The Volatile Dynasty Of The House Of Normandy

[Music] the story of the kings and queens of England is more surprising than you might think it's a fine drama a thousand years of tales of lust and betrayal of heroism and cruelty of mysteries murders tragedies and triumphs but there's more than that for example one of the most reliable Chronicles describes how a king of England proposed adopting Islam as the national religion this episode the first of six includes that tale it tells the story of the English crown from 1066 to 1216 from one French Invader William to the next Louie yes Louie another surprise

a king of England who's pretty much disappeared from history it's easier to say where the history of the English Monarchy ends than where it begins it ended on the 14th of October 1066 here at what became battle Abbey on senlac Hill near Hastings we all know that this was where Harold was killed and replaced by William the Conqueror and Harold was the last Englishman to be crowned King from then on the The Sovereign would always be from a foreign family right down to Queen Elizabeth II so a history of the kings and queens of England

isn't like the history of kings and queens anywhere else in the [Music] world what happened here on that October day started a completely new history which is why it's the one date in history that everybody knows 1066 the story of that day was spelled out in a strip cartoon probably stitched for William's brother Odo by English seamstresses here's Our Hero's first appearance in the story that's William Duke of Normandy about 37 years old in 1064 he's being told that Harold godwinson ear of wesix at the time has been Shipwrecked on the French Coast one of

these guys is godwinson I think it's the chap with the handlebar mustache he's about 6 years older than William and the most powerful man in England after King Edward these are both pretty hard men survivors in a very tough [Music] World Williams spent his whole life fighting for survival and was good at it by the time he was 20 he'd established complete control over Normandy from then on he was fighting to hang on to what he had he got Harold to help him in one of those battles capturing mon Sam Michelle and then apparently as

the price of letting him go home had Harold swear to support him in becoming the next king of England which as the tapestry very clearly shows is not what happened [Applause] [Music] when Old King Edward died Harold as we all know had himself crowned instead actually to be a bit more precise he had himself elected King the crown of England in those days was not inherited but awarded in Williams view this had all gone very badly wrong so he said about putting it right the Norwegian ruler Harold hardrada took a similar view there was an

old Norwegian claim to England which he decided to revive by launching an invasion of his own their two fleets arrived within a few days of each other one in the north of England one in the South both fleets were probably about the same size about 500 ships King Harold rushed North and destroyed hr's Army only about 34 ships made it back back to Norway then he rushed South and this time of course he failed to pull it off we don't know for sure that the man with the arrow in his eye is Harold but he

certainly died at the Battle he and his ax wielding spear carrying Army of Danish and Anglo-Saxon noblemen were simply Swept Away in their place were the new rulers of England Normans on Horseback and William was their master Master of the country he owned [Music] it he was not an elected King when he went to London to be crowned on Christmas Day the population thinking that was their Duty now tried to elect him they claimed him with loud shouts the Normans not knowing what was going on thought this was some kind of Uprising they rushed out

of Westminster ABY and burned London down England had become a new kind of Kingdom one which was owned Lock Stock and Barrel by its king the story we're telling through this series The Story of a thousand years of English History is the story of this alien conqueror and his successes to the throne it's the story of how they changed England and changed with it eventually turning into puppet rulers symbols of power they cannot wield and how in that transformation they survived through tides of Revolution and republicanism so that today while they're not quite the only

surviving Royals in Europe they alone still lay claim to Majesty now how did that happen the story of William's Reign is really the story of a warrior Lord taking all power into his hands he confiscated all the privately owned land in the country its new occupiers were tenants of the king bound to him people of the north of England with their Viking Capital at York were much more bound to Scandinavia than to Normandy they refused to submit he punished them by destroying all animals and all crops between York and Durham according to the Chronicles he

C celebrated Christmas 1070 in the ruins of York the inhabitants were reduced to starvation even cannibalism 16 years later when all the land in England was accounted for and valued in his doomsday survey there were places in North Umbria that were still utterly worthless the church too was made Norman and old Anglo-Saxon and ways crushed at glastenbury archers were stationed inside the Abbey and orders given that the old chant should be replaced by new ones from France 21 monks were shot and yet there were limits to his power a few thousand Normans most of them

not even understanding the language of their new country couldn't run the place they needed the English to keep everything working and William understood that perfectly well his coronation he made an oath to uphold the laws of king Edward to uphold good law and renounce bad the old courts would continue to function and old traditions would normally be respected this oath would become fundamental to the coronation of any King the question though would be who got to wear the crown when William died bloated and exhausted at the ripe age of 60 his attendants stripped his body

