Pod Insights Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society Did Henry VI Have A Sex Coach? About this episode Henry VI didn't fit the medieval image of masculinity, or that much of a king, either.
Who gave sex education to someone of this stature? How did his controversial marriage to the French Margaret of Anjou effect his reputation? And what problems were they facing in the bedroom?
Joining Kate today is author and historian Lauren Johnson to help us get to know this misunderstood medieval monarch.
This episode was edited by Tom Delargy and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Kate Lister? Do you want even more shocking and scandalous history? Like why the ancient Greek statues had such small manhoods? Or what went on behind closed doors in the Georgian era? Well, sign up to History Hit, where you can see me discover the scandalous side of history, as well as hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, covering everything from prehistoric Scotland to the Treaty of Versailles. Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.
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1:19 Kate Lister? Hello, my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister. You are listening to Betwixt the Sheets. But before I can let you keep listening to Betwixt the Sheets, before we can go any further together, I have to tell you once more, this is an adult podcast, spoken by adults to other adults about adulty things and an adulty way of arranging our subjects, and you should be an adult too. Now, thank [bleep] for that, because I feel safer. You feel safer? Let's crack on.
1:50 Kate Lister? You know, royal bed chambers are odd places at the best of times. Oh, they are. Especially when you go back through history, it just gets weirder and weirder. Everybody in the court and beyond is making every single tiny detail of what goes on there their business. And while I'm definitely not in the habit of being particularly sympathetic to royalty, you can't help but think that that must have added a lot of pressure. I mean, how's anybody supposed to perform under such circumstances? It's amazing anybody did. And one person who definitely struggled was the rather sweet Henry VI. You don't hear much about him, do you? And there may be a good reason for that. And it's his bedroom that we're sneaking into today.
2:35 Kate Lister? Because as you will find out, things weren't quite, ugh, booming where they should have been.
2:49 Speaker 02 What do you look for in a man?
2:50 Speaker 03 Oh, money, of course.
2:51 Speaker 04 You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you.
2:54 Speaker 03 I make perfect compliments of whatever my boss needs by just turning him on and pushing the button.
3:06 Speaker 04 Yes, social courtesy does make a difference.
3:09 Speaker 05 Goodness, what beautiful time! Goodness has nothing to do with it, Derry.
3:17 Kate Lister? Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex Scandal in Society with me, Kate Lister. The 15th century was a rough time. I don't know if there's ever been a time when it wasn't a bit rough, but the 15th century was particularly tasty. They were just starting to bounce back from the Black Death and then boom! Suddenly they're at war again with the French. And to make matters worse, the king's only gone and married a Frenchwoman. And just what was going on in their bedroom? Because all of that pressure was bad enough for your average peasant, but what were the royal couple getting up to? Well, today's guest, Lauren Johnson, has unearthed research which suggests the presence of some... Assistance was required to get things going. But what do the sources say? What kind of difficulties was the king having?
4:02 Kate Lister? And was there any such thing as a sex coach in the 15th century? But before we can get to that, I have to ask you a favor. Please, please, please, could you vote for us at the British Podcast Awards for the Listers' Choice Award? We are in the shortlist and frankly, if we don't win it this time, Dan Snow's gonna beat us up. All right, that's not true, but it would be great to win it, so please give us a vote. It just takes one moment of your time and you can follow the link in the description of wherever you're listening to this podcast. Thank you so much. Right, on with the show!
4:35 Kate Lister? Hello and welcome back to The Twixt the Sheets. It's only Lauren Johnson. How are you doing?
4:42 Speaker 06 I'm good, thank you. Apart from being a bit sweaty, which is just my perpetual state.
4:46 Kate Lister? Oh, it's so sticky and sweaty and I'm a sweaty person anyway and just I don't do well in this kind of weather. I think I'm designed to be even further north, quite frankly.
4:57 Speaker 06 Yeah, same. Absolutely. All of my Anglo-Saxon and Viking ancestors are just like, "Come to the north. Why are you hanging out here?"
5:05 Kate Lister? We are here to talk about Henry VI and you've written a book-
5:11 Speaker 06 I have.
5:11 Kate Lister? -on Henry VI.
5:13 Speaker 06 I've written possibly the largest book in human existence on Henry VI. You could murder someone with this book. I'm not joking. If anyone needs an extra reason to buy it, murder weapon.
5:22 Kate Lister? We'll edit that bit out. I don't want to be involved in some kind of murder plot.
5:26 Speaker 06 Other murder weapons are also available, you know.
5:29 Kate Lister? Why Henry? He's not a king you hear an awful lot about. I mean, unless you're a historian who studies him. But I mean, like, he doesn't get that sexy Tudor type of a reputation, does he? He's just sort of flown under the radar. So what is it about Henry that's floated your boat?
5:46 Speaker 06 Well, he doesn't have a sexy reputation for very good reason because he is possibly the least sexual monarch, maybe even human in existence.
5:54 Kate Lister? Wow.
5:55 Speaker 06 But that's partly why I find him very interesting. The other aspect of him, if people have ever heard of him, and I'll be totally honest, and most people haven't, they will have maybe heard that he founded Eton College. So like, there's a tiny little kernel of people for whom they know loads about him, but that's a very select crew that I don't personally know an enormous number of. Then they might have heard that he was a king when he was a baby. There's all these Shakespeare plays, but probably the most likely thing they've heard is that he is, quote, "a mad king" because he suffers a psychotic break when he's in his early 30s that-
6:30 Kate Lister? Not good.
6:30 Speaker 06 -ultimately has a really important role in The Wars of the Roses coming about. And it was that aspect in part that I wanted to explore because, like, we know that mental health is a huge challenge for- Enormous numbers of people and yet we're still kind of, you know, when it's someone 600 years ago, he was like, oh yeah, he's mad, isn't that funny? Um, or that his, his mental ill health is a weakness that means he deserves to be deposed. Which, you know, I really wanted to find out more about that. And especially because with him, I think his mental health is very linked to his kind of chastity, his kind of unusual relationship as a man with a very powerful dominant wife.
