Richard III’s reign started with blind luck — his brother died of pleasure.

[00:00:01]It's a wonderful thing to be out by the water in the English spring. Edward IV, [laughter] Plantaginate King of England, is having the time of his life. It's a lovely day. So, he and a few courters have decided to take a break from the luxury of Westminster Palace. They've come out in the fresh air to do what medieval kings and their subjects love best, killing stuff. But today's excursion isn't a boar hunt or a team bonding away day to rip the guts out of a few mangy old foxes. They're on a fishing trip. The king and his pals have packed their rods, nets, lines, and traps. Sandwiches haven't been invented yet, but knowing Edward, they've probably packed a cool box with a dozen deer pasties and the medieval equivalent of a few slabs of continental laga.

[00:00:47]Because let's be honest, there's nothing quite like a long afternoon spent fishing to make a fun day out of doing absolutely shag all. And as Edward settles into his 40s, doing shag all is what makes the world go round. Last year he turned 40. And given the miles on his political clock, that feels more like 140.

[00:01:12]So, as he casts his worm into the water and waits to see if anything bites, he's well within his rights to live his best life. And why not? It's the start of 1483, and Edward has been on the throne for more than 20 years. Since winning the crown in a bloodbath at the Battle of Taton, he's seen off all manner of threats. Henry V 6th is dead. Margaret of Vonju dead. Warrick the kingmaker dead. George Duke of Clarence dead.

[00:01:50]In their place, Edward has raised a new royal family of his own. He and Queen Elizabeth Woodville have five beautiful daughters and [music] two healthy young sons.

[00:02:02]The eldest boy, Edward, [music] Prince of Wales, is 12 and being trained for leadership by his [music] uncle, Anthony Woodville, one of the most glamorous and famous nightly nobles in Europe.

[00:02:17]Edward has loads of money, which comes in the form of his French pension, 10 grand a year in gold, paid in return for, well, sitting around on his backside doing nothing. He has a fine wardrobe of clothes. He has mistresses galore. As well as his regular squeeze, a piece of red hot super flirt from London called Elizabeth or Jane Shaw.

[00:02:42]There's hardly [music] anyone with a pair of knickers and a pulse who hasn't been up to the royal bed chamber for a game of naked twister at some time or another.

[00:02:53]So yeah, life is great. Thanks. When Edward's horny, he gets some. When he's hungry, he eats. When he's thirsty, he drinks. When he's full of food and drink, he sticks his fingers down his throat, bunders it all up, and starts again. He could probably do with losing a few pounds. Well, call it a few dozen pounds actually. But honestly, you have to ask, what more could a man possibly want in life?

[00:03:26]nothing. As Edward lies back in the spring sunshine, unwraps a pasti, and watches his fishing line drift lazily in the current, he must be thinking, "It's good to be the king." [sighs] But when the afternoon light starts to fade and the chill of a late March evening draws in, Edward starts to feel a little bit under the weather. And by the time they all get back to the palace, he's really not doing too well at all, [cough] he feels so rough, in fact, that he takes to his bed and his servants have to send for the doctor.

[00:04:06]Over the next week, Edward gets worse and worse.

[00:04:12]By the second week of April, everyone's starting to get seriously worried. And on Wednesday, April the 9th, the unthinkable happens.

[00:04:23]After being ill for just 10 days, Edward calls for a priest and confesses his sins. And before the day is out, the first Yorkist king of Plantaginet England, the great eater, drinker, fighter, and lover, is dead. He hasn't even reached his 41st birthday.

[00:04:45]And now he's left the kingdom to a 12-year-old. It looked like the realm was finally enjoying some downtime from the chaos. But now a child is king, and the bad times are about to come hurtling back in again.

[00:05:06]I'm Dan Jones and from Sony Music Entertainment, this is History, season 10 of A Dynasty to Die For. Episode 9, kidnap.

[00:05:25]Hello friends. Now, just when you thought things were all hunky dory in Plantaginet England, fate has one hell of a surprise in store for the court of England's gluttonous womanizing monarch, Edward IV. If you aren't yet a subscriber to our bonus episodes, let me tell you, you're missing out on your chance to delve deeper into the history behind this episode. This week, producer Al and I will be discussing what links Queen Elizabeth II and Edward IV and what drives the future Richard III to cancel the coronation of Edward V. But in the meantime, it's time for a kidnapping.

