The Rise Of England’s Greatest King: An Untold Story - Dan Jones

Chris Williamson 0:00 Why write a book about Henry V? Why is he sufficiently important for you to spend, uh, several thousand words talking about him?

Dan Jones 0:07 Well, um, in a sense it's what I do. I mean, I, I write mostly medieval history books, um, and so there's a personal element to it which is like, um, unfinished business. So early in my career, I wrote a book called The Plantagenets, and that was like a dynastic history of the great English medieval dynasty that started in the 1150s with Henry II, founder of the dynasty, and worked up to Richard II, who was deposed in 1399. Then I wrote another book about The Wars of the Roses, which took the- the last half of the dynasty, and that started in 1420, marriage of Henry V and Catherine de Valois, and it went up to the early Tudor period. So that left a little slice of 21 years, mostly, uh, covering Henry V's life. So, uh, filling that gap, that Henry V-shaped hole, um, was sort of important in- in completing a sort of run of books, a- not quite a trilogy, but a triptych in my oeuvre, or canon, if you will. Um, but there's- I think there's a more important point th- than that. With regards to the subject himself, Henry V is considered, in his day and thereafter, for hundreds of years, to be the acme, the paradigm, the, um, the- the- the GOAT of medieval history.

Chris Williamson 1:19 Was he like a British Aurelius?

Dan Jones 1:21 Kind of, yes. You know, uh, or a little bit like Alexander the Great. Um, just considered the best who ever did it, you know, who really understood every side of kingship and performed it, and was then, you know, it- bec- his name became a byword for great kingship. So I- I think that biographical studies tend to be very interesting if they're about somebody who's the best at doing something or the worst at doing something, and Henry's the best. So i- if you're a medievalist, this is- this is a, you know, a landscape you've got to approach at some point. But the basi- the biggest reason, probably, to write it now is that Henry's life can be read, even if you're not interested in medieval history, which I accept there are a few people in the world still left who aren't, um, it can be read as a- a great case study of leadership in a time of crisis, because he comes to power when you've got a- a realm that's, like, politically partisan, fractious, divided, two kind of camps at each other's throats. Um, you've got sort of the lingering aftereffects of a pandemic. You've got a kind of period of- of at least regional, possibly global climate change. You've got, um, you know, a- a real sense of hopelessness around politics in particular, and failed foreign policy as well, but a hopeless sense around politics in particular, that- that feels like it's intractable, that it- it's un- unsolvable. And yet along comes one guy, seemingly almost out of nowhere, who through the force of personality, charisma, competence, diligence, probity, moral example, drags his realm from the doldrums to the peak of triumph. And I think that's something- that's an attractive idea today. In some ways, that's like everybody's kind of fantasy today, like who, whether you're in the United States, whether in Europe, whatever, outside probably the- the tyrannous autocracies of the world, that is the- the kind of thing everyone's looking for at the moment. So it- although Henry V is not an analogy for American politics directly, he's not a parable, his story does speak to themes that I think are really in the air in the world at the moment.

Chris Williamson 3:39 Given the fact that he only ruled for nine years-

Dan Jones 3:41 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 3:42 ... how did he manage to make such an impact? Is it just the legacy and the fact that he was doing it the best that ever did?

Dan Jones 3:49 Y- Well, there's... In some ways, having a short time in power with a lot concentrated into it, and then in his case, you know, um, checking out very early, I mean, he- he dies, and it's not too much of a spoiler, they all die.

Chris Williamson 4:03 Mm-hmm.

Dan Jones 4:03 But he dies, you know, a- at age 35, um, just after his greatest triumph, which is, uh, effectively, as an English king, conquering France. And so he packs a lot into a short time, and he doesn't live long enough for the- the decay to set in on his watch. So that's- that's kind of an important part of his legacy, but how is he able to achieve so much? There are a couple of reasons. Firstly, and I think most importantly, um, he has a- a long apprenticeship, and a very busy apprenticeship, and a dramatic apprenticeship, um, so that when he comes to power, age 26, he's at the peak of his sort of, uh, physical prowess, mental acuity, um, he's- he's experienced in almost every facet and aspect of doing the job he's about to do, which in this case is kingship. Um, and that apprenticeship serves him very well, so he hits the ground running, he doesn't have to learn on the job, he's just ready to go. He's also lucky, you know, the- that's the old Napoleon thing, "Give me lucky generals." He is lucky. Shakespeare says in his play, Henry V, re- well the epi- the chorus comes on in the epilogue, um, to explain what's just happened, it says, "Fortune made his sword." And that's a double- double, at least a double meaning. He was- it's- it was improbable that he was ever going to be king, and yet he was. He was made, it was fated, he was made by fortune, but he was also fortunate in the modern sense. He was lucky, got lucky a number of times, lucky not to die a number of times, lucky to win the- the critical battles, um, and in- in his world, that was interpreted as being favored by God, you know, the- the-

Chris Williamson 5:37 Blessed.

Dan Jones 5:38 Yeah, blessed. There you go.

Chris Williamson 5:40 Mm,

Chris Williamson 5:42 why was he so unlikely to become king?

Dan Jones 5:45 Well, he was born as the eldest son of the eldest son of the Duke of Lancaster. Now, in that- in that time, the Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt, was the most powerful, um, richest-... mm, best known and arguably hated, uh, character in the kingdom apart from the king. So he's, he's ƒ, y- you know, the uncle of the king, a, a, a super powerful, mighty noble who had a claim to the King of Ca- uh, who had a claim to the crown of Castile, but not to England. That, the king at the time was Richard II, and it wa- uh, it was expected that he would at some point have children and they would inherit the crown. So young Henry when he's born, Henry V when he's born on, uh, the 16th of September, 1386, at 11:22 in the morning an astrologer later tells us, is born ultimately probably to inherit, is born to inherit the greatest n- noble land holding in, in the realm. He's not going to be the king, but he's going to be a very important political figure. So he has a noble upbringing, a noble education, um, but it's not preparation for being king. He's only, he only becomes king because in 1399, a, a great quarrel arises between his father, Henry Bolingbroke, and the king of the day, Richard II. Uh, it comes to blows, to cut a long story short, and Bolingbroke deposes Richard II, imprisons him, starves him to death, takes the crown for himself. And, and at that point, young Henry, Henry V to be, is, you know, 12, 13 years old, so his life, uh, changes dramatically-

Chris Williamson 7:24 Mm-hmm.

Dan Jones 7:24 ... from the sort of preparation one day to become a great lord, he's now a heartbeat away from wielding supreme power.

Chris Williamson 7:32 That was a problem for his father though, that he was sort of forever mired with the title of usurper.

Dan Jones 7:39 Yeah, so in the Middle Ages, you know, the, the office of king is, um, well, it's anointed, and that means, uh, uh, then as now, the king at his coronation is anointed with holy oil. That's more important than the crown going on the head. That's, uh, a sign, you know, you're anointed on the shoulders, on the chest, on the head, with, with holy oil, which puts you in a different realm from every other human being. You are in, in communion with God in a different way, and your p- power is God-given. And it's not for man, hu-man, then to undo the anointing. It can't be washed off. So to depose an anointed king-

Chris Williamson 8:22 And then starve.

Dan Jones 8:23 ... oh, and then starve him to death. No, you know, you have to do that really, or you have to kill him in some way.

Chris Williamson 8:27 (laughs)

Dan Jones 8:27 And h- history shows that throughout the Middle Ages, once you get rid of a king, you can't keep him around. Um, but w- to depose them is not only a political act, it's in some ways a religious and divine act. It's det- t- tear a sort of, tear a great hole in the fabric of the universe. And Henry IV having done that in 1399... Look, in 1399, Richard II has proven himself repeatedly to be completely incapable of, of kingship, uh, to misunderstand the office entirely, and to be incorrigible and unwilling to change his ways. There is no political case for keeping this guy as king. However, there is a sort of, it's not even a moral case, it's a sort of spiritual case, um, for, uh, but you're not supposed to get rid of these people. So Henry IV, having done the right thing politically, then has to labor, firstly under the political consequences of the usurpation, in that he's, he's in hock all his reign, which runs from 1399 through 1413, so for 14 years, he, he's, he has to constantly make allowances to the people who put him in power. You know, the, the king makers literally, the, the powers behind the thrones.

Chris Williamson 9:38 Now he's sort of beholden-

Dan Jones 9:39 He's beholden.

Chris Williamson 9:39 ... to this weird, weird social debt things going on.

Dan Jones 9:42 Yeah, and, and, and financial debt. You know, the, the people who, uh, were his Lancastrian retainers, so people who were paid by him to be on his side as a great lord, uh, need to keep being paid or they're not going to support him, and so, you know, he's beholden to them. Um, he's al- but I think even more than that, he just wears the burden of sin on him as he sees it, and he's, he's trapped by the, the moral repercussions of what he's done, and it, you know, he becomes, I mean, that's I think it's, it's, it's linear and direct that he's guilty, therefore he becomes ill, but he can't, he has, you know, increasing numbers of serious health problems, which are incredibly debilitating to him, and by the end of his life, he, he, he writes of himself as a sinful wretch, and he's sort of, he's, he's tortured by the idea of, uh, having done the wrong thing. Yet when he hands over the crown to his son, Henry V, Henry doesn't, Henry V doesn't have to deal with any of that because he's been handed the crown fair and square by his father.

Chris Williamson 10:41 Mm.

