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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.
00:26Generation after generation, they ruled the country for more than 300 years, ruthlessly
00:34crushing all competition to become the greatest English dynasty of all time, the Plantagenets.
00:49What I love about the Plantagenet story is that it's more shocking, more brutal and more
00:54astonishing than anything you'll find in fiction.
00:58I want to show you the Plantagenets as I see them, real, living, breathing people, driven
01:04by ambition, jealousy, hatred and revenge.
01:09These kings murdered, betrayed and tyrannised their way to spectacular success.
01:15For better and for worse, the Plantagenets forged England as a nation.
01:18This time, the founder of the dynasty, Henry II, warrior and empire builder.
01:26He transformed England from a war zone into a European superpower.
01:29But murder and betrayal by his own family threatened to tear apart everything he had achieved.
01:41a love stone which had been created in an American football.
01:46The second key was known as a European nation.
01:46This network was known as an American football.
01:48A world of informações that were created by people in the States,
01:48this series of ancient страшos, which was in the States,
01:51which was searching for a country that was created by people in the States.
01:52This career was known as an American football.
01:53And the Inci warumitian, it was designed for the nation.
01:54It was one of the best wishes that they were chosen for a Japanese one.
01:56This camp was found in the United States,
02:06with the place that had been used for a thousand years and for years.
02:08In 1153, Henry Plantagenet sails to England with an invasion force, aiming to seize back the throne.
02:38He's only 20, but he's already an experienced soldier.
02:43He's been fighting in France since he was a kid, and his mother's drilled into him the idea that the crown of England is rightfully his.
02:51So as Henry approaches these shores, he's convinced he has a date with destiny.
02:56Henry's a powerhouse with a fiery temper, bursting with raw energy and ambition.
03:12Within a year, Stephen is dead, and Henry is crowned Henry II, the first Plantagenet king.
03:19Of course, he doesn't speak a word of English.
03:29But after 90 years of Norman French rule in England, no one does, except the peasants.
03:34And it's not them that Henry's here to pick a fight with.
03:40It's the barons.
03:42For a generation, the barons have been fighting vicious turf wars, burning, looting, raping, killing.
03:51If you lived here, you could come home any day to find your house on fire, your crops destroyed, your animals taken or your family murdered.
03:59And this has been going on for nearly 20 years, as long as the new king has been alive.
04:05Henry's future, and the future of England, depends on bringing the barons to heel.
04:14He could simply destroy them. His army's big enough.
04:18But instead, he does something totally unexpected.
04:23High on the Welsh borders is Wigmore Castle, once one of England's greatest fortresses.
04:30It's the power base of Hugh Mortimer, toughest of the barons.
04:34And the last to hold out against the new king.
04:41No one defies Henry and gets away with it.
04:44So he turns up here at Wigmore with an army and lays siege to the castle.
04:52Henry's got Hugh surrounded.
04:55But he's not here to destroy him.
04:58He just sits outside.
05:00Here I am. Here's my army.
05:02What are you going to do about it?
05:04Unsurprisingly, Hugh folds.
05:06But it's what Henry does next that marks him out as a king to watch.
05:10Because he takes Hugh's castle away from him, then gives it straight back.
05:14He's saying you can have your power, but only because I say so.
05:18I'm the king.
05:20I'm in control.
05:21And you work for me.
05:22One reason Henry has the confidence to take on such powerful men is because he has a formidable ally.
05:36Henry's queen is Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine.
05:38Ten years his senior, she's such a famous beauty, students across Europe sing bawdy songs about bedding her.
05:45She's shot the continent by divorcing the king of France in 1152 and marrying Henry just two months later.
05:55But this queen is far more than a baby machine.
06:07As Duchess of Aquitaine, she's a serious political player in her own right.
06:13Henry brings muscle.
06:16Eleanor brings prestige.
06:18Together, they're a match for anyone.
06:23And their union creates a Plantagenet empire that stretches from the borders of Scotland to the Pyrenees.