7:12 Speaker 06 Yeah, there's a lot there, I think, that is interesting for 21st century audiences.
7:17 Kate Lister? Yeah, that really is, isn't there? Yeah. Good call. So there will be people listening to this, possibly frantically Googling, Henry, Henry the who, Henry the sixth, but can you just give us a quick, place them in context? Who was he? When was he existing? What point in the lineage did he crop up?
7:33 Speaker 06 Yeah. My top Trump's fact about Henry, uh, my best one, and this is good for a pub quiz, is he's the only monarch to be crowned in England and in France. And he's also the youngest monarch in English history. He became King of England when he was nine months old. Technically King of France before he was one year old. And that is because he's the son of Henry the Fifth, who I think is understandably a lot more famous, you know, victor of the Battle of Agincourt, big winner in the Hundred Years' War. Um, and Henry the Fifth basically went back to France, having impregnated his wife, uh, Catherine Valois, a French princess. Never met this son, Henry the Sixth, who is born and then immediately becomes king.
8:15 Speaker 06 So Henry the Sixth grows up in, mainly in England, to be honest, even though he's sort of technically King of France. Through the Hundred Years' War, essentially kind of suffering from this lineage that his father made, which would be impossible for most people to live up to. But in Henry the Sixth, you have someone who's like temperamentally not inclined to fight. He is like the most peaceful, the most gentle little bird of a human. And he grows up with all of these warrior figures around him, especially his own uncles, who are like, we need to go back and fight France, we need to go back and reclaim France. The French keep trying to say it's theirs and we're like, no, it's ours. And all Henry VI wants is just to make peace with everyone.
8:58 Speaker 06 And then he has all of these angry old men shouting at him for it.
9:01 Kate Lister? Well, you can't be king at nine months old. That's a lot of pressure to put on an infant. The crown wouldn't fit for a starter and you couldn't balance on the throne. So somebody had to be ruling around him. Who was, I'm trying to get a sense of, like, if he grows up this sort of little, oh, can't we just sit around and have a chat, like quite a peaceful little person? How did that happen when he seems to have been surrounded by quite angry men ruling for him?
9:28 Speaker 06 I think partly because they were ruling for him. So the way that he learns to be a king is by reading books and hearing stories. So he's really interested in history, he's really interested in old stories of kings. It's just that he never sees what it actually is to be a king because he never met his father. He never meets any other kings, really. So he's just sort of left with this sort of textbook idea of what a king should be. And according to textbooks in the Middle Ages, you know, a king should be chaste. He should be well behaved, he should control himself, he should fight only when he has to. And, you know, the shedding of blood is for a Christian king, wrong, it must be justified. And these are all the messages that he is constantly getting.
10:10 Speaker 06 And there's something in him that goes, oh, that must be true then. And so that's what he thinks is the reality of the world. And the whole of the rest of his life really is just this tragic series of disillusionments where people aren't like that.
10:24 Kate Lister? Oh, bless him. Yeah, that would be quite a rude awakening, wouldn't it? That you're growing up, reading about what a king is, and then suddenly it's like the worst. Work apprenticeship ever that now you have to try and be king. Actually, I'm starting to understand why that would place quite a significant stress on your mental health.
10:41 Speaker 06 Yeah.
10:42 Kate Lister? That would, to grow up like that.
10:44 Speaker 06 Absolutely. And if the only thing you've ever known is ruling a country and having like a very real sense of responsibility to the people in your kingdom, well, your two kingdoms technically, and yet constantly being told, oh, all these people have died. They've gone off to fight for you and they've died. You know, that's gonna take a toll on him. And then later in his life, because he pursues this real peace policy and the rest of the kingdom is still going, oh, but what about Henry V? He did really well at war. Surely we're great, aren't we? The English, we're really good at fighting. Why do we keep losing? You can't just make peace with the French. That makes Henry's sort of leading advisers, who in many ways are his family, you know, they're his, they are his literal family in some cases, and in others, they're like replacement father figures. They're
11:28 Speaker 06 people who are best friends to him. Those people are blamed for what Henry does because in the Middle Ages, it's just too dangerous to blame your king.
11:37 Kate Lister? Yeah, you don't blame someone near him. That's the plan.
11:40 Speaker 06 Yeah, exactly. Always blame the bad councillors.
11:42 Kate Lister? Hmm.
11:43 Speaker 06 And so later in his reign, a handful of those people are literally murdered for supporting Henry's political opinions. And again, like what a horrific thing to know that you have done effectively.
11:56 Kate Lister? Did he have brothers and sisters? Was this a happy childhood apart from being, you know, king at nine months old?
12:02 Speaker 06 He has no full blood siblings. He does later, through a sort of weird series of events, his mother has a later relationship with Owen Tudor, who is her servant, which leads to some Tudors coming about.
12:19 Kate Lister? Mm hmm.
12:20 Speaker 06 So he has these half brothers, but they're a lot younger than him. And I think whenever he's mentioned in relation to them, it's very much that he is a protector to them, kind of sort of more of an uncle than a brother, really. No, I think he was profoundly lonely for most of his life.
12:35 Kate Lister? Bless his little cotton socks. All right. So it's not shaping up too well so far. This is quite a sensitive little soul who seems very isolated, trying to be king. What was going on at the time? Like, what was he trying to be king of? I know that you could, that's an encyclopedia's worth of history just there. But like, give me a sense of what was going on. Was this a stable time in our history?
12:59 Speaker 06 No.
13:01 Speaker 06 No, I think that's fair to say. No, it's not a very stable period of time. The church is in a mess. There's loads of like infighting with how the Pope should exist and how the councils of the church should be run. You have the beginning of a really successful Muslim Ottoman campaign coming in from the east and sort of scaring all of the Christians in Europe. You have France eating itself effectively. France is having a civil war when Henry is born. And England is just, the treasury is completely empty. You know, the economic fallout of almost a hundred years of warfare, which is what they've had by the point Henry's born, is incredibly damaging. You know, they've, people are sick of fighting.