and Scattered What mattered now was who would hold the land he'd conquered and how it had all been his and it was he who decided on his deathbed in Normandy he handed out the spoils he gave his eldest surviving son Robert his duy of Normandy but it was the younger son the red-hair William William Rufus who the Conqueror will should be acclaimed King of England and the youngest Henry was told he would have to be content with £5,000 but Henry was his father's son content with £5,000 was that [Music] likely the key to the plotting

that followed was that of of course none of the brothers was content Henry stirred The Brew of resentment that made Robert try to take the kingdom of England from William and William tried to take the duy of Normandy from Robert and Henry was always changing sides weakening them both eventually Robert tiring of the whole struggle decided it would be more satisfying to fight sarens than his brothers and went off on Crusade William was now secure and Powerful and Henry changed his policy he was now William rufus's very best best friend the bishop of Lin later

said that when Henry praised anyone he was sure to be plotting that person's destruction it does seem as though Henry concentrated on quietly stirring up discontent among churchmen and Barons in England which was not hard as William Rufus needed their money and had little to offer in return except to give to some what he'd taken from other others and besides William Rufus wasn't their kind of chap he didn't marry he had no children and as one Chronicle puts it all things that are loathsome to God and to Earnest men were customary in this land in

his time and therefore he was loathsome to well nigh all his people and abominable to God which is of course homophobic Chronicles speak for being gay on the 2nd of August in the year 11 00 both William and Henry were hunting separately in the New Forest it was the last day of William rufus's life His companion Chell immediately fled and disappeared abroad William's body was abandoned where it lay at a spot still marked by this Stone the next day local peasants took it in a cart to Winchester Henry had arrived before them Winchester was where

the Royal treasure was kept he demanded the treasury keys from the guards they refused to hand them over saying that Robert his elder brother was the rightful Heir Henry Drew his sword and declared that no one should stand between him and his father's scepter resistance collapsed and when the peasants arrived with their cart the Lords of England were busy electing Henry as their King the the first elected ruler of England since Harold [Music] godwinson the bishop of Winchester refused to give the corpse a Christian burial out of respect for his Royal status William Rufus was

nevertheless interred under the cathedral Tower and when that collapsed a few years later everyone said told you sir Henry's coronation at Westminster was an attempt to ensure his authority to rule he was 32 years old his father had won the country by force of arms and his Barons backed him for Rich rewards but why would anyone want a king now alongside his sanctification by the church he issued a charter promising that he would not overtax the church or his tenants in Chief and that they must treat their tenants as he treated them he claimed that

the crown changed his nature he was no longer an ordinary human being as the anointed king he held special divinely granted Powers his touch was supposed to cure scrofula swollen neck glands from tuberculosis this magic power which became known as touching for the king's evil was practiced by English monarchs for the next 700 years as proof of of their Divine Authority he also quite smartly understood that it was a good idea to promote new people to positions of power those who were already great Barons didn't need a king but men on the make would support

him by the time Robert was able to mount a challenge to Henry it stood no chance he agreed to recognize Henry as king of England in exchange for pension of course it didn't last Henry ended up invading Normandy in 1106 and imprisoning his brother for the rest of his life this is his tomb in gler Cathedral the question of who was entitle to succeed to the crown was still when you came down to it a matter of Brute Force but Henry's Victory had a profound symbolic meaning because it changed the status of the English crown

under his father England had been a property seized and owned by the Duke of Normandy now Normandy was a property seized and owned by the king of England Henry was a naturally cheery person just after his coronation he married Edith the daughter of an English woman and of the King of Scotland and he encouraged the Normans he was promoting to marry English women the great Barons regarded this with contempt and referred to their king and queen as godric and gadiva a style statement which roughly translates as Sid and Gladis as sturdy Warriors they also didn't

appreciate the fact that he was literate in three languages his other nickname HRI boair means Henry the SWAT but those great Barons were having their power undercut as Henry recruited his government officers and judges from the church he supervised his kingdom by moving his court from one Center to another it was a great traveling performance like a circus with no permanent home he spent half his time in Normandy but when he was away the kingdom was run by a totally reliable civil servant Roger the bishop of Salsbury who was called the justicier the idea of

