Original subtitles

[Men shouting, swords clashing]

NARRATOR: Out of the chaos, darkness, and violence

of the Middle Ages, one family rose

to seize control of England.

[Man grunts]

NARRATOR: Generation after generation,

they ruled the country for more than 300 years...

ruthlessly crushing all competition,

to become the greatest English dynasty of all time.

The Plantagenets.

[Men shouting]

What I love about the Plantagenet story

is that it's more shocking, more brutal,

and more astonishing than anything you'll find in fiction.

I want to show you the Plantagenets as I see them,

real, living, breathing people

driven by ambition, jealousy, hatred, and revenge.

These kings murdered, betrayed, and tyrannized their way

to spectacular success.

For better and for worse,

the Plantagenets forged England as a nation.

This time,

a friendship...

that turns to hatred.

Plunging England into civil war

and changing the monarchy forever.

[Crows cawing]

[Reciting in Latin]

JONES: Henry III is the fourth Plantagenet king.

His grandfather, Henry II,

ruled over more of France than the French king.

But thanks to the incompetence of Henry III's dad, King John,

most of those lands are gone.

Henry dreams of getting them back.

He's going to be a great Plantagenet king.

To be a king in the the Middle Ages,

you've got to be tough and politically savvy.

You need to fight wars and win,

and the winning part is important.

You need to dispense justice fairly and evenly.

And above everything else, you need a boundless energy --

the appetite to get up in the morning and rule.

Unfortunately for England,

Henry III lacks pretty much every one of those qualities.

Henry's already had two goes

at retaking his lost French lands.

But Henry messed it up big time.

Both times it ended in expensive defeat.

The barons lost all confidence in the king.

Now, they've turned off the money supply.

Which, of course, they can.

Henry's completely hamstrung by Magna Carta.

Today we think of it as a charter of human rights

and the foundation of liberty,

but to Henry it's just a list of things he can't do,

and top of that list is that he can't raise any new taxes

without the barons' say-so.

Winning back his Plantagenet empire

is going to cost Henry a bomb,

but Magna Carta means the barons don't have to cough up.

They think Henry can talk the talk

but he can't walk the walk.

And that's the truth about Henry --

he's a total dreamer.

But give him his due...

he dreams big.

This is Westminster Abbey...

Henry built it to restore some lost Plantagenet pride.

You can imagine Henry

wandering through this incredible building,

thinking, "sends off all the right signals for a great king."

But as far as the barons are concerned,

that's exactly what he's not.

And Henry just isn't strong enough

to take them on alone.

But in Autumn 1230,

a man turns up a court

who changes the course of Henry's reign.

A minor French knight with big ambitions.

Simon de Montfort.

De Montfort doesn't do anything by heart.

He wears a hair shirt under his clothes 24-7.

It rakes his skin -- a perpetual reminder

to stay focuses on God.

-Excusare me? -Simon de Montfort.

JONES: Basically, he's a fanatic.

And he backs his belief with action.

He spent his youth chasing heretics

around the south of France with a sword.

Henry sees a man with a muscular,

no-nonsense single-mindedness that he needs

to achieve his big dreams.

Henry was so young when he came to the throne

that he's grown up with other people making

all the important decisions for him.

So, when he meets Simon --

charismatic, decisive --

he's looking at him and thinking,

"I could use a man like that."

[de Montfort speaking French]

Henry is drawn to de Montfort like a moth to a flame.

But it's not just one-sided,

because Simon may be pious but he's also very ambitious.

And he's come to England looking for

the lucrative title of Earl of Leicester,

which he thinks belongs to his family.

So, he's looking at Henry

and thinking exactly the same thing --

"I could use a man like that."

Unsurprisingly, Henry and Simon quickly become best mates.

Simon's soon on the king's counsel

basically his right-hand man.

He's even steward at the king's wedding.

Simon de Montfort is on the way up.

Stored at the National Archives

is an amazing document that has survived for eight centuries.

It reveals just how ambitious Simon is.

This is the king's official copy of a charter made by

Simon de Montfort in 1236.

And its contents aren't really that important --

what is important is the way Simon's referred to himself.

