Pod Insights Gone Medieval The Parliament of Bats: Plantagenets at War About this episode How could England be ruled when the king was just a baby? When Henry VI came to the throne at nine months old, the hunger for power among his Plantagenet uncles spilled into violence. 600 years ago, in February 1426, parliament even moved to Leicester to avoid mob violence in London. Even so, MPs armed themselves with wooden bats and clubs. What happened next?
Matt Lewis and Dr. Hannes Kleineke explore one of the most explosive parliaments in English history and an episode that presaged the Wars of the Roses.
MORE:
How Parliament Came to Westminster
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Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/112AXN7OFQF4Mv2sakVypY
Henry V with Dan Jones
Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/henry-v-with-dan-jones/id1564113746?i=1000668991020
Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/0qRYhiqBCU06i4uCdJG1nM
Gone Medieval is presented by Matt Lewis. Edited and produced by Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.
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1:49 Matt Lewis? Hello, I'm Matt Lewis. Welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We've got the most intriguing mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and latest groundbreaking research, from the Vikings to the printing press, from kings to popes to the crusades. We cross centuries and continents to delve into rebellions, plots, and murders to find the stories, big and small, that tell us how we got here. Find out who we really were with Gone Medieval.
2:32 Matt Lewis? Exactly 600 years ago, in February 1426, England was teetering on the edge of chaos. Four years earlier, Henry V had died suddenly at the age of 35, leaving his nine-month-old baby son to become King Henry VI. Within weeks, the baby Henry had also become King of France on the death of his maternal grandfather, Charles VI. Over the next couple of years, a council of ambitious, powerful men circled around the infant king, locked in a bitter power struggle that threatened to tear the realm apart. And as if to underscore just how precarious this moment truly was, by the time Henry VI was three years old,
3:16 Matt Lewis? these men were set to meet in Parliament with only one dangerous question hanging over the proceedings:
3:24 Matt Lewis? would violence break out? Today, we're telling the story of the Parliament of Bats, one of the most extraordinarily named and extraordinarily dangerous assemblies in all of English parliamentary history. It emerged from what can only be described as a perfect storm of political instability, personal rivalry, and constitutional uncertainty. The crisis centred on two of Henry VI's most powerful relatives: his ambitious young uncle, the Lord Protector Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, a man of immense wealth, political influence, and a Cardinal at the Church. A few months earlier, their feud had erupted into open confrontation on London Bridge,
4:09 Matt Lewis? with armed retinues facing off against one another while the city held its breath. Open warfare was averted only through the urgent intervention of John, Duke of Bedford, Henry V's eldest brother, who abandoned the English war effort in France to return to England and prevent his younger brother and uncle from tearing the kingdom apart. Yet the wounds were open and raw. The tensions remained unresolved. So when Parliament had to be called, summoned by Bedford to impose some semblance of order on the feuding factions, the council faced a grim calculation.
4:48 Matt Lewis? If they were to hold Parliament in Westminster, London's volatile population might intervene. The Bishop of Winchester commanded support in Southwark, Gloucester could rally the London mob. The stage was being set for what would, decades later, become the Wars of the Roses. So the decision was made to convene Parliament at Leicester Castle, far from the powder keg of the capital. It was meant to be a circuit breaker, a chance to negotiate peace out of sight of the London crowds. But the precautions didn't stop there. Before the Parliament convened, a proclamation went out. As one London chronicler recorded, "Every man was warned, and it was cried throughout
5:32 Matt Lewis? the town that they should leave their weapons in their inns, that is to say, their swords and shields, bows and arrows." It was a desperate attempt to prevent bloodshed within Leicester's castle walls. But the warning didn't deter those intent on confrontation. The same chronicler continues, "And then the people took great bats on their shoulders, and so they went. Politicians and their retainers descended on Leicester not just with heavy wooden clubs and cudgels, but with stones and lumps of lead, wooden staves and planks hidden in their long sleeves or cloaks." And so, the Parliament of Bats got underway.
6:16 Matt Lewis? A name that seemed to predict chaos, bloody violence, and the breakdown of the very institutions that held the kingdom together. Yet what followed inside the castle walls would surprise many. So what did happen? Joining me to unpack the extraordinary Parliament of Bats and its significance is Dr. Hannes Kleineke, editor of the History of Parliament Trust's House of Commons 1461 to 1504 project. Hannes has joined us before on Gone Medieval to speak about how Parliament came to Westminster. Well worth revisiting that episode if you haven't done so recently.
6:53 Matt Lewis? And he's one of the foremost authorities on this remarkable moment in English history. Welcome back to Gone Medieval, Hannes. It's great to have you with us again.
7:07 Speaker 03 It's a pleasure.
7:07 Matt Lewis? And looking forward to talking about Parliament of Bats. I mean, it's a fantastic name for us to dig into and work out what is going on with this. But there's a bit of background to this. Let's start off with Henry VI. He has become king at the age of nine months, a few years before the period that we're talking about. And who are his relatives who are kind of jostling for control of the kingdom while we've got this baby on the throne? Who are the key players that we need to know about?
