Britain's Bloodiest Dynasty: The Plantagenets - (Watch Full Series Below) https://dailymotion.com/playlist/x8qybs
Britain's Bloodiest Dynasty: The Plantagenets:
Out of the chaos, darkness, and violence of the Middle Ages, one family rose to seize control of England. Generation after generation, they ruled the country for more than three hundred years, ruthlessly crushing all competition to become the greatest English dynasty of all time. They were The Plantagenets.
Episode 2 - Hatred:
Historian Dan Jones continues his history of the Plantagenets by focusing on Henry III, who wanted to restore the empire his father John had lost, but his poor leadership meant the barons refused to give him the funds he required. The king decided he needed a new ally and found him in minor nobleman Simon de Montfort, who soon became a court favourite and married Henry's sister Eleanor. However, they fell out over money, power and religion, and de Montfort turned against Henry and England was plunged into civil war.
Britain's Bloodiest Dynasty: The Plantagenets:
Out of the chaos, darkness, and violence of the Middle Ages, one family rose to seize control of England. Generation after generation, they ruled the country for more than three hundred years, ruthlessly crushing all competition to become the greatest English dynasty of all time. They were The Plantagenets.
Episode 2 - Hatred:
Historian Dan Jones continues his history of the Plantagenets by focusing on Henry III, who wanted to restore the empire his father John had lost, but his poor leadership meant the barons refused to give him the funds he required. The king decided he needed a new ally and found him in minor nobleman Simon de Montfort, who soon became a court favourite and married Henry's sister Eleanor. However, they fell out over money, power and religion, and de Montfort turned against Henry and England was plunged into civil war.
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00:00Out of the chaos, darkness and violence of the Middle Ages, one family rose to seize
00:12control of England.
00:18Generation after generation, they ruled the country for more than 300 years, ruthlessly
00:26crushing all competition to become the greatest English dynasty of all time, the Plantagenets.
00:41What I love about the Plantagenet story is that it's more shocking, more brutal and more
00:46astonishing than anything you'll find in fiction.
00:50I want to show you the Plantagenets as I see them, real, living, breathing people, driven
00:56by ambition, jealousy, hatred and revenge.
01:01These kings murdered, betrayed and tyrannised their way to spectacular success.
01:07For better and for worse, the Plantagenets forged England as a nation.
01:13This time, a friendship that turns to hatred, plunging England into civil war and changing
01:29the monarchy forever.
01:59The Plantagenet story is about a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a
02:27man.
02:28Henry III is the fourth Plantagenet king.
02:36His grandfather, Henry II, ruled over more of France than the French king.
02:42But thanks to the incompetence of Henry III's dad, King John, most of those lands are gone.
02:50Henry dreams of getting them back.
02:53Henry's going to be a great Plantagenet king.
02:56To be a king in the Middle Ages, you've got to be tough and politically savvy.
03:02You need to fight wars and win, and the winning part's important.
03:06You need to dispense justice fairly and evenly, and above everything else, you need a boundless
03:11energy, the appetite to get up in the morning and rule.
03:15Unfortunately for England, Henry III lacks pretty much every one of those qualities.
03:21Henry's already had two goes at retaking his lost French lands, but Henry messed it
03:31up big time.
03:32Both times, it ended in expensive defeat.
03:36The barons lost all confidence in the king.
03:39Now they've turned off the money supply, which, of course, they can.
03:45Henry's completely hamstrung by Magna Carta.
03:48Today we think of it as a charter of human rights and a foundation of liberty, but to
03:53Henry it's just a list of things he can't do, and top of that list is that he can't
03:58raise any new taxes without the barons' say-so.
04:02Winning back his Plantagenet empire's going to cost Henry a bomb, but Magna Carta means
04:07the barons don't have to cough up.
04:10They think Henry can talk the talk, but he can't walk the walk.
04:18And that's the truth about Henry.
04:20He's a total dreamer.
04:26But give him his due.
04:29He dreams big.
04:35This is Westminster Abbey.
04:40He builds it to restore some lost Plantagenet pride.
04:48Imagine Henry wandering through this incredible building thinking, sends off all the right
04:52signals for a great king.
04:56But as far as the barons are concerned, that's exactly what he's not.
05:01And Henry just isn't strong enough to take them on alone.
05:09But in autumn 1230, a man turns up at court who changes the course of Henry's reign.