It says here,

"Simon de Montfort, comptes that's earl,

Earl of Leicester."

And that's interesting,

because Simon had lots of the lands

that went with the title of earl,

but didn't have the title itself.

And that tells us quite a lot about Simon.

Firstly, it tells us he's ambitious.

Secondly, it tells us he rates his relationship with the king

high enough to go about using a title

he doesn't really have the right to.

But thirdly, it tells us he's right --

because this is the king's official copy,

Henry's given it his sign-off.

So, Simon might be cocky, but it's with very good reason.

Henry can't get enough of Simon.

He propels his new best friend into the medieval stratosphere.

Simon marries Henry's sister,

Eleanor, the greatest catch in the kingdom.

Henry should have married her off

to one of the great European rulers

to secure a political alliance,

but he's convinced Simon can help him become

the great king of his dreams.

So, he gives Eleanor to his best mate, instead.

You can imagine Simon is feeling pretty pleased with himself.

He's married to the king's sister,

he's an insider at court,

he's the king's favorite.

Considering where he came from,

he hasn't done too badly.

But Simon's deal is not all it seems.

Eleanor should have come with a massive dowry.

Instead of giving it to his friend,

Henry hangs onto the money and land for himself.

This decision sows the seeds

of catastrophe.

JONES: In 1239, Henry makes de Montfort Earl of Leicester.

Simon's now the king's brother-in-law,

his chief advisor, and an English baron.

But at precisely this moment of triumph,

Simon goes too far.

He takes out a big, fat loan

using Henry as guarantor.

As far as he's concerned,

Henry owes him for his wife's dowry

so he doesn't ask Henry first.

Big mistake.

[Speaking French]

When Simon tries to play it down,

Henry threatens to Simon and his own sister

into the Tower of London.

And he's not kidding.

For Henry, this is an outrageous liberty.

Giving things to Simon, well, that's one thing,

but he can't just stand around while Simon takes what he wants.

Henry doesn't like it, but Simon has to go.

Simon and Eleanor

are forced to flee to France.

It seems like the end of a beautiful friendship.

But Henry's going to need Simon again sooner than he thinks.

Just three years later,

the king gets himself into big trouble.

Henry's launched an attack here at Poitou in western France.

It was once his ancestors' territory.

Henry thought he could take it back.

But he couldn't.

Just like last time,

the barons used Magna Carta to deny him the taxes he needed.

But just like last time, Henry went ahead anyway.

Attacking Poitou was spectacularly stupid,

because the Count of Poitou's brother is the French king.

Henry's forces quickly find themselves chased down

by the whole French army.

In desperation, Henry has called on

the one man he believes can help him --

his estranged and banished best friend, Simon de Montfort.

Simon was just back

from a year-long crusade in the holy land,

so his military expertise was greater than ever.

And Henry had eaten humble pie to get him back.

Now, this is quite a climb down --

Henry was the one who banished Simon in the first place,

and now he's stuffed without him.

But even Simon can't salvage this disaster.

Henry flees the field.

He leave Simon fighting

a desperate rear guard action with the king's men.

They retreat toward the town of Saintes.

Henry is cowering inside the town,

and it's not just the French army

that comes storming after him.

[Man shouting in French]

Simon is not used to losing.

Now, it's histurn to explode at the king.

[Speaking French]

The king himself reported what Simon says.

Now, Charles the simple was a notoriously useless French king

whose subjects put him in jail

'cause he was such a bad general.

Thinking about locking up your king is one thing,

but actually saying it to his face

is flirting with treason.

But Henry can't call Simon on it.

This is the king's third failure in France.

There's now zero chance the English barons

will support his ambitions.

He desperately needs an ally in the aristocracy,

and Simon is still the Earl of Leicester.

So, when they return to England,

Henry eats more humble pie.

He gives Simon

this whacking great castle at Kenilworth.

For five years their friendship holds up.

So, when a foreign crisis pops up in 1247,

the king turns to his best friends again.

All Henry has left of the Plantagenet empire in France

is Gascony.

But it's in chaos,

with feuding nobles,

a French king itching to invade,

and its southern borders under attack.

As ever, the barons won't let Henry raise taxes

to sort it out.