government by a system rather than by a man was beginning to take shape he sent judges on their own tours of the country and enforced the laws harshly which seems to have been quite popular according to the chroniclers but his punishments were often based on the idea that people were guilty until proved innocent and there was no time to do that were England's Lanes really full of blinded and mutilated men muttering um but fair you'd think so from the sources we have they liked a strong King and he managed to keep the treasury well stocked

with money which meant he could buy loyalty when he needed to the key to this was his system for checking his income twice a year sheriffs and Royal officials from all over England had to bring their money to be counted by being shunted around in piles on a checkered cloth like a chess board checked it was called the ex Checker the system worked so well that the cabinet minister in charge of the nation's finances is still called the chancellor of the ex cheer and we still use paper chits called checks by a combination of force

and diplomacy he controlled and to some extent colonized Wales relations with Scotland were fine three of his wife's Brothers became Kings there England was becoming a peaceful stable and successful Kingdom Henry sent his young daughter Matilda to Germany to marry the Holy Roman Emperor and in 1116 he held a great assembly at Salsbury where all the Barons Nobles and Bishops swore homage to his son William as his successor to the crown in 1120 young William was a star an enthusiastic Warrior a keen Huntsman and The Heir Apparent he'd been in Normandy with his father fighting

the king of France and the whole party was returning to England William and his Pals were traveling in a brand new ship the white ship they were the 12th century English Jet Set the millionaire nightly lads who were heirs to most of England and Normandy once they got on the ship there was a terrific party alcohol was taken and how soon it became really Rowdy the huray Henry's yelling at one another and throwing off a bunch of priests who'd come to bless the voyage William's cousin Steven of BL had an upset stomach and he felt

he needed a bit of peace and quiet so he decided to go ashore and take a later Ship by the time they got to see it was already dark and the other ships were way ahead the wind was light William decided to catch up with the King and ordered the chaps to start rowing the master was as drunk as anyone else so they began to speed into the dark 50 ORS pushing this state-of-the-art Longboat at a terrific lick that was when they sailed straight into a rock and smashed the ship [Music] open the rock of

Baur was a well-known Hazard to navigation the cries of the drowning company were heard onshore and on the king's ship but everyone thought the party was still in full swing in fact the future of England had just been destroyed in the equivalent of a drunken car crash it's said that Henry never smiled again you can see why six years after the fatal crash not knowing what else to do Henry obliged the Barons Nobles and Bishops of England to swear falty to his daughter Matilda as his successor just as he'd had them swear to his son

but there was of course a huge difference no woman had ever ruled in her own right in either England or Normandy her husband the emperor was dead but for strategic reasons he had Matilda marry the son of the count of onju this was not a family with a power base in England Henry's sleep was filled with nightmares of peasants and Barons complaining that he'd failed them all and then Henry went and died of a surfit of lampis how does that happen a lampri is a Paras IC fish that looks as if it belongs in a

bush Tucker trial Henry loved him his doctor had put him on a diet that involved not eating lampas and he got a fever and died after ignoring the advice and the doctor said as doctors do I warned him by the time Henry died in 1135 it was all falling apart he was 67 years old and he'd gone a long way towards defining the job of a king of England but the fundamental problem who was entitled to that job had still not been [Music] solved Matilda was in onju with her husband and then up popped Steven

of blis who sailed from Normandy to England and claimed the crown Steven who' been saved from drowning on the white Ship by an urgent need for a lavatory he was the son of Henry's sister a legitimate grandson of William the Conqueror he'd also been the leading Baron to swear fty to Matilda as the air apparent but that was then and this was now he was 38 years old backed by his very tough mother and one of his brothers was the bishop of Winchester with the keys to the Royal treasury the wife of the count of

onu was not a popular choice with the Barons Steven was a noral this besides he seemed a malleable sort of chap brave enough and high-spirited he was also generous courteous and affable and would probably do as he was told which was of course a recipe for disaster according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle when they saw that the King was a good-natured and kindly man who inflicted no punishment they committed all kinds of terrible crimes all had done homage and sworn Oaths of fty but were [Music] kept meanwhile Matilda was enraged and of course had her own

supporters England was moving rapidly to Civil War Steven was insecure he surrounded himself with people from near BL Flemings which didn't go down well with the Barons he bought loyalty until he emptied the treasury and then began confiscating property so that he could pay his supporters by the time Matilda landed to claim her throne in 1141 Steven was trying to put down Rebellion after Rebellion he was a brave even ferocious fighter but his support melted away and he was captured in a battle at Lincoln Steven was Matilda's prisoner a church Council declared that he was