7:30 Speaker 03 Well, oddly enough, you'd have thought that the key player would be his mother, Henry V's widow, Catherine of Valois. And she doesn't play a part at all. Over in France, it's customary that women take over regencies, women are given a fair amount of political power, not so in England. The Queen is essentially cut out of it. She's on one or two occasions allowed to hold the baby on her lap during parliaments, but she does not get a say in it. So that leaves Henry V's brothers. There's first of all, John, Duke of Bedford, who essentially is given control of the then very substantial, and I'm sure we'll come back to that, English-held territories over in France.
8:15 Speaker 03 And on the other side of the channel, we've got the king's youngest brother, Henry V's youngest brother, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. Now, the best way of describing Humphrey is he's a bit of a shit. Quite simply, a shit. He spends his entire life jostling for more power. He spends his time trying to get his wife's inheritance over in the Low Countries. He's just forever out there on the make. But because his elder brother's over in France, he is protector in England and notionally in charge of the king. That would all be well and good, but on the other hand, we have the Beaufort family.
8:55 Speaker 03 Now, the Beauforts are, again, descendants of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, but born on the wrong side of the blanket. So whereas Henry IV, Henry V, the entire Lancastrian dynasty are descendants of John of Gaunt's first wife, the Duchess of Lancaster, the Beauforts are A, born to Catherine Winford while she's still Gaunt's mistress, and B, only legitimated later. So the Beauforts are sort of, best way to describe them, the wrong part of the royal family, if you like. The key player there is essentially Henry Beaufort, who's, in a sense, the youngest son.
9:40 Speaker 03 He's the cleric in the family, and he, once his elder brother, Henry IV, gets the throne, is bumped up to the bishopric of Winchester. Now, Winchester nowadays is sort of slightly sleepy provincial backwater in England, but then it really, really matters. It's basically the wealthiest bishopric in England, and England is one of the wealthiest dioceses, or countries, if you like, within the Catholic world. So him being bishop of Winchester really matters. He ends up propping up Henry VI's government, and indeed, before that, Henry V's wars, with endless loans of money.
10:20 Speaker 03 He is a very important player, just financially, and at the point where that we're talking about now, he's in fact Chancellor of England. So he, if you like, is at the top of the entire administrative pile. That's sort of the key players we're looking at, and central to this are Duke Humphrey on the one side, and then Bishop Beaufort on the other.
10:43 Matt Lewis? It's tempting to think that on paper at least, this looks like it could be a strong arrangement. You've got a minor king here, a baby effectively as king, which is never a great situation to be in. But you do have two uncles, one to look after France, one to look after England, and you do have this incredibly wealthy family member, great uncle in Henry Beaufort, who can finance the government as well. It feels like if those three people could have worked well together, this could have been the ideal situation for the minority of Henry VI, but we know that it won't work out that way. And in particular, it seems like Gloucester, as you mentioned, was the fly in the ointment, the spanner in the works,
11:25 Matt Lewis? the real problem. It seems like everybody, I find Gloucester really fascinating. I find Humphrey Duke of Gloucester a really interesting character. But it seems like everybody was really suspicious of his motivations and really doubted his abilities as a statesman. He's been put in charge as Lord Protector of England, a role that effectively gives him control of the military, so military security in England and against external threats. And it gives him a key role on council as well. And it seems like despite that faith being put in him, everybody immediately doubts him and believes that he's going to fail. What do we know about Gloucester's limitations as a statesman? His character doesn't seem to lend him to performing that role. And also why people are quite so suspicious of
12:10 Matt Lewis? it? Is it just that he was obviously not fit for the role?
12:13 Speaker 03 I think that's very much at the heart of it. He is absolutely the wrong guy for it. And if we just put ourselves in the position of the autumn of 1422, Henry V is collapsed, he's gone suddenly. Nobody could have expected that. He's still quite a young man at the point when he dies. And the polity of the realm, if you like, in which obviously the lords are leading at this point, is suddenly faced with the need to
12:42 Speaker 03 Provide a settlement for an unexpected minority. The king is nine months old, nine month old baby. He's carted through sort of various bits in the London backwaters, brought from Windsor to attend Parliament, reaches Staines and yowls. He doesn't want to leave Staines. Now, I can tell you, I lived at Staines and Henry VI is the only person who's ever not wanted to leave. I promise you that. So what we then have are the king surviving brothers, John of Bedford and Humphrey of Gloucester, who start jostling. There shouldn't be a question. Bedford is the elder brother, he should be in control.
13:25 Speaker 03 And then Humphrey starts stamping his feet and going, I want to go too. So they end up with this slightly dodgy arrangement of giving Bedford France, bearing in mind that France is the older and more significant monarchy. So he's put in charge of that and Humphrey as a sort of dummy prize is given England, but only on condition that whenever Bedford comes back to England, he's in charge and Humphrey gets to sit down in the back room again.
13:55 Matt Lewis? Which doesn't sound like an arrangement Humphrey's going to particularly approve of. And it sends a slightly dangerous message as well in positioning France as the more important place where you're going to put the most significant member of the royal family who is left, because throughout the Hundred Years' War, there has been this slight tension about if England did manage to conquer France and become kings of France, would England then be subordinate to France? As France is the more established, the older, the more wealthy prize. And this almost seems to be reinforcing it. So there's slight danger in that arrangement of having Bedford in France. And it seems like danger in having Humphrey in England as well. And almost you wonder why they wouldn't have done things the other way around, you know, give Bedford the foundation of looking after England and allow Humphrey to go off and have this side project in France.