They think he'll just cock it up again.

So, Henry asks Simon to fix it for him...

and he'll pay him later.

Henry admires the fact that

Simon will take the tough decisions he can't.

That's why he sends him --

Simon's a zero-tolerance sort of guy.

And true to form, he launches a vicious crackdown

on the Gascon rebels,

even cutting their vines,

which, in wine country, is a terrible punishment.

[Speaking French]

But while Simon is in Gascony,

Henry finds himself drawn in

by another powerful figure --

William de Valence,

the king's half-brother,

leader of a French family called the Lusignans.

Henry starts giving them land and titles;

in exchange, they supplant the English lords

and begin to take control of the government for him.

Finally, the king has some allies at home.

Seems great, doesn't it?

But it's not.

The Lusignans were actually

booted out of France because they're dangerous, ruthless,

and pretty nasty.

Henry's decision to give them so much power

will tear the country apart.

But right now,

all that he can see is that

they make him feel like a powerful king.

Now, he doesn't need Simon de Montfort

like he used to.

When the Gascons complain about Simon's brutality,

Henry hangs his old mate out to dry.

Even though de Montfort

has run up huge debts doing the king's dirty work,

Henry puts him on trial

for his treatment of the Gascons.

The trial takes place here,

right in the shadow of Henry's greatest building project,

Westminster Abbey.

And it's held in what used to be the monks' dining room --

you can still see part of the original wall.

Now, if you'd been sitting on the other side of that in 1252,

you'd have witnessed the end of the friendship

of Simon de Montfort and Henry III.

The case is held

before the king and Simon's fellow barons.

Simon is reeling that his friend has put him on trial.

An all-out row kicks off between them.

Sounds like Simon's having a dig

at Henry's piety, but I think there's more to it than that.

He's certainly picked an analogy

designed to hurt the king's feelings,

but what he's really saying is,

What's the point in confessing,

admitting your mistakes,

if you're going to do the same stupid things again afterwards?

It's like, "You're useless, you know you're useless,

but you don't want to do anything about it."

And that sounds like

Simon's really overstepping the mark again.

But he's about to give Henry a brutal lesson in kingship.

[Speaking French]

Simon has taken the political temperature in the room.

The king hasn't.

[Henry speaking French]

When Henry puts the charges to a vote...

Simon walks.

The other barons are as fed up with the king and his Lusignans

as Simon is,

Henry and Simon

now hate each other with a passion.

And England will pay a terrible price.

[Screaming]

Henry sulks.

And he lets the Lusignans off the leash.

[Woman screaming]

They start grabbing land and property

in total violation of Magna Carta.

Their supporters even ransack

the Archbishop of Canterbury's London palace.

Henry simply stands by and lets them get away with it.

It just confirms the barons' view

that he's a spineless excuse for a king.

And then in 1256, Henry does something

quite extraordinary.

It's spelt out

in an astonishing 700 year old book

here in the British Library.

This is the chronicle of Matthew Paris,

who is writing at the time of Henry III

and had better access than anyone else

to Henry and his court.

And he writes

that the king gave an order under the regio figillo,

the royal seal,

that no brief --

that's any official government document --

could be used to cause injury --

alicui fratri sui --

to any of his brothers...

which includes the Lusignans.

So, Henry's saying

the Lusignans can't be prosecuted --

effectively they're above the law.

And this is political dynamite.

The barons are furious.

In retaliation, they squeeze Henry's finances further.

Henry's not in a very good place --

he's lost the war with France,

he's made a mess of Gascony,

he's upset most of his barons, and he's broke.

It's time to sort things out.

So, what does he do?

Does he kick out the Lusignans?

Does he reassure his barons?

Does he sort out Gascony?

No, he decides to do something bold,

something radical,

something no one will expect.

He decides to invade Sicily.

It was actually the pope's idea.

He asked Henry to do it.

But Henry jumps at the opportunity

to take control of a wealthy country.

This could help free him from

the control of the English barons.

But Sicily is a thousand miles away.

It would cost an absolute fortune to take.

Henry can't even hang on to his lands in France,

so, invading Sicily is a bonkers idea --

and everyone can see it...

except the king.

