The Peasants vs. John of Gaunt (with Helen Carr)

What brought you to John of Gaunt? And for those who maybe don't know, how would you, probably more eloquently than I just did, describe who he was in medieval history. So I came to John of Many many years ago. I had just moved to London as a postgraduate, and I was starting to get used to life in the big city and being such a history geek, as I

always have been my whole life. One of the things I wanted to do in my time off was going to explore some of the lesser known areas of London and historic areas of London, and so I spent my weekend sort of walking around the Tower of London, really cool places that I suppose is such a luxury for me. I get to just go and do that, but I suppose a lot of your listeners won't be able to just go to all these incredible castles and things. But it is really cool and there is so much history there.

And I heard about this place called the Savoy Palace, which I knew was around the area of the Savoy Hotel, which is a very famous hotel in London if you're familiar with it, and I wanted to go and see if anything remained. And when I got there, I found it remarkable that there was literally nothing that was there apart from like a few plaques, and one of the plaques said this was the home of John of Gore, the Duke of Lancaster, and famous people who resided here

were included Jeoffrey Chaucer and King John of France. And the story of how the Savoy Palace burned down and why John of Gaunt was such hate figure in this period is really what fascinated me, and I went on to write a whole dissertation thesis about it, and then from then I knew that I just had to explore his character further, so He was the third surviving son of the third who is better known, probably is more

of a warrior king. It's very famous king. He was probably one of the longer reigning kings of the Middle Ages as well. John of Gaunt was also the brother of the Black Prince, who is again another famous figure in medieval history. And even though the Black Prince didn't live nearly as long as John of Gount, he's certainly, of the two of them, the far more famous brother.

So just to refresh people's memories who maybe haven't listened to that War of the Roses episode of Noble Blood in a little while, what is happening with Edward the third sons, because someone would hear, oh, a king has a bunch of sons. That sounds great and it is not going to lead to conflict it all. No. Actually,

they got on very very well. And one of the big issues that people in this period, in the second half of the fourteenth century had with John of Gaunton was that he was actually such a loyal member of the royal family. He was so loyal to his father, so loyal to his brother, and he was a staunch royalist, and as a unit they were incredibly close and powerful, and the third m O was really to sort of establish his sons in various sort of power pockets across Europe.

John of Gaunt at one point went off to try and become king of Castile. He installed his son Lionel in Italy. The Black Prince was the only son who sort of married outside of that by marrying a woman of the noble class in England. But he did then go on for a time to govern Aquitaine, which was territory that belonged to England in France. So his whole kind of intention was really to sort of extend this Plantagenet influence into Europe overseas, making England a much stronger

power in the Middle Ages. We're going to get back to John of Gaunt's life, but just to fast forward for people to understand sort of why he's important in history. Can you tell us a little bit about what's going to happen down the line with his children. Yes, So famously he fathered a line of children called the Beauforts. And I'm sure we'll go on to talk about who that was with later on, but that was with his first mistress and then later wife Katherine Swinford, who will

come into it much later. But Beauforts were particularly famous because it was through Margaret both At his great great granddaughter, I think great great granddaughter. She was the mother of Henry Tudor, who then obviously went into the War of the Roses by winning the Battle of Bosworth and therefore found of the Tudor dynasty, which is like the most famous dynasty in English history, British history. We've all heard

of the Tudor. Who has that's yeah, well first also for a modern listener, who maybe is like where or what is gone? Where was gone? So confusingly also pertually, but i'd probably arguably not confusingly. This time there were so many often you know, royal children, that many of them either shared the same name or they were quite difficult to differentiate from one another, so they would offer

be named after the place of which they were born. So, for example, the Black Prince was Edward of Woodstock because he was born in Woodstock, and John of Gaunt was actually born in Ghent, which swear Gaunt comes from, so he was effectively John of Ghent. But over time he has become known by his monica John of Gaunt. He's the medieval Bryce Dallas. How So, who was John of Gaunt as a person, you know, not just as a son and a family tree or a Dutch who was