Dan Jones 10:41 Um, and the stain of usurpation, the stain of illegitimacy doesn't pass down the generations.

Chris Williamson 10:47 What is the, wha- what's the first impressive thing that Henry V does as a part of his royal apprenticeship post '12? Wha- what's a, a, a pretty big incident for him?

Dan Jones 10:59 Well, he's sent into... So his father becomes king, and then he sends... Henry IV who has four sons and two daughters, sends the eldest three sons to difficult regions of the British Isles to learn their craft, 'cause one of them, depending on, uh, how, how they survive to adulthood, if they survive to adulthood, is gonna be king. So John is sent up to, uh, the Scottish borders, Thomas is sent to Ireland, and Henry the eldest is sent to Wales where this enormous rebellion has broken out led by a guy called Owain Glyndŵr. Owain Glyndŵr, uh, i- uh, wants to kick the English out of Wales, a common theme even today in, in Wales, and, um, his... He leads this sort of massive re- rebellion which, uh, you know, tears the principality in, uh, uh, to bits. All tax revenues dry up, c- English-held castles are taken by Welsh rebels, English officials are either murdered or driven out of, of the, of the country. Um, it's, it's chaos. Foreign soldiers are invited in. So young Henry at the age of, of 14 is sent into Wales with minders, right, but to learn his craft because the job of medieval king is like 50% warlord, to learn his craft on the ground.And he does. And there's a great letter that he writes when he's 15, so he's, he's only been there a year, a year and a half, something like that. He writes back to his father to s- let him know how things are going, and you just get this real sense for a boy enjoying himself. And the, the, the letter's written in French, which is the, the normal language of aristocratic discourse, even in England in that day, and it's the, uh, to paraphrase, "Dear Dad, um, all, all going jolly well in Wales. Um, this Englander you told me so much about, he keeps putting it about that he wants to fight me, so I went to give him a fight and, uh, but he wasn't where he said he was gonna be, so I went round his house and he wasn't in, so I burned it down." Right? "And then I went round his other house, but he wasn't there either." (laughs) Wow, you're really enjoying this. "He wasn't there either, so, uh, but one of his mates was and, 'Oh, please don't kill me. I'll give you my money.' So I cut his head off. Um, we're now, we're still having fun, uh, but we are quite short of money. Please send money. Praise be to God. Lots of love, Henry." That's like, that's not much of an exaggeration of the letter, and just sort of brims with this like d- just a joy of, of the, of what he's doing. He's like this physical, aggressive, um, determined kid who's trying to tell his dad that he's doing the job properly and he wants both money and he wants respect and, and praise. So, um, he's, he, he gets it pretty early on, and, and then a year after

Dan Jones 13:40 that, comes, I mean, I think the s- the central test of his entire life, and in some ways the pivot, the formative moment in his life if you believe that lives are, lives work like that and turn on individual moments. Some do, some don't probably. But Henry's comes at a bat- the first battle he ever fights, at Shrewsbury in 1403, when he's very nearly killed. He gets an arrow shot from a longbow in the face, um, and it, it's a, it's a miracle, I mean, I th- I think that's the right word to use, it's a miracle that he survives.

Chris Williamson 14:09 S- how many inches into his head?

Dan Jones 14:11 Well, so he's, he's commanding the rear guard in the battle and at some point, we don't quite know how or why, probably 'cause he's thirsty, hot, uh, disoriented, removes the helmet or lifts the visor-

Chris Williamson 14:22 'Cause it's a full face-

Dan Jones 14:23 Full face thing, and this is a battle where you have, you know, thousands of, of longbow, uh, longbowmen, archers on both sides, and an arrow goes either that side or that side, it's not, it's not totally clear, but it goes into his face and the arrow head buries itself in his skull to the depth of six inches, as the surgeon's notes, the o- the surgeon who operated on him, called John Bradmore, he later notes in his, uh, his account of the, uh, the operation. That's, that's bad. That's really bad. Y- you know, you've got an, uh, one-ounce, that, it's, uh, Henry or someone else pulls at the shaft of the arrow and the shaft, which is designed to come away easily from the arrow head so that, uh, that the arrow head gets lodged in you and you get blood poisoning, ideally, um, that goes, but the, you've got, you've still got a one-ounce lump of metal lodged inside his skull. So, uh, s- it's said he fights on. I mean, adrenaline is a powerful thing. We know that. Um, then he's... But at the end of the battle, which his father wins, um, he's taken off to Kenilworth Castle, which Lancastrian, uh, you know, his dyna- his, the Lancastrian dynasty, his family's headquarters in the English midlands, and they summon the doctors, and it's a bit of a head-scratcher. I mean, literally. (laughs) Uh, just like what, what do you-

Chris Williamson 15:38 (laughs)

Dan Jones 15:38 ... what do you do? They've gotta, they've gotta get this out, and there's only rea- you know, only one surgeon, I think, has the skill and the, uh, and the nerve to perform this operation, and it's this guy John Bradmore, one of his father's de- retained preferred surgeons. He's, he's carried out really impressive operations for any day really, particularly the Middle Ages. He saved the life of a, a carpenter who slipped with a chisel and opened an artery, and he's, Bradmore's cauterized the artery, saved his life. Um, Bradmore has operated on Henry IV's Master of Pavilions, who's attempted suicide by running into a wall with a dagger in his guts. Mm, s- serious operation, you know. You say, you know, not to give someone blood poisoning when you're operating on their intestines, and it's the 15th century. Um, Bradmore has done blepharoplasty, plastic surgery we call it now, eyelid bag surgery. He's got some ointment to, um, to fix scarring. So, uh, he's, so he's got the tools and he's got the knowhow and he's got a steady hand, but as he says in his notes, he says he's, he's worried. He th- you know, there's lots of things that can go wrong in this operation.

Chris Williamson 16:45 What would have happened if he'd not saved him? Would he have been, would there have been repercussions for not having saved the king's eldest son?

Dan Jones 16:50 Well, probably not, because the, the chances I think everybody would have recognized were, were-

Chris Williamson 16:54 It's the headshot.

Dan Jones 16:55 Yeah, it's vanish- you know, vanishingly slim chance of survival. It's like effective zero chance. But Bradmore carries out this operation, and the operation is, is technically difficult 'cause they have to open... You can't push the arrow head out the other side as you would if it was in the s- leg or the arm, so they have to push, they have to take the arrow head out of the entry wound, so that means opening up the wound in Henry's face by degrees, putting little sort of cloth plugs into it and making it bigger and bigger, keeping it clean with known antiseptics, honey and wine-based mainly, and then using a tool that Bradmore's had designed specifically for the purpose, which is designed to sort of s- sorry, excuse me. And then using a tool that Bradmore's designed for the purpose, which fits into the arrow head, like locks onto it, and then he can pull it out and then sewing the wound up whilst keeping it clean, whilst, uh, keeping Henry's kind of neck and head warm, try- and calm, trying to stop him going into spasm. And that's like a big operation, and it takes 30 days. So for 30 days, the 16-year-old prince has to lie there hovering between life and death, presumably in immense pain, presumably quite scared, presumably quite bored, and at any moment his life could end, and yet it doesn't. And I think that the fact he survives the initial wound...... the fact that he survives the operation, the fact that he has a very long time to lie there contemplating this, and we can only be speculative about this from his judging, reading his later actions, I should stress there's no secret diary of Henry V where he talks about this, but I-I think it's not an- a- a wild supposition, I think it's a fair hypothesis to say that this- this does something to him, to his personality. He b- he seems to believe really from this moment on, and certainly once he becomes king, that he has been saved for a reason, that he has- God has kept him on Earth because God wants him to do something. And that is a powerful, motivating force, not only for the individual, but for others around. I mean, if you think about modern American politics, survi- improbably surviving, uh, an assassination attempt via headshot will-

Chris Williamson 19:21 Galvanizing.

Dan Jones 19:21 ... well, yeah, it'll get people going, um, and I think, you know, obviously we're in the Middle Ages, we're not talking about a kind of mass media world as we are now and- and you don't have the same kind of memed images.

Chris Williamson 19:36 But the legend can grow in different ways, right?

Dan Jones 19:37 Yeah, right, it can, and- and I think that it can certainly- it certainly seems to me that wha- when you look at Henry the- the Fifth, you know, the greatest medieval king, as an adult acting with this e- extraordinary focus, certainty, um, determination, and then explicitly saying to people when he succeeded, "I am just God's vessel." You know, after the- his famous Battle of Agincourt, which is dramatized by Shakespeare so memorably, um, one of the- the- the high-ranking French prisoners who were taken by the English, by Henry's men on that day is the Duke of Orleans, and Henry sort of puts his arm around him after the battle and says, "Look mate, you know, it's nothing personal, it's just because you, the French, are decadent, and God's- and you know, you have- you're- you're sinful and God wants to punish you, and I'm just- I'm just God's tool."

Chris Williamson 20:30 His conduit.

Dan Jones 20:31 Yeah. So like, "Come on, it's not between you and me, this is- this- uh, God just works through me." It's that kind of mentality that, um, although, you know, not- not totally outlandish in the- in the day, it would... Given the Middle Ages is probably closest in modern terms to, like, I want to say modern Saudi Arabia, but yeah, maybe I mean modern Saudi Arabia in terms of the way that religion permeates every- everything in- in politics.

Chris Williamson 20:57 Mm.

Dan Jones 20:58 Um, that's- it's still quite punchy from Henry, right? And- and- and I think that, you know, you c- I- all right, in- in the book, in- in my telling of Henry V's story, I think we can- we can root a lot of that in his experience as a 16-year-old.

