Video summary
Dan Jones writes his book on Henry V to fill a significant gap in his planned trilogy of medieval history, covering the period from 1420 onward after previously publishing works on *The Plantagenets* and *Wars of the Roses*. Beyond completing this literary series, Jones argues that Henry V represents the ultimate paradigm of kingship, often compared to figures like Aelius or Alexander the Great. The biography is particularly relevant today because it serves as a case study in leadership during crisis; Henry ascended to power at age 26 following his father's deposition and imprisonment of Richard II—a move Jones describes not just as political but as a "spiritual" act that burdened Henry IV with guilt and health issues. Consequently, when Henry V inherited the crown legitimately, he was free from this stain and possessed an intense focus on duty, viewing himself explicitly as God's vessel rather than acting out of personal ambition. Henry's effectiveness stemmed largely from his rigorous apprenticeship under his father in difficult regions like Wales and Scotland before becoming king, where he learned to command armies at a young age despite the chaos surrounding him. A pivotal moment occurred during the Battle of Shrewsbury when Henry was 16; struck by an arrow that lodged six inches into his skull, he survived only through the skillful surgery of John Bradmore and what Jones interprets as divine intervention. This near-death experience seemingly forged a personality defined by extraordinary clarity, determination, and a sense of being saved for a specific purpose. Unlike previous kings who were often distracted or indulgent in their youth, Henry approached his role with monk-like seriousness regarding romance and personal appetites, channeling all his energy into the singular goal of conquering France to restore English honor after centuries of decline. Upon ascending the throne in 1413, Henry immediately turned his attention to a French civil war that left the country vulnerable, leading him to launch an ambitious campaign culminating in the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. Facing overwhelming odds with fewer than 8,000 men against a fresh and larger French army, Henry employed tactical brilliance by funneling enemy cavalry into killing zones protected by longbowmen and sharpened poles designed to repel horse charges. The victory was miraculous given the English troops were exhausted, starving, and suffering from disease after crossing the River Som under difficult conditions. Jones emphasizes that this triumph solidified his legitimacy; had he lost or retreated following a defeat like Agincourt, it would have triggered immediate rebellion in England involving conspirators such as Owen Glendower and John Oldcastle, effectively ending his reign before it truly began. The interview also explores the modern parallels between Henry's leadership style and contemporary political polarization, with Jones criticizing "mono-thinking" where individuals rigidly adhere to one side of a binary debate without nuance. He contrasts this with the complex reality of medieval politics and current events like Brexit in the UK or US elections, arguing that history provides essential perspective against the anxiety-inducing pace of modern news cycles dominated by algorithms and social media addiction. Jones suggests that retreating into deep reading—citing Leo Tolstoy's *War and Peace* as a tool for understanding political groups—and studying historical patterns helps individuals regain composure and avoid being hijacked by extreme, tribalistic thinking. Ultimately, he posits that history offers an escape from the "never-ending now," allowing people to see cycles of rise and fall rather than believing current crises are unprecedented or unsolvable.
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why write a book about Henry V why is he
sufficiently important for you to spend
several thousand words talking about him
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 II who was
deposed in
1399 then I wrote another book about the
wars of the Roses which took the last
half of the Dynasty and that started in
1420 marriage of Henry V and Katherine
dewa and it went up to the early chuda
period so that left a little slice of 21
years mostly uh covering Henry V's life
so filling that Gap that Henry the fth
shaped hole um was sort of important in
in completing us a run of books not
quite a trilogy but a trip tick in my
V or Cannon if you will um but there's I
think there's a more important Point
than that with regards to the subject
himself Henry the F was 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 is
he like a British
aelius kind of yes 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
be 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 if
you're a medievalist this is this is you
know a landscape you've got to approach
at some point but the B 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 after effects 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
real sense of hopelessness around
politics in particular failed foreign
policy as well but a hopeless sense
around politics in particular that feels
like it's intractable that it's
unsolvable and yet Along Comes one
guy seemingly almost out of nowhere who
through the force of Personality
Charisma competence
diligence proerty 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 although
Henry VI is not an analogy for American
politics directly it's not a parable his
story does speak to themes that I think
are really in the air in the world at
the moment given the fact that he only
ruled for nine years yeah 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 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 dies
and he's not too much of a spoiler they
all die but he dies you know 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 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 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 that's the old
Napoleon thing give me lucky generals he
is lucky Shakespeare says in his play
Henry V well the ep the chorus comes on
in the epilogue and to explain what's
just happened and 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's 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 Bless yeah
blessed there you
go why was he so unlikely to become king
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
best known and arguably hated uh
character in The Kingdom apart from the
king so was by you know Uncle of the
king a super powerful Mighty Noble who
had a claim to the king of C who had a
claim to the crown of
Castile but not to England that the king
at the time was Richard II and it 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 the F 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 he's born to inherit the
greatest Noble landholding 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 39 9 a
great quarrel arises between his father
Henry Bolingbrook and the king of the
day Richard II uh it comes to blow to
cut a long story short and balling Brook
deposes Richard II imprisons him starves
him to death takes the crown for himself
and and at that point young Henry Henry
the F to be is 12 13 years old so his
life uh changes dramatically from the
sort of preparation one day to become a
great Lord he's now a heartbeat away
from wielding supreme power that was a
problem for his father though that he
was sort of forever meed with the title
of usurper yeah so in the Middle Ages
you know the the office of King is um
well it's anointed and that means 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 a sign you know you're
anointed on the shoulders on the chest
on the 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 your
power is god-given and it's not for man
human then to undo the anointing it
can't be washed off so to depose an
anointed king and then starve and then
starve him to death but you you have to
do that really or you have to kill him
in some way and history shows that
throughout the middle ages once you get
rid of a king you can't keep him around
um but to depose them is not only a
political act it's in some ways a
religious a Divine act it's to te 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 encourageable 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 Hawk all his Reign
which runs from 1399 through 1413 so for
14 years he's he has to constantly make
allowances to the people who put him in
power you know the king makers literally
the powers behind the
Thrones he's sort of beholden weird
weird social debt things going on yeah
and and financial debt you know the
people who 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 yeah he's
beholden to them um he's all 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 don't think 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
having done the wrong thing yet when he
hands over the crown to his son Henry VI
F Henry doesn't Henry F doesn't have to
deal with any of that because he's been
handed the crown fair and square by his
father um and the stain of usurpation
the stain of illegitimacy doesn't pass
down the generations what is
the what's the first impressive thing
that Henry V does as a part of his Royal
apprenticeship post 12 what's a a pretty
big incident for him well sent into so
his father becomes king and then he
sends Henry I who has four sons and two
daughters sends the eldest Three Sons to
difficult regions of the British Isles
to learn their craft because one of them
depending on how they surviv to
adulthood if they survive to adulthood
is going to be king so John is sent up
to uh the Scottish borders Thomas is
sent to Ireland and Henry the El this is
sent to Wales where this enormous
Rebellion has broken out led by a guy
called oen glendor
Englander uh wants to kick the English
out of Wales a common theme even today
in in Wales and um his he leads this of
massive Rebellion which you know tears
the principality to bit all tax revenues
dry up 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 solders 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 only been there a year a year and a
half something like that he writes back
to his father to let him know how things
are going and you just get this real
sense for a boy enjoying himself
and the the the letter is written in
French which is the the normal language
of aristocratic discourse even in
England in that day and it's to
paraphrase Dear Dad um 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 going to be
so I went around his house and he wasn't
in so I burned it down right and then I
went around his other house but he
wasn't there either
wow you're already enjoying this it
weren't there either so but one of his
mates was 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 just the joy of
of the of what he's doing he's like it's
a 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 then a year after
that comes I mean I think this 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 B 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's it's a
miracle I mean think that's the right
word to use it's a miracle that he
survives how many inches into his head
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
because he's thirsty hot
disoriented removes the helmet or lifts
the visor cuz it's a full face full face
thing and this is a battle where you
have you know thousands of of longbow uh
long bman archers on both sides and an
arrow go 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 6 Ines as the surgeon's notes who the
surgeon who operated on him called John
Bradmore he later notes in his uh his
account of the of the operation that's
that's bad that's really bad you know
you've got a 1 O Henry or someone else
pulls at the shaft of the arrow and the
Sha which is designed to come away
easily from the arrowhead so that the
arrowhead gets lodged in you and you get
blood poisoning ideally um that goes but
the you got you still got a 1 o lump of
