me on the show. M Noble Blood is a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild from
Speaker 1: Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by me Danish Swartz.
Speaker 1: Additional writing and researching done by Hannah Johnston, hannah's Wick,
Speaker 1: Mira Hayward, Courtney Sunder and Laurie Goodman. The show is
Speaker 1: produced by rema Il Kayali, with supervising producer Josh Thane
Speaker 1: and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.