13:45 Speaker 06 That's the strange thing is that they are sick of fighting. They don't want to fight anymore in France. They don't see any benefits coming from it.
13:51 Kate Lister? No.
13:52 Speaker 06 And yet they also don't want to lose in an embarrassing way. And that's the problem is they want the victory of Henry V and they're not going to get it in these circumstances.
14:02 Kate Lister? Pride is a big thing, isn't it?
14:04 Speaker 06 Yeah, absolutely. Like pride and jingoism, basically. That's, that's what's fueling the English at this point. And then because Henry VI can't go and fight in France, he can't risk his own body to go and fight there.
14:17 Kate Lister? And he's a toddler.
14:18 Speaker 06 And he's a toddler for quite a long time.
14:19 Kate Lister? They're rubbish on the battlefield.
14:21 Speaker 06 That's true. Can you imagine? I mean, they are very, very rage filled though. I would say that about toddlers. And later he doesn't have any children. He doesn't get married until he's in his twenties because there's sort of an expectation, I think, that he's got enough vaguely related people around him. But that starts to cause a problem as well because you have loads of people who have royal blood themselves, who are thinking, oh, well, if he's not going to have a kid, I could take the throne instead.
14:46 Kate Lister? I could have a kid.
14:47 Speaker 06 So then English politics starts to fall apart and there's no consensus around Henry himself and his dynasty being king at all, which leads to the Wars of the Roses. So like his life could not, for someone who loves peace, could not be more filled with fighting.
15:01 Kate Lister? Wow. Oh, it's far too stressful and he can't even resign really, can he? That's, he's just sort of stuck with this mess. You mentioned there him getting Married. Can we talk a bit about who it was he married and what the circumstances were? Because one of the interesting things about this king is is he doesn't seem to have been that interested in chasing women, really, or all that interested. There's this sort of image of the medieval king as, you know, like quaffing wine and feasting on roasted meat and chasing wenches. And he just doesn't seem to be that interested in it. So tell me about his marriage. What happened?
15:38 Speaker 06 Yeah, he's very much not the the wenching king.
15:41 Kate Lister? He'd be a vegan today, I think, wouldn't he?
15:43 Speaker 06 Oh, probably. Yeah, he'd be he'd be rescuing bumblebees, you know, who'd be out in the garden with a little, a little cup full of sweet water to rescue them. I mean, he's a lovely person. That's the big thing about Henry is he just he seems like such a nice person, but such an awful king. And again, when it comes to sex and women, the thoughts he have are all to do with textbooks. So he is told in textbooks, you need to be respectful. You're a virgin until you get married. And at the same time, he has some of the men, because he's basically just brought up by men, around him. On one occasion, one of them, probably his uncle Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, brings in this like cavalcade of strippers, effectively, dancing girls who are,
16:25 Speaker 06 you know, naked. And he's obviously expecting that this is the sort of thing kings will like, you know, and instead, Henry is like, no, send them out. He does his little five five for sooth swearing.
16:37 Kate Lister? Oh, Henry.
16:38 Speaker 06 And sends them away and finds this, you know, shocking behaviour from a noble person. He'd said he ignores the sight of naked women. He doesn't want to see them naked. He is like the most virginal virgin ever, I'd say.
16:52 Kate Lister? That seems to be quite strange. But actually, maybe, maybe it's not. Maybe I'm just buying into a narrative that kings and royal people have had the entire time, which is that they're supposed to be lustful and virile and all the rest of it. And He just wasn't that interested.
17:06 Speaker 06 They get really confusing messages, though, because part of the messaging that there is at this point is that you should, in order to be a strong man, you need to control your bodily urges. So that would mean you shouldn't be, you know, having loads of sex. You should be sexually continant. Henry V, again, like, completely contrary to kind of what we think of Henry V or a strong king today, he seems to have been extremely chaste. He did not have illegitimate children. We don't really know of mistresses. I mean, I have a bit of a feeling that Henry V pretty much hated women, like, he imprisoned his own stepmother.
17:40 Kate Lister? Oh.
17:41 Speaker 06 As a result, I think, again, Henry VI was like, well, if I'm going to be like my father, I can't go and fight because I'm not allowed. But I could be the bit of him that behaved well towards women. I could be the bit of him that sort of had one wife and that was it. So, again, it's like, reality and the textbook form of behaviour just don't marry up at all. What we do know, though, is, like, Henry had enough of an interest that he did care who he married. There's this sort of intriguing case when he's in his late teens, he sends some people off to France to inspect some brides, basically, to find out who he could marry, the daughters of Armagnac. And he specifically asks for them to be painted in their kirtles, that is, sort of their underwear, certainly their
18:25 Speaker 06 least dress.
18:27 Kate Lister? Saucy.
18:27 Speaker 06 Possible.
18:28 Kate Lister? Or is it not saucy?
18:29 Speaker 06 So, you know.
18:29 Kate Lister? I'm just being a pervert.
18:30 Speaker 06 Well, not by our standards.
18:31 Kate Lister? No.
18:32 Speaker 06 You know, by our standards, it would be like a giant granny nightie. But by the standards of the fifteenth century. Yeah, exactly. Yes, just paint them in their kaftans, nothing more. But by the, yeah, by the standards of the time, this is suggesting, this is a person who cares that they are sexually attracted to their potential spouse.
18:50 Kate Lister? Okay, because the temptation is always to attempt to diagnose people with all kinds of modern classifications, retrospectively, was he asexual, perhaps he has neurodivergence? But I can't do that. I need to behave myself because we just don't know. So there is, for your money, there's some evidence that he is attracted to women, he is interested in women, he just seems to, God forbid, maybe even be a bit respectful of women?
19:14 Speaker 06 Yeah, I think so.
19:15 Kate Lister? Wow.
19:16 Speaker 06 I think it's exactly that. He just sort of.
19:17 Kate Lister? It's a rarity, isn't it?