06:30But to keep control of such vast territory, Henry has to do something radical.
06:41Controls everything to Henry.
06:43The question is, how does he maintain it?
06:46Nick could use his barons to rule the different regions.
06:49That's standard medieval practice.
06:51But as far as Henry can see, the barons will only do things his way as long as it suits them.
06:57To get what he wants, Henry's going to have to do things a little bit differently.
07:06Henry's genius is to create a new army, not of soldiers, but of clerks.
07:13Educated commoners.
07:15Unlike the barons, they'll do exactly what he wants.
07:19What Henry invents is the basis of the civil service that still runs the country today.
07:27Here at the National Archives, 900-year-old documents reveal the full extent of Henry's control.
07:37So this is a writ from the second year of Henry's reign.
07:47And it's an official instruction from the king.
07:49We can see the king rex here.
07:52Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine.
07:53And he's sending instruction to the sheriff of Dorset, ordering him to give back a farm in the village of Rampersham to its rightful owner.
08:00And that might sound mundane, but hundreds of these survive.
08:05And what they show you is Henry's interest in every last field and pasture of his kingdom.
08:10And this isn't everything Henry's doing.
08:12He's also rebuilding royal finance through the Exchequer.
08:15He's sending his justices, roving about the country to re-establish law and order.
08:20What it all adds up to is Henry's complete obsession with stamping his control over every area of his new kingdom.
08:27The mastermind pulling the administrative strings for Henry is commoner Thomas Beckett, the son of a merchant.
08:40He may be low-born, but Beckett's such a brilliant operator that Henry makes him chancellor.
08:48It's Beckett who makes sure the king's grip on England is rock solid.
08:53And there's clearly some kind of spark between them.
08:58They quickly become drinking buddies, hunting partners and best mates.
09:07But because of Beckett, everything Henry's achieved is about to come under threat.
09:22The trouble begins here at Canterbury, seat of power of the one part of England that remains beyond Henry's control, the church.
09:38One Englishman in five is a cleric.
09:41They're effectively above the law.
09:43Whatever crime they commit, even rape or murder, only church courts can try them.
09:49The worst punishment they can give out is a fine.
09:54The king can't touch them.
10:01So in 1161, when the Archbishop of Canterbury dies here, Henry thinks, excellent, I'll appoint my mate Thomas as Archbishop.
10:10He can knock some sense into the church.
10:12And even though Thomas has never been a priest, Henry bullies the monks at Canterbury until they agree to elect him.
10:19So you can see why Henry thinks he's got the church problem sewn up.
10:23After all, Beckett's his best mate.
10:25He owes his career to him.
10:27What could possibly go wrong?
10:28Henry's failed to spot a massive problem.
10:39In the medieval world, there is a higher power than the king.
10:45Beckett finds God.
10:47Pretty much the first thing he does is hang the king out to dry by resigning as chancellor.
10:57He's sending a very blunt message.
11:00I'm not going to do what you say anymore.
11:02I have a new boss now.
11:05With God in his corner, Beckett now defies every command the king makes to bring the church to heel.
11:12Unsurprisingly, it doesn't go down very well with Henry.
11:19This is a king famous across Europe for his uncontrollable temper.
11:24A man who once got so furious during an argument that he rolled around on the floor,
11:29pulling the straw out of his mattress, stuffing it into his mouth.
11:33So it's fair to say that Henry wasn't just angry, he was apoplectic.
11:38And this rage, combined with Henry's intense desire for control,
11:43will lead to murder and betrayal that threatens to destroy everything he's achieved.
11:48Westminster, July 1170.
12:18Henry II is having his eldest son, young Henry, crowned king of England,
12:24effectively king-in-waiting.
12:29Viva, Viva, Viva, Viva!
12:34It should secure Henry's legacy.
12:37Instead, it's going to tear his world apart.
12:42Because there's one man who really should be there that Henry hasn't invited.
12:47Thomas Beckett.
12:54Crowning kings of England is the Archbishop of Canterbury's gig, and it always has been.
