June 3, 2021 • 50 mins
In an effort to prevent further conflicts in what would become known as the Wars of the Roses, King Henry VI called the warring parties to London, with a weird pitch -- they would resolve their disputes through diplomacy, culminating in a parade where these sworn enemies would have to literally walk around town holding hands. Tune in to see how it all played out.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. This is a fun when
it's it's a weird one. I think we could call
this an historical case of somebody having their heart in
the right place. They're doing their best. Old Henry the
what is it the fifth? I'm so bad at Roman numerals, Ben,
(00:50):
I'm Noel, by the way, bad at Roman numerals Brown.
But yeah, we're gonna have ourselves a good old fashioned
ridiculous history. Love nd today in the form of a
like you said, been very misguided yet well intentioned attempt
at just getting everyone to get along, you know, during
a little thing called the War of the Roses, which
was like a century long pissing contest essentially between royals
(01:14):
who are vying for the throne. Isn't that about sum
it up? Yeah? Yeah. If you were to ask me, hey, Ben,
what what is the Song of Ice and Fire slash
Game of Thrones universe loosely based on, then I would
say the Wars of the Roses because George R. R.
Martin said that as well as we dive into what
(01:36):
is known as Loveday. Let's give a shout out to
our own aristocrats of ridiculous history are super producers Casey
Pegram and Max Williams. Know you're right. This is a
story of political intrigue. This is a story of weird diplomacy.
This is a story of King Henry the six a
(02:00):
attempts to keep the peace. Loveday was this symbolic reconciliation,
and this particular love day happened between warring factions of
English nobility. But before we dive into this, we should
mention that Henry did not make love day up. This
(02:22):
was a thing that already existed in medieval England and
was meant to resolve legal differences under arbitration instead of
common law, which we'll we'll dive into in just a bit.
But we're talking about particular love day today, aren't we know?
The love Day of fourteen fifty eight indeed, and what
a lovely love day it was. But before we get
(02:42):
into that, I think we should backtrack a little bit
into the history of Henry the sixth himself, who was
the youngest king of England, uh and not particularly good
at it. He was fine at being young and just
wasn't particularly good at being the king. He was born
in fourteen twenty one. He inherited the own as a
wee baby, a literal infant, you know, and then he
(03:03):
grew into it and at least in terms of growing
into you know, essentient being, but he never quite grew
into the role and was considered quite incompetent and was
blamed historically for the War of the Roses kind of
from the get go, right. Yeah. See, that's the thing
about a monarchy versus a meritocracy. Because you become the
(03:26):
ruler based on your bloodline rather than your qualifications, you
can end up in release surreal situations. Henry the sixth
did become King of England on September one, fourteen two,
but he was only nine months old at the time.
He automatically became king because his father, Henry the fifth,
passed away. He did have other people governing the day
(03:50):
to day stuff in England until about fourteen thirty seven.
By that point he was considered old enough to rule.
He was, as he said, the youngest person to ever
inherit the English throne at that point, and then he
got promoted. How office space is this just to two
(04:10):
years after he got the English throne, his grandfather, King
Charles the sixth, died on October twenty one, and boom,
Henry becomes King of France. That's right, he became. He
was a double king. That's never occurred to me, but
it sure seems potentially problematic. So he's proclaimed king of
France because of something some some terms established in the
(04:34):
fourteen twenty Treaty of Troyes, where the military success of
his father essentially turned France into territories of England. But
it was a little more complex than that, because you know,
you can declare things territories, but you also have to
govern them successfully and keep hold of them. H And
(04:55):
at the end of the Hundred Years War, England had
essentially lost all of the French territories and was left
with only one called Calais, which I always think of
as like a fancy like for like English vacation destination.
There's also that what is it from the jabberwockie or
it's like calloo Calais O fraptious day or something like that.
That right then, yeah, yeah, it's spelled a little differently
(05:17):
but pronounced roughly the same. So here we are Henry six,
through no fault and no effort of his own, has
become the king of two countries. Heavy weighs, the head
that wears the crowd and soften said. And in August
of fourteen fifty three, Henry the six contracted a mysterious illness,
(05:39):
due perhaps in part to the stresses of being a monarch.
He fell into what is described as an inertia that
lasted more than a year, lasted eighteen months according to
history extra dot com. This remains the subject of some
no small amount of speculation the part of historians. Some
(06:02):
historians will tell you that he was suffering from catatonic schizophrenia.
The symptoms of this condition include things like stupor, catalepsy,
loss of consciousness basically, and mutism. But other historians have
just said, no, he had a mental breakdown. There was
genetic precedent for this. We know now his maternal grandfather,
(06:23):
Charles the sixth of France, also suffered from bouts of
mental illness for the last three decades of his life.
And not to get too highly speculative here, but there
was mental health galore, and these sort of let's call
them closed systems of breeding. That's a very diplomatic way
to put it. The problem with in breeding is that
(06:44):
it can lead to any number of damaging medical conditions
or damaging genetic conditions. If you want to see the
extreme version of this in European royalty, check out the Habsburg.
You know what, just google hapspurg Chin. That's all you
need to see, exactly right. So yeah, that you know,
(07:06):
there are some accounts that kind of shed some light
onto what this might have felt like at the time.
One thing that you know, whatever you might want to
call this, whether it be a mental breakdown or these
recurring kind of fits of mental health issues, what we
do know is that Henry was not particularly interested in
(07:26):
engaging with the real world as it existed around him.
And that also means not particularly interested in engaging in
the day to day duties that are you know, governing.
I mean there's a lot to that you kind of
have to be with it or at the very least
delegate it to somebody. Right, he doesn't seem like he
was doing either of those things particularly well. And there's
an account from this London merchant of when Henry essentially
(07:50):
was introduced to his newborn son and kind of speaks
to perhaps the way he viewed the world and others
outside of his own mental bubble. And this is what
he said. He looked on the prince and cast down
his eyes again, and then he goes on to say
they could obtain no word or sign from Henry, essentially
(08:11):
saying he just kind of moved on, you know, I mean,
it's his own flesh and blood, it's his son, he's
meeting for the very first time, and he just sort
of regarded the child as an object and then kind
of was like take it away. That about the shape
of it. Yeah, he wasn't really talking to people. And
this lasted, as we said, for a period of eighteen months,
(08:31):
waxed waned. Visitors to the king came to court to
tell him that the Archbishop John Kempet died a few
months later, and they couldn't get him to talk, or
it didn't even look like he was listening. He was
just sort of sitting there. And when he finally got
out of this funk or he recovered, you know, maybe
(08:52):
it was just incredibly depressed, but at some point he
came out of this state and get this, folks. He
was astonished to find that his wife had given birth
to a son, because Edward, right, nol you had just
said how Henry was introduced to his own son and
was kind of like, uh yeah. Later later he goes, oh, wow,
(09:15):
I have a kid. Uh Edward, Why didn't anyone tell me? Right?
Edward was born in October fourteen fifty three, so that
would have been just a few months after Henry the
sixth became unwell. But there's a sidebar here and special
shout out to our research associate, Gay Bluesier. A lot
(09:35):
of historians and scholars described Henry the six as pious, simple,
and puritan. The label does fit, and well we'll tell
you why. But there's this theory we can call it
that perhaps he was shocked that he had a son
because he was well clueless in the bedroom, clueless when
(09:57):
it came to matters of path should. He spent a
lot of his free time meditating on the sufferings of Christ.
He stayed in monasteries, he practiced something called Devoco Maderna,
a movement for religious reform that was all about humility
and obedience, and an historian named Lauren Johnson revealed that
(10:21):
his his bedroom stuff may have been a lower priority
for him to the point where he needed help. Right, Yeah,
apparently he employed these services of a sex coach literally
in the one time he was like required to, you know,
consummate a relationship in his marriage bed. And Johnson, who's
a scholar specifically investigating King Henry the sixth Private life,
(10:46):
she says that she found some evidence in the National
Archives and in the Royal Household, you know, records that
indicated that Henry and his wife Margaret of Andrew were
actually attended on by these coaches essentially during the marriage Act.
(11:06):
Do my best to be very diplomatic today with these terms,
but this is what Johnson told the Observer. Right, was
it because the famously chased Henry didn't know what he
was doing? I think it's entirely possible that it had
reached a certain point where it perhaps became necessary to
make clear to him what he should be doing that
couldn't be done in a public way at all. The
(11:26):
King's chamber is the most private place where you could
be having this conversation or indeed checking what was going on.
These are the days before sex head, you know, and
it is definitely a tricky situation to have to tell
a monarch what to do with such in such an
intimate moment. He wasn't just checked out of the bedroom though,
(11:49):
you know, harshly due to this illness, But overall he
was checked out as a ruler for quite a while,
and during his reign tensions skyrocketing. You know, when he
was out for eighteen months, the government was leaderless and
(12:13):
largely ruddered less. And that's when the Duke of York,
who was the cousin to the King and himself has
a claim to the throne, was appointed Lord Protector and
first counselor of the realm. That Duke of York was
Richard Plantagenets. So when the King found himself in better
spirits on the other side of his affliction in fourteen
(12:35):
fifty four, the protectorship of York and his powerful allies
the Neville family ended, but the partisanship in the government remained.