19:19 Speaker 06 It really is. He's a very unusual medieval king.
19:22 Kate Lister? There must have been people flinging their daughters in front of him though. I mean, not just the uncle who decides to bring in a bunch of strippers, but like loads of people at court, you know, this is my 17 year old daughter. There must have been loads of that.
19:35 Speaker 06 I don't think there was because his court was quite weird. Like his court was him and a load of men who were ruling the council. His mother isn't, isn't there and she dies when he's 16. There just really aren't that many women around at this time, which is not my ideal, to be honest. I'm interested in the women personally, but that seems to be the state of play. And the ones that are there, I think, have a bit of a maternal feeling towards him.
20:02 Kate Lister? I'm feeling quite maternal towards him already.
20:04 Speaker 06 Exactly. There's something about him that everyone who meets him pretty much seems to want to look after him. And then they get annoyed with him.
20:11 Kate Lister? I know the type. Yes. All right. So who does he decide, I want to marry that person? They look great in a caftan. That's the girl for me.
20:19 Speaker 06 His choice is 14 year old Margaret of Anjou.
20:22 Kate Lister? I have heard of her.
20:24 Speaker 06 Yeah, much more famous. Let's be honest, much more interesting.
20:28 Kate Lister? True.
20:28 Speaker 06 She is the niece of the King of France at that time, Charles the Seventh. And she therefore has this royal connection. At 14, she is probably able to have children. There is a customary disgusting description by someone at the time of her being like ripe for marriage.
20:44 Kate Lister? Oh, lovely.
20:46 Speaker 06 That was the sound of me wanting to be sick, not actually being sick. And she's very attractive. She's very intelligent from what we can tell. Unusually, she has a lot of experience of seeing people ruling and particularly seeing women ruling because during the wars in France, her father, who later in life is found, you know, putting costumes on monkeys and having giant tournaments with lions and things.
21:09 Kate Lister? You can't just drop that in. We'll have to get you back on to talk about that. My God. Okay.
21:14 Speaker 06 Yeah. Renee of Anjou, interesting little frog person. Margaret of Anjou, though, she watches, because her father's away, not with monkeys at this point, actually fighting or being imprisoned. Her mother and her grandmother are the people who are ruling their area of the country. And her grandmother, in fact, is Yolande Varregan, a really interesting woman who is very influential with the French king. Who is very involved in lots of stuff to do with Joan of Arc as well, like not relevant to this, but very interesting. And so this is what Margaret has seen growing up. So she has seen queenship, as it were, in action.
21:47 Kate Lister? How interesting.
21:49 Speaker 06 So she is a really good choice. Probably though, in terms of what Henry's interested in, yes, she looks nice in a shapeless gown. She has this sort of lofty connection. She's old enough to have children. And his hope is that by marrying her, then love will triumph over everything and it will end the Hundred Years' War with this beautiful wedding and they'll have lovely babies.
22:13 Kate Lister? Oh, Henry.
22:14 Speaker 06 Who go on to have a peaceful time, which of course is not at all what happens.
22:17 Kate Lister? That's not, of course, it's not, Henry. Bless your little cottons. How old was he when they got married?
22:23 Speaker 06 He's in his early twenties. I think he's 23.
22:25 Kate Lister? It's not the worst that I've heard of throughout history.
22:28 Speaker 06 No. And the interesting thing with Henry is that he is described pretty much universally. And it's difficult to know exactly how much these people have seen him or if they're basing it on other stories. But he's described as being very childlike in appearance. And in the portraits of him, he always looks a little bit like a little, sort of, a child or a fat-faced cow. You know, he's got that sort of
22:49 Kate Lister? Oh, God.
22:50 Speaker 06 Specific, youthful appearance.
22:52 Kate Lister? Okay.
22:53 Speaker 06 So, you know, for her, I mean, you can imagine she, she's 15 by the time she gets to England, marrying someone, she's already married, in fact, to him when she gets there. She's never met him. Probably it was quite nice to meet someone who, although nearly 10 years older than you, is at least kind and a bit childlike and sweet. He speaks fluent French probably, so they can talk together easily. You know, it seems like it was actually quite a, a nice, companionable marriage.
23:20 Kate Lister? Well, you don't see that a whole lot in these type of situations. So if it seems perhaps they got along, were other people happy that they got married? Was this a good, I mean, it sounds like it was a good choice for Margaret. Was it a good choice for Henry?
23:38 Speaker 06 In 1445, when she comes to England, everyone is delighted.
23:42 Kate Lister? Oh, come on.
23:43 Speaker 06 And I really want to emphasise that because it's completely contrary to what people's perception is, and indeed to what happens quite shortly after.
23:50 Kate Lister? Doesn't sound like the English at all.
23:52 Speaker 06 No, exactly. But at the time, there's all these pageants that are welcoming her. She's being hailed as the bringer of peace. I think there's real hope. Everyone loves a royal wedding. Everyone loves a royal baby. They're like, soon she'll be pregnant, everything will be great. Unfortunately, the peace policy of Henry completely falls apart. Her uncle does not stick to any of the deals that he's made as part of this sort of marriage peace talk.
24:16 Kate Lister? Right.
24:16 Speaker 06 And starts to re-invade lots of territory in France, which, to be fair, it's France. So, you know, bit of a tricky moral argument to make there as an English person to be like, how dare they take back Normandy?
24:29 Kate Lister? How dare they take back what we have rightfully stolen? That is just not God.
24:33 Speaker 06 Exactly. Yeah, we used to own that 300 years ago.
24:37 Kate Lister? God damn it. Did she bring money with her? Was there a big dowry?
24:40 Speaker 06 No, there's not lots of money, so that's an issue as well. People want lots of money, but not many people would have brought money at that point. I think the biggest problem is she doesn't get pregnant. And she doesn't get pregnant for a really long time.
24:54 Kate Lister? Oh dear.