deposed by the Manifest Judgment of God and recognized Matilda as Queen Matilda proceeded to Westminster and was all set to be crowned and then something went peculiarly wrong something that carries an extraordinarily clear message about the job of being the monarch of England all Matilda's understanding of monarchy had been learned in Germany where she'd been Empress since she was 12 years old she had been popular and successful there after the emperor's death when Henry the had brought her back to England some German princes of the Empire followed her to demand her back as their Sovereign

but the sovereignty she had Learned was absolute power the emperor's will was law the only possible higher law was the church that was not how it worked in England even the Conqueror had promised at his coronation to respect the laws of England but Matilda flatly refused she didn't need a coronation to be Queen in her view she already was she behaved imperiously which might mean magnificently in German but meant int tobly in English and when the citizens of London petitioned her for a renewal of King Edward's laws she not only refused to listen but demanded

a heavy tax from them so they threw her out Steven was released from prison and resumed his battered kingship in fact he had a second coronation Matilda roamed around the Midlands in the west country fighting for a throne that she was entitled to but could never have in 114 43 just before Christmas Steven finally had her trapped and Starving in Oxford Castle but unbelievably Matilda and three Knights got away it had snowed and that night dressed entirely in white they dropped over the walls to the frozen water below they moved silent and invisible in the

fresh snow right through Steven's [Music] Camp it was another 5 years before Matilda gave up and returned to Normandy but she simply handed the torch to her son Henry who came to England when he was 16 to carry on the struggle and so the fighting went on year after year and the country was in effect without law and without government as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle said castles were filled with devils and evil men Christ and all his saints were asleep Steven naturally intended his own son Eustace to succeed him but in 1153 both Eustace and Steven's

wife fell ill and died Steven had had enough at the end of the year Steven and Henry rode together into London there the king proclaimed a new foundation for the kingdom Henry was now his own adopted son and would be his successor as king of England although Steven would remain King For Life Henry would take over the government [Music] immediately the next year utterly worn out king Steven retired to his grave on the 19th of December 1154 there was a double coronation in Westminster Abbey the 21-year-old Henry III was crowned King and his 33-year-old wife

ell was crowned queen consort Elena Duchess of aquan knew all about being a queen when she was 15 orphaned and the richest Damsel in France she was married to the heir to the French throne and a few days later the pair became king and queen of France the king of France was a saintly figure with perhaps a rather low sex drive Elena came from a family of lordly troubadors whose Court was dedicated to interesting love affairs she she later said that she thought she'd married a man but had married a monk she had a series

of Affairs including one with Matilda's husband Jeffrey ofu he rather dashingly wore a sprig of broom plantag genista in his hat so people called him plantagenet eventually all the Anin the whole family line wore it on their Crest she then had an affair with Jeff's son the attractive young Henry a bright well-educated athlete with Vitality intelligence freckles and money according to a contemporary chronicler Henry's father had warned his son offer saying that she'd been his lover and she was the wife of Henry's Overlord Henry was Duke of Normandy but Jeffrey died in 1151 and in

1152 Henry got Elena pregnant Lou Who probably didn't know that detail had their marriage inold and she married her Toy Boy of course she did all she could to encourage his efforts to become king of England and make her a queen again the coronation of 1154 must have been most satisfying for her he didn't make his mother's mistake of claiming to be above the law instead maintaining proper form he issued a charter confirming all the Liberties that were in force under his grandfather Henry the the combination of his lands and elers meant that this king

of England ruled more than half of France though as the vassel of the French King it would have been too much for almost anyone but Henry was a man of extraordinary Restless energy who traveled vigorously around his Realms and would order his court to hit the road with no notice whatever he got England up and running with astonishing speed he had all newly built castles destroyed so that individual Lords could not stand against him and got the law functioning again he organized government into Ministries with the chancellor of the ex Checker playing the role we

would now recognize as prime minister the chap in question was the son of a London Merchant he was Henry's closest friend and colleague they joked and drank together and he lived as the greatest Lord in the country Thomas Becket between them they reformed the currency Finance government and began the changes in the judicial system that would lead to the system of trial by jury England was beginning to develop a commercial life towns were growing the population was becoming better educated the new system for running Royal courts asked groups of local people often peasants to report