metal lodged inside his skull so it 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
kennworth Castle which lancastrian you
know his the lancastrian dynasty his
family's headquartered in the English
Midlands and they summon the doctors and
it's a bit of a head scratcher I mean
literally like what what do
you what do you do they've got to
they've got to get this out and there's
only really you know only one surgeon I
think has the skill and the uh the nerve
to perform this operation and it's this
guy John Bradmore one of his father's
you retained preferred surgeons he's
carried out really impressive operations
for any day really particularly the
Middle Ages he SA the life of a a
carpenter who slipped with a chisel and
opened an artery and he's Brad Moore's
quarterized the artery saved his life um
Brad Moore has operated on Henry the
for's master of pavilions who's
attempted suicide by running into a wall
with a dagger in his
guts serious operation you know you say
you know not to give someone blood
poisoning when you're operating on their
intestines and it's 15th century um Brad
Moore has done lepia plasty plastic
surgery we call it now eyelid bad bag
surgery he's got sort of ointment to
um to fix scarring so he 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 you know
there's lots of things that can go wrong
in this operation what would have
happened if he'd not saved him would he
have been would have been repercussions
for not having saved the king's eldest
son probably not because the the chances
I think everybody would have recognized
were a head shot 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 they have to open
you can't push the arrow head out the
other side as you would if it was in the
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 then using a tool that bradm had
designed specifically for the purpose
which is designed to sort of excuse
me and then using a tool that Bradmore
has designed for the
purpose which fits into the arrowhead
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 trying and calm trying to stop him
going to spasm and that's like a big
operation and it takes 30 days so for 30
days the six 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 VI where he talks about this but I
I think it's not an uh a wild
supposition I think it's a fair
hypothesis to say that
this this does something to him to his
personality he but 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 surv impr probably surviving uh
an assassination attempt via head shot
will galvanizing will yeah it'll it'll
get people going um and I think you know
obviously 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 but the legend
can grow in different ways right yeah
right it can and and I think that it can
certainly it certainly seems to me that
what when you look at Henry the fth you
know the greatest medieval King as an
adult acting with this extraordinary
Focus certainty um determination and
then explicitly saying to people when he
succeeded I am just God's vessel you
know after his famous battle of aenor
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 a Duke of oon 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 and you
know you have you're sinful and God
wants to punish you and I'm just I'm
just God's
tool conduit yeah so like come on it's
not between you and me this is this 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 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
um that's it's still quite Punchy from
Henry right and and and I think that you
know you can in in the book in in My
Telling of Henry F's story I think we
can we can root a lot of that in his
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wisdom that's drink a1.com
slod wisdom it seems that you're Point
around his apprentiship being very uh
crafting for how he ends up being it's
true but also though this has happened
so shortly after he was just going to be
some rich nobleman bloke that the raw
materials must have been there already
you 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 no I think and and
look in in
history 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
Shake powerful Epoch shaping individuals
whose the vagaries of whose
personalities are at root um the causes
for historical change that's that's been
considered oldfashioned 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
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 Jon Biby Netanyahu and so on
and so on and NBS um you can't and it
would be it would be fasile and futile
um to try and explain the events of the
early 21st century without without
considering the the personalities
involved is there not a case as well
especially as we look further back in
history and the power is concentrated so
much it's so un evenly distributed
especially when you've got somebody
who's blessed this is the monarch
they've literally the conduit for the
Lord uh 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 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 pushed back against uh and I can
see why it would be horribly unpopular
um because it kind of there is this
inegalitarian meritocracy where
everybody's supposed to be able to make
whatever they want of themselves to
admit that the word was world was maybe
shaped by mostly men uh in the past
especially men who had desire for
conquer and Mastery and 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
or Ronaldo or you know there are
individuals that synthesize this
together and when the world is smaller
because it's not globalized and power is
more centralized also it seems a
absolute bro history here but um just
like using my theory of mind and what I
know about human nature um that would be
it would carry for Generations you know
the one time that your grandfather saw
Henry go past in his Carriage that kind
of thing to me seems like it would be
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 yeah
well there there are two things going on
that we need to we need to separate out
aren't there the first question is is
the world really shaped by individuals
like is that how things work and then
there the question
of do we as human beings best understand
the world through the stories of
individuals and I think 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 the of whole tradition of uh of
historical storytelling back to Homer
right if you consider Homer historian
but it's certainly that or or indeed a
single individual but the Iliad the The
Odyssey the stories of the Trojan War um
even earlier than that the sort of Greek
mythology that that sought to uh explain
the kind of the or the the the
geographical
topographical meterological makeup of
the world all of that is tends to be
humanized anthropomorphized told through
it's a personification personification
is is the way we understand history and
um and so
obviously when when we talk about
historical change we tend to gravitate
towards uh what can become the the of
great man theory of
History it becomes it becomes
oversimplified or problematic when you
think that it's only the history is only
shaped by the personality of individuals
and to return to the sort of modern
analogy it would be equally fasile and
fatuous to try and understand the 21st
century only in terms of the
personalities of Donald Trump Vladimir
Putin B Kim Jong and so forth you would
have to say well we live through 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 about
the interplay between the two things is
there a role to be played here that um
you can explain what's happening
technologically uh During the period
that you're studying here and and The
Wider parenthesis what given the fact
that it seems to be relatively flat or
at least if it's moving up it's moving
up linearly as opposed 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 yeah I don't
know things always look different
depending what l you've got on the
camera right and if you know if you've
narrow as so I've just written this book
about Henry the F 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 with that lens on them 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 the last book you and I
talked about was when I wrote Po and
Thrones and that was a book that covered
more than a thousand years and when you
do that then you you you look less at
individuals and more at Great shaping
forces climate being 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 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 the fif's personality in
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 geog geography essentially what's the
impact of the little Ice Age what does
it make happen well you know one
argument would be that little Ice Age um
changes crop yields it makes agriculture
more difficult um it's it's it's just
less conducive for easy human habitation
of uh particularly colder climates like
Northwest Europe um and that well let's
take the the English case that uh you
have the combination of the little Ice
Age and and then the P the Black Death
pandemic and you find that there's
massive population decrease you know the
population of of England drops from
about 6 million down to roughly 2
million uh across the course of the 14th
century and doesn't recover until 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 you know the
the if if you buy into the little ice
Edge there it makes the it makes living
on marginal land more difficult it means
that you you know basically your the
country you live in is less productive
you can't squeeze as much out of it and
when you're a close to subsistence
economy um that's a bad margin for error
isn't already there right yeah you know
there's you can't squeeze as much
product out of out of the land you live
in
um that's you know that's the theory but
of there's a million holes in the theory
as well and and and these are just of
course there are because whenever you
deal with with big history history over
long time I mean what's been one of the
most phenomenally successful history
books of of the last 10 15 years it's
you Val no Harari sapiens series and and
so on very attractive book to Big
popular audiences 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 a medieval historian uh
by training who's 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 youal no Harari has
somewhat started within the 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 brush Strokes you
well this doesn't apply there and that
doesn't
apply um depend like I say history is
writing history is so often about
framing and about
um the lens 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 so
Henry rising to power oh yes Henry the
fth yeah yes that guy how does he become
king he becomes king uh because he
inherits the the the crown from his
father but he has to he has a a
difficult ride through his father's
Reign he has this
we we left him at 16 years old having
nearly died on the battlefield of
Shrewsbury for the next 10 years once
he's recovered he goes back to Wales and
and by degrees that the the rebellion of
oor has 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 how
does that bloke die the Welsh GL glender
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 a a
record that says uh I think he's
dead a story with no no satisfying end
was a shame um but uh but Henry um so
yeah so he has to learn on on on the job
in Wales effectively how to besiege
castles how to deploy Cannon write
ratios between you know men at arms and
archers when you 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 youve spent
the last lot of money properly how to
you know shift shift money around your
own accounts to try and like pay for
this stuff out 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 a lot of
persuasion and finance persuasion and
finance the boring stuff you know but no
war is has ever been possible without
without that boring stuff Logistics the
money 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 probably circulatory
conditions series of Strokes uh and he
