Latest / Beheaded / Special Edition Episode: Interview with Adam Pennington

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Special Edition Episode: Interview with Adam Pennington · Beheaded

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_03: Hello and welcome to Beheaded.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to a special edition episode featuring author and historian Adam Pennington.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_03: Hi Megan Moore.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm Elizabeth Black.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm Adam Pennington.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome, Adam.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_03: We are so excited to have you on the show today.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_03: We have a book right in front of us called Henry VIII and the Plantagenet Poles.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_03: Did I get that title correct?
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_03: The Rise and Fall of a Dynasty.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 0:29
  unknown: Perfect.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_03: Megan and I both read this book recently, and it was it was such a fun topic for us to really dive into.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_03: We've done an episode before on Margaret Pohl and her backstory, but this really dives into all of that.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_03: So today Adam and us are going to talk about the Plantagenets, the Poles, how they interacted in King Henry VIII's court.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_03: But before we get started on all of that, Adam, we just wanted to know a little bit about you from your mouth.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_03: A bit about your background and what first got you interested in Tudor history.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you very much for the invitation onto the podcast.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's really lovely to be here.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: As far as so I if anyone has heard of me, they may have, they've probably heard of me because I run an Instagram account called The Tudor Chest.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that by extension, I also have my own podcast, the Tudor Chest Podcast, which, although it says Tudor in the name, increasingly I've I've expanded the remit to include the Plantagenets and increasingly potentially the Normans as well and the Anglo-Saxons.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: But so I'm a full and I'm a full-time historian, author, and really, I suppose my love of all things Tudor, Plantagenet, etc., did start young.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: I was very lucky in where I grew up, which you can probably tell already, but I'm English.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I grew up in the southeast of England, right on the border between London and Surrey, which meant Tudor history was always quite present.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, we learn about the Tudors in school.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a misconception I think that a lot of people may have about the English, is that we learn all of the history, but we really don't.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's sort of a bit of 1066, the Tudors, and then World War I and World War II.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: The other bits kind of don't really get much of a look in.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: But we did learn about the Tudors, and because of where I grew up, I grew up in a house that basically overlooked Nonsuch Park, which is the home of Henry VIII's lost palace of Nonsuch.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: That also meant that Hampton Court was just a 15-minute drive.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And everything around me, like in the so where I live now in South London, about a mile away, there's this lovely village, and you wouldn't think London has villages, but it does.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Anne was um passing through one day on horseback, and her horse kicked up some stones, and from there a spring of water came through.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's where the ponds came from, and there's now this well there, Anne Boleyn's well.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just always it's all around me.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then when I started learning about the Tudors in school, my mum was my mum lost history as well, and she really encouraged my sister and I to learn history.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then by pure chance, when I was learning about the Tudors for the first time around the age of 10, Anne of a Thousand Days just happened to be on TV.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've seen it, but it's a film from the 1970s with Richard Burton as Henry VIII, Jean-Vievre Boujol as Anne Boleyn, and it's just amazing.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's from there that my passion I I that's where I fell in love with Anne Boleyn as a as a character, and why for me Jean-Vievre Boujol will always be the Anne Boleyn to beat.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a real mixture of sort of growing up where I did, and just and that rubbing off on me, I guess.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_04: That's such a cool story.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_04: I'm a little bit jealous, I have to say, coming from two women here in Arizona, but we love tutor history and history in general and British history.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_04: That's a dream place to grow up.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_04: Very, very cool.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_04: Is non-such place like it.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_04: None such place like it.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: None such place like it, yeah.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_04: Um, what is it about the poll specifically that inspired you to write a book about them?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: It was there was twofold, really.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: The the something that people may people may be aware of, but maybe not so much, is just how tenuous the Tudors' claim to the throne was.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: And the family that had the greatest claim in place of the Tudors were the Poles.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: But I mean, we we say the Poles or Poole as it was probably pronounced.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, in reality, you know, Pole is the married name.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: The the significance of Margaret Pole, her significance is that her birth name was Plantagenet.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: She was Margaret Plantagenet.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And what drew me to this story, as I say, it was twofold, it was realizing that the Tudors had this really tenuous claim to the throne, and the fact that there were lots of people at his court who had a greater claim to the throne.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a desire to explore their story, but then the other the other part of it was wanting to expand and explore what is it that leads to Margaret's downfall.