he sort of as an individual? So he very much lived under the shadow of his older brother, the Black Prince. Because this period in the Middle Ages, this this second part of the fourteenth century was in the early stages to kind of best points of the Hundred Years War, which was a century long war with a few gaps

in between wages between England and France. And it began in thirteen seven, three years ye is before John of Gornt was born, and he was born very much into this conflict, and this part of the conflict it all changed a bit later on. This part of the conflict was all about chivalry and glamor and making war something that everyone kind of wanted to be part of. And Edge of the Third did a very good job at

propagandizing war. He set up jails and tournaments, and he made it all about King Arthur and his nights at the round table. He established the Order of the Garter, all of these things to make it look like something everyone wanted to have get in on and be part of, and So for John of Gorne, he really wanted to do that. He wanted to be a warrior like his father, and very much like his older brother, the Black Prince.

I mean, anybody who knows about the Black Prince knows that he got his reputation really from being this warlike figure. There's rumored that he was called that because his armor was black and he was the victor of the Battle of Crescy when he at aged sixteen, was like righting the songs of battle, and he went on to win the Battle of Party. So these are like a couple of major battles that took place in the Hundred Years War.

And what people don't really know is very few battles actually took place in the Hundred Years What was really a war where the French kind of avoided English soldiers as much as they possibly could because largely battles went in English favor, so they tried to pretty much avoid them, so only a few actually took place. So John of Gaunt was desperate to be a warrior like his brother and his father, but unfortunately for him, he wasn't very good at it. But he was a very good diplomat.

He was incredibly clever, he was forward thinking, he was likable. He was very well liked at the French court and places that he went off to do a lot of diplomatic missions on behalf of his father. At one point he was so good at it that he was actually touted for a potential candidate to be the heir to the Scottish throne because there was so much conflict at this point still enduring on the English and Scottish border. So he was a really well used pawn by Edward

the third. But he was very trusted. His father trusted him. His father saw him as a very astute figure. He had a lot of nows when it came to politics and what it meant to govern. I feel like in any symbolic knights life, there are certain challenges. In your book, you do a really wonderful job sort of tracing his life and you focus a little bit on the peasant revolt. Can you talk a little bit about what happens then, what the peasant revolt is, and how John of Gaunt

handled it. So for me, the peasant revolt was the catalytic moment in Gaunt's life, so so much of his life was focused on European politics. So the hundred Es wore the war in France. His intention to go to Castile, which I should say was part of what we now know was Spain. It was one of the four kingdoms that made up Spain. So much of his career was

dedicated to this European politics. But actually he also had an extraordinary amount of land and wealth and title in England, and he was known as the Duke of Lancaster, and he was really a second to the monarch in regard to power and wealth and status. He was extraordinarily wealthy.

He was not only a prince, but he was a duke and he inherited this dukedom through his first wife, Blanche of Lancaster, and it's her father who was the first Duke of Lancaster, and brought with him like a huge amount of territory I think probably like a third of the of the country and also lands in France as well. So this can you imagine kind of all of his income being generated from his lands. He was super super rich. He had a good marriage. He's a

good marriage. He was. Yeah, he was super super rich, and he was a prince, like what a catch. He naturally through his wealth and titling status. He had a few enemies. This became really bad when I talked earlier about him being loyal to his family, loyalty his father a staunch royalist. This became about around this time because it was just after the death of Edward the Third, and just before Edward the third died, he was starting to come slightly more popular. He was sort of losing

control of the country a bit. As he died, the country well into the hands of his nephew, Richard the Second. And some people might know of Richard the Second because he's notoriously not a great king as he got older and was eventually deposed, but he was the surviving son of the Black Prince. Now by this point, the Black

Prince had passed away. He died of an illness that sounds a lot like dysentery, but he had it from a really long time, like maybe ten years, so it's likely it was more like some kind of degenerative disease. So the Black Prince and his father died within a year of each other. So John of Gaunt was left basically running the country, and Richard was a child. He was he was only twelve around the time that he inherited, and famously child kings do great in England, easy, totally

smooth succession. So he had to oversee the infancy of Richard's reign and in doing so he made enemies. So he made enemies from various different classes within English society, but mostly the merchant classes, because, to put this very simply, as the crown was losing money, they had to borrow lots of money from the merchant classes, and John of

Gaunton didn't like that. He was a royalist. He believed that the merchant classes were the merchant classes as they were very much answerable to the king, and so you've got a lot of these kind of merchant groups sort of infiltrating court positions, which he really didn't like. So he made enemies with them, and then he started to fall out with the clergy. This was largely all in London that this was happening. It was in the city because London was a very multre cultural city at the time.