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Chris Williamson 22:19 It seems that your point around his apprenticeship being very, uh, crafting for how he ends up being is true, but also this has happened so shortly after he was just gonna be some rich nobleman bloke that-

Dan Jones 22:36 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 22:36 ... the raw materials must have been there already. He can't- I don't know whether from the age of 12 to the age of 16 you can develop the constitution to lie with an arrow in your face for 30 days.

Dan Jones 22:44 No, I think... And- and look, in- in history, it's- it was very unfashionable in history for a long- or it has been unfashionable in history for a long time to think in terms of, quote-unquote, "the great man theory," you know, that history is a succession of mainly men, um, powerful epoch shape it- well, sort of powerful epoch-shaping individuals whose- who- the- the vagaries of whose personalities are at root, um, the- the causes for historical change. That's- that's been considered old-fashioned nonsense for a long time, but I think maybe too much of that has been thrown out in the way that we think about the world, and I- I- I think it would be wise to always try and take into account when you look at historical events not only the sort of structural shaping forces, the technological change that moves and- and guides the world, but the randomness of individuals. And look, we're living in an age right now that- that speaks to that when... How can you understand world politics at the moment without- without factoring in the specific upbringing and personalities of Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, uh, Bibi Netanyahu and so on and so on, and MBS? Um, it- you can't, and it would be- it would be facile and futile, um, to try and explain the events of the early 21st century without- without considering the- the personalities involved.

Chris Williamson 24:18 Is that not a case as well, especially as we look further back in history, and the-... power is concentrated so much, it's so unevenly distributed, especially when you've got somebody who's blessed. This is the monarch, they've-

Dan Jones 24:32 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 24:33 ... l- literally the conduit for the Lord. Uh, (clears throat) it seems silly to deny that the sort of conceptual inertia that would be generated by that sort of a person, the legend, the, um, the downstream implications to culture, to the stories, to the songs, to the naming of the pubs, to the, you know, so on and so forth. Um, you know, I- I, I've heard about the sort of great man theory being, uh, pushed back against, uh, and I can see why it would be horribly unpopular, um, because it kind of... There is this, in an egalitarian meritocracy where everybody's supposed to be able to make whatever they want of themselves-

Dan Jones 25:18 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 25:18 ... to admit that the word was ma- world was maybe shaped by mostly men, uh, in the past, especially men who had desire to conquer and mastery-

Dan Jones 25:26 Oh, yeah.

Chris Williamson 25:26 ... and, and, and war and whatnot, uh, I can see why that would be unpopular. But so many people are galvanized by individ- whether it's Lady Gaga or Taylor Swift-

Dan Jones 25:38 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 25:38 ... or Ronaldo or, you know, e- there, there are individuals that synthesize this together, and when the world is smaller, because it's not globalized, and power is more centralized also-

Dan Jones 25:48 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 25:49 ... it seems, uh, absolute bro history here-

Dan Jones 25:53 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 25:53 ... but, um, just l- like using my theory of mind-

Dan Jones 25:55 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 25:55 ... and what I know about human nature, um, that would be, it would carry for generations, you know.

Dan Jones 26:01 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 26:01 The one time that your grandfather saw Henry go past in his carriage. That kind of thing, to me, seems like it would be... A- and he looked him in the eye, and that was a blessed moment, and that's why you are called, you know, Harold or whatever the fuck.

Dan Jones 26:14 Yeah. Well, it... There, there are two things going on that we need to, we need to separate out on there. The first question is, is the world really shaped by individuals? Like, the, is that how things work? And then there's the question of, i- i- do we as human beings best understand the world through the stories of individuals? And I think it, it in, the second question is much easier to answer than the first. Second question, the answer is just yes. And if you think back to, if you look at this whole tradition of, uh, of historical storytelling back to Homer, right? If we consider Homer a historian, but it's certainly the, or, or indeed a single individual. But the Iliad, the Odyssey, the stories of the Trojan War, um, the e- even earlier than that, the sort of Greek mythology that, that sought to, uh, explain the kind of, the, the, or (sighs) the, the m- the geographical, topographical, uh, meteorological makeup of the world. All of that is, tends to be humanized, anthropomorphized, told through...

Chris Williamson 27:21 It's a personification.

Dan Jones 27:21 Personification is, is the way we understand history. And, um, and so it, obviously when we're, (sighs) when we talk about historical change, we tend to gravitate towards, uh, what can become the, the sort of great man theory of history. It- i- it becomes, it becomes oversimplified or problematic when you think that it's only sh- that history's only shaped by the personalities of individuals. And to return to the sort of modern analogy, it would be equally facile and fatuous to try and understand the 21st century only in terms of the personalities of Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Bibi Net- Netanyahu, Kim Jong-un, and so forth. You would have to say, well, we live through a com- a, a technological revolution as, as, as epoch-shifting, as, uh, as dramatic, as radical as the Industrial Revolution or the Agricultural Revolution. So it's very... about the interplay between the two things.

Chris Williamson 28:14 Is there a role to be played here that, um, uh, you can explain what's happening technologically-

Dan Jones 28:19 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 28:20 ... uh, during the period that you're studying here and, and the wider parentheses. What, i- i- given the fact that it seems to be relatively flatter, at least if it's moving up, it's moving up linearly as opposed-

Dan Jones 28:33 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 28:33 ... to exponentially. Uh, does that mean that there's more stasis in the environment that people find themselves in, you can more easily compare age to age, leader to leader, um, and also that the, the biggest differentiators between periods fall to the humans and their actions as opposed to some unlock that occurs?

Dan Jones 28:54 Yeah. I don't know. D- things always look different depending what lens you've got on the camera, right? And if, you know, if you've n- narrowed... As... So I've just written this book about Henry V when, in which the parameters of the story run roughly 1386 through, uh, 1422. That's a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny sliver of even human history, which occupies a tiny, tiny sliver of, of the world's history, right? So i- w- with that lens on the, th- the macro lens on the camera, of course the personalities become massively more important when you're analyzing history. But if we, if we were to put the sort of the big wide lens on the camera and, uh, and look at... The, well I writ- the last book you and I talked about was when I wrote Powers and Thrones, and that was a book that covered more than a thousand years. And when you do that, th- then you, you, you look less at individuals and more at great shaping forces, climate being, uh, the obvious example. If you look at the Middle Ages in the context of all recorded human history, then the onset of the Little Ice Age, you know, uh, uh, uh, an adjustment of a degree or two in, in temperatures, regional temperatures around the west becomes way more important than the personality of Henry V, because Henry V's personality and the wars, The Hundred Years' War between England and France is just, just becomes then an example of sort of more generalized turbulence, uh, in, in military and political terms that you trace to, um, to, uh, uh, geo- geography

Dan Jones 30:22 essentially.

Chris Williamson 30:22 What's the impact of the Little Ice Age? What does it make happen?

Dan Jones 30:25 Well, w- you know, one argument would be that the Little Ice Age, um, uh, changes crop yields, it makes agriculture more difficult. Um, it's, it's...... it is just less conducive for easy human habitation of, uh, particularly colder climates like Northwest Europe. Um, and that, well, let's take the English case that, uh, you have the combination of the Little Ice Age and, uh, and then the pan- the Black Death pandemic, and you find that there's massive population decrease. You know, the population of, of England drops from about six million down to roughly two million, uh, across the course of the 14th century and doesn't recover until the, the Industrial Revolution. Um, and that's partly because lots of people just die in the Black Death, 50% to 60%, maybe even 70% in some areas of people die of that disease. And it's also because it makes, uh, you know, the, the, the if, if you buy into the Little Ice Age theory, it makes the, it makes living on marginal land more difficult. It means that you, you know, basically your, your, the country you live in is less productive. You can't squeeze as much out of it. And when you are close to subsistence economy, um, that's a bad thing.

Chris Williamson 31:40 Margin for error isn't already there.

Dan Jones 31:42 Right, yeah. You know, you, there's only, you, you can't squeeze as much product out of, uh, out of the land you live in. Um, that's, you know, that's the theory. But if (sighs) there's a million holes in the theory as well and, and, and, and, and these are just... But of course there are, because whenever you deal with, with big history, history over long term... I mean, what's been one of the most phenomenally successful history books over the, over the last 10, 15 years? It's Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens, uh, series and, and so on. Very attractive book to big popular audiences. M- Tens of millions of copies sold across the world. I should, uh, I should add for, um, uh, for the record that this is a medieval historian, uh, by training who's, uh, who's out there selling all these books so, you know, go the Middle Ages. Um, but as is, I think the sort of the backlash against Yuval Noah Harari has som- somewhat started within the, uh, the historical profession, maybe motivated a little bit out of envy. Um, but certain, you know, people picking holes in big history, because big history is easy to pick holes in when you're sort of painting in broad brushstrokes. You know, "Well, this doesn't apply there and that doesn't apply there." Um, depend... Yeah, like I say, the history is- uh, writing history is so often about framing and about, um, the lens. I, I like this, this idea of the lens and, and what, what are your parameters for looking at this? What, what kind of story are we looking to tell?

Chris Williamson 33:08 So,

Chris Williamson 33:09 Henry rising to power.

Dan Jones 33:11 Oh yes, Henry V, yeah.

Chris Williamson 33:12 Yes.

Dan Jones 33:12 That guy. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 33:14 How does he become king?