24:54 Speaker 06 So, all the English people are seeing is we've got this queen who's, you know, taking up our money, as they would see it, like Henry and Margaret are both quite lavish in the households that they keep in the patronage they give. So they're like, this is a really expensive couple, they're sucking up the money, we don't have a peace, in fact, we're losing things in France, and there's no royal baby. What are we supposed to do? Like, where are we supposed to get our joy?
25:20 Kate Lister? God damn it. This just doesn't sound like something that the British people would do at all. Like, being really excited about a foreign bride marrying a member of the royal family and then really quickly turning against them. It seems so alien to us.
25:33 Speaker 06 It is a strange idea to get your head around.
25:42 Kate Lister? I'll be back with Lauren after a short break.
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26:30 Speaker 08 Land a Viking longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt, and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed: Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit. There are new episodes every week.
27:25 Kate Lister? How long before the gossips start going, "There's no baby, why isn't there a baby?"
27:30 Speaker 06 Well, unfortunately, quite quick. And this is not fair, I have to say. So like, within a couple of years, there's evidence of like, legal cases in which men are saying, men, obviously, are saying, "Well, she shouldn't be queen because she hasn't had a baby. Maybe she's not capable of having a baby, you know, she's barren and she's brought us absolutely nothing. She should be drowned", you know, that sort of charming rhetoric.
27:52 Kate Lister? Brilliant.
27:52 Speaker 06 And again, I'd like to emphasise, she's still in her mid-teens. At this point in history, I mean, we presume that probably, you know, she'd start... Periods and things because they probably inquired about that.
28:02 Kate Lister? Oh, they would have done. They'd have been quite methodical about that, wouldn't they?
28:05 Speaker 06 But like puberty in this period goes on until like maybe 20 years old for women. So like it's, she's still within a window of like, her body is physically developing. Immediately, there's all of these accusations against her. And then weirdly, within about two, three years, there is a very specific indictment that comes up where someone says the reason that there is no child from this marriage is because the king is being prevented from having sex with her by his advisors, particularly by someone called the Duke of Suffolk, who had arranged this marriage in the first place. And this is not unusual. It's a bit weird. It's kind of, it's obviously attacking Henry as being quite unmanly because, you know, what kind of man would not go and have sex with his wife just because his other people around him are saying it?
28:50 Speaker 06 I think it's almost certainly not the case that the Duke of Suffolk was stopping Henry.
28:55 Kate Lister? Like physically holding him back.
28:57 Speaker 06 Exactly. Yeah. No, Henry, no.
28:59 Kate Lister? No sex for you.
29:00 Speaker 06 But I think what is possible is that the Duke of Suffolk and the kind of other, the rest of the little coterie of people around him who had arranged this peace talk were involved in an unusual way in Henry and Margaret's sex life. And that something of that had sort of leaked out in this kind of garbled way of no, they're stopping him having sex with her. I suspect it's the other way around. And actually, they are trying to help Henry have sex with her because he just does not know what to do.
29:29 Kate Lister? That's. This is my suspicion. And there are other examples of this happening, like Marie Antoinette. Her marriage wasn't consummated for a few years because they didn't know what to do. Catherine the Great of Russia, same thing. Her husband preferred to play with toy soldiers in the bedroom, not a euphemism. It's kind of interesting. Like, how the hell could, could you get this situation where like, it's absolutely crucial. The most important thing these people do is have sex. And then we have a situation where they don't know how to have sex. Is that what was happening?
29:59 Speaker 06 I think maybe, yes. And I think particularly Henry didn't know. I, it's really hard to imagine a situation where he had actually been informed. Properly about sex. If he is so in his mind that seeing naked women is bad, that having sexual thoughts is bad. But he needs to be chased, but not with his wife. But what is the literal, like, how do you, what are the mechanics here? I suspect he wouldn't really have known. And in a very public era for the bodies of people, you know, most people know what's going on with most people bodily, most of the time. The king is very unusual in that he has a private room, a private chamber.
30:40 Speaker 06 And the normal way of doing things is that the king and queen go into it, their servants are all sent out. Like, there's literal books of protocol that describe this, and they are left alone. Even like to the extent that if someone was in the room, the curtains on the bed would be drawn. So you just wouldn't know necessarily what was happening. And I think that's what went on is that nothing was happening and people were like, why? What are you doing in there? And eventually they actually had to kind of go in and be like, no, no, this isn't working. It reminds me a little bit of Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves and that moment where she says to one of her servants, like, oh yeah, we're definitely married because like he turns over and gives me a kiss.
31:20 Kate Lister? Yes. See, the devil is in the details and a lot of sex history, when you look at it and you sort of think, well, how did you learn about sex? Who taught you about sex? And not just like men and women kiss each other, but like the actual mechanics of how do you make a baby? There does seem to be an awful lot of assumption that nature would just take its course. That of course people know what to do, but maybe you wouldn't know what to do if somebody hadn't told you. Or it might be something that you don't realise you have to keep the penis in until it's ejaculated. Or like, just like things like that, like the details.
31:55 Speaker 06 Yeah. Do you both have to, like, do you both have to orgasm? That's a big thing as well in, in the thinking of this era. Yeah. So. I think it's completely understandable that Henry, who is so ill-informed about so many things, would not know what he was doing.
32:11 Kate Lister? Do you think somebody took him to one side and sat him down and had a chat with him? Like, who would have been the person to do that?
32:18 Speaker 06 Uh, yeah, I think exactly that. There's this really weird thing in a royal book of protocol where it goes through all of the different ways that you are supposed to... When a foreign queen arrives, the protocol of what you do there. When someone gives birth, what you do there. And one of the things is when the king and queen lie together, so when they have their marital relations. And it specifically says, everyone leaves the room. This is the normal thing, except in King Henry's time, the lords stay and the chamberlain would stay in for a while. And you're like, hmm?
32:47 Kate Lister? And what the fuck were they doing?
32:49 Speaker 06 Like, I'm absolutely certain they were there because it just got on too long, nothing was happening.
32:54 Kate Lister? Oh, I see, I see. Right, okay.