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because if people have heard of Margaret Pohl, it's invariably because they have heard that she has a really badly botched execution at the advanced age of 67, which by the standards of the time is roughly like being in your 90s now.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: But people don't necessarily know why she was executed, nor do they understand that actually she was one of eight executions, one of 12 arrests.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: There was this much bigger thing going on called the Exeter conspiracy.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that was also what I wanted to explore.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was Henry VIII is the king who is famous for beheading wives, for turning on his ministers, for turning on his churchmen.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Why aren't we talking about the window he turns on his own family?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's precisely what this was.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_04: It's true.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_04: I think the Exeter conspiracy was something that we've heard of and didn't really know the ins and outs and the details of until we read your book.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_04: So thank you for that and for bringing so much light to the subject.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_04: Um, Margaret Pohl, absolutely someone who we we did a very, very early episode on her.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_04: We were super excited.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_04: Excited sounds a little bit light about it, but we were very eager to dive into her story and tell her story on this podcast on Beheaded.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_04: But to know the full background behind it was eye-opening.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_04: It was a new experience for us.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_03: It was.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_03: And one thing I just want to mention too is we we've touched on the plantagenet family so much during a series of our episodes.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_03: And it's still, we have to always reference the family tree because there's so much going on there.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um so uh one of my my questions to you is you know, just from a pure bloodline standpoint, how strong was that Plantagenet claim compared to the tours?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_03: You know, if you could describe it, uh it's hard without a visual family tree, but uh if you want to kind of dive into that.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's funny, I gave a talk um last week at Peterborough Cathedral as part of the Catherine of Aragon Festival.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: My talk was about the rise and fall of Margaret Pole.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: And at one point I did just bring up a family tree on the screen and I could audibly see everyone go, oh try and help help make sense of it.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: So who they are first, well, firstly, to answer your question, how strong is their claim?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's far stronger.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Their claim to the throne is far stronger than the Tudors.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: To help make sense of who Margaret Poles specifically is, she was the niece.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: So her father was George, Duke of Clarence, and he was the middle brother between King Edward IV and King Richard III.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: So she is a niece in the male line of two of England's kings.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: To give her a modern-day comparable, you could maybe liken her to Princess Beatrice, dynastically speaking.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: And if we also then look at her mother, her mother is Isabel Neville, who's the elder of the two daughters born to Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, the most powerful man in England, known to history as Warwick the Kingmaker, because he ultimately helped place Edward IV on the throne.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Margaret is absolutely York.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: She's a member of the York family.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: As I'm sure many people know, the Wars of the Roses is ultimately a dynastic battle between two sides of the same family.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: They are all plantagenets, but you've got this, these two cadet branches that split off into Lancaster and York.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: Margaret is in the Yorkist line, and the York line actually has two direct links back to Edward III.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And those two lines, Margaret is directly descended in both of those lines, and they're completely legitimate.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Henry VIII and the Tudor's link is firstly, as I mentioned, Margaret is a niece in the male line.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Henry VII, and therefore Henry, well, yeah, Henry VII, his claim is via his mother, so it's in the female line, which however we cut it was viewed as as uh as less significant.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: But it's also ultimately via an illegitimate line, and that's the that's the king, that's the key point to make.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: The Tudors descend from, on the English side, John of Gaunt, who was a son of Edward III, but they descend from John of Gaunt's mistress, Catherine Sword.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: He later marries Catherine Sword, and the line is later legitimized, but at the same point, it is made clear, yes, we're legitimizing the Beaufort line, but they do not have a claim to the throne.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got, yes, they have royal blood, but it is via an illegitimate line.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's stressed at the at the time when they're being legitimized, irrelevant at being legitimized, you don't have, you can't claim the throne.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas Margaret's family is entirely legitimate.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: There is no whiff of any kind of illegitimacy.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's via two lines, back to Edward III, each step of the way, totally legitimate.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: So there is they have a significantly greater claim to the throne than Henry VII and Henry VIII, as does, and this is a a lovely thing that a lot of people don't know, Catherine of Aragon had a better claim.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Catherine of Aragon had a better claim to the throne of England than either of the men she married.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_04: What I don't think I've ever known that.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_04: I didn't know that.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I do have a very serious question here.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_04: So I uh recently got really into my own family lineage, and I saw John of Gaunt way back in my lineage.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_04: So do I have claim to the throne because of that?