05:17A minor French knight with big ambitions, Simon de Montfort.
05:26De Montfort doesn't do anything by halves.
05:30He wears a hair shirt under his clothes 24-7.
05:33It rakes his skin, a perpetual reminder to stay focused on God.
05:44Basically he's a fanatic.
05:49And he backs his belief with action.
05:51He spent his youth chasing heretics around the south of France with a sword.
05:57Henry sees a man with the muscular, no-nonsense, single-mindedness that he needs to achieve
06:03his big dreams.
06:07Henry was so young when he came to the throne that he's grown up with other people making
06:11all the important decisions for him.
06:14So when he meets Simon, charismatic, decisive, he's looking at him and thinking, I could
06:19use a man like that.
06:24Henry's drawn to de Montfort like a moth to a flame.
06:31But he's not just one-sided, because Simon may be pious, but he's also very ambitious.
06:37He's come to England looking for the lucrative title of Earl of Leicester, which he thinks
06:41belongs to his family.
06:43So he's looking at Henry and thinking exactly the same thing.
06:47I could use a man like that.
06:50Unsurprisingly, Henry and Simon quickly become best mates.
06:57He's even soon on the king's council, basically his right-hand man.
07:02He's even steward at the king's wedding.
07:06Simon de Montfort is on the way up.
07:15Stored at the National Archives is an amazing document that has survived for eight centuries.
07:23It reveals just how ambitious Simon is.
07:28This is the king's official copy of a charter made by Simon de Montfort in 1236.
07:33Its contents aren't really that important.
07:35What is important is the way Simon's referred to himself.
07:38It says here, Simon de Montfort, commes, that's Earl, Earl of Leicester.
07:44And that's interesting, because Simon had lots of the lands that went with the title
07:48of Earl, but he didn't have the title itself.
07:52And that tells us quite a lot about Simon.
07:54Firstly, it tells us he's ambitious.
07:57Secondly, it tells us he rates his relationship with the king high enough to go about using
08:02a title he doesn't really have the right to.
08:05But thirdly, it tells us he's right, because this is the king's official copy.
08:09Henry's given it his sign-off.
08:10So Simon might be cocky, but it's with very good reason.
08:16Henry can't get enough of Simon.
08:19He propels his new best friend into the medieval stratosphere.
08:29Simon marries Henry's sister, Eleanor, the greatest catch in the kingdom.
08:35Henry should have married her off to one of the great European rulers to secure a political
08:40alliance.
08:41But he's convinced Simon can help him become the great king of his dreams.
08:48So he gives Eleanor to his best mate instead.
08:53Imagine Simon's feeling pretty pleased with himself.
08:56He's married to the king's sister.
08:58He's an insider at court.
09:00He's the king's favourite.
09:02Considering where he came from, he hasn't done too badly.
09:06But Simon's deal is not all it seems.
09:09Eleanor should have come with a massive dowry.
09:12Instead of giving it to his friend, Henry hangs on to the money and land for himself.
09:19This decision sows the seeds of catastrophe.
09:49In 1239, Henry makes de Montfort earl of Leicester.
10:10Simon's now the king's brother-in-law, his chief advisor, and an English baron.
10:18But at precisely this moment of triumph, Simon goes too far.
10:26He takes out a big, fat loan using Henry as guarantor.
10:32As far as he's concerned, Henry owes him for his wife's dowry, so he doesn't ask Henry
10:38first.
10:40Big mistake.
10:50When Simon tries to play it down, Henry threatens to throw Simon and his own sister into the
10:58Tower of London.
11:01And he's not kidding.
11:04For Henry, this is an outrageous liberty.
11:10Saying things to Simon, well, that's one thing, but you can't just stand around while
11:14Simon takes what he wants.
11:16Henry doesn't like it, but Simon has to go.
11:22Simon and Eleanor are forced to flee to France.
11:25It seems like the end of a beautiful friendship, but Henry's going to need Simon again sooner
11:34than he thinks.
11:40Just three years later, the king gets himself into big trouble.
11:47Henry's launched an attack here at Poitou in western France.
11:51It was once his ancestor's territory.
11:55Henry thought he could take it back, but he couldn't.
12:00Just like last time, the barons used Magna Carta to deny him the taxes he needed.
12:07But just like last time, Henry went ahead anyway.
