Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. This is a fun when
Speaker 1: it's it's a weird one. I think we could call
Speaker 1: this an historical case of somebody having their heart in
Speaker 1: the right place. They're doing their best. Old Henry the
Speaker 1: what is it the fifth? I'm so bad at Roman numerals, Ben,
Speaker 1: I'm Noel, by the way, bad at Roman numerals Brown.
Speaker 1: But yeah, we're gonna have ourselves a good old fashioned
Speaker 1: ridiculous history. Love nd today in the form of a
Speaker 1: like you said, been very misguided yet well intentioned attempt
Speaker 1: at just getting everyone to get along, you know, during
Speaker 1: a little thing called the War of the Roses, which
Speaker 1: was like a century long pissing contest essentially between royals
Speaker 1: who are vying for the throne. Isn't that about sum
Speaker 1: it up? Yeah? Yeah. If you were to ask me, hey, Ben,
Speaker 1: what what is the Song of Ice and Fire slash
Speaker 1: Game of Thrones universe loosely based on, then I would
Speaker 1: say the Wars of the Roses because George R. R.
Speaker 1: Martin said that as well as we dive into what
Speaker 1: is known as Loveday. Let's give a shout out to
Speaker 1: our own aristocrats of ridiculous history are super producers Casey
Speaker 1: Pegram and Max Williams. Know you're right. This is a
Speaker 1: story of political intrigue. This is a story of weird diplomacy.
Speaker 1: This is a story of King Henry the six a
Speaker 1: attempts to keep the peace. Loveday was this symbolic reconciliation,
Speaker 1: and this particular love day happened between warring factions of
Speaker 1: English nobility. But before we dive into this, we should
Speaker 1: mention that Henry did not make love day up. This
Speaker 1: was a thing that already existed in medieval England and
Speaker 1: was meant to resolve legal differences under arbitration instead of
Speaker 1: common law, which we'll we'll dive into in just a bit.
Speaker 1: But we're talking about particular love day today, aren't we know?
Speaker 1: The love Day of fourteen fifty eight indeed, and what
Speaker 1: a lovely love day it was. But before we get
Speaker 1: into that, I think we should backtrack a little bit
Speaker 1: into the history of Henry the sixth himself, who was
Speaker 1: the youngest king of England, uh and not particularly good
Speaker 1: at it. He was fine at being young and just
Speaker 1: wasn't particularly good at being the king. He was born
Speaker 1: in fourteen twenty one. He inherited the own as a
Speaker 1: wee baby, a literal infant, you know, and then he
Speaker 1: grew into it and at least in terms of growing
Speaker 1: into you know, essentient being, but he never quite grew
Speaker 1: into the role and was considered quite incompetent and was
Speaker 1: blamed historically for the War of the Roses kind of
Speaker 1: from the get go, right. Yeah. See, that's the thing
Speaker 1: about a monarchy versus a meritocracy. Because you become the
Speaker 1: ruler based on your bloodline rather than your qualifications, you
Speaker 1: can end up in release surreal situations. Henry the sixth
Speaker 1: did become King of England on September one, fourteen two,
Speaker 1: but he was only nine months old at the time.
Speaker 1: He automatically became king because his father, Henry the fifth,
Speaker 1: passed away. He did have other people governing the day
Speaker 1: to day stuff in England until about fourteen thirty seven.
Speaker 1: By that point he was considered old enough to rule.
Speaker 1: He was, as he said, the youngest person to ever
Speaker 1: inherit the English throne at that point, and then he
Speaker 1: got promoted. How office space is this just to two
Speaker 1: years after he got the English throne, his grandfather, King
Speaker 1: Charles the sixth, died on October twenty one, and boom,
Speaker 1: Henry becomes King of France. That's right, he became. He
Speaker 1: was a double king. That's never occurred to me, but
Speaker 1: it sure seems potentially problematic. So he's proclaimed king of
Speaker 1: France because of something some some terms established in the
Speaker 1: fourteen twenty Treaty of Troyes, where the military success of
Speaker 1: his father essentially turned France into territories of England. But
Speaker 1: it was a little more complex than that, because you know,
Speaker 1: you can declare things territories, but you also have to
Speaker 1: govern them successfully and keep hold of them. H And
Speaker 1: at the end of the Hundred Years War, England had
Speaker 1: essentially lost all of the French territories and was left
Speaker 1: with only one called Calais, which I always think of
Speaker 1: as like a fancy like for like English vacation destination.
Speaker 1: There's also that what is it from the jabberwockie or
Speaker 1: it's like calloo Calais O fraptious day or something like that.
Speaker 1: That right then, yeah, yeah, it's spelled a little differently
Speaker 1: but pronounced roughly the same. So here we are Henry six,
Speaker 1: through no fault and no effort of his own, has
Speaker 1: become the king of two countries. Heavy weighs, the head
Speaker 1: that wears the crowd and soften said. And in August
Speaker 1: of fourteen fifty three, Henry the six contracted a mysterious illness,
Speaker 1: due perhaps in part to the stresses of being a monarch.
Speaker 1: He fell into what is described as an inertia that
Speaker 1: lasted more than a year, lasted eighteen months according to
Speaker 1: history extra dot com. This remains the subject of some
Speaker 1: no small amount of speculation the part of historians. Some
Speaker 1: historians will tell you that he was suffering from catatonic schizophrenia.
Speaker 1: The symptoms of this condition include things like stupor, catalepsy,
Speaker 1: loss of consciousness basically, and mutism. But other historians have
Speaker 1: just said, no, he had a mental breakdown. There was
Speaker 1: genetic precedent for this. We know now his maternal grandfather,
Speaker 1: Charles the sixth of France, also suffered from bouts of
Speaker 1: mental illness for the last three decades of his life.
Speaker 1: And not to get too highly speculative here, but there
Speaker 1: was mental health galore, and these sort of let's call
Speaker 1: them closed systems of breeding. That's a very diplomatic way
Speaker 1: to put it. The problem with in breeding is that
Speaker 1: it can lead to any number of damaging medical conditions
Speaker 1: or damaging genetic conditions. If you want to see the
Speaker 1: extreme version of this in European royalty, check out the Habsburg.