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, probably.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, probably like 800th on the on the in line to the yes.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean without wanting to burst your bubble too much, if we go, I mean, there's some mad statistic, like I think something like 82% of all Britons descend from William the Conqueror.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you think about, you know, we've all got four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, sixteen great-great-grandparents.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: By the time you go back far enough, um when we did our family, when we my dad did the family tree when he retired, we discovered.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, have you I don't know how well you can remember.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Did you ever watch The Tudors?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_04: Of course.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_04: We were millennial women, of course we've seen.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have much time for it, but there was one scene where they depicted my ancestor, um, which we discovered.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: So we discovered when doing the family tree that my direct ancestor, my time 16 grandfather, was a man called Sir William Pennington, and he was murdered in a church for speaking out against the Boleyn family.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it is portrayed in the Tudors.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, that's fantastic.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_03: So funny.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_03: I literally just watched these episodes like two nights ago.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_03: They don't, they're classics, they don't go bad.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, well, just one more family note.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um, our listeners know this, but my 15th grandmother was Mary Boleyn.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_03: What's so silly, and I've said this before on the show, is that we didn't know that for so long.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_03: Um, my family, they're not historians.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_03: My father's from Nebraska, okay.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, you know, they we've always been told, oh, we're related to some beheaded queen.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, I knew we had some French in our background, so I always assume somehow it was Marie Antoinette as a young kid.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_03: I never looked far into it.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_03: And it wasn't until probably my mid-20s, now that we have so much access to online family trees and things, I was like, oh my gosh, no, it's it's Mary Boleyn.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, so your your 15 times great aunt is Anne Boleyn.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_03: Auntie Anne.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_03: I know.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_04: Can't you see the resemblance getting um I guess like getting a little bit more into the extra conspiracy, can you generally explain what that was and how it was perhaps a real threat?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think the thing we have to bear in mind with Henry VIII's reign, and I think this is also true of Henry VII, is that both of them I think will have had quite a lot of paranoia.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think both would have suffered from, as we would now call it, imposter syndrome, because of the the way that the Tudors claimed the throne.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we see that in Henry VII's desperation to um gather as much wealth as he possibly could.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Henry VIII's, you know, mad desire for a son is all driven by imposter syndrome, by the belief that's I think the acute understanding that beneath it, or they probably knew deep down that they didn't have a particularly strong claim to the throne.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: As far as what the Exeter conspiracy was, it's again, it's diff to be to explain it fully, I'd need to be with you for about two weeks.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: But in a lecture.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_04: We're okay with that.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_04: We'll do a whole segment on it.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the first thing to also stress, actually, is that Margaret's life under Henry VIII is actually amazing at the start.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: When Henry VIII comes to the throne, he really celebrates his York relations.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think we often overlook Henry VIII is half York, his father is not, he is.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he's actually much more like the Yorks.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: He's tall, he's striking, he was said to be his grandfather, Edward IV, born again.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: And when Henry VIII comes to the throne, he restores Margaret's family's lands and titles, but he does something really special.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: He does something actually pretty unique.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: He gives Margaret the title of Countess of Salisbury in her own right, which is so, so rare.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the only other woman he does that for is Amberlynn several years later.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's vanishingly rare.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it makes Margaret the most powerful and the most the wealthiest woman in England in her own right.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: So he really celebrates his family, but the Exeter conspiracy that comes, you know, two decades later.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, if you accept it, it was a plot to try and depose Henry VIII and replace him with his cousin, Henry Courtenay, Marquis of Exeter.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: And Henry Courtenay was a grandson of Edward IV.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: So Henry VIII's mother is Elizabeth of York, Henry Courtenay's mother is Catherine of York, a younger sister.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: So they are Henry and Henry are first cousins.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: The Exeter conspiracy really there are there are two things going on, and it's one of those things that can only really have happened at the r during the reign of Henry VIII.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I think because you've got you've got these people who have a lot of royal blood, are plantagenes, floating around his court, while the king is ripping up the rule book.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: He's separating England from the papacy in Rome, he's beheading wives, he's turning on his ministers and his churchmen.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: So he's, you know, he makes himself an emperor effectively in England.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then going alongside that, you've got these people who have a greater claim to the throne than him.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I think there will have always been that acute sense that there were this backup backup families in play.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: Where it really, where things begin is with Reginald Pohl.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: So Reginald Pohl is Margaret's third son, and he is, when he was only six, she gave him over to the church as a means of alleviating some of her financial strain.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: He then becomes a great scholar.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: He makes his way over to Italy, where his entire education is paid for and sponsored by Henry VIII.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: That sees him going to the University of Padua and from there on to Rome.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: And he becomes very friendly, a close acquaintance of Pope Clement VII.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: But when Henry VIII was trying to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn, Reginald showed every sign that he would support the king and try and help get the annulment over the line.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: When he eventually sends his conclusion, his findings to Henry VIII, they're not what he wanted to hear.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: They come two months after Anne Boleyn is beheaded.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: So that tells you how just how much he drags his feet.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: What he sends is there's a small book entitled Pro Ecclesiastica Unitatis Defensione, and it's a blistering attack on Henry VIII.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: He likens him to Caligula and Nero.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: He accuses him of being a rutting beast who destroyed the best men in the kingdom.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: And understandably, Henry VIII doesn't particularly like this.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because of that, there are then spies effectively placed to watch the activities of the rest of the Pole family.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it becomes clear quite quickly that they are still in contact with Reginald Pohl, despite saying that they wouldn't do that.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that then explodes into something which becomes known as the Exeter conspiracy.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: And several members of the Pole family, members of the Exeter family, the Courtenays, another of the big white rose families, the Nevilles, all get swept up in it.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'll pause there in case you want to ask a follow-up question before I go into what the evidence looks like.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, uh, gosh, there's so much to cover here.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I love that we're talking about uh both Reginald and Margaret, because I think in our episode about Margaret, like we talked a lot about her, you know, in court, her life, but not a I mean, we touched on Reginald, but not how much of an impact that had on everything.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_03: Um so do you think that Margaret Pohl at any point felt like she was in danger?
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_03: Do you think she just thought, oh, my son, there he goes again?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_03: Or, you know, because tides started to turn, and like you said, she's seen an execution or two take place.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_03: She's seen how irrational King Henry VIII is being.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_03: Do you think she understood, like, oh gosh, you know, this could be bad for me?