12:14Attacking Poitou was spectacularly stupid, because the count of Poitou's brother is the
12:20French king.
12:22Henry's forces quickly find themselves chased down by the whole French army.
12:31In desperation, Henry has called on the one man he believes can help him, his estranged
12:38and banished best friend, Simon de Montfort.
12:42Simon was just back from a year on crusade in the Holy Land, so his military expertise
12:47was greater than ever, and Henry had eaten humble pie to get him back.
12:51Now this is quite a climb down.
12:53Henry was the one who banished Simon in the first place, and now he's stuffed without
12:57him.
12:59But even Simon can't salvage this disaster.
13:09Henry flees the field.
13:11He leaves Simon fighting a desperate rearguard action with the king's men.
13:20They retreat towards the town of Sainte.
13:25Henry is cowering inside the town, and it's not just the French army that comes storming
13:30after him.
13:37Simon is not used to losing.
13:40Now it's his turn to explode at the king.
13:45The king himself reported what Simon says.
13:57Charles de Simple was a notoriously useless French king, whose subjects put him in jail
14:02because he was such a bad general.
14:05Thinking about locking up your king is one thing, but actually saying it to his face
14:08is flirting with treason.
14:13But Henry can't call Simon on it.
14:17This is the king's third failure in France.
14:21There's now zero chance the English barons will support his ambitions.
14:26He desperately needs an ally in the aristocracy, and Simon is still the Earl of Leicester.
14:40So when they return to England, Henry eats more humble pie.
14:45He gives Simon this whacking great castle at Kenilworth.
14:50For five years, their friendship holds up.
14:55So when a foreign crisis pops up in 1247, the king turns to his best friend again.
15:04All Henry has left of the Plantagenet empire in France is Gascony.
15:10But it's in chaos, with feuding nobles, a French king itching to invade, and its southern
15:15borders under attack.
15:19As ever, the barons won't let Henry raise taxes to sort it out.
15:25They think he'll just cock it up again.
15:29So Henry asks Simon to fix it for him, and he'll pay him later.
15:38Henry admires the fact that Simon will take the tough decisions he can't.
15:41That's why he sends him.
15:43Simon's a zero-tolerance sort of guy, and true to form, he launches a vicious crackdown
15:48on the Gascon rebels, even cutting their vines, which in wine country is a terrible punishment.
15:59But while Simon's in Gascony, Henry finds himself drawn in by another powerful figure.
16:07William de Valence, the king's half-brother, leader of a French family called the Lusignans.
16:15Henry starts giving them land and titles.
16:18In exchange, they supplant the English lords and begin to take control of the government
16:23for him.
16:24Finally, the king has some allies at home.
16:28Seems great, doesn't it?
16:29But it's not.
16:31The Lusignans were actually booted out of France because they're dangerous, ruthless,
16:36and pretty nasty.
16:39Henry's decision to give them so much power will tear the country apart.
16:44But right now, all he can see is that they make him feel like a powerful king.
16:54Now he doesn't need Simon de Montfort like he used to.
17:01When the Gascons complain about Simon's brutality, Henry hangs his old mate out to dry.
17:13Even though de Montfort has run up huge debts doing the king's dirty work, Henry puts him
17:19on trial for his treatment of the Gascons.
17:24The trial takes place here, right in the shadow of Henry's greatest building project, Westminster.
17:32And it's held in what used to be the monks' dining room.
17:35You can still see part of the original wall.
17:38Now, if you'd been sitting on the other side of that in 1252, you'd have witnessed the
17:44end of the friendship of Simon de Montfort and Henry III.
17:51The case is held before the king and Simon's fellow barons.
17:58Simon is reeling that his friend has put him on trial, and all-out row kicks off between them.
18:19Sounds like Simon's having a dig at Henry's piety, but I think there's more to it than that.
18:25He's certainly picked an analogy designed to hurt the king's feelings, but what he's
18:28really saying is, what's the point in confessing, admitting your mistakes, if you're going to
18:34do the same stupid things again afterwards?
18:37It's like, you're useless, you know you're useless, but you don't want to do anything
18:42about it.
18:43And that sounds like Simon's really overstepping the mark again, but he's about to give Henry
18:48a brutal lesson in kingship.
18:55Simon has taken the political temperature in the room.
19:00The king hasn't.