York was mad because he was increasingly excluded from exercising
royal power. He questioned Henry the sixth ability to perform
(12:56):
royal duties, mainly because he was often unwell, but also
because he was, as history hit dot com put it,
infamously gentle, yet an infamously gentle nature. So York was
the Duke of York is like, this guy is way
too nice to be king. Yeah, well, I mean and
infamously gentle. Again we're into we're deep in diplomacy here
(13:20):
is basically just weak, right, It's just saying that he
is a weak He doesn't have the constitution or the
stamina or the like, you know, drive to like do
the job. You've gotta be brutal and relentless and then
not you know, have too many scruples when it comes
to ruling. You also have to kind of have the
ambition to to do it and to the very least,
you know, care a little bit and pay attention. But
(13:40):
I gotta ask um, you know how in our government
takes a lot to depose a ruler. You know, we
we've had some wes situation in our previous president where
there were some questions about his mental stability or psychological
ability to do the job correct and it was very difficult.
It was discussed the idea of invoking a clause I
(14:03):
believe in the Constitution that would allow someone who is
not fit to serve to be you know, forcibly removed
and replaced. What allowed the Duke of York here to
just come and it was literally just like a power grab.
Well essentially, you know, you you could look at it
that way. And also, of course we're referring to the
twenty five Amendment here in the US, which has actually
(14:26):
been used in the past, but maybe that's a story
for another day. You're right, there are some power grabs
here because Richard essentially said, you know, my cousin Henry
would be better off as a monk. I am the
person would be the best suited to be the king. Here.
There's a lot of action that seems to be preemptive,
(14:47):
right to assume the actions of other rivals and try to,
you know, get to the fight before they do. For instance,
in May of four, Richard leads an army again King
Henry's Lancastrian army, in a bloody surprise attack that's now
known as the First Battle of St Albans. And he
(15:10):
did this because he believed that another duke, the Duke
of Somerset, was going to ambush him if he didn't
act first. And why do they call it the Wars
of the Roses. Well, the Yorkist like Richard, were represented
by a White Rose and the House of Lancaster to
which Henry the Six belonged was represented by a red Rose.
(15:35):
So essentially this grab from the Duke of York was
kind of because Henry the Six was such weak sauce,
you know, as a as a king and was doing
such a poor job, he kind of opened up this
power grab situation essentially. Yeah, yeah, I think you could
say that the personal enemies of York and his allies,
(15:55):
the Nevill's where the Duke of Somerset, the Earl of
Northumberland and Word Clifford. All three of those individuals perished.
And although this first battle is kind of a smaller
deal in military terms, it was explosively important on a
political level because King Henry got captured, he was a pow.
(16:16):
He got escorted to London and then York was appointed
capital p capital e Protector of England by Parliament just
a few months later. But he had a problem. Got
him a little bit of power he got. He got
a temporary boost, you know what I mean, like when
you get the star in Super Mario. Yes, he didn't
(16:37):
get a permanent increase in power. He didn't get you know,
a mushroom or one up. That's right. He did get
this kind of temporary boost, you know, all of the
Mario Star, but he wasn't really able to make it last.
He did get a second Protectorate ship that was also
quite short lived, and Henry the six ended it himself
(16:57):
in fourteen fifty six because at that point he had
a male heir in the form of Prince Edward, which
I believe was that baby that he's so uh, kind
of casually disregarded, right, but then when it came time
for him to be a political pawn, he's like, oh cool,
I'm gonna play this one. And that was his again,
the daughter of his wife, Margaret of Andrew, and she
(17:19):
actually emerged as a pretty significant power player in the
Lancastrian revival. Yeah. Yeah, she's making moves. But war always
has consequences, and just two years later, Henry and his
government realized that they have an unfinished problem from that
(17:44):
conflict at St. Albans, those three Yorkist lords who had
died along with other people. Of course, they had children,
and those younger magnates wanted revenge. You know, there's a
princess bride moment. My name is Snigo Montoya. You killed
my father, right, that's the that's how these guys feel,
(18:05):
and they can rally forces of their own, So noblemen
on both sides of the conflict start recruiting these retinues
of armed followers. This is also occurring in the context
of the ever present threat of the French right, who
also probably want their stuff back. So Henry is thinking,
(18:27):
we need to bring these Yorkists back into the fold.
We need to make some sort of peace. As we said,
he had been described as infamously gentle. Know what you said,
you felt that was another way of saying week. I
think that would be also a way of saying, uh, timid.
You know, he's not like a bloodthirsty coonan to the
(18:48):
barbarian kind of guy. He likes to hang out and
you know, pray. So he instead of punishing people or
starting another conflict, he tried to make peace. Once he
ordered a deceased traders impaled body parts to be taken down,
and he said the following He said, I will not
(19:10):
have any Christian men so cruelly handled for my sake.
And that's kind of classy, you know what I mean,
Like I don't want people to associate me with mutilated
body parts. And then on good Friday. In fourteen fifty two,
he issued almost a hundred and fifty pardons a hundred
and forty four following an attempted rebellion by the Duke
of York. Yeah, I gottapplaud him for his kind of
(19:33):
focus on the zen of it all and like trying
to convince people to just get along. But you also
have to remember this is in the midst of a
bloody conflict and and an absolute power grab, and it's
almost like he's not quite getting it, you know what
I mean. Yeah, he almost kind of feels sorry for
him in the one hand, because he really does seem
like completely oblivious and disconnected from the reality that is
(19:56):
the situation that he finds himself in the center of
and maybe doesn't even realize how perhaps in danger his
own life might be. Yeah. I hate to say it
because I'm probably never going to meet him, but what
we're learning about this guy makes me think that he
was very sheltered, you know, in a way only a
king could be. And there it seemed like for a
(20:21):
lot of his life there were other people controlling him
and telling him what to do, whether on the throne
or in the bedroom. So in that kind of case.
You could see how he may not be accustomed to
making his own decisions, especially if they were tough decisions
that can result in injury or death for other people.
And so we come to Henry the six big bright idea.
(20:46):
He realizes he has to do something, and so he says,
let's have a love day. You know, as you mentioned
at the top, a love day was a thing that
already existed. We know the name sounds kind of uncreative now,
but in the context of a love day, this arbitration period,
(21:07):
love doesn't mean romantic love. It means an agreement or
a settlement. And day in the legal sense of the time,
just meant a case opening instead of a you know,
a strict twenty four hour period. So this kind of
case could you know, it could go on. It wasn't
like a single physical day. So our Henry the Stix
(21:29):
was definitely a lover, not a fighter, and he felt
that it would be entirely possible to convert everyone else,
all of these fighters in the world, to be lovers
like him, if only he could get them to just
you know, demonstrate to to just like you, put forth
a gesture of goodwill towards each other, right, the lank
Astrians and the Yorkists, and gosh, ben when when I
(21:52):
look at Lankstrian, I mean that's basically Lancaster from freaking
Game of Thrones. I mean, has to be that. I see.
That's a good point. Excuse me, Lanisterister, Lanister Lancastrians. I
think there has to be a connection there. But he
wanted to demonstrate, you know, publicly, some sort of perceived
(22:13):
goodwill between the Lancastrians and the Yorkists. So on March
he attempted to do just that. He organized a parade
or something, a procession, a promenade, what have you, where
leading members of the Lancastrians and the yorks would go
through the streets while holding hands. Yeah. Literally a come on, people, now,
(22:38):
smile on your brother kind of moment. And it does
seem a little bit naive. But let's let's return to
our historian here, Lauren Johnson. Writing in BBC History Magazine,
Johnson speculates a little bit more about why Henry the
sixth was so conflict diverse, and she points out quote
(23:00):
his uncles were ambitious men who blighted Henry's youth with
their sometimes violent disputes time and again, Henry was called upon,
despite his youth and inexperience, to resolve their quarrels, expected
to serve as a final arbiter of complex adult dynamics
that had taken form before he was born. As he
was a sensitive, serious child. It's little wonder that he
(23:21):
shrank from conflict in later life. So he had always
been asked to make these judgment calls, and as far
as we could tell, he hated it. He was like,
very reasonably, hey stopped killing each other. But that is
an argument that has failed time and time again, not
just in the history of the British monarchy, but in
(23:45):
human history, I would argue. And also it's a little
bit of a folksy solution in the context of this time,
because love day is like Loveday was something for like
local matters, you know, like someone killed a cow or
someone you know is letting their dog poop in your yard, right,
(24:05):
and I would imagine that, you know, with let's just
say the more colloquial version of this situation, right, Let's
say like two farmers have a dispute over the loss
of pf property and in the form of a cow,
maybe you know, one farmer at kills the other one's cow.
We know that the wars have been started over less
right or specifically, there was one involving a pig, if
I'm not mistaken that we recently talked about. But you know,
(24:27):
before this love end would take place in the streets,
kind of sealing the deal. Imagine some money would have
had to change hands, and then this was kind of
just like the icing on the cake to publicly let
people know, Okay, these two farmers are now friends again
and we can go along our merry way. Yeah. Yeah,
and sometimes this had really happy endings, things that could
(24:47):
be seen as quite endearing. So, as I said, love
days were meant to settle things in a peaceful fashion.
It's kind of the equivalent of saying, hey, we don't
have to go to court over this, and you, Julie.
They're traditionally a love day on a local level, not
evolving that you know, the upper echelons of society would
(25:07):
end in a party like imagine being able to resolve
your disputes and then having a pizza party at the end.