becomes increasingly debilitated and
Prince Henry future Henry VI 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
with regards to France which is
collapsing into civil war between
faction two factions called the
burundians and the AMCs
deciding English policy whose side do 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 the whole problems
of heresy lard as it's called in in
those days what's lard L is is uh there
was an to be a lard is a sort of
insulting term at the time pejorative
but lards basically followed the
teachings of a radical Oxford Theologian
called John Wickliffe wickliff had had
come up with some ideas that Martin
Luther would come up with again if you
like in the in the 16th century that
thing you know the sacraments weren't
based in um you
know marriage baptism 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 a a sort of big
program of of wealth read 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
c 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
the point
um when his father's really decrepit and
old uh well 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 let's drop Biden kind
of move I mean and uh in this case um
Biden refuses you
know and it's but in this case that's a
good that is um that's not a terrible
idea Henry IV refuses despite his you
know his growing decrepitude his uh the
the physical pain of doing his job the
burden of both you know political
difficulties and and moral guilt that he
carries around everywhere with him uh
Henry IV refuses to abdicate because I
think knows that if he does that he's
going to land his son an heir Henry with
all the same problems that he he's
suffered is abdication seen as usurping
by the
[Music]
incumbent 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 VI proposes to Henry
his dad Henry IV is 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 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 you did want to leave and he he
does want to hand it over to me well how
do we know just muddies the waters and
and it sense it's going to leave I think
Henry I four just figures this is going
to leave his
son with qu a question Mark Henry four
has a question mark hanging over his
head his which you think has potentially
contributed to his poor health to his
sense of sort of existential Malay
certainly the sense of existential Mala
yeah and and we don't we know about the
poor health but it doesn't seem unlikely
that 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 going to feed into your
physical health at some
point um Henry IV in in in I
increasingly think a selfless way is
like no I'm going to I'm going to remain
in office until I die Ride This Out yeah
and I'm going to suffer this because
it's the only way for you son to take
over legitimately but he really slaps
Henry future Henry the F down and really
slaps him down um gives him such a uh a
telling telling off and then he strips
him of all power completely ostracizes
him from any involvement in government
whatsoever reverses some of his key
policies particularly to 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 going to I'm
going to have to teach you a lesson why
do you think he does that teach him a
lesson he got to learn and what's the
lesson he wants him to learn that that
it's not as simple as he thinks this is
an incredible blunder to ask his father
to abdicate the The Throne that um and
this is no small thing he's asked that
is 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 right
and
ums like Henry the was a pretty
impressive person as well with good
foresight yeah very impressive person
and if you look over the course of his
entire life again like Henry the F if
you if you only concentrate on these
people's Reigns they look very different
than if you if you blow it out the um
the story to examine their whole lives
Henry IV as Henry balling Brook had been
one of the most glamorous well-liked
sort of chivalrous um dashing
adventurous guys of his generation he
went to go and Slash Richard II up well
starve him to death that that's the
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 Jou with
buso the great the great French Knight
of the day I mean the most famous knight
in Europe a guy who could do back flips
in full armor and jump onto his horse
from a
standing yeah I knew you like buso um
and he' gone to fight in against the um
the pagans of of the Baltic with the
tonic Knights on Crusade he'd been is
this just you know the implication of
King to be Warrior as well or or or
military not just competent military
strategist but to have skill with weapon
in hand to have earned their stripes in
the sort of a way is that something that
was expected of the king given that he
was supposed to be adorned by God I
suppose also an assumption would be
protected by God therefore uh but you're
throwing out the most important person
onto the field of battle
wielding a stick or a sharp thing you
know is that it was this was part for
the course earn your stripes show us
that you're your lead from the front
type thing the the Great Seal which is
the sort of the authenticating um device
for all government documents in this
time shows the KY it's it's two-sided
and imprints on a disc of wax two images
and the one side shows the king as judge
or scepter sits in judgment over his
people he is the Fountain 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 late 14 15 Century uh
for that to involve the king as
commanderin-chief literally fighting
from the front not all Kings do it
Edward third a great sort of quote
unquote warrior king tends to hang back
in the sort of Napoleon role you know on
on High Ground surveying and
strategizing and directing Henry VI F
likes to lead from the front you know
the thick of it narrow in the face yeah
and he he's he is prepared to put
himself In Harm's Way and uh and does so
at shrewbury does so at aenor does so
whenever you know he his his style of
leadership is um is
demonstrative and so when even when
there's not a he never fights two
battles so mostly it's Siege craft when
he when he's directing a Siege every
morning he will be doing the rounds sort
of patting people on the back
micromanaging where the cannons in other
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health.com wisdom that's function
health.com slod wisdom I was can you
explain let's say that you're Henry V
and you're siing pick anywhere 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 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 a combination of Castle
and town and you're going to make them
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 of laws of
siegecraft you you asked uh people
to let's say we're besieging Austin
Texas you want to besiege Austin I don't
myself want to besiege Austin Texas but
let's just say okay right so we
surround the the target M um and then
you go to the leaders of the of the
target Joe yes you go we go to Rogan and
say Rogan uh you're under siege brother
and uh are you going to give up or are
we gonna have to make you give up and is
this Emissary to Emissary is this
shouting it over the wall yeah yeah
Emissary to Emissary we're going to make
you give it up H are you going to say
yes or no well if you say yes and give
it up that's fine it will be
theoretically a Peaceable transfer of of
the 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 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 what about if you
surrender after you said
no you can probably negotiate those
terms but it's you're in a much worse
negotiating position big decision at the
very beginning yeah but so what so what
normally decided is Rogan will say um
okay it's a qualified not no no I'm not
going to give up right
away but if so I need an ally of Rogan
Joo is Joo based here yeah he can be
well he needs to be ba based not here
he's not he's not based okay so Rogan
will say I'm not going to give up
straight away but if within the next 40
days Joo 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 it's
like you know well okay this MCH credit
note this this match is going to last
for 40 days 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 the the the Defenders have 40
days to try and hold out and joo's got
40 days to come and save Rogan okay this
actually turning into like quite a a
compelling drama yeah um and a
believable one as well maybe we have a
reality TV show on our
hands so then what is you've got your
besieged place let's say it's Castle
seems like it's easiest to do it as
Castle this is Austin Castle Joe's at
the top yeah uh and what are you what
are you doing what are you throwing at
him well Henry typically um takes a uh
takes over a building so a a
city or or a castle but actually let's
say a fortified City will typically have
a sort of enclosed Center walled bit
with a with a you know fortifi bit of
the 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
presumably they're
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 the strategically useful
position and direct things from there so
we'll be living with in in in a degree
of sort of Splendor and luxury um but
then every day we'll 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 Canon us and Siege sieges um the 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 yeah it's it's going around
making sure everyone's morale stays high
and he's very Henry hats on the head
hats on the head slaps on the ass 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 very handson very handson
very handson and um that's part of his
you know Shakespeare picks up on this
with with this idea of him as you know
that's 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 think he was a
pretty chill dude no no chill really I
mean he liked music and he was a sort of
talented musician loved to read um had
sort of calming Hobbies if you like but
and and not possessed of like a manic
energy but it's kind of laser focus and
probably even more terrifying that way
then someone that's got a bit of a
parasympathetic routine yeah but then
turns it on the next day and goes from
dirt to clouds and high level stuff
ground floor stuff 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 but still so you hear you hear
him and he's got a r distinct voice and
it's it's it's nagging it's
imperative it's like do this there's no
sort of Thrills it's do this do it
now why haven't you done it you know
it's always you know it's unwavering
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
worthy to us but it's see that he fail
not thereof don't this up don't
this up and he's a real
micromanager there's this point at which
he's 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
II to disinherit his only surviving son
uh and make Henry the he and Regent of
the crown of of France that's the end
goal of this war it's they it's within
touching distance and Henry writes this
letter back to the keeper of ponter frat
castle where now Charles Duke of oon is
being kept one of the the most high
ranking prisoners from aenor 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
pontif frat castle at this point but
Henry from you know hundreds of miles
away is is riding 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 Mike he's saying
yeah make sure he's locked up double the
guard like he's going to 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 key
because if you don't do this I'm going
to 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 effective effective what's he
doing
romantically
nothing which is
bizarre Henry
is well the French spy says it more like
a monk than a king um
he there there so the prince how
character shakes vision of him as as a
young man as a prince is is of a uh a
sort of the the womanizing drunk lario
waste stroll gets up at midday um goes
back to bed as soon as possible so on
and so
forth that's mostly confected there are
little hints in the s in some sources
here and there which alludes to Henry
being inflamed as much with the fires of
Venus and of mar as of Mars as a young