19:10When Henry puts the charges to a vote...
19:16..Simon walks.
19:19The other barons are as fed up with the king and his Lusignans as Simon is.
19:25HE SPEAKS FRENCH
19:32Henry and Simon now hate each other with a passion.
19:37And England will pay a terrible price.
19:46Henry sulks.
19:50And he lets the Lusignans off the leash.
19:55HE SCREAMS
20:02They start grabbing land and property in total violation of Magna Carta.
20:10Their supporters even ransack the Archbishop of Canterbury's London palace.
20:16Henry simply stands by and lets them get away with it.
20:20It just confirms the baron's view that he's a spineless excuse for a king.
20:30And then in 1256, Henry does something quite extraordinary.
20:36It's spelt out in an astonishing 700-year-old book here in the British Library.
20:43This is the chronicle of Matthew Paris, who was writing at the time of Henry III,
20:49and who had better access than anyone else to Henry and his court.
20:53And he writes that the king gave an order under the Regio Sigilo, the royal seal,
20:59that no brief, that's any official government document,
21:03could be used to cause injury aliqui fratrisui to any of his brothers,
21:09which includes the Lusignans.
21:12So Henry's saying the Lusignans can't be prosecuted.
21:16Effectively they're above the law.
21:19They're political dynamite.
21:24The barons are furious.
21:26In retaliation, they squeeze Henry's finances further.
21:32Henry's not in a very good place.
21:34He's lost the war with France, he's made a mess of Gascony,
21:37he's upset most of his barons and he's broke.
21:40It's time to sort things out.
21:42So what does he do?
21:44Does he kick out the Lusignans?
21:46Does he reassure his barons?
21:47No, he decides to do something bold, something radical,
21:51something no-one will expect.
21:53He decides to invade Sicily.
21:58It was actually the Pope's idea.
22:01He asked Henry to do it.
22:03But Henry jumps at the opportunity to take control of a wealthy country.
22:09This could help free him from the control of the English barons.
22:17But Sicily is a thousand miles away.
22:21It would cost an absolute fortune to take.
22:24Henry can't even hang on to his lands in France.
22:27So invading Sicily is a bonkers idea.
22:31And everyone can see it.
22:34Except the king.
22:37Henry demands taxes from the English barons to fund the invasion.
22:41He thinks he can get away with it because de Valence's violent Lusignans support him.
22:47A group of barons come to London to put Henry back in his box.
22:51And it's his old friend Simon de Montfort leading the charge.
23:17Simon de Montfort comes to London to bring King Henry III to heel.
23:28The king stitched him up over Gascony.
23:31Simon will never forgive him.
23:34He will never forgive him.
23:36He will never forgive him.
23:38He will never forgive him.
23:39He will never forgive him.
23:41But he will never forgive him.
23:43He will never forgive him.
23:44Simon will never forgive him.
23:51This is Westminster Hall, more than 900 years old.
23:54It's all that's left of the medieval palace.
23:56And it's here that Simon and the barons march up to meet Henry III.
24:01He's sitting up there on his throne
24:03and he thinks they've come to give him money for his Sicilian invasion.
24:07But as soon as they arrive, he realises something's very wrong.
24:11Simon and the others might not have swords in their hands,
24:13but they're still done up in their battle armour.
24:16And Henry knows the tables are turned.
24:32Simon and his allies aren't here to take Henry captive.
24:37What they're demanding is almost worse.
24:41First, they want the Lucinians stripped of all their English property
24:45and kicked out of the country.
24:49Second, they want a permanent council of barons
24:52to manage the affairs of the king.
24:56However they want to phrase it, the reality is they're taking over.
25:02This is a nightmare for Henry.
25:04Simon and his mates are saying,
25:06''Not only are we not going to help you with Sicily, but you're such a disaster.
25:11''We're going to take away pretty much all your power.''
25:14They come armed because they're telling Henry,
25:16''We're stronger than you.'' And they are.
25:22Henry's forced to agree to all their demands just to get out of the room.
25:36But as soon as he does, he backtracks on everything he's promised.
25:43Eight weeks later, at a parliament in Oxford,
25:46Henry faces off against Simon and the barons,
25:49and he takes his half-brother William and his Lucinian thugs with him.
25:55The town's full of knights from both sides, armed to the teeth.
25:59The atmosphere's electric, you can feel the tension.