Dan Jones 33:16 He becomes king, uh, because he inherits the th- the crown from his father, but he has to, m- he has a difficult ride through his father's reign. He has this, this... We, we left him at 16 years old having nearly died on the battlefield at Shrewsbury. For the next 10 years once he's recovered, he goes back to Wales and, and by degrees that the rebellion of Owain Glyndŵr is put down but it's, it's, it's hard and it's a, it's a hands-on training in the arts of, of, of war and of kingship. He has to learn how to besiege castles. Uh-

Chris Williamson 33:49 How does that bloke die? The Welsh...

Dan Jones 33:51 Owain Glyndŵr? It's, it's the most frustrating story. It does not conform to Hollywood shape. He just sort of drifts away and disappears, and then one day there's a, there's an, uh, a record that says, "Uh, I think he's dead."

Chris Williamson 34:02 (laughs)

Dan Jones 34:02 (laughs) Yeah, it's a story with no, no satisfying end.

Chris Williamson 34:05 What a shame.

Dan Jones 34:06 Um, but, uh, but Henry, um, m- so yeah, so he has to learn on, on, on the job in Wales effectively how to besiege castles, how to deploy canon, uh, right ratios between, you know, men at arms and archers when you're in the field, how to go back to an English parliament and beg for more money when the people in the parliament don't think you've spent the last lot of money properly, how to, uh, you know, shift, uh, uh, shift money around your own accounts to try and like pay for this stuff out of your own pocket, how to convince people to stay in the field fighting when they haven't been paid for the last six weeks, eight weeks, uh-

Chris Williamson 34:41 A lot of persuasion and finance.

Dan Jones 34:42 Persuasion and finance, the boring stuff, you know, but no war has, has ever been possible without, without that boring stuff.

Chris Williamson 34:50 Mm.

Dan Jones 34:50 The logistics, the money.

Chris Williamson 34:51 Mm.

Dan Jones 34:53 So he has a good, you know, a good long training in that. Then his father's health starts to collapse. A series of skin complaints, uh, probably circulatory conditions, series of strokes, uh, and he becomes increasingly debilitated, and Prince Henry, future Henry V, starts to move more and more to the center of power. He starts to effectively operate as regent, president of the, of the Royal Council. Uh, he's immersing himself in foreign policy, the policy particularly t- with regards to France which is collapsing into civil war between faction, two factions called the B- Burgundians and the Armagnacs. Deciding which policy, whose side we, we go in on. Do we go in on a side at all? How do we get the best advantage for our realm out of their problems? He's got to deal with, um, you know, uh, the whole, uh, problems of heresy, Lollardy as it's called in the, in those days.

Chris Williamson 35:42 What's Lollardy?

Dan Jones 35:43 Lollardy is, is, uh, there was an in- to be a Lollard is, is a sort of insulting term at the time, m- pejorative, but Lollards basically followed the teachings of a radical Oxford theologian called John Wycliffe. And Wycliffe had come up with some ideas that Martin Luther would come up with again, if you like, uh, in the s- in the 16th century, that thing, you know, the sacraments weren't based in, um, you know, sort of m- marriage, baptism, and, and, you know, Eucharist and so forth, not all of them are based in scripture, that the church has far too much wealth and is basically corrupt, that there should be, uh, a, a sort of big program of, of wealth red- redistribution by stripping wealth from the church and putting it into the secular, into the state, that sort of thing. Um, it is both heretical and usually by implication seditious as well because there are, um, there are...As well as it being a sort of a deviation from orthodox, by which I mean Ca- Catholic Christianity, uh, it is also, you know, bound up with rebellions against the state. So, Henry's got all of these issues which he's learning to do as his father's deputy, in- in effect. And he gets to the point, um, when his father's really decrepit and old, uh, or actually not that old, but really decrepit and his health is- is badly failing, where Henry and some of his closest allies on the royal council go to the king and say, "We think you should abdicate and, uh, the- the coming man should step up." Um, it's not dissimilar from a, uh, "Let's drop Biden" kind of move. You know what I mean?

Chris Williamson 37:23 (laughs)

Dan Jones 37:24 And, uh, in this case, um, Biden refuses. You know?

Chris Williamson 37:30 (laughs)

Dan Jones 37:31 (laughs) And it's- it- uh, but in this case, that's a good i- that is, um, that's not a terrible idea. Henry IV refuses, despite his, you know, his growing decrepitude, his, uh, the- the- the physical pain of doing his job, the burden of both, uh, you know, political difficulties and- and moral guilt that he carries around everywhere with him. Uh, Henry IV refuses to abdicate because I think he knows that if he does that, he's gonna land his son and heir, Henry, with all the same problems that he- he's suffered throughout his reign.

Chris Williamson 38:05 Is abdication seen as usurping by the incumbent?

Dan Jones 38:10 It's not, not quite. And in fact, usually when a king is deposed in the Middle Ages, which isn't very often up until this point, it's only happened once before, that was with Edward II, depositions are framed as voluntary abdications, that the king relinquishes the crown rather than has it taken off him. Um, in the case of Edward II and Richard II, that's just, that's just a political fiction. What Henry V proposes to Henry, his dad, Henry IV, is it is a voluntary abdication. Just hand it over, hand me the crown and let me get on with it, and you can go and sort of go to the retirement home for-

Chris Williamson 38:47 But I guess when you've got this, uh, existing heritage of people who didn't want to leave being forced out, the, this sort of poisons the well of, "Well, he did want to leave and he d- does wanna hand it over to me."

Dan Jones 39:00 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 39:00 "Well, how do we know?"

Dan Jones 39:01 It just muddies the waters and, and it-

Chris Williamson 39:03 Right. That makes sense.

Dan Jones 39:04 It's going to leave... I think Henry IV just figures this is going to leave his son w- with que- a question mark. Henry IV has a question mark hanging over his head this whole time.

Chris Williamson 39:13 Which you think has potentially contributed to his poor health, to his sense of sort of existential malaise?

Dan Jones 39:20 Certainly the sense of existential malaise, yeah. And the, and we don't know about the poor health, but it doesn't seem unlikely that, uh, uh, you would probably know better than I do, but that somebody living with enormous levels of sort of stress and constant anxiety is probably, that's probably gonna feed into your physical health at, at some point. Um, Henry IV, in- in- in, I increasingly think a selfless way, is like, "No, I'm gonna, I'm gonna remain in office until I die."

Chris Williamson 39:46 Ride this out.

Dan Jones 39:47 Yeah. "And I'm gonna suffer this because it's the only way for you, son, to take over legitimately." But he really slaps Henry, future Henry V down. He really slaps him down. Um, gives him such a, uh, a telling, a telling off, and then he strips him of all power, completely ostracizes him from any involvement in the government whatsoever, reverses some of his key policies, particularly to, w- with regards to France, and makes it look like he's actually promoting his second son, Thomas, in the succession. Lets Henry believe that he's on the verge of being pushed out of, um, pushed out of- of- of line for the throne. It's- it's that level of, "I'm gonna ha- I'm gonna have to teach you a lesson" style.

Chris Williamson 40:30 Why do you think he does that?

Dan Jones 40:31 Teach him a lesson. He's gotta learn. And-

Chris Williamson 40:35 But what's the lesson he wants him to learn?

Dan Jones 40:37 That- that it's not as simple as he thinks, that this is an incredible blunder to ask his father to abdicate the- the throne, that, um, and th- this is no small thing he's asked that as just a favor refused, that this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what's about, what he's- he's in line for, kingship. And he has to learn this extremely hard lesson.

Chris Williamson 40:57 Right.

Dan Jones 40:57 And, um, and he does.

Chris Williamson 41:00 It sounds like Henry IV was a pretty impressive person as well with good foresight.

Dan Jones 41:03 I do think, yeah, a very impressive person, and if you look over the course of his entire life, again, like Henry V, if you- if you only concentrate on these people's reigns, they look very different than if you- if you blow it, uh, the, um, the- the- the story to examine their whole lives. And Henry IV, as Henry Bolingbroke, had been one of the most glamorous, well-liked, sort of chivalrous, um, dashing, adventurous guys of his generation.

Chris Williamson 41:26 He went to go and slash Richard II up.

Dan Jones 41:28 Well, he'd-

Chris Williamson 41:29 And starve him to death.

Dan Jones 41:30 It... That- that's the sort- that's where he ends up in rebellion. But before that, in happier times, when Henry V-to-be is- is a small child, his- his father is off, you know, fighting joust with Boucicaut, the great- the great French knight of the day. I mean, the most famous knight in Europe, a guy who could do backflips in full armor and jump onto his horse from a standing start.

Chris Williamson 41:47 No way. Wow.

Dan Jones 41:48 Yeah. I mean, you'd like Boucicaut. Um, and he's gone to fights in, against the, um, the pagans of- of the Baltic with the Teutonic Knights on crusade.

Dan Jones 41:59 He'd been-

Chris Williamson 42:00 Is this just, you know, the implication of king to be warrior as well?

Dan Jones 42:07 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 42:07 Or- or- or, uh, military... Not just competent military strategist, but to have skill with weapon in hand, to have earned their stripes in this sort of a way. Is that something that was expected of the king? Given that he was supposed to be adorned by God. I- I suppose also an- an assumption would be protected by God...

Dan Jones 42:26 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 42:26 ... therefore. Uh, but you're throwing out the most important person onto the fucking field of battle wielding a stick or a sharp thing. Uh, you know, is that... It was, this was par for the course, earn your stripes, show us that you're- you're lead from the front type thing?