man he likes War he likes girls
but there's there's vanishingly little
by these sort of quite oblique Illusions
here and there um he he doesn't have
many notches on his bed post and when he
becomes king he's he's apparently
completely chased now put that into the
context of sort of medieval kings in
general and you had Henry the first who
fathered 22 illegitimate children um
Henry II you know keeping sort of
endless numbers of
concubines um you know drawn rather
immorally and disgustingly uh from from
girls who are Wards of of his his court
in fact in Henry II's case none none of
that none of that with Henry the F he
has his heart set on getting married to
the youngest daughter of the French King
Charles I 6 that's Katherine deala 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 V 6
in time but Henry is yeah it's it's all
it's all bu it's all business to 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 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 uh and losing focus
uh it's an unusual combination what I'm
finding interesting is and again as a
historical
ignoramus uh there is a meme there is a
caricature of the sort
of cheese and wine dealing with their
gout King yeah you know very opulent
very sort of sitting by ordering the
people around being entertained drinking
the meat and and and you know maybe they
went to war before a little bit but they
don't want to Lazy um
and it's seems like given all of those
opportunities power at a pretty young
age I'm going to guess 26 is probably
pretty young pretty old well it's it's
um it's it's you're in the slot at 26
it's is exactly the right age you've got
on the one hand Kings like Richard II
who becomes king at 10 years old bad bad
idea do not make it that take the Justin
Bieber mcau culin approach yeah yes
right yes that that's that's a very good
example me Richard II is crowned in 1377
after Decades of of of drift and
um political decline under his
grandfather Edward II who he succeeds
and he's he's crowned and he brought to
P he's told you are the Messiah
basically you are you are the sort of
solution to all our
problems 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 in slice
bread and it's it becomes a big
psychological problem for Richard II uh
he never really gets that idea out of
his head so you don't really want your
king to be 9 years
old um Henry yeah 26 sort of yeah Rel
relatively old to become king but not
too old if that makes Anyan he's not
Charles III becoming King in his 70s you
know what I mean after you know no that
really is Biden uh okay Ain cor aent cor
famous aent the big one this is you know
who was that gig that Oasis did nworth
this is nworth for Oasis right crowning
Glory until they come back and sell
expensive tickets well sort of except
that it's one of the first things he
does so it's like uh it's like if
oasis's kind of second gig was
nworth
um it's a big mistake it's a huge
blunder aen aenor should never ever have
been f 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
what's the story why were they in
aino this Henry becomes king in in Henry
becomes king in
1413 and his first the thing he's
fixated on straight away is going to
France making the most of conditions
that may never present themselves again
where the French King is mad the
country's Riven with with factionalism
you got the burundians the army ACS 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
large SES 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 he's Crown in 1413 1415 he
takes this huge uh Army by sea across
the English Channel to the coast of
Normandy to besiege the town of harur
which is on the south or South side of
the mouth of the river
sen and they besiege it for a few months
and reduce the city you know they take
the city Joe Rogan gives up if you like
Joo 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 don't want to be
fighting sieges over the winter CU
you're sitting outside in the open air
and 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 in The
Siege he needs to leave some men in
halfer to defend it in case the French
Joo 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 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 a battle to
win but I I I'm not sure that's
absolutely accurate his arm is in no
State fit state to fight a battle as
becomes evident so he 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 Cal had been seized by
Edward I third and the black prince in
1347 it's an English sort of militarized
Enclave so Henry's like we're going to
run almost literally run uh from afler
to Cal is that basically him saying to
the French look at us look at how strong
we are you can't stop us you French Fox
yeah basically what are you going to do
you can't and it's to show show the
people of France their King is
inadequate no no no no no can't touch me
so running down the street knocking on
everyone's door flicking the v as they
come out come on and then like jump in
your M go if you're enough yeah in your
mat's car and off you go and leaving
everyone like fuming behind you um and
he all it almost 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 half Flur to C you got to
cross quite a few rivers and one of them
is really big it's called The River Som
and uh there were Bridges across it but
the French start breaking all the
bridges they there had been a a fording
place called the blanch attac um where
Edward II had once crossed it during the
crazy campaign of the 1340s but that's
been so mind has been made impossible or
no one knows where it is it's not quite
sure one of those two
things um so the fren start breaking the
bridges and Henry gets like driven away
from Cal he's he's going up River along
the Som looking for somewhere to cross
and they keep breaking the bridges and
meanwhile the French in Paris have got
their 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 starve well not starve but
they're on the edge of starving do you
know how many there are at this stage
the numbers are just a a constant course
of of minor disagreement between
historians but um
he he something like 8,000 maybe
something like that and the French at
Aunor have significantly more maybe
double maybe more than
double um so they uh they head the
English off and eventually they they do
manage to cross the S and then they
start heading back towards calal but
they're cut off by the French army who
um and it becomes obvious they're going
to have to fight there's going to have
to be a
showdown um there's no mystery about
what either side is going to do the
English have it's like a soccer match
right you've got you a football match
You' got
um Barcelona are going to pay like Ticky
Tacker little sort of short passes
pressing game and I don't
know Stoke City in the old days are
going to play you hoit long ball and
like and just hack him in Midfield okay
so it's it's like that both sides have
their tactics the English are going to
use the the long bowman to create a sort
of funnel
and then try and go the French Cavalry
the French can use the 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 as a
basic line of defense against French
cavalry
charge but the French have weight of
numbers their Army's
fresh they they know they feel that they
know what the English are going to do
and that that's going to help they
watched the game tape yeah yes exactly
so it becomes like you know like a
sporting match both sides have the game
plan who can execute who wants it more
and who wants it more the England
and the English have got Henry the in
charge and and that's not just oh it's
Henry the F 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
because the king is sort of mad the
Doan's not there because they don't want
to risk him being captured so there's
that bl's in the castle writing crap
poetry right oh no so he's an aen call
he gets put in the cast riding crap
poetry because he captured at aan cor
right um so you've got you got divided
leadership on the one hand uh and you've
got you know tight United determined
leadership and a sense that if we lose
we all die and if Henry doesn't die then
his Reign May well be over after two
years when he goes home what would have
happened had the British have lost that
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 or
sorry there'd been a big plot against
the crown on the eve of of departure for
asan call known as the Southampton plot
in which a sort of uh like a confection
a concoction an agglomeration of all the
Dank memes of Henry IV's reign like Owen
glander the Earl of March who lots of
people saw as being the rightful heir to
the throne um Richard the Second isn't
really dead he's going to come back um
John old castle Henry's mate who's a
heretic who'd been you know in prison in
the Tower of London and then escaped
they're all going to get together in a
sort of you know the what's the opposite
of the Avengers right okay like suicide
squad Suicide Squad are going to come
together and they're going to knock
Henry so that had been on the eve of
departure of for for what became the
aenor campaign had Henry gone back
having lost the battle of aenor um and
then probably he would have found halfer
undefendable because the French would d
the tail would have been up they would
have gone tlur and taken it back he'd
have um he his credibility would have
been shot to pieces you know the all the
benefits of having yes you you you
inherited the crown legitimately would
have been kind of as nothing um yeah so
he's legitimate but he's useless and
you'd have had almost instantly a
rebellion I would have thought okay um
he wins but he wins and he goes back and
instead and there's like and he wins
against against the
odds 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 you know he's not far from being
killed in the battlefield because he
fights in the thick of it has you know
an axe swung at his head and dents takes
off one of the furons of his his crown
um several of his you know allies over
the course of the AL campaign and aan
cor battle key Noble allies are killed
or die of disease there's big cost to it
but he comes back Victorious and there's
a sort of Triumph through the Streets of
London to celebrate this 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 uh and he'll allow his people to
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 he's a
man of intense seriousness intensity and
seriousness yes intense seriousness he
is that that's what he is he's a serious
guy even his sort of his you know touchy
feely interests if you like are serious
the harp and the reading 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 mm Jiu-Jitsu guy
but like there there's not a big hint he
really is Joo isn't he he he's he's
quite very Joo he's quite Joo I mean
apart from the haircut because of course
there's the famous pudding bowl haircut
why does he have
that you do see other images of you do
see images of other people with similar
kind of Dos from this time this is like
the it's the haircut of the day right uh
it's a bit like if you look at the
Beatles in the ' 50s right I mean it
wasn't Only The Beatles that had that
haircut but they became Associated just
you've mentioned Oasis already The
Feathered mancunian horror show that is
still sported by some Veterans of that
age I lament to say uh including the
Gallagher brothers
themselves was of a time and they yeah
they weren't the only ones to have it
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magico wisdom 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 the real uh
advantages that his Constitution his
personality was made up of and then
where were his biggest flaws or
weaknesses we sort of we've touched on
the a lot of the advantages already
there is this this ability to um to
drill down as Tony blaz 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 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 a
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 listen
he's a great consulter he's he's great
at
um uh taking criticism on board without
