S1 E4: The Walking Dead

The Royal Mint to the Tower of London is hot, noisy and dangerous. The air is foul with noxious fumes. The men working in there with bellows, tongs, hammers and coin dyes spend all day heating precious metals until they melt and shimmer, mixing, purifying and then turning them into coins of the realm. It's a specialized job that requires a high tier security clearance and a tolerance for discomfort, but sometimes it can be a front row seat to the greater fairs of the realm. Today, in 1494, is one of those days. The Mint has had orders to produce a batch of limited edition coins known as jetons. They're struck from silver and they come embossed with a load of meaningful symbols. There's the imperial crown of the English Royal House, a coat of arms displaying traditional lions and flurderly, a rose, but if the men bashing out these coins pours to look closely at them, which surely they do, they will see that there's more to them than mere pictograms. These coins also have an inscription on each side. On one side, in Latin, they say God save the king. It's conventional that it's actually part of a quotation from the Bible that asks God to keep the king safe and intervene to help him if he's in danger. It's drawn from a sarm, written as a prayer for kings going into battle. The other inscription is in Aramaic, the original language Jesus would have spoken. It says "counted, weighed and divided." Now that's pretty cryptic, but it's probably a reference to one of the biggest scandals to have hit the Royal Household since Henry Tudor came to the throne in 1485. Read the inscriptions together, and it's clear, these coins are being cast to capture a political moment like no other. For the last four years, the Tudor King of England has been buffeted by the swirling winds of rebellion and foreign war. He's grown convinced that there are traitors lurking in the shadows, plotting to bring his reign and his dynasty tumbling down. He's right. Recently, he's learned there's a plotter working right in the heart of his inner circle. That's what the Aramaic inscription is talking about. Henry's managed to deal with the crisis, but he's finding it harder to shut down the problem referred to by the Latin inscription, the one that asks God to save the king in time of war. For the last four years, Henry's been tormented by a bizarre character who's been running around the courts of Europe, making blockbuster claims about the Tudor's right to the English crown. To begin with, this was a bit of a joke, but it's been going on for long enough now that Henry knows his tormentor could be an existential threat. As the coins suggest, this is crunch time for the young Tudor dynasty. He needs to find a way to shut down the relentless attacks on his legitimacy and the threat to England's public order. Otherwise, his enemies are standing by to cash in on his misfortune. I'm Dan Jones and from Sony Music Entertainment, this is History. It's in one of the Tudors, episode four, The Walking Dead. Hello friends, I can't wait to hand you over to yet another edition of Whose Crown Is It Anyway, but before I do, a gentle reminder from me that you can get this week's bonus episode by becoming one of my royal favourites. This time, I delved deeper into why Henry Tudor's enemies thought dress up was going to save them, and why Francis Charles VIII lets England off the hook. Patreon.com/thesishistory is where to find it. Add free. You never know who's going to show up on For the Love with Jin Hatmaker, from Mel Robbins to Tignitaro, Kate Boller to Stanley Tucci. I'm Jin Hatmaker, and every week, my dear friend Amy and I dive deep with incredible guests, who make us laugh, and cry, and think a little bigger about life in the middle years. For the Love, we're great stories meet unforgettable people. Follow and listen wherever you get your podcasts. This is Bad Blood, the final chapter, a deep dive into the evidence against Elizabeth Holmes as we follow her federal trial. I'm John Carrier, and since then, I've learned a lot more about how she did it, how she got away with it for so long. This is what happens when you work to change things. With every new delay, every new development, first they think you're crazy, then they fight you. It seems less and less certain the prosecution can pull it off. And then all of a sudden you change the world. In the years leading up to this trial, things have gotten complicated, the missing laboratory database. There are a lot of people who are doing anything to destroy all that. Fractured relationships. It's often claimed that Albert Einstein defined madness as doing the same thing and expecting different results. Ironically, I've been repeating that quotation