Dan Jones 42:41 The- the Great Seal, which is the, sort of the authenticating, um, device...... for all government documents in his time, shows the king is- it's- it's two-sided and it- it prints on a disc of wax, two images. On the one side, shows the king as judge or scepter, sits in judgment over his people. He's the fount of justice of the law, of order. And on the other side, he's on horseback with a sword in his hand. Those are the two parts of the job. The job is, in that sense, simple. Not easy, but it's simple. You- you provide, you are the- the source of law and you are the defender of the realm. And it's a hangover by the sort of late 14th, 15th century, uh, for that to involve the king as commander-in-chief, literally fighting from the front. Not all kings do it. Edward III, a great sort of w- quote-unquote "warrior king," tends to hang back in a sort of Napoleon role, you know, on- on high ground, surveying and strategizing and directing. Henry V likes to lead from the front, you know.

Chris Williamson 43:44 In the thick of it.

Dan Jones 43:45 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 43:45 The arrow in the face.

Dan Jones 43:46 Yeah, and he- he's pre- he is prepared to put himself in harm's way, and, uh, and does so at Shrewsbury, does so at Agincourt, does so whenever, you know, he- his- his style of leadership is, um, is demonstrative.

Chris Williamson 43:59 Mm-hmm.

Dan Jones 43:59 And so when, even when there's not a... He only ever fights two battles, so mostly it's siege craft. When he, when he's directing a siege, every morning, he'll be doing the rounds, sort of patting people on the back, micromanaging where the cannons...

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Chris Williamson 45:17 Can you explain, let's say that you're Henry V and you're sieging... Pick anywhere p- anywhere of choice. What's, uh, what's his daily routine look like, and what are they trying to achieve with the siege? What are the sort of tactics that are being used?

Dan Jones 45:31 Um, so typically, the object of the siege is to force the people in the place you're besieging to give it up. And that could be a castle, a- a town, or a fortified town's a combination of castle and town. And you're gonna make 'em give it up by one of a few ways. Either you will scare them into giving it up, make them feel hopeless there's no... You know, uh, and under the sort of laws of siege craft, you- you ask, uh, people to... Let's say we're besieging Austin, Texas.

Chris Williamson 46:04 You wanna besiege Austin?

Dan Jones 46:05 I don't myself want to besiege Austin, Texas, but let's just say...

Chris Williamson 46:08 You just picked it. Okay, fine.

Dan Jones 46:09 Okay, right.

Chris Williamson 46:09 Yep.

Dan Jones 46:09 So, we surround the- the target.

Chris Williamson 46:14 Mm-hmm.

Dan Jones 46:15 Um, and then you go to the leaders of the- of the target.

Chris Williamson 46:18 Joe Rogan.

Dan Jones 46:19 So do... Yes, you go, we go to Rogan and say, "Rogan, uh, you're under siege, brother." And, uh, he s- "Are you gonna give up or, uh, are we gonna have to make you give up?"

Chris Williamson 46:29 And is this emissary to emissary? Is this shouting-

Dan Jones 46:31 Yes.

Chris Williamson 46:31 ... it over the wall?

Dan Jones 46:32 Yeah, yeah. Em- emissary to emissary. "We're gonna make you give it up. Hmm." Are you gonna say yes or no? If you say yes and give it up, that's fine. E- it- it will be, theoretically, a peaceable transfer of- of- the pr- of property, and you can negotiate terms. If you say, "No, I'm not giving it up," then, uh, it has to be taken by force. And if the besieging army do succeed in breaking into the city, then they are within their rights under the laws of war to massacre everybody, uh, enslave, um, rape, burn everything down, plunder the whole-

Chris Williamson 47:09 What about if you surrender after you said no?

Dan Jones 47:14 You can probably negotiate those terms, but it's... You- you're in a much worse negotiating position.

Chris Williamson 47:19 Big decision at the very beginning.

Dan Jones 47:20 Yeah. But so what, so what normally decided is, Rogan will say, um, (laughs) "Okay," it's a qualified no, "N- no, no, I'm not gonna give up right away. But if..." So I need an ally of Rogan. Jocko, is Jocko based here?

Chris Williamson 47:39 Uh, he can be.

Dan Jones 47:40 Well, he needs to be ba- based not here.

Chris Williamson 47:42 He's not, he's not based here.

Dan Jones 47:43 Okay, so Rogan will say, "Mm-hmm, I'm not gonna give up straight away, but if within the next 40 days Jocko doesn't come and drive you all away from your besieging positions and relieve the- the city, then I'll give up." That's the, that's the deal. So then you have this sort of structured 40 days, like, you know, uh, well, okay, this match-

Chris Williamson 48:03 Credit note or something.

Dan Jones 48:04 ... yeah, this- this match is going to last for 40 days-

Chris Williamson 48:06 Mm-hmm.

Dan Jones 48:06 ... and now it's a, it's kind of a game, right? You've got the- the besieging army's got 40 days to attempt it. The r- the- the- the defenders have 40 days to- to try and hold out, and Jocko's got 40 days to come and save Rogan.

Chris Williamson 48:18 (laughs)

Dan Jones 48:18 Okay? This is actually turning into like quite a- a- a-

Chris Williamson 48:21 Perfect.

Dan Jones 48:22 ... compelling drama.

Chris Williamson 48:23 Yeah.

Dan Jones 48:24 Um, and a believable one as well. Uh, maybe we have a reality TV show on our hands.

Chris Williamson 48:28 Mm-hmm. So then what is... You- you've got your besieged place, let's say it's a castle. Seems like it's easiest-

Dan Jones 48:35 Yep.

Chris Williamson 48:35 ... to do it as a castle. This is Austin Castle.

Dan Jones 48:37 Yep.

Chris Williamson 48:37 Joe's at the top.

Dan Jones 48:38 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 48:38 Uh, and what are you, what are you doing? What are you throwing at him?

Dan Jones 48:42 Well, Henry typically, um, takes a, uh, takes over a building. So a- a- a- a city...Or, or a castle. But let, let, let's say a fortified city will typically have a sort of enclosed center walled bit with a, with a, you know, fortified bit with a garrison defending it. Suburbs on the outside, and those suburbs might include some sort of fine buildings, monasteries, or, or, you know, fancy houses or whatnot.

Chris Williamson 49:05 Presumably they're fucked.

Dan Jones 49:08 Everyone runs away and maybe burns it down so that the besieging army can't use it, but, uh, the, Henry would typically take over a nice, the nicest house in the suburbs or, or on high ground in a strategically useful position, and direct things from there. So he'll be living with, in, in, in a degree of sort of splendor and luxury, um, but then every day, will sort of toddle down from his palace to do a round of the positions, to go see the, the people operating the cannon, because we're now in the 15th century when there are, there are cannon used to, uh, cannon used in siege, sieges. Um, the, you know, the archers, the people who are just sort of standing around making sure no one gets in or out of the gates to bring food or weapons into the city. Uh, it, yeah, it's, it's going around making sure everyone's morale stays high. And he's very, uh, Henry-

Chris Williamson 50:01 Pats on the head.

Dan Jones 50:02 Pats on the head, slaps on the arse, um, you know, "Come on boys, we got this." Uh, "What's going wrong? Who's not happy? Who is happy? Who needs to be sort of switched out? Who's ill? Do we have, you know, what are our supplies?"

Chris Williamson 50:16 He's very hands-on.

Dan Jones 50:16 Very hands-on. Very hands-on. And, um, that's part of his... You know, Shakespeare picks up on this with, with this idea of him as, you know, as kind of man of the people, um, able to... He has him touring kind of incognito around the, the other soldiers and, and, you know, on the eve of battle and, and, um, moving amongst them. And that's drawn from, that's drawn from history. Henry was sort of in and around his people and he was good. I mean, he was not, like, fun, you know, but he's-

Chris Williamson 50:50 You think he was a pretty chill dude?

Dan Jones 50:51 No, no chill, really. I mean, he liked music and he was a sort of talented musician, loved to read. Um, had had sort of calming hobbies, if you like. But, and, and not possessed of like a manic energy.

Chris Williamson 51:05 Mm.

Dan Jones 51:06 But it's kind of laser focus and-

Chris Williamson 51:09 Probably even more terrifying that way than someone that's got a bit of a parasympathetic routine-

Dan Jones 51:13 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 51:14 ... but then turns it on the next day and goes from dirt to clouds and high level stuff, ground floor stuff.

Dan Jones 51:21 Yeah. You can hear Henry's voice, uh, because he's the first English king routinely to write back from the front line to his people back in England in English, and that's a sort of propaganda move. It's a deliberate sort of, it's a galvanizing kind of tactic. Um, it's trying to, to get the word out of what's, what's happening that everybody can understand. But because he, he dictates those letters, you can hear his voice, and early 15th century English is pretty similar to modern English when it's written down. Would have sounded different spoken, different vowel sounds and so on, but still. So you hear, you hear him and he's got a really distinct voice, and it's, it's, it's nagging, it's imperative, it's like, "Do this." It's, there's no sort of frills. It's, "Do this, do it now. Why haven't you done it?" You know, it's always, you know-

Chris Williamson 52:14 He's unwavering.

Dan Jones 52:15 Yeah. And, and say, "And see that you fail not thereof." He's always used... That's his sort of standard formula. It sounds very wordy to us, but it's, "See that you fail not thereof." Don't fuck this up.