Henry demands taxes from the English barons

to fund the invasion.

He thinks he can get away with it

because de Valence's violent Lusignans support him.

A group of barons come to London to put Henry back in his box,

and it's his old friend Simon de Montfort

leading the charge.

[Simon speaking French]

JONES: Simon de Montfort comes to London

to bring King Henry III to heel.

The king stitched him up over Gascony --

Simon will never forgive him.

This is Westminster Hall.

More than 900 years old,

it's all that's left of the medieval palace.

And it's here that Simon and the barons march up

to meet Henry III.

He's sitting up there on his throne,

and he thinks they've come to give him money

for his Sicilian invasion.

But as soon as they arrive he realizes something's very wrong.

Simon and the others might not have swords in their hands,

but they're still done up in their battle armor.

And Henry knows the tables are turned.

Simon and his allies aren't here to take Henry captive --

what they're demanding

is almost worse.

First, they want

the Lusignans stripped of all their English property

and kicked out of the country.

Second, they want a permanent council of barons

to manage the affairs of the king.

However they want to phrase it,

the reality is,

they're taking over.

This is a nightmare for Henry.

Simon and his mates are saying,

not only are we not going to help you with Sicily,

but you're such a disaster

we're going to take away pretty much all your power.

They come armed because they're telling Henry,

"we're stronger than you" -- and they are.

Henry's forced to agree to all their demands

just to get out of the room.

But as soon as he does,

he backtracks on everything he's promised.

Eight weeks later, at a parliament in Oxford,

Henry faces off against

Simon and the barons,

and he takes his half-brother William

and his Lusignan thugs with him.

The town is full of knights from both sides armed to the teeth.

The atmosphere is electric, you can feel the tension.

The country is teetering on the verge of civil war.

The hated Lusignans have no intention

of giving up their castles and land.

They think they can take on Simon de Montfort.

The explosive meeting becomes known as

the mad parliament.

Simon directly

threatens the king's half-brother.

Make no mistake,

you'll either give up your castles

or you will lose your head.

Is he bluffing, or is Simon serious?

Well, frankly, I wouldn't put it past him.

This isn't some soft, wealthy English baron --

this is a hard man, a crusader,

a guy who is used to spilling blood.

The Lusignans are no match for de Montfort,

and they know it.

They flee for their lives.

Henry's resistance collapses.

He has to accept all the barons' demands.

The new rules

that he's forced to sign up to are legally recorded

in a document called the Provisions of Oxford.

This is one of the most important documents

in British history.

Everyone thinks of Magna Carta as the great bill

that limited kings' power,

but the Provisions of Oxford are actually far more extreme.

Henry spent his whole life railing against

the restrictions of Magna Carta;

the Provisions of Oxford

really give him something to complain about.

Now, we have them here, copied in French,

into a chronicle from the time.

And you can see, a council of quinze --

that's 15 -- barons will meet

to manage the affairs of the kingdom.

A parliament will meet tres, three times a year,

whether or not the king summoned it.

Simon and the barons, essentially a parliament,

can now make decisions on

pretty much anything that happens in the kingdom --

whether or not Henry likes it.

He's become a rubber stamp,

and if he breaks the Provisions, the penalty is war.

It's a seismic shift in political power

away from the king,

and it's the basis of

our modern parliamentary system.

This must be devastating for Henry.

He's already lost most of his ancestral lands in France,

and now in England,

where his authority is supposed to be supreme,

he's virtually powerless as well.

His whole vision of what it is to be a king is being shattered.

[Reciting in Latin]

The barons demand that everyone swears an oath before God

to abide by the Provisions.

Problem is, Henry and Simon's attitudes to the oath

are poles apart.

Everyone knows Plantagenet kings and their barons

have a long history of breaking their oaths.

But for Simon, once he's made a sacred oath with God,

he's really boxed himself into a corner.

Remember, this guy is a religious zealot.

The oath is sworn at

Blackfriar's Church in Oxford

by Henry, the barons,

and by Simon.

So, after he makes the oath,

he stays up half the night in prayer,

he abstains from sex,

and he's still wearing his hair shirt under his clothes.

This is his treaty with God,

and he's never going to break it.