Speaker 1: You know what, just google hapspurg Chin. That's all you
Speaker 1: need to see, exactly right. So yeah, that you know,
Speaker 1: there are some accounts that kind of shed some light
Speaker 1: onto what this might have felt like at the time.
Speaker 1: One thing that you know, whatever you might want to
Speaker 1: call this, whether it be a mental breakdown or these
Speaker 1: recurring kind of fits of mental health issues, what we
Speaker 1: do know is that Henry was not particularly interested in
Speaker 1: engaging with the real world as it existed around him.
Speaker 1: And that also means not particularly interested in engaging in
Speaker 1: the day to day duties that are you know, governing.
Speaker 1: I mean there's a lot to that you kind of
Speaker 1: have to be with it or at the very least
Speaker 1: delegate it to somebody. Right, he doesn't seem like he
Speaker 1: was doing either of those things particularly well. And there's
Speaker 1: an account from this London merchant of when Henry essentially
Speaker 1: was introduced to his newborn son and kind of speaks
Speaker 1: to perhaps the way he viewed the world and others
Speaker 1: outside of his own mental bubble. And this is what
Speaker 1: he said. He looked on the prince and cast down
Speaker 1: his eyes again, and then he goes on to say
Speaker 1: they could obtain no word or sign from Henry, essentially
Speaker 1: saying he just kind of moved on, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's his own flesh and blood, it's his son, he's
Speaker 1: meeting for the very first time, and he just sort
Speaker 1: of regarded the child as an object and then kind
Speaker 1: of was like take it away. That about the shape
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, he wasn't really talking to people. And
Speaker 1: this lasted, as we said, for a period of eighteen months,
Speaker 1: waxed waned. Visitors to the king came to court to
Speaker 1: tell him that the Archbishop John Kempet died a few
Speaker 1: months later, and they couldn't get him to talk, or
Speaker 1: it didn't even look like he was listening. He was
Speaker 1: just sort of sitting there. And when he finally got
Speaker 1: out of this funk or he recovered, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: it was just incredibly depressed, but at some point he
Speaker 1: came out of this state and get this, folks. He
Speaker 1: was astonished to find that his wife had given birth
Speaker 1: to a son, because Edward, right, nol you had just
Speaker 1: said how Henry was introduced to his own son and
Speaker 1: was kind of like, uh yeah. Later later he goes, oh, wow,
Speaker 1: I have a kid. Uh Edward, Why didn't anyone tell me? Right?
Speaker 1: Edward was born in October fourteen fifty three, so that
Speaker 1: would have been just a few months after Henry the
Speaker 1: sixth became unwell. But there's a sidebar here and special
Speaker 1: shout out to our research associate, Gay Bluesier. A lot
Speaker 1: of historians and scholars described Henry the six as pious, simple,
Speaker 1: and puritan. The label does fit, and well we'll tell
Speaker 1: you why. But there's this theory we can call it
Speaker 1: that perhaps he was shocked that he had a son
Speaker 1: because he was well clueless in the bedroom, clueless when
Speaker 1: it came to matters of path should. He spent a
Speaker 1: lot of his free time meditating on the sufferings of Christ.
Speaker 1: He stayed in monasteries, he practiced something called Devoco Maderna,
Speaker 1: a movement for religious reform that was all about humility
Speaker 1: and obedience, and an historian named Lauren Johnson revealed that
Speaker 1: his his bedroom stuff may have been a lower priority
Speaker 1: for him to the point where he needed help. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: apparently he employed these services of a sex coach literally
Speaker 1: in the one time he was like required to, you know,
Speaker 1: consummate a relationship in his marriage bed. And Johnson, who's
Speaker 1: a scholar specifically investigating King Henry the sixth Private life,
Speaker 1: she says that she found some evidence in the National
Speaker 1: Archives and in the Royal Household, you know, records that
Speaker 1: indicated that Henry and his wife Margaret of Andrew were
Speaker 1: actually attended on by these coaches essentially during the marriage Act.
Speaker 1: Do my best to be very diplomatic today with these terms,
Speaker 1: but this is what Johnson told the Observer. Right, was
Speaker 1: it because the famously chased Henry didn't know what he
Speaker 1: was doing? I think it's entirely possible that it had
Speaker 1: reached a certain point where it perhaps became necessary to
Speaker 1: make clear to him what he should be doing that
Speaker 1: couldn't be done in a public way at all. The
Speaker 1: King's chamber is the most private place where you could
Speaker 1: be having this conversation or indeed checking what was going on.
Speaker 1: These are the days before sex head, you know, and
Speaker 1: it is definitely a tricky situation to have to tell
Speaker 1: a monarch what to do with such in such an
Speaker 1: intimate moment. He wasn't just checked out of the bedroom though,
Speaker 1: you know, harshly due to this illness, But overall he
Speaker 1: was checked out as a ruler for quite a while,
Speaker 1: and during his reign tensions skyrocketing. You know, when he
Speaker 1: was out for eighteen months, the government was leaderless and
Speaker 1: largely ruddered less. And that's when the Duke of York,
Speaker 1: who was the cousin to the King and himself has
Speaker 1: a claim to the throne, was appointed Lord Protector and
Speaker 1: first counselor of the realm. That Duke of York was
Speaker 1: Richard Plantagenets. So when the King found himself in better
Speaker 1: spirits on the other side of his affliction in fourteen
Speaker 1: fifty four, the protectorship of York and his powerful allies
Speaker 1: the Neville family ended, but the partisanship in the government remained.
Speaker 1: York was mad because he was increasingly excluded from exercising
Speaker 1: royal power. He questioned Henry the sixth ability to perform
Speaker 1: royal duties, mainly because he was often unwell, but also
Speaker 1: because he was, as history hit dot com put it,
Speaker 1: infamously gentle, yet an infamously gentle nature. So York was
Speaker 1: the Duke of York is like, this guy is way
Speaker 1: too nice to be king. Yeah, well, I mean and
Speaker 1: infamously gentle. Again we're into we're deep in diplomacy here
Speaker 1: is basically just weak, right, It's just saying that he
Speaker 1: is a weak He doesn't have the constitution or the
Speaker 1: stamina or the like, you know, drive to like do
Speaker 1: the job. You've gotta be brutal and relentless and then
Speaker 1: not you know, have too many scruples when it comes
Speaker 1: to ruling. You also have to kind of have the
Speaker 1: ambition to to do it and to the very least,
Speaker 1: you know, care a little bit and pay attention. But
Speaker 1: I gotta ask um, you know how in our government
Speaker 1: takes a lot to depose a ruler. You know, we
Speaker 1: we've had some wes situation in our previous president where
Speaker 1: there were some questions about his mental stability or psychological
Speaker 1: ability to do the job correct and it was very difficult.