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 his Clarity and
simplicity of objective uh and then
execution tells you he's going to do it
he does it and that although he is also
extremely harsh he's a
disciplinarian um he is
unsentimental um to the point of of
being quite scary you know his
friends at least twice his friends Henry
Lord scr who on the eve of the aenor
campaign um learns of of the Southampton
plot against Henry and doesn't reveal it
in time Henry has him executed chops is
is 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
f off and um f in um in Henry in
Shakespeare's Henry he's a he's a lard
heretic uh when Henry becomes king um
false false when Henry becomes king old
castle refuses to abjure his heresy he
just sort of carries on like flaunting
it uh thinking he's going to rely on his
friendship with the King to make that
okay um and Henry does not him friend or
no friend Ally or no Ally he he will um
he will be brought before the
appropriate courts whatever an old
castle is sentenced to burn to death as
a heretic and escapes from the Tower of
London and turns into a sort of you know
an arch Rebel for the rest of the of his
life when old castle run to ground
there's no sympathy because he was a
friend of the king he burned and hanged
at the same time and a lard burned and
hanged at the same time lard Gallows
what's that mean it means you're strung
up you're hanged in
Chains and from the neck yeah right and
you're burned at the same time rope
around the neck and you know your chain
of The Gallows rope around the neck and
and you're there's a fire lit under you
and eventually this is special this is a
special special treatment right it's
symbolic I mean is is that hung drawn
and quarted is that still happening H
there's still some of that going about
yeah what's that for is that worse that
seems worse depends how much you like
being well yes neither of them are good
uh but they are both very symbolic so
being killed on a lard 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
old castle have been leading rebellions
against the crown um and you will have
you will suffer the penalties of of both
crimes hanging drawing quartering is the
same thing it's just you
know the hanging is for being a thief
the you know the the drawing on the
hurdle is for something else the
beheading is for this the cutting your
bollocks off and throwing them in the
fire is for the other you know each
component of this has a a sort of visual
um meaning and in this age of semi
Literacy By which I mean not all the
population are
literate and no media no mass media
um the presentation of things the Optics
symb symm wins yes it's always symbolism
French seem more clinical with the
guillotine that's much later though is
it yeah that's French Revolution that's
18th century the oh what were they
doing much the same thing I mean it's
probably more barbaric and and in some
ways less symbolic in in France there's
a lot of flaying seems to go on in
France I mean that's that's cutting all
your skin off while you're still alive
cutting all your skin off how do you do
that like special special sharp knife
imagine peeling a banana only the banana
is a human being okay um yes a sharp
knife a butcher you're butchered and
you're strapped down laid down standing
uh you're sort of held still yeah stra I
mean strapped
to a cross type thing yeah okay and then
like potato big potato peeler yeah yeah
not nice I mean so the the uh Philip I
four Philip the fair of France beginning
14th century does a lot of 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 fled
in public uh during the during Henry V's
time um the count of
armanac
is These two factions be gundian and
AMCs are permanently at each other's
throats uh the count of armanac 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 this blooded kind
of uh
muscles and then the blood dries and
then they're pulled out one by one oh
okay that just seems like insulting
seems like a lot of effort to go to when
you've already fled the guy I think that
that that might not be completely true
there a lot of testicles
stuff cutting them off well yeah I mean
yeah the C the
castration is is typically a part of
hanging drawing and quartering right you
get those um those chopped off
for if there's been a sort of sexual
component your your deviant oh right so
there's levels of hanging drawing and
quartering you can kind of get different
like a yeah there's 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
rim and and the tire treatment or you
just want a quick sort of jet wash uh
and the bogs the bronze is as described
hanging you're tied to a hurdle and
dragged by a horse through the
streets uh that's the drawing hanging
you sort of strung up to almost dead and
then your head's chopped off and your
body's 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
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that's L IV M oent us.com wisdom and
modern wisdom a checkout and then how
does this all end because it's all going
so
well yeah I mean Henry V fth reain has a
weird shape so Ashen cor 1415
the next four years are taken up with
the the conquest of Normandy by 1420 his
victories have added up and the French
and such D stats that uh the he forces
on the Treaty of TR by which he he
replaces the doofan as the heir to the
realm so the minute Charles I 6 dies
Henry will become king of France as well
as of England has he got this bird yet
he I think you're referring to Katherine
deala the bird that bird yes uh he
marries her uh after the Treaty of TR
that's part of its um it's uh part of
the agreement good deal great deal and
they got a big dowy as well so um the
whole thing works out very well this
we're in 1420 Henry goes back to England
to raise some more money to keep
fighting because now the Doan is not
dead but he is disinherited and he's not
happy about it so they've got to deal
with the Doan stamp out that you know
what it effectively becomes a French
Civil War Henry's fighting raises money
in England for that uh occasioned by
much grumbling because people don't want
to pay for a French Civil War
understandably leaves his brother Thomas
in charge while he goes back to raise
the money and Thomas gets himself killed
you asked about Henry's weaknesses as a
leader and I didn't answer you properly
Henry's weaknesses as a
leader um are I think it's very hard to
keep up with him and he doesn't optimize
particularly sensitively for the fact
that not everybody else is Henry VI F so
he leaves his brother Thomas in charge
and you know second of the four brothers
and Thomas kind of internally goed I
think by the fact he missed aenor cuz he
was Ill he's never sort of played a big
role in a battle as his brother has
tries to have his moment and charges
French and Scottish troops at B and is
killed Henry has to come back to France
and and and I think then is also
confronted with another of his his sort
of the the the problems of his style of
leadership which is it's not really easy
to deputize for this guy like he he
he he's really critical to the whole
operation um it's the sort
of it's the the the Tesla worry of how
do we cope if we don't have Elon Musk
you know I mean um so that's a problem
for him anyway he curse of competence
curse of competence there you go um and
there but so he's he's back in France
and he you know carries on Siege craft
and grinding away in this this French
Civil War and then he dies of dentry
like that you youve seen the film in
France in France um have you seen the
film No Country for Old Men no then you
won't get this reference but for most of
No Country for Old Men it looks like I
think it's Josh
Brolin is well doesn't look like he is
the main character and then about
two-thirds of the way
through he just sort of dies and the
film carries on for another third and
it's like wait what and it's just like
really sudden and there's no big Fanfare
about
it that's the kind of Henry the F story
like it's missing an act he's just
triumphed it's like what's he going to
do next how does he finish this off uh
but he just catches dentry and and very
quickly dies at the age of 35 at the
peak of his powers and it's shocking
absolutely shocking to uh to his people
I mean on the French side as well as the
English side he his body is taken back
from V vanan where he dies to England
for burial in Westminster has taken back
slowly through Normandy by stages and
everywhere these massive outpourings of
grief and shock that this great
conqueror who looked like an English
Alexander has uh has been you know cut
down in his prime and no one really
knows what's going to happen next is
there turmoil because of that there's
surprisingly little turmoil in fact and
that I think is um something you have to
factor in the great criticism of Henry V
F is that uh by virt you know the curse
of competence that you've mentioned
he he goes so
far uh that it's very difficult for
everyone who comes after him to to deal
with the his
legacy um but he leaves as his Heir a
child of less than one year in age Henry
V
6 um but he is surrounded by Veterans of
Henry's Reign and people who fought
alongside him principally Henry's
Brothers John Duke of Bedford and
Humphrey Duke of Gloucester and what
happens is John Duke Bedford takes over
in France managing the what Charles I 6
the French King dies six weeks after
Henry so the the the English French
Kingdom becomes a
reality Henry's brother John stays in
France and manages that very effectively
for seven years at least till Joan of AR
comes along and then until 1435 really
he when John Dies he's got command of
this um in England things you know the
the long standing Veterans of Henry's
Reign H du glester Henry Henry bord um
Bishop of Winchester they kind of hold
the thing
together but 30 years after Henry's
death um everything comes crashing down
in France I mean by degrees the English
possessions in France are reconquered by
the
French this puts incredible uh pressure
on on the English government Henry V 6
the the young boy grows up to be an
idiot um completely sort of I poor guy
he grows up as as king from one year old
and the the whole experience is
overwhelming confusing and horrible to
him and he is he is a sort of timid
pacifist you know couldn't get more
different from he's more interested in
sort of architecture I mean he's
responsible for Eaton college chapel
Kings College Cambridge he's some
beautiful masterpieces of late Gothic
architecture but uh he ain't no Soldier
and he and he never he never knows his
father he never has just as Henry the F
has such a an indepth apprenticeship
Henry 6 has no apprentic it is is what
happens there how does uh how does Henry
the fth set us up for the War of the
Roses well because Henry VI 6th Reign is
such a disaster by 1453 all the English
possessions in France and not just those
Henry had conquered but everything they
ever had except for Cal all goes Cason
1453 um the last of gasy the area around
Bordeaux in the Southwest is lost which
had been in English hands for hundreds
of years and the
backlash at home in England is horrible
and you have this split into the faction
you know factions which are now known as
the houses of Lancaster in York and you
just have this the the Civil War breaks
out and it it racks England for 30 years
till Richard III loses the Battle of
Bosworth in 1485 and arguably even after
that the problems don't go away until
Henry VI's Reign so um the question is
where do you root all that you could
root it in 1399 with the the uh removal
of Richard II that tearing fabric of the
universe I've I've described that would
be the sort of the Shakespeare structure
across the eight English History plays
original sin here Redemption paid for in
blood at the other end of the story you
could root it as lots of people do if
they don't like Henry the F in um uh in
Henry overextending putting too much
pressure on England by having the weight
of of of the burden of the uh Kingdom of
France I think the biggest problem is
that Henry dies when he dies because it