26:02The country's teetering on the verge of civil war.
26:07The hated Lucinians have no intention of giving up their castles and land.
26:13They think they can take on Simon de Montfort.
26:19The explosive meeting becomes known as the Mad Parliament.
26:26Simon directly threatens the king's half-brother.
26:29''Make no mistake, you will either give up your castles or you will lose your head.''
26:36Is he bluffing, or is Simon serious?
26:39Frankly, I wouldn't put it past him.
26:41This isn't some soft, wealthy English baron.
26:44This is a hard man, a crusader, a guy who's used to spilling blood.
26:52The Lucinians are no match for de Montfort, and they know it.
26:59They flee for their lives.
27:02Henry's resistance collapses.
27:05He has to accept all the baron's demands.
27:14The new rules that he's forced to sign up to
27:17are legally recorded in a document called the Provisions of Oxford.
27:22This is one of the most important documents in British history.
27:27Everyone thinks of Magna Carta as the great bill that limited king's power,
27:32but the Provisions of Oxford are actually far more extreme.
27:36Henry spent his whole life railing against the restrictions of Magna Carta.
27:41The Provisions of Oxford really give him something to complain about.
27:45We have them here, copied in French into a chronicle from the time.
27:49You can see, ''A council of cairns, that's 15 barons,
27:54''will meet to manage the affairs of the kingdom.
27:57''A parliament will meet, trace, three times a year,
28:01''whether or not the king's summoned him.''
28:05Simon and the barons, essentially a parliament,
28:08can now make decisions on pretty much anything that happens in the kingdom,
28:14whether or not Henry likes it.
28:17He's become a rubber stamp,
28:21and if he breaks the provisions, the penalty is war.
28:26It's a seismic shift in political power away from the king,
28:31and it's the basis of our modern parliamentary system.
28:37This must be devastating for Henry.
28:39He's already lost most of his ancestral lands in France,
28:42and now in England, where his authority is supposed to be supreme,
28:46he's virtually powerless as well.
28:48His whole vision of what it is to be a king is being shattered.
28:57The barons demand that everyone swears an oath before God
29:01to abide by the provisions.
29:06Problem is, Henry and Simon's attitudes to the oath are poles apart.
29:14Everyone knows Plantagenet kings and their barons
29:17have a long history of breaking their oaths,
29:20but for Simon, once he's made a sacred oath with God,
29:24he's really boxed himself into a corner.
29:27Remember, this guy is a religious zealot.
29:36The oath is sworn at Blackfriars Church in Oxford
29:40by Henry, the barons and by Simon.
29:48So after he makes the oath, he stays up half the night in prayer,
29:52he abstains from sex,
29:54and he's still wearing his hair shirt under his clothes.
29:57This is his treaty with God, and he's never going to break it.
30:03But he knows Henry will.
30:06Within four years, de Montfort's worst fears come true,
30:10because Henry has sworn the oath, knowing he'll break it.
30:16He brings back the Licinians,
30:18and just like before, they do pretty much whatever they want.
30:24Henry's gambling skills are at their lowest,
30:27but he's determined to break the oath.
30:30They do pretty much whatever they want.
30:35Henry's gambling the barons will turn a blind eye,
30:38because the alternative is civil war.
30:43And no-one wants that, do they?
30:48It's a massive miscalculation by the king.
30:54One man is committed.
30:57Almost alone amongst those who've sworn it,
30:59Simon will keep the oath, whatever the cost.
31:04Simon raises an army from those barons
31:07who still believe in the provisions of Oxford.
31:12In 1264, England is plunged into a civil war.
31:20This is the town of Lewes, close to the south coast,
31:23and it's here that Simon de Montfort and Henry III
31:26face off against each other in battle for the first time.
31:32Simon may have the law on his side,
31:34but however you dress it up,
31:36he's still taking on God's anointed king.
31:39He is now a traitor.
31:42And when it comes to traitors,
31:44Henry can still call on plenty of support.
31:48By the time they confront each other, Simon's on the back foot.
31:52Simon's experienced enough to know
31:54that as he approaches the town of Lewes, here on the Sussex Downs,
31:58things don't look very good for him.
32:00He's injured with a broken leg.
32:02His army is massively outnumbered, two to one,
32:05and Henry is holed up down there behind strong town walls.