12:59So when Beckett finds out about the young king's coronation,
13:02he explodes with fury, and he does something utterly reckless.
13:06Bekkett excommunicates every single cleric involved.
13:18As far as he's concerned, they're quite literally going to hell.
13:21As far as he's concerned, they're quite literally going to hell.
13:27When the news reaches Henry, out comes his plantagenet rage again,
13:32and he says something he'll come to regret for the rest of his life.
13:36Becquette.
13:39Becquette!
13:41What a traitor.
13:42A miserable.
13:44And I love it.
13:45To allow the lord to be a traitor, with a mépris, and onward, by the humble court.
13:58Henry's just venting, but that's not how it looks to his knights.
14:05What they hear is a direct order from their king.
14:08This simple misunderstanding sets up a disaster.
14:17And here, in Canterbury, it all comes crashing down.
14:24Days later, four knights burst through these doors.
14:32And they march into the cathedral to confront Becquette here.
14:36He's unarmed in his archbishop's robes, and they're in armour, with swords by their sides.
14:56Furious words are exchanged.
14:58They try and drag Becquette out of the cathedral, but he resists.
15:01I want you to be dead here!
15:06You're all alone!
15:07You're all alone!
15:10I'm the only one!
15:12You're all alone!
15:13You're all alone!
15:14You're all alone!
15:15No!
15:16No!
15:17No!
15:18No!
15:19No!
15:20No!
15:21And it's at this point one of the knights draws his sword and brings it down on Becquette's
15:23head, chopping off part of his skull.
15:25beckett falls and one of the knights scoops his brains onto the floor with the tip of his sword
15:37but they're not alone because hiding in doorways and behind pillars are beckett's friends and
15:46supporters bearing witness to an event that'll shock christendom every single good thing that
15:54henry ii has done in his career until now may as well be wiped out because this is what he'll be
16:00remembered for the fact that his words were taken out of context is neither here nor there as far as
16:15everyone's concerned henry ordered beckett's murder outrage at this sacrilege goes viral
16:24across europe people begin to question whether henry is really fit to be a king
16:30henry realizes straight away how damaging this will be this is the first time since his meteoric rise
16:41that he's been vulnerable but i think it would have hurt him personally as well he and beckett may
16:46have been knocking lumps out of each other for years but this is still a man who was once his
16:50closest friend who understood him better than anyone else
16:58the humiliated king makes himself scarce and goes to ireland on campaign
17:09in a crisis on this scale the one group he should be able to count on
17:13or his own family but now they turn on him too and it's all henry's fault
17:24henry's eldest son henry the young king is a chip off the old block ambitious power hungry and
17:31impatient as king-in-waiting he should be taken to ireland so henry can teach him how to exert iron-fisted
17:39control but he isn't instead the young king is left behind festering in the aftermath of his father's disgrace
17:51and whilst he's away the king leaves control in the hands of his slick bureaucrats
17:55powerless and isolated resentment at his father starts to eat away at him
18:11another surviving document reveals just how humiliating life is for the young king
18:16this is a record of royal accounts from 1172 when henry was off beating up the irish
18:29on the face of it it's pretty dry it's a long list of payments made but throughout there are records of
18:36money paid out to the young king what's interesting is they're all quite small let's have a look there's
18:41one here from berkemstead and it says for the works regis philly regis of the king the son of the king
18:49xxx that's 30 shillings well today that's a few thousand pounds which might sound like a lot but the
18:55eldest son of a king it's chicken feed now the normal way that things would work is that a king would give
19:02his eldest son a block of lands from which to draw his revenue but henry hasn't done that he's kept
19:08everything to himself to keep control so the picture you get reading this is of the old king
19:14one of the richest most powerful men in europe while his eldest son is going around cap in hand
19:20begging money from royal officials wouldn't make you very happy would it
19:24resentment is spreading through the rest of the family too