That's kind of what this was like. Josephine Water has
been a medieval scholar, noted that one feast, according to
the terms of the agreement, required more than five hundred
gallons of gas, hoon and wine. That's the mall back,
(25:30):
as well as too fat oxen and twelve fat sheep
to be consumed in what both parties agreed would be
quote a regular English jollification. And they were gonna they
were gonna party. They were gonna party down because they've
figured out their pasture dispute. I am going to start
referring to parties as jollifications. Ben, I think it's a
(25:51):
good one. I think you should go with that. That
could be big for us. I think so too. But
as you know, kind of was indicated from the start here,
this one didn't really turn out that way. There was
a lot more at stake and a lot more at
play than anything this kind of touchy feeling could have
probably sorted out. Right. Yeah, this is seriously taking a
(26:13):
local dispute resolution tradition and applied it to a full
blown civil war. It's like, imagine if trying to think
of a way to say this, so imagine if a
civil war broke out in the US and Joe Biden said, Okay, guys, everybody,
(26:35):
come over, we're gonna get a couple of handles of whiskey. Well,
we're gonna get you know what, what are party things
people do. We're gonna get some fun hats. We're we're
gonna get loaded and figure this out together. That I
love the fact that both of us immediately went to
fun hats as party things. But have you ever actually
(26:56):
attended a party that involved fun hats. It's just sort
of like this idealized version of what a party should be.
Or maybe it's a nostalgic version of it from childhood
where it's all about like, you know, fun cone shaped hats. Uh,
But it's not really something that you really see much.
But it is the first thing that our minds both
jumped to. Yeah, you're right, maybe we should we should
bring that back. I know there are things like cat
(27:19):
parties that exist, and I know, you know over in
the UK during Christmas celebrations, people do wear those paper crowds.
You've seen those before, right, Absolutely, that's a thing that
you will distribute at a dinner party for example. Um,
and oftentimes they come with these little popper things that
have not not like you know, the drug, but you
(27:41):
know little things that have you know, little surprises inside
like party poppers, you know, and you have you pull
the string and and it shoots out confetti and maybe
there's little treats or you know, toys or something like that.
But the paper hats very much the thing in that world.
And now that I'm thinking through this, I can imagine
in some of those nobles who had had their their
(28:03):
fathers killed looking askance at this, like, no, I'm not
doing a hand holding parade, dude, my dad's dead. You know.
That's that's a lot to ask people. And in general,
this was seen as a symbotlic gesture, as you said earlier,
and it's not a very good substitute for revenge after
(28:24):
the deaths of friends and family members. But they went
ahead and tried to get this mediation leading up to
this love day. So two months before this procession, Henry
mediated between these warring factions and it's it's a really
weird arrangement. They summoned the English peerage to a Great
(28:47):
Council in London in January four and they wanted, you know,
the last thing they wanted to see was an armed
conflict between the people they had brought together. It would
be a very bad look to have just called them
all to London and then for there to be blood
in the streets. So city officials maintained around the clock
(29:08):
armed watch, and these two different sides, the Yorkists and
the Lancastrian lords, were kept separate. The Yorkists got to
stay within the city walls, the Lancastrians had to stay outside.
And even with all these precautions, Northumberland, Clifford and Egremont
tried to ambush York and Salisbury as they rode from
(29:32):
London to Westminster. So they had to have these folks
under armed guard otherwise they would kill each other. Yeah,
and the king tried to, you know, preside over these
mediations that were super cantankerous of course. And um, there
were intermediaries that kind of you know, went back and
forth between the two sides, Henry's lawyers or barristers or
(29:55):
whatever you would call them. I guess they were more
like mediators counselors. They met the Yorkists inside the city
at this place called the Black Friars, and that was
in the morning, and then the afternoons the same mediators
would meet with the Lancastrian lords at the White Friars
on Fleet street. Imagine these are two different monasteries been
the Blackfriars and the White Friars. It seems very interesting
(30:16):
that we have literally two diametrically opposing colors of Friars
where these different warring sides would meet. Yeah. Blackfriars is
an area by the southern fringes of the City of London,
and the City of London is not the same thing
as London. The City of London is in London, but
it's kind of its own separate thing. We should make
(30:38):
an episode on the City of London. Actually have been there.
It's a trip, man. I agree. That sounds so. So
these are this has nothing to do with religious orders
or these are literally just two different neighborhoods. Yeah. Back
in the day, Dominican Friars established a priory on the site,
and so the name Blackfriars dates back to them when
they came to the capital in twelve one, got it. Okay,
(31:00):
that makes a little more sense. I thought it was
pretty interesting that there were It was almost like the
White Lodge and the Black Lodge, you know from from
Twin Peaks. That's kind of what it made me think of. Okay,
So they had these deliberations in the morning and then
in the afternoon, and they eventually were able to settle
where the Yorks were to pay Somerset five thousand marks
(31:22):
and for Warwick to pay Clifford a thousand marks, and
for Salisbury to not levy these like fines or duties
for hostility against the Nevil's. And then there was a
religious aspect too, because we have to remember Henry the
sixth is arbitrating. Here the Yorkist had to endow the
abbey at St Albans with forty five pounds per year
(31:45):
for masses to be sung in perpetuity for the souls
of the battles dead. The only thing like that on
the Lancastrian side was a payment of a four thousand
mark bond to maintain peace with the Nevil family, but
not forever, just for ten years. Here you go, we'll
give you a four thousand marks and then we won't
(32:08):
fight for a decade, and also will determine blame. So
the blame for Saint Albans have been placed squarely on
the Yorkist because they're the ones who launched the surprise attack,
you know, even if they thought they were doing it
just to beat out another surprise attack. They ultimately quote
unquote fired the first shot, you know what I mean,
(32:29):
although they obviously didn't use guns. Yeah, conceptually speaking, no,
I totally get you. So now everything's good, right, We're
all solid, Everyone's paid their due, and now it's time
for that sweet sweet love end right hard to let
the love day commence, let our love flags fly. And
(32:49):
you know, this was I think Henry the six would
have seen this as a success, this mediation, and I
think he probably felt like this was probably his highest
point of diplomacy where he had actually achieved some sort
of resolution. Um So, now, in the spirit of that
more kind of like local folksy tradition, in March of four,
(33:10):
hundreds of English lords and ladies assembled at Westminster Abbey
and walked holding hands through the streets of London along
the Thames, the western bank of the Thames, all the
way to St Paul's Cathedral. And this was what would
be a traditional kind of love Day procession in order
to you know, put a sweet red ribbon bow on
(33:32):
this whole deal and finally put the War of the
Roses to an end. Yeah, that's the idea. It's ambitious,
it's very sweet. It's the kind of plan that you know,
no offense, Henry. Maybe maybe it is something you should
(33:55):
just draw on a piece of paper and then put
up at your house so you can be proud of
your self. I don't want to spoil it. But not
everybody is as kiss and makeup and turn the other
cheek oriented as our guy, Henry. But you know, they
actually did go on this parade. As you mentioned, it
was set for Ladies Day, a day that memorializes the
(34:18):
Virgin Mary's hearing of the news that she would bear
a child. So that's a big day. This day was
also considered the start of the New year at the time.
It wasn't until seventeen fifty two that England adopted January
one is New Year's Day. This was also meant to
be kind of a commercial for peace, a pr move
(34:40):
for the non nobles of London, you know, because they're
the ones who are disproportionately affected by the hazards of war,
you know, So this is meant to show you, you know,
the average shopkeeper, the average resident of London, that hey
wars over this is a time of peace. In fact,
John's Sadler, the author of The Red Rose and the
(35:02):
White who like he literally wrote a history book about
the English Civil Wars. He says, quote it was a
bit Hollywood. There was a lot of pump about it,
banners flying, drums beating. It was a show. And no,
we know it's the show because we have an excerpt
of a ballad that was composed to celebrate this. Do
(35:26):
you do you wanna bless us with a reading? There? Man? Boy?
Would I ever been before I do the reading that
I want to say? You mentioned the Hazards of War.
There is also a quite good Decembrist album called the
Hazards of Love, and I think that applies here because
it turns out that like forcing people, even if they
have quote unquote made nice or like awarded each other institutions,
(35:47):
forcing them to hold hands and like you know, kiss
and make up, it can breed further resentments and the escalations.
But let's do this reading before we get to that.
At Paul's in London, with great renown, on our Lady
Day in Lent, this piece was wrought the King, the
(36:08):
Queen with lords many one went in procession in sight
of all the commonality in token that love was in heart,
and thought, Ben, what is this rhyming scheme, I don't.
I feel like I was totally missing the boat on.
I see there is a rhyming scheme. We've got renown
and uh what, No, renown doesn't rhyme with anything renown
(36:32):
maybe because then it's many one. And then you've got
wrought rhyming with thought and procession. Now that's really it.
I don't think there is a rhyming scheme bend. That's
the only one. Though, Well, we have to think of
pronunciation one procession. You know, there's play with procession common
(36:55):
but what about commonality that. Yeah, that's just a weird one.
That's where the beat drops. That's totally where the and
it's just acapella real quick, and then it picks back up. Uh,
you're right, you're right. There is a little bit of
a lost in translation vibe there. Sadler says. The women
in particular would have looked like the fifteen century equivalent
(37:15):
of footballer's wives. Everybody was dolled up. Everybody's dressed the nines,
he's saying. But beneath all this pomp and all this
fancy dress and all these fun, slant rhyming songs, there
was still a lot of tension, and within two years
of this famous Loveday procession, the majority of the men
(37:39):
who walked together holding hands in London would be dead,
and these wars would go on for nearly thirty more years. Because,
as you said, as our pal Gabe said, there are
a lot of ways to end the war, and making
people hold hands in public is apparently not the best solution.
(37:59):
They put up with it, partially because the King told
them to, but they knew it wasn't really gonna work.