Speaker 1: It was discussed the idea of invoking a clause I
Speaker 1: believe in the Constitution that would allow someone who is
Speaker 1: not fit to serve to be you know, forcibly removed
Speaker 1: and replaced. What allowed the Duke of York here to
Speaker 1: just come and it was literally just like a power grab.
Speaker 1: Well essentially, you know, you you could look at it
Speaker 1: that way. And also, of course we're referring to the
Speaker 1: twenty five Amendment here in the US, which has actually
Speaker 1: been used in the past, but maybe that's a story
Speaker 1: for another day. You're right, there are some power grabs
Speaker 1: here because Richard essentially said, you know, my cousin Henry
Speaker 1: would be better off as a monk. I am the
Speaker 1: person would be the best suited to be the king. Here.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of action that seems to be preemptive,
Speaker 1: right to assume the actions of other rivals and try to,
Speaker 1: you know, get to the fight before they do. For instance,
Speaker 1: in May of four, Richard leads an army again King
Speaker 1: Henry's Lancastrian army, in a bloody surprise attack that's now
Speaker 1: known as the First Battle of St Albans. And he
Speaker 1: did this because he believed that another duke, the Duke
Speaker 1: of Somerset, was going to ambush him if he didn't
Speaker 1: act first. And why do they call it the Wars
Speaker 1: of the Roses. Well, the Yorkist like Richard, were represented
Speaker 1: by a White Rose and the House of Lancaster to
Speaker 1: which Henry the Six belonged was represented by a red Rose.
Speaker 1: So essentially this grab from the Duke of York was
Speaker 1: kind of because Henry the Six was such weak sauce,
Speaker 1: you know, as a as a king and was doing
Speaker 1: such a poor job, he kind of opened up this
Speaker 1: power grab situation essentially. Yeah, yeah, I think you could
Speaker 1: say that the personal enemies of York and his allies,
Speaker 1: the Nevill's where the Duke of Somerset, the Earl of
Speaker 1: Northumberland and Word Clifford. All three of those individuals perished.
Speaker 1: And although this first battle is kind of a smaller
Speaker 1: deal in military terms, it was explosively important on a
Speaker 1: political level because King Henry got captured, he was a pow.
Speaker 1: He got escorted to London and then York was appointed
Speaker 1: capital p capital e Protector of England by Parliament just
Speaker 1: a few months later. But he had a problem. Got
Speaker 1: him a little bit of power he got. He got
Speaker 1: a temporary boost, you know what I mean, like when
Speaker 1: you get the star in Super Mario. Yes, he didn't
Speaker 1: get a permanent increase in power. He didn't get you know,
Speaker 1: a mushroom or one up. That's right. He did get
Speaker 1: this kind of temporary boost, you know, all of the
Speaker 1: Mario Star, but he wasn't really able to make it last.
Speaker 1: He did get a second Protectorate ship that was also
Speaker 1: quite short lived, and Henry the six ended it himself
Speaker 1: in fourteen fifty six because at that point he had
Speaker 1: a male heir in the form of Prince Edward, which
Speaker 1: I believe was that baby that he's so uh, kind
Speaker 1: of casually disregarded, right, but then when it came time
Speaker 1: for him to be a political pawn, he's like, oh cool,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna play this one. And that was his again,
Speaker 1: the daughter of his wife, Margaret of Andrew, and she
Speaker 1: actually emerged as a pretty significant power player in the
Speaker 1: Lancastrian revival. Yeah. Yeah, she's making moves. But war always
Speaker 1: has consequences, and just two years later, Henry and his
Speaker 1: government realized that they have an unfinished problem from that
Speaker 1: conflict at St. Albans, those three Yorkist lords who had
Speaker 1: died along with other people. Of course, they had children,
Speaker 1: and those younger magnates wanted revenge. You know, there's a
Speaker 1: princess bride moment. My name is Snigo Montoya. You killed
Speaker 1: my father, right, that's the that's how these guys feel,
Speaker 1: and they can rally forces of their own, So noblemen
Speaker 1: on both sides of the conflict start recruiting these retinues
Speaker 1: of armed followers. This is also occurring in the context
Speaker 1: of the ever present threat of the French right, who
Speaker 1: also probably want their stuff back. So Henry is thinking,
Speaker 1: we need to bring these Yorkists back into the fold.
Speaker 1: We need to make some sort of peace. As we said,
Speaker 1: he had been described as infamously gentle. Know what you said,
Speaker 1: you felt that was another way of saying week. I
Speaker 1: think that would be also a way of saying, uh, timid.
Speaker 1: You know, he's not like a bloodthirsty coonan to the
Speaker 1: barbarian kind of guy. He likes to hang out and
Speaker 1: you know, pray. So he instead of punishing people or
Speaker 1: starting another conflict, he tried to make peace. Once he
Speaker 1: ordered a deceased traders impaled body parts to be taken down,
Speaker 1: and he said the following He said, I will not
Speaker 1: have any Christian men so cruelly handled for my sake.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of classy, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like I don't want people to associate me with mutilated
Speaker 1: body parts. And then on good Friday. In fourteen fifty two,
Speaker 1: he issued almost a hundred and fifty pardons a hundred
Speaker 1: and forty four following an attempted rebellion by the Duke
Speaker 1: of York. Yeah, I gottapplaud him for his kind of
Speaker 1: focus on the zen of it all and like trying
Speaker 1: to convince people to just get along. But you also
Speaker 1: have to remember this is in the midst of a
Speaker 1: bloody conflict and and an absolute power grab, and it's
Speaker 1: almost like he's not quite getting it, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. Yeah, he almost kind of feels sorry for
Speaker 1: him in the one hand, because he really does seem
Speaker 1: like completely oblivious and disconnected from the reality that is
Speaker 1: the situation that he finds himself in the center of
Speaker 1: and maybe doesn't even realize how perhaps in danger his
Speaker 1: own life might be. Yeah. I hate to say it
Speaker 1: because I'm probably never going to meet him, but what
Speaker 1: we're learning about this guy makes me think that he
Speaker 1: was very sheltered, you know, in a way only a
Speaker 1: king could be. And there it seemed like for a
Speaker 1: lot of his life there were other people controlling him
Speaker 1: and telling him what to do, whether on the throne
Speaker 1: or in the bedroom. So in that kind of case.