19:38the year before beckett's murder henry's wife queen eleanor had returned to her homeland in aquitaine
19:53and she based herself here at poitiers where this hall is what remains of her magnificent ducal palace
19:59after years living in a foreign country eleanor's come back with her favorite son richard to train
20:09him to take over her lands there when she dies finally she's back where she belongs this is where
20:17she was born this is where she was raised and frankly the food and the weather are better here too
20:23but eleanor's about to find that her aquitaine is now a very different place
20:34a spanking new cathedral is being built in the town center
20:41this is more than just a church it's a pr statement designed to sell the plantagenet dynasty to the people
20:47and the banner headline of this message is a spectacular window incredibly it's survived intact for nearly nine centuries
21:01if you look at this stained glass window high up in the cathedral you can see henry
21:06eleanor and their four sons it's like a snapshot of a united family ruling together over england and half of france
21:17except it isn't really like that because in aquitaine eleanor finds it's henry's men collecting the taxes henry's
21:24men controlling the barons even when her husband's hundreds of miles away it's obvious that he's the
21:30one who's in control now eleanor might have brought aquitaine to henry in marriage but that doesn't mean it's his
21:40then eleanor discovers something henry's done that to her is unforgivable behind her back henry
21:47has mortgaged off part of her aquitaine to secure a political alliance
21:54this is like coming home one day to find your husband's changed the locks sold all your stuff
21:59and invited a whole bunch of other people to live there
22:05it's not just eleanor he's fuming
22:06richard is spitting blood about his lost inheritance too
22:15at one stroke henry has created two powerful new enemies and he probably doesn't even realize it
22:22did
22:30henry's blindness to his family's feelings is a ticking time bomb
22:36here in chinon 175 miles southwest of paris in the very heart of henry's french lands
22:43It finally explodes.
22:50Chinon Castle has enormous strategic importance.
22:53If you want to rule the Plantagenet Empire,
22:55controlling it is absolutely essential.
22:58And that's exactly why Henry the Young King
23:01expects that one day this castle will be his.
23:06Then, one night, Henry announces he's giving Chinon Castle
23:10the jewel in the Plantagenet crown to John,
23:13the Young King's six-year-old brother.
23:20Think what it would have been like here that night.
23:23This is one of the angriest families in history.
23:26Try and imagine all that Plantagenet rage just boiling up.
23:29I don't think there'd have been much pleasant chit-chat over dinner.
23:35Chinon!
23:40Chinon!
23:42The loss of the castle is more than the Young King can bear.
23:47True to form, Henry's completely dismissive.
23:50He's utterly incapable of seeing things from his son's point of view.
23:55But the Young King is adamant.
23:58For 18 years, he's had to suffer his father's obsessive control.
24:02Now, he's drawing a line in the sand.
24:06The Young King should have known better.
24:11Henry was never going to give up control without a fight.
24:16Chinon teaches the Young King a harsh lesson.
24:19His father is never going to give him real power.
24:22And he's sick of being strung along.
24:25But if Henry thinks he's got the Young King where he wants him,
24:30he's dead wrong.
24:32His eldest son is now hell-bent on taking the old man down.
24:37Now his father is not going to speed up.
24:39He's no longer going to come.
24:41He's coming to hell.
24:42He's dead to death.
24:44He's dead to death.
24:46On the next level, he's dead to death.
24:49On the next level, when the Newsies are dead,
24:52he's no longer going to die.
24:54He's dead to death.
24:56The Young King's離 deux and three seemingly dangerous.
24:58The Young King's離та is never going to die.
25:01The Young King's離婦 sets down the hill.
25:02Spring 1173, the young king steals out of his father's custody
25:14and flees to Paris.
25:19Straight into the arms of Louis VII, king of France.
25:25This is out-and-out betrayal.
25:28The young king is planning to use King Louis
25:30to help seize his father's throne.
25:33But why does the king of France get involved in such a dangerous game?
25:41To Dr Julie Barrault, an expert in the medieval French court,
25:45it makes perfect sense.
25:47Louis hates Henry.