[00:06:07]One of the more grotesque and entertaining historical novels I've read in the last few years is a book called The Glutton by AK Blakemore. It's a retelling of the weird story of a French guy called Terra who became famous or notorious at the time of the French Revolution.

[00:06:27]Tar was a child of tremendous appetites, always hungry, and capable of eating vast quantities of food without gaining weight. As he grew up, he turned this into a full-time hustle as a traveling freak show performer, then a street entertainer. But things got kind of out of control. He started by eating huge meals, corks, stones, even a fork.

[00:06:56]But as his gluttony became a mania, he started scavenging gutters and rubbish piles for anything at all he could eat.

[00:07:04]Medical scientists got hold of him and observed [music] him eating entire banquetss, then live animals, kittens, puppies, eels, snakes. Anyway, the glutton brings that story brutally to life. Although fittingly, you'll need a strong stomach to get through the whole thing. But I mention it here because it seems to me to have some parallels with the last days of Edward IV.

[00:07:33]This is a king who seems to be utterly undone by his own big back tendencies.

[00:07:39]Chronicers have all sorts of theories about what kills him. Some say it's a mystery disease. Others hint that it's a long-standing malarial illness picked up years ago on his French campaign.

[00:07:53]But it seems pretty obvious that this is what doctors today might call a lifestyle related demise.

[00:08:02]And that, you have to say, is a proper self-inflicted tragedy. Because while taking the road to Valhalla that's paved with condom wrappers and Big Mac boxes has a certain superficial appeal, it's not exactly politically responsible.

[00:08:19]And in Edward's case, it's downright negligent.

[00:08:23]Just as he appears to have his realm approaching some semblance of order and the wars of the roses are disappearing into the rear view mirror, the Plantaginate Glutton effectively tags himself to death.

[00:08:40]His funeral takes place at Westminster on April the 17th in grand fashion.

[00:08:47]There's a big service among the tombs of his plantaginate forebears. Then the next day, Edward is hauled off west to be buried in what he hopes is going to be a new royal moraleum.

[00:09:02]This one is at the Chapel of St. George in Windsor Castle, and it's home to the Order of the Garter.

[00:09:10]Edward has spent a small fortune on redeveloping the chapel during his reign, and now he's laid to rest there, though there's no finished tomb effigy to place over him. He's died so young that work on it hasn't properly got started.

[00:09:28]And once Edward is dead, events very quickly shunt the business of tomb design way down the government's list of priorities.

[00:09:38]Which brings us to the next bit of the story. And before we get to it, I just want to say, buckle up because this is about to get wild.

[00:09:51]In the last week of April 1483, a little party sets out from Lello Castle in the Welsh borders. It's led by arguably the two most important [music] people in England now that the old king is dead.

[00:10:07]One of them is the 12-year-old Edward V, not yet crowned, but obviously his father's successor as his eldest son.

[00:10:18]The other is young Edward's guardian, Anthony Woodville.

[00:10:24]As we've heard, the Queen's brother has been overseeing Edward's education and training at Lello.

[00:10:32]That means book learning and the physical lessons [music] in horsemanship and combat that are still part of any young [music] nobleman's upbringing.

[00:10:42]But under his uncle Anony's supervision, Edward has also been engaged in a political apprenticeship designed to make him a king in waiting.

[00:10:55]Two years ago, he went from Lello down to Kent to join his father in reviewing the English naval fleet before it set off to support a recent border war against the Scots.

[00:11:09]He's been swiping left and [music] right on foreign brides and is now formerly betrothed to marry a daughter of the Duke of Britany. [music] And now abruptly but definitively the time has come [music] for his apprenticeship to be upgraded into full kingship.

[00:11:30]So as Edward and Uncle Anthony travel south, they have plenty to think about.

[00:11:37]After the inevitable pageantry of the coronation, there will be a wedding to organize, foreign policy decisions to be made, [music] land grants to be dished out, a council to be formed.

[00:11:51]Edward is just about old enough [music] to take some active role in all of this.

[00:11:56]Though, of course, for the first five or 6 years, [music] he's going to be leaning heavily on the grown-ups around him for advice.

[00:12:06]That means Uncle Anthony obviously, but also some of the other Stalwarts from the House of York and the Queen's Woodville family. Edward's older half-brother, Sir Richard Gray, [music] will be one of them. His dad's great pal, Lord Hastings, well, he'll be another.