Le leaves his
son 17 years away from becoming an adult
and what that means is Nobody Until
Henry VI 6 becomes an adult can
renegotiate the terms of Henry VI's
Triumph and victory they can't unpick
the treaty he made because they're not
the king only the king can do that and
the King can't do it till he's an adult
legally so you have 17 years in which
everyone has to just try
and stick you know freeze time and just
hold what's what's been held that
doesn't that doesn't go very well and it
goes terribly and it's if F had lived
even another 10 even another five years
my feeling is he would probably have
settled matters with the Doan brought
the war to an end uh his mind was on
bigger things his mind was on Jerusalem
on crusading in his last campaign he was
taking a stack of books to read which
included histories of the First Crusade
uh he had a a fellow out in the Eastern
Mediterranean actually mapping Egypt
Syria Palestine Lebanon Israel as we
call them now the holy
lands um he the pap Schism had been
settled in 17 that was a situation where
you had three rival popes all claiming
to be the Pope that had been settled the
Council of constant and you only had now
had one so Christendom was to an extent
United it was politically uh expedient
for Henry to settle the English French
war and then they could all have gone
off under his leadership to Jerusalem to
fight a crusade that I think was the
missing third act and that's what he
would have done had he lived in the
course of that he would have hadn't
renegotiate the Treaty of tra I don't
doubt that he would have done that um he
was too aggressive the first
we very we disinherited the doofan the
Doan but left the doofan alive so you
had uh and you had France like
partitioned basically along the lair so
you had the kingdom of BGE in the South
and then you had the English Anglo
gundian Kingdom in the north it's not a
sustainable situation so there would
have had to be a permanent
settlement what that looked like who
knows but Henry would have been a would
have had the authority to do it the
trouble is once he dies so abruptly
nobody has the authority to to fix
things on the English side so they just
they're in kind of um survival mode
rather than creative mode isn't it an
interesting comment on
the like Melancholy mundanity of life
that you have this guy with such a
heroic story that dies by
himself uh just out of nowhere while
he's you know in the middle of
everything
and I it's a really sort of nice Stark
reminder that the personification the
stories the symbolism all of the stuff
that we said that's how people think
that's how they like to come up with the
how they explain the way that things
occur
uh much of the time even with the ones
that are blessed from above yeah they
don't get the Fanfare ending no and and
the way that that's sort of rationalized
in you know the very oldest stories is a
sort is the cap The Caprice of of Fate
The Caprice of God call it what you will
lady Fortuna did not bless them yeah all
the Wheel of Fortune things sort of go
up and then come down and um you just
don't know what's going to happen right
and um that's it's always salutary it
makes for a we you know as a writer it
makes I found writing this severely
unsatisfying ending well it's it's a
great challenge if you're a if I mean
I'm a non-fiction writer I love story
architecture story shape and I try and
and write history with a with a um with
my mind somewhat on how to package this
this story whilst remaining historically
credible accurate researched noted all
the rest of
it compelling compelling to a reading
audience that is probably most used
to compelling to a reading audience is
probably most used to sort of Hollywood
shapes and Henry the Fifth's reins a
challenge in that sense because it
doesn't have a neat third act hero's
journey gets chopped off at sort of 7:00
why is he become controversial
recently
well there's
um the one of the the most common
criticisms you'll hear about Henry these
days is that he was cruel he was cold he
was barbaric he was
brutal particularly at the Battle of
aenor where he ordered the killing of
French prisoners uh which you know in
Battlefield terms was a perfectly
reasoned and in in perhaps even
reasonable decision to take in the
battle of aenor the English had appeared
to win they'd taken lots of prisoners
but then it looked like the French were
coming back or you know people had fled
the battlefield
returning people were turning up late
that there was going to be a second bit
of the battle and there were French
everywhere among the
English there was you can't just tell
them to go and stand over there
somewhere and wait for this next bit to
happen or or go back to where you
started we're going to do the do some
more battling Henry gives an order in in
the moment that is Kill Them All kill
them
French could easily have done the same
thing they' taken the oriflam the sort
of sacred uh battle Banner that was kep
at Sand which was said have been
Charlamagne which was in fact dated from
the reign of Louis V 6 in the later
Middle Ages but once the the the oriflam
was taken from San it meant such a funny
name but it meant no no quarter given on
the battlefield no prisoners kill them
all and once so kill them all on the
English side not unreasonable the people
were pissed off about it were the
English ordinary English archers who
thought they'd got like life-changing
payday because once they'd taken these
high high ranking French prisoners they
could be sold for huge ransoms once
they're dead they ain't worth anything
so was the English a lot of the English
refused to do it and Henry had to send
around a hit squad to to kill these oh
those unscrupulous guys that'll go and
chop their heads off yeah someone's got
to do this kill them kill them now you
got to kill them now so now that I am in
no sense in favor of Mass Slaughter I
probably don't need to say that but if
you put yourself into the Mind world of
the of the early 15th century and the
specific situation of aenor he there's
no other choice he had to do it um but
he is criticized today for that action
and for you know the criticisms
are value judgments of AD his character
cold brutal um sometimes called
misogynist
um 14 yeah I know so look but this is
this is not a problem that's specific or
unique to Henry VI studies or even
medieval studies this is a a broader
Trend in history at the moment which is
the historian's job is not a find out
what happened be tell story The
historians sort of lots of
historians today optimize for
um go round history as if you're a s
time traveling policeman rating history
for not ma matching up to 21st century
pities or exercise in um in borrowed
guilt hand ringing yeah judging the
actions of Yesterday by the values of
today yep yeah or or all I mean this
this sort of um like uh masochistic
apology culture of let's look at the W
you know there's a there was a book
published a few years ago called I think
like 52 times Britain was a bell end
the most British book title ever written
by a Brit yeah but and and a sort of
like I think I think partly comic but
definitely
100% uh summing up in that title the the
the factu kind of uh six form common
room approach to history which is let's
let's be outraged and let's assume that
outrage and kind of in you know borrow
the either borrow guilt or or like
parade our it's interesting who it's on
behalf of especially if it's your people
that they did it against yes well
there's there's two forms I mean there's
like my people were hard done by
Form um and then there's my people
weren't hard done by but I'd like I'd
like to pursue my uh my trade within
this intellectual mure so why don't I um
become a warrior on the behalf of the
downtrodden in general or this specific
group there was a I I i' never finished
sapiens um and I opened it it up on my
audible on a plane and it I I realized
why I bailed out of a particular chapter
that I'd been uh deep in and it was
talking about the
unfair gender inequality that had that
was sort of replete through Humanity's
Heritage yes uh talking about how women
were they didn't get to do as much big
game hunting and they didn't get to do x
y and Zed and it's really interesting
because there was recently a study that
came out about 18 months ago two years
ago uh that said uh tried to repeal the
women didn't do as much big game hunting
as men hypothesis and upon further
inspection there was a lot of very
unethical Behavior done the way that big
game hunting was labeled that if it
happened once it was the equivalent of
that being it didn't matter there was no
difference between a man doing a
thousand times and a woman doing it once
that big game was repurposed in many
different ways so that it could pretty
much mean anything anyway uh so I came
up with the um you have heard of the
soft bigotry of low
expectations uh this is the soft bigotry
of male expectations right that anything
that am man does is seen as being
inherently Superior more preferable and
and by either not attributing that
action to a woman or by uh saying that
women can't do that thing yes you are
somehow derating them that that is that
is them being downtrodden uh which
implicit the thing that women do is less
valuable than men is an incredibly
misogynist perspective to take that what
what what is it about child rearing and
Gathering and berries which inherently
makes it less important than what it
seems like my reading of of the evidence
big game hunting was net negative for
energy like calorically it was net
negative right better to hunt and ga
fuing great to uh portray around look at
the trophy it's it's like a social um
exercise more than it was a culinary
exercise and that uh you would actually
be much better off trying to get Grouse
and rabbits and and and
squirrels and whatever the hell else it
is that they you know like little bits
and pieces uh so all of that together is
just to say that I opened up this book
to a point that I'd evidently bailed out
of previously where there was a lot of
sort of Harari
hand ringing about this thing and it
makes me feel I don't know like I get
that everybody's entitled to an opinion
if you're the guy that's written this
book about all of this stuff then why
not tell us what you think about them
but then there's another bit of me that
likes historians to be a bit more like
scientists and to say this is what
happened in a compelling way and uh
based on the best evidence this is what
we think was going on without having to
then make the value and of course that
wasn't it and of course that was it's
like if you explain to me the fact that
Henry the fifth slaughtered 4,000
Frenchmen because he was worried that
more Frenchmen were going to come you
don't need to tell me that and of course
that was a bad thing to
do yes but then the question is then who
are you as writer signaling to by that
statement you know by attacking on the
uh the value judgment particularly the
value judgment which is that um you know
and this was sort of terrible and you
know uh this you know this brings shame
on our nation today and we should
apologize for you know you can go
further and further down this
reparations to the French yeah right
exactly yeah
um it's it's
internal tribe signaling isn't it it's
saying to the people who you're who
you're trying to impress that uh that
you are hip to their set of performative
empathy there you go you you've got a
phrase for everything but I think that's
a good one um
the you but you see it everywhere don't
you all professions um once they build a
hierarchy once they build institutions
once they build like jobs to strive for
or to maintain whether those are sort of
jobs within an a university or whether
those are just positions within a sort
of publishing industry or or or you know
whatever it might
be people start just optimizing and and
writing
for that tribe that group The Purity
spiral gets ever more pure right but
what's this feel like for you as someone
who although you might not look it bit
of an old hand