But he knows Henry will.

Within four years,

de Montfort's worst fears come true.

Because Henry has sworn the oath knowing he'll break it,

he brings back the Lusignans, and just like before,

they do pretty much whatever they want.

Henry's gambling the barons will turn a blind eye

because the alternative is civil war.

And no one wants that... do they?

It's a massive miscalculation by the king.

One man iscommitted.

Almost alone amongst those who've sworn it,

Simon will keep the oath, whatever the cost.

Simon raises an army from those barons

who still believe in the Provisions of Oxford.

In 1264, England is plunged into a civil war.

This is the town of Lewes, close to the south coast.

And it's here that Simon de Montfort and Henry III

face off against each other in battle for the first time.

Simon may have the law on his side,

but however you dress it up

he's still taking on God's anointed king.

He is now a traitor.

And when it comes to traitors,

Henry can still call on plenty of support.

By the time they confront each other,

Simon's on the back foot.

Simon's experienced enough to know that,

as he approaches the town of Lewes

here on the Sussex Downs,

things don't look very good for him.

He's injured with a broken leg,

his army is massively outnumbered, two to one,

and Henry is holed-up down there behind strong town walls.

Simon knows the king will be feeling pretty confident,

but then again, that's what he's banking on.

He's planning to force the king into a winner-takes-all battle

on his terms

by drawing the king out into the open.

It's a massive gamble, but that's Simon all over.

Under cover of darkness,

Simon's army takes this ridge overlooking the town.

Now, he has the high ground.

[Reciting in Latin]

Early next morning,

Simon's army prostrate themselves on the ground

to be blessed by the bishops.

[Reciting in Latin]

Simon and his men are on a crusade

for liberty.

He and his men truly believe that God is on their side.

They're radicalized,

driven by the dream of a different kind of England

in which the king no longer calls the shots.

Henry is fighting for the absolute supremacy of the king.

Simon de Montfort is fighting to crush it.

De Montfort may have God on his side,

but the king's got far more men.

He also has a secret weapon...

Edward, his eldest son and heir --

he's utterly fearless and champing at the bit

to hack up de Montfort and his mates.

Henry finally sees

a chance to win his great Plantagenet victory --

how can he lose?

Just as Simon hoped,

the king comes out fighting.

The battle is a complete disaster for the king.

Henry's still a terrible general.

His son, Edward, goes charging off over the hill

after a rabble of civilians.

His brother, Richard, gets himself besieged in a windmill.

And Henry ends up forced back here

to the priory of St. Pancras

just outside the town walls.

Simon dares, and he wins.

The king and his son Edward are captured.

The king's sword is surrendered to Simon.

Not exactly the Plantagenet glory Henry was aiming for.

[Cheering]

Simon de Montfort, once a minor French nobleman,

now holds ultimate power

in England.

This is a revolution.

Simon's taken an army to the field

to seize the power of an anointed king.

It's treason...

and it's also an unforgivable betrayal of friendship.

The king's dreams of glory

have been crushed.

But there is still one Plantagenet

who could save the dynasty --

and it's not Henry.

In the aftermath of Lewes, Henry's in a desperate state.

He's been humiliated in battle -- again,

his nemesis, Simon de Montfort,

is running the country,

and to top it all off, Henry is Simon's prisoner.

The king's dreams of Plantagenet glory

have been comprehensively trashed.

For more than a year,

Simon de Montfort dominates the government of England

from his castle at Kenilworth.

Henry's still king in theory;

in reality, he's just

Simon's puppet.

To maintain his hold on the country,

Simon keeps the king with him.

Everything in the government is decided

under the direction of de Montfort.

For the first time in the history of England,

a political movement has succeeded

in crushing a tyrannical king.

Sounds very noble, doesn't it?

But the reality is that

this is at least as much about greed as liberty.

Simon may have set himself up

as a man who's selflessly doing what's right for England,

but actually there's a lot more going on.

Even though he has this vast castle at Kenilworth,

Simon's been brooding that the king short-changed him

on money and land.

But now he has Henry just rubber-stamping his decisions,

it's an opportunity too good to miss.

Simon decides to take what he believes he's owed.