[00:12:25]Then, of course, there are the big beasts, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and Henry, Duke of Buckingham.

[00:12:33]Uncle Richard will definitely want a big say in the new government. And why not?

[00:12:39]Richard has recently done most of the heavy lifting in the Scottish War, and he's been a loyal pillar of the royal family for as long as anyone can remember. In fact, they're due to meet Richard on their way down to London. A rendevous has been fixed at the small town of Stony Stratford so that the new king can travel the last stage of his journey to London with all his top nobles around him. First impressions count for a lot after all.

[00:13:09]They want the Londoners and the wider political establishment to feel that despite the sudden circumstances of the old king's death, there's not going to be a sudden spiral back into chaos. On Tuesday the 29th of April, Anthony Woodville and Edward V arrive in Northamptonshire, not far from the old Woodville family pile at Grafton Regis.

[00:13:36]They find an inn to lodge in for the night. Then they hear that just a few miles away. Richard, Duke of Gloucester, is staying at Northampton.

[00:13:48]Although they'll all be meeting at the fixed spot tomorrow, Anthony decides it would be friendly to have a sort of preme with Richard. Break bread, make sure they're all on the same page about all the big stuff.

[00:14:03]So he tells Edward V, "Kick back at the inn while he goes over to Northampton for a couple of pints and a bite to eat with the other side of the family."

[00:14:14]He takes Edward's half-brother, Richard Gray, with him, and they show up at Gloucester's lodging house in time for a good supper.

[00:14:26]It's a merry evening. One chronicler describes how Gloucester greets them with an especially cheerful and joyful countenance and they have a very pleasant conversation.

[00:14:42]Once the plates have been cleared away, Woodville and Gray go back to their own digs. The high fives and bro hugs that send them on their way make it pretty clear things are going to be okay.

[00:14:57]So, at dawn, everyone in the new king's tavern rolls out of bed and they hit the road to go to Stony Stratford and meet up with Richard.

[00:15:08]It's not too far. Riding at gentle pace, they can easily cover the distance in 3 hours.

[00:15:16]Anthony Woodville and Richard Gray go on ahead to make sure that everything is hunky dory for the king to follow.

[00:15:24]But as they're on the road, they see people ahead.

[00:15:30]A lot of people.

[00:15:32]It's an armed band coming towards them.

[00:15:35]And when they get near, they can see that these are troops wearing the Duke of Glouester's badge.

[00:15:43]This wasn't part of the plan. And nor is part of the plan that when the confused Woodville and Gray draw up in front of the troops, Gloucester himself steps forward.

[00:15:56]All the smiles and the bonomy of the night before has gone. He lets Woodville and Gray know that they're under arrest and he orders them to be taken as prisoners to the north of England.

[00:16:12]Then leaving Woodville and Gray very confused and very shocked, Gloucester and the Duke of Buckingham kick their horses and ride off up the road towards the man who's next on their list of targets. Edward V, the 12-year-old King of England.

[00:16:35]It's Sunday, May the 4th, and the streets of London are packed with intrigued rubberneckers out to see the new king ride into his capital. The mayor is in front, backed by the city's elected governors, known as aldermen.

[00:16:52]Behind them are around 500 citizens, all decked out in fancy robes.

[00:16:59]This is a welcome party for Edward V.

[00:17:01]And there's the usual display of loyal genulecting and cheers for the incoming regime.

[00:17:09]So on the surface, it's all smiles, bunting, and champagne corks. But bubbling away beneath it all is a sense of popular bewilderment.

[00:17:19]It escaped no one's attention that today, May the 4th, had been penciled in as the day for Edward V to go to Westminster and have a crown put on his head, which very much isn't what's going on. Sure, Edward V is certainly like here. The young man hasn't been seen a lot since he went to Lello, but he's pretty recognizable. Shoulder length, orbin hair, and a long, serious face.

[00:17:49]Today, Edward is dressed in blue velvet, and he's riding beside his uncle Richard, who's gone for the goth look, head to toe in black. So, yes, Edward is in London, but in London is not the same as being crowned and getting down to business. And it's hard not to feel just a teensy bit jittery about these new developments and what they mean for the harmonious development of English politics.