Speaker 1: You could see how he may not be accustomed to
Speaker 1: making his own decisions, especially if they were tough decisions
Speaker 1: that can result in injury or death for other people.
Speaker 1: And so we come to Henry the six big bright idea.
Speaker 1: He realizes he has to do something, and so he says,
Speaker 1: let's have a love day. You know, as you mentioned
Speaker 1: at the top, a love day was a thing that
Speaker 1: already existed. We know the name sounds kind of uncreative now,
Speaker 1: but in the context of a love day, this arbitration period,
Speaker 1: love doesn't mean romantic love. It means an agreement or
Speaker 1: a settlement. And day in the legal sense of the time,
Speaker 1: just meant a case opening instead of a you know,
Speaker 1: a strict twenty four hour period. So this kind of
Speaker 1: case could you know, it could go on. It wasn't
Speaker 1: like a single physical day. So our Henry the Stix
Speaker 1: was definitely a lover, not a fighter, and he felt
Speaker 1: that it would be entirely possible to convert everyone else,
Speaker 1: all of these fighters in the world, to be lovers
Speaker 1: like him, if only he could get them to just
Speaker 1: you know, demonstrate to to just like you, put forth
Speaker 1: a gesture of goodwill towards each other, right, the lank
Speaker 1: Astrians and the Yorkists, and gosh, ben when when I
Speaker 1: look at Lankstrian, I mean that's basically Lancaster from freaking
Speaker 1: Game of Thrones. I mean, has to be that. I see.
Speaker 1: That's a good point. Excuse me, Lanisterister, Lanister Lancastrians. I
Speaker 1: think there has to be a connection there. But he
Speaker 1: wanted to demonstrate, you know, publicly, some sort of perceived
Speaker 1: goodwill between the Lancastrians and the Yorkists. So on March
Speaker 1: he attempted to do just that. He organized a parade
Speaker 1: or something, a procession, a promenade, what have you, where
Speaker 1: leading members of the Lancastrians and the yorks would go
Speaker 1: through the streets while holding hands. Yeah. Literally a come on, people, now,
Speaker 1: smile on your brother kind of moment. And it does
Speaker 1: seem a little bit naive. But let's let's return to
Speaker 1: our historian here, Lauren Johnson. Writing in BBC History Magazine,
Speaker 1: Johnson speculates a little bit more about why Henry the
Speaker 1: sixth was so conflict diverse, and she points out quote
Speaker 1: his uncles were ambitious men who blighted Henry's youth with
Speaker 1: their sometimes violent disputes time and again, Henry was called upon,
Speaker 1: despite his youth and inexperience, to resolve their quarrels, expected
Speaker 1: to serve as a final arbiter of complex adult dynamics
Speaker 1: that had taken form before he was born. As he
Speaker 1: was a sensitive, serious child. It's little wonder that he
Speaker 1: shrank from conflict in later life. So he had always
Speaker 1: been asked to make these judgment calls, and as far
Speaker 1: as we could tell, he hated it. He was like,
Speaker 1: very reasonably, hey stopped killing each other. But that is
Speaker 1: an argument that has failed time and time again, not
Speaker 1: just in the history of the British monarchy, but in
Speaker 1: human history, I would argue. And also it's a little
Speaker 1: bit of a folksy solution in the context of this time,
Speaker 1: because love day is like Loveday was something for like
Speaker 1: local matters, you know, like someone killed a cow or
Speaker 1: someone you know is letting their dog poop in your yard, right,
Speaker 1: and I would imagine that, you know, with let's just
Speaker 1: say the more colloquial version of this situation, right, Let's
Speaker 1: say like two farmers have a dispute over the loss
Speaker 1: of pf property and in the form of a cow,
Speaker 1: maybe you know, one farmer at kills the other one's cow.
Speaker 1: We know that the wars have been started over less
Speaker 1: right or specifically, there was one involving a pig, if
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken that we recently talked about. But you know,
Speaker 1: before this love end would take place in the streets,
Speaker 1: kind of sealing the deal. Imagine some money would have
Speaker 1: had to change hands, and then this was kind of
Speaker 1: just like the icing on the cake to publicly let
Speaker 1: people know, Okay, these two farmers are now friends again
Speaker 1: and we can go along our merry way. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and sometimes this had really happy endings, things that could
Speaker 1: be seen as quite endearing. So, as I said, love
Speaker 1: days were meant to settle things in a peaceful fashion.
Speaker 1: It's kind of the equivalent of saying, hey, we don't
Speaker 1: have to go to court over this, and you, Julie.
Speaker 1: They're traditionally a love day on a local level, not
Speaker 1: evolving that you know, the upper echelons of society would
Speaker 1: end in a party like imagine being able to resolve
Speaker 1: your disputes and then having a pizza party at the end.