25:50Well, they had many reasons not to like each other.
25:53Maybe the first one is that they embody completely opposite ideas
25:57of what it is to be a king.
25:58On the one hand, you have, you know, Henry, macho, warrior.
26:03And on the other hand, you had Louis, who was anything but.
26:06And the other thing is that Henry was much, much wealthier than Louis
26:10and never wasted an opportunity to show it very clearly.
26:14But it's more than just political, isn't it?
26:16Well, yes, what makes this story unusual is that you have a very deep personal aspect to it.
26:22It was a mere two months after Louis separated from his wife, Eleanor.
26:26She married Henry.
26:28And she didn't just marry him, but she started having one baby boy after the other.
26:33When Louis and Eleanor had really tried for a son for years before that.
26:37So that must have been really, really painful for poor Louis.
26:40So all those aspects together explain why you have such a deep and long animosity between those two men.
26:49The young king rocking up in Paris is no surprise to Louis.
26:58This is more than just a spur-of-the-moment betrayal by a petulant son.
27:03Because Henry the young king isn't acting alone.
27:07His brothers are in on this too.
27:08And so is the one person who's vital to making the whole betrayal possible.
27:14Eleanor.
27:16The Queen's been plotting with her ex-husband to replace Henry the second for the young king.
27:24She immediately sends Richard to join his older brother in Paris.
27:28A few days later, Eleanor follows.
27:38She makes a mad dash across France on horseback, disguised in men's clothing.
27:48But she doesn't make it.
27:50She's caught on her way to Paris by Henry the second's men.
27:55And brought to Chinon Castle, not as a queen,
27:58but as a prisoner.
28:04Your own son's rebelling against you is pretty much as bad as it gets.
28:09Your queen masterminding the whole plot with her ex.
28:13That's off the chart.
28:21The scandal rocks medieval Europe.
28:28But there's no stopping the betrayal Eleanor has set in motion.
28:35In Paris, Louis, Richard and the young king are mobilising to attack Henry from all sides.
28:41And not just in France.
28:45They're going to hit him where it hurts the most.
28:48England.
28:49Plenty of the English barons are still pretty sore about having their wings clipped by Henry the second.
28:58The young king promises to give them everything back.
29:02Now, the last time the English barons had that sort of power, they basically destroyed the country.
29:07So this is a pretty reckless promise.
29:10It's not careful strategy.
29:12But that's the young king for you.
29:14He's good at betrayal, but he lacks his father's political savvy.
29:19He just wants to win, whatever the cost.
29:21He even cuts a deal with Henry's other mortal enemy, the king of Scotland.
29:28The young king promises him big chunks of England if he attacks Henry from the north.
29:34For a king of England in waiting, this is a dangerous game.
29:38But it works.
29:39By the spring of 1174, Henry faces a perfect storm.
29:47Full-on revolt is spreading across his empire, all sparked by his family's betrayal.
29:53And whilst Henry's fighting in France, England is turning into a disaster zone.
30:00The king of Scotland has invaded the north,
30:02and foreign mercenaries are flooding across the Channel to support the barons' revolt.
30:08If Henry doesn't do something drastic, England will be lost.
30:21Most kings crossing the Channel to face a rebellion will be thinking the same thing.
30:25Raise an army, crush them by force.
30:28But Henry's got something else up his sleeve.
30:30Because he realises it isn't his barons or even his sons who are threatening his empire.
30:35It's the dead hand of Thomas Beckett.
30:37Rising up from beyond the grave.
30:43It's more than three years since Beckett was killed in Canterbury Cathedral.
30:49In that time, Henry's troubles have gone from bad to worse.
30:53On the 12th of July 1174, Henry II heads to Canterbury.
31:05What he does in the next 24 hours will shock the world
31:08and decide the future of the entire Plantation dynasty.
31:12Just outside the city walls, he stops, removes his boots, and begins to walk barefoot along the road.
31:24People watching must be wondering if the desperate king has lost his mind.