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think she absolutely I think she, well, firstly, this is a woman who, yeah, has grown up at the court.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: She's witnessed her, she knew, well, she was too young to remember her father being executed, but she absolutely knew and was very well aware of what happened to her younger brother, Edward, when he was executed, uh, ostensibly for the blood in his veins.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I think she would have always had a an awareness of her dynastic position.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: But equally, as I said a few minutes ago, she was also really celebrated by Henry VIII at the start of his reign.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: And but I think she always knew the threat that she and her family posed, and she almost at times just couldn't catch a break.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, when the family are restored, she goes effectively shopping for husbands and wives for her children, and she contracts marriages for her children that have such promise.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: And she, I mean, in particular, the marriage of her daughter Ursula to the heir of the Duke of Buckingham.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's an incredible marriage that she negotiates, and it all ends up in tatters because the Duke of Buckingham is eventually executed.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: So the she just can't catch a break in many respects.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I think when Reginald sends that letter that de Unitate back over to England, I think she's absolutely very aware of what a dangerous situation this puts her and her family in, which is why her and her eldest, Henry Baron Montague, close ranks and assure the king that they remain loyal to him, that they effectively banish Reginald from their lives.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: But the other problem poll is Geoffrey, the youngest of the siblings, because he is like Catherine Howard's father, actually, he's the fourth of the sons, and he kind of struggles because he's got expectations placed upon him to uphold a nobleman's lifestyle, but doesn't actually have the financial resources to support it.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: All of the wealth really is centred in the heir, which is Henry the eldest.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: So Geoffrey's really burgeoned by a lot of debt.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: He then starts to um, he's he opens up a communication channel to Reginald Pohl.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: And going on alongside this, you've got the pilgrimage of Grace, which is the great rebellion against Henry VIII, which Reginald openly says he will help um support from Italy.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got you've just got a lot going on.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: And Geoffrey, um basically, the the servant that Geoffrey sends to Reginald in Italy is a man called Hugh Holland.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Unaware what Reginald is unaware of is that Thomas Cromwell has placed a spy within Reginald's household, a man called Michael Throckmorton.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the minute Hugh Holland, the sp the servant of Jeffrey's, gets to Reginald, Michael Throckmorton intercepts the letters, which proves the Pole family are still in touch.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: So there immediately that then explodes.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that then leads to Hugh Holland's arrest when he gets back to England.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: And when in and when he's in the tower, he gives enough evidence to seriously implicate Jeffrey Pole.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: That leads to Jeffrey Pole's arrest.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: And Jeffrey speaks.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: He really does, he runs his mouth, as we would say today.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that leads to his eldest brother's arrest, his the arrest of Henry Court and Neymar because of Exeter, and several others.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_04: It just snowballs.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_04: And it must be so nice for Red sitting so comfortable in Italy, being able to.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_04: I just saw a huge eye roll from Adam.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_04: So he's sitting nice and comfortable.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_04: It's really easy to talk the talk without walking the walk when he's not the one in England, surrounded by enemies, surrounded by Henry and all of his cronies who are after this family.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's real easy for him to, I guess, talk a lot of smack on the on that side of Europe.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_04: And so it really does come down to the exchange of these letters and just it is treasonous to say these terrible things about the king and to say naked things, right?
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_03: Think these things.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_03: You're not allowed to think these things write them down.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a but it's also a tough one because I think I don't actually believe that there was a conspiracy.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think what happened was a series of events, snowballs, and what that's what I mean when I said earlier, this was only ever a drama that could have unfolded at the court of Henry VIII.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because you've got all of the right people in the right place at the right time for this to break open.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we also, as much so the evidence Jeffrey provides, he makes various statements, including one in which he says that his brother Henry spoke of the king's death because of Henry VIII's gammy leg.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: He said that Henry Pole had accused the people who fla who flocked to the court of Henry VIII as being nothing but flatterers and that none rule about the king but knaves.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: He says similar things of Henry Courtenay, the Marquis of Exeter.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, these statements are damning.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, if we accept that Jeff that Henry Pole made the comment about Henry VIII's potential death, then that does cross a line because of the updated Treasons Act of 1534.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: But equally, we can view it through another lens, which is was this a bit of banter between a family moaning, really?
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: Was this moaning?
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: Rather than a premeditated conspiracy to oust the king, was it actually a group of people who were related to each other, had royal blood, and had watched the court of Henry VIII, the court that they'd helped build, become ever removed from what they knew.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: These families, we have to factor in that the Pole family, the Courtenay family, the Neville family, all of the families that fall are really firm adherents to the traditional Catholic faith and by extension of that are enemies of Thomas Cromwell.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that that is something we must consider because it you the people that are arrested, what unites them apart from their blood is their dislike of Thomas Cromwell.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: And we know from the downfall of Amberlynn that Thomas Cromwell handpicks the men that are going to die.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he really does.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it's my belief that two years later he kind of does the same thing.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: He uses Reginald's actions and the pole family communicating with him to turn the screw and to clear out a group of people who are opposed to him and have a lot of royal blood.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: It wouldn't have taken much to convince Henry VIII to proceed.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the the French ambassador to Henry VIII's court, uh, Louis de Perrault, Sieur de Castillon, he literally said to him a while earlier, Henry VIII said to the French ambassador that he wants to exterminate the House of Montague, so which is Henry Pohl's family, that's his title.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, yes, on from one perspective, we can look at it and say they were talking and saying things that were treasonous, but I think we can also look at it from a different angle and say, was it moaning twisted into a narrative to serve Thomas Cromwell's purposes as well?