Speaker 1: That's kind of what this was like. Josephine Water has
Speaker 1: been a medieval scholar, noted that one feast, according to
Speaker 1: the terms of the agreement, required more than five hundred
Speaker 1: gallons of gas, hoon and wine. That's the mall back,
Speaker 1: as well as too fat oxen and twelve fat sheep
Speaker 1: to be consumed in what both parties agreed would be
Speaker 1: quote a regular English jollification. And they were gonna they
Speaker 1: were gonna party. They were gonna party down because they've
Speaker 1: figured out their pasture dispute. I am going to start
Speaker 1: referring to parties as jollifications. Ben, I think it's a
Speaker 1: good one. I think you should go with that. That
Speaker 1: could be big for us. I think so too. But
Speaker 1: as you know, kind of was indicated from the start here,
Speaker 1: this one didn't really turn out that way. There was
Speaker 1: a lot more at stake and a lot more at
Speaker 1: play than anything this kind of touchy feeling could have
Speaker 1: probably sorted out. Right. Yeah, this is seriously taking a
Speaker 1: local dispute resolution tradition and applied it to a full
Speaker 1: blown civil war. It's like, imagine if trying to think
Speaker 1: of a way to say this, so imagine if a
Speaker 1: civil war broke out in the US and Joe Biden said, Okay, guys, everybody,
Speaker 1: come over, we're gonna get a couple of handles of whiskey. Well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna get you know what, what are party things
Speaker 1: people do. We're gonna get some fun hats. We're we're
Speaker 1: gonna get loaded and figure this out together. That I
Speaker 1: love the fact that both of us immediately went to
Speaker 1: fun hats as party things. But have you ever actually
Speaker 1: attended a party that involved fun hats. It's just sort
Speaker 1: of like this idealized version of what a party should be.
Speaker 1: Or maybe it's a nostalgic version of it from childhood
Speaker 1: where it's all about like, you know, fun cone shaped hats. Uh,
Speaker 1: But it's not really something that you really see much.
Speaker 1: But it is the first thing that our minds both
Speaker 1: jumped to. Yeah, you're right, maybe we should we should
Speaker 1: bring that back. I know there are things like cat
Speaker 1: parties that exist, and I know, you know over in
Speaker 1: the UK during Christmas celebrations, people do wear those paper crowds.
Speaker 1: You've seen those before, right, Absolutely, that's a thing that
Speaker 1: you will distribute at a dinner party for example. Um,
Speaker 1: and oftentimes they come with these little popper things that
Speaker 1: have not not like you know, the drug, but you
Speaker 1: know little things that have you know, little surprises inside
Speaker 1: like party poppers, you know, and you have you pull
Speaker 1: the string and and it shoots out confetti and maybe
Speaker 1: there's little treats or you know, toys or something like that.
Speaker 1: But the paper hats very much the thing in that world.
Speaker 1: And now that I'm thinking through this, I can imagine
Speaker 1: in some of those nobles who had had their their
Speaker 1: fathers killed looking askance at this, like, no, I'm not
Speaker 1: doing a hand holding parade, dude, my dad's dead. You know.
Speaker 1: That's that's a lot to ask people. And in general,
Speaker 1: this was seen as a symbotlic gesture, as you said earlier,
Speaker 1: and it's not a very good substitute for revenge after
Speaker 1: the deaths of friends and family members. But they went
Speaker 1: ahead and tried to get this mediation leading up to
Speaker 1: this love day. So two months before this procession, Henry
Speaker 1: mediated between these warring factions and it's it's a really
Speaker 1: weird arrangement. They summoned the English peerage to a Great
Speaker 1: Council in London in January four and they wanted, you know,
Speaker 1: the last thing they wanted to see was an armed
Speaker 1: conflict between the people they had brought together. It would
Speaker 1: be a very bad look to have just called them
Speaker 1: all to London and then for there to be blood
Speaker 1: in the streets. So city officials maintained around the clock
Speaker 1: armed watch, and these two different sides, the Yorkists and
Speaker 1: the Lancastrian lords, were kept separate. The Yorkists got to
Speaker 1: stay within the city walls, the Lancastrians had to stay outside.
Speaker 1: And even with all these precautions, Northumberland, Clifford and Egremont
Speaker 1: tried to ambush York and Salisbury as they rode from
Speaker 1: London to Westminster. So they had to have these folks
Speaker 1: under armed guard otherwise they would kill each other. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the king tried to, you know, preside over these
Speaker 1: mediations that were super cantankerous of course. And um, there
Speaker 1: were intermediaries that kind of you know, went back and
Speaker 1: forth between the two sides, Henry's lawyers or barristers or
Speaker 1: whatever you would call them. I guess they were more
Speaker 1: like mediators counselors. They met the Yorkists inside the city
Speaker 1: at this place called the Black Friars, and that was
Speaker 1: in the morning, and then the afternoons the same mediators
Speaker 1: would meet with the Lancastrian lords at the White Friars
Speaker 1: on Fleet street. Imagine these are two different monasteries been
Speaker 1: the Blackfriars and the White Friars. It seems very interesting
Speaker 1: that we have literally two diametrically opposing colors of Friars
Speaker 1: where these different warring sides would meet. Yeah. Blackfriars is
Speaker 1: an area by the southern fringes of the City of London,
Speaker 1: and the City of London is not the same thing
Speaker 1: as London. The City of London is in London, but
Speaker 1: it's kind of its own separate thing. We should make
Speaker 1: an episode on the City of London. Actually have been there.