and decide the facts of the case the system that had worked for the Conqueror allowing the people to run their own country was at the heart of Henry's way of getting everything up and running again perhaps that was why he needed a Londoner at the heart of his government the next stage in his reforms was to reduce the power of the church which had become the only functioning judicial institution during the chaos of Steven's Wars anyone accused of a crime who could read a line of Latin was deemed to be a church man that made

them immune from the Royal Court they could only be judged and punished by the church of course the church wouldn't agree to give up its privileges so when the Archbishop of Canterbury died in 1162 it seemed a smart idea to install Thomas as the new Archbishop then he would deliver the church to Henry actually it seemed a pretty terrible idea to Matilda who warned Henry not to do it what did his mother know look what a mess she'd made of things Ellena was also against it and she hadn't made a mess of anything she'd been

a very competent Regent when Henry had been abroad and must have seen what Henry had not seen that Thomas Beckett's driving force was not loyalty to Henry oh surely not she was just jealous that Henry spent more time with Thomas than with her Henry was sure it was a really good idea of course it was a really bad idea why did Becket become fanatically committed to the church as soon as he got the job why did he wear Hessian underwear with lice and lash his body why did he oppose the king's plans more fiercely than

any other Bishop he ended up excommunicating the Bishops of London and Salsbury and sacking the Archbishop of York for not opposing the king he'd already acquired all the Earthly power and wealth possible now he had a bigger ambition he was arguing that The Church Must rule everyone including the king this was especially dangerous as Becket was hugely popular Henry was given to rages and the situation was bound to enrage him who will rid me of this turbulent priest on the 29th of December 1170 four of Henry's loyal Knights did just that slicing off the top

of his head at the altar of his cathedral in the words of an eyewitness the red of the blood mixed with the white of the brains like white of the Lily and the red of the Rose this was shocking Henry had to distance himself from becket's murder and win the hearts and minds of his subjects [Music] Beckett was immediately the most popular martyr in the country a 100,000 pilgrims flocked to the sight of his death he would obviously be made a saint as soon as possible the danger of course was that the pope would excommunicate

Henry and pronounce an anathema against him as the murderer of England's primate the population would turn against him in England and theing King of France would seize his vast lands across the channel Henry immediately fasted went into extravagant mourning and bended Penance prostrating himself before the Canterbury altar he was publicly lashed by a monk it worked he saved his kingdom from the pope saving it from Ellena was much more difficult elanar and Henry had drifted apart partly because of his love affairs and partly because she feared that Henry's adventure with Becket threatened her own beloved

aquatan she had gone back there she set up her own Court the court of love and that was where she raised her sons as romantic Warriors and plotted against him Henry imprisoned her there for 16 years but her plots continued unabated she supported her older Sons in Rebellion against Henry trying not only to ensure her control over her own land but to take over from him the only one who remained loyal was John the youngest in 1189 the oldest surviving son Richard inflicted a major defeat on his father Henry met Richard near the lir to

arrang peace terms but when they publicly embraced Henry quietly growled may the Lord spare me until I've taken Vengeance on you back in his own chadow Henry asked for for all Richard's supporters to be read out the first name on the list was John's Henry was heartbroken he died in Delirium a few days [Music] later Elena's imprisonment was over Henry had recognized Richard as his Heir and Richard intended Ellena to rule inland he had more important things to do [Music] Crusade Ellena had been on Crusade when she was young as the wife of the king

of France but also as the leader of her own feudal Army and now the sarens had reconquered Jerusalem Richard the Romantic Richard the lionart was a totally Fearless Warrior whose whole upbringing had been based on ellena's idea of chivalry poet and swordsman Christian Knight and tournament hero a handsome and dashing leader of armies Richard tried to live out the Fantasy Life of one of the heroes of Arthurian literature from the stories told and sung in the court of [Music] love he came to London for his coronation but only so that he could collect the funds

to pay for his great crusade to recover Jerusalem from Saladin he went off on his Crusade declaring that he would sell London if he could find a [Music] buyer The Crusade itself the Third Crusade was a sequence of great heroic and daring actions that completely failed to conquer Jerusalem associated with bursts of extreme brutality Saladin quite rightly pointed out that while Richard might be able to get an army into the city if he wanted to hold on to it he would have to spend the rest of his life there the two men never met but

they fascinated and respected each other when Richard was Ill Saladin sent his doctor the final truce ensured that Christian pilgrims would be free to visit the holy city but that had actually been saladin's policy before the Crusade even began Richard typically decided to make the journey home in 1192 into an adventure traveling alone and in disguise that was how he got captured and ended up imprisoned by jke Leopold of Austria a man he'd repeatedly insulted during the Crusade the king of England had been found in an inn in Vienna unconvincingly disguised as a kitchen Nave