Chris Williamson 52:26 (laughs)

Dan Jones 52:26 Don't fuck this up. And he's a real micromanager. There's this point at which he's in a... You know, he's besieged town after town, ground his way through Normandy, um, you know, imagine the allies going through Normandy in 1944. It's, you know, all the way through, heading towards Paris, and he's at this negotiating point where it looks like he's going to get the French, the mad French king, Charles VI, to disinherit his only surviving son, uh, and make Henry the heir and regent of the crown of, of France. That's the end goal of this war. It's n- they, he, it's within touching distance, and Henry writes this letter back to, uh, the keeper of Pontefract Castle where now-Charles de Couvolion is being kept, one of the, the most high-ranking prisoners from Agincourt and someone who has an alternative claim to the French crown, so potentially a rival. Well, he's one of Henry's prisoners. He's writing sort of drippy poetry in, in Pontefract Castle at this point. But Henry, from, you know, hundreds of miles away, is, is writing back to England telling them to make sure that this guy is kept under lock and key. But it's not just that. He's like, "Make..." He's saying, y- yeah, "Make sure he's locked up. Double the guard." Like, "He's gonna try and tell you this, that, and the other. Don't you have any of that. You make sure that you, you don't listen to his sort of fine words and you keep him under lock and key, 'cause if you don't do this, I'm gonna be seriously pissed off." He's like... It's, it's not just the, the, um, "Here's an instruction." It's a, a list of step-by-step, "If you screw this up, you cannot say you didn't know what to do, because I actually told you step-by-step what to do." Is that a great leadership style? Um, some people would, I think, rankle under that degree of micromanagement, um, but it seems to work for him.

Chris Williamson 54:06 Effective.

Dan Jones 54:07 Effective.

Chris Williamson 54:08 What's he doing romantically?

Dan Jones 54:10 Nothing, which is bizarre. Henry is, well, the French spy says it, more like a monk than a king. Um, he sup- there, there are, there are... So the Prince Hal character, Shakespeare's vision of him as, as a young man, as a prince, is, is of a, uh, a sort of the, the womanizing, drunken-

Chris Williamson 54:32 Lethario.

Dan Jones 54:33 Lethario, wastrel, gets up at midday, um, goes back to bed as soon as possible. You know, so on and so forth. That's mostly confected. It, it, there are little hints in the sort, in some sources here and there which alludes to Henry being inflamed as much with the fires of Venus and of Ma- as of Mars as a young man.... he likes war, he likes girls. But there's, there's vanishingly little, bar these sort of quite oblique allusions here and there. Um, he, he doesn't have many notches on his bedpost, and when he becomes king, he's, he's apparently completely chaste. Now, put that into the context of sort of medieval kings in general, and you had Henry I, who fathered 22 illegitimate children, um, Henry II, you know, keeping sort of endless numbers of concubines, um, drawn rather immorally and disgustingly, uh, from, from girls who were wards of, of his, his court, in fact, in Henry II's case. None, none of that, none of that with Henry V. He has his heart set on getting married to the youngest daughter of the French king, Charles VI, that's Catherine de Valois, who he does in fact marry in 1420, and he won't touch anyone else until he's got her. As soon as they marry, she's pregnant within months and bears his son and heir who becomes Henry VI in time, but Henry is, you know, it's, it's all, it's all-

Chris Williamson 56:00 Business.

Dan Jones 56:01 ... it's all business to, uh, an almost pathological degree, you could say, or you could, you know, you could look at the guy, um, and say this is... It's just extraordinary for somebody to have that level of... He has an ex- amazing level of clarity about what he wants to do and an exceptional ability to execute on it without distraction, without deviation, without sort of surrendering to his appetites and-

Chris Williamson 56:34 Mm-hmm.

Dan Jones 56:34 ... uh, and losing focus. Uh, it's, it's an unusual combination.

Chris Williamson 56:39 What I'm finding interesting is, and again, as a historical ignoramus, uh, there is a meme or as a caricature of the sort of cheese and wine dealing with their gout king.

Dan Jones 57:01 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 57:01 You know, very opulent, very sort of sitting by, ordering the people around, being en- entertained, drinking the mead. And, and, and you know, maybe they went to war before a little bit but they don't want to, they're lazy.

Dan Jones 57:16 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 57:16 Um, and it seems like given all of those opportunities, power at a pretty young age, I'm gonna guess 26 is probably pretty young.

Dan Jones 57:27 Pretty old. Well, it's, it's, um, it's, uh, it's, it... You're in the slot at 26. It's the- it's exactly the right age. You've got on the one hand, kings like Richard II who becomes king 10 years old. Bad, bad idea.

Chris Williamson 57:41 Okay.

Dan Jones 57:42 Do not make it here.

Chris Williamson 57:42 That's like the Justin Bieber-Macaulay Culkin approach.

Dan Jones 57:45 Yeh- Yes. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 57:46 Right.

Dan Jones 57:47 Yes. It's, that's a, that's a very good example. And Richard II is crowned in 1377 after decades of, of s- drift and, um, political decline under his grandfather, Edward III, who he succeeds. And he's, he's crowned and he's brought to parliament and he's told, "You are the messiah basically. You are, you are the sort of solution to all our problems, you are-"

Chris Williamson 58:09 Great things tell a 10-year-old.

Dan Jones 58:10 Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's political rhetoric, but how does a 10-year-old differentiate between political rhetoric and absolutely everybody who's anybody telling him he's the best thing since sliced bread? And it's, it's, it's a, it becomes a big psychological problem for Richard II.

Chris Williamson 58:23 Mm-hmm.

Dan Jones 58:23 Uh, he never really gets that idea out of his head. So you, you don't really want your king to be nine years old. Um, Henry, yeah, 26, he's sort of, yeah, relativ- relatively old to become king, but not too old, if that makes any sense. I mean, he's not Charles III, becoming king in his 70s, you know what I mean, after, uh, you know-

Chris Williamson 58:46 No. That really is Biden.

Dan Jones 58:47 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 58:48 Uh, okay.

Dan Jones 58:49 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 58:49 Agincourt.

Dan Jones 58:50 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 58:50 Agincourt, the big-

Dan Jones 58:51 Ah, the famous Agincourt. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 58:52 The big one. This is, you know... W- who, who was that gig that Oasis did? Knebworth. This is Knebworth for Oasis, right? Crowning glory, until they come back and sell expensive tickets.

Dan Jones 59:02 Well, sort of, except that it's one of the first things he does. So it's like, uh, it's like if Oasis' kind of second gig was Knebworth. Um, it's a big mistake. It's a huge blunder. Uh, Agincourt, Agincourt should never ever have been fought. It was ridiculous. Um, and it's, uh, um, again, this word miraculous that, um, that they won. But they won because they had to win.

Chris Williamson 59:33 What's the story? Why were they in Agincourt?

Dan Jones 59:36 Uh, the- Henry becomes king in 13... Uh, Henry becomes king in 1413 and the, his first, th- the thing he's fixated on straightaway is going to France, making the most of, uh, conditions that may never present themselves again, where the French king is mad, the country's riven with, uh, with factionalism. You've got the Burgundians, the Armagnacs at each other's throats. There's never been a better time to pursue what has for, for generations been the, the high goal of English foreign policy, which is to take the crown of France and conquer back larger swaths of lands that had been English in the past. So he wants to strike, you know, strike hard, strike first, no mercy or whatever they say in Cobra Kai. Um, he goes in 14- he was crowned in 1413. 1415 he takes his huge, uh, army by sea across the English Channel to the coast of Normandy to besiege the town of Harfleur which is on, uh, the, the south or south side of the mouth of the River Seine. And they besiege it for a few months and reduce the city, you know, they take the city. Joe Rogan gives up. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:00:45 Mm-hmm.

Dan Jones 1:00:46 If you like. Jocko doesn't come. And then Henry has a decision to make. It's getting quite late in the, in the year, in the campaigning season, you know, you, you don't wanna be fighting sieges over the winter 'cause you're sitting outside in the open air when the weather's bad and you're starving. No thank you.So it's- it's getting into October time, so there's not time to go and besiege another city. Uh, he doesn't have enough men to do so anyway. The- they've been dying in droves of- of camp disease from living in unsanitary conditions, uh, uh, in the siege. He needs to leave some men in Harfleur to defend it in case the French jocko comes and tries to take it back and, uh, but he need- he feels like he needs one more win. There's- he's- he's- he's spent- he's taken a lot of money and- and basically pushed all of his political capital from, you know, from- that he has as a virtue of becoming king into this one campaign, and he just seems to feel like he needs one more thing. It's sometimes argued he wants the battle to win, but I- I- I'm not sure that's absolutely accurate. His army's in no state- fit state to fight a battle, as becomes evident. So he takes eight days' worth of provisions and says, "Anyone who's fit to march, basically, march with me. We're going to the only other English town held on the- the French side of The Channel, which is Calais," which had been seized by Edward III and the Black Prince in 1347. It's an English sort of, uh, militarized enclave, so he- Henry's like, "We're gonna run," almost literally run, "uh, from Harfleur to Calais."

Chris Williamson 1:02:21 Is that basically him saying to the French, "Look at us. Look how strong we are. You can't stop us, you French fucks"?

Dan Jones 1:02:27 Yeah, basically. "You- you- what are you gonna do? You can't do..." And it's to show- show the people of France their king is inadequate and can't-

Chris Williamson 1:02:32 No, no, no, no, no. Can't touch me.