Queen Margaret had already started kind of being the power
behind the throne while the king was in and out
for eighteen months. So she was at the front of
the procession. She was holding hands with Richard of York,
and he hated her. They hated each other. Richard Nelville,
(38:22):
the Earl of Warwick, held hands with the Duke of Somerset,
who was Henry Beaufort in Beaufort's father had been killed
at St. Alban's uh St Albans was the original kind
of conflict that was started by the Duke of York.
Then who has made Lord protect her? And if I'm
not mistaken, correct, correct? And so they had to hold
each other's hands. The people that they hated, probably the
(38:45):
most in the world, and they had to walk with
them for two miles pretending that it wouldn't make their
day if the other person was dead, preferably in a slow,
painful fashion. But I'm sorry, this is gonna sound like
a really dumb question. But the show is called history,
so I'm okay with it. The two factions, the Yorks
and the Lancasters, they're not boring over the crown exactly right.
(39:09):
They're not mean because the king is in place and
he's the one who's forcing them to do all this stuff.
So what exactly are they at odds over? They do
want control of the throne of England, but the king
is he just too dim to be aware that they're
vying for like his job? Does he not care or
does he does not see the threat? I'm confused as
to why he is so flippant and just kind of
(39:31):
like clueless about this? Is that? Is it really that
simple that he just doesn't quite does a click for him?
He Yeah, he did have mental issues, we believe, and
it was his weak rule. W e A K? I
mean here that brought the House of York's claim. Richard
of York's claim to the throne back to the public eye,
(39:51):
gathered more support for it because they people were saying, well,
we could do better than Henry the sixth, So so
more iron fisted monarch would have had these warring factions
drawn and quartered in the streets to make a statement,
as opposed to having them, you know, hold hands and
skip merrily through the streets together. Yeah, just making sure
(40:13):
I wasn't missing something entirely, because this all just seems
completely bonkers to me. So here's the thing. After going
through the motions of this gesture and holding the parade
and everything, Henry the sixth retreats politically. Queen Margaret is
at the cap bird seat again. She's driving the Loveday
(40:34):
piece accord. Spoiler alert doesn't work out. This was like
a soap opera according to our story and Sadler, We've
got a cast of characters, we've got all their entourages.
They turned these small misunderstandings and all this historical baggage
into an ongoing, disastrous drama. Less than two months after
(40:57):
the Loveday, May the Earl of Warwick throwze the agreement
out and he this is probably my favorite phrase in
this story, and there are a lot of great phrases
he engages in. Some get this casual piracy along the
coast of Calais, where he had been exiled by the Queen. No.
(41:17):
I love the phrase casual piracy. Casual piracy. You know,
it's you see exactly what it means. It's like going
to the target with those lists. Just vibes it just so.
I mean, I would assume casual piracy means there wasn't
so much a plan or like some sort of master plan,
or that it was particularly organized. It was just kind
(41:38):
of like, well, we're here, we might as well do
a little smashing and grabbing, perhaps a little ripe it
in pillage exactly. That's that's what that's. And I know
it's horrible because you know it is piracy, and people
were injured and probably killed. But I just love the
idea of someone seeing another boat and going, oh, while
we're here, you know what I mean, let's do something.
(41:59):
Well remember totally so mean the War of the Roses.
I mean, you know, Henry dies of course in May
one of fourteen seventy one. The War of the Roses
continues on for quite a long time. I mean, this
really was sort of the beginning of it. He tries
to quell it with this gesture of like goodwill, but
it obviously doesn't work, blows up in his face, and
(42:20):
then he dies after retreating. Politically, we know this conflict
went on for a long time, right, so how when
did it actually actually end? The actual actual end of
the Wars of the Roses is generally considered to be
June seven, meaning the whole thing from Stem disturb lasted
(42:41):
for thirty two years, three weeks, and four days. We
gotta tell you how how this all broke down. Margaret
hears about this casual piracy and it's either too casual
or too formal for her. Maybe it's just because it's piracy.
She summons the Earl to London, the Earl of Warwick,
(43:01):
to answer for his actions. A scuffle breaks out, and
so she takes this opportunity and accuses the Earl of Warwick,
the Duke of York, and some other nobility on their
side of treason in October of fourteen fifty nine, and
she says the Duke has most diabolical unkindness and wretched envy.
(43:21):
She says the Loveday procession is curdled into a Parliament
of devils and the Roses were at it again, and
this would continue for another generation. And as he said, well,
Henry expires on May twenty one, fourteen seventy one, which
means he died before the conflicts concluded. And weirdly enough,
(43:44):
he became more popular after his death than he was
when he was alive because he was a nice dude.
He was like a nice guy, but he just he
was a terrible king. I think that's why a lot
of this is so hard to wrap my head around,
is because we're just not you too genuinely nice monarchs.
And I think that's because it typically mean you aren't
(44:05):
suited for the job if you're too nice. And it
seems like that was a criticism that was thrown in
him plenty. But like happens a lot of times, you know,
hindsight being and all that, he has remembered much more
fondly than he was treated when he was alive. When
he was alive, he was kind of treated as an
inconvenience and you know, weakling and this, that and the other.
But when he passed, like I was saying at May
(44:27):
one of fourteen seventy one, he started almost being treated
like a saint. People were coming and making pilgrimages to
shirt See Abbey where he was buried. That's before the
new king, Richard the Third, had Henry's remains moved to St.
George's Chapel in Windsor. And there was this notion that
Henry was this like kind of saintly man, not just
(44:50):
a nice man, but a holy man. And there's a
fifteen hundred book that showed up that was almost like
the Gospel of Henry, know, where it talked about his
ability to perform miracles, including like resurrecting plague victims. It's
almost this whole mythology that grew up around this dude
after he died. And again, you know this, We know
(45:13):
that he did do things like have you know body
parts removed from the city walls, that he pardoned all
these people. So it seems like there's a grain of
truth in this that blossomed and so out and out
him walking on water and performing miracles. So where did
all this come from? Well, according to and his storian
named Desmond Seward, a lot of it came from the
(45:35):
unfortunate circumstances of Henry's death. He was unjustly murdered and
Seward believes this created widespread pity for a king who,
after his deposition, was treated like a thief and put
to death without having committed any crime. He just became
too much of a liability politically. Also, you know, ridiculous
(45:59):
historians to the crowd out of a certain age with
a certain depth of experience. May recall that similar observations
were made. Whether or not you agree with him, similar
observations were made about the US President Jimmy Carter. There
were a lot of people were saying, this guy is
too nice to be president. Yeah, no, it's true, And
(46:20):
I get it. History almost took pity on him and
kind of created maybe not history, but like those who
are responsible for writing certain portions of this history, and
I guess decided to give him some superpowers in the afterlife,
right right, which is nice. But is it as nice
(46:42):
as not being murdered? I would say probably not. Maybe
it depends on your perspective. But this ends the story
of Henry the sixth. I would say, this noble, if
misguided effort to make people be a little bit nicer
to each other. It didn't work, you know, but it
(47:03):
was very nice of him to try that really was
the alternatives, And it's like, you don't even get a
whiff of the types of megalomaniacal acts the most young
monarchs tend to absolutely thrive on. You know, I'm thinking,
we're talking about Game of Thrones. I'm wondering if they
took this character, maybe this character is common. You know
(47:24):
who who who is the sweet boy who you know
ultimately was the younger brother of Jeoffrey, who was an
absolute monster. So obviously there's some bits and pieces and
picking and choosing to make it, but I'm really totally
seeing the parallels here. But it turns out that we
in the history had a pretty benevolent, if misguided and uh,
(47:45):
not particularly suited for the job monarch. But this was
a cool one. Man. I wonder we should do more
War of the Roses related stuff. This is there's a
lot to it. I imagine a lot of different factions
and in fighting, and this is a great, great primer,
great place to no real dragons though, but I agree
with you, No, there is one thing I'd like to
(48:05):
leave us all with, which is this, If you would
like to take up some of the practices of the
Cult of Henry the Six there's a very simple thing
you can do if you want Henry the six they
come back from the dead and perform a miracle for you.
All you have to do is take a silver coin
(48:25):
and bend it as an offering to the saint. Now,
all we've got to do is find some silver coins.
What do you think? Wait, so he was officially canonized. No, no,
not at all. More of god It folks. I love
a good folks sing and um, I think that's a
great idea. And this is completely unrelated, but I just
in the interest of turning folks onto some interesting um cinema.
(48:47):
I recently saw an a twenty four kind of psychological
horror film called Sat maud Um, which is also sort
of about a folk saint. And it is not for
the squeamish, but I highly recommend it. But does a
really good job at like looking at mental health and
kind of you know, the some of the perceptions of
people with with mental illness. And I highly recommend St
(49:08):
maud Yeah, I remember that one is well worth the watch.
Do check it out. And while you're on the internet,
why not I come say high to us. You can
find Ridiculous History on our Facebook page. Ridiculous Historians, and
you can also send us an email where we are
ridiculous at I heart media dot com. Huge thanks super
(49:30):
producer Casey Pegram, super producer Max Williams Alex Williams who
composed this theme, and of course big thanks with a
big asterix to our good friends Slash Nemessies Jonathan Strickland
a k a. The Quister. Someone bend a silver coin
for us to win the next time he drops by,
(49:50):
which hopefully won't be today. I think we gotta cut
a short we do, but while you're on the internet,
do yourself a favor and check out our brand new
sister podcast, Ridiculous Romance with Eli and Diana, getting some
amazing reviews so far on the Internet, which is not
known for being particularly nice. So that warmed my heart
and I'm sure it did yours as well. Then it
did indeed, and spoiler alert, they're gonna becoming an hour
(50:13):
show very soon, so stay tuned. We'll see you next time, folks.