yeah when it comes to history 20 25
years or so you've been publishing stuff
that's around this what is that like you
know we've talked a good bit over the
last few years you seem to be a pretty
straight shooting sort of sort of Bo
bloke both in front of the scenes and
behind the scenes yeah is that um is
that something that you're having to
keep your eye on a little bit this sort
of change the shifting requirement to
morally condemn or not underfoot or are
they just are people people not bothered
about you cuz you got
tattoos I don't um care that
much don't I don't not care at all uh
because I think that would be pretty
would be pretty weird not to not to give
any at all about anybody and
that's a pretty lonely
existence
um but I definitely don't feel like the
thing I need to do most when I write or
you know do my podcast or whatever
everever is um is oh I I must like make
sure that I'm I'm sort of staying true
to the the values of this particular
group I'm interested in in doing things
lots of different ways what what so with
books it's my readers you know it's it's
readers our our readers going to dig
this
story um that's all I really care
about I don't have a really hard nailed
down fixed political ideology I think I
think you'd probably agree that once you
once you become an ideologue probably
sacrifice your intellectual rigor and
your Independence and your and your
intelligence to a degree so I've done
all sorts of things which people have
looked at sort of as political sort of
choices in my work you know I write on
the one hand I've written lots of of
quite traditional and you might even
call them small SE conservative
historical Works about royalty and about
battles and and you know such
like um but I produced EX have produced
a drama about amberin where she was
played by Jody Turner Smith who's black
and I've worked on a series of books um
with the brilliant artist Marina Amaral
which you know called the first one was
called the color of time then the world
of flame and we did one it was called A
Woman's World which is the history of
these were colorized photogra these were
colorized photographs from like 1850
through 1950 and we decided to tell the
story just through women's stories now
that could look like a sort of you know
wokey boohoo snowflakey whatever you you
know the all the terms are I was just
interested in that story just interested
in that story and um and when we did the
amberin show I just thought that was a
kind of cool interesting way to to tell
that story I wasn't
like got this great you know political
agenda I want to pursue I was like this
is cool brimming with sort of left
leaning requirement to tell everybody
how virtuous you are or or on the other
side this sort of hatred of the present
to try and glorify the past yeah I am
this is something increasingly that I'm
noticing uh despite what both sides of
the Internet seem to think I don't
actually really care that much about
politics I find them interesting from a
human nature perspective find it
fascinating to see how they're warping
to people and and the way that they see
the world and the way that they relate
to others um but I I I realized that one
of the most guaranteed ways to achieve
the a lot of distaste uh for your work
is to actually align with each side
different at different times because I
think the world is becoming increasingly
tribal and what that means is that
everybody is looking for just reliable
allies it's the term that comes to me so
um the more obscure or ridiculous the
belief that you have to hold on to is
the more we can be assured that Dan's
sweet don't worry about Dan Dan
believes pizz gate sexy like Flat Earth
stuff or Dan believes that children
don't have a sex you know pick whatever
your sort of Lefty opinion is don't
worry about Dan Dan is prepared to
deny most common sense and reality in
order to he's going to adhere to the to
to the ideology and uh what that means
is we have someone
who if he was with us on the last thing
we can be reliable that in knowing that
he's with us on the next thing the
problem is
if you were with us on the last thing
and not with us on this thing we go
what's he going to do next time yeah and
actually he's an unreliable Ally and a
lot of the time absurd ideological
beliefs are shows of falty to your own
team and the threat displays to the
other one and any admission any wavering
in you know if I know your opinion on
gun control I should know your opinion
on abortion and on immigration and on
Taxation and on what we should be doing
overseas and anytime that you waver it
doesn't fit into either what I think
your pre-prescribed model should be or
what your compatriots or current allies
think that should be that onesie that
you've just zipped up and put on if you
ever deviate from that uh that's seen by
the other side as uh lack of conviction
and as your own side as a a sort of lack
of commitment yes it's a and it's a very
strange approach to politics because um
and I you know I do have political
opinions and um and and sort of
political thoughts and um and I'm in my
sort of private life and I try not to
tack it too hard keep to yourself that
but um I do think that this is a strange
moment politically for reasons that
you've you've just touched upon
where politics in the UK in in the US is
is roughly is pretty much bipartisan not
sorry btis it's pretty partisan you two
two sides right but those two sides are
both coalitions and they're uneasy
coalitions and it's so weird to think
that anyone could like hold could agree
with the entire package of either
Democratic or republican uh views as
expressed by the two current candidates
in the election or likewise back in the
UK where I live that you could agree
with labor on absolutely everything or I
mean the Tory part this was the Tory
party in in the UK's you know cause of
their great collapse is that they um
they couldn't hold the the Coalition
together under the the force of brexit a
a polarizing debate which didn't map
cleanly onto the the Party politics so
it like it it wrenched this Coalition
apart and it just showed that you can't
that it would be so it's so foolish to
think that um you either one thing or
the other because those political
definitions just I mean how very seldom
do they map onto one individual's sort
of package of thoughts and yeah I've
been obsessed with this I called it mono
thinking uh and yeah I just don't know I
I I'm yet to meet anybody is a true mono
thinker I.E their actual beliefs map on
to the prescribed beliefs of one party
or the other they everybody is
idiosyncratic everybody deviates in
small ways or another and um yeah I
think if you know one of somebody's
beliefs and from it you can accurately
predict everything else they're probably
not a serious thinker they're probably
kidding to themselves or they lying to
you or they're trying to say something
that makes them feel socially signaling
in one form or another um so yeah it's a
it is an interesting time and uh if
you've been able to provide a little bit
more perspective by taking everybody
back to the medieval times I think
that's probably not a bad data I think
this is one of the other reasons why
shows like yours uh shows like rest his
history uh guys like Dan Carin um even
maybe to actually no I disagree with
what I was about to say I was about to
say grahe hanock but actually think grme
plays into the current um sort of milu
and that's going on the on beond um I
think one of the reasons that people are
enjoying history is that it feels more
grounded that that it feels like okay
well at least we know stuff that's
happening and when we don't know we say
we don't know yes and and history has a
has a role to play a significant role to
play um in culture and politics at the
moment
um has a number of roles and one of the
roles is escape from the present and I
think that a lot of people are finding
the the nature the content the delivery
uh of present day politics to be um to
be wearisome and and frightening and and
depressing and and the cause of great
anxiety and and for some people but but
still want to have sort of think
intellectually about things so a retreat
into great literature a retreat into
history is is a sort of Welcome place to
put your mind um and to exercise your
mind without you know turning over the
anxieties of the moment it can also be a
great contextualize that's one of the
things that history is is that one of
the reasons that history is
because it allows us to gain better
perspective on the world we live in to
recognize themes and patterns that are
sort of inherit inherent to human
behavior over
over centuries Millennia whatever it
might be um and then there's the the
skill set that history the study of
history provides you which ought to be a
sort of a balanced weighing of evidence
and and and a decision making that is n
although this is doesn't always happen
in practice free from ideology um that
you you know you look at history and
your question is basically what happened
uh not
um trying to sort of this is not the
case obviously you know lots of schools
of History like Marxism being one of the
the the most obvious of
them you're not looking at history as a
way of validating some Theory you have
about the universe and then
just hammer BR it into into shape that
you're you're taking a a lot of evidence
about a complex moment in time in which
to return to an earlier part of our con
conversation you know great forces uh
collide with individual personalities
and you're trying to get to the bottom
of what happened and why and weighing
the evidence and coming up with a
balanced and nuanced and um intelligent
response like that would be good if we
could do that in in more Fields than
just history right if if the debates on
the great issues of the day could be
thought about and
analyzed uh from an evidence-based
standpoint um and in the spirit of
intelligent respectful debate and
discourse that would be terrific that
would be that would be the opposite of
of a lot of politics in the internet age
well I think David Pell's got this idea
called the never ending now and he
basically says that almost all of the
content you consume today will have been
created within the last 24 hours jez
uh when you think that you know even
Snapchat and Instagram stories are
purposefully designed to expire after 24
hours and the story of the moment I mean
how quickly we forgot that Biden had had
that debate and that Trump was shot and
that you know brat summer you know now
it's P Diddy or whatever and um the the
pace that everything moves at uh
convinces you and the incentives are
there from the news to convince you that
this happening right now is the most
important thing because if the thing
that happened yesterday was the most
important thing you don't need to read
what happened today yes and it's a lie
and I think that reading history which I
don't do enough
of makes I get the same sense as when I
look up through a tree so if I look up
through a tree there's this sort of down
regulation that happens to me and I
start breathing a little bit more slowly
and my my vision the peripherals of my
vision open up a little bit more and I
start to I can feel my body and my mind
sort of just release a little bit I feel
like I'm less tight and less tense and
especially uh I've read a lot of Ryan's
stuff I know you've just come from his
place yeah he's great reading a lot of
Ryan stuff reading your book it just
gives me this sense of perspective you
know like a big Arc big big
bridge and I think wow look at all the
way over there look at we still here and
look at I can see with perspective these
sort of Cycles up and down and they
thought it was the end and it wasn't the
end and then they thought it was going
to be great and it wasn't great you know
it I I really it gives you a degree of
perspective that the never ending now
has robbed from us all yeah and I think
any escape from that be it be it history
or as I say be be it sort of uh
literature is um it's just incredibly
good for our minds at the moment and uh