32:56 Speaker 06 We need to work this out. We need to see what's happening here.
32:59 Kate Lister? Okay, so they changed the protocol to like, right, so we do need a couple of people in the room to... with a flipboard and a magic marker to just...
33:07 Speaker 06 And these are literally like the most trusted, the most private body, well, usually political, but in this case, body servants of the king. Yeah. And interestingly, they both get assassinated when there is a big rebellion in 1450. And probably that is partly because they are so associated with this marriage and this failed peace.
33:31 Kate Lister? But like, when you think back, like, when you were a teenager, I know Henry wasn't a teenager, but he doesn't seem to be very experienced. It was all very fumbly and rubbish and crap, and nobody really knew what the hell they were doing. So I guess it is more conceivable than you think it would be that people at this time, they just might not know quite how to do things?
33:49 Speaker 06 Yeah, and so much of what we know is from media in some way.
33:53 Kate Lister? Yeah.
33:54 Speaker 06 Like, it's not like there were informative little textbooks that they were given.
33:57 Kate Lister? Was this blamed on Margaret? Because another thing that you do notice is that it's always the woman's fault. It's never the man's fault.
34:03 Speaker 06 Yeah, of course it was blamed on her.
34:04 Kate Lister? Of course it was.
34:05 Speaker 06 Of course. It was her fault that she wasn't having a baby.
34:08 Kate Lister? It's her fault she's French?
34:09 Speaker 06 Yeah, and her fault. Why? How dare she be born French? It's her fault later that Henry is seen as being sort of very unmanly and under her thumb. There's... Eventually, after eight years, they do have a child.
34:23 Kate Lister? Oh, they do? Hurrah! Okay, so we're off.
34:26 Speaker 06 Well, you'd think. I'll come back to the later accusations against Margaret. Yeah, but in fourteen fifty-three, a child is finally conceived. Interestingly, it comes after Henry has, like, for the first time in his whole life, taken a bit of control of his own kingship. And he's starting to talk about, oh, well, maybe I will go and fight in France. Maybe I will do this. He's had to put down the threat of the Duke of York, or at least the threat of like factionalism from the Duke of York, who is his closest adult male relative. So the heir to the throne, effectively. It's very reductive to put it in these terms, but there's definitely a sense that the sort of the masculine stereotype of the Middle Ages overtakes him. And then he he impregnates his wife finally.
35:11 Speaker 06 So maybe he just finally realises what he's doing after eight years. In any case, this child is conceived. But unfortunately, about six months into the pregnancy, Henry has his psychotic break.
35:23 Kate Lister? Oh, I've almost forgotten about that. Okay, yeah.
35:26 Speaker 06 I think it's connected with the pregnancy personally. I think it's always assumed that it's because he receives news about losing Gascany in France. This is like the end of the Hundred Years' War. I think it's also that in his mind, probably completely unconsciously, there will have been an association of fatherhood and death. Like, his father died before he knew him.
35:44 Kate Lister? Oh, yeah, yeah.
35:45 Speaker 06 He was a sort of similar age.
35:48 Speaker 06 I think that there will have been a huge amount of stress. Obviously, like, they don't know that the mother's going to survive. They don't know the baby will survive, what's going to happen. Huge amounts of uncertainty, like first time parents in the modern day find it pretty stressful.
36:02 Kate Lister? True.
36:02 Speaker 06 Imagine six hundred years ago. So I think, yeah, that all of that is just too much. And he has this mental breakdown, as we might also call it, in which he becomes, as far as we can tell, very unresponsive. He doesn't recognise people, he doesn't respond to them. And that goes on for sixteen months.
36:20 Kate Lister? Wow.
36:21 Speaker 06 So Margaret gives birth during this time. And because Henry is so unwell, she tries to go and like present her son, their son, to him and say like, here's the baby that you wanted.
36:34 Kate Lister? Ta-da.
36:34 Speaker 06 And he just, he doesn't respond. He just sort of looks and then looks away again.
36:38 Kate Lister? Describe to me what this mental breakdown looked like. So like, he's unresponsive. Is he just in his bed? Is he sleeping all the time? Is it, is it like, uh, George the, the third, where he's having like, delusions and they like, what exactly is going on here?
36:53 Speaker 06 I think it's a really profound form of depression.
36:57 Kate Lister? Right.
36:58 Speaker 06 Personally, I think that he has just suffered so much through his life emotionally. And he's struggled so hard to try and re-establish control of his kingdom, of his government, of whatever it might be. I think there's just like, this is the moment when it's all too much for him. And it's almost like he becomes a baby again. It's like, he goes, no, okay, this is everyone else ruling again for me. That's what's gonna happen again, totally unconsciously, I'm sure. But yeah, there's nothing that we see in other kings of this time, even his grandfather, Charles VI is another alleged mad king, but he has like, really violent outbursts. He runs around, he refuses to change his clothes, he gets like, riddled with lice and feathigies,
37:41 Speaker 06 and he pulls down his wife's heraldry, and he runs into walls, and he thinks assassins are after him. None of that is there with Henry VI. He's just inert, basically.
37:50 Kate Lister? It's just like a major depressive episode.
37:53 Speaker 06 Yeah.
37:53 Kate Lister? Right.
37:54 Speaker 06 Incredibly so. But the trouble is, is that in the Middle Ages, your king is actually running things. So you can't have this.
38:02 Kate Lister? Yeah, there's no sick note, is there? There's no signed off with, with depression and, and stress at this point in history. So what do they do? And there's got a baby, and was Joan of Arc kicking off around this time as well? I mean, this isn't a good time to have a king who's not very well, is it?
38:17 Speaker 06 Well, Joan of Arc has unfortunately been and gone by this time. Although there's some interesting, like, historical fiction, I feel like, to be written. Cause at one point, Henry VI as a child, and Joan of Arc are literally like, in the same building in Rouen. Be interesting if they met, wouldn't it?
38:29 Kate Lister? That is interesting.