Speaker 1: It's a trip, man. I agree. That sounds so. So
Speaker 1: these are this has nothing to do with religious orders
Speaker 1: or these are literally just two different neighborhoods. Yeah. Back
Speaker 1: in the day, Dominican Friars established a priory on the site,
Speaker 1: and so the name Blackfriars dates back to them when
Speaker 1: they came to the capital in twelve one, got it. Okay,
Speaker 1: that makes a little more sense. I thought it was
Speaker 1: pretty interesting that there were It was almost like the
Speaker 1: White Lodge and the Black Lodge, you know from from
Speaker 1: Twin Peaks. That's kind of what it made me think of. Okay,
Speaker 1: So they had these deliberations in the morning and then
Speaker 1: in the afternoon, and they eventually were able to settle
Speaker 1: where the Yorks were to pay Somerset five thousand marks
Speaker 1: and for Warwick to pay Clifford a thousand marks, and
Speaker 1: for Salisbury to not levy these like fines or duties
Speaker 1: for hostility against the Nevil's. And then there was a
Speaker 1: religious aspect too, because we have to remember Henry the
Speaker 1: sixth is arbitrating. Here the Yorkist had to endow the
Speaker 1: abbey at St Albans with forty five pounds per year
Speaker 1: for masses to be sung in perpetuity for the souls
Speaker 1: of the battles dead. The only thing like that on
Speaker 1: the Lancastrian side was a payment of a four thousand
Speaker 1: mark bond to maintain peace with the Nevil family, but
Speaker 1: not forever, just for ten years. Here you go, we'll
Speaker 1: give you a four thousand marks and then we won't
Speaker 1: fight for a decade, and also will determine blame. So
Speaker 1: the blame for Saint Albans have been placed squarely on
Speaker 1: the Yorkist because they're the ones who launched the surprise attack,
Speaker 1: you know, even if they thought they were doing it
Speaker 1: just to beat out another surprise attack. They ultimately quote
Speaker 1: unquote fired the first shot, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: although they obviously didn't use guns. Yeah, conceptually speaking, no,
Speaker 1: I totally get you. So now everything's good, right, We're
Speaker 1: all solid, Everyone's paid their due, and now it's time
Speaker 1: for that sweet sweet love end right hard to let
Speaker 1: the love day commence, let our love flags fly. And
Speaker 1: you know, this was I think Henry the six would
Speaker 1: have seen this as a success, this mediation, and I
Speaker 1: think he probably felt like this was probably his highest
Speaker 1: point of diplomacy where he had actually achieved some sort
Speaker 1: of resolution. Um So, now, in the spirit of that
Speaker 1: more kind of like local folksy tradition, in March of four,
Speaker 1: hundreds of English lords and ladies assembled at Westminster Abbey
Speaker 1: and walked holding hands through the streets of London along
Speaker 1: the Thames, the western bank of the Thames, all the
Speaker 1: way to St Paul's Cathedral. And this was what would
Speaker 1: be a traditional kind of love Day procession in order
Speaker 1: to you know, put a sweet red ribbon bow on
Speaker 1: this whole deal and finally put the War of the
Speaker 1: Roses to an end. Yeah, that's the idea. It's ambitious,
Speaker 1: it's very sweet. It's the kind of plan that you know,
Speaker 1: no offense, Henry. Maybe maybe it is something you should
Speaker 1: just draw on a piece of paper and then put
Speaker 1: up at your house so you can be proud of
Speaker 1: your self. I don't want to spoil it. But not
Speaker 1: everybody is as kiss and makeup and turn the other
Speaker 1: cheek oriented as our guy, Henry. But you know, they
Speaker 1: actually did go on this parade. As you mentioned, it
Speaker 1: was set for Ladies Day, a day that memorializes the
Speaker 1: Virgin Mary's hearing of the news that she would bear
Speaker 1: a child. So that's a big day. This day was
Speaker 1: also considered the start of the New year at the time.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until seventeen fifty two that England adopted January
Speaker 1: one is New Year's Day. This was also meant to
Speaker 1: be kind of a commercial for peace, a pr move
Speaker 1: for the non nobles of London, you know, because they're
Speaker 1: the ones who are disproportionately affected by the hazards of war,
Speaker 1: you know, So this is meant to show you, you know,
Speaker 1: the average shopkeeper, the average resident of London, that hey
Speaker 1: wars over this is a time of peace. In fact,
Speaker 1: John's Sadler, the author of The Red Rose and the
Speaker 1: White who like he literally wrote a history book about
Speaker 1: the English Civil Wars. He says, quote it was a
Speaker 1: bit Hollywood. There was a lot of pump about it,
Speaker 1: banners flying, drums beating. It was a show. And no,
Speaker 1: we know it's the show because we have an excerpt
Speaker 1: of a ballad that was composed to celebrate this. Do
Speaker 1: you do you wanna bless us with a reading? There? Man? Boy?
Speaker 1: Would I ever been before I do the reading that
Speaker 1: I want to say? You mentioned the Hazards of War.
Speaker 1: There is also a quite good Decembrist album called the
Speaker 1: Hazards of Love, and I think that applies here because
Speaker 1: it turns out that like forcing people, even if they
Speaker 1: have quote unquote made nice or like awarded each other institutions,
Speaker 1: forcing them to hold hands and like you know, kiss
Speaker 1: and make up, it can breed further resentments and the escalations.
Speaker 1: But let's do this reading before we get to that.
Speaker 1: At Paul's in London, with great renown, on our Lady
Speaker 1: Day in Lent, this piece was wrought the King, the
Speaker 1: Queen with lords many one went in procession in sight
Speaker 1: of all the commonality in token that love was in heart,
Speaker 1: and thought, Ben, what is this rhyming scheme, I don't.
Speaker 1: I feel like I was totally missing the boat on.
Speaker 1: I see there is a rhyming scheme. We've got renown
Speaker 1: and uh what, No, renown doesn't rhyme with anything renown
Speaker 1: maybe because then it's many one. And then you've got
Speaker 1: wrought rhyming with thought and procession. Now that's really it.
Speaker 1: I don't think there is a rhyming scheme bend. That's
Speaker 1: the only one. Though, Well, we have to think of
Speaker 1: pronunciation one procession. You know, there's play with procession common
Speaker 1: but what about commonality that. Yeah, that's just a weird one.
Speaker 1: That's where the beat drops. That's totally where the and
Speaker 1: it's just acapella real quick, and then it picks back up. Uh,
Speaker 1: you're right, you're right. There is a little bit of
Speaker 1: a lost in translation vibe there. Sadler says. The women
Speaker 1: in particular would have looked like the fifteen century equivalent
Speaker 1: of footballer's wives. Everybody was dolled up. Everybody's dressed the nines,
Speaker 1: he's saying. But beneath all this pomp and all this
Speaker 1: fancy dress and all these fun, slant rhyming songs, there
Speaker 1: was still a lot of tension, and within two years
Speaker 1: of this famous Loveday procession, the majority of the men
Speaker 1: who walked together holding hands in London would be dead,
Speaker 1: and these wars would go on for nearly thirty more years. Because,
Speaker 1: as you said, as our pal Gabe said, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of ways to end the war, and making
Speaker 1: people hold hands in public is apparently not the best solution.
Speaker 1: They put up with it, partially because the King told
Speaker 1: them to, but they knew it wasn't really gonna work.
Speaker 1: Queen Margaret had already started kind of being the power
Speaker 1: behind the throne while the king was in and out
Speaker 1: for eighteen months. So she was at the front of
Speaker 1: the procession. She was holding hands with Richard of York,
Speaker 1: and he hated her. They hated each other. Richard Nelville,
Speaker 1: the Earl of Warwick, held hands with the Duke of Somerset,
Speaker 1: who was Henry Beaufort in Beaufort's father had been killed
Speaker 1: at St. Alban's uh St Albans was the original kind
Speaker 1: of conflict that was started by the Duke of York.