For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. This is a fun when
it's it's a weird one. I think we could call
this an historical case of somebody having their heart in
the right place. They're doing their best. Old Henry the
what is it the fifth? I'm so bad at Roman numerals, Ben,
(00:50):
I'm Noel, by the way, bad at Roman numerals Brown.
But yeah, we're gonna have ourselves a good old fashioned
ridiculous history. Love nd today in the form of a
like you said, been very misguided yet well intentioned attempt
at just getting everyone to get along, you know, during
a little thing called the War of the Roses, which
was like a century long pissing contest essentially between royals
(01:14):
who are vying for the throne. Isn't that about sum
it up? Yeah? Yeah. If you were to ask me, hey, Ben,
what what is the Song of Ice and Fire slash
Game of Thrones universe loosely based on, then I would
say the Wars of the Roses because George R. R.
Martin said that as well as we dive into what
(01:36):
is known as Loveday. Let's give a shout out to
our own aristocrats of ridiculous history are super producers Casey
Pegram and Max Williams. Know you're right. This is a
story of political intrigue. This is a story of weird diplomacy.
This is a story of King Henry the six a
(02:00):
attempts to keep the peace. Loveday was this symbolic reconciliation,
and this particular love day happened between warring factions of
English nobility. But before we dive into this, we should
mention that Henry did not make love day up. This
(02:22):
was a thing that already existed in medieval England and
was meant to resolve legal differences under arbitration instead of
common law, which we'll we'll dive into in just a bit.
But we're talking about particular love day today, aren't we know?
The love Day of fourteen fifty eight indeed, and what
a lovely love day it was. But before we get
(02:42):
into that, I think we should backtrack a little bit
into the history of Henry the sixth himself, who was
the youngest king of England, uh and not particularly good
at it. He was fine at being young and just
wasn't particularly good at being the king. He was born
in fourteen twenty one. He inherited the own as a
wee baby, a literal infant, you know, and then he
(03:03):
grew into it and at least in terms of growing
into you know, essentient being, but he never quite grew
into the role and was considered quite incompetent and was
blamed historically for the War of the Roses kind of
from the get go, right. Yeah. See, that's the thing
about a monarchy versus a meritocracy. Because you become the
(03:26):
ruler based on your bloodline rather than your qualifications, you
can end up in release surreal situations. Henry the sixth
did become King of England on September one, fourteen two,
but he was only nine months old at the time.
He automatically became king because his father, Henry the fifth,
passed away. He did have other people governing the day
(03:50):
to day stuff in England until about fourteen thirty seven.
By that point he was considered old enough to rule.
He was, as he said, the youngest person to ever
inherit the English throne at that point, and then he
got promoted. How office space is this just to two
(04:10):
years after he got the English throne, his grandfather, King
Charles the sixth, died on October twenty one, and boom,
Henry becomes King of France. That's right, he became. He
was a double king. That's never occurred to me, but
it sure seems potentially problematic. So he's proclaimed king of
France because of something some some terms established in the
(04:34):
fourteen twenty Treaty of Troyes, where the military success of
his father essentially turned France into territories of England. But
it was a little more complex than that, because you know,
you can declare things territories, but you also have to
govern them successfully and keep hold of them. H And
(04:55):
at the end of the Hundred Years War, England had
essentially lost all of the French territories and was left
with only one called Calais, which I always think of
as like a fancy like for like English vacation destination.
There's also that what is it from the jabberwockie or
it's like calloo Calais O fraptious day or something like that.
That right then, yeah, yeah, it's spelled a little differently
(05:17):
but pronounced roughly the same. So here we are Henry six,
through no fault and no effort of his own, has
become the king of two countries. Heavy weighs, the head
that wears the crowd and soften said. And in August
of fourteen fifty three, Henry the six contracted a mysterious illness,
(05:39):
due perhaps in part to the stresses of being a monarch.
He fell into what is described as an inertia that
lasted more than a year, lasted eighteen months according to
history extra dot com. This remains the subject of some
no small amount of speculation the part of historians. Some
(06:02):
historians will tell you that he was suffering from catatonic schizophrenia.
The symptoms of this condition include things like stupor, catalepsy,
loss of consciousness basically, and mutism. But other historians have
just said, no, he had a mental breakdown. There was
genetic precedent for this. We know now his maternal grandfather,
(06:23):
Charles the sixth of France, also suffered from bouts of
mental illness for the last three decades of his life.
And not to get too highly speculative here, but there
was mental health galore, and these sort of let's call
them closed systems of breeding. That's a very diplomatic way
to put it. The problem with in breeding is that
(06:44):
it can lead to any number of damaging medical conditions
or damaging genetic conditions. If you want to see the
extreme version of this in European royalty, check out the Habsburg.
You know what, just google hapspurg Chin. That's all you
need to see, exactly right. So yeah, that you know,
(07:06):
there are some accounts that kind of shed some light
onto what this might have felt like at the time.
One thing that you know, whatever you might want to
call this, whether it be a mental breakdown or these
recurring kind of fits of mental health issues, what we
do know is that Henry was not particularly interested in
(07:26):
engaging with the real world as it existed around him.
And that also means not particularly interested in engaging in
the day to day duties that are you know, governing.
I mean there's a lot to that you kind of
have to be with it or at the very least
delegate it to somebody. Right, he doesn't seem like he
was doing either of those things particularly well. And there's
an account from this London merchant of when Henry essentially
(07:50):
was introduced to his newborn son and kind of speaks
to perhaps the way he viewed the world and others
outside of his own mental bubble. And this is what
he said. He looked on the prince and cast down
his eyes again, and then he goes on to say
they could obtain no word or sign from Henry, essentially
(08:11):
saying he just kind of moved on, you know, I mean,
it's his own flesh and blood, it's his son, he's
meeting for the very first time, and he just sort
of regarded the child as an object and then kind
of was like take it away. That about the shape
of it. Yeah, he wasn't really talking to people. And
this lasted, as we said, for a period of eighteen months,
(08:31):
waxed waned. Visitors to the king came to court to
tell him that the Archbishop John Kempet died a few
months later, and they couldn't get him to talk, or
it didn't even look like he was listening. He was
just sort of sitting there. And when he finally got
out of this funk or he recovered, you know, maybe
(08:52):
it was just incredibly depressed, but at some point he
came out of this state and get this, folks. He
was astonished to find that his wife had given birth
to a son, because Edward, right, nol you had just
said how Henry was introduced to his own son and
was kind of like, uh yeah. Later later he goes, oh, wow,
(09:15):
I have a kid. Uh Edward, Why didn't anyone tell me? Right?
Edward was born in October fourteen fifty three, so that
would have been just a few months after Henry the
sixth became unwell. But there's a sidebar here and special
shout out to our research associate, Gay Bluesier. A lot
(09:35):
of historians and scholars described Henry the six as pious, simple,
and puritan. The label does fit, and well we'll tell
you why. But there's this theory we can call it
that perhaps he was shocked that he had a son
because he was well clueless in the bedroom, clueless when
(09:57):
it came to matters of path should. He spent a
lot of his free time meditating on the sufferings of Christ.
He stayed in monasteries, he practiced something called Devoco Maderna,
a movement for religious reform that was all about humility
and obedience, and an historian named Lauren Johnson revealed that
(10:21):
his his bedroom stuff may have been a lower priority
for him to the point where he needed help. Right, Yeah,
apparently he employed these services of a sex coach literally
in the one time he was like required to, you know,
consummate a relationship in his marriage bed. And Johnson, who's
a scholar specifically investigating King Henry the sixth Private life,
(10:46):
she says that she found some evidence in the National
Archives and in the Royal Household, you know, records that
indicated that Henry and his wife Margaret of Andrew were
actually attended on by these coaches essentially during the marriage Act.
(11:06):
Do my best to be very diplomatic today with these terms,
but this is what Johnson told the Observer. Right, was
it because the famously chased Henry didn't know what he
was doing? I think it's entirely possible that it had
reached a certain point where it perhaps became necessary to
make clear to him what he should be doing that
couldn't be done in a public way at all. The
(11:26):
King's chamber is the most private place where you could
be having this conversation or indeed checking what was going on.
These are the days before sex head, you know, and
it is definitely a tricky situation to have to tell
a monarch what to do with such in such an
intimate moment. He wasn't just checked out of the bedroom though,
(11:49):
you know, harshly due to this illness, But overall he
was checked out as a ruler for quite a while,
and during his reign tensions skyrocketing. You know, when he
was out for eighteen months, the government was leaderless and
(12:13):
largely ruddered less. And that's when the Duke of York,
who was the cousin to the King and himself has
a claim to the throne, was appointed Lord Protector and
first counselor of the realm. That Duke of York was
Richard Plantagenets. So when the King found himself in better
spirits on the other side of his affliction in fourteen
(12:35):
fifty four, the protectorship of York and his powerful allies
the Neville family ended, but the partisanship in the government remained.