[00:18:21]Word has now got around that the king's other uncle, Anthony Woodville, has been banged up in a huge castle up north at Sheriff Hutton in Yorkshire, which is no laughing matter. One person who's definitely not seeing the funny side of all this is the new king's mom, Elizabeth Woodville. She's been around the Plantaginet block enough [music] to know the sound of hitting a fan when she hears it. She's already reeling from the death of her husband. Now, her brother is banged up in Yorkshire along with one of her grown-up sons, and her son, the king, appears to have been the victim of a high-profile kidnapping.

[00:19:06]When Edward makes his entry into London, Elizabeth is having none of the phony cheers for his arrival under Richard's command.

[00:19:16]She knows this is the start of a major crisis.

[00:19:21]In fact, by the time Edward does arrive in London, Elizabeth has already fled the place she took cover last time things were looking this grizzly. That's the sanctuary at Westminster Abbey.

[00:19:36]Remember her last visit? That's right.

[00:19:38]Last time she was here, her late husband Edward IV had been run out of the kingdom by Warrick the Kingmaker. and Elizabeth was in fear of her liberty and perhaps even her life. Are things that bad this time? Well, the omens don't look great. And one thing Elizabeth has learned during her time in the spotlight is that it's better to be safe than sorry.

[00:20:07]Which also goes for the rest of her family. If your name is Woodville, the assumption has to be that you've got a target on your back.

[00:20:16]So when Elizabeth bangs on the big sanctuary door at Westminster, she brings in tow King Edward V's little brother, 9-year-old Prince Richard of Shrewsbury.

[00:20:29]Various other Woodvilles also pile into the sanctuary, fearing the worst.

[00:20:35]Others bounce from England altogether.

[00:20:39]The Queen's youngest brother, Sir John Woodville, is at sea with a fleet of ships policing the channel for pirates when he hears about the weird goings on in London. He sails straight for Britany and hunkers down there.

[00:20:58]So, what apart from the obvious, is giving the whole Woodville clan such bad vibes?

[00:21:05]Well, on May the 8th, it really starts to become clear that this is a coup.

[00:21:12]Glouester tells everyone not to worry.

[00:21:15]There have been certain irregularities, the schedule is slipped, etc. But he promises there will definitely absolutely 100% still be a coronation and that it's going to happen in about 6 weeks on June the 22nd.

[00:21:32]In the meantime, however, Richard says he's going to take temporary command of the kingdom in the name of the young king. He'll be acting as protector, aided by the royal council. And that tells you everything you need [music] to know.

[00:21:51]Of course, you can make the case for Richard taking that job. He is, after all, the senior male relative on the king's father's side, one of the most powerful landowners in the country, an experienced warrior, and a guy who's built his reputation up until this point on being fiercely loyal to the crown.

[00:22:13]If anyone is going to be leading the council, well, he's got to be in the conversation.

[00:22:19]But as one chronicler notes, this really isn't a first among equals sort of job.

[00:22:26]In fact, it sounds a lot like the council isn't going to be doing much other than rubber stamping Uncle Richard's unilateral decisions.

[00:22:35]The new protector will have power to order and forbid in every matter, just like another king.

[00:22:45]And just in case there was any doubt left at all about his intentions, on May the 9th, the new protector Richard sends King Edward V to the Tower of London. So there you have it. The Tower of London is very much one of the most secure fortresses in Western Europe. Those towers, high walls, the moat, and the permanent guard of heavily armed troops do make it pretty hard to bust into or indeed out of. So once he's in there, the young uncrowned king will be quite beyond the reach of anyone nasty whom Richard thinks shouldn't be getting any quality time with him. But he'll also be entirely at Richard's mercy. And let's just take a moment to remind ourselves what happened to the last king who was sent to the Tower of London, Henry V 6th. Anyone remember what happened to him? If you think this is all getting very dark very quickly, I'd say you're absolutely right. Because where does Richard go while the king is banged up in the tower? Well, he moves into one of the most bling bling mansions in the whole of London, Crosby Place on Bishop's Gate. It's a stunning modern house in Timber and Stone that towers above every other residential property in London. And from Crosby Place, Richard gets to work on a PR campaign justifying his own lightning power grab.

[00:24:23]because obviously one of the big questions on everyone's mind is uh like what the hell is going on here. The good news is Richard is going to get to that.

[00:24:36]The bad news is that when he does, it's going to be abundantly clear that he's hellbent on dragging England back into the bad old days, one act of violent treachery at a time.

[00:24:55]The wagon train moves slowly through the streets of London. Each cart groaning under the weight of its load.

[00:25:03]They're carrying weapons. Stacks and stacks of weapons. [snorts] People watch the carts trundle past in trepidation.

[00:25:13]Not because they fear the weapons are going to be used, but because they're being sold a blunt message by the new protector of England, Richard Duke of Gloucester.

[00:25:24]All these weapons, it's been announced, were found being stockpiled by the Woodville family.

[00:25:32]Richard claims they were intended for use against him and by implication against the crown that he's appointed himself to protect.

[00:25:41]The other message that's been sent out from Richard's base in Crosby Place is that the Woodvilles have been grubbying their collective fingers, stealing from the royal treasury.

[00:25:53]All this adds up to a blackening of the Woodville's family name. And needless to say, the justification for Richard's decision to transfer all power and influence over the young king Edward V from them to him.

[00:26:11]Whether it's possible to convince the public that Richard has taken power in order to avert a much worse conspiracy remains to be seen. But what Richard has in his favor, for now at least, is a measure of backing from some of the realm's most powerful nonwoodville nobles.

[00:26:32]Two, in particular, are important.

[00:26:36]When Richard snatched Edward V on the road, he was in cahoots with one of the other premier noblemen in England, Henry, Duke of Buckingham.

[00:26:47]Buckingham is a guy with a famous name and royal blood in his veins, being descended on both his parents' sides from Edward III.

[00:26:58]So, his opinion carries some decent weight.

[00:27:03]Also backing Richard's cause is the old King Edward IV's URSTW best pal, Lord Hastings.

[00:27:11]Hastings is a Yorkist dieard [music] who is kned on the battlefield at Toutton and has spent the 20 odd years since then being nothing but a true and trusted consiliary of the royal family.

[00:27:26]He's a well-liked guy and his support is critical to Richard.

[00:27:31]The reason he's backed Richard is probably because he was always in favor of setting up a protectorate to govern the country until the king was formerly an adult rather than crowning him immediately.

[00:27:46]In other words, Hastings thinks Richard is politically in the right and that implies a degree of suspicion of the Woodvilles.

[00:27:55]One of the main political arguments for delaying the king's coronation would be to protect him being unduly influenced by a faction around him who might use their relation to the king to persuade him to enrich them even further than they've already been enriched.

[00:28:16]Hastings is reasoning that the Woodvilles got more than their fair share of land and titles under Edward IVth and that it's time to rein that in for a bit. So, Richard grabbing the protector ship is the lesser of two evils.

[00:28:35]In any case, Hastings actively throws his support behind the new setup.

[00:28:41]He goes around telling people that nothing whatever had been done except the transferring of the government of the kingdom from two of the queen's blood to two more powerful of the kings that's Richard and Buckingham causing as much blood to be shed as would be produced by a cut finger and maybe that's true but it's only true for the time being and it's hard to see how the situation that Richard has created by elbowing the Woodvilles aside and nabbing the protector ship can really be considered to be stable.

[00:29:20]Because for all Hastings sunny optimism, everything that Richard is doing is happening against a ticking clock.

[00:29:33]Since he became protector on May the 8th, the next big date has been flashing in the diary.

[00:29:41]On June the 22nd, King Edward V is going to be crowned. That'll mean bringing him out of the Tower of London and then transferring all the power that Richard has so recently appropriated back into the 12-year-old's hands. And when that happens, how do things look for Richard?

[00:30:04]Young King Edward actually happens to rather like his uncle Anthony and his mom and all his mom's family who are now either in jail or hiding out in sanctuary.

[00:30:18]It's not awfully hard to imagine him being a little bit fed up with Richard as well as Buckingham and Hastings for treating his Woodville relatives like criminals.

[00:30:30]And since Edward will then be a crowned king, he'll have every [music] right and every means to take revenge.

[00:30:41]So, as May ticks into June, it becomes increasingly clear that Richard has created a very nasty problem for himself and all his allies.

[00:30:53]How can they get a crown on the king's head without risking having their own heads locked off?

[00:31:00]It's a snorter of a question, and the more Richard thinks about it, the more he realizes that there's probably just one awful answer.

[00:31:12]To find out what that is, join us next time on This is History.

[00:31:25]Well, there he finally is stepping into the season center stage. The most infamous Richard in arguably all of world history. But before we get to his legacy, let's not forget about his brother, Edward. Royal favorites, what do you think Edward IV's legacy was?