Dan Jones 1:02:34 So running down the street, knocking on everyone's door, flicking the visas as they come out.

Chris Williamson 1:02:37 (laughs)

Dan Jones 1:02:37 "Come on," and then, like, jump in your mate's car.

Chris Williamson 1:02:39 Have a go if you're hard enough.

Dan Jones 1:02:40 Yeah. In your mate's car and off you go, and leaving everyone, like, fuming behind you. Um, and he al- he'd always go... For the first sort of few days, it goes fine, and then they hit the geographical- the inconvenient geographical fact that to- to make that journey from Harfleur to Calais, you gotta cross quite a few rivers. And one of them's really big. It's called the River Somme, and, uh, there are bridges across it but the French start breaking all the bridges. They- there had been a- a fording place called the Blanchetaque, um, where Edward III had once crossed it during the Crecy campaign of the 1340s, but that's been, uh, sort of mined, it's been made impassable or no one knows where it is, he's not quite sure. One of those two things. Um, so the French start breaking the bridges and Henry gets, like, driven away from Calais. He's- he's going upriver along the Somme looking for somewhere to cross, and they keep breaking the bridges, and meanwhile the French in Paris have got their shit together and raised an army, and they're coming towards Henry to cut him off. So Henry's army is getting increasingly tired, they're living rough, they're starved- well, not starved but they're on the edge of starving.

Chris Williamson 1:03:46 Do you know how many there are at this stage?

Dan Jones 1:03:49 The numbers are just a- a- a constant course of- of minor disagreement between historians, but, um, uh, it's- he ma- he ma- (laughs) something like 8,000 maybe? Something like that. And the French at Agincourt have significantly more, maybe double, maybe more than double. Um, so they, uh, th- they head the English off and eventually they- they do manage to cross the Somme and then they start heading back towards Calais, but they're cut off by the French army who, um... And it becomes obvious they're gonna have to fight. There's gonna have to be a showdown. Um, there's no mystery about what either side is gonna do. The English have w- it's like a- a soccer match, right? You've got, y- or a football match, you've got, um... Barcelona are gonna play like tiki-taka, little sort of short passes, pressing game, and, I don't know, Stoke City in the old days are gonna play re-

Chris Williamson 1:04:44 Who fit?

Dan Jones 1:04:44 Yeah, who fit. Long ball. And, like, and just hack them in midfield, okay? So it's- it- it's like that. Both sides have their tactics. The English are going to use their- their longbowmen to create a sort of funnel and then try and goad the French cavalry. The French are gonna use their heavy cavalry to try and break up the positions of longbowmen. Uh, the- the English are going to try and funnel the French into a killing zone in the middle of their archers where they can just shoot arrows and cause absolute panic and chaos. Henry tells his archers, you know, when it's clear that battle is likely and perhaps inevitable, each to prepare for themselves a six-foot pole sharpened at both ends that they can drive into the ground in front of them when it comes to battle so that any horses charging at them will either, uh, shy away, refuse, or be gored on these poles. So that's the sort of basic line of defense against French cavalry charge. But the French have weight of numbers, their army's fresh, uh, they- they know- they feel that they know what the English are going to do and that that's going to help. They've-

Chris Williamson 1:05:46 They've watched the game tape.

Dan Jones 1:05:47 Yeah. (laughs) Yes, exactly. So it becomes like- uh, you know, like a sporting match. Both sides have a game plan, who can execute? Who wants it more?

Chris Williamson 1:05:54 And who wants it more?

Dan Jones 1:05:55 The English. And the English have got Henry V in charge. And- and- and that's not just, "Oh, it's Henry V, he's in charge." He's in charge. There's no question. The French have about five different people who all think they're in charge, and some who don't turn up, and it's just- it's poor leadership. And- and the king isn't there 'cause the king's sort of mad. Uh, the Dauphin's not there 'cause they don't want to risk him being captured. So there's- there's-

Chris Williamson 1:06:20 That bloke's in the castle writing crap poetry.

Dan Jones 1:06:23 Right. Oh, no, so he's at Agincourt, he gets put in the castle writing crap poetry because he's captured at Agincourt.

Chris Williamson 1:06:28 Right.

Dan Jones 1:06:28 Um, so you've got- you've got divided leadership on the one hand, uh, and you've got ex- you know, tight, united, determined leadership, and a sense that if we lose, we all die.

Chris Williamson 1:06:39 Mm.

Dan Jones 1:06:40 And if Henry doesn't die, then his reign may well be over after two years when he goes home.

Chris Williamson 1:06:45 What would have happened had the British have lost there?

Dan Jones 1:06:48 If Henry... If the English had lost, the English and I suppose a small Welsh contingent had lost, well, there'd been a big rebellion on the- or- or, I'm sorry, there'd been a big plot against the crown on the eve of- of departure for Agincourt, known as the Southampton Plot.... in which are sort of, uh, are like a confection, a concoction, an, uh, agglomeration of all the dank memes of Henry IV's reign, like "Oh, England," uh, there's a, the Earl of March, who lots of people saw as being the sort of rightful heir to the throne. Um, Richard II isn't really dead, he's gonna come back. Um, John Oldcastle, Henry's mate who was a heretic who'd been, you know, imprisoned in the Tower of London and then escaped, they're all gonna get together in a sort of, you know, the, what's the opposite of The Avengers?

Chris Williamson 1:07:32 Right, okay, like Suicide Squad.

Dan Jones 1:07:33 The Suicide Squad are gonna come together and they're, they're gonna knock Henry off. So that had been on the eve of departure f- of, for, for what became the Agincourt campaign. Had Henry gone back, having lost the Battle of Agincourt, um, and then probably he would've found Harfleur undefendable, 'cause the French would've, would've down... Their, their, you know, their tail would've been up. They would've gone to Harfleur and taken it back. He'd have, um, his, his credibility would've been shot to pieces. You know, the, all the benefits of having, yes, you, you, you inherited the crown legitimately would've been kind of, as nothing. Um, yeah, so he's legitimate but he's useless. And he'd have had, uh, almost instantly a rebellion, I would've thought.

Chris Williamson 1:08:17 Okay.

Dan Jones 1:08:18 Um...

Chris Williamson 1:08:19 He wins.

Dan Jones 1:08:20 But he wins, and he goes back and inst- and there's like... And he wins against, apparently against the odds. Well, I, it's not apparently. He wins against the odds. He, um, and he wins in dramatic fashion, and they take tons of prisoners, and it's a, it's a bloody brutal battle. He's n- you know, he's not far from being killed in the battlefield, 'cause he fights in the thick of it as, you know, an ax swung at his head and dents... Takes off one of the fleurons of his, his crown. Um, several of his, you know, allies over the course of the Harfleur campaign and Agincourt battle, uh, key noble allies are killed or die of disease. There's big cost to it but he comes back victorious, and th- there's a sort of triumph through the streets of London to celebrate this m- this miraculous victory that's the equivalent of a sort of Olympic opening ceremony in modern terms. You know, there's, there's unbridled joy and Henry sits in the middle of it, somber, dressed in, you know, in dark clothing. "All thanks are to God, they, you know, not to me, they only come through me to God."

Chris Williamson 1:09:22 Mm.

Dan Jones 1:09:22 Uh, and he'll allow his people to sort of celebrate but he's incredibly clear, "This is not about me. This is, you know, this is because I'm, I'm God's instrument."

Chris Williamson 1:09:30 He's a man of intense seriousness.

Dan Jones 1:09:32 Intensity and seriousness.

Chris Williamson 1:09:34 Yeah.

Dan Jones 1:09:34 Yes. Intense seriousness, he is... That, that's what he is. He's a serious guy.

Chris Williamson 1:09:39 Mm-hmm.

Dan Jones 1:09:39 Even his sort of, uh, his, you know, touchy-feely interests, if you like, are serious.

Chris Williamson 1:09:45 The harp and the reading.

Dan Jones 1:09:46 He likes music. He likes to write music, play music. He likes to read. He likes wrestling. He likes to watch wrestling, you know. He's a kind of MMA, jujitsu guy. But like, there's, there's not a big hint of-

Chris Williamson 1:09:59 Really is Jocko, isn't he?

Dan Jones 1:10:00 He, he's, he's quite jocko.

Chris Williamson 1:10:01 Very jocko, yeah.

Dan Jones 1:10:02 He's quite jocko. I mean, apart from the haircut, because of course there's the famous pudding bowl haircut.

Chris Williamson 1:10:06 Why does he have that?

Dan Jones 1:10:08 Uh, the, you do see other images of... You do see images of other people with similar t- dos from this time. This is like the, it's the haircut of the day.

Chris Williamson 1:10:18 Right.

Dan Jones 1:10:19 Uh, it's a bit like if you look at The Beatles in the '50s, right? I mean, the, it wasn't only The Beatles that had that haircut, but they became associated... Just as you've mentioned Oasis already, w- the feathered Mancunian horror show that is still thought of by some veterans of that age-

Chris Williamson 1:10:34 (laughs)

Dan Jones 1:10:35 ... I, I lament to say, uh, including The Gallagher brothers themselves. You know, it was just all the time and they, uh, yeah, they weren't the only ones to have it, but...

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Chris Williamson 1:11:42 When it comes to Henry as a person as he's sort of growing into maturity, what ways was he most impressive or what were, were, what were the real, uh, advantages that his constitution, his personality was made up of, and then where were his biggest flaws or weaknesses?