York was mad because he was increasingly excluded from exercising
royal power. He questioned Henry the sixth ability to perform
(12:56):
royal duties, mainly because he was often unwell, but also
because he was, as history hit dot com put it,
infamously gentle, yet an infamously gentle nature. So York was
the Duke of York is like, this guy is way
too nice to be king. Yeah, well, I mean and
infamously gentle. Again we're into we're deep in diplomacy here
(13:20):
is basically just weak, right, It's just saying that he
is a weak He doesn't have the constitution or the
stamina or the like, you know, drive to like do
the job. You've gotta be brutal and relentless and then
not you know, have too many scruples when it comes
to ruling. You also have to kind of have the
ambition to to do it and to the very least,
you know, care a little bit and pay attention. But
(13:40):
I gotta ask um, you know how in our government
takes a lot to depose a ruler. You know, we
we've had some wes situation in our previous president where
there were some questions about his mental stability or psychological
ability to do the job correct and it was very difficult.
It was discussed the idea of invoking a clause I
(14:03):
believe in the Constitution that would allow someone who is
not fit to serve to be you know, forcibly removed
and replaced. What allowed the Duke of York here to
just come and it was literally just like a power grab.
Well essentially, you know, you you could look at it
that way. And also, of course we're referring to the
twenty five Amendment here in the US, which has actually
(14:26):
been used in the past, but maybe that's a story
for another day. You're right, there are some power grabs
here because Richard essentially said, you know, my cousin Henry
would be better off as a monk. I am the
person would be the best suited to be the king. Here.
There's a lot of action that seems to be preemptive,
(14:47):
right to assume the actions of other rivals and try to,
you know, get to the fight before they do. For instance,
in May of four, Richard leads an army again King
Henry's Lancastrian army, in a bloody surprise attack that's now
known as the First Battle of St Albans. And he
(15:10):
did this because he believed that another duke, the Duke
of Somerset, was going to ambush him if he didn't
act first. And why do they call it the Wars
of the Roses. Well, the Yorkist like Richard, were represented
by a White Rose and the House of Lancaster to
which Henry the Six belonged was represented by a red Rose.
(15:35):
So essentially this grab from the Duke of York was
kind of because Henry the Six was such weak sauce,
you know, as a as a king and was doing
such a poor job, he kind of opened up this
power grab situation essentially. Yeah, yeah, I think you could
say that the personal enemies of York and his allies,
(15:55):
the Nevill's where the Duke of Somerset, the Earl of
Northumberland and Word Clifford. All three of those individuals perished.
And although this first battle is kind of a smaller
deal in military terms, it was explosively important on a
political level because King Henry got captured, he was a pow.
(16:16):
He got escorted to London and then York was appointed
capital p capital e Protector of England by Parliament just
a few months later. But he had a problem. Got
him a little bit of power he got. He got
a temporary boost, you know what I mean, like when
you get the star in Super Mario. Yes, he didn't
(16:37):
get a permanent increase in power. He didn't get you know,
a mushroom or one up. That's right. He did get
this kind of temporary boost, you know, all of the
Mario Star, but he wasn't really able to make it last.
He did get a second Protectorate ship that was also
quite short lived, and Henry the six ended it himself
(16:57):
in fourteen fifty six because at that point he had
a male heir in the form of Prince Edward, which
I believe was that baby that he's so uh, kind
of casually disregarded, right, but then when it came time
for him to be a political pawn, he's like, oh cool,
I'm gonna play this one. And that was his again,
the daughter of his wife, Margaret of Andrew, and she
(17:19):
actually emerged as a pretty significant power player in the
Lancastrian revival. Yeah. Yeah, she's making moves. But war always
has consequences, and just two years later, Henry and his
government realized that they have an unfinished problem from that
(17:44):
conflict at St. Albans, those three Yorkist lords who had
died along with other people. Of course, they had children,
and those younger magnates wanted revenge. You know, there's a
princess bride moment. My name is Snigo Montoya. You killed
my father, right, that's the that's how these guys feel,
(18:05):
and they can rally forces of their own, So noblemen
on both sides of the conflict start recruiting these retinues
of armed followers. This is also occurring in the context
of the ever present threat of the French right, who
also probably want their stuff back. So Henry is thinking,
(18:27):
we need to bring these Yorkists back into the fold.
We need to make some sort of peace. As we said,
he had been described as infamously gentle. Know what you said,
you felt that was another way of saying week. I
think that would be also a way of saying, uh, timid.
You know, he's not like a bloodthirsty coonan to the
(18:48):
barbarian kind of guy. He likes to hang out and
you know, pray. So he instead of punishing people or
starting another conflict, he tried to make peace. Once he
ordered a deceased traders impaled body parts to be taken down,
and he said the following He said, I will not
(19:10):
have any Christian men so cruelly handled for my sake.
And that's kind of classy, you know what I mean,
Like I don't want people to associate me with mutilated
body parts. And then on good Friday. In fourteen fifty two,
he issued almost a hundred and fifty pardons a hundred
and forty four following an attempted rebellion by the Duke
of York. Yeah, I gottapplaud him for his kind of
(19:33):
focus on the zen of it all and like trying
to convince people to just get along. But you also
have to remember this is in the midst of a
bloody conflict and and an absolute power grab, and it's
almost like he's not quite getting it, you know what
I mean. Yeah, he almost kind of feels sorry for
him in the one hand, because he really does seem
like completely oblivious and disconnected from the reality that is
(19:56):
the situation that he finds himself in the center of
and maybe doesn't even realize how perhaps in danger his
own life might be. Yeah. I hate to say it
because I'm probably never going to meet him, but what
we're learning about this guy makes me think that he
was very sheltered, you know, in a way only a
king could be. And there it seemed like for a
(20:21):
lot of his life there were other people controlling him
and telling him what to do, whether on the throne
or in the bedroom. So in that kind of case.
You could see how he may not be accustomed to
making his own decisions, especially if they were tough decisions
that can result in injury or death for other people.
And so we come to Henry the six big bright idea.
(20:46):
He realizes he has to do something, and so he says,
let's have a love day. You know, as you mentioned
at the top, a love day was a thing that
already existed. We know the name sounds kind of uncreative now,
but in the context of a love day, this arbitration period,
(21:07):
love doesn't mean romantic love. It means an agreement or
a settlement. And day in the legal sense of the time,
just meant a case opening instead of a you know,
a strict twenty four hour period. So this kind of
case could you know, it could go on. It wasn't
like a single physical day. So our Henry the Stix
(21:29):
was definitely a lover, not a fighter, and he felt
that it would be entirely possible to convert everyone else,
all of these fighters in the world, to be lovers
like him, if only he could get them to just
you know, demonstrate to to just like you, put forth
a gesture of goodwill towards each other, right, the lank
Astrians and the Yorkists, and gosh, ben when when I
(21:52):
look at Lankstrian, I mean that's basically Lancaster from freaking
Game of Thrones. I mean, has to be that. I see.
That's a good point. Excuse me, Lanisterister, Lanister Lancastrians. I
think there has to be a connection there. But he
wanted to demonstrate, you know, publicly, some sort of perceived
(22:13):
goodwill between the Lancastrians and the Yorkists. So on March
he attempted to do just that. He organized a parade
or something, a procession, a promenade, what have you, where
leading members of the Lancastrians and the yorks would go
through the streets while holding hands. Yeah. Literally a come on, people, now,
(22:38):
smile on your brother kind of moment. And it does
seem a little bit naive. But let's let's return to
our historian here, Lauren Johnson. Writing in BBC History Magazine,
Johnson speculates a little bit more about why Henry the
sixth was so conflict diverse, and she points out quote
(23:00):
his uncles were ambitious men who blighted Henry's youth with
their sometimes violent disputes time and again, Henry was called upon,
despite his youth and inexperience, to resolve their quarrels, expected
to serve as a final arbiter of complex adult dynamics
that had taken form before he was born. As he
was a sensitive, serious child. It's little wonder that he
(23:21):
shrank from conflict in later life. So he had always
been asked to make these judgment calls, and as far
as we could tell, he hated it. He was like,
very reasonably, hey stopped killing each other. But that is
an argument that has failed time and time again, not
just in the history of the British monarchy, but in
(23:45):
human history, I would argue. And also it's a little
bit of a folksy solution in the context of this time,
because love day is like Loveday was something for like
local matters, you know, like someone killed a cow or
someone you know is letting their dog poop in your yard, right,
(24:05):
and I would imagine that, you know, with let's just
say the more colloquial version of this situation, right, Let's
say like two farmers have a dispute over the loss
of pf property and in the form of a cow,
maybe you know, one farmer at kills the other one's cow.
We know that the wars have been started over less
right or specifically, there was one involving a pig, if
I'm not mistaken that we recently talked about. But you know,
(24:27):
before this love end would take place in the streets,
kind of sealing the deal. Imagine some money would have
had to change hands, and then this was kind of
just like the icing on the cake to publicly let
people know, Okay, these two farmers are now friends again
and we can go along our merry way. Yeah. Yeah,
and sometimes this had really happy endings, things that could
(24:47):
be seen as quite endearing. So, as I said, love
days were meant to settle things in a peaceful fashion.
It's kind of the equivalent of saying, hey, we don't
have to go to court over this, and you, Julie.
They're traditionally a love day on a local level, not
evolving that you know, the upper echelons of society would
(25:07):
end in a party like imagine being able to resolve
your disputes and then having a pizza party at the end.