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_04: Ugh, there's so many layers to it.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_04: But Cromwell always seems to be the common denominator here.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_04: He does.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's Cromwell.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if I but I also think, by extension of that, had they got hold of Reginald, none of it would have happened.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's I think that's it.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: So where I say Cromwell turned the screws, I think he used this as a means to an end.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: But would it have gone that far had they got Reginald?
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: Probably not.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: But we can't say.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I I think that it is Reginald that is the issue, but it snowballs into more.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_03: And I love that you point out, uh, you know, here and in the book about how the polls of the plantagenists, they are very old guard, right?
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_03: You know, they are the traditional Catholic faith, and this is a lot for them to handle with, you know, completely changing the religion of England.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so do you think the conspiracy was more about the opposition to the Reformation or the succession?
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: I well, given that I don't believe the conspiracy was a legitimate thing, it's it's kind of what I I would say actually, is again, I would repeat what I said earlier, whereas I think actually it's it's something that could have only ever happened at Henry VIII.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: I just can't picture it actually happening anywhere else.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because really, you know, you've got, and that's what I mean when I say it's kind of everyone's in the right place at the right time.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think the succession is part of it.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: I do think there's that, because the Tudors famously have a bad time in producing lots of children.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: That is not something that the Plantagenets suffer with.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're known as the Demon's Brood, that's their nickname, because they have this ability.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: They have this ability to have children like rabbits.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Margaret Pole has 34 grandchildren from just four children.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Henry VIII has no grandchildren.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they they have they are this they are this endless network, really, of cousins and people with royal blood who just I think I described them in the book.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: They're like a ready-made affront to the rook to the Tudors.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: And they can't help that.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's just who they are.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: But so I think it's a mixture of so much going on.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's a mixture of their opposition to the Reformation, which is why Cromwell wants them out of the picture.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Reginald talking shit and causing dramas, then just who the who they were.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: They're sheer the thing they couldn't change, the blood in their veins and who and what they were.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: So there's so much going on, which is why I say it's it's the only thing it can have only ever happened at the reign of during the reign of Henry VIII, because this is the king that does separate England from the papacy in Rome, which was something that the Pole family deplored, as did the other noble houses.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: But as far as concrete evidence, that I don't believe that there was ever a conspiracy and a concerted effort to oust Henry VIII, is that actually they had their chance during the Pilgrimage of Grace.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: The Pilgrimage of Grace is the biggest uprising that Henry VIII ever, in fact, I think it's probably the biggest uprising against the crown, save the English Civil War of the following century.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: As many as 50 to maybe 70,000 people across the whole of the north and the Midlands of England come out against Henry VIII's policies of the Reformation.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: And at that point, that that was the moment if the White Rose families, and when I talk about the White Rose families, I mean the families with a lot of York blood, this was their chance if they took it to House Henry VIII.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because I mean, if you look at the lands that Margaret Pole had, she had 58 properties across the whole of England.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the long-I mean, she had property in Calais as well, um, and in Wales.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: And this was their chance.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: Her family, the Excessors, the Courtenase, that is, they had huge amounts of landed influence in Cornwall and Devon in the south of West England.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: This was their chance.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: If they if there was a plan to oust Henry VIII, the pilgrimage of grace was it.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: But they don't.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, they do the opposite.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: Henry Pole gives 200 of his of his men in support of the Crown's efforts to put down the rebellion.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Geoffrey Pol provides 20.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: So that tells us that.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: And and and and I also hasten to add, I think they will have done this with being heartbroken about it because I think that they would have firmly believed in the pilgrimage of grace.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: But they were loyal to the king.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: That kind of went above anything above anything.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that is categoric categorical proof for me that the Exeter conspiracy was not a legitimate conspiracy or threat because they had their chance and they didn't take it.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_04: That's a really, really strong point.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_04: Um, okay, so this is a podcast about executions, and there was several executions surrounded around this or not non-conspiracy of a conspiracy.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_04: But um I think, you know, we kind of hit upon it earlier that everyone seems to be drawn to Margaret Paul's execution just because it was so scandalous.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_04: Can you kind of just generally walk through what we know happened with her execution?