Dan Jones 1:11:59 Uh, we've sort of, we've touched on it, the, a lot of the advantages already. There is this, uh, this ability to, um, to drill down, as Tony Blair used to say, into the issues, to, to identify what needs to be done, what an issue, what the issue actually is. Um, there's a sort of, uh, uh, an acute political sensitivity. So to give you an example, when he comes to the throne, the first thing he does is not announce the war. It's to, uh, go to the English Midlands and take the entire apparatus and machinery of, of English judicial system, the courts as well as the Parliament, to the Midlands where there's serious rioting, serious disorder, and to hammer that. Then to hold a Parliament and invite people to criticize him, invite people to bring their grievances. "Come, tell me what's wrong, and I will, if I can, address it, and if I can't, tell you why I can't address it." It's listening first. He's a great listener. He's a great consulter. He's, he's great at, um, uh, taking criticism on board without, uh, viewing it as personal and becoming irate, angry, aggressive or, um, or otherwise.Um, and he's, he's very strong at stating what he's going to do and then doing it. You know, there's, there's clarity and simplicity of objective, uh, and then execution. He tells you he's gonna do it, and he does it. And that's... Al- although he is also extremely harsh. He's a disciplinarian. Um, he is, uh, unsentimental, um, to the point of, of being quite scary. You know, his friends, uh, at least twice, his friends Henry Lord Scroop, who on the eve of the Agincourt campaign, um, learns of, of the Southampton plot against Henry and doesn't reveal it in time. Henry has him executed. Chops his, his, one of his good friends head off for disloyalty. There's no special pleading because you're a friend of the king. Same is true of John Oldcastle, the model for Fastolf in, um, Falstaff in, um, in Henry, in Shakespeare's Henry. He's a, he's a Lollard heretic. Uh, when Henry becomes king, um, Fal- uh, not Falstaff. When Henry becomes king, Oldcastle refuses to abjure his heresy, he just sort of carries on, like, flaunting it, uh, thinking he's gonna rely on his friendship with the king to make that okay. Um, and Henry does not protect him. Friend or no friend, ally or no ally, he, he will, um, he will be brought before the appropriate courts, whatever. And Oldcastle is, is sentenced to burn to death as a heretic and escapes from the Tower of London and turns into a sort of, you know, a, a, an arch-rival for the rest of the, of his life. When Oldcastle was run to ground, there's no sympathy because he was a friend of the king, he burned and hanged at the same time on a Lollard gallows.

Chris Williamson 1:14:49 Burned and hanged at the same time?

Dan Jones 1:14:51 Yeah, Lollard gallows.

Chris Williamson 1:14:52 What's that mean?

Dan Jones 1:14:54 It means, uh, you're strung up, you're hanged in chains, and-

Chris Williamson 1:14:58 Around the neck?

Dan Jones 1:14:59 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:15:00 Right.

Dan Jones 1:15:00 And you're burned at the same time. Rope around the neck and, you know, you're chained to the gallows, rope around the neck and, and you're, there's a fire lit under you and eventually...

Chris Williamson 1:15:09 Is this a special, this is a special...

Dan Jones 1:15:11 Special treatment.

Chris Williamson 1:15:12 Right.

Dan Jones 1:15:12 It's symbolic. I mean-

Chris Williamson 1:15:13 Is, is that hung, drawn and quartered, is that still happening?

Dan Jones 1:15:16 Uh, there's still some of that going about, yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:15:18 What's that for? Is that worse? That seems worse.

Dan Jones 1:15:21 It depends how much you like being... Well, yes, neither of them are good, uh, but they are both very symbolic, so, so being killed on a Lollard gallows, burned and hanged, it's not just, like, "What's the, how painful can we make this?" The idea is the fire is, is for your heresy and the hanging is for your treachery, because Oldcastle had been leading rebellions against the crown. Um, and you will have, you will suffer the penalties of, of both crimes. Hanging, drawing and quartering is the same thing. It's just, uh, you know, the, the hanging is for being a thief, the, you know, the, the drawing on the hurdle is for something else, the, the beheading is for this, the cutting your bollocks off and throwing them in the fire is for the other. You know, the, each component of this has a, a, a sort of visual, um, meaning.

Chris Williamson 1:16:08 Mm-hmm.

Dan Jones 1:16:09 And in this age of semi-literacy, by which I mean not all the population are literate, and no media, no mass media, um, th- the, the presentation of things, the optics-

Chris Williamson 1:16:24 Symbolism wins.

Dan Jones 1:16:25 Yes. It's always symbolism. Uh-

Chris Williamson 1:16:27 The French seem more clinical with the guillotine.

Dan Jones 1:16:30 That's much later though.

Chris Williamson 1:16:31 Is it?

Dan Jones 1:16:31 Yeah, that's French Revolution, that's 18th century at the end.

Chris Williamson 1:16:33 Oh. What were they doing?

Dan Jones 1:16:36 Much the same thing. I mean, it, it's probably more barbaric and, and in some ways less symbolic in, in France. There's a lot of flaying that seems to go on in France.

Chris Williamson 1:16:44 Ah.

Dan Jones 1:16:44 I mean, that, that's, that's cutting all your skin off while you're still alive.

Chris Williamson 1:16:47 Cutting all your skin off? How do you do that, with a special, special sharp knife?

Dan Jones 1:16:51 Well, if you- imagine peeling a banana, only the banana is a human being.

Chris Williamson 1:16:55 Okay.

Dan Jones 1:16:56 Um, yes, a sharp knife. A butcher, you're butchered.

Chris Williamson 1:16:59 And you're strapped down, laid down, standing?

Dan Jones 1:17:02 Uh, you're sort of held still, yeah. Strapped, I mean, strapped to...

Chris Williamson 1:17:08 A cross type thing?

Dan Jones 1:17:09 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:17:09 Okay. And then, like, a potato, a big potato peeler?

Dan Jones 1:17:12 Yeah, yeah. Not nice. I mean, so the, the, uh, the, Philip IV, um, Philip the Fair of France at the beginning of the 14th century does a lot of, uh, of nasty executions. There are a couple of guys who are accused of having affairs with the wives of Philip's sons. Okay, so the prince's wives cop off with a couple of knights and they're caught. They're flayed in public. Uh, during the, during Henry V's time, um, the Count of Armagnac is... Uh, these two factions, Burgundians and Armagnacs, are permanently at each other's throats. Uh, the Count of Armagnac is, um, is killed and it's said, and this isn't totally unbelievable, uh, that he is flayed and then goose feathers are stuck to these bloodied kind of, uh, muscles.

Chris Williamson 1:18:04 Mm-hmm.

Dan Jones 1:18:05 And then the blood dries and then they're pulled out one by one.

Chris Williamson 1:18:09 Oh, okay. That just seems, like, insulting.

Dan Jones 1:18:11 Seems like a lot of effort to go to when you've already flayed the guy. I think that, that might not be completely true.

Chris Williamson 1:18:19 Is there a lot of testicle stuff?

Dan Jones 1:18:22 Cutting them off?

Chris Williamson 1:18:23 Well, if... Yeah, I mean-

Dan Jones 1:18:25 Uh, the ca- the castration is, is typically a part of hanging, drawing and quartering.

Chris Williamson 1:18:34 Right.

Dan Jones 1:18:34 You get those, um, those chopped off for, if there's been a sort of sexual component to your, your deviance.

Chris Williamson 1:18:42 Oh, right. So there's levels of hanging, drawing and quartering. You can kind of get different, like a-

Dan Jones 1:18:46 Yeah, this is like the, it's like, you know, you go to the car wash and you can have the sort of bronze, the silver or the gold. It's like, how much do you want, like, the, the, the sort of blackened rims and, and tire treatment or do you just want a quick sort of jet wash?

Chris Williamson 1:18:58 Mm-hmm.

Dan Jones 1:18:58 Uh, and the, the box, the bronze is as described, hanging, you're sort of tied to a hurdle and dragged by a horse through the streets. Uh, that's the drawing. Hanging, you know, sort of, uh, strung up 'til almost dead, and then your head's chopped off and your body is chopped into quarters and sent to the four corners of the realm. But, as I say, you can add in-... uh, between the hanging and the- and the beheading and the quartering, you can add in a bit of castration, a bit of disembowelment. You know, these are added, these are optional extras you pay more for.

Chris Williamson 1:19:34 Right, okay. Yeah, like a McFlurry at the end.

Dan Jones 1:19:35 Yeah, right.

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Chris Williamson 1:20:43 And then how does this all end? 'Cause it's all going so well.

Dan Jones 1:20:50 Yeah, I mean, Henry V's reign has a weird shape. So Agincourt, 1415, the next four years are taken up with the- the conquest of Normandy. By 1420, his victories have added up and the French are in such dire straits that, uh, the- he forces on the Treaty of Troyes, by which he- he replaces the Dauphin as the heir to the realm. So the minute Charles VI dies, Henry will become king of France as well as of England.

Chris Williamson 1:21:16 Has he got this bird yet?

Dan Jones 1:21:18 He- I think you're referring to Catherine de Valois, the, uh...

Chris Williamson 1:21:21 That bird.

Dan Jones 1:21:21 That bird, yes. Uh, he marries her, uh, after the Treaty of Troyes, and that's part of its, um, it's, uh, part of the agreement.

Chris Williamson 1:21:29 Good deal.

Dan Jones 1:21:30 Great deal. And they get a big dowry as well. So, um, the whole thing works out