32:10Simon knows the king will be feeling pretty confident,
32:13but then again, that's what he's banking on.
32:17He's planning to force the king
32:19into a winner-takes-all battle on his terms
32:23by pushing the king out into the open.
32:27It's a massive gamble, but that's Simon all over.
32:32Under cover of darkness,
32:34Simon's army takes this ridge overlooking the town.
32:38Now he has the high ground.
32:41Amen.
32:48Early next morning, Simon's army prostrate themselves on the ground
32:52to be blessed by the bishops.
32:57Simon and his men are on a crusade for liberty.
33:02He and his men truly believe that God is on their side.
33:05They're radicalised, driven by the dream of a different kind of England
33:09in which the king no longer calls the shots.
33:13Henry is fighting for the absolute supremacy of the king.
33:18Simon de Montfort is fighting to crush it.
33:22De Montfort may have God on his side, but the king's got far more men.
33:28He also has a secret weapon.
33:30Edward, his eldest son and heir.
33:33He's utterly fearless and champing at the bit
33:36to hack up de Montfort and his mates.
33:38Henry finally sees a chance to win his great Plantagenet victory.
33:43How can he lose?
33:45Just as Simon hoped, the king comes out fighting.
34:02The battle is a complete disaster for the king.
34:06Henry's still a terrible general.
34:14His son Edward goes charging off over the hill after a rabble of civilians.
34:18His brother Richard gets himself besieged in a windmill.
34:21And Henry ends up forced back here to the Priory of St Pancras,
34:26just outside the town walls.
34:28Simon dares, and he wins.
34:30The king and his son Edward are captured.
34:34The king's sword is surrendered to Simon.
34:38Not exactly the Plantagenet glory Henry was aiming for.
34:49Simon de Montfort, once a minor French nobleman,
34:52now holds ultimate power in England.
34:55This is a revolution.
34:57Simon's taken an army to the field to seize the power of an anointed king.
35:01It's treason, and it's also an unforgivable betrayal of friendship.
35:07The king's dreams of glory have been crushed.
35:12But there is still one Plantagenet who could save the dynasty.
35:17And it's not Henry.
35:19To be continued...
35:49In the aftermath of Louis, Henry's in a desperate state.
35:52He's been humiliated in battle, again.
35:55His nemesis, Simon de Montfort, is running the country.
35:58And to top it all off, Henry's Simon's prisoner.
36:02The king's dreams of Plantagenet glory have been comprehensively trashed.
36:08For more than a year, Simon de Montfort dominates the government of England.
36:14Henry's still king in theory.
36:16In reality, he's just Simon's puppet.
36:19To maintain his hold on the country, Simon keeps the king with him.
36:24Everything in the government is decided under the direction of de Montfort.
36:29For the first time in the history of England,
36:32a political movement has been formed.
36:35It's called the Revolution.
36:39For the first time in the history of England,
36:42a political movement has succeeded in crushing a tyrannical king.
36:47Sounds very noble, doesn't it?
36:50But the reality is that this is at least as much about greed as liberty.
36:55Simon may have set himself up as a man selflessly doing what's right for England,
37:00but actually there's a lot more going on.
37:03Even though he has this vast castle at Kenilworth,
37:06Simon's been brooding that the king short-changed him on money and land.
37:11But now he has Henry just rubber-stamping his decisions.
37:14It's an opportunity too good to miss.
37:17Simon decides to take what he believes he's owed.
37:22De Montfort takes money and land for himself and his family.
37:26And by keeping the king close to him, Simon thinks he's got everything under control.
37:32It's a fatal error of judgement.
37:37It's not Henry who threatens Simon's hold on England.
37:41The man he should be watching is the 25-year-old heir to the throne, Edward.
37:46But Simon's taken his eye off the ball and left the prince in Hereford under house arrest.
37:52With things going so well, Simon's relaxed the guard on Prince Edward.
37:57He even allows him out riding.
38:00So Edward plays a game with his captors.
38:03So Edward plays a game with his captors.
38:06Swapping horses to find the fastest.
38:25They think it's all great fun until he finds the fastest horse.
38:34Prince Edward finds plenty of nobles increasingly nervous that Simon will snatch the crown.
38:40And that scares the barons more than Henry's abysmal reputation.
38:45Edward promises to let them keep the reforms.
38:48And that persuades many of them to defect back to the Plantagenet crown.