38:30 Speaker 06 Yeah, no one ever seems to mention it.
38:32 Kate Lister? But she's gone, and he is, for all intents and purposes, a bit useless at this point.
38:38 Speaker 06 Yes, he is, and France has been lost, like the war's over effectively. They're not going to get anything back. And then Henry's Chancellor also dies. He's much older, so it's not unusual. But that means there's literally no one running the country. There's a lot of debate about what they should do. Margaret puts herself forward and says, well, I'll be regent and then, you know, either for Henry or for my son when he comes of age. It is considered, but it's rejected mainly because, to be honest, the English don't really like regents. There hasn't been a lot of long-term regency. Like, it's one thing if it's, okay, the king's going to war for three months, you be regent. It's totally different in this case where you're left with, like, will Henry ever recover? Are we going to have to wait another 14 years for this child to grow up?
39:23 Speaker 06 You know, a really long minority again. I think people just don't want that. So instead they name a protector, which is what they've done in previous times when they've had this situation, who is the Duke of York. And that's the problem in some ways. It's like, it makes sense for it to be him because he's the leading noble of the kingdom. He's the closest adult heir, but he is also someone who we know by this point has kind of been asserting himself. And Henry has been like, no, I don't want you for my chief advisor. Actually, thank you because you, you, you shout too much. I don't like you. A bit power hungry. Yeah. And of course then York gets a taste of power when Henry sort of miraculously recovers at Christmas, 1454 to 5.
40:06 Speaker 06 Then Henry is like, well, I've just been in a sort of dreamlike state for ages. I'm just going to put things back how they were. Forgetting, of course, that York has had all this power. He's built up this coterie of friends and allies. So that's not going to work and York understandably is really angry about it. And that leads ultimately to an armed confrontation at St Albans in May 1455.
40:33 Kate Lister? I'll be back with Lauren after this short break.
40:46 Kate Lister? Hello Betwixters, I am jumping in here because I have some very exciting news. Betwixt the Sheets has set up camp on YouTube. That's right, it took us a while, but we are there now. So if you are the kind of person who likes to see your podcasts as well as hear your podcasts, you can now go and find us right there. And the link is in the show notes. And please remember to like and subscribe because the people in charge of the money really do like that. Right, let's get on with it.
41:28 Kate Lister? So he just got better?
41:30 Speaker 06 Yeah.
41:31 Kate Lister? I guess because when you're dealing with something like this, mental health is still very heavily stigmatized. And so you're dealing with something hundreds and hundreds of years ago. They're not going to broadcast this information. It would have been very carefully stage managed. But what do you think happened? Had he been improving? Did he just turn a corner? What was the treatment? Like what happened? He just sprung back and fine?
41:50 Speaker 06 He probably had been improving. I don't think anyone knew what was wrong with him. Like when you look at the commission that was given to his many, many doctors that he had and all of the permitted treatments they're given, they're given like everything, like everything from, oh, shave his head, give him a bath, I don't know, bleed him, whatever you want. I think no one really knew what was wrong with him. And I think probably he had more sort of slight improvements and then resets than we might realise. But it is kind of presented in contemporary writing as, oh, he suddenly recovers, he realizes, you know, he wakes up as if he has been asleep. He's told all this stuff that's happened and he had no idea of it.
42:30 Kate Lister? Okay. What about Margaret during this point? And before we get on to, you know, this, this armed confrontation, what's Margaret been doing this whole time?
42:39 Speaker 06 I think looking after their child.
42:41 Kate Lister? Yeah.
42:42 Speaker 06 A lot of the time. And I mean that not just in terms of literally, you know, being a mother and mothering the child, but also... Uh, like trying to protect him, trying to make sure that
42:52 Kate Lister? Was it a little boy?
42:53 Speaker 06 The rights of this child. It was. It was a little boy called Edward, after Edward the Confessor. Again, a saint who is famously chaste, interestingly. And Little Edward, the hope is, is that he will still be able to inherit the throne, that he will be a very different style of king. That's Margaret's abiding aim, I think. And so whatever happens, she wants to make sure that his rights to the throne are protected. And she seems to be doing some, you know, some backroom deals with some of the Yorkists who are a little bit more friendly. You know, they're, they're working away together. It, it actually seems quite functional, weirdly, at this point in time.
43:29 Kate Lister? Your research has also dug up the possibility that she might, might have had a sort of a strange relationship with food, perhaps a disordered relationship.
43:39 Speaker 06 Yeah. And this isn't, again, this is actually probably more common than we think it is. There are these references later in life where she says that she has had lots of extreme fasts, like four or five times a week, heavy fasting.
43:52 Kate Lister? Oh, hello. Oh, that's okay.
43:54 Speaker 06 Hmm. In order to, well, to fulfill some sort of religious vow, probably it will be, you know, dear God, if I don't eat anything, could you please give my kingdom back? Dear God, if I don't eat anything, or if I go on pilgrimage somewhere really far away and dangerous, could you please keep my child alive? And this is like one of the few ways, I feel like, that women had to control their circumstances. You know, there's been research about women and their relationship with food in a kind of mystical sense and how women are supposed to have sex with their husbands when they demand it. They are supposed to present themselves physically in a certain way to people.
44:34 Speaker 06 Priests can literally come in and tell them, you should be eating this because that is what you are supposed to eat on this day. And by saying, no, I'm doing this for a religious reason, I'm fasting for a religious reason, it's like one of the only ways they have of exercising control. But of course, exercising control in eating is what we would consider an eating disorder today.
44:55 Kate Lister? Do you think that could perhaps have impacted her fertility?
44:58 Speaker 06 Yeah, I think definitely. If she was fasting that much in the early stages of her relationship, then I think it could have done.
45:05 Kate Lister? So what happens next in the story? How does this all end up?
45:10 Speaker 06 Oh, yeah, with the Wars of the Roses, obviously.
45:12 Kate Lister? Yeah.