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, the the thing that actually ends up pinning anything against her, I mean, that's the other thing is when the uh when this blows up and there the arrests take place, Margaret is examined repeatedly and they can find nothing to pin against her.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: They really can't.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: And Cromwell being Cromwell comes, he comes through with this tunic, uh, which is intertwined with, it's a decorative tunic and it's intertwined with the pansy, which is the pole family sigil, and the Tudor Rose.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: And this was categorical proof that Margaret had this long-held plan of deposing Henry VIII and putting Mary on the throne and marrying her to Reginald.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think Cromwell literally made this up.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think he invented, I think he made this, had this tunic made.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: But that is what leads to Margaret being sentenced to death.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: What's unusual is that she's in the tower for over two years.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: Most people are killed within a matter of days, but she's not.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: She's in the tower for two and a half years.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: Then suddenly, on the 27th of May, 1541, she's awoken and told, You are to die within the hour.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is really cruel because in uh she's a woman of devout faith, and she would have wanted it's known as Moore's Improvisa, a sudden death, was something that people who were particularly God-fearing, they really wanted to avoid a sudden death because it didn't give them the chance to be at sort of ease in body and mind and soul and all the rest of it.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: So just springing it on her like that was in and of itself a cruel act.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: But she is she's given an hour, she is then escorted out onto Tower Green, so she's not executed before the baying crowds on Tower Hill, where her eldest son was executed.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: She has a private execution like Catherine Howard did, Anne Boleyn did, Jane Gray did, and so on.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's possible and probable that she was actually executed where there's that memorial glass sculpture of the Tower of London's London today.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: That is not where Anne Boleyn was executed.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you're listening and people are visiting the Tower of London and you want to be where actually Anne Boleyn was beheaded, just stand where you queue up to go into the Crown Jewels.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's where Anne's scaffold was.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: But Margaret's uh the the speed at which Margaret is the sentencing is passed, there is no scaffold, and instead a low wooden block was just put directly on the ground.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there therefore immediately we can also therefore discount quite a famous legend.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: There is a legend which sees Margaret refused to lay her head on the block and the executioner swinging down and hitting her shoulder, at which point she jumps up, runs around a scaffold, being hacked apart.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm pleased to report that that didn't happen.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's apocryphal, that story came years after she died, and we know that it didn't happen because we know categorically that there was no scaffold.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: My reading of the extant accounts is that she doesn't in any way struggle and that she she follows execution etiquette for want of a better term.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: A low wooden block is put on the ground, she kneels, she kneels down.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's possible it's so low that she has to lay down.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: What she does do, which is kind of really shady, but I kind of love her for it, is that she says prayers for the king and the queen, which by this point is Catherine Howard.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: She says prayers for Princess Edward, she says prayers for Princess Mary, but she notably omits Princess Elizabeth.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_04: Ooh, she's a quick one.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, I mean Margaret Pohl brought Princess Mary up.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: She basically was, she was the after Catherine of Aragon, she is Mary I, Princess Mary's the most influential woman in Mary's life.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: I have no doubt about that.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: That extends to a dislike of Amberlynn and by extension Amberlynn's daughter.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we see that categorically in Margaret's decision to just throw a bit of shade before she before she submits herself to death.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_04: Oh Marge.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, I kind of live for it, even though Am Boleyn is my sort of uh my biggest my the my the big of mystery that I uh love the most.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of love Margaret Paul doing that.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: Margaret lays her head down, and this is sadly where things do go wrong.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: The regular tower headsman had gone with Henry VIII on progress to the north of England.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think Henry VIII basically wanted him to come along in case he felt like executing some people when he got to the north.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm assuming, I mean, sure, it's Henry VIII.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um instead an axe was given into the hands of a, according to Eustace Chapui, the Imperial Ambassador, a wretched and blundering youth who literally hacked her head and shoulders to pieces.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: And another account suggests 11 strikes of the axe were needed.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: So it was extremely badly botched.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: I don't believe that it was as dramatic as is it's said, that whole running around bit I don't think happened.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: But we do know that it was badly botched.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think Henry VIII intended it to be that way.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: I I think it was just a tragic, a tragically botched execution.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think Henry VIII would have wanted her, and I know that that's me psychoanalysing someone from 500 years ago, but I I think that I I don't think he would have expected it to be, I don't think he'd have wanted it to play out as it did.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: Oh crack.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think he wanted her gone, but I think when he heard what happened, because he would have it would have been reported back, I'm inclined to believe he would have been slightly horrified.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, we can't say.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, and she was then buried in the chapel of St.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: Peter at Vincula, where she remains to this day.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: Her bones were actually uncovered during the reign of Queen Victoria and examined, and all that was said was that they belonged to a woman of considerably advanced years and that she'd been unusually tall for the time.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, which actually doesn't surprise me because the orcs were known for their height.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um and what was also quite touching was that after the bones were reburied, a beautiful marble plaque was put on top, and it restored in death what Henry VIII had taken from her.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because he, yes, he made her the Countess of Salisbury, but when the act of attainder was passed, he stripped her of her title.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: But she's buried as Margaret of Clarence, Countess of Salisbury.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it restores in death what Henry VIII took from her at the end of her life.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_04: I I'm glad you hit upon that about whether it may have been intentional or not, how botched it was, because that was maybe I'm just like so against Henry.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_04: I'm like, this asshole.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_04: He had he this is premeditative.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_04: He he unpurposely took the headsman out for for this to go so badly.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but I mean, as much as as we do hate Henry, it's that I don't think anyone could wish that on the their worst enemy.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, no, and I think seven-year-old woman, like, come on.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think he would have also deep down known, you know, she was his mother's favourite cousin.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: She was he he would have no and I and I also want to add, I actually think that she would have been freed had he got to Reginald.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's entirely possible because Gertrude Courtenay, the wife of the Marquess of Exeter, she is eventually released as part of a general pardon.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: And when word reached Catherine Howard that Margaret's conditions in the tower were worsening, she convinced Henry VIII to allow her to send Margaret some new furs and some new blankets, some new shoes, which suggests that there was maybe still a kernel of affection for this woman.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: Possibly, possibly.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: But equally, when we look at Gertrude Courtenay, she married a Plantagenet, Margaret Is One, so their positions are different.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I do I do believe had Reginald, had he even just apologized and said, I'm I got it all wrong, I'm really sorry, I'm loyal to you, Your Majesty, or had he been captured, I think Margaret would have probably been released.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_03: We were joking a little bit before recording because uh again, I read the book after Megan's, so I read all of her notes that she had in there.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_03: And one of the recurring notes was just Reg is the problem.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_03: Reg is not doing anything to save his mother, just constantly every page was just calling him out on his lack of doing anything to help his mother or his family.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_03: He just didn't stand up to it.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_04: He uh he sees his whole family being arrested, his old older brothers executed, his friends, his cousins, and then when his his mother is arrested, it's like at what point do you kind of own up to it and give yourself up?