for years, expecting people to start treating me as a self-help guru, and weirdly it hasn't happened yet, but I think I might have worked out why. Because a bit of research I just did into the origins of famous quotes while I was writing this episode says there's no evidence that Einstein did define madness in such a way. Apparently, the idea derives from a narcotics anonymous leaflet published in the 1980s. Although the sentiment may feel accurate, it was not the 20th century's presiding physics genius who came up with it. Rather, it was the insight of some put upon pamphleteer tasked with persuading people to surrender themselves to a higher power than the funsy's end of a crack pipe. Anyway, why am I sharing this? Huh, yeah, because in this episode of This Is History, The Tudors, I'm going to tell you an oddly familiar story. It's the tale of how Tudor England was rocked to its foundations by a pretender to the throne. A kid with a weird name who made up a fantasy yarn about being a Yorkist prince, secured the backing of Margaret of Burgundy and a gang of Irishmen, invaded England and created an existential crisis for the embattled King Henry VII. As Morrissey once sang, "Stop me, oh please stop me, stop me if you think that you've heard this one before." As we heard in episodes 2 and 3, in the 1480s, Henry VII came within whiskers of being worm food, thanks to the phony-principying of a kid from Oxfordshire called Lambert Rundle. In the 1490s, the baton is passed to a lad from Flanders called Perkin Warbeck. This new pretender plot draws in many of the survivors from the gang who backed Simnal. They figure that Warbeck is wilder, more persuasive, he has a better backstory and he comes with the support of some of the most powerful kings in Europe. Are they on to a genius idea or are they off their rockers? Buckle up, let's find out. As far as anyone beyond his dear old muman, Popeyes concerned, Perkin Warbeck's career gets going one fine afternoon in the autumn of 1491 in the Irish city of Corp. Now like many Irish cities, cork harbors a number of old Yorkists. On this particular afternoon, two of them are walking along the waterfront when they see a young man dressed in fine silk clothes with a curiously regal look to his face. He looks so regal, in fact, that the two fellas almost fall over at the sight. They're convinced that this is none other than Edward Earl of Warwick, 16 year old son of the dear Yorkist prince George Duke of Clowns. IE the kid the first pretender Lambert Simnal was impersonating. Oh, and as a sidebar, if you want to remind yourself who George Duke of Clarence was, head to our humongous "This Is History" archive and check out episode 8 of season 10 of our Plantagenet Saga, a dynasty to die for. Anyway, when these two challenge our silk-wearing stranger and ask him who he is, he replies with a thick foreign accent that he's perk in Warbeck, a middle-class Flemish boy from Toonai, who's apprenticed to a cloth merchant, and he's in town to do some deals. "Look, Fekiar," says the Irishman, "and they take Warbeck for a few pints of Guinness and convince him, one way or another, that he would be an excellent stooge in a plot they're hatching to give the King of England a headache. There's a network of chewed abating rebels inside and outside England, and they've all sworn not to rest until they've clipped Henry and put a claimant from the House of York on the throne instead. We're in the market for a Yorkist prince, real or fake, to spearhead their campaign. And while it's true that Lambert Simnall's misadventures didn't set a great precedent, they're all still willing to give the pretender gambit another go. This time though, the guys say, they're going to be clever about it. The real Edward Earl of Warwick is banged up in the Tower of London, all plots to bust him out of so far being foiled, but what if, what if, Perkin Warbeck with his prince charming hair, scarlet cheeks, and the characteristic long plantagenet nose pretended to be another prince in the tower, one who could not so easily be proven to actually be in the tower, what if, Perkin Warbeck were to claim to be prince Richard, the younger of the sons of Edward IV, who's been missing since Richard III's day. Everyone assumes that young prince Richard, along with his brother, Edward V, was murdered, shortly after a bad uncle Richard III took the throne, and they almost certainly assumed right. But, no bodies have ever been produced. No burial has taken place, there's no shrine, there's no tomb, so no one could actually prove that Perkin Warbeck wasn't the real prince, and that would make him a much more potent weapon. What's more, it's well known among those who frequent anti-tuda