45:13 Speaker 06 Yeah. All roads lead to the Wars of the Roses. So in May 1455, Henry VI and his male advisers, Margaret isn't there, are going up to try and sort out a parliament to sort out these issues with the Duke of York. The Duke of York and his allies confront them at St. Albans and for the first time in his life, in his mid 30s, Henry VI is in a battle. And again, something as unlike a kind of a chronicle or a, you know, a chivalric story of battle, you can't really imagine. It's literally an assassination through the streets of this market town. Henry himself is wounded, sort of in his shoulder region, he's shot with an arrow. He watches his bodyguard effectively, but really their
45:56 Speaker 06 servants, his servants around him who aren't wearing proper armour being butchered. Again, something he would never have seen. Well, this isn't good for his mental health. Oh, no, no, no. It's gonna get worse in a moment. He's dragged into a tanner's shop, which is a place where like you cure leather, it's full of like urine and feces. Again, something he would never have encountered. Like, just imagine the overstimulation that is happening to him at this point. And then he's pulled off into a cathedral and is basically told, tell your men to stand down, otherwise we're gonna hunt them down and kill them all. And he's like, okay. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Unsurprisingly, after this, he's not very well. Oh. And he requires a protector again. And I think that this is like the real turning point for Henry and for Margaret. I think for Henry, what it says to him is like, I
46:40 Speaker 06 just, I can't, I can't do this. This is too much. I should not be king because this is what happens. And for Margaret, I think what it says to her is, I cannot trust these people. I cannot trust the Duke of York. He has just wounded my husband. He has assassinated one of my leading advisers. He has broken promises. This is the sort of person I'm dealing with. To her, and I would say that is not at all how the Duke of York would have seen things. And so she goes on a path of being very against the Duke of York, which effectively makes civil war inevitable. And ultimately sees Henry deposed. He is pushed off the throne during the Wars of the Roses. There's a whole, like, it's really exciting and interesting, but there's no time to go into it now. There's this whole
47:23 Speaker 06 Like 10 year period in which Henry is not king, but Margaret is like leading a fight back. She's going up to Northumberland and facing shipwreck. She's landing on in, you know, on the Northumbrian coastline with her soldiers. She really is. She's disguising herself as a peasant woman so she can get through enemy territory to like meet the Duke of Burgundy to make a secret alliance. So many cool things she does, but it's ultimately all for nothing because although there is a very brief, what's called the re-adoption. When Henry VI is made king again, it doesn't end well. I think by that point, everyone's kind of gone, this guy. Are you joking? We don't want him back.
47:59 Kate Lister? Forgotten about him.
48:00 Speaker 06 Yeah, he's literally just been in a tower, sort of getting bearded and sad. And they're like, oh, oh yeah, we'd forgotten. Actually, you're not that great. There's a huge battle, which is the first battle that Margaret's son Edward fights in when he's 17 and he's killed.
48:15 Kate Lister? Oh.
48:15 Speaker 06 And that's it.
48:16 Kate Lister? And there we go. Dear.
48:18 Speaker 06 Oh, and then Henry is shortly thereafter, I'm almost certain murdered in the tower.
48:22 Kate Lister? Died suddenly.
48:23 Speaker 06 Oh yeah, died of sadness, according to Yorkist reports.
48:26 Kate Lister? Of course he did. That's a normal thing to happen. Let's just move past it. In fact, yeah, nobody needs to know about this anymore. Done. God, that's such a sad story, isn't it?
48:35 Speaker 06 Yeah, it really is. And yet it is striking to me how much Margaret of Anjou holds things together. And like how inverted that this is the reason that people attack Margaret so much, I think in writing at this time. Is because she is like, she is the king to all intents and purposes. Like she is raising armies. She's helping make her son become a formidable, you know, fighting creature. She's trying to make political alliances with all sorts of people that, you know, completely contrary to emotion, actually. And I think women get painted so much as being overly emotional. She doesn't make emotional decisions. She makes rational, political, military decisions.
49:15 Kate Lister? Hmm.
49:15 Speaker 06 Yeah, she's a hero really. And Henry VI just more and more is this tragic, bumbling little lad.
49:22 Kate Lister? Sat at home practising some breathing exercises. So as a final question then, I'd love to have you back to talk about Margaret of Anjou. She definitely deserves an episode of her own. Do you think that Henry was a good king? Can we claw anything back from his reputation?
49:39 Speaker 06 No. I always say, I think Henry was a good man. I think he was a really bad king.
49:46 Kate Lister? And there is a big distinction between the two, isn't it? You can be a good person and do a crap job at something.
49:52 Speaker 06 And I think like Henry V was a good king, but he was not necessarily a good man. So it's tricky.
49:58 Kate Lister? Maybe in order to be a good, a good king or a good queen, being a good person is actually a bit of a liability.
50:04 Speaker 06 In the Middle Ages, I think it is. Yeah.
50:06 Kate Lister? So nice person, terrible king. What's his legacy? Has he left as a legacy?
50:12 Speaker 06 Well, he's left Eton. He's left King's College, Cambridge.
50:15 Kate Lister? Yeah.
50:15 Speaker 06 That's, you know, they're nice. Margaret also founded a college at Cambridge too. She did it much quicker, more efficiently.
50:22 Kate Lister? Of course she did. Of course she did. Lauren, you have been wonderful to talk to. I knew that you would be. Thank you so much. And if people want to know more about you and more about your work on this fascinating person, where can they find you?
50:34 Speaker 06 At history Lauren on Instagram and Lauren Johnson dot com as well.
50:40 Kate Lister? Amazing. You have been wonderful. Thank you so much.
50:43 Speaker 06 Thank you for having me.
50:50 Kate Lister? Thank you for listening and thank you so much to Lauren for joining us. And if you've got a subject you want us to explore, or if you just wanted to say hello, then you can email us at [email protected] . Coming up, we've got episodes on Tudor and Stuart Afrikanziacs and an episode on just how wild were the last days of Rome? This podcast was edited by Tom Delargy and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long. Join me again betwixt the sheets, history of sex, scandal and society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.
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