There was a lot of change. It was quite dynamic. There was a lot of sort of i suppose social mobility forward thinking in which was slightly different to some of more of the county politics. Outside of London. It's quite similar, to be honest, as it is today if you think of like Brexit and how you know, London were like can we just still be in the EU? It was kind of the same set up as it

was in the Middle Ages. So he wasn't very popular in London, and there are a couple of counts of him having things like his arms reversed by the people of the city, which is like the sign of a traitor. What does that mean? What does that actually look like to have your arms reversed, like to turn it upside down? Yeah, yeah, so you would basically turn it around so you couldn't see. Oh yeah, your shield would be would be turned around and you're facing away, placing a wall away. It's like

someone for like a graduation speech, turning their back. Yeah, that's what I'm picturing for a little sigil. Yeah. Effectively, effectively, people who were his retainer, so that people who worked under him they had their own insignia and if people were seen wearing it, they'd be attacked in the streets. And his property of the Savoy Palace, which was his

major home in London. It was beautiful palace crenulated which means it was looked like a castle with the sort of dipped roof, beautifully built, and it was sort of loomed over the Thames, and it was described as this camelot type palace, like you know, super super wealthy, like the Mansion one of the mansions of London. But it

was just this sort of rising tension. But the reason for the peasant's revolt was because when Richard the Second was in the sort of infancy of his reign, there was a series of poll taxes on the people and they became so crippling that the poor could just not afford to pay their taxes, and so they rebelled. It

started in a town called Brentwood. In essence, I'm so sorry to interrupt, just if Edward the Second is a is a child king at this point, who do you think was the major force in putting these poll taxes up? So this is interesting. So John of Gaunt was very much one of his advisers. But Richard the Second was represented by what was called a continual Council, so it was a board of members effectively who sort of oversaw him.

And this range from the Archbishop of Canterbury to various members of his father's friendship group, I suppose would be a good way putting it. So it wasn't actually John of Gaunt that suggested this poll tax be raised. It was initiated in thirteen eighty, just before Christmas, and then it was imposed in one and it very very quickly

went very wrong. So the tax collectors started to get chased down and you know, they had to flee the towns in which they were collecting the tax rum, somewhere attacked, somewhere killed. So there's a movement started to grow. It started to go really from this particular pocket of England, so you have emerged in Essex. But then there was

also another faction that emerged from Kent. So this point is when you get start to hear of these main leaders, one called what Tyler, who's very famous, and another called John Ball, who was this sort of leveling priest that he didn't believe in the idea of lords and ladies and then there was no social hierarchy according to God.

So that is really who led this revolts and most famously what Tyler, and they were kind of egged on by sermons from this priest John Ball, who famously said when Adam delved and Eve Span who was then the Gentleman. That's very compelling. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's quite This was massive and what a lot of people previously of called this, and I have to say peasants revolt is a bit of a misleading moniker for this, because it

really wasn't peasants. You had quite a lot of very successful people joining this revolt and what they were fighting against was this really just this massively unfair tax that was being imposed on the poor to pay for these wars in France that they weren't really doing very well in at this point. So John of Gont being effectively

quote unquote regent, he was the younger king. He was also very unpopular because of his his attempt, as I sort of briefly mentioned earlier, to try and get into Castile. So it was a bit like unsure what his deal was. People didn't really trust him. So there was this big march on London, this huge, huge marks of thousands of people, and it gathered pace as they moved through Canterbury along the Pilgrim Roads, and it became quite violent at times.