38:53And that persuades many of them to defect back to the Plantagenet crown.
38:56Edward promises to let them keep the reforms.
38:59And that persuades many of them to defect back to the Plantagenet cause.
39:05The Plantagenet army is back on the march.
39:15The endgame in the 25-year grudge match between the former best friends, Henry III and Simon de Montfort,
39:22takes place here in Worcestershire.
39:27Simon's got the king with him for insurance.
39:30He's trying to get back to Kenilworth to gather reinforcements.
39:34But Edward is moving too fast.
39:36At the beginning of August, he catches up with Simon here at Evesham.
39:43From the top of the old abbey tower, Simon sees the Plantagenet army approaching in the distance.
39:50He's pinned down and outnumbered.
39:54De Montfort realises that if Edward's men free Henry, the game is up.
40:00So Simon disguises the king in one of his own uniforms.
40:06If he goes down, he's taking Henry with him.
40:11He doesn't wait for the Plantagenets to come for him.
40:15Simon attacks first.
40:18This is Simon the Crusader.
40:20Last time the odds were stacked against him, he dared and won.
40:23So this time he dares again.
40:25He can't help it. It's what he's good at.
40:28Simon's army charges out in a single wedge, hoping to punch through enemy ranks.
40:34They race up through the centre of Evesham,
40:37to the fields overlooking the town where the Plantagenet soldiers are lined up.
40:43Simon gambles that because he's got the king with him,
40:46the Plantagenet army will be too cautious to attack.
40:50But Simon's as wrong as you get.
40:52This time, the armies rally behind the king's son, Edward,
40:56and they're out for bloody revenge.
41:00The two armies meet here, in the fields outside Evesham.
41:09As the Plantagenet army piles in, the battle descends into an orgy of violence.
41:20The royalists cut down 4,000 of the rebels.
41:24The battlefield and streets of Evesham are piled high with their corpses.
41:29More than 30 of Simon's knights are slaughtered.
41:33But there is only one way to end the rebellion for good.
41:37Edward sends a 12-knight hit squad onto the battlefield with one mission.
41:44Find and kill Simon de Blas.
41:49Simon is killed by De Montfort.
41:56King Henry, still dressed as one of De Montfort's men,
41:59is almost taken out by his own hit squad.
42:12Simon, already badly wounded by a lance,
42:16is not so lucky.
42:20Simon's killed somewhere on these fields outside Evesham.
42:24And some of the chroniclers go so far as to call it murder.
42:28This might be a battlefield, but 12 knights ganging up against one,
42:32it's hardly playing by the rules.
42:35But even then, just killing Simon isn't enough for Henry's men.
42:39This is an upstart, an outsider, someone who's taken on a king.
42:44This is an upstart, an outsider, someone who's taken on a king
42:49and undermined what being a king means.
42:52Simon de Montfort, traitor to the crown,
42:55once the most powerful man in England, dies.
42:59The message to everyone must be crystal clear.
43:03No-one defies the king and lives.
43:07The body of the king's once best friend is butchered.
43:12His testicles are cut off and then rammed into his mouth,
43:17before his head is cut from his body and paraded on a spear.
43:30Henry finally has his moment of plantagenet glory,
43:34but in truth, it's his son Edward who delivers it.
43:38Henry is just a bystander.
43:41But the price of victory over Simon
43:44is accepting the reforms that Simon was fighting for,
43:48because that's the deal Edward sealed to raise an army.
43:54Henry's won the battle, but he's lost the war.
44:01The king's dream of absolute power has died with Simon.
44:09Dismal as Henry's reign was, he's still left behind him
44:13two of the greatest legacies of the whole plantagenet dynasty,
44:17and they're both right here.
44:19Westminster Abbey, Henry's extraordinary palace to God,
44:23and over there, Parliament,
44:26seat of the democracy that still governs our country today.
44:30It was born not out of wisdom and smart politics,
44:33but out of the passion and fury of a brutal, bloody feud
44:37between two best friends.
44:42Next time, Edward II.
44:46His short-sighted obsessions plunged England
44:50into a nightmare of political violence, bloodlust,
44:53and most of all, revenge.
45:00You could be one of the 25% of the British population
45:03descended from the plantagenets
45:05If you want to see what your potential ancestors were like,
45:08go to channel5.com slash bloodiest dynasty to find out.