The Bishop who Took Down Richard II

What makes an Archbishop one of the most hated figures in British history? And does Thomas Arundel truly deserve to be branded the greatest villain of 15th-century Britain? Matt Lewis and Professor Chris Given-Wilson explore the life, power, and legacy of a man whose influence reached deep into the politics, religion, and royal struggles of late medieval England, and ask whether he was truly a villain or a far more complex figure than history has remembered. MORE: Richard II vs. Henry IV Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/richard-ii-vs-henry-iv/id1564113746?i=1000671468160&uo=4&itscg=30200&ls=1&mttnsubad=6442463604&at=1000l3ctA&itsct=podfollow_podcasts&ct=gone-medieval-eplink Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/6FwoVILnFD15Q5S7Qm3WhP Plantagenets at War: A Fight for the Throne Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/plantagenets-at-war-a-fight-for-the-throne/id1564113746?i=1000746999525&uo=4&itscg=30200&ls=1&mttnsubad=6442463604&at=1000l3ctA&itsct=podfollow_podcasts&ct=gone-medieval-eplink Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/3gL59jsgt82wzjnWdeQ7id Gone Medieval is presented by Matt Lewis. Audio editor is Amy Haddow, the producer is Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff. All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds. Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• 0:01Matt Lewis?

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• 0:40Matt 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 gob-smacking 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.

• 1:16Matt Lewis?

  Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval. I'm Matt Lewis. In 2005, the BBC ran a poll to find out the most villainous figure in British history, taking the worst person from each century and playing them off against each other. When it came to the 15th century, the result might surprise you. People voted the greatest villain of the 15th century in Britain to be Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury. Why? We'll find out in a bit. Did he deserve it? We'll explore that, too. You might also be asking, exactly who is Thomas Arundel? Well, that's what we're going to find out right now. To help us, I'm delighted to be joined by Professor Chris Given-Wilson, emeritus professor of history at the University of St Andrews.

• 2:01Matt Lewis?

  He's the author of numerous fantastic books, including Henry IV and Chronicles, and is a general editor of the Parliament Roles of Medieval England. And his latest book is a biography of this fascinating figure, entitled Archbishop, Chancellor, Kingmaker: A Life of Thomas Arundel.

• 2:21Matt Lewis?

  A very warm welcome, Chris, to God Medieval.

• 2:23Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 2:24Matt Lewis?

  It's great to have you with us. We're here today to talk about Archbishop Thomas Arundel, who people may have heard of, may not have heard of, but they're about to find out all about him and why he's such a fascinating character. Your new biography of Archbishop Arundel kind of focuses on his career after 1396 mainly, but I wondered if you could just give us a little bit of information about who Thomas Arundel is, when is he born, who were his parents, what are his family's importance?

• 2:50Speaker 01

  He's born sometime in 1353, we don't know the exact date. He is the fourth child of the Richard Earl of Arundel, who is the richest man in England. His wealth was quite remarkable and indeed much remarked on at the time. When he died, he left over £70,000 sitting in chests in the high tower of his castle at Arundel, which in modern terms makes him a multi-billionaire. This was quite an exceptional amount of disposable wealth to have. So Thomas Arundel was definitely born with a silver spoon in his mouth and his dad was

• 3:32Speaker 01

  a man who believed in using his wealth to promote his children's careers. And quite remarkably, we know very little about his childhood, but he went up to Oxford when he was about 16, which was quite normal in those days. That was the usual age to go up to Oxford. He never completed his degree. We'll come back to that if you want, because in the middle of his degree, his dad died, but not before having made sure that Thomas was going to be well provided for, which meant he had been destined by his father presumably, at a really quite a young age for a career in the church, which was quite normal because, you know, he wasn't going to,

• 4:17Speaker 01

  unless there were all sorts of accidents, he wasn't going to inherit the title and the lands of the Earl of Arundel.

• 4:23Matt Lewis?

  And I think there's quite often a perception that the idea that you, you know, younger children going to the church is almost kind of pushing them away, getting rid of them, solving Problem, but actually that was a route to some slightly different power and authority for the family, isn't it? It it kind of does broaden the Arundel reach.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  Oh, it absolutely was. So it it was a decision which doubtless was good for and appreciated by the family. But um, yes, I mean, it wasn't what it later became, you know, which was sort of traditionally in the eighteenth or nineteenth century. If you had three children, three sons, you know, one inherited the estates, the second one went in the army and the third one went into the clergy, which was a sort of traditional thing. You you find that sort of mentioned in Jane Austen and so forth. But this was most definitely a route to influence. But I mean, remarkably, he became a bishop, um, having not even yet been ordained a priest. He became a bishop at the age of twenty in thirteen seventy three.

• 5:21Speaker 01

  And he was, I think there's absolutely no doubt that the reason why he became a bishop, why this was, this was, according to the Pope, when he appointed him as Bishop of Ely in thirteen seventy three, the Pope said in his letter of appointment, he said, no one so young has ever been appointed to a bishopric. And he said that he hoped that Thomas would follow in the footsteps of his father and defend the church. And I think it's almost beyond doubt that money must have passed hands. I suspect that uh, the Earl of Arundel must have passed a quite significant sum.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  I mean, we're sure we're talking about thousands of pounds, must have passed a quite significant sum to Pope Gregory in order to get his son elected or appointed to the bishopric of Ely at such a young age.