People were collecting all sorts of arms they could find. Few people own things like swords, but some people had things. Some people had like axes, bows and arrows, pitchforks, anything they could get their hands on. Sides, and you had people who were thatchers of houses. You have low order clergymen, your bailiffs. You had all sorts of people joining women, all sorts of people joining in this, this march really on London. And all they wanted to do is march

to London, get the ear of the king. Say this is unfair, we're against this. Please can we put a proposition to you? A little bit like a sort of Magna Carter situation. That was their idea in their head as to what they wanted to achieve by this rebellion.

It sounds pretty reasonable, you know it was, And actually I think over time the chronicle accounts of sort of you read all these accounts of the revolt and it's like they call people baying, like their packs of wolves or animals and all of this stuff, and it's like, well, actually there were obviously criminals as part of this, because then you get these big sort of riots types rebellions

or riots that happen. You do get people who are doing it for just causes, but then you also get people who just want to watch the world burn, right, so you definitely had that, and there were accounts of theft, murder, rape that all happened during this period as this sort

of influx came into London. But I think unfortunately for the royalty and John of Gaunt, when they had hoped that the citizens of London, as London was a wall city at this point, would shut this rebel horde out, they actually at the gates just went now, I think, would just let them in because a lot of them, of the citizens of London actually agreed with them. And it was really in London that this sort of burgling hatred for John of Gorne had been bubbling under the

surface and this was an opportunity to strike. So what happened was they got into London through various areas, notably London Bridge because that was one of the main access points into London at this point. London Bridge doesn't look like anything it does now. It's not even in the same location, and it had lots of houses and things on the bridge, so it was really built up and it was looked more like a dirt road that went

into the city and the city. We then had a gate that you had to go through, and some of the bad behavior I supposed happened on London bridges, accounts of brothels on London Bridge being torched and burnt down

because they were sort of centers of impunity. But they managed to get into London and they had a few points of attack, and one of the places that they had targeted was the Savoy Palace, this beautiful crelated Caro lot like property on the banks of the River Thames, which was this sort of great artery that all of the travel came in and out of London, so it was the main sort of access point to London. So it's very busy. It's got lots of ships and vessels, etcetera.

So it was really the Savoy Palace was in a great position, had its own little port so boats would come in and get all the wares coming into the palace from the river. Had its own pleasure gardens filled with roses. It was beautiful. It was an incredibly sumptuous palace, but it was really badly guarded, so the rebels really had no problem getting inside the palace. It was richly easy.

And these are angry people. That's a combination with people with like good reason, you know, intellectually, but also in effect are very upset and want to show it totally. They're really mad and like it is a bit of that mob mentality as well. I think some of them were probably like, yeah, we're really mad. Who we mad at? Oh, we're really mad, and you know, so a lot of them wanted to just as I say, destroy stuff and have a bit of a party, get inside some of

these amazing properties. This is the sort of thing some people who had never even dreamt of being able to access the great Halls and these wine cellars and you know, Jon of Gorne's bedroom, like, they actually did manage to get into places like this. Oh my god, Yeah, it's extraordinary. So they managed to get in, unfortunately for him, and part of the reason it was probably so poorly guarded was that John of Thorne was actually on one of these diplomatic missions and he had gone up to Berrick

on Tweed to negotiate with the Scots. So definitely fortunately for him, he wasn't actually present. But what they did is they got in and they started to destroy stuff. So they were ripping off tap streets, they were taking headboards, and at this point headboards of beds, beds themselves were very very expensive pieces of profitable They were sort of jeweled,

often finally decorated. They were taking clothing out of these great trunks, and they were taking finding plate which was you know, these expensive plate that would be that would have adorned adorned the palace. And they were creating this pire in the Great Hall, you know, the center of the feasting, and John of Gaunt's diplomacy would have taken place in this Great Hall and the Savoy Palace. This

was a big place. It was an important place. It's where King John of France spent most of his captivity when he was taken prisoner off the bottle of Poitiers. But he had quite a nice imprisonment at the Savoy by all accounts, so drinking wine from France and not really having to do anything. So yeah, this was Jeffrey Chaucer was here for for a period of time as well. So it's quite extraordinary that this was the sort of