31:28The streets here in Canterbury are full of people all nudging each other, pointing, maybe even trying to grab him.
31:36They know it's the king because behind him, the royal standard's fluttering.
31:40But he's dressed as an ordinary pilgrim, rough woolen clothes.
31:44And he's barefoot, and the roads aren't nice and clean and smooth.
31:49They're muddy, they're filthy, they're full of broken pots and sharp stones that cut his feet to shreds.
31:54This isn't just physically painful, it's humiliating.
31:58The king of England is dragging himself through the mud, leaving bloody footprints behind him.
32:07Henry's performing the most public act of penance imaginable, begging God and Beckett to forgive him.
32:15This can only end in one place, Canterbury Cathedral.
32:19This wretched three-mile walk is actually propaganda dynamite.
32:26Every person who sees it will spread the news of the scale of the king's penance.
32:32But Henry isn't finished yet.
32:33He knows he has one chance to win back the hearts and minds of his kingdom.
32:38And he's planning something spectacular.
32:40The stage for his grand finale is the shrine of the once best friend he accidentally murdered, Thomas Beckett.
32:58When Henry enters the cathedral, dirty, bloody and drained, Thomas's shrine isn't up there.
33:05It's down these stairs, in the crypt.
33:08It's down here, in the dark, among the columns, that Henry does something absolutely extraordinary.
33:23In front of Beckett's tomb, Henry kneels down and commands the monks to whip him.
33:28One hundred of them take turns to beat his back up to five times each, with a birching rod.
33:44Henry is spilling his own blood to atone for the spilling of Beckett's in the cathedral above.
33:50These are the same monks who cowered behind the pillars in horror back then.
34:00Now they are striking the blows, beating the sin out of his king.
34:06In all, Henry receives more than three hundred flesh lacerating latches.
34:11There may be far fewer people down here than up there, but these are the men who write about what they've seen, who will tell the world.
34:32They may be Henry's punishers, but they're also his propagandists.
34:35It's a masterstroke of charismatic kingship.
34:41This is Henry's best shot at quashing the whispering campaign against him.
34:49But there's no guarantee it will save him.
34:54Then, something extraordinary happens.
34:58The next morning, a messenger arrives.
35:08He bears explosive news.
35:11The king of Scotland has been captured.
35:15The invasion of the north is over.
35:21It must have seemed like some kind of miracle, but the timing's just too perfect.
35:26And it feeds directly into Henry's own propaganda.
35:30Ever since the time of Beckett's death, he's been describing himself in documents as king by the grace of God.
35:36And now he has unarguable proof that God is on his side.
35:44Henry's miracle rips the heart out of the rebellion in England.
35:49The barons fold without a fight.
35:53Henry's back in control.
35:56In less than a month, he's free to head back to France and take the fight to his traitorous sons.
36:10Henry's on a roll.
36:12When he gets back to France, the rebellion melts away before him.
36:16First, he persuades the flaky young king to switch sides.
36:19And that leads Richard to fold as well.
36:23Their rebellion is snuffed out.
36:26For Henry's family, it's a catastrophe.
36:29They gambled everything and lost.
36:31The king has crushed them.
36:33The one family member Henry can't forgive is Eleanor, because there's a wife rebelling against her husband.
36:52She's committed one of the worst forms of treachery, and she can never be trusted again.
36:57And here in this chapel near Sheenon Castle, her fate is recorded in this incredible fresco.
37:07So at the front, you can see her husband, Henry.
37:11Eleanor's in the middle, and behind her are two of her sons.
37:14This might look like a nice, touching, Plantagenet family portrait, but it actually shows Eleanor being led off into captivity.
37:29Henry may not need Eleanor anymore.
37:32But he does need his sons to carry on the Plantagenet dynasty after him.
37:44So in a public ceremony of reconciliation, he forgives them.
37:54He even gives them money in castles.
38:02They may have been forgiven, but both boys must know that the one thing he'll never give them after this is any real power.
38:10Henry simply can't see that his obsession with control might be the root cause of all his family's betrayals.
38:21And this blindness to his own faults will ultimately destroy him.
38:26He has been
38:51in the summer of England.
38:51In the summer of 1183, an unexpected event throws Henry II's world into turmoil.
39:05His eldest son, the young king, dies, not by the sword, but of dysentery.
39:13An inglorious death for an inglorious son.
39:19He listened to me a lot.
39:23But he would have to live for a long time.
39:28Even more.
39:37Henry's grief isn't just a father's, although it's clear he's personally devastated.
39:42The death of the young king has destroyed all his plans for his legacy.
39:47As his remaining sons begin to jockey for position, Henry is losing control again.
39:55Just two of Henry's sons remain alive.
39:58Only one can become his heir.
40:02Richard, the eldest surviving son, is expecting to be named.
40:08But Henry's favourite has always been his youngest son, John.
40:13He, at least, has never betrayed his father.
40:17Even so, Henry doesn't dare name either of them.
40:23Henry drags his heels.
40:25Last time he named a successor, it was a disaster.
40:28This time he thinks, by stalling, he can keep Richard obedient and under control.
40:33What he doesn't know is someone's been stoking up resentment in Richard,
40:38whispering ideas of betrayal in his ear yet again.
40:42The man doing the whispering is the new king of France, Philip II.
40:50He plays on Richard's fears, persuading him that his father intends to name John as heir.
40:56Richard demands that Henry formally names him as his successor.
41:10And, of course, Henry refuses.
41:13That would mean giving up control.
41:17So, with Philip by his side, Richard once again goes to war against his father.
41:26In less than a month, they tear through the heart of Henry's French lands, winning every battle.
41:35It's not long before a defeated Henry finds himself holed up again,
41:40back here at Chinon Castle, with his son and the King of France at the gates.
41:45They're young, ambitious and aggressive.
41:48Henry's old and tired.
41:50The one thing he could never control has finally caught up with him.
41:54Time.
41:57Outside, his plantagenet heartland is collapsing.
42:02The empire he built and has ruled over for more than 30 years
42:06is being ripped from him by his own son.
42:10It's a final, total defeat.
42:14On the 3rd of July 1189, Henry rides out from Chinon to meet Richard.
42:23A man who spent so much of his life on horseback that his legs are physically bowed,
42:28now has to be strapped into the saddle to stop him from falling off.
42:33Richard's demands are read out.
42:36He wants land.
42:37He wants money.
42:38More than anything else, he wants to be the next king.
42:42It's all Henry can do, to nod his head weakly and agree.
42:48At the end, he leans in for one last embrace and he whispers to Richard,
42:53God grant that I may not die until I've had my revenge on you.
42:59Somewhere in this broken old man is still Henry II, King of England.
43:06But this act of defiance is Henry's last hurrah.
43:21God doesn't grant his wish.
43:23Henry II, the first Plantagenet King of England, dies two days later.
43:40Here, less than 20 miles from Chinon, in the family shrine at Fonteveau Abbey,
43:46Henry II lies buried.
43:49Beside him were buried the bodies of his wife, Eleanor, and his successor, Richard.
43:55But not his favourite son, John.
44:02For his whole reign, Henry kept a close grip on his kingdom.
44:05He never allowed his sons real control,
44:08because fundamentally he didn't think they could do as good a job as he could.
44:12And when Richard and then John become king, they prove him right.
44:16Within 15 years, the Plantagenet Empire has collapsed, torn apart by rebellion and war.
44:22And that's why John's not buried here at Fonteveau with his mother and his father.
44:27Because by the time John dies, this place is ruled by France.
44:41Next time, the collapsing friendship of Henry III and Simon de Montfort
44:46plunges the country into bloody slaughter and civil war.
44:51Changing England and the monarchy forever.
44:56After all, switch sides and 35 leaves the country into the world.
44:59The only central purple tree is not where슬iorn in the world
45:02When the enemy is inside of the world, he dying century to mend five desert.