• 6:16Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, so so we've got some some very definite nepotism going on there, but but does he turn out to be a good bishop? You know, given that he's so young, given that he's essentially been put in that position because his father's bought it for him. Does that make him a bad bishop or does he turn out to be quite good at it?

• 6:31Speaker 01

  No, he turns out to be really rather good at it. And going back to what you said, the reason why my biography of Arundel begins in thirteen ninety six, ninety seven is because his early career was investigated in great detail by a historian called Margaret Aston about sixty years ago. And she published a book called Thomas Arundel, A Study of Church Life in the Reign of Richard II, which is a long book, an extremely detailed book, and a book, the conclusion of which is that Arundel turned out to be actually a very conscientious bishop, and a popular bishop with his own clergy. So, no, this was not a case of a guy just

• 7:16Speaker 01

  being, you know, thrust into a post and everyone hating him. Actually, everyone seems to have appreciated him. And, and later on, the chronicler of Ely said what a good bishop of Ely he'd been. And that is, I think, a seam which runs through his life, that once he moved to Canterbury, then he was much appreciated as the Archbishop of Canterbury as well. But no doubt, we'll come on to that later.

• 7:38Matt Lewis?

  And what role do you think his brother's position as one of the Lord's Appellant, a kind of prominent opponent of Richard II, how does that affect him? Because Arundel is, you know, right up there as, as one of those Lord's Appellant who is trying to control Richard II's government and, and tighten bonds around the king. Does that affect Arundel, Archbishop Arundel at all, or Bishop Arundel at this point?

• 7:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, this affects him a lot. But Arundel himself is no friend to Richard II. Arundel himself, you can see him, he, he becomes involved in politics, as of course so many bishops do. To be a bishop was to be an actor on the political stage, as well as the ecclesiastical stage, very much so at this time. And there were quite a few aristocratic bishops, but none who were really quite as influential as Arundel turned out to be. Arundel himself, in the mid 1380s, became strongly opposed to Richard II's government. And, I mean, you know, with good reason, really. I mean, Richard II had from

• 8:40Speaker 01

  really quite early in his life, quite autocratic, one might even say tyrannical instincts. And he was beginning to show that side of him, even in the mid 1380s. And of course, the great complaint, as so often, was about his favourites. Men like Robert de Vere, who he made Duke of Ireland, Michael Dillapu, who he made Chancellor, and other people, there were plenty of others as well. These were regarded as the king's cronies. They were leading him astray. They were appropriating his resources for themselves privately. And the Crown was bankrupt. The war was going badly. There was a real invasion scared.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  I mean, the French were about to invade England in thirteen eighty six, but fortunately, the weather turned against them. And it may be that they wouldn't have been able to come anyway. But anyway, there was a lot of opposition to Richard, and it was led, as you say, by the Lords Appellant. And of course, Arundel was, Arundel Bishop Arundel, the man, the man the biography is about. He was not a member of the Lords Appellant because the reason why they're called the Lords Appellant is because they launched what's called an appeal of treason against the king's chief cronies or ministers or whatever you want to call them. And of course, treason would have led to execution and churchmen could not be involved in punishments of blood or death.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  So Arundel had a get out clause. But his brother, yeah, he was violently anti Richard the Second. I mean, on two different occasions, Richard the Second is recorded as actually punching the Earl of Arundel, which is a pretty remarkable thing to do once, let alone twice. So there was absolutely no love lost between those two. So Arundel was Bishop Arundel. He was very much in support of the appellants and he was one of the leading opponents of the king. And I think would probably have been anyway, regardless of what his brother did.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  And if you look at the chroniclers of Richard the Second's reign and when they talk about Arundel, they tend to present him perhaps somewhat idealistically, but not completely unrealistically, as a man who had the defence of England's traditional liberties, whatever you actually think those were, which is another complicated matter. But a man who had the defence of England's traditional liberties at heart.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  And there is, there are several speeches or conversations which he has with the king, which basically say, stop acting like this. This is not the way kings act. And on one occasion, he actually appears to threaten Richard II with the possibility of deposition if he doesn't mend his ways.

• 11:35Matt Lewis?

  Yeah. And ultimately, his brother, the Earl of Arundel, will be executed by Richard. When Richard II feels ready to get his revenge on the lord's appellant, the Earl of Arundel is one of those who is executed. Is it fair to say that Bishop Arundel, Archbishop Arundel, I mean, obviously he doesn't like Richard II already, you've established that, but is there an extent to which he's kind of tricked into being involved in his brother's downfall?