last hurrah that took place inside this Great Hall. Was this giant pire that was being built of all of these goods. And what's interesting about this is these rebels, they weren't out to steal. I mean, this was an opportunity to generate extraordinary wealth by stealing all of these goods. But actually those who did try and steal were cut quote a quite cut down by their contemporaries saying, you know, we are not here to steal, We're here to prove

a point. So they literally proved that point by burning this wealth. So this great pire goes up in the hall, and what they make the mistake of doing is finding some barrels in the sellers, thinking they were like either jewels or goods or wine, and they roll them onto the pire. But little do they know that John of Gaunt was preparing a muster for his campaign into Castile, and there's a lot of gunpowder store. So they roll

over these these barrels of gunpowder onto this pire. I mean, they wouldn't have been a huge amount because they're just you know, but there was an amount enough to do with serious damage. Meanwhile, there was I love this little kind of vignette. There was a faction of these rebels, about thirty of them, who had snuck down to the wine sellers. You probably get where I'm going here, and there were all of these amazing barrels of gascon wine that you know, obviously were a big commodity in England

at this time, and they got really drunk. They had a party and they got really really drunken all of this wine bar In mind, most people were usually drinking ales, something much much lighter than there's quite strong gascon wine, so they were drinking, drinking, and then suddenly there was this sort of massive boom and the palace walls came

crumbling down. They trapped these rebels, these drunken rebels inside the cellar because the gunpowder came off and the palace sort of fell, so it was like devastation basically, these drunken rebels. It said that they were sort of trapped down in the cellar and screams of the rebels, etcetera. So it's pretty pretty b carb situation, but also what such a wonderful detail that you can get from some

of these sources in the fourteenth century. And then they went on to inflict all sorts of horrible damage, including dragging the Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Sudbury out of the Tower of London and after eight blows, managing to finally behead him all the while John of Gaunt's son, Henry

Bolingbrooke is the future King. Henry the Fourth was in the town of London hiding in a cupboard so god Vid their rebels found him, but he had managed to escape with his life on this occasion, and then it all ended at a meeting with Richard and the rebels, at which quite famously what Tyler was cut down, and then the peasants revolt was no more. It's such a pity also to imagine this beautiful medieval town house that

we might have still had that got fully destroyed. It's I know, and that that is what I find particularly sad, and for me, you know, it takes me back to that time where I just really wanted to go and and find it and see it and the story behind it is. It's demonstrative of, I suppose, the tapestry of history that you get in these old towns cities, particularly in England and Europe, where there is so much history under our feet and so much that has happened there

that is effectively been flattened by time. And I think it's a really good example of that. But why it's important for John of Gordon is that he never rebuilt it. And this particular palace was hugely important. It was inherited as part of that Duchy of Lancaster inheritance that he received when he married his first wife. It was the center of his administration. It was the center of so much.

But he never rebuilt it, and I think it was a massive knock to his sense of self and his sense of place within the construct of English politics at this time, and so much changed, and it is what is remarkable and what one never usually gets. And it's like it's like gold dust, and you get this as a historian, this moment that you can see actual evidence of something dramatically changing on a personal level for a person.

So as soon as he heard news that there's this revolt had happened, the palace had been destroyed, he didn't know where he stood in regard to the king. He didn't know if the rebels demands for John of Gaunt's

head would were going to be sanctioned. He didn't know any of this, and he was just there in Scotland for the first time in his life, phenomenally vulnerable, and he was at the mercy of the Scots who actually throughout all of these years of conducting these diplomatic missions with them, they took pity on him and they actually genuinely looked after him and cared for him, which you know, he sort of repaid the favor later on in his life and he never forgot that. And he tried to

travel back down south to England. He was refused entry to his castles in the north of England. He was refused by the keeper of the north Men called Henry Percy, something he did not forget after this point, and he thought that he was going to have this party of rebels, this this army effectively marching all toward to arrest him and have him killed. He thought thousands of rebels were on their way north to and so much so he the Scots actually offered him an army to go and there,