the way that
the the the hybridization of H I'm going
to sound like Noah Harari now the H but
I believe this the
hybridization of of human mind and
machine mind isn't in the future it's
already happened and or is happening in
real time and we over over my lifetime
I'm 43 now and over my lifetime we this
is what's happened that first it was
about humans became operators of
machines of basically databases and that
database type thinking you know parodied
with the phrase computer says no when a
human looks up from the screen and and
can't make a human decision because it
doesn't fit within the parameters of the
database they're punching in I mean that
has been rolled out to almost everywhere
and now the version of it is we have
like fused our minds with social media
what known as
algorithms anyway yeah the algorithm
let's just call it inaccurate as that
that phrase is um so that uh our and
which seem most obvious in our obviously
in our political thinking but in our
histo in some historical thinking as
well you know we are optimizing for
wittingly or unwittingly what's the
thing that's most likely to be popular
on the internet and on social media and
that typically is something that's
extremely Express expressed in an
extreme way um without any Nuance at all
uh and designed to be as either sort of
um cloyingly pleasing to our own tribe
or enraging to the the other tribe
ideally both as possible and our minds
are so plastic and our our addiction to
cell phones is so uh
societally complete that we've we've
we've already done it we've like fused
our minds you didn't have to put a chip
into your brain you just have to put a
phone in your pocket and like
and make it buzz in an addictive way I I
like and I've got young I've got kids
ranging from toddler to teenager and
um I grew up without this and so at
least I you know I can remember the
Before Time remember four times I but I
I I amum increasing maybe this is just a
function of becoming an old old geizer
and everyone gets this but I I am um I'm
displeased when I look at some of these
developments yeah yeah yeah well you
know worried it is one of those things
where every generation is adamant that
the one coming after them is broken of
course and you know you can go back and
see concerns about the printing press or
concerns about people listening to Too
Much music or concerns about them
listening to the radio or watching the
television or watching cable or what you
know and I do get the sense that what we
have the technology that we've already
got and what we're on the cusp of
probably having more of is a difference
of kind not just a difference of degree
I feel like it's a step change in The
Addictive nature the ability to really
tap in and lyic hijack what we're doing
to really play on the dopaminergic
system and to get people to it's not an
addiction I I I use the words
interchangeably it's not it's a
compulsion and you are compulsively
using your phone if you ever sit on a
plane next to somebody they pull their
phone out and swipe up and move through
the apps knowing that they don't have
signal yeah why are they doing that
because they it's just like you know the
hamster running on the wheel so to speak
um but yeah I I think it'll be
interesting to look back
in 50 or 100 years time and I wonder
whether we'll look back with horror in
the same ways I think we'll probably
look at factory farming or the way that
we would look at putting children down
chimneys or the way that we would look
at you know ladies licking
rayon or argon or whatever it was on the
end of those paintbrushes and think look
at what we exposed Our Heritage to we
were already doing it aren't we I mean
the researches s to trickle out I know
it's not conclusive um but that you
shouldn't have given these kids
Tik Tok right basically this has been a
very very bad thing to have done um and
yes I'm sure I'm sure you're right well
I'm not sure you're right I can't be
sure you're right uh but I I I feel
instinctively that you you're right on
that I think you to slightly return to
this idea about what what is the the
value of History I think a good example
is to look at what we're living through
now with this Communications revolution
in in the um the saturation of this new
Communications technology throughout
Society the um the speed of uh of
information distribution um you know the
Advent of the printing press in the 15th
century is is is I think probably a good
comparator maybe we talked about this
when I R powers and Thrones I can't
remember but you know you have this
revolution in how to
communicate people are able to you know
communicate radically faster um much
greater speed they're they're able more
people are able to communicate and
publish and so what do they do they
start saying more and more like weird
and like outrageous stuff and you get
like characters like Martin Luther is
not only saying like really random stuff
uh at that point but is able to
communicate it around Europe at
lightning speed cost has now gone to
zero right so but what you get is like
uh more and more publishing more and
more pushes to the extreme it leaks into
politics politics becomes incredibly
polarized and you you end up with a
Reformation Communications Revolution
ends up with a a Reformation first of
sort of moral value and then of and then
that that feeds into Political systems
and I'm afraid the story of the
Reformation if we're at the beginning of
it doesn't is not one that ends
particularly happily it goes on for a
long time and it gets ever ever more
divisive and bloody um but I I'm
spitballing in a sense I'm not I'm not
again I'm not I'm not you Val no Harari
I don't haven't been gifted with uh with
the ability to see into the future but
um I I do think that if you don't if
you've never read a book and don't know
what the Reformation is or don't know
when the printing press was invented
then you're slightly hamstrung in trying
to figure you navigate your way through
the world we're in at the moment you
don't this is the first time this has
ever happened yeah you don't have any
sort of models to go hm like I wonder if
this is a bit like the Reformation or hm
I wonder if this is a bit like the
Industrial Revolution if you don't even
know what those things are then
you just can't think or or you're trying
to sort of think without any any models
uh you make you're making the job so
much harder for yourself when so
obviously Henry F great book really
accessible opens with an awesome story
you're a great writer and I love your
podcast and everyone should go and buy
it thanks bro if you were to prescribe
people after they've had a cracket
learning more about England's greatest
leader
um what other areas of History periods
of History do you find particularly
downregulating do you find par I read
this and I get a really lovely
perspective yeah yeah where else would
you where else in history would you send
a literary time
traveler um I'm quite interested
although very ignorant about um sort of
the ancient Greek and Roman world I like
to sort of dabble through that I read
very sort of you know very general kind
of books about that I find that
fascinating um it's it's literature
rather than history um we we were
talking before we began this interview
about Dominic so you've had as a
guest on the show and I um although I
didn't agree with brexit and you know
and you would you know in the the
current world you might have thought I
would never read Dominic comings I'd try
and read his substack read his because I
think he's an original thinker um and a
good and interesting writer and he
blogged a few years AG quite a few years
ago now maybe four years ago about
Tolstoy and I've I went on a real slow
burn Tolstoy Jag through War and Peace
and anakaren because Dominic CS had
mentioned war in peace as being you know
the greatest novel and the one from
which you could learn the most about uh
the the
subtle workings of political groups um
and I really slowly read War and Peace
and an Ken which they they they're
designed to be read slowly they're in
those very short chapter or not sorry
not designs be read slowly but they're
um they're constructed so that you can
read them peace meal over a long long
time and that's been my kind of
goto disappear into another world and
and you know War and Peace is obviously
set in the early 19th century anak coren
in that's about the
1870s um I'm by no means a tall a
specialist in those hisorical periods
but that's kind of part of the joy and
this is a fictional rendering of Russian
Society even if in real um historical
settings but what I found about toll
story and this is what Cummings
um said you would find about toll story
is that you just you Disappear
Completely immersed into this
world and um and it's something that's
very good to read at the age that I am
now as I've said I'm in my early 40s and
uh and once you've seen a fair bit of
life
and a fair bit of adult life and
political life or you know whatever it
might
be you really get tall Story I mean I
don't think I would have understood any
of it or no no more than half of it as a
20-year-old but as a 40-year-old 41y old
42y old 43y old it's like this guy just
seemed to see
everything everything and even though
he's not like a great one can't tell so
well in English translation but doesn't
come across as great PR stylist doesn't
matter he just saw everything and his
ability to sort of capture and render
even even with his own sort of sort of
bizarre cocktail of prejudices about
certain stuff it doesn't matter he just
has this sort of eye and so he's been my
um so 19th century Russia has been my
like happy place to disappear to
recently that's cool Dan Jones ladies
and gentlemen dude I love you bits where
should people go to keep up to date with
the things that you do um I write a
substack it's called history comma
Etc I uh I do a uh well that sort of
functions my mailing list so if you want
to find out about the new new books new
tour dates new podcast episodes it's all
on there and I do a monthly like
Q&A session on there for engaged readers
and listeners uh the Pod the podcast is
this is history that comes out every
Tuesday um and the books are in all good
book stores how are you on uh the play
Black Death stuff how are you on that I
mean I I know a bit about it should we
do an episode on that at some point soon
yeah we could do yeah we do a little
reading up and then can we do an episode
on that been watching I've been falling
asleep to stories of miasma and all
sorts of other stuff well I mean I'm I'm
writing a novel at the moment that's
said in 1350 it's post-pandemic
novel uh and I'm the first chapter is
all about like first encounter with the
plague and it's based on a real incident
my first two novels follow this ordinary
group of soldiers in the beginning of
100 Years War battle of cesy then Siege
of Cal in
1348 a bunch of veterans of those
campaigns got on boats and went to
escort Joan the daughter of Edward III
to Bordeaux where she was going to be
married to the heir to the Castilian
Throne who became Pedro the cruel
eventually and when they got to Bordeaux
the mayor sort of came out on the on the
shore was like do do not come here the
plague is here and they go ah never mind
that and she goes into the City and dies
of the plague and then you know two
months later it just it's it's in
England and it just races its way
through so I've been um that's that
takes up that's the sort of prologue bit
of my book them going to Bordeaux and
that happening and then the rest of the
the novel is then in 1350 in this world
that's s of just coming out of lockdown
if so it'll be it's on my mind at the
moment so next when that that comes out
I would love to have that conversation
yeah we should do dude thank you for
coming to see me my pleasure thank you
very much for tuning in if you wanted a
younger more American historian there's
a great conversation with rard Lynch
which I had sat right here on a couple
of weeks ago and you can watch it by
pressing this button go on