Speaker 1: Then who has made Lord protect her? And if I'm
Speaker 1: not mistaken, correct, correct? And so they had to hold
Speaker 1: each other's hands. The people that they hated, probably the
Speaker 1: most in the world, and they had to walk with
Speaker 1: them for two miles pretending that it wouldn't make their
Speaker 1: day if the other person was dead, preferably in a slow,
Speaker 1: painful fashion. But I'm sorry, this is gonna sound like
Speaker 1: a really dumb question. But the show is called history,
Speaker 1: so I'm okay with it. The two factions, the Yorks
Speaker 1: and the Lancasters, they're not boring over the crown exactly right.
Speaker 1: They're not mean because the king is in place and
Speaker 1: he's the one who's forcing them to do all this stuff.
Speaker 1: So what exactly are they at odds over? They do
Speaker 1: want control of the throne of England, but the king
Speaker 1: is he just too dim to be aware that they're
Speaker 1: vying for like his job? Does he not care or
Speaker 1: does he does not see the threat? I'm confused as
Speaker 1: to why he is so flippant and just kind of
Speaker 1: like clueless about this? Is that? Is it really that
Speaker 1: simple that he just doesn't quite does a click for him?
Speaker 1: He Yeah, he did have mental issues, we believe, and
Speaker 1: it was his weak rule. W e A K? I
Speaker 1: mean here that brought the House of York's claim. Richard
Speaker 1: of York's claim to the throne back to the public eye,
Speaker 1: gathered more support for it because they people were saying, well,
Speaker 1: we could do better than Henry the sixth, So so
Speaker 1: more iron fisted monarch would have had these warring factions
Speaker 1: drawn and quartered in the streets to make a statement,
Speaker 1: as opposed to having them, you know, hold hands and
Speaker 1: skip merrily through the streets together. Yeah, just making sure
Speaker 1: I wasn't missing something entirely, because this all just seems
Speaker 1: completely bonkers to me. So here's the thing. After going
Speaker 1: through the motions of this gesture and holding the parade
Speaker 1: and everything, Henry the sixth retreats politically. Queen Margaret is
Speaker 1: at the cap bird seat again. She's driving the Loveday
Speaker 1: piece accord. Spoiler alert doesn't work out. This was like
Speaker 1: a soap opera according to our story and Sadler, We've
Speaker 1: got a cast of characters, we've got all their entourages.
Speaker 1: They turned these small misunderstandings and all this historical baggage
Speaker 1: into an ongoing, disastrous drama. Less than two months after
Speaker 1: the Loveday, May the Earl of Warwick throwze the agreement
Speaker 1: out and he this is probably my favorite phrase in
Speaker 1: this story, and there are a lot of great phrases
Speaker 1: he engages in. Some get this casual piracy along the
Speaker 1: coast of Calais, where he had been exiled by the Queen. No.
Speaker 1: I love the phrase casual piracy. Casual piracy. You know,
Speaker 1: it's you see exactly what it means. It's like going
Speaker 1: to the target with those lists. Just vibes it just so.
Speaker 1: I mean, I would assume casual piracy means there wasn't
Speaker 1: so much a plan or like some sort of master plan,
Speaker 1: or that it was particularly organized. It was just kind
Speaker 1: of like, well, we're here, we might as well do
Speaker 1: a little smashing and grabbing, perhaps a little ripe it
Speaker 1: in pillage exactly. That's that's what that's. And I know
Speaker 1: it's horrible because you know it is piracy, and people
Speaker 1: were injured and probably killed. But I just love the
Speaker 1: idea of someone seeing another boat and going, oh, while
Speaker 1: we're here, you know what I mean, let's do something.
Speaker 1: Well remember totally so mean the War of the Roses.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, Henry dies of course in May
Speaker 1: one of fourteen seventy one. The War of the Roses
Speaker 1: continues on for quite a long time. I mean, this
Speaker 1: really was sort of the beginning of it. He tries
Speaker 1: to quell it with this gesture of like goodwill, but
Speaker 1: it obviously doesn't work, blows up in his face, and
Speaker 1: then he dies after retreating. Politically, we know this conflict
Speaker 1: went on for a long time, right, so how when
Speaker 1: did it actually actually end? The actual actual end of
Speaker 1: the Wars of the Roses is generally considered to be
Speaker 1: June seven, meaning the whole thing from Stem disturb lasted
Speaker 1: for thirty two years, three weeks, and four days. We
Speaker 1: gotta tell you how how this all broke down. Margaret
Speaker 1: hears about this casual piracy and it's either too casual
Speaker 1: or too formal for her. Maybe it's just because it's piracy.
Speaker 1: She summons the Earl to London, the Earl of Warwick,
Speaker 1: to answer for his actions. A scuffle breaks out, and
Speaker 1: so she takes this opportunity and accuses the Earl of Warwick,
Speaker 1: the Duke of York, and some other nobility on their
Speaker 1: side of treason in October of fourteen fifty nine, and
Speaker 1: she says the Duke has most diabolical unkindness and wretched envy.
Speaker 1: She says the Loveday procession is curdled into a Parliament
Speaker 1: of devils and the Roses were at it again, and
Speaker 1: this would continue for another generation. And as he said, well,
Speaker 1: Henry expires on May twenty one, fourteen seventy one, which
Speaker 1: means he died before the conflicts concluded. And weirdly enough,
Speaker 1: he became more popular after his death than he was
Speaker 1: when he was alive because he was a nice dude.
Speaker 1: He was like a nice guy, but he just he
Speaker 1: was a terrible king. I think that's why a lot
Speaker 1: of this is so hard to wrap my head around,
Speaker 1: is because we're just not you too genuinely nice monarchs.
Speaker 1: And I think that's because it typically mean you aren't
Speaker 1: suited for the job if you're too nice. And it
Speaker 1: seems like that was a criticism that was thrown in
Speaker 1: him plenty. But like happens a lot of times, you know,
Speaker 1: hindsight being and all that, he has remembered much more
Speaker 1: fondly than he was treated when he was alive. When
Speaker 1: he was alive, he was kind of treated as an
Speaker 1: inconvenience and you know, weakling and this, that and the other.