like any opportunity, I'll fight with you. Let's just go and like take it. Yeah, I'll totally fight with you for any opportunity from the Scots to kind of we're fighting Englishmen. Great, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. I mean so he did politely refused. He really did fear for his life, and one of the notable things that he did was he started to become incredibly, seemingly incredibly penitent, and he started to make a lot of donations to

religious houses. He started to I mean practical measures were taken. First, he still wanted to sort of make sure he had enough word and fortifications for his properties in the north of England, et cetera. He knew he couldn't go back to London, but he started becoming more penitent, more pious, and Jonath Courtne had always been fairly average with his levels of piety. It was very normal to have a conventional piety at this point if you were a particularly

if you are a member of the nobility. I mean the Middle Ages were ruled by religion. I mean that is how everybody lived their life. It was ruled by religion. So he was no different, but he was never extreme with it, and he was slightly more extreme than he would be normally. But the most significant thing that he did was he ended his relationship with a woman called Catherine Swinford, who was his long term lover, mistress, mother of his before both of the children, future mother of

Henry Tudor. Well, yes, the sort of future sort of great great great great grandmother of Henry Tila so She was hugely important to him. She was originally the governess or what's called in the sources is the make stress of his of his daughters by his first wife. And he was having a long term extramarital affair with her, been lasting a decade, and I think that they were in love. I think he very much cared for her,

admired her, loved had looked after her. But he ended it like immediately, he ended his relationship with her because of course, naturally it did invite negative press, negative attention. Of course, the clerics were not very happy about this. He was supposed to be married to the Castilian Princess Constance of Castile, who he had number two wife number two, who he had married really for political game. They didn't have a relationship. But he ended his relationship with Catherine,

which is extraordinary. And what he did do though, which is testament I think to how emotionally difficult this was for him, but he knew he had to do it. Almost immediately a month after the rebellion, he invested in the building of a shrine is one of his properties in theirsbro to St. Catherine, which I think really is some is like a sort of eulogy in Stone to their relationship and a demon's stration of his fidelity to

her in his heart. And so after that his main focus was it was this massive turning point in his life. His main focus was Castile, Castile's Castile. I'm going to become king of Castile. I'm going to lead campaigns to Castile, and that was his major objective. He has had no interest in London. He didn't want to be part of the court, he didn't want to be part of the political circle. He had to be to a certain extent,

but he was far less than he was before. His relationship with his nephew after this point was incredibly fractious. I mean, Richard was a little nightmare. He was like it was like having like a teenager basically being somewhat in charge of you, and like a very spoiled teenager at that. And John of Gornton was probably the only person who stood up to him and was like, no way. But he wasn't very popular with his nephew for doing so.

And there are all sorts of like continuing effectively plots to assassinate him, and then Richard saying, you've plotted to assassinate me, and it was just was ridiculous really. So eventually he did manage to get to Castile. He tried to lead a campaign, but he failed to take the throne. He returned to England quite broken, and about four or so years before he died, he married Catherine, so they came back together at this point. That's sort of beautiful.

He he ended it out of piety, but then when he was able to marry her did but can you walk us through? I mean, he had those children out of wedlock, what what happens then? Yeah, so it all sounds very romantic. And there is a wonderful novel that has written about their romance called Catherine, which many of your listeners will have read because it was very very popular by a lady Annie Seaton. And she doesn't capitalize on the romance of this, and I mean, who wouldn't.

It is wonderful. But I think that there was much more sort of prudent thinking behind it. So I think that he knew he had to end his relationship with her because he really his main thing, his main love was was power, and he wanted to get to Castile. He wanted to take this throw. He couldn't do that when he was anchored down by this relationship, however invested he was in it, however much he loved her. That sounds very cold. I really do think he loved her,

and there are demonstrations of that. I think he married her in the long term because he was, above all things, incredibly duty bound and loyal. I mean, yes, he was obviously having an affair somebody other than his wife, but generally speaking, he was incredibly duty band. He wanted to see to the safety of his children and his all his children, not just his legitimate children, but all of them.