That's kind of what this was like. Josephine Water has
been a medieval scholar, noted that one feast, according to
the terms of the agreement, required more than five hundred
gallons of gas, hoon and wine. That's the mall back,
(25:30):
as well as too fat oxen and twelve fat sheep
to be consumed in what both parties agreed would be
quote a regular English jollification. And they were gonna they
were gonna party. They were gonna party down because they've
figured out their pasture dispute. I am going to start
referring to parties as jollifications. Ben, I think it's a
(25:51):
good one. I think you should go with that. That
could be big for us. I think so too. But
as you know, kind of was indicated from the start here,
this one didn't really turn out that way. There was
a lot more at stake and a lot more at
play than anything this kind of touchy feeling could have
probably sorted out. Right. Yeah, this is seriously taking a
(26:13):
local dispute resolution tradition and applied it to a full
blown civil war. It's like, imagine if trying to think
of a way to say this, so imagine if a
civil war broke out in the US and Joe Biden said, Okay, guys, everybody,
(26:35):
come over, we're gonna get a couple of handles of whiskey. Well,
we're gonna get you know what, what are party things
people do. We're gonna get some fun hats. We're we're
gonna get loaded and figure this out together. That I
love the fact that both of us immediately went to
fun hats as party things. But have you ever actually
(26:56):
attended a party that involved fun hats. It's just sort
of like this idealized version of what a party should be.
Or maybe it's a nostalgic version of it from childhood
where it's all about like, you know, fun cone shaped hats. Uh,
But it's not really something that you really see much.
But it is the first thing that our minds both
jumped to. Yeah, you're right, maybe we should we should
bring that back. I know there are things like cat
(27:19):
parties that exist, and I know, you know over in
the UK during Christmas celebrations, people do wear those paper crowds.
You've seen those before, right, Absolutely, that's a thing that
you will distribute at a dinner party for example. Um,
and oftentimes they come with these little popper things that
have not not like you know, the drug, but you
(27:41):
know little things that have you know, little surprises inside
like party poppers, you know, and you have you pull
the string and and it shoots out confetti and maybe
there's little treats or you know, toys or something like that.
But the paper hats very much the thing in that world.
And now that I'm thinking through this, I can imagine
in some of those nobles who had had their their
(28:03):
fathers killed looking askance at this, like, no, I'm not
doing a hand holding parade, dude, my dad's dead. You know.
That's that's a lot to ask people. And in general,
this was seen as a symbotlic gesture, as you said earlier,
and it's not a very good substitute for revenge after
(28:24):
the deaths of friends and family members. But they went
ahead and tried to get this mediation leading up to
this love day. So two months before this procession, Henry
mediated between these warring factions and it's it's a really
weird arrangement. They summoned the English peerage to a Great
(28:47):
Council in London in January four and they wanted, you know,
the last thing they wanted to see was an armed
conflict between the people they had brought together. It would
be a very bad look to have just called them
all to London and then for there to be blood
in the streets. So city officials maintained around the clock
(29:08):
armed watch, and these two different sides, the Yorkists and
the Lancastrian lords, were kept separate. The Yorkists got to
stay within the city walls, the Lancastrians had to stay outside.
And even with all these precautions, Northumberland, Clifford and Egremont
tried to ambush York and Salisbury as they rode from
(29:32):
London to Westminster. So they had to have these folks
under armed guard otherwise they would kill each other. Yeah,
and the king tried to, you know, preside over these
mediations that were super cantankerous of course. And um, there
were intermediaries that kind of you know, went back and
forth between the two sides, Henry's lawyers or barristers or
(29:55):
whatever you would call them. I guess they were more
like mediators counselors. They met the Yorkists inside the city
at this place called the Black Friars, and that was
in the morning, and then the afternoons the same mediators
would meet with the Lancastrian lords at the White Friars
on Fleet street. Imagine these are two different monasteries been
the Blackfriars and the White Friars. It seems very interesting
(30:16):
that we have literally two diametrically opposing colors of Friars
where these different warring sides would meet. Yeah. Blackfriars is
an area by the southern fringes of the City of London,
and the City of London is not the same thing
as London. The City of London is in London, but
it's kind of its own separate thing. We should make
(30:38):
an episode on the City of London. Actually have been there.
It's a trip, man. I agree. That sounds so. So
these are this has nothing to do with religious orders
or these are literally just two different neighborhoods. Yeah. Back
in the day, Dominican Friars established a priory on the site,
and so the name Blackfriars dates back to them when
they came to the capital in twelve one, got it. Okay,
(31:00):
that makes a little more sense. I thought it was
pretty interesting that there were It was almost like the
White Lodge and the Black Lodge, you know from from
Twin Peaks. That's kind of what it made me think of. Okay,
So they had these deliberations in the morning and then
in the afternoon, and they eventually were able to settle
where the Yorks were to pay Somerset five thousand marks
(31:22):
and for Warwick to pay Clifford a thousand marks, and
for Salisbury to not levy these like fines or duties
for hostility against the Nevil's. And then there was a
religious aspect too, because we have to remember Henry the
sixth is arbitrating. Here the Yorkist had to endow the
abbey at St Albans with forty five pounds per year
(31:45):
for masses to be sung in perpetuity for the souls
of the battles dead. The only thing like that on
the Lancastrian side was a payment of a four thousand
mark bond to maintain peace with the Nevil family, but
not forever, just for ten years. Here you go, we'll
give you a four thousand marks and then we won't
(32:08):
fight for a decade, and also will determine blame. So
the blame for Saint Albans have been placed squarely on
the Yorkist because they're the ones who launched the surprise attack,
you know, even if they thought they were doing it
just to beat out another surprise attack. They ultimately quote
unquote fired the first shot, you know what I mean,
(32:29):
although they obviously didn't use guns. Yeah, conceptually speaking, no,
I totally get you. So now everything's good, right, We're
all solid, Everyone's paid their due, and now it's time
for that sweet sweet love end right hard to let
the love day commence, let our love flags fly. And
(32:49):
you know, this was I think Henry the six would
have seen this as a success, this mediation, and I
think he probably felt like this was probably his highest
point of diplomacy where he had actually achieved some sort
of resolution. Um So, now, in the spirit of that
more kind of like local folksy tradition, in March of four,
(33:10):
hundreds of English lords and ladies assembled at Westminster Abbey
and walked holding hands through the streets of London along
the Thames, the western bank of the Thames, all the
way to St Paul's Cathedral. And this was what would
be a traditional kind of love Day procession in order
to you know, put a sweet red ribbon bow on
(33:32):
this whole deal and finally put the War of the
Roses to an end. Yeah, that's the idea. It's ambitious,
it's very sweet. It's the kind of plan that you know,
no offense, Henry. Maybe maybe it is something you should
(33:55):
just draw on a piece of paper and then put
up at your house so you can be proud of
your self. I don't want to spoil it. But not
everybody is as kiss and makeup and turn the other
cheek oriented as our guy, Henry. But you know, they
actually did go on this parade. As you mentioned, it
was set for Ladies Day, a day that memorializes the
(34:18):
Virgin Mary's hearing of the news that she would bear
a child. So that's a big day. This day was
also considered the start of the New year at the time.
It wasn't until seventeen fifty two that England adopted January
one is New Year's Day. This was also meant to
be kind of a commercial for peace, a pr move
(34:40):
for the non nobles of London, you know, because they're
the ones who are disproportionately affected by the hazards of war,
you know, So this is meant to show you, you know,
the average shopkeeper, the average resident of London, that hey
wars over this is a time of peace. In fact,
John's Sadler, the author of The Red Rose and the
(35:02):
White who like he literally wrote a history book about
the English Civil Wars. He says, quote it was a
bit Hollywood. There was a lot of pump about it,
banners flying, drums beating. It was a show. And no,
we know it's the show because we have an excerpt
of a ballad that was composed to celebrate this. Do
(35:26):
you do you wanna bless us with a reading? There? Man? Boy?
Would I ever been before I do the reading that
I want to say? You mentioned the Hazards of War.
There is also a quite good Decembrist album called the
Hazards of Love, and I think that applies here because
it turns out that like forcing people, even if they
have quote unquote made nice or like awarded each other institutions,
(35:47):
forcing them to hold hands and like you know, kiss
and make up, it can breed further resentments and the escalations.
But let's do this reading before we get to that.
At Paul's in London, with great renown, on our Lady
Day in Lent, this piece was wrought the King, the
(36:08):
Queen with lords many one went in procession in sight
of all the commonality in token that love was in heart,
and thought, Ben, what is this rhyming scheme, I don't.
I feel like I was totally missing the boat on.
I see there is a rhyming scheme. We've got renown
and uh what, No, renown doesn't rhyme with anything renown
(36:32):
maybe because then it's many one. And then you've got
wrought rhyming with thought and procession. Now that's really it.
I don't think there is a rhyming scheme bend. That's
the only one. Though, Well, we have to think of
pronunciation one procession. You know, there's play with procession common
(36:55):
but what about commonality that. Yeah, that's just a weird one.
That's where the beat drops. That's totally where the and
it's just acapella real quick, and then it picks back up. Uh,
you're right, you're right. There is a little bit of
a lost in translation vibe there. Sadler says. The women
in particular would have looked like the fifteen century equivalent
(37:15):
of footballer's wives. Everybody was dolled up. Everybody's dressed the nines,
he's saying. But beneath all this pomp and all this
fancy dress and all these fun, slant rhyming songs, there
was still a lot of tension, and within two years
of this famous Loveday procession, the majority of the men
(37:39):
who walked together holding hands in London would be dead,
and these wars would go on for nearly thirty more years. Because,
as you said, as our pal Gabe said, there are
a lot of ways to end the war, and making
people hold hands in public is apparently not the best solution.
(37:59):
They put up with it, partially because the King told
them to, but they knew it wasn't really gonna work.
Queen Margaret had already started kind of being the power
behind the throne while the king was in and out
for eighteen months. So she was at the front of
the procession. She was holding hands with Richard of York,
and he hated her. They hated each other. Richard Nelville,
(38:22):
the Earl of Warwick, held hands with the Duke of Somerset,
who was Henry Beaufort in Beaufort's father had been killed
at St. Alban's uh St Albans was the original kind
of conflict that was started by the Duke of York.