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_04: But yeah, he um he had different plans.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_04: And and and sadly it was the rest of his family who was the sacrifice.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they were the scapegoat.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think that that is definitely true.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I think without wanting to defend Reginald too much, I think we should also always factor in that this is an age of fervent religious belief.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: And spiritual one's religion often held greater weight for people.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um religious law held greater weight than secular law, I suppose, for a lot of people.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: And we can see that from the number of Tudor executions, which have faith as the reason for that person dying.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think Reginald, it it can't have helped that he was separated both by space and time from his family.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: Had he been raised in the bosom of his family, had he actually been in England and seen for himself what Henry VIII was actually doing?
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because he's only ever actually hearing about what's going on third party.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: He's not seeing it for himself.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: Had he seen it for himself, he might have trodden a more uh a safer route, a safer line, as it were.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: But equally, because they believed so fervently, it's it's one of the reasons why I kind of I'm sort of I am at times quite tempted to defend Mary the First.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think she believed that, I genuinely believe she believed, that the Protestant faith were of the devil and that she was cleansing England.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think we can't, we can't put our own codes of behaviour and the way we would approach something on people 500 years ago.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: We can't.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's a different it was a different world where God was everything to them.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's as much as yes, I agree with you, Reginald is the problem.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_00: There's so much it we can't necessarily just think of it in that sense, I guess.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_04: Sure, from a modern perspective, and there's more accessible information coming of what's happening.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_04: But yeah.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, our last episode was actually just on Bishop John Fisher.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_03: So we talked a lot about, you know, how before he died, he made sure to say, like, Yes, my allegiance is to the king, but beyond that, my allegiance is to God.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_03: And same thing with Thomas Moore.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_03: You know, we see those parallels throughout history where they're they're willing to die for it.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_03: They're willing to say, This is my faith and I will die defending it.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but uh but back to the act of attainder that you had mentioned.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um we know that uh this was uh something that had really become in play probably what in the late 1530s, early 1540s, um, when it wasn't a conventional trial, right?
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_03: It was the uh legislative branch deciding the fate of somebody, deciding on the execution, taking away titles, um, and there was no conventional trial.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_03: Was that pretty common in that era?
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_03: You know, what like what what started that and um what were some of the consequences of that?
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's not very common.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um it and it's it was usually where they they became more common as the reign progressed.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that they really became more of a thing thanks to Thomas Cromwell.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_04: Our buddy once again Our buddy Cromwell.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um actors of tender were usually where there was so much evidence that it was deemed unnecessary to go to trial.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: With Margaret, I actually think that it was not the the reason it didn't go to trial, I think it was a case of strategic silencing.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: Almost as though her, because she defended herself so well when she'd been questioned.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the Earl of Southampton, who uh who was questioning Margaret, he wrote to Cromwell basically saying she's either a perfect saint or the most errant traitorous that ever lived.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because they just couldn't find anything to pin against her.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it's my sense that they knew that to put her in the stand would have been a gamble.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think it would have been a gamble for the crown.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think had she had that chance to speak, she would have just been too convincing.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it was more about actually strategically silencing her to get her out of the way.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_00: I don't necessarily so I so I in that respect it was quite unusual.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think it would have been deemed too much of a risk to the crown to give Margaret the opportunity to speak, basically.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_04: How convenient.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_04: How convenient that they have this little this little act in their back pocket to use when they need to.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_03: And a tunic that just appeared out of nowhere.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and he I mean he w he literally lifts it into the air at so in the Parliament is gathered as the attainer is being read out, and the language is so, you know, it says Margaret by instigation of the devil, and it's so uh dramatic.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_00: And as this is being read out, Cromwell lifts the tunic into the air.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's so strange-managed and dramatic.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_04: I want a movie of this.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_04: I don't want just the tutor show times.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_04: I want a full two and a half hour movie at least.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_04: A series, a whole series.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_04: And Margaret should be like, What is that?