• 11:57Speaker 01

  Well, he is in, he is in a way. I think I just need to go back a little bit. You asked whether his brother's behaviour affected him in any way. And although they were very much singing from the same hymn sheet in the mid 1380s, by the 1390s, Arundel was acting as Richard II's chancellor, and he was by now really more concerned to try to restore peace and harmony in the realm, to try to heal the divisions of the past. But the Earl of Arundel remained truculent. And he, he and, and his brother, although they don't seem to have had significant falling out or anything like that,

• 12:42Speaker 01

  he and his brother are really going on divergent paths in the 1390s, the early 1390s. Because Arundel is maintaining this stance of really quite insolent opposition to Richard, whereas Arundel, as Chancellor of the King, is trying to smooth things over. So being the Earl of Arundel's brother is actually becoming a little bit problematic for Archbishop Arundel by the mid 1390s. I don't know, it's difficult, it's difficult to know how to put this, but he is kind of made by Richard II, almost complicit in his brother's arrest and death. But I mean, it's wrong to say he is complicit.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  Because what Richard tells him to do eventually, when he gets completely fed up with Arundel in 139, with the Earl of Arundel in 1397.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  He says to Archbishop Arundel, go and get your brother and bring him to me. And Arundel says, if I bring him to you, will you kill him? And the king says, no, I won't. I promise you, I won't kill him. Well, Arundel, the Earl of Arundel, is hiding in his castle in Rye Gate, knowing that the king is gunning for him and does not, he's very reluctant to come and to to talk to the king. I mean, that's what Richard says he wants to do, to get Arundel to come and talk to him. But eventually he goes and he says to his brother, the king has promised that he's not going to harm you if you come to him. And the Earl of Arundel therefore accepts this. And he goes to see Richard and Richard immediately arrests him.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  And he's never free again. He's locked away in Carisbrook Castle, the Isle of Wight. He's brought to trial in Parliament and condemned and beheaded for treason. So you see, Arundel, Archbishop Arundel had been duped there. And he later, when he comes around to deposing Richard the Second, which I'm quite sure we're going to get on to in a minute, when he comes around to deposing Richard the Second and drawing up the charges against Richard, he talks about that. He says in the document which lists Richard the Second's crime, and you deceived me. You told me you wouldn't harm my brother and then you you had him killed.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  He feels that very deeply. He's been made complicit.

• 15:07Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah, which is understandable. If he felt like he was trying to to build bridges and smooth things over and solve problems for Richard, this must have felt like a really poor payback for all of that effort.

• 15:19Speaker 01

  Yes, by thirteen ninety seven, you quite rightly point to what is often called the revenge parliament, Richard the Second's revenge parliament. And this is the parliament, and this is the year in which the chronicler, Thomas Walsingham, who is by far and away the fullest chronicler for Richard the Second's reign. He says, in this year, Richard the Second began to tyrannise his people, and a lot of people saw it like that. And it was financial tyranny, and it was pure revenge on the people, the leading appellants who had opposed him 10 years earlier in 1386 and 1387, and driven his friends out of the country into exile, or executed some of his friends.

• 16:04Speaker 01

  So this is very much a case of Richard the Second's revenge. And Arundel, Bishop Arundel, because he had been Chancellor at the time, although he hadn't been involved in the sentences against Richard the Second's favourites in 1387, because he had been Chancellor at the time, he was also accused by the King of being involved in the treason against what Richard called treason against him in 1387. I mean, accusations of treason were bandied round rather frequently in Richard the Second's reign on both sides. And Arundel was therefore convicted of treason in Parliament. But because he was a cleric, I mean, normally if you're convicted of treason, it was straight off to the gallows.

• 16:46Speaker 01

  And if you're not of high birth, it's an extremely unpleasant death, as I'm sure you know, lots of nasty things done before you actually die. But because he was a cleric, and there was no tradition in England of executing clerics, some had been murdered, but none had been judicially executed in England since the Norman conquest. He is driven, he is told to go into exile. And apparently, again, according to Aaron Bishop Arundel's account, the King said to him, don't worry, I'll recall you quite soon, and I'm not going to make anyone else Archbishop of Canterbury while you're abroad.

• 17:21Matt Lewis?

  And do we believe what Richard says?

• 17:23Speaker 01

  Well, we don't often believe what Richard says. Hardly was he out of the country when Richard wrote to the Pope and said, I need a new Archbishop of Canterbury.

• 17:32Matt Lewis?

  Unbelievable.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  Oh, it's very believable with Richard.

• 17:34Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, absolutely. And we ought to just mention that Arundel has become Archbishop of Canterbury in 1396. And that just, it feels like a strange decision because you kind of said, he's not, he's not really a friend of Richard. He's trying to work inside Richard's government. So it's only the year before his brother and the rest of the Lords Appellate would fall. So is this a moment where he's, he's still on good terms with Richard and he is appointed Archbishop of Canterbury? Was this not necessarily what Richard II would have wanted?

• 18:00Speaker 01

  Well, I think Richard II was all right with it. I think Richard II was still in his waiting and watching phase at this point. I don't think he really made the decision to get his revenge until sometime during 1397. Although, you know, with Richard, you're never quite sure. He may have been harboring hopes of, of doing that for a long time. He quite possibly was. But anyway, no, the thing is by 1396, when the former Archbishop of Canterbury, William Curtney died, Arundel was so obviously the senior cleric, the most, the high, you know, he was head and shoulders above the whole of the rest of the Episcopal bench.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  He'd been Archbishop of York by now for eight years. He'd been promoted to the Archbishop of York in 1388, so he was already an Archbishop. He'd been Chancellor for something like seven of the previous 10 years. He was a dominant figure. He had a powerful personality, Arundel did. And he was recognised as a defender of the Church's liberties. And there's no evidence that Richard showed any opposition to his choice. But the monks of Canterbury said, we want Arundel. The Pope said, yep, Arundel, that's a good idea. And I mean, the whole question of appoint, how you appoint bishops is of course, pretty complicated at this time, but we probably don't need to go into that.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  But it was just kind of like a shoo-in. That's very much how it seemed. Everyone seemed to agree this, you know, when Curtney died, it's going to be Arundel. And it was, but he did, he did immediately resign the Chancellorship, but that's normal. Of course, that's exactly what Thomas Becket did, you know, 200 and something years earlier, 230 years earlier. Thomas said, I can't be Chancellor and Archbishop. And Henry II said to him, I want you to be my Chancellor and my Archbishop. And Becket said, I cannot possibly do both. And of course, that's what really led to the quarrel between Henry II and Becket. Anyway.

• 20:04Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, yeah. So we've kind of left Archbishop Arundel in exile. He's been replaced as Archbishop of Canterbury. At what point does he manage to become attached to Henry Bolingbroke's cause? Bolingbroke will end up in exile as well as one of the junior Lord's Appellant. Does Arundel kind of quickly become attached to him? Does he seek Henry Bolingbroke out?

• 20:27Speaker 01

  Well, when Arundel was driven into exile in September 1397, Bolingbroke was not driven into exile for another year, a year later. And when Richard II exiled him, he said he was only exiling him for 10 years, but that was later extended, as we'll see. When Richard II exiled him, he said that he was to have no contact with Archbishop Arundel. And the chronicler adds, because he feared Arundel's counsel and wisdom. In other words, he thought Arundel was a bit too clever to be in touch. Anyway, Arundel went off to Florence. Well,

• 21:11Speaker 01

  he went to Rome first, and he told the Pope, this is completely unfair. I want you to reinstake me at Canterbury. And the Pope said, I really can't. I mean, the Pope apparently said, I'd love to, but I can't. Because Popes just really couldn't afford to get on the wrong side of kings too much. And so he went off to Florence. He had a lovely year in Florence, and he met all those humanists like Coluccio Salitati and Poggio Bracolini. And he described Florence as an earthly paradise. The crunch came when John of Gaunt died, which was in February 1399. And Henry Bolingbroke was, of course, the eldest son of John of Gaunt.

• 21:53Speaker 01

  And Henry Bolingbroke had been told by Richard, when he exiled him, that he would be allowed to inherit any estates which fell into him while he was in exile.

• 22:05Matt Lewis?

  And, shock horror, Richard may not have told the truth.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  And, shock horror, Richard didn't tell the truth. No sooner, well, within a month of Gaunt's death, Richard II announced that Bolingbroke's exile was going to be extended for life, and that he was... Confiscating the Lancastrian inheritance, which was a vast inheritance. It dwarfed any other noble inheritance in England at the time. It was worth something in the region of ten or eleven thousand pounds a year. And no other, no other noble had an inheritance, had lands worth more than about four thousand pounds a year. So the Duchy of Lancaster was absolutely vast.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  And that is what, when Arundel heard this, he was still down in Florence. When Arundel heard this, he immediately set off and he knew that Bollingbrook was in Paris. And so he set off north, he joined up with Bollingbrook and they obviously decided it's time to go and get rid of this king.

• 23:09Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, and kind of Richard II managed to bring about the thing that he feared. He was obviously worried about Bollingbrook getting counsel from Arundel and the two of them getting their heads together and what that might mean. And he's kind of just pushed them both out of his house, you know, into the garden somewhere. And they've managed to find each other, surprise, surprise. I mean, do we get any kind of a sense of how involved Arundel was in that ultimate decision to depose Richard? You know, obviously Henry has a driver, a motivation to do that too. Is this something they both agree on or do we see a bit of pressure from Arundel? Or from, is it Bollingbrook that's leading that, that desire to depose Richard?

• 23:45Speaker 01

  Well, it's all rather obfuscated by the fact that when they come back to England, Henry says, no, no, no, I haven't come to claim the throne. I've come to get my duchy back. Now, how many people believed him? I don't know. I think it's pretty obvious that they, I think that from the start, they were determined to get rid of Richard. And they were determined that Henry the Fourth, Henry the Bollingbrook should become King Henry the Fourth. And Arundel was obviously quite determined to get his Archbishop prick back. Richard, of course, was very silly and having made these very controversial decisions, immediately disappeared to Ireland to go and lead a campaign to Ireland.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  So when Bolingbroke and Arundel arrived at the very beginning of July thirteen ninety-nine, they basically, it was a bloodless campaign. And when Richard came back from Ireland, they captured him, they seized him at the castle of Flint in North Wales, and he was never a free man again, taken off to London. And once they had the king in their possession, which of course was the crucial thing, you know, Richard, Richard was advised by some people, you know, why don't you go off to France and bide your time or whatever, you know, the French, he was married to the French king's daughter, they said the French will probably help you, but no, Richard didn't do that. So he was captured, taken off, put in the Tower of London.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  Bolingbroke was chosen as king. I don't think anyone dared oppose that at the time, you know, whatever they, I mean, some of them clearly didn't want it, but you know, it was, but Bolingbroke was chosen as king and Archbishop Arundel was immediately restored to Canterbury. He was actually very nice, very nice to the guy who Roger Walden, whom Richard had appointed as Archbishop, because Roger Walden came to see him straight away and presumably said, I'm terribly sorry. And Arundel was extremely nice, forgave him, and a few years later appointed him back to the Episcopalacy, made him Bishop of London. So, you know, it's a remarkable, it's actually a remarkable example of a rather nice piece of forgiveness in high politics, which you don't always get.

• 25:54Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, no, especially not around this period in English history.

• 26:15Speaker 02

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• 27:08Matt Lewis?

  So we know that Henry the Fourth's reign is going to be tricky. It's going to be dogged by revolts and rebellions and efforts to fight against him from...

• 27:17Speaker 01

  For the first six years or so.

• 27:19Matt Lewis?

  Yeah. What part do we see Arundel playing in that? Is he serving Henry's new regime? Or do we see him providing more of a supporting role? Is he scaffolding Henry in power? Because he's been so key to getting Henry there. He obviously has a vested interest in Henry staying there, I guess.

• 27:37Speaker 01

  Oh, he definitely does. I mean, the first five or six years of Henry's reign, he is facing constant rebellions, the most dangerous of which is the Percy Rebellion in 1403. Arundel is, from the beginning, 100% behind Henry. That doesn't mean that he's 100% behind everything that Henry does. They have plenty of disagreements. There are plenty of things that Arundel would have liked Henry to do differently, some of which I'm sure we'll come on to. But he is one hundred percent behind the idea of Henry remaining as King of England.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  Because if Henry is overthrown, for example, by the Persis, and it was a pretty close run thing, the Battle of Shrewsbury in fourteen O three. If Henry is overthrown, Henry will be executed as a usurper and Arundel will very probably be executed as well. Or at the very least, he will be driven into exile again. Of course, he might have come back again. But I think the second time round, they're more like, well, you know, they're more likely to either execute him or just lock him away in prison. So he is one hundred percent behind Henry's kingship. And throughout the reign. I mean, he's not always formally a councillor. He doesn't want to be because he is actually a conscientious bishop.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  As well as, and you know, and he's not just bishop, he's Archbishop. He's got a church, he's got a whole church, he's got a province to run. So he actually wants some time to, you know, to do what he thinks ought to be done in the church. But throughout the reign, even when he isn't holding official post as a councillor or later on Chancellor of the realm. He is seen as the king's number one advisor, the man closest to the king and the man probably the most powerful. Next to the king after the kingdom. And I I actually describe it, England under Henry the fourth. As in some senses, a diarchy, you know, a sort of almost a rule by two men.

• 29:44Speaker 01

  Um. Although, having said that, there was no doubt who was the boss. Henry was the boss. Henry was a tough cat, a tough, tough cookie. I've written about him elsewhere, but you know.

• 29:56Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, I I mean, that relationship, so you. Archbishop Arundel will go back into serving as Chancellor again, having said you can't be Archbishop of Canterbury and Chancellor. He manages to do that. So I'm quite interested. I mean, this seems like a good example of what might have happened between Henry II and Thomas Becket if it had worked the way Henry II wanted it to, that they could have been a really great team. And they do appear to have become, you know, Henry and Archbishop Arundel, they do appear to have become a really strong team. I'm quite interested in whether you think either side of Archbishop Arundel's life, his services Archbishop of Canterbury and his political service. Did either of them suffer because of the other? Is he trying to do too much or is he accomplished enough that he can balance both of those things?

• 30:40Speaker 01

  Well, to a certain extent, he can balance them. Well, to some extent, his position, his friendship with Henry and his service to Henry gives him additional political power, which he can use as Archbishop of Canterbury. But it also, because he is 100% supportive of Henry, it gives him some very difficult decisions to make. And one of the most difficult and one of the most controversial is his acquiescence with Henry's demands for money from the clergy. Because Henry, a bit like Richard back in the in the 1380s, Henry during the first six or seven years is constantly bankrupt.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  I mean, the Crown just could not afford to pay for the things it was trying to do or wanted to do, to deal with the rebellion in Wales, to deal with the French threat, to deal with the Scottish threat, to maintain the throne, you know? And he's constantly asking the clergy for money. And you see Arundel, particularly from about 1402, 1403 onwards, during the next couple of absolutely crucial years in the reign, you see him increasingly trying to say, saying to the clergy, you've got to give the King more money. We've got to give the King more money. The King needs money. And the clergy, well, as I put it in my book, you know, a lot of them must have thought this is the alliance of the shepherd and the wolf.

• 32:07Speaker 01

  You know, Arundel's meant to be our shepherd, but he's just, he's just fleecing us, you know, who's like, like the wolf who is the King. And that undoubtedly, I mean, I mean, there's very, the interesting thing about Arundel was that despite the fact that quite a lot of his clergy must have had those thoughts about him.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  For the most part, the Orthodox clergy, the Orthodox Catholic clergy in England, were remarkably supportive of him. You know, his bishops on the whole did not, well hardly any of them, did not turn against him in any way. That was, that was Becket's great problem. The bishops turned against him. And, you know, once your bishops turn against you, then as an Archbishop, your authority is fatally undermined. The bishops never turned against Arundel. On the contrary, they were, they were very supportive. But quite a lot of the lower clergy must have been grinding their teeth at, you know, yet again, another demand for money which the Archbishop was telling us to pay the king.

• 33:13Matt Lewis?

  Yeah. I mean, all of that points to him perhaps being a very charismatic man. You know, he was good at delivering those bad messages in a way that didn't necessarily alienate the people who, who didn't want to hear what he was saying.

• 33:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think he was charismatic. I mean, it's a fascinating thing. If you look at the sources closely, you'll see that his spoken words are reproduced more often than anyone else in the country, by the chroniclers or in memorandums and so forth, memoranda, and are produced more often than anyone else's, even the kings. So what I'm taking from that, and what actually comes through pretty clearly, is that he was a man, he was a remarkable orator, a man who spoke with great emotional power and was very robust. There are many examples of arguments that he had in the council, you know, telling people, you know, possibly not

• 34:10Speaker 01

  to make too many demands on the clergy or whatever. There's the great disendowment debate, which goes on in fourteen oh three, fourteen oh four, you know, when some of the knights say, oh, just disendow the church, take all their lands and goods away from them. And then, you know, and of course, Arundel was not going to have any of that. And he really rans on these knights. You know, there's one council where some of Henry's war captains say, just take their gold and send them home on foot. Take their horses as well. We need them in the war against Wales. And Arundel rounds on them in absolute fury.

• 34:45Matt Lewis?

  I wonder how Archbishop Arundel manages to deal with or rationalize or cope with.

• 34:53Matt Lewis?

  Henry the Fourth's execution of Richard Scroop, the Archbishop of York in fourteen O five, because this is an instance in which you've got a king executing the second most senior member of the clergy. Arundel, I can't imagine Arundel was happy about that.

• 35:06Speaker 01

  Oh, he was absolutely, he was distraught. He was distraught. And you've got to remember, this is the first time since the Norman conquest that a bishop, let alone an Archbishop, as Richard Scroop was, that a bishop has been judicially executed by an English king. Archbishopes have been murdered before, but that, you know, to judicially try for treason and execute a bishop is something quite different. Arundel did his best to try to save Scroop. Scroop was a friend of his. Scroop had worked with him at Ely and at York. You know, they'd known each other for thirty years or more, worked closely together.

• 35:50Speaker 01

  And, well, there's various stories told about it. I mean, I mean, one story which we don't necessarily have to believe, but it kind of gives an impression of what was going on, is when Arundel, Arundel was down in the south of England, when he heard that Henry the Fourth had captured Archbishop Scroop, who was probably not really rebelling against him at all, just protesting, you know, but, you know, that's a matter of interpretation. When he heard that Henry had arrested Scroop, he rode all through the night up to York, arrived and said, you must not execute this man. You cannot execute this man, you know, ask the Pope about it, take him before Parliament, but for heaven's sake, don't just execute

• 36:35Speaker 01

  him. And apparently, Henry said to Arundel, you must be very tired after your long ride. Go and have a lie down. And while he was having a rest, Archbishop Scroop was executed by Henry.

• 37:04Speaker 02

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• 37:57Matt Lewis?

  Which must have been troublesome for Archbishop Arundel, because that's so close to what happened to his brother as well. This must have felt like being tricked and betrayed by a king again.

• 38:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's very true. That's very true. It is. He must have felt that. Apparently, he was so upset when he got... I mean, the story may very, very well be exaggerated, but what is clear is that he strongly advised Henry not to execute Scrooge, but Scrooge, but Henry went ahead anyway. He was absolutely distraught by it. Apparently, he got ill for several days afterwards. And, you know, it was a perilous moment, but then there's a sequel to this. I mean, it was a perilous moment, because, as I say, this had never been done before. And what was the Pope going to do? The Pope was Innocent VI, and what

• 38:48Speaker 01

  was he going to do? Well, fortunately, Innocent VI didn't get round to it for several months because he was faced with a rebellion in Rome. But when he did, he issued a bull of excommunication. Against everyone who had been involved in the death of Archbishop Scroop, but without naming them. He didn't name, I mean, the person, you know, who clearly had executed Scroop was Henry IV. But so the Pope didn't name, and and the Pope sent, Innocent VI sent this bull to England. And whenever a bull of excommunication was issued by a Pope, it would be sent to the Archbishop, who was responsible for publicising it and

• 39:29Speaker 01

  announcing it in England. And Arundel never publicised it. People knew, because the chroniclers, you know, plenty of chroniclers say, you know, Innocent III excommunicated all the people who'd been involved in Scroop's death. So the chroniclers knew this perfectly well, and they knew that Arundel had declined to publicise it because he didn't want to embarrass Henry. This was a very difficult decision. But, you know, to be excommunicated, that's kind of, I mean, quite what the effects would have been are very difficult to know, but it is a kind of licence to your your people, your subjects to rebel against you. Whether whether they would have is another matter.

• 40:08Matt Lewis?

  I bet, right? All of these moments don't seem to have particularly affected the relationship between Henry and Archbishop Arundel. You say, you know, Arundel is still kind of protecting Henry from the consequences of an action that he didn't want him to undertake. But they they do seem to carry on to work together very well for the rest of Henry IV's reign.

• 40:24Speaker 01

  Arundel is absolutely wedded to Henry's kingship. And that is, as I said earlier, partly a question of self-protection. Because Henry trusts his Archbishop, the Archbishop trusts Arundel, trusts Henry, they work very well together. Now, the other factor you've got to bring in here is Henry's declining health. And from 1406 onwards, Arundel has...

• 40:50Speaker 01

  Hmm, not being keen on the idea of becoming chancellor again in the first six or seven years of the reign. But when Henry IV starts getting seriously ill, which he really did from 1406, and then much more seriously from 1408, Arundel thinks I've now got to step up. I'm the only person who's really capable of replacing this increasingly debilitated king. And interestingly enough, the relationship between them, which has always been good, despite, you know, the obvious disagreements over things like Scrooge's execution. The relationship between them becomes very close at this time. They are, they become very good friends, they become very fond, they're very affectionate

• 41:34Speaker 01

  towards, they write enormously affectionately towards each other, they completely trust each other. And Arundel is really as responsible as Henry is, more or less, for the government of England for most, most of the last five or six years of the reign. Not all, because Prince Henry, the future Henry V, is on the scene as well, but that's another story.

• 41:58Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, I mean, when Henry V does succeed, does Archbishop Arundel manage to, to maintain his position? He's so closely tied with, with Henry IV personally, can he transfer that to Henry's son?

• 42:09Speaker 01

  No, no, no, there have been serious, I mean, Prince Henry, or Hal as I always think of him, Prince Henry, the future Henry V, is chafing at the bit. And by the end of 14, by the beginning of 1410, well, by the end of 1409 really, when the king is really very ill, Arundel's been chancellor for three years now and is doing things that Prince Hal doesn't like, that Prince Henry wants done differently. And Prince Henry more or less sidelines his father in the Parliament of January 1410 and takes over the government of the realm for two years. And all sorts of things come between them. It's clear that the relationship between

• 42:50Speaker 01

  Arundel and the prince are not really good. There was the war in France, the, well, the civil war in France. England wasn't actually at war with France at this time. There was nominally a truce, but there's a civil war in France. This is going to become what is called the Burgundian-Armeniac Civil War, which is going to go on for 25 years and absolutely tear France apart. But it's a question, Prince Henry wants to support the Burgundians and Arundel and the king want to support the Armenian side. And this becomes a big issue between them. Then there's the question of the allocation of resources. Prince Henry thinks that the most important thing is the protection of Calais, which

• 43:33Speaker 01

  has been English for more than 50 years by now, 60 years. And so he wants money allocated to the defence of Calais. Prince, King Henry, Henry IV, he is more concerned with the retention of Gascany, England's colony in the south of France. So that's, you know, where a resource is going to be allocated. Anyway, the king takes back power in the autumn of 1411 and retains it until his death in March 1413, whereupon Henry V becomes king. And the day after he becomes king, he dismisses Arundel as chancellor, he dismisses him from the council, he relieves him of several posts. And for the last, well, Arundel

• 44:18Speaker 01

  only lives for another 11 months, but for the last 11 months of his life, he is quite dearly in the political wilderness. He is yesterday's man. And I think he feels this. He's still Archbishop of Canterbury, and he still tries to get things done, but no longer does he have the ear or the confidence of the king. There was no good relationship between Prince Henry and Arundel. So the last 11 months of his life provide a rather depressing anticlimax to his life for him.

• 44:51Matt Lewis?

  And one of the aspects that we we ought to talk about with Arundel, so something that people may know about him in particular, is his relationship, dislike of maybe, Lollardy, and that form of heresy and his persecution of Lollards. So you point out in the book that he, in 2005, the BBC ran this poll to find the the worst, most terrible villain in every century of of British history, and Arundel won it for the 15th century. Now, the man that you've described to me so far does not feel like someone you would classify as a villain who dominated the whole century. So how did he end up in that position of people feeling that way about him?

• 45:27Speaker 01

  Well, if you look at how that poll by the BBC in 2005 was reported, it was the greatest villain of the 15th century was Thomas Arundel because he persecuted the Lollards, who were a sect who asked for, I think it was translation of the Bible and the lay priesthood, or something like that, you know, which are things which nowadays everyone thinks, you know, well, why on earth can't you translate the Bible? Why can't we read it in English? You know, why can't we have a lay priesthood? Well, anyway, I think, I think just to fill in the background a little bit, there had been very, very little heresy in England. There was no real homegrown heresy in England at all before about 1380. So Lollardy, the

• 46:10Speaker 01

  English heresy, as it's often called, was something really new, which the English had not had to deal with. As Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Arundel sees it as his mission, his charge from God, to maintain the unity of the Catholic faith in England. And he is determined, this is why some people don't like him, this is why the Protestants of the 16th century absolutely loathed him, he is determined to eradicate Lollardy. And of course, it is during his arch episcopacy that there are two, two Lollards are burned for heresy. And this is seen as

• 46:51Speaker 01

  a terrible thing. This is the man who introduced burning for heresy to England. No, he wasn't. Heretics had been burnt in England in the 12th century, in the 13th century, and probably in the early 14th century. Not very many, but some. And it was perfectly clearly seen as the correct punishment for

• 47:13Speaker 01

  Unrepentant heretics, in other words, heretics who refused to recant. And also, it was not Arundel who introduced the statute which authorised the burning of heretics. Which, which was, the statute was a confirmation of what everyone thought was right anyway. So, yes, the Protestants loathed Arundel. I mean, Cranmer had his, his Chantry Chapel, his chant, Arundel's Chantry Chapel in, in Canterbury Cathedral demolished. Right down to the ground. So that is why some people think he is the villain, you know, one of the greatest, well, the greatest villain. I mean, you know, he even beats Richard III, which is pretty good.

• 47:57Matt Lewis?

  Oh, careful, Chris. Don't, don't go too close to that one for me now.

• 48:00Speaker 01

  Oh, well, okay. Yeah, that is why some people think that he is the big villain of the 15th century.

• 48:06Matt Lewis?

  Yeah. So, so for your money, that's a an incorrect reading of his history that, you know, you, you seem like you really don't believe he deserved to, to make that list at all.

• 48:15Speaker 01

  Oh, no way. No way. I mean, he was an extraordinarily competent man and in many ways a very principled man. But if you, if you were Archbishop of Canterbury, I mean, you know, William Curtney, his predecessor, he was pretty hard on Lollards too. I mean, no one got round to burning Lollards under Curtney. But then, you know, it was, it was Henry the Fourth and the Commons who, who decided that the first Lollard should be burned in 1401. I don't say that Arundel necessarily disagreed with that, but it wasn't on his initiative.

• 48:49Matt Lewis?

  If Arundel's legacy then, and the way that we think about him today, shouldn't be as that persecutor of, of Lollards. What do you think his biggest legacy is? What should people think of Archbishop Arundel today?

• 49:02Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I can't help thinking that really his most important contribution to public life was helping Henry of Bolingbroke to get rid of Richard II. I mean, there were plenty of other things. I mean, he was a financial genius. You know, he was the man who restored solvency to Henry IV's reign, or Henry IV's exchequer, if you prefer, after fourteen oh seven. You know, well, after fourteen oh six, when he became chancellor again. He was a financial genius, so that was quite a, that was quite a contribution. But the most important thing was getting Richard, was getting rid of Richard the Second, because Richard the Second was a man with real tyrannical inclinations.

• 49:44Speaker 01

  And, you know, the, the, the sentence with which I finish my book is saying, you know, if Richard's downfall was a personal tragedy, his success would have been a nation's tragedy. If he'd been allowed to go on behaving like he was in those last two or three years of his reign.

• 50:03Matt Lewis?

  He, he saved England from a big what if there.

• 50:06Speaker 01

  I think so. I think so. Yeah. He and Ian Bollingbrook between them.

• 50:10Matt Lewis?

  Yeah, wonderful. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Chris, to, to give us such detail about Archbishop Arundel. I found him absolutely fascinating. I hope listeners have enjoyed it too. And they can all go and grab a copy of your book if they want to find out even more about Archbishop Arundel. This has been absolutely wonderful. Thank you, Chris.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  Okay, bye then.

• 50:28Matt Lewis?

  Thank you very much. If you'd like to know more about the man who was considered the greatest British villain of the fifteenth century and decide for yourself whether he deserves that title or not, you can grab a copy of Chris's fantastic book Archbishop Chancellor Kingmaker, A Life of Thomas Arundel, right now. In the vaults, you can also find an episode with Helen Castor about the rivalry between Richard the Second and Henry the Fourth that would be a perfect complement to this episode, as well as the time Dan Jones visited to talk about Henry the Fifth. There are new installments 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

• 51:11Matt Lewis?

  and tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. You can also 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. I've been Matt Lewis and we've just gone medieval with History Hit.