And he actually had them officially legitimized, which is at which point they took on the name Beaufort as when they were formally legitimized. So he wanted to ensure to their security on his death. He wanted to insure to Catherine's security as well, in her reputation. I think he felt he owed that to her. So they did. Yeah, they did eventually marry, and but you know, their relationship was very much it was very practical in many ways.

And I think often when we think about demonstrations of love, we think there's going to be jewels or tokens, but actually tokens for her were very practical ones would for her household, wine property. He wanted to see to her security, and for me, that is the most demonstrative evidence of

a loving relationship. Absolutely so. Just to recap for listeners from his first wife, the Lancaster branch sort of of the War of the Roses came about his second wife, often castile third wife, but through through them Catherine of Arragan, yeah yeah, yeah, thank you, and then third wife Katherine Swinford, who the children were born out of wedlock but then legitimized and did that sort of cast a paul on their claim even though they were legitimized the fact that

they were originally born out of wedlock. I mean, it's

difficult to say. I haven't really done so much research into the Beauffits after his death, but I mean I don't think so, because they never really had designs on the throne and John of count he was the sort of patriarch of further dynasties, because if you could sort of link yourself back to John of Gorde, it's like, what, I've got a claim to this and I'm part of the raw phone because of this, Like he was quite a significant figure he was a very well respected figure.

So I don't know if i'd say that, because they also got on very very well with their brother. They were very close. Henry definitely considered them as as siblings, I think because also he had a huge amount of respect for Catherine, so that Henry the fourth, who was j oldest son, who eventually deposed his cousin Richard and became the first Lancastrian king in just after his father had died. Um. So I don't think that it did sort of taint them. They always quite revered and had

well respected positions within the noble circles. Oh wonderful. Yeah, and I misspoke earlier. I was like Margaret Beauford daughter. Obviously she was a great granddaughter of gone great great great great granddaughter I think, great great granddaughter, but like it's further down the line. But that is the claim that Henry the seventh, Henry Tudor will take, Yeah, exactly that. Yeah, he's sort of like they went up on the family tree and they're like, you know, yeah, yeah, I want

to let you go. This is so fascinating. But there's a detail about another thing that was built on the state that the Savoy palace had been built down it became a hospital. Yeah, that's right, under Henry the seventh. Yeah, it was a sort of charitable so there would have been there were remains of the palace. It wasn't like flattened, so to speak. And you know, also in this period, stone was always reused, so even if it was rubble,

it would have been reused in certain ways. You know, good stone was really great commodity, and it would always be redeveloped. That's why you saw a lot of like Roman brickwork and stuff in later medieval buildings and things. So, yeah, it did become a hospital. Yeah, hospital, which is for

the poor. It was like a way of giving arms, like a charitable donation, which was something that was often the case for sort of members of the ability, especially wealthy members, because by doing that sort of thing, you

basically guaranteed yourself like a that nice little seat in heaven. Yes, of course, I just found it very poetic that after this peasant's revolt of poor people rising up an anger of not feeling provided for, that eventually his descendant would turn the side of this palace into a charitable hospital. I know, that's lovely, and you know, I've never really thought a bit like that. A nice Yeah, it's nice little eplog, isn't it. Well, Helen, thank you so much.

This was such a privilege to get to talk to you. Where can the people find you online if they want to see more of you? I am I have to sort of think about what why Twitter and Instagram handles are. I think I'm Helen h Car on Twitter and I am Helen Carb with lots of under schools in between the letters. Google her you'll find her and goin on Instagram. And I've also got a website, so to be honest, if you just time Helen Car History and I'll pop up. Her book is The Red Prince The Life of John

of God. You should absolutely read it. Hell is one of the most like brilliant writers who makes history feel you make it feel like fiction. It's so wonderful. Thank you so much. Well, sometimes it's so like it writes itself through this too. Well. Thank you so much for joining me on the show. M Noble Blood is a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by me Danish Swartz. Additional writing and researching done by Hannah Johnston, hannah's Wick,

Mira Hayward, Courtney Sunder and Laurie Goodman. The show is produced by rema Il Kayali, with supervising producer Josh Thane and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.