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_04: What is that shirt you have?
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, look, are those the initials of your own seamstress sewn into the ham?
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that was the thing.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was literally this tunic was found um among Linen goods at Warblington Castle, which was Margaret's primary seat.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: And for all we know, it might have been a legitimate uh thing that just showed the fact that her family and the Tudors were were related.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: That is possible.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't necessarily mean that it was Margaret's this was Margaret health proof that Margaret planned to marry Mary to Reginald.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, or it could have been a forgery, which is probably what I think it probably was.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_04: We really expect this woman to be like sitting in her in her home being like, hee hee hee hee hee, I'm gonna like fantasize this takeover and and do it by symbolically sewing together these these emblems together.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_04: Like, no.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: This was a woman who would have This was a woman who would have spent her life trying to remain out of the Tower of London.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_00: I firmly believe that.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't yeah, I don't believe Christina.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_04: She's been surrounded surrounded by execution her entire life, since starting with her father and her brother.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_04: And she was no um no stranger to the consequences of what would happen when you get on Henry's bad side.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_04: Um which kind of takes us to uh one of our final questions about this entire topic is this is that you know, so at this time Henry's married to Catherine Howard, right?
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_04: He's already had one wife executed, he's divorced his others, two others.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_04: Do you think this execution and how they treated Margaret would have changed people's views in Henry?
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_04: Do you think this was kind of a turning point, or were people already seeing him as more of a tyrant?
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_04: Did this add feel to it?
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_04: Were they loyal?
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_04: I mean what were the people's perspective?
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think people were appalled by this.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_00: The the reading on it is that that it was viewed as a shockingly uh cruel and unnecessary thing to do to a woman born or but a princess.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is an elderly lady who had served the Tudor court, was a and and was a real, she was kind of like a living dinosaur.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean that in a in a negative way.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is a woman who could well remember Edward IV, Richard III.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_00: She is a living embodiment of a bygone era, and I think people saw her as that and would have been uh just appalled at what happened.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I do think it's a turning point.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think the fact that we see Catherine Howard, who is perpetually portrayed as this sort of airhead, the fact that she has got the she's cognizant enough to go, this is an elderly lady in the tower.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_00: I want to try and help her.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think that tells us quite a lot about Catherine, actually.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, I do think this is a turning point for he for the way people perceive Henry.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_00: I've always I I and I didn't really touch on it much in the book because I couldn't find anything to go on, but I would love to know what Mary thought about it all.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_00: Did she ever did she ever approach her father and say, please don't do this?
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_00: We've got no evidence that she ever mentions it, but she must have been heartbroken.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, m Margaret brought her up.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, she's like a mother to her.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I think, yeah, yes, I think this this appalled people, basically.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, um so much to cover.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_03: I I loved I love this.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_03: Again, we we touched on it.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_03: I think the reason we tackled this so early on into our podcast was because it was rumored to be this horrific death.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_03: And so we're like, oh great, season one, let's cover this one.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_03: And now that we've done a few seasons, we know so much more about the Tudor dynasty, about the plantagenets.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_03: It's so great to come full circle and see how all these things connect.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_00: No, as I said earlier, there are there are eight executions.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_00: Margaret is the last of them.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_00: Of those, there's five beheadings, and three people are hung, drawn, and quartered as part of this.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's just that Margaret's case is the most well known.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um there are there are there are eight executions, and there's also the the most mysterious part of the story.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's a a a boy of royal blood who vanishes inside the Tower of London altogether.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I was I was gonna bring that up.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_03: It's in the tower, yeah.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the third prince in I mean he was never a prince, so it's kind of but but I refer to him as the third missing prince in the tower.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_00: Margaret's grandson, Henry Pole the Younger, so Baron Montague's heir, he enters the tower as a uh teen 1213 as a prisoner alongside his father and his grandmother.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the last reference we have for him is in 1542 for payments for his food.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thereafter he vanishes.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_00: We have no clue what became of him.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_04: And someone of that status, we would have heard about what he grew up to be titles, land.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_04: Sad.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, very sad.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's the thing.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_00: The actually, by the time we get to Queen Mary I and Elizabeth I, there are still members of Margaret's family front and centre at court.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Henry Huntingdon, the Earl of Um, I can't remember what he was Earl of now, but he was a great-grandson of Margaret Poles.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_00: He was a favorite of Elizabeth I.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, he was one of the names in the mix as potential successors to Elizabeth's crown.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they were still floating about.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I love it how you kind of not to like get to the end and spoiler alerts here, but it's Margaret's granddaughter, right, who actually also has a very close relationship with Elizabeth I, um, becomes a very loyal Protestant and ends up marrying Mary Bowen's widower.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_04: And when that like kind of came full circle, I was like, whoa, it really does all take time.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's and that, and it gets those these big twists of irony with history that are hilarious, you know, that are just you just go, wow, okay, you know, uh as you say, Margaret's granddaughter becomes a great favorite of Elizabeth I, serves Elizabeