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00:00Out of the chaos, darkness and violence of the Middle Ages, one family rose to seize
00:20control of England. Generation after generation, they ruled the country for more than 300 years,
00:33ruthlessly crushing all competition to become the greatest English dynasty of all time.
00:41The Plantagenets. What I love about the Plantagenets story is that it's more shocking, more brutal
00:53and more astonishing than anything you'll find in fiction. I want to show you the Plantagenets
01:00as I see them. Real, living, breathing people, driven by ambition, jealousy, hatred and revenge.
01:08Ouch. These kings murdered, betrayed and tyrannized their way to spectacular success. For better
01:15and for worse, the Plantagenets forged England as a nation. This time, the golden boy who
01:23single-handedly ended the peasants' revolt. But Richard II became the most vicious Plantagenet
01:31of them all. And its reign of terror brought the whole Plantagenet dynasty crashing down.
02:01June 11th, 1381. Two 14-year-old boys are taking refuge here at the Tower of
02:31London, as murderous rebels stalk the streets outside.
02:41The first of the boys is the king himself, Richard II, eighth in the unbroken line of Plantagenet
02:48kings. The second is his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, son and heir of the Duke of Lancaster. They
02:54will change the face of England. But first, they have to survive this bloody crisis, and
03:01that's not exactly guaranteed. The only thing on the king's side is that it's not him the
03:09rebels are after.
03:11Richard II has been king since he was ten. Since then, his realm has been ruled by councillors.
03:16Now, in the eyes of the peasants, these councillors are greedy and evil. And how do you fix a
03:21problem like that? Well, you kill them, obviously.
03:26Richard's councillors are the most senior nobles in the land. Most of them have fled London. The
03:41rest are hiding in the tower with the king. As the situation deteriorates, the most hated
03:48of Richard's councillors hatch a desperate plan. They send the young king with an entourage
03:55out of the tower and through the streets to create a distraction. They're hoping the mob
04:01will follow so they can make their escape. But their cowardice very quickly comes back to
04:09haunt them.
04:11The rebels simply let Richard pass. He's not their target. His evil councillors are.
04:26Unfortunately for young Henry Bolingbroke, his dad, John of Gaunt, the king's uncle, is
04:31one of those evil councillors, which puts Henry directly in the firing line. And worse than
04:36that, he's stuck up in the tower with the two most hated men in England, the king's
04:41chancellor and his treasurer. And the rebels, massed outside these walls, can smell blood.
04:49It was probably only the king's presence that was holding them back. But he's gone now. The
04:56mob storms the gates.
04:59The rebels tear through the tower, going from room to room, looking for the men they hate.
05:12They find the treasurer, Sir Robert Hales. And then in this chapel, they find the chancellor,
05:19Archbishop Sudbury, cowering in prayer in front of the altar. But God's not going to save him.
05:26Both men are dragged out into the street, kicking and screaming in terror. While all this
05:34is going on, Henry's hiding in a cupboard. And you can imagine him, alone in the darkness,
05:40barely daring to breathe, waiting for the rebels to find him. But they never do. They
05:50have their victims. Sudbury and Hales are beheaded in the street. Sudbury's head is stuck on a
06:02spike on London Bridge. His archbishop's mitre nailed to his head, so there's no doubt about
06:08who they've killed. England is on the brink of full-blown anarchy. It's the greatest crisis the
06:18country has faced in more than a hundred years. Richard could lose his crown.
06:24In desperation, his ministers start issuing charters of freedom to the rebels. But it doesn't work.
06:30They've just murdered two of his top ministers and got away with it. A few bits of parchment,
06:35I'm going to stop them now. The 14-year-old king has one last throw of the dice, to ride out again
06:41through the blood frenzied mob and confront the rebel leaders. For his whole life, Richard's been told
06:48that he alone can save England. Now he's about to find out if it's true.
06:58The whole future of England is now in the hands of a 14-year-old boy.
07:04He meets the rebels outside the city walls at Smithfield, open countryside near where the
07:09meat market is today. What Tyler, the fearsome rebel leader, comes across to make his demands.
07:27They are extraordinary. What he's asking for is completely outrageous. No more bishops, no more
07:37no more nobles, common ownership to all lands. Seven centuries later, you'd call it communism.
07:43In medieval England, it's just bonkers, and it leads to a standoff.
07:49There are conflicting accounts about exactly what happens next.
07:54What we do know is a scuffle breaks out between Tyler and one of Richard's men.
08:01Weapons are drawn. In the struggle, Richard's man cuts the rebel leader hard across
08:07the face and neck with his sword. Tyler is mortally wounded.
08:23When Tyler's army of Kentish rebels see what's happening, they draw back their bows, ready to fire.
08:29And in that instant, the whole future of the English monarchy hangs in the balance.
08:34The wall between зай and brothers, which is what time is messed up as we saw.
08:37The world is ready to be used to meet the world.
08:39The bullet is ready to go to the angle of the tower and the tower and the tower.
08:41The wall is dead in the middle of the tower.
08:44The wall is used to be built in the middle of the tower.
08:47The wall is going to be stirred in the middle of the tower.
08:53The wall is
08:55The wall is here.
08:56The wall is going to be fixed.
08:58It's been Edward's in the wall.
09:00young people are here going to be sent to me.
09:02Faced with certain death, the king's terrified men turn to flee.
09:13But Richard doesn't.
09:16Instead, the young king does something astonishing.
09:24The 14-year-old charges alone straight towards the rebel ranks.
09:32He cries out in English that he is their leader, their captain, and their king.
09:44He commands them to lower their weapons.
09:50And incredibly, they do.
09:52It's always been seen as an astonishing act of bravery by the young king.
10:05But I think there's more to it than that.
10:07For Richard's whole life, he's been told that he's the man to save England from terminal decline.
10:17All he's ever known is adulation.
10:20You are God's anointed king.
10:22Your people adore you.
10:23You will be mighty.
10:25After a while, that sort of thing can go to a kid's head.
10:28So when Richard rides out to meet the rebels, that's what's going through his mind.
10:32And when the rebels kneel before him, it just confirms everything he's ever believed about himself.
10:44From this moment on, nothing will ever shake Richard's belief that God is on his side.
10:51He is the king.
10:53He is right.
10:54And he is invincible.
10:55When Richard orders the peasants home, they go happily, clutching their charters of freedom,
11:04safe in the knowledge that Richard is their man, their captain, their king.
11:12They are wrong.
11:18The following week, Richard meets the rebels again.
11:21They've come to seal the deal with their new champion.
11:29But Richard's got a new deal in mind.
11:35A first-hand account of the meeting still exists here in the British Library.
11:40This is the chronicle of Thomas Walsingham, who was an eyewitness to many of the events
11:46of the Peasants' Revolt.
11:47And he records Richard's reaction, but it's not what the peasants were expecting at all.
11:53It's in Latin.
11:53Richard says,
11:54Peasants you are, and peasants you remain, in permanent bondage.
11:59Not as you were before, but in an incomparably harsher state.
12:03Then Richard goes on to say he's going to devote the rest of his life to tormenting the rebels
12:09so much that no-one in England will ever dare to rise up again.
12:14So much for being their captain and their leader.
12:17Richard's going to be their hangman.
12:18In the months that follow, hundreds, possibly thousands, of peasants are strung up by the king's men.
12:31His people never dare rise up against him again.
12:38Richard's terrifying ordeal at the hands of the rebels has taught him a lesson.
12:43A king doesn't need to be loved.
12:46He needs to be feared.
12:48By 1385, even the country's senior nobles are starting to become nervous.
13:00It's four years since Richard crushed the Peasants' Revolt, and he's no longer a child.
13:05He's 19, he's married to Anne of Bohemia, daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor,
13:10and he's fed up with people telling him what to do.
13:13He decides to take the lead, and from this point on,
13:16Richard's reign will be dominated by his struggle to do things his way.
13:26Richard and Anne are a great match, and the queen is clearly a good influence on him.
13:31A young court of nobles springs up around them, led by the king's favourite, Robert de Vere.
13:41Like the king, his young court have little time for the old guard,
13:45men like his uncle Gloucester and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
13:50The Richard's under 21, so they can legitimately control his council, the equivalent of cabinet.
13:56They still think of him as a child.
14:03But he's not.
14:07When the Archbishop criticises Richard for keeping bad company,
14:11the king makes it crystal clear that he's not interested in his opinion anymore.
14:15Then he drums his point home by attacking the old man.
14:32He's only stopped from doing serious harm by the intervention of his uncle, Gloucester.
14:37This time, Richard climbs down.
14:46But egged on by de Vere and the others,
14:49the split between the king and his old councillors is only going to get worse.
14:57One important young noble's missing from the king's new entourage,
15:01his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, so far best known for hiding in a cupboard.
15:05Because while Richard's swanning about at court with his new pals,
15:10Henry's off fighting in tournaments and learning the business of war.
15:23And Bolingbroke stands to inherit the most powerful duchy in Richard's kingdom.
15:28So despite his absence,
15:32Henry will have far more influence on the king's reign than any of his new friends.
15:42But while Bolingbroke's away,
15:44Richard's new pals are still making all the running.
15:48The king's wrestling control away from the old guard
15:52by replacing them on his council with his new friends, like de Vere.
15:57But a crisis in the never-ending war with France
16:00is about to undo all Richard's plans.
16:13By the autumn of 1386,
16:15the French are poised to launch an invasion.
16:18De Vere and the others do nothing to prevent it.
16:20The old guard have had enough.
16:25They go to Parliament and get them on side
16:28against the king and his young allies.
16:32The king's uncle is the man charged with telling Richard
16:35to get rid of them, or the old guard will.
16:39Gloucester delivers the ultimatum to Richard here at Elton Palace.
16:43Given the king's tendency to blow his top
16:46and even the slightest attempt to curb his behaviour,
16:50Gloucester must have realised his nephew
16:51was never going to take this well.
16:54All the same, Richard's reaction absolutely floors him.
17:00He accuses his council and Parliament of treason
17:04and threatens to seek help from the French.
17:07If the old guard don't yield,
17:11he'll invite in the country's deadliest enemy to destroy them.
17:16Gloucester doesn't rise to the bait.
17:20He simply asks Richard
17:22to think about his great-grandfather, Edward II.
17:25It's an explicit threat.
17:31Gloucester has called the king's bluff.
17:34In a bloodless coup, all Richard's ministers are removed.
17:38Gloucester and the old guard retake control
17:41of the council and the country.
17:44But if they think they've got Richard under control,
17:47they're dead wrong,
17:48because the king is more devious, more cunning,
17:51and more ruthless than anyone has dared to imagine.
17:54Richard and De Vere organise a secret meeting of judges.
18:06The king sees the actions of the old guard as treason.
18:13Unfortunately, that's not what the law says.
18:17Richard has a simple solution to that.
18:20Change the law.
18:24No sane judge would ever agree.
18:27But then, it all depends on how you ask them.
18:39The judges rule that any opposition to the king
18:42is equivalent to treason.
18:45It's basically a tyrant's charter.
18:47Do what I say, or you'll be strung up.
18:53Richard thinks he's cracked it.
18:55This judgment threatens everyone.
18:58And to Richard, that's what being a king is all about.
19:02Intimidation.
19:04The old guard have a stark choice.
19:07They can let Richard's treason laws stand,
19:09in which case the king can kill them whenever he likes.
19:13Or they can raise an army against him.
19:20Unsurprisingly, Gloucester and his allies go for the second option.
19:23In response, De Vere, Richard's best pal,
19:30raises an army to defend the king.
19:35With the situation escalating,
19:37all the leading nobles have to choose a side.
19:40And that brings a decisive new player into the game.
19:45The king's cousin, Henry Bolingbroke.
19:52Until now, Henry's been pretty loyal to Richard,
19:55even if the deal with the judges was quite hard to swallow.
19:58But he can't stand De Vere.
20:01Not only has De Vere chucked his wife, who's Henry's cousin,
20:05he's also been poaching Henry's lands.
20:08Now, Henry knows De Vere couldn't have done any of this
20:10without Richard's approval.
20:12And an attack on De Vere is effectively an attack on the king.
20:16But he's had enough.
20:17And so as De Vere tries to cross Radcutt Bridge,
20:19here in Oxfordshire,
20:21Henry Bolingbroke is waiting for him.
20:26Henry is a battle-hardened veteran.
20:29So when De Vere's army run into Henry's troops,
20:32they basically run for the hills.
20:35De Vere flees to France.
20:37He never returns.
20:39Settling his score with De Vere
20:41means that Henry has now sided with the barons against the king.
20:46And with De Vere gone,
20:47nothing stands between them and Richard.
20:52The king is forced to offer peace talks at the Tower of London.
20:56Along with four other senior nobles,
21:01Gloucester, Arundel, Warwick and Mowbray,
21:04Henry heads to the Tower where Richard's waiting.
21:07They take 500 soldiers with them,
21:09just in case the king gets the mistaken idea
21:11that this is a friendly chat.
21:14On top of twisting the treason laws,
21:16they've discovered that Richard has been negotiating for peace with the French
21:19without Parliament's knowledge.
21:20They enter the tower to confront the king
21:23and lock the doors behind them.
21:29For three days, Richard is locked up in the tower with his enemies
21:33and forced to watch as the five of them decide what to do with him.
21:38Deposing the king is undoubtedly on the table.
21:43After all, Gloucester's already threatened Richard with it once.
21:51When the doors finally open,
21:53the king is sent to Parliament to await his fate.
21:56It's a packed house as the five lords return from the tower
22:07to deliver their verdict.
22:12Everyone is expecting them to force Richard to abdicate.
22:20But they don't.
22:21Instead, all five bow low and swear allegiance to the king.
22:30Je le chaux.
22:31Je le chaux.
22:34Despite everything he's done, Richard survives.
22:38It's an astonishing turnaround.
22:43No-one knows exactly what happened in that tower,
22:47but I think Henry and the others were actually going to depose Richard
22:50and, in the end, the only thing that stopped them
22:53was the fear of civil war.
22:56The chaos and slaughter of the inevitable fight
23:00over who should be king instead
23:01would tear the country apart.
23:04The reality is, leaving Richard in place
23:07is simply the least worst option.
23:11So how does Richard feel?
23:13Grateful? Lucky?
23:15Humbled?
23:17No.
23:17In Richard's mind, this is further proof
23:20that whatever he does, God will protect him.
23:24After the tower, Richard keeps a low profile,
23:27but he's just biding his time.
23:29He's now 21.
23:31Theoretically, he can take full control of the country
23:34any time he likes.
23:35And then, God help the men who stood against him.
23:39He's going to be a place in the North.
23:41The後 people who stay,
23:41the street dogs and her farm 360 day
23:42they can take full control of the country,
23:42having to take full control of the country,
23:47and even the doctors live?
23:48He's not ему to be a conditionthatou guy,
23:50but he's the way he can destroy the cause.
23:51A possibility of wanting in the world
23:56that he can't control all of the...
23:58When he30X lost his time into another moving
24:00the Böyle används of deceit,
24:01or even though a deep soul said...
24:03Thecolored slice of vue is perfectly
24:05and not someone who is sobad,
24:06and the treated buatuden may have made
24:07With Richard in charge, the old guard probably fear the worst.
24:15But getting the power he's always craved seems to calm him down.
24:22Astonishingly, peace breaks out.
24:26The king agrees a truce with France,
24:29and in Henry's absence, he even makes up with Gloucester and the others.
24:32It looks like Richard's grown out of his youthful malice.
24:38But he hasn't.
24:41While all this public peace and reconciliation is going on,
24:44Richard's quietly doing something that will completely alter
24:47the balance of power in the kingdom.
24:49He's raising a private army in the north of England.
24:52But this isn't an army paid for or approved by Parliament.
24:55It's a band of private mercenaries with no loyalty to anyone but Richard himself.
25:00The emblem he chooses for his soldiers is the white heart.
25:07Strange, isn't it?
25:08This is more like the behaviour of a warlord than a king.
25:13So what's he up to?
25:16Well, incredibly, more than six centuries on,
25:19there is a way to peer inside the mind of Richard II,
25:23and it's here at the National Gallery.
25:26This is the Wilton Diptych.
25:31It's a portrait painted for Richard at around this time.
25:34And everything you see in it,
25:39every aspect of the symbolism,
25:41is here because Richard wants it here.
25:45But even though this was painted when he was a fully grown man,
25:48he's presented here as though he was still 14 years old,
25:52the age of his greatest triumph in the Peasants' Revolve.
25:54Behind him we have the saints,
25:56St Edmund, Edward the Confessor,
25:58John the Baptist.
26:00And here we have the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus,
26:02both looking adoringly down at Richard,
26:04giving him their blessing.
26:07But what's most interesting are these 11 angels,
26:10all wearing the symbol of the white heart.
26:13It's the symbol of Richard's private army.
26:15It's saying,
26:16Even the angels wear my badge.
26:19God is on my side.
26:21This is a painting of a man who truly believes
26:24he can do whatever the hell he wants.
26:31Three years after leaving England,
26:34Henry Bolingbroke returns.
26:36The kingdom has changed a lot.
26:39Richard may have brought peace to the country,
26:41but the white heart,
26:43symbol of his personal power,
26:45is everywhere.
26:46On flags,
26:48buildings,
26:49statues,
26:50windows,
26:51and of course,
26:52on the king's private soldiers.
26:54And they're everywhere too.
26:57It seems threatening.
26:59With good reason.
27:03Henry must have been sweating it.
27:06The last time he saw his cousin,
27:07he all but deposed him.
27:08But Richard graciously welcomes him back.
27:17The nasty business in the Tower of London seems forgotten.
27:21He even makes Henry a trusted counsellor and diplomat.
27:27After all,
27:28they are cousins.
27:28They are cousins.
27:28Despite Richard's disturbing track record,
27:39he's now ruled his country in his own right peacefully
27:43for more than five years.
27:47But all that's about to change.
27:49Richard's queen, Anne of Bohemia,
28:00dies suddenly at just 28.
28:03The king is utterly inconsolable and properly unhinged.
28:13I think Anne was some sort of stabilising influence on him.
28:18Now she's gone,
28:19there's nothing holding him back.
28:21And that's apparent straight away
28:27when Arundel,
28:28one of the five from the Tower,
28:30turns up late to her funeral.
28:42The peace-loving image the king's cultivated
28:45is ripped away.
28:51Here, in Westminster Abbey,
28:55there's direct evidence of the real Richard that emerges.
29:00This is an incredible piece of history.
29:03It's the earliest surviving portrait
29:05of a British monarch to be taken from life.
29:07And it was painted around the time of Richard's wife's death.
29:11And it shows you the king,
29:12not only as he wanted to be seen,
29:14but as his subjects really did see him.
29:17Because the Richard that's shown here
29:18is a seriously nasty piece of work.
29:20He really did sit like this,
29:23on a high throne above his court,
29:25staring around.
29:27It sort of feels like his gaze is on me now.
29:29And if he looked at you,
29:30you were supposed to throw yourself to the ground
29:32or face his wrath.
29:34This was a really dangerous atmosphere.
29:37But I don't think this is a new personality.
29:40Richard's always had this in him.
29:41Think about his bloody crushing of the Peasants' Revolt,
29:45his attack on the Archbishop,
29:46his abuse of the Treason Laws,
29:49his build-up of a private army.
29:53I think Richard's always been a tyrant.
29:56Backed by his private army,
30:04the king reinstates his version of the Treason Law.
30:09Anybody who opposes him now faces death.
30:13The monster has been unleashed.
30:16Ten years earlier,
30:28in that tower over there,
30:30five men humiliated the king
30:32and threatened to rip his crown away from him.
30:35Now, one way or another,
30:36Richard's going to crush them.
30:39This is a vendetta, pure and simple.
30:41Richard's tried being a nice guy.
30:43He didn't like it.
30:44As one chronicler of the time wrote,
30:47this is the year that Richard's tyranny began.
30:56The Earl of Warwick was one of the five
30:58who humiliated Richard in the tower.
31:02He should probably have thought better
31:04of going back there for dinner with the king.
31:06When the meal is finished,
31:10so is Warwick.
31:12What the hell is this?
31:13And Richard's just warming up.
31:15What the hell is this?
31:16What the hell is this?
31:21Gloucester was the ringleader of the five
31:23who threatened him.
31:24Now, Richard rides through the night
31:26to return the favour.
31:29Ah, mon cher uncle.
31:31The king greets him as fair uncle
31:33and has him arrested on the spot.
31:41Gloucester is packed off
31:43into the custody of Thomas Mowbray,
31:45another of the five.
31:51To atone for his sins,
31:53he's now the king's hatchet man.
32:08The fourth man, Arundel,
32:10is arrested and imprisoned as well.
32:13He, too, is charged with treason.
32:16Gloucester, Warwick and Arundel
32:23have their trials set
32:25for a parliament in Westminster.
32:30Just like today,
32:31Westminster Hall's under construction,
32:33so parliament's held
32:34in a wooden hall next door.
32:36It opens with a sermon from Ezekiel.
32:38There'll be one king over them all.
32:41And indeed there is,
32:42because towering above them
32:43on a specially built high throne
32:45is Richard,
32:46with 300 of his white-heart archers
32:48at his back.
32:49The message is simple.
32:51You're either with the king
32:52or you're against him.
32:53There is no politics now.
32:55Just life or death.
32:57Graphic proof of this comes
33:15when Mowbray reports
33:16that unfortunately
33:17Gloucester can't stand trial
33:19on account of being dead.
33:23The Gloucester.
33:34Luckily, before he died,
33:36he made a full confession,
33:38admitting to all Richard's charges.
33:40In reality, of course,
33:46Richard has had him tortured to death.
33:53Henry Bolingbroke
33:54was the fifth man in the tower,
33:56and not for the first time.
33:58He has to choose a side.
34:01Join with the king
34:02or share Gloucester's fate.
34:04Henry chooses life.
34:15He makes a speech
34:16condemning his old ally,
34:17Arundel.
34:20Arundel is sentenced to death.
34:23Warwick banished for life.
34:26Of the five who stood against the king,
34:29only Henry and Mowbray remain.
34:32And they must know
34:34they're not safe.
34:36The king has just murdered
34:38his own uncle,
34:39a royal duke.
34:41Anybody could be next.
34:53Three months later,
34:54as fear and paranoia
34:56stalk the land,
34:58Henry is called
34:58to a secret meeting.
35:02Mowbray tells him
35:14that the king
35:14is plotting against them.
35:20Mowbray may well
35:21be telling the truth,
35:22but this could easily
35:23be a trap.
35:24Henry can't risk it.
35:32He goes straight to the king
35:34and denounces Mowbray.
35:37But since it was
35:38a private conversation,
35:40there are no witnesses
35:41to prove who
35:41is telling the truth.
35:45This is perfect for the king.
35:47He declares the case
35:50can't be proven
35:51and exiles them both.
35:55Henry for ten years,
35:57Mowbray for life.
36:00In one fell swoop,
36:02the last two of the five
36:03from the tower
36:04are gone.
36:07Richard's revenge
36:08is complete.
36:09He believes no one
36:11can challenge him.
36:12But Henry Bolingbroke
36:16will now be watching
36:17the king's every move
36:18from exile in France.
36:21Richard should have killed him.
36:23What happens next
36:24shows just what
36:25a ruthless tyrant
36:26Richard's become.
36:28With Bolingbroke
36:28and Mowbray out of the way,
36:30Richard sends his thugs
36:31round to the houses
36:32of all the other nobles
36:33he suspects
36:34and forces them
36:35to put their seals
36:36on pieces of blank parchment.
36:38Once he has those,
36:40he can write on them
36:41pretty much anything
36:41he wants.
36:43I'll give the king
36:44ten thousand pounds.
36:45I'll leave the king
36:46my lands
36:46and all my castles.
36:48I am a traitor.
36:50If anyone puts
36:51a foot out of line
36:52or even if they don't,
36:54Richard can destroy them.
37:02A year later,
37:04Richard's tyranny
37:05is in full swing
37:06when Henry Bolingbroke's
37:08father,
37:08the Duke of Lancaster,
37:10dies.
37:17This is what remains
37:18of Pontefract Castle
37:20in Yorkshire.
37:22Just one of more
37:24than 30 castles
37:25Henry Bolingbroke
37:26should now inherit
37:27as part of the largest
37:29duchy in the kingdom.
37:31It will make Henry
37:32the most powerful noble
37:34in England.
37:36Given the history
37:37between the king
37:38and his cousin,
37:38there's no way
37:39Richard can allow
37:40that to happen.
37:41So with Henry still
37:42banished,
37:43Richard just takes
37:44the lot for himself.
37:45But in doing so,
37:46he undermines
37:47the whole basis
37:48of law and order
37:49in England,
37:50the right to property
37:51and inheritance.
37:53And he's given
37:55Henry Bolingbroke
37:56the excuse
37:57he's been waiting for
37:58to take the king down.
37:59May 1399.
38:13Richard is in Wales.
38:14He's got exactly
38:30what he always wanted.
38:32Everyone in his kingdom
38:33fears him.
38:35But even that's not enough.
38:37So Richard is heading
38:38for Ireland
38:39to extend his tyranny there.
38:41It's a massive miscalculation.
38:45There's a fundamental flaw
38:46in Richard's whole idea
38:48of kingship.
38:49He doesn't understand
38:50that the strongest kings
38:51have always governed
38:52by consent.
38:54Iron-fisted consent,
38:55maybe,
38:55but consent all the same.
38:57If you rule by fear,
38:59like Richard,
39:00the moment you leave
39:01the country,
39:01what is there
39:02for your enemies
39:02to be afraid of?
39:04What's there to stop
39:05them moving against you?
39:06As soon as Richard's gone,
39:11Henry Bolingbroke
39:11seizes his moment.
39:13He races back
39:15across the channel
39:15with one thing
39:17on his mind.
39:19Regime change.
39:20By stealing his inheritance,
39:22Richard has created
39:23an enemy
39:24with nothing to lose
39:26and alienated
39:27every single landholder
39:29in the kingdom.
39:30The nobles of England
39:32flock to Henry's side.
39:33Richard's White Hart army
39:38is no match
39:39for the combined might
39:40of the enraged
39:42English barons.
39:43By the time
39:45Richard makes it back
39:45from Ireland,
39:46his army is gone.
39:48He's friendless
39:50and exposed.
39:52If you're expecting a war,
39:54forget it.
39:55It's over
39:56before it's even begun
39:57and Richard has lost.
40:03The king is forced
40:05to surrender
40:06to his cousin.
40:08Henry takes him
40:09to London
40:09and he bangs him up
40:11in the tower.
40:16Twelve years before,
40:17Henry Bolingbroke
40:18was one of the five nobles
40:20who backed away
40:21from deposing Richard.
40:27He won't make
40:28the same mistake again.
40:29This time,
40:39he's going to take
40:39the throne.
40:41According to one chronicler,
40:46the king was so enraged
40:47that he could hardly speak
40:49and when he did,
40:52it was to make a threat.
40:53This is pretty funny, really.
41:07If there's one thing
41:08Richard isn't,
41:09it's physically brave.
41:10And even if he were,
41:12Henry's been a crusader,
41:13a tournament champ.
41:14He'd toast Richard
41:15on his own.
41:16All Richard knows
41:18is fear,
41:19but without the men
41:20or the authority
41:21to back him up,
41:21he's nothing.
41:23He's reduced his shouting.
41:24It's a temper tantrum.
41:35The next day,
41:37in Parliament,
41:38250 years
41:40after the first
41:40Plantagenet king
41:42claimed and won
41:43the English crown,
41:44Henry Bolingbroke
41:46formally claims
41:47his cousin's throne.
41:48I, Henry of Lancaster,
41:53challenge this realm
41:54of England
41:54and the crown
41:56with all the members
41:57and the appurtenancies
41:58that I am descended
42:00by the right line
42:01of blood
42:02coming from the good lord,
42:04King Henry III.
42:06By claiming the throne
42:08not in Latin or French,
42:09but in English,
42:11the first king to do so
42:12since the Norman conquest,
42:13Henry's sending
42:14a very clear message.
42:18I am not like Richard.
42:21His tyranny
42:21is over.
42:29There's just one problem.
42:31Richard is still alive
42:33and as long as he is,
42:35he remains
42:35a dangerous threat.
42:37No one knows for sure
42:39how Richard II died
42:41but what we do know
42:42is that he was being held
42:43in a room in this tower
42:44on January 6th, 1400
42:46when the last plot
42:48to spring him
42:49was foiled.
42:51By February 17th,
42:53he's already dead.
42:58Given the stakes involved,
43:00I think it's safe
43:01to assume that Henry
43:02is behind him.
43:04What he needs
43:05is plausible deniability
43:06it can't look
43:08like he's murdered
43:09the ex-king.
43:13So knowing
43:14just how fast
43:15Richard dies,
43:16I think it's pretty obvious
43:18what really happens.
43:20Richard II,
43:21the boy king
43:22who crushed
43:23the Peasants' Revolt,
43:24was simply left
43:25in a room
43:25with no food
43:26and no water
43:27and allowed
43:28to die of thirst.
43:34It's a grim way
43:35to die.
43:36as his kidneys
43:39shut down,
43:40his blood thickens
43:41and ear-splitting
43:42headaches set in.
43:45Richard would have
43:46had plenty of time
43:47to think about
43:48his mistakes.
43:56The king dies
43:57without a mark
43:58on him.
43:58So technically,
44:03no-one,
44:04especially not
44:05the new king,
44:06has blood
44:06on their hands.
44:09Richard II
44:10is dead.
44:11It's the end
44:12of one of the greatest
44:13periods in British history.
44:15The crown of England
44:25had passed down
44:26legitimately
44:27through eight generations
44:28since Henry II
44:30established the
44:31Plantagenet dynasty
44:32two and a half
44:33centuries earlier.
44:35Henry IV's coronation
44:37ends that.
44:39From now on,
44:40anyone with a drop
44:40of royal blood
44:41can theoretically
44:42claim the throne,
44:43and that possibility
44:45will plunge England
44:46into the Wars of the Roses
44:47and half a century
44:49of civil war.
44:50war.
44:53The End
44:54of the Roses
44:56Transcription by CastingWords