talk boards that there are a few powerful people in Europe who'd like nothing more and to give their backing to a plot like this. One of them is Margaret of Burgundy, the clever, grudge-bearing, highly intelligent sister of old Edward IV and Richard III. She's still ready and willing to sponsor plots against the Tudor King she despises, and there's another Tudor Bater out there, too. That's Charles VIII, King of France. Charles's nickname is "the affable", and he was certainly affable to Henry Tudor back in 1485, when he supplied him with ships and men for his successful bid to become English King. Recently though, Charles has turned on the Tudors. As we heard last time, Henry has been co-seeing up to the newly united kingdom of Spain, striking a deal with the Spanish that, specifically, sticks both middle fingers up in the direction of Paris. So Charles is itching to teach Henry a lesson. With support like this, and some big swinging Irish oles on maneuvers, this new pretender plot has legs, or at least that's where the lads bending perk in Warbexia tell him. One way or another, Warbex takes the bait. He sacks off learning how to sell cloth and takes up learning how to pedal bullshit instead. By Christmas 1491, Henry Tudor's spies in Ireland are sending word that "another plastic Yorkist is in play", and Henry is sending small numbers of troops over to the English ruled stronghold of Dublin with a license to investigate, but the plotters are one step ahead. And as soon as Henry s squad of problem eliminators arrives in the emerald aisle, Warbex is bundled onto an outgoing ship. By the spring of 1492, he s in France, hanging out at the court of King Charles VIII. He s given a fake royal household and addressed as King Richard of England. He s also assigned a professional horse-ship coach, a guy called Etienne Frion, who was once King Edward IV s secretary. Frion feeds Warbeck fake memories and everything he supposedly knew when he was a little brinsling at his daddy s real-life Yorkist court in England, and it s not long before Warbeck is looking and sounding like the real deal, the long-lost heir to the Yorkist throne, a strapping teenager who s right to rule trumps that of everyone, including Henry Tudor. The puppet is coming to life and dancing on its strings. All that remains is for his puppet masters to throw him into the fray. A huge gallows has been built in the town square in York, and hundreds of citizens have come out to see a grisly show. The gallows has two levels to it, and nooses and ladders stand by on both. Royal agents bark at the restless crowds to stand back as the prisoners are brought through to a very mixed reception. As is usually the way, some of those in the crowd are content to barric the condemned men, but the atmosphere is uneasy. Just as many of those who have turned out have sour looks on their faces, they would happily see the royal agents strung up instead. The top tier on the gallows is saved for the ring leaders, including a man called John Chamber. He's more or less a celebrity here in the North, which is how he s ended up here. A few weeks ago he was at the forefront of a series of riots against the Tudor Crown. Chamber helped stir the ordinary folk of the North up against various royal policies. High taxes levied in a year of poor harvests lay at the core of the popular anger Chamber exploited, but there was also a lot of deep lying hostility against the Tudors just for being Tudor. In the course of the riots, the most powerful loyal lord in the North, the pro-Tudor Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, was murdered. The word on the street is that his murderers saw his death as revenge for Percy having backed the Tudor Cours at the Battle of Bosworth, and betraying Richard III, who's basically a saint in these parts. For his hand in this, Chamber gets the most prominent death of all the rebels. His corpse dangles from the highest pond of the gallows, as a warning from the regime to all would-be rabble-rouses and trouble-makers, think carefully before you try it on. This grim scene, slaughter in response to slaughter, plays out on the gallows of York in 1489. A couple of years before Perkin Warbeck is launched as putitive prince in the tower reborn. But it's part of a pattern of insurrection and plotting that Henry Tudor simply can't get a grip on, try as he might. For every moment of celebration and pageantry, his wife's coronation, the birth of another royal baby, there seems to be a dagger thrust towards the heart of his regime. So that's why, when he hears about Warbeck in 1491, there must be a weary sense in Henry's heart of, "Here we go again." By all accounts, the king is a decent guy, a pretty amiable