Speaker 1: But when he passed, like I was saying at May
Speaker 1: one of fourteen seventy one, he started almost being treated
Speaker 1: like a saint. People were coming and making pilgrimages to
Speaker 1: shirt See Abbey where he was buried. That's before the
Speaker 1: new king, Richard the Third, had Henry's remains moved to St.
Speaker 1: George's Chapel in Windsor. And there was this notion that
Speaker 1: Henry was this like kind of saintly man, not just
Speaker 1: a nice man, but a holy man. And there's a
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred book that showed up that was almost like
Speaker 1: the Gospel of Henry, know, where it talked about his
Speaker 1: ability to perform miracles, including like resurrecting plague victims. It's
Speaker 1: almost this whole mythology that grew up around this dude
Speaker 1: after he died. And again, you know this, We know
Speaker 1: that he did do things like have you know body
Speaker 1: parts removed from the city walls, that he pardoned all
Speaker 1: these people. So it seems like there's a grain of
Speaker 1: truth in this that blossomed and so out and out
Speaker 1: him walking on water and performing miracles. So where did
Speaker 1: all this come from? Well, according to and his storian
Speaker 1: named Desmond Seward, a lot of it came from the
Speaker 1: unfortunate circumstances of Henry's death. He was unjustly murdered and
Speaker 1: Seward believes this created widespread pity for a king who,
Speaker 1: after his deposition, was treated like a thief and put
Speaker 1: to death without having committed any crime. He just became
Speaker 1: too much of a liability politically. Also, you know, ridiculous
Speaker 1: historians to the crowd out of a certain age with
Speaker 1: a certain depth of experience. May recall that similar observations
Speaker 1: were made. Whether or not you agree with him, similar
Speaker 1: observations were made about the US President Jimmy Carter. There
Speaker 1: were a lot of people were saying, this guy is
Speaker 1: too nice to be president. Yeah, no, it's true, And
Speaker 1: I get it. History almost took pity on him and
Speaker 1: kind of created maybe not history, but like those who
Speaker 1: are responsible for writing certain portions of this history, and
Speaker 1: I guess decided to give him some superpowers in the afterlife,
Speaker 1: right right, which is nice. But is it as nice
Speaker 1: as not being murdered? I would say probably not. Maybe
Speaker 1: it depends on your perspective. But this ends the story
Speaker 1: of Henry the sixth. I would say, this noble, if
Speaker 1: misguided effort to make people be a little bit nicer
Speaker 1: to each other. It didn't work, you know, but it
Speaker 1: was very nice of him to try that really was
Speaker 1: the alternatives, And it's like, you don't even get a
Speaker 1: whiff of the types of megalomaniacal acts the most young
Speaker 1: monarchs tend to absolutely thrive on. You know, I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: we're talking about Game of Thrones. I'm wondering if they
Speaker 1: took this character, maybe this character is common. You know
Speaker 1: who who who is the sweet boy who you know
Speaker 1: ultimately was the younger brother of Jeoffrey, who was an
Speaker 1: absolute monster. So obviously there's some bits and pieces and
Speaker 1: picking and choosing to make it, but I'm really totally
Speaker 1: seeing the parallels here. But it turns out that we
Speaker 1: in the history had a pretty benevolent, if misguided and uh,
Speaker 1: not particularly suited for the job monarch. But this was
Speaker 1: a cool one. Man. I wonder we should do more
Speaker 1: War of the Roses related stuff. This is there's a
Speaker 1: lot to it. I imagine a lot of different factions
Speaker 1: and in fighting, and this is a great, great primer,
Speaker 1: great place to no real dragons though, but I agree
Speaker 1: with you, No, there is one thing I'd like to
Speaker 1: leave us all with, which is this, If you would
Speaker 1: like to take up some of the practices of the
Speaker 1: Cult of Henry the Six there's a very simple thing
Speaker 1: you can do if you want Henry the six they
Speaker 1: come back from the dead and perform a miracle for you.
Speaker 1: All you have to do is take a silver coin
Speaker 1: and bend it as an offering to the saint. Now,
Speaker 1: all we've got to do is find some silver coins.
Speaker 1: What do you think? Wait, so he was officially canonized. No, no,
Speaker 1: not at all. More of god It folks. I love
Speaker 1: a good folks sing and um, I think that's a
Speaker 1: great idea. And this is completely unrelated, but I just
Speaker 1: in the interest of turning folks onto some interesting um cinema.
Speaker 1: I recently saw an a twenty four kind of psychological
Speaker 1: horror film called Sat maud Um, which is also sort
Speaker 1: of about a folk saint. And it is not for
Speaker 1: the squeamish, but I highly recommend it. But does a
Speaker 1: really good job at like looking at mental health and
Speaker 1: kind of you know, the some of the perceptions of
Speaker 1: people with with mental illness. And I highly recommend St
Speaker 1: maud Yeah, I remember that one is well worth the watch.
Speaker 1: Do check it out. And while you're on the internet,
Speaker 1: why not I come say high to us. You can
Speaker 1: find Ridiculous History on our Facebook page. Ridiculous Historians, and
Speaker 1: you can also send us an email where we are
Speaker 1: ridiculous at I heart media dot com. Huge thanks super
Speaker 1: producer Casey Pegram, super producer Max Williams Alex Williams who
Speaker 1: composed this theme, and of course big thanks with a
Speaker 1: big asterix to our good friends Slash Nemessies Jonathan Strickland
Speaker 1: a k a. The Quister. Someone bend a silver coin
Speaker 1: for us to win the next time he drops by,
Speaker 1: which hopefully won't be today. I think we gotta cut
Speaker 1: a short we do, but while you're on the internet,
Speaker 1: do yourself a favor and check out our brand new
Speaker 1: sister podcast, Ridiculous Romance with Eli and Diana, getting some
Speaker 1: amazing reviews so far on the Internet, which is not
Speaker 1: known for being particularly nice. So that warmed my heart
Speaker 1: and I'm sure it did yours as well. Then it
Speaker 1: did indeed, and spoiler alert, they're gonna becoming an hour
Speaker 1: show very soon, so stay tuned. We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.