The Ransom Leopold demanded was £1,000 about 8 years income to the ex cheer Richard's recklessness was crippling for the kingdom and eventually fatal for him as a storybook hero he always seems to have expected a happy ending and would sometimes even forget to put on Armor that was how he got killed in the end taking a stupid chance at an unimportant Siege in 1199 a crossbow bolt wound became infected while he was dying the man who'd loosed the shot was captured and delivered to him and Richard carried on behaving as though he was in a

story book making a great gesture of releasing the man and giving him money Richard had no Heir he named his brother the 32-year-old JN as his successor Richard aged 41 died in his mother's arms England's hero King who detested the country and had spent six months of his Reign there and the man who' killed him was rearrested and flayed alive [Music] his little brother John was never meant to be king his father had called him John Lackland because there was originally no part of the huge Anin Empire left for him and the three problems that

lurked at the core of monarchy in England now became crises how did succession work what was the balance between the king of the church and what legal limits existed on Royal power especially when it came to taxes to begin with was he really Richard's proper successor one of his Elder Brothers Jeffrey had died leaving a son Arthur and there were Barons in U and Maine who argued that this 13-year-old was the proper successor they were supported by Philip King of France the only way to settle a succession dispute was by violence so John went to

war his men captured the boy and he was never seen again it was generally believed that John Dr found him which was the wrong way to solve the problem it guaranteed that Arthur would not be king but it left a very nasty smell it didn't stop the king of France from keeping the war going and by 1205 John was driven out of most of France including aquatan and even Normandy the issue of church power also came up again it was Jon's bad luck to be confronted by an exceptionally militant and aggressive Pope Innocent III innoc

maintained that Kings had to submit to popes when the Archbishop of Canterbury died innocent announced that Steven Langton who happened to be English was the new Archbishop John refused to accept the Pope's man Rome wouldn't give ground and neither would John in 129 the Vatican excommunicated the king of England and his whole Kingdom back in England John attempted to carry on regardless the pope declared John deposed and that anyone who even spoke to him was excommunicated according to one chronicler John decided at this point to join the enemy in 1213 he sent a delegation to

the Emir of Morocco offering to adopt Islam and turn England into an Islamic country in return for protection that would have turned history upside down is it true the Emir according to the story told the envoys not to be so silly in fact John was reduced to Total surrender the pope demanded that he submit himself as a vassel of the church and that England should become a Papal Thief instead of a sovereign Kingdom so in 1213 Steven Langton the new Archbishop of Canterbury took up his post as a repres representative of the new Overlord of

England in that capacity he decided to sort out the third issue the limits of the king's power over his subjects Barons were now virtually an organized political party this is the Seal of the Barons of London lton presented them with a charter issued by Henry the and suggested that they demand something along the same lines but a bit clearer the Magna cata this famous document was signed in June 125 John and Richard had both tried to meet their costs by Massive increases in feudal dues and legal charges and most of the Magna carter is an

effort to reverse [Music] these but there are also other Clauses that show that Langton and the Barons thought that laws must bind the king himself as well as everyone else there was a notion of proper kingship in England and the magnata tried to spell out what that meant if lton had not been an Englishman the magnata would probably have looked very different and it was certainly incomprehensible to Pope Innocent who saw it as a baffling and immoral limitation on the absolute power of the feudal Lord of England who was of course himself so innocent issued

a AAP bull excommunicating anyone who stood by or tried to carry out Magna carter and Steven Langton found himself suspended from his job and recalled to Rome and John marched through England at the head of an army composed largely of foreign troops crushing the Barons and destroying their property and that's why the Barons went to France and got a new king of their own Louie the son of the king of France [Music] and so came the second French invasion of England in 1216 it was about the same size as the invasion of 1066 and Louie

landed unopposed he was greeted with General enthusiasm and was hailed as king of England in a high mass at St Paul's Cathedral he set up his own government and his army began its pursuit of John's dwindling forces John was assembling an army to Stage the great final battle and was traveling along the seashore from Lynn to Lincolnshire a miscalculation of the tide was all he needed his whole baggage train was washed away including his treasure and the crown Jew RS distraught broken he made his way to an ABY at swine's head where he was comforted

with the Monk's latest experiment in beer making which seems to have brought on dentry fever and death [Music] n