company. He's not a deranged tyrant, a zealot, a debauched pig, or a weakling, like so many of the plantagenets that came before him, but he seems to be copying it harder than any of them. Almost every week his advisors bring him news of some New Yorkist sympathizer who's been up to no good. And now that Warbeck is an active player, there's a steady stream of defections. Swingly loyal knights and royal servants who flip, bolt from court, and turn up a few weeks later in France, pledging their allegiance to Warbeck, or, as he would have it, King Richard IV. By the middle of 1492, it's clear that Warbeck's claim to be one of the princes in the tower as touched up. nerve in England. It's causing people to question everything they thought they knew for sure. It's impossible to argue that Henry has a better right to be king than Edward IV's youngest son. So if there's even a sliver of a chance that this kid over in Paris is telling the truth, all bets are off. As one pro-tuda writer puts it, wide-spread plotting begins involving nobles as well as knights. And remember, there's not much that Henry can do to prove that Perkin Warbeck isn't who he says he is. When the enemy was Lambert Simmel, Henry had already made response. Lambert said where he was Edward Earl of Warwick. Henry simply showed that the real Earl of Warwick was a prisoner in the Tower of London. He's helpless to do anything of the sort against Warbeck. He can, and does, continue to sniff for traitors at court and among the English political classes. Those who are caught know that if they escape with their lives, they'll suffer Henry's go-to penalty of a tinder. That's a legal cancellation of all their rights to land and title, which falls on their relations as well as them. It's the complete ruin of a whole family for all time. But some are still willing to risk it. And with Warbeck backed by Charles VIII of France, there'll always be a warm embrace across the channel to anyone who wants to throw their lot in with the rebel cause. Henry knows how that goes. After all, it was him once upon a time. He also knows deep down, but with the situation as it is, if he wants to get rid of Warbeck, he's going to have to go hard, really hard. It's not so much using a sledgehammer to crack a nut as using a jackhammer to hit someone in the nuts. If the French want to weaponize Warbeck to reopen the Wars of the Roses, so be it. In the summer of 1492, Henry decides to give Charles VIII his very own blast from the past. The hundred years' war is also supposed to be over. Not anymore. Henry starts raising an army for the ultimate back to the future move, a full-blown invasion of France. Observe the North American dad. Fifty's. Great polo collection. He enters his vehicle information on Carvana and offers appears in minutes. Remarkable. He squints, reads it again, smiles and says, "Dang, that's a good offer." The highest form of approval. No haggling. No hassle. No one called him boss. He's still on the couch, astonishing. Sell your car today on Carvana.com. Pick up these may apply. Sir John Savage creeps out of his pavilion in the English camp outside Boulogne, accompanied by just one man, his friend John Rizzley. It's night and the camp is still and restful. They creep between tents full of slumbering men and the campfires that cooked last night's rations dying down. Then they saddle up their horses and ride towards the city walls. Savage and Rizzley have been around the block more than once. Both guys are military veterans who fought at the Battle of Bosworth. Since then, they've been loyal servants to the Tudor Crown. They're not noble men, but they're the sort of characters who've been useful to Henry VII as he tries to piece royal authority back together. They're happy to crack skulls if skulls need cracking and they'll turn out to do royal dirty work in exchange for offices and royal favour. Indeed, we met John Savage on just such a mission in episode two this season, smashing down the door of a church to hoik a pair of rebels out of sanctuary. Now he's on a far bigger mission, helping Henry put one in the eye of King Charles of France. Savage and Rizzley trot towards Boulogne, their eyes peeled. They've taken it upon themselves to have a good look at the state of the city's defences. It's late October and Henry Tudor's huge army of 12,000 men has only just arrived here from England via Calle, so Intel is short on the ground. Savage and Rizzley figure that if they can go to the king in the morning and tell him exactly where Boulogne's weak points are, they'll score major brownie points. It's late in the year to be fighting a campaign, and Henry has never led any mission of this size and complexity overseas, so the more they