14:40 Speaker 03 Never ever apply logic or common sense when we're talking about history, just doesn't work that way.
14:46 Matt Lewis? Absolutely fair.
14:47 Speaker 03 You're absolutely right, it would have made far more sense to put Bedford in charge over here and, you know, let Humphrey fight the wars out there. Humphrey's not a bad soldier, he's quite capable of winning the odd battle, et cetera, et cetera. He fights at Agincourt, he's wounded at Agincourt. Okay, Henry V then has to bail him out, but as a military man, he would not have been necessarily a bad choice. But yeah, he is given this dummy prize of running England, bad idea.
15:16 Matt Lewis? Yeah, yeah. And Cardinal Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, is the other figure that we've brought into this as well. And what do we know about Cardinal Beaufort's efforts? So we know he, he's been offered a Cardinal's hat before and Henry V has sort of forced him to refuse it. As soon as Henry V is gone, he's very keen to become a Cardinal and get that hat again. Do we see him taking advantage of the king's minority to impose greater papal influence and authority in England? Or is he trying to drive forward the Beaufort family fortunes? What are his kind of motivations?
15:50 Speaker 03 Well, that in a sense is the big unknown. We can only really judge that from what he does. And ultimately, I have a bit of a soft spot for Cardinal Beaufort, even though he was probably as much for shit as Gloucester was when it comes to it. But he genuinely seems to try and hold things together. Okay, he's older and potentially wiser than Humphrey. He is Chancellor, so he has a formal, long-established office in the realm. And you can sort of see that, if I were to speculate, you can see him sitting at his desk, head in his hands, imagining how well all of this could work if only they let him get on with it.
16:35 Speaker 03 I mean, there's almost a historical paradox, isn't there, in all the cardinals who get to run various countries. I mean, I know we're not talking about the 18th century or 17th century here, but the great cardinals who ran France in that period under the Bourbons, you know, very similar sort of setup. So you can see why Bishop Beaufort would have thought that he ought to carry on and run the country. In a sense, it's one of the many historical ironies in all of this, that he is, once he's bumped out of England, he is sent on a crusade against the Hussites, which is an absolute disaster. You know, the one thing he is not is a military man. Why would they give him an army? Well, they
17:19 Speaker 03 do. Silly idea yet again.
17:22 Matt Lewis? Yeah, and it almost seems as well like there is a setup, as much as we've talked about this arrangement and this triumvirate could have worked really well, there is an automatic tension almost between Humphrey and Cardinal Beaufort in that Humphrey is nominally sort of given control of England, but his poster's Lord Protector doesn't really give him a government role, whereas Cardinal Beaufort is actually holding the chancellorship and is effectively running the government. So it almost sets those two on a collision course. If they don't get on and don't share aims, there is necessarily going to be tension.
17:54 Speaker 03 Absolutely, yeah. Best way to look at it.
17:57 Matt Lewis? And we do see that spill over on London Bridge, a few months before the Parliament that we're going to talk about, the Parliament of Bats. There is this moment on London Bridge where the two sides almost come to blows. There was a confrontation. Can you tell us a little bit about what's behind that and just how close to violence this gets?
18:17 Speaker 03 Well, for reasons unbeknown to man, since he was squandering a lot of money, Humphrey is desperately popular with the Londoners. They just love him and they are prepared to get their, you know, their armaments and stuff out and actually strike a blow for the guy. On the other side of the bridge, you have Southwark, which belongs to the bishops of Winchester, who essentially use it to store prostitutes. It's a very substantial part of the bishop's income, you know, the sort of money he can cream off the local pleasure industry, if you like. The Londoners would love to control Southwark and they do have a manor down there,
18:58 Speaker 03 but ultimately it's the Bishop of Winchester's turf and they're never, you know, gonna get a foot to the ground there. And that is ultimately what it boils down to. The bishop starts assembling troops in Southwark and the Londoners don't like the look of that. So they pull up the drawbridge, they confront people on the bridge and the whole thing turns out quite badly for both sides.
19:24 Matt Lewis? I guess, is it this moment that draws John Duke of Bedford to come back from France? I mean, it must have felt like a fairly serious moment if he's leaving his post in France to come back to England and presumably bang some heads together.
19:36 Speaker 03 Well, sadly, we don't have tapes of the telephone conversations that blatantly didn't happen between France and England in the period. But, you know, we can assume, and I think we're on fairly safe ground there, that there is a very regular correspondence that goes between France and England. And Bedford must just have been watching this, thinking, can I get away with zooming over to England briefly? Oh no, there's another problem in France, I'm gonna have to stay. So I think Bedford must have been watching what's going on in England and being briefed on what's going in England with degrees of increasing distress. I think that's the only way of looking at it. And obviously, there are,
20:20 Speaker 03 the big players aside, plenty of other people. There's the Lord Dretor in England, you know, that's kind of secondary only to the chancellership. So there are other officers, there are the stewards of the king's household, et cetera. There's a whole host of lords who essentially also would have been involved in the running of the government, who would have been in equal despair to Bedford with everything that's going on. And we would have said to Bedford, or written to Bedford, please, can you come over? And you're absolutely right, this is what finally happens in 1426. Bedford finally cuts himself loose in France and makes his way over to England.
21:05 Matt Lewis? And then we see a situation where Parliament is convened or called to sit in Leicester. Why have they picked Leicester, I guess, to begin with? Is it simply to get away from the hotspot of London?
21:17 Speaker 03 You're absolutely right. That's exactly what it is. Leicester is very much at the heart of the Lancastrian land holdings. It's a safe space. There are no Southwark people. There are no Londoners there, other than the four MPs who represent London. It's a safe space in which to sit. And I think the other thing we ought to look at at this point is that the Parliament in itself is a little bit on the unusual side. There's a contemporary tract, as in 14th century tract, known as the Modus Tenendi Parliamentum, which lays down various things that need to be in place for the holding of a Parliament.
21:58 Speaker 03 One of the things that lays down is that a minimum of 40 days should pass between the summoning of a Parliament and its meeting. In 1426, they manage 42 days. So it's very much on the cusp of legality there. What's behind it is that parliamentary elections are supposed to be held or certified in the county courts, and there's a string of northern counties which don't hold their county courts in the usual four-week cycle. They only meet every six weeks. So that's where the 42,40 days come in. It should allow every county to hold its election properly.
22:40 Matt Lewis? And why do you think Parliament was considered to be the answer? Why does John Duke of Bedford take the step of calling Parliament? Is it just a way to air the grievances and get everything straightened out in a legitimate public forum?
22:52 Speaker 03 Yeah, I think in a sense that is exactly what's going on. Bedford comes over and it's clearly a case of, well, how do we settle all of this? To which the answer is, well... Best place to do it is Parliament, so that all the Lords can nod, and in fact, all the Lords are made to swear an oath to uphold whatever arrangement is put in place. And to make sure that the Commons can also nod their heads and say, yes, sir, three bags full, sir, to all of that. Parliament has, by this stage, moved on from just being an occasional tax granting forum to being something that needs to kind of happen every year. It's largely a result of the King's minority, ultimately.
23:33 Matt Lewis? Yeah, and presumably, I was going to say, with a minor on the throne, it's a useful exercise in Bedford not appearing to wield any kind of royal authority himself, so he can't be accused of taking power, of assuming power that isn't really his if he's allowing everything to be channelled through Parliament.
23:49 Speaker 03 I think that's right to a degree. They are very conscious that the King is four years old and moody. There is actually, if you look at the role of the Parliament, it's pretty much opens up with a statement to the effect that Bedford is to preside over and run the Parliament. So he is given that authority. I think there's also an element that you can't just wheel him over from France and then say, well, you sit there and be quiet, sir, or you can sit at the front but don't say anything. That just doesn't work, you know? He needs to be given a degree of authority.
24:26 Matt Lewis? Yeah, and presumably also someone who can challenge the authority of Gloucester and Bishop of Winchester also needs to be there and leading proceedings to stop them simply railroading their way through.
24:38 Speaker 03 Well, the interesting thing there in terms of Beaufort's role, of course, is that as Chancellor, he gets to preach the opening sermon. So as soon as Parliament is assembled, what they get is Beaufort pontificating at them for an hour or so. So in a sense, he is in a very good position at this point.
24:58 Matt Lewis? Yeah, while Gloucester has to sit in the front row and keep quiet.
25:01 Speaker 03 Yeah.
25:04 Matt Lewis? And we've been talking about the Parliament of Bats, so I guess we really need to get to why do we call this the Parliament of Bats? What leads to that name?
25:12 Speaker 03 Well, I spare you all the possible jokes about the derelict state of Leicester Castle, where the whole thing is held. The long and short of it is quite simply that with Bedford there, all the lords have to turn up, and all the lords turn up with massive retinues. So the people in charge see this and think, oh my God, this is going to go very wrong. I mean, we're focusing here on the conflict between Gloucester and Beaufort, but there's obviously also other conflicts going on between a myriad of peers. You know, they've all got
25:50 Speaker 03 their own little private feuds. So in essence, the administration such as is puts out the word that, guys, can you please leave your swords at home? Well, that's a very sound idea when it comes down to it. You know, you don't want all the lords coming with their own private bodyguards and the whole thing turning into a massive melee. Problem is that the lords' private bodyguards also have their own ideas, so they leave their swords at home and instead bring large wooden bats. So while they might not be in a position anymore to carve each other up, they can still bash each other's heads in. They all know how to handle their
26:34 Speaker 03 wooden clubs. So as a result, seeing this, on the next day, the next edict goes out, guys, could you please also leave your wooden bats at home? At which point they all pocket large rocks to throw at each other. I mean, you can sort of see the kind of people we're dealing with here. They are a very real problem.
26:54 Matt Lewis? Yeah, a very inventive way to circumvent the restrictions that are coming out and still find a way to at least threaten violence at a sitting of Parliament.
27:03 Speaker 03 And this harks back in a very odd way to the 14th century, when it was actually customary for someone to stand up in Westminster Hall at the start of every Parliament. And make a proclamation to the effect that people should not bring any swords to Parliament. So this has been going on since the 1340s, that there have been concerns about people turning up armed. It sounds slightly infantile, because that proclamation ends up with people and you are not to play any silly games, such as pulling people's hoods off their shoulders. It's an interesting image of how Parliament actually goes on in the period. But by this stage, it's clearly become, you know, far more serious, as you
27:46 Speaker 03 can tell from the levels at which people decide to become armed to these things.
27:51 Matt Lewis? Yeah, I mean, people will watch Parliament today, I guess, and complain that it becomes a bit of a pantomime sometimes. And it sounds like that's not anything new. If people are yanking people's hoods off in the sittings of Parliament, to the point we have to tell them not to do it, it seems like it was always a little bit juvenile.
28:06 Speaker 03 Yeah. Well, to an extent, it still is. I mean, some of your listeners may be unaware of the fact that to this day, at the start of every Parliament, the staff busy themselves tying up 650 little silk loops, so that any member who happens to be bringing a sword, I suppose there could be the odd military officer who's actually got one, you know, can hang up their swords. There is still provision nowadays for Honourable and Right Honourable Members to leave their swords on the mantelpiece, as it were.
28:39 Matt Lewis? Incredible.
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29:59 Speaker 04 After civil war, regicide and Cromwell's Republic, the monarchy returned. But Britain would never be the same.
30:09 Speaker 04 I'm Professor Suzanne Lipscomb, and this month on Not Just the Tudors, we're transported back to the age of Restoration royalty: from Charles II to Queen Anne and the birth of the Empire. Join me on Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts.
30:41 Matt Lewis? Where is King Henry in all of this? He's four years old, so obviously he's not overseeing Parliament at all. But is he present in this heightened, threatening environment where there is potential violence? Have they brought a four-year-old into this?
30:56 Speaker 03 Yes, they have. He's certainly there at the opening, sitting on the throne. On this occasion, I think with the Queen by his side, rather than sitting on her lap. But he is there, cap of a state and the works. And he clearly stays, because later on in the Parliament, he is knighted by his uncle, the Duke of Bedford. And again, it's a very peculiar image to our mind. You know, this three-year-old or four-year-old being dubbed a knight by his uncle and presumably being got up in all the appropriate clobber.
31:29 Matt Lewis? Yeah, bizarre scenes to our mind, at least. Can you talk us through a little bit about what the Parliament manages to achieve? I mean, it's trying to find a reconciliation, I guess, between Gloucester and the Bishop of Winchester. Does it manage to succeed to do that?
31:45 Speaker 03 Well, one of the odd things about the 1426 Parliament is that it's the first one since the reign of Richard II to run to two sessions. Until then, they managed to get their business done and send everybody home again. This Parliament actually has to break for Easter. Why is that? Well, essentially, the first session, which lasts for just over a month, 18th of February, I think, to the 20th of March, is entirely eaten up by the squabble between Bedford and Gloucester. It's, again, if you read the Parliament role of it, it's very, very odd to essentially listen to Gloucester
32:29 Speaker 03 complaining endlessly about all the horrible things that his uncle has tried to do to him. There's one story he tells, which must have left all of Parliament, or at least the Lords, just sitting there yet again with heads in hands, where he goes, well, all the way back in Henry IV's reign, you know, I was staying in the Palace of Westminster in the green chamber, and it was only because a dog barked. In fact, as they specify, it was a spaniel, I'm sure you'd like to know that. A spaniel barked and they found a man hiding behind a wall tapestry who was meant to kill him. And it was all Beaufort's doing. I mean, allowing for the fact that this is long before the scenario of Henry VI's reign had even come about,
33:12 Speaker 03 and he's having to tell stories like that. In a sense, Beaufort conducts himself with rather more dignity and sort of says, well, it's very obvious. I'm a prelate, of course I didn't do this, I didn't do yonder. I've only ever wanted to provide for good government and stuff. And then there's Humphrey whining. And I'm pretty sure that's not the only story he told about all of Beaufort's nastinesses, you know? And that just eats up the entire first session of Parliament. So. To get anything else done, they've sort of got to come back after Easter.
33:51 Speaker 03 And to be fair, Parliament doesn't splurge taxation, but they are prepared to extend the indirect tax as they've granted previously. So there are customs revenue, and this at this point is the only kind of fixed income that the Crown has at its hands. Now, why do they need this money? They need this money because the French are kicking back. Henry V was supposed to have gained control of France through the death of Charles VI, again in summer of 1422. But this never really comes to pass. The French are still fighting.
34:33 Speaker 03 They are still defending themselves, which means that England has to send expeditions to France to essentially quash them, and for that they need money.
34:44 Matt Lewis? And I suppose from Bedford's point of view, then, a big driver for coming home is that he needs money, which means he needs Parliament, which means he needs to settle political situation in England. So he has this kind of added incentive to force his brother and his uncle to come to terms and get on with each other and behave themselves because he needs Parliament to give him money to go back to France with.
35:02 Speaker 03 Absolutely.
35:03 Matt Lewis? And do you think that need to back the effort in France does anything to rein in Gloucester and the Bishop of Winchester? It sounds like Gloucester is having a pretty free rein with his complaining and whining about everything. But does that need to focus on France? Does it work to bring the two to terms? Or do you think there is some kind of genuine desire between the two of them to actually get on and work together?
35:26 Speaker 03 I think there's very much a desire for them to work together among the broader peerage. Expeditions to France are usually led by one Earl or another, so they would have all had an interest in getting this sorted. There is then, at this point, still very much a scenario where England could win. This is a war that is very much turned in England's favour. The Dauphin, the Crown Prince of France, has not by this point been recognised. That only comes later. The English have won a massive victory, the greatest victory in a sense since Agincourt at the Battle of Vernay in fourteen twenty four, which is just over a year away from where
36:11 Speaker 03 we are now in fourteen twenty six. So there is very much the possibility of an English victory and wouldn't it be nice if we could actually get it done, if it were only that Humphrey and Beaufort could get on with each other?
36:26 Matt Lewis? And what do you think is the impact of the settlement that's reached at the Parliament of Bats on the two main protagonists? So Cardinal Beaufort seems to come out of the arrangement slightly worse. Is he happy to take that? Is Gloucester happy with his sort of victory? Or do we still see tension between the two of them?
36:46 Speaker 03 I think to a degree there is clearly still tension. I mean, it's this wonderful medieval way of making peace, that they make the two lead characters shake hands. You know, I don't know what the other hand was doing, but I suspect it might have been grasping the hilt of a dagger at that point. Beaufort, in a sense, is sidelined and got rid of ultimately. He's sent on crusade to the continent to fight the Hussites. He's out of it. So in a sense, he cannot have been pleased with this to any degree. And I would imagine that among the lords, there is just, in a sense, a sigh of relief at the notion that, okay, one of
37:29 Speaker 03 them is gone, now let the other one carry on. Okay, Humphrey is also, you know, he is still Humphrey. He hasn't suddenly turned into a wise old statesman or anything, but he is in charge, at least temporarily, he is in charge. And with the benefit of hindsight, with Bedford's death a few years later, Humphrey is the winner in all of this. Would the peers in general have been pleased with it? I think so, yeah.
38:00 Matt Lewis? Yeah. And I guess maybe you might have preferred if it had been the other way round and Humphrey had been sent off on crusade somewhere and Cardinal Beaufort had been left to run the government in England.
38:08 Speaker 03 Yeah, in a word.
38:10 Matt Lewis? It's interesting to wonder how it might have played out then.
38:12 Speaker 03 I think it could have very much have played out either in an early peace settlement or potentially, you know, an English victory in France. I mean, this is the French, don't get me into rugby.
38:26 Matt Lewis? Yeah, I mean, there is a difference between Cardinal Beaufort and Humphrey in terms of their views on foreign policy as well, isn't there? Although Bedford is off effectively running France, we see a situation in which, my reading of it, is that Humphrey is just desperate to continue Henry V's wars. Whether that's the influence of, as you mentioned earlier, Henry V saving his life at Agincourt and feeling the need to repay it, but he's absolutely obsessed with the idea that they need to complete Henry V's mission in France. Whereas Cardinal Beaufort seems to be much more pragmatic about the fact that this is impacting trade and it's financially unsustainable, it's possibly unwinnable, they're not able to send over as many men as they might want to all of the time. And so he is much more
39:07 Matt Lewis? aligned to the idea of finding a peaceful solution to the war with France. So that kind of puts them ideologically at odds in terms of foreign policy as well, which I guess is factoring into their disagreements at home.
39:20 Speaker 03 Absolutely. And I think, looking at Beaufort as a bit of a pragmatist, Beaufort was in a position to read the English polity far better than Humphrey ever was. I mean, he was the guy who was basically bankrolling all of this. Under Henry V, you know, in not my words, somebody else's, England had been bled dry. Henry V endlessly raised taxes. As a net result, as soon as he's dead, that source of revenue dries up. And Beaufort was very much aware of that. He was very aware that the Crown's finances, they'd hit
40:01 Speaker 03 rock bottom. He was very aware that there was a limit to what he himself was prepared to lend, and even could lend. It was unworkable. Financially, the war had to end, either by victory or by other means. And I suspect that, sitting in France, Bedford was a little bit more on the marshal's side, but he would have seen those realities as well.
40:25 Matt Lewis? Yeah.
40:26 Speaker 03 So it's a very pragmatic kind of thing. This war must end. So with Humphrey back in the driving seat, well, he has to raise taxes repeatedly. He has to send further armies over. And then, jumping three years ahead, we get to this awful scenario where Joan of Arcas suddenly appeared, starts winning battles, and the thing nobody really wanted, not even the French, gets the Dauphin crowned King of France. And that result for the English is they've got to pack up Henry VI and his household, ship them over to France and stage
41:06 Speaker 03 a counter coronation. I mean, just imagine this. And because, of course, he's also King of England, they have then, in fourteen twenty-nine, also very quickly got to have him crowned King of England.
41:18 Matt Lewis? Yeah.
41:19 Speaker 03 Because you can't just send him over.
41:21 Matt Lewis? And again, concerned about this notion that of which is more important, you know, he has to become crowned King of England before he becomes crowned King of France, because they want to position England as slightly more important.
41:31 Speaker 03 And we could spend another half an hour just discussing the ins and outs of these dual coronations and the order in which they happened.
41:39 Matt Lewis? Yeah. And is this kind of the first time that we see Parliament being used to find a constitutional solution to what is essentially a personal feud between members of the royal family? Is this something that Parliament is used to doing, or is this something novel?
41:56 Speaker 03 That's an interesting one, actually. I mean, Parliament is used to finding constitutional solutions. Just look back to fourteen twenty-two, when they put together the settlement for Henry VI's minority. That's very much Parliament making constitutional decisions. In terms of squabbles between members of the royal family, I think the closest to that that we've seen would have been back in Richard II's reign, when we had the squabble between Henry of Bolingbroke, then Duke of Lancaster, and John Mowbray, subsequently Duke of Norfolk, when there was very much a squabble between these two. But it's ultimately the king who is to adjudicate. Parliament provides the setting, but doesn't really make any decisions.
42:44 Speaker 03 To a degree, that's what happens in fourteen twenty six, except the king is too young to make a decision and adjudicate. In any decent monarchy, the king would have just thumped the table and gone, right, you two behave yourselves. Beaufort, you go off on crusade, and Humphreys, do whatever it is you do, build another library or something. But that would have been the king's call. You can't ask a three-year-old to make those sort of decisions. So as a result, it's very much the lords who here have to take the lead, as they do so often in Henry the Sixth's reign.
43:21 Matt Lewis? Can we view the Parliament of Bats as demonstrating the strength of Parliament as an English political institution? When the nation is under stress, that Parliament is something you can turn to and rely on to help solve those problems by now?
43:35 Speaker 03 In a sense, yes, but I hesitate to speak of constitutional solutions here. Throughout the fifteenth century, it's very much a case that Parliament is kept at arm's length from any constitutional decisions. Parliament is kept at arm's length from deciding that Richard the Second should be deposed in thirteen ninety nine. Parliament is kept at arm's length from deciding that Lancaster should be king. What they do on those occasions is they dissolve Parliament and assemble a semi-parliamentary grouping. So a few citizens of London, a few lords, a few selected commoners, et cetera, and they
44:18 Speaker 03 then get to shout hooray and pass whatever it is that they want passed. And that, in a sense, is what happens again in fourteen sixty one. Exactly the same scenario. Edward the Fourth has not made king by Parliament. Parliament has packed off back to their constituencies, and it's again a selection of citizens of London, select lords, et cetera, who get to make the actual constitutional calls.
44:49 Speaker 03 If we look at the two members of the royal family involved here, yes, they are ultimately private individuals, so their dispute is, I suppose, something that could be settled in Parliament. Now, this is where we fall slightly woefully short of knowing how parliamentary procedure actually worked in the period. Is this something that you could throw at the House of Commons, which meets separately from the Lords in the period? I think not. It's not that none of their business, these are two great Lords, and the Commons do not get a say in it. Is it for the Lords to decide? Yes, I suspect so, even though it's unclear to what extent it's the Duke of Bedford, who
45:34 Speaker 03 after all is taking the King's place here, is the guy who's thumping the table and saying, "Well, you now sort it out, you go here, you go yonder." If there is a sense that the Duke of Bedford does that, the evidence for that is perhaps the stripping of Bishop Beaufort of the Chancellorship. That is technically a royal prerogative, so only Bedford at this point could have done that and moved the Great Seal of the Realm over to someone else.
46:12 Speaker 03 That is also very much the visualisation of Beaufort's defeat. The Chancellorship is his big thing, it's his big foothold, it's his only role really in the arrangements for the minority. So for him to be stripped of the Chancellorship, that's the blow when he would have known, "I've lost, ultimately." So there, in a sense, is where we can see Beaufort's defeat and for his victory.
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48:13 Matt Lewis? And it feels like the Parliament of Bats has set the tone, at least in the short term, for a more aggressive stance with France. So we're setting aside the idea of peace that Cardinal Beaufort had championed, and we're going with Humphrey's idea of really pursuing the war. Does the Parliament of Bats do anything to set the tone for the rest of Henry VI's reign at all? Does it have a legacy throughout the reign of Henry VI? Does it have any influence over the development of the Wars of the Roses, for example? Or is it just a moment in time that's quite amusing because people replace swords with bats?
48:47 Speaker 03 Well, in a sense, it depends on your dating of the Wars of the Roses. I mean, I personally don't tend to start them till the fourteen fifty's, but there is obviously, you know, a case to be made for them starting with Richard the Second's deposition. I think you're right, though, that it's more of a point in time. It settles a particular quarrel between Beaufort and Dukemphry, which needs to be settled. Does it mean that Bedford can then go back to France and carry on with the wars? Well, yes and no. The wars in France, or the whole scenario of Lancaster in France,
49:28 Speaker 03 I think is far more affected by the rise of Joan of Arc and the coronation of the Dauphin as King of France than by anything that goes on on the English side of things. Again, well, we have to scrub around for very small bits of evidence here. And one bit of evidence, which I could throw at you here, relates to the grants of taxation. In the records of the Norfolk Borough of Bishop's Lynn, now King's Lynn, we have some quite interesting details.
50:07 Speaker 03 And the details for fourteen twenty-six are that the MPs for Bishop's Lynn ask for money so that they might get together a grouping of peers, knights of the shire, et cetera, and persuade them to vote against a grant of taxation. So this, in a sense, relates back to what I said earlier about the Grant of Customs. This has slipped through once previously, and the MPs for Bishop's Lynn are horrified. There seems to be coming a new sort of nodding through of taxes which they, for their part, are not prepared to pay. And they start some very obvious coalition building.
50:51 Speaker 03 They start building first of all coalitions of urban representatives in Parliament who will all be stung by any tax grants. And then also of knights of the Shaiqas, they need the extra manpower, if you like, to back them in all of this. And this is recorded in the urban records of King's Lynn, believe it or not. This whole thing takes two years to come together, but in fourteen twenty eight, they then, you know, stick their elbows out and manage to vote against it.
51:24 Matt Lewis? So it sounds like it's almost the beginning of, rather than the beginning of some major sort of constitutional role for Parliament, it's actually the beginning of a more broad move to firm up exactly what Parliament can do around taxation or should be doing around taxation and how all of that is managed. So there's sort of a, an impact and a legacy there, but it's aside from that big centre stage squabble, the main event that we've been talking about.
51:45 Speaker 03 Yeah. I mean, let's not forget that taxation is the principal reason, in a sense, for the existence, certainly of the House of Commons. I don't really want to take you back to the raid of King John here. It's slightly outside our brief, but that's kind of what we look at as the catalyst in terms of the evolution of the House of Commons, the evolution which then leads to the summoning of urban representatives in Henry III's reign, twelve sixty five and all that. And yes, you're absolutely right that there is a sense in which Parliament then starts digging its heels in. It's also obviously related to Henry V's untimely death, but digging its heels in
52:29 Speaker 03 and saying, sorry, Your Majesty, you cannot have more cash at this point. And yes, that is something which in a sense does shape a lot of Henry VI's reign. The Commons increasingly don't grant taxation, the King permission to borrow money, for which, yeah, we'll, we'll grant some money for that at a later date, but they never do. So in other words, the sort of public debt rises increasingly steeply while they refuse to grant more than a pittance.
53:03 Matt Lewis? We talked earlier, or I asked the question earlier about whether Cardinal Beaufort was using the king's minority to increase his influence or paper influence or anything like that. Do we see Parliament using Henry's minority as a way to gather more power to itself, or are they not really doing that?
53:19 Speaker 03 No, I wouldn't really say that they do that. Parliamentary politics in the period is very much a tit for tat. We'll give you a small grant of money and you deal with all our petitions and things. It's very much that. We've really, at this point, got to slightly set aside the older theory of the Lancastrian Constitutional Experiment, which I certainly hold no truck with. That's very much a later development from the 1450s. If anything, it's the king's madness that brings more developments about in that respect.
53:57 Matt Lewis? Yeah. This has been absolutely fascinating, Hannah, that it's been wonderful to find out more about the situation around the Parliament of Bats and exactly what it did and didn't achieve. I just wondered while I've got you, as someone who specialises in the history of Parliament, do you have a favourite thing that still exists in Parliament today that is kind of medieval in origin? Something that if you were to watch Parliament on TV, people might be able to point out and say, oh, I know what that means because Hannah's told me.
54:22 Speaker 03 Well, oddly enough, there is something which I've always tended to trot out whenever I've taught Parliament to undergraduate students, and that relates basically to the prorogation of Parliament. Prorogation, for those people who don't remember Boris Johnson and his shenanigans, is essentially a process by which Parliament is suspended for a period of time or subsequently potentially dissolved. And what happens to this day?
54:55 Speaker 03 Is that a royal commission is read out. So you get five lords, front of the House of Lords, all of them in their parliamentary robes and wearing lovely tricorn hats, which are not medieval, I hasten to add. That's very much a sort of modern kind of thing to it. And then the Commons are summoned. Again, some of your listeners will know about the state opening of Parliament when Black Rod bangs on the doors of the Commons. Exactly the same happens here again. There's a cry of Black Rod, the door gets slammed in his face and he or she bangs on the door, is then admitted and summons the Commons. And they then all line up at the bar of the House of Lords.
55:40 Speaker 03 And what then happens, and this is the medieval bit to it, is that the royal assent is granted. And that is done by one clerk bowing to the lord sitting at the front, facing the house and reading out the title of a bill. So, I don't know, Public Safety Bill 2024. And then there's much bowing and duffing of heads from the clerks and another clerk gets up and announces in Norman French, le roi le vaut. The king wills it. We've unfortunately, we no longer have the scenario where the king could ask for it to be laid on the table
56:21 Speaker 03 or anything else. But that in a sense, sort of to me epitomises the age, if you like, of Parliament. I could mention lots of other procedural things that I get very excited about. But I do strongly recommend, and we do have a prorogation canning up quite soon. I think the new session is supposed to start in May or something. So watch this space and by all means, watch the prorogation when it happens. You don't have to sit through a whole shooting match, but just watch a few bills being given the royal assent.
56:55 Matt Lewis? In Norman French, which feels slightly bizarre, doesn't it?
56:58 Speaker 03 I think it's fascinating.
57:00 Matt Lewis? No, it is. It's wonderful. Well, thank you so much for joining us again, Hannah. It's been wonderful to talk to you. It's been great to catch up with you and fascinating to learn more about the Parliament of Bats. Thank you very much.
57:08 Speaker 03 My pleasure.
57:11 Matt Lewis? I hope you've enjoyed the story of the Parliament of Bats. You can find Hannah's previous visit to Gone Medieval about how Parliament came to Westminster in our back catalogue, as well as Dan Jones's visit to talk all about Henry V, which provides some background to this episode. There are new instalments of Gone Medieval every Tuesday and Friday, so please come back to join Eleanor and I for more from the greatest millennium in human history. Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. You can sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week at historyhit.com/subscribe. Anyway, I'd better let you go.
57:55 Matt Lewis? I've been Matt Lewis and we've just gone medieval with History Hits.
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