Then who has made Lord protect her? And if I'm
not mistaken, correct, correct? And so they had to hold
each other's hands. The people that they hated, probably the
(38:45):
most in the world, and they had to walk with
them for two miles pretending that it wouldn't make their
day if the other person was dead, preferably in a slow,
painful fashion. But I'm sorry, this is gonna sound like
a really dumb question. But the show is called history,
so I'm okay with it. The two factions, the Yorks
and the Lancasters, they're not boring over the crown exactly right.
(39:09):
They're not mean because the king is in place and
he's the one who's forcing them to do all this stuff.
So what exactly are they at odds over? They do
want control of the throne of England, but the king
is he just too dim to be aware that they're
vying for like his job? Does he not care or
does he does not see the threat? I'm confused as
to why he is so flippant and just kind of
(39:31):
like clueless about this? Is that? Is it really that
simple that he just doesn't quite does a click for him?
He Yeah, he did have mental issues, we believe, and
it was his weak rule. W e A K? I
mean here that brought the House of York's claim. Richard
of York's claim to the throne back to the public eye,
(39:51):
gathered more support for it because they people were saying, well,
we could do better than Henry the sixth, So so
more iron fisted monarch would have had these warring factions
drawn and quartered in the streets to make a statement,
as opposed to having them, you know, hold hands and
skip merrily through the streets together. Yeah, just making sure
(40:13):
I wasn't missing something entirely, because this all just seems
completely bonkers to me. So here's the thing. After going
through the motions of this gesture and holding the parade
and everything, Henry the sixth retreats politically. Queen Margaret is
at the cap bird seat again. She's driving the Loveday
(40:34):
piece accord. Spoiler alert doesn't work out. This was like
a soap opera according to our story and Sadler, We've
got a cast of characters, we've got all their entourages.
They turned these small misunderstandings and all this historical baggage
into an ongoing, disastrous drama. Less than two months after
(40:57):
the Loveday, May the Earl of Warwick throwze the agreement
out and he this is probably my favorite phrase in
this story, and there are a lot of great phrases
he engages in. Some get this casual piracy along the
coast of Calais, where he had been exiled by the Queen. No.
(41:17):
I love the phrase casual piracy. Casual piracy. You know,
it's you see exactly what it means. It's like going
to the target with those lists. Just vibes it just so.
I mean, I would assume casual piracy means there wasn't
so much a plan or like some sort of master plan,
or that it was particularly organized. It was just kind
(41:38):
of like, well, we're here, we might as well do
a little smashing and grabbing, perhaps a little ripe it
in pillage exactly. That's that's what that's. And I know
it's horrible because you know it is piracy, and people
were injured and probably killed. But I just love the
idea of someone seeing another boat and going, oh, while
we're here, you know what I mean, let's do something.
(41:59):
Well remember totally so mean the War of the Roses.
I mean, you know, Henry dies of course in May
one of fourteen seventy one. The War of the Roses
continues on for quite a long time. I mean, this
really was sort of the beginning of it. He tries
to quell it with this gesture of like goodwill, but
it obviously doesn't work, blows up in his face, and
(42:20):
then he dies after retreating. Politically, we know this conflict
went on for a long time, right, so how when
did it actually actually end? The actual actual end of
the Wars of the Roses is generally considered to be
June seven, meaning the whole thing from Stem disturb lasted
(42:41):
for thirty two years, three weeks, and four days. We
gotta tell you how how this all broke down. Margaret
hears about this casual piracy and it's either too casual
or too formal for her. Maybe it's just because it's piracy.
She summons the Earl to London, the Earl of Warwick,
(43:01):
to answer for his actions. A scuffle breaks out, and
so she takes this opportunity and accuses the Earl of Warwick,
the Duke of York, and some other nobility on their
side of treason in October of fourteen fifty nine, and
she says the Duke has most diabolical unkindness and wretched envy.
(43:21):
She says the Loveday procession is curdled into a Parliament
of devils and the Roses were at it again, and
this would continue for another generation. And as he said, well,
Henry expires on May twenty one, fourteen seventy one, which
means he died before the conflicts concluded. And weirdly enough,
(43:44):
he became more popular after his death than he was
when he was alive because he was a nice dude.
He was like a nice guy, but he just he
was a terrible king. I think that's why a lot
of this is so hard to wrap my head around,
is because we're just not you too genuinely nice monarchs.
And I think that's because it typically mean you aren't
(44:05):
suited for the job if you're too nice. And it
seems like that was a criticism that was thrown in
him plenty. But like happens a lot of times, you know,
hindsight being and all that, he has remembered much more
fondly than he was treated when he was alive. When
he was alive, he was kind of treated as an
inconvenience and you know, weakling and this, that and the other.
But when he passed, like I was saying at May
(44:27):
one of fourteen seventy one, he started almost being treated
like a saint. People were coming and making pilgrimages to
shirt See Abbey where he was buried. That's before the
new king, Richard the Third, had Henry's remains moved to St.
George's Chapel in Windsor. And there was this notion that
Henry was this like kind of saintly man, not just
(44:50):
a nice man, but a holy man. And there's a
fifteen hundred book that showed up that was almost like
the Gospel of Henry, know, where it talked about his
ability to perform miracles, including like resurrecting plague victims. It's
almost this whole mythology that grew up around this dude
after he died. And again, you know this, We know
(45:13):
that he did do things like have you know body
parts removed from the city walls, that he pardoned all
these people. So it seems like there's a grain of
truth in this that blossomed and so out and out
him walking on water and performing miracles. So where did
all this come from? Well, according to and his storian
named Desmond Seward, a lot of it came from the
(45:35):
unfortunate circumstances of Henry's death. He was unjustly murdered and
Seward believes this created widespread pity for a king who,
after his deposition, was treated like a thief and put
to death without having committed any crime. He just became
too much of a liability politically. Also, you know, ridiculous
(45:59):
historians to the crowd out of a certain age with
a certain depth of experience. May recall that similar observations
were made. Whether or not you agree with him, similar
observations were made about the US President Jimmy Carter. There
were a lot of people were saying, this guy is
too nice to be president. Yeah, no, it's true, And
(46:20):
I get it. History almost took pity on him and
kind of created maybe not history, but like those who
are responsible for writing certain portions of this history, and
I guess decided to give him some superpowers in the afterlife,
right right, which is nice. But is it as nice
(46:42):
as not being murdered? I would say probably not. Maybe
it depends on your perspective. But this ends the story
of Henry the sixth. I would say, this noble, if
misguided effort to make people be a little bit nicer
to each other. It didn't work, you know, but it
(47:03):
was very nice of him to try that really was
the alternatives, And it's like, you don't even get a
whiff of the types of megalomaniacal acts the most young
monarchs tend to absolutely thrive on. You know, I'm thinking,
we're talking about Game of Thrones. I'm wondering if they
took this character, maybe this character is common. You know
(47:24):
who who who is the sweet boy who you know
ultimately was the younger brother of Jeoffrey, who was an
absolute monster. So obviously there's some bits and pieces and
picking and choosing to make it, but I'm really totally
seeing the parallels here. But it turns out that we
in the history had a pretty benevolent, if misguided and uh,
(47:45):
not particularly suited for the job monarch. But this was
a cool one. Man. I wonder we should do more
War of the Roses related stuff. This is there's a
lot to it. I imagine a lot of different factions
and in fighting, and this is a great, great primer,
great place to no real dragons though, but I agree
with you, No, there is one thing I'd like to
(48:05):
leave us all with, which is this, If you would
like to take up some of the practices of the
Cult of Henry the Six there's a very simple thing
you can do if you want Henry the six they
come back from the dead and perform a miracle for you.
All you have to do is take a silver coin
(48:25):
and bend it as an offering to the saint. Now,
all we've got to do is find some silver coins.
What do you think? Wait, so he was officially canonized. No, no,
not at all. More of god It folks. I love
a good folks sing and um, I think that's a
great idea. And this is completely unrelated, but I just
in the interest of turning folks onto some interesting um cinema.
(48:47):
I recently saw an a twenty four kind of psychological
horror film called Sat maud Um, which is also sort
of about a folk saint. And it is not for
the squeamish, but I highly recommend it. But does a
really good job at like looking at mental health and
kind of you know, the some of the perceptions of
people with with mental illness. And I highly recommend St
(49:08):
maud Yeah, I remember that one is well worth the watch.
Do check it out. And while you're on the internet,
why not I come say high to us. You can
find Ridiculous History on our Facebook page. Ridiculous Historians, and
you can also send us an email where we are
ridiculous at I heart media dot com. Huge thanks super
(49:30):
producer Casey Pegram, super producer Max Williams Alex Williams who
composed this theme, and of course big thanks with a
big asterix to our good friends Slash Nemessies Jonathan Strickland
a k a. The Quister. Someone bend a silver coin
for us to win the next time he drops by,
(49:50):
which hopefully won't be today. I think we gotta cut
a short we do, but while you're on the internet,
do yourself a favor and check out our brand new
sister podcast, Ridiculous Romance with Eli and Diana, getting some
amazing reviews so far on the Internet, which is not
known for being particularly nice. So that warmed my heart
and I'm sure it did yours as well. Then it
did indeed, and spoiler alert, they're gonna becoming an hour
(50:13):
show very soon, so stay tuned. We'll see you next time, folks.
For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
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Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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