can offer him the better. The king's goal isn't to conquer France, but he wants to inflict maximum damage in minimum time. If he can do that, he'll force Charles VIII into big concessions. There's a whole long-running beef between the kings involving Brittany, but on top of that is Charles' snakey harboring of Perkin Warbeck, the pretender king. Helping the Tudor dynasty to solve problems like that is the sort of thing Savage and Rizzley live for. They spur their horses towards Boulogne and start making mental notes. Almost straight away, they run into trouble. Heading right towards them is a mob of Frenchmen on patrol. They've been clocked, and the Bremunching bastards are well and truly onto them. Rizzley kicks his horse and tries to flee, but Savage, he has other ideas. Years later, a Tudor Chronicle sums up what happens. Savage is checking out Boulogne's defences, he writes, "When he was suddenly intercepted and taken by his enemies, and he being inflamed with iron, although he was captive of his high courage, disdain to be taken of such villains, he defended his life to the ottermost and was manfully, I will not say willfully, slain and oppressed." These are fine words to describe an epic fail. Rizzley gets away, but Savage goes down, victim to his own Tudor loyalty and warrior spirit. The one thing you can say, though, is that Savage dies in a winning cause, because as it turns out, Charles VIII has no appetite for a protracted fight over the city of Boulogne or any other city in northern France. Much as he's interested in giving Henry Tudor a pain in the hindquarters, he has significant other fish to fry elsewhere in Europe. Charles is limbering up for an invasion of Italy, and Henry's invasion of France makes him realise this isn't going to work if he's got the Hundred Years' War Redux on his plate. So literally, within days of Henry's army arriving in front of Boulogne and Sir John Savage going kamikaze, Charles sends word that he's happy to make peace. In November 1492, he offers a deal known as the Treaty of a Tupl. Under these terms, he pays Henry a vast sum of cash to F.O. Henry agrees to recognise Charles as ruler of Brittany and Charles promises to kick Perkin Warbeck out of France and to stop supporting any of his cosplay King of England antics. So once again, the stars have aligned for Henry VII. With minimum bloodshed, he's pulled off a quite amazing diplomatic win. The English army go home, laughing their tails off. They've basically got paid to take a return cross-channel ferry ride and do a bit of sightseeing. Henry orders a new wallet into which he'll be cramming the proceeds of his French payout for the rest of his reign. As for Warbeck, well, he has to leave Paris in a hurry. Having been fated as a King, he's now Perkin non-grata in the city of love. So where will he go? Well, there is one place. Having been kicked out of France, Warbeck goes to nearby Flanders, home turf of none other than Margaret of Burgundy. The wildly old Tudor Hater welcomes him with open arms. In fact, according to one writer, so wild was her joy that it seemed to unhinge her mind. Margaret treats Warbeck as though he really is, her long-lost, feared dead nephew Richard. Unlike Charles of France, she's all in on his bid for the English crown. With her backing, Warbeck starts gearing up for an invasion of England, slated for 1493 or 1494. The network of Yorkist plotters in England is kept motivated and active. Everyone is put on notice to expect regime change at any moment. It's a case of when, not if. Henry hoped his show of strength at Boulogne would be enough to derail this latest dagger to the the throat of the Tudor dynasty. He was wrong. God may have thrown Henry a bone this time, but even bigger tests lie ahead. But that's for next time. On this, here's history. Well, he's not looking good for Henry, is it? The guy just can't seem to catch a break. Meanwhile, Perkin Warbeck, I mean, King Richard IV, gets to live another day. Now, this season is chock full of knock-off kings, so to my dear royal favourites, if you were the mastermind to revive a prince in the tower, would you teach the fake king about his childhood? Write in at patreon.com/thisishistory. Ever feel like healthy eating is harder than it should be? I get it. Nutrition can feel complicated. But it doesn't have to be. On Be Well by Kelly, I simplify the science of nutrition, so you can feel better, balance your blood sugar, and build healthy habits that actually last. Each week, I talked to leading experts, doctors, and researchers about practical ways to nourish your body and make wellness accessible in real life. Listen to Be Well by Kelly wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Wednesday.