De Montfort takes money and land for himself and his family.

And by keeping the king close to him,

Simon thinks he's got everything under control.

It's a fatal error of judgment.

It's not Henry who threatens Simon's hold on England --

the man he should be watching

is the 25 year old heir to the throne, Edward.

But Simon's taken his eye off the ball

and left the prince in Hereford under house-arrest.

With things going so well,

Simon's relaxed the guard on Prince Edward --

he even allows him out riding.

So, Edward plays a game with his captors,

swapping horses

to find the fastest.

They think it's all great fun

until he finds the fastest horse.

Prince Edward finds plenty of nobles increasingly nervous

that Simon will snatch the crown.

And that scares the barons more than

Henry's abysmal reputation.

Edward promises to let them keep the reforms,

and that persuades many of them

to defect back to the Plantagenet cause.

The Plantagenet army is back on the march.

The end game in a 25-year grudge match

between the former best friends Henry III and Simon de Montfort

takes place here in Worcestershire.

Simon's got the king with him

for insurance --

he's trying to get back to Kenilworth

to gather reinforcements.

But Edwards is moving too fast.

At the beginning of August,

he catches up with Simon here at Evesham.

From the top of the old Abbey tower,

Simon sees the Plantagenet army

approaching in the distance.

He's pinned-down and outnumbered.

De Montfort realizes

that if Edward's men free Henry, the game is up.

So, Simon disguises the king in one of his own uniforms.

If he goes down, he's taking Henry with him.

He doesn't wait for the Plantagenets to come for him --

Simon attacks first.

This is Simon the crusader.

Last time the odds were as stacked against him,

he dared and won.

So, this time, he dares again.

He can't help it, it's what he's good at.

Simon's army charges out in a single wedge,

hoping to punch through enemy ranks.

They race up through the center of Evesham

to the fields overlooking the town

where the Plantagenet soldiers are lined-up.

Simon gambles that because he's got the king with him,

the Plantagenet army will be too cautious to attack.

But Simon's as wrong as you get.

This time, the army's rallied behind the king's son, Edward,

and they're out for bloody revenge.

The two armies meet here

in the fields outside Evesham.

As the Plantagenet army piles in,

the battle descends into an orgy of violence.

The royalists cut down 4,000 of the rebels.

The battlefields and streets of Evesham

are piled high with their corpses.

More than 30 of Simon's knights are slaughtered.

But there is only one way to end the rebellion for good.

Edward sends a 12-knight hit squad onto the battlefield

with one mission --

find and kill Simon de Montfort.

King Henry, still dressed as one of de Montfort's men,

is almost taken out by his own hit squad.

Simon, already badly wounded by a lance,

is not so lucky.

Simon's killed somewhere on these fields outside Evesham.

And some of the chroniclists go so far as to call it murder.

This might be a battlefield,

but 12 knights ganging up against one

is hardly playing by the rules.

But even then, just killing Simon

isn't enough for Henry's men.

This is an upstart,

an outsider,

someone who's taken on a king

and undermined what being a king means.

Simon de Montfort, traitor to the crown,

once the most powerful man in England, dies.

The message to everyone must be crystal clear --

no one defies the king and lives.

The body of the king's once-best friend is butchered.

His testicles are cut off

and then rammed into his mouth

before his head is cut from his body

and paraded on a spear.

Henry finally has his moment of Plantagenet glory,

but in truth, it's his son, Edward, who delivers it.

Henry is just a bystander.

But the price of victory over Simon

is accepting the reforms that Simon was fighting for --

because that's the deal Edward sealed

to raise an army.

Henry's won the battle but he's lost the war.

The king's dream of absolute power

has died with Simon.

Dismal as Henry's reign was,

he still left behind him

two of the greatest legacies of the whole Plantagenet dynasty,

and they're both right here.

Westminster Abbey -- Henry's extraordinary palace to God --

and over there, Parliament,

seat of the democracy that still governs our country today.

It was born not out of wisdom and smart politics,

but out of the passion and fury of a brutal, bloody feud

between two best friends.

Next time...

Edward II --

his short-sighted obsessions

plunged England into a nightmare of political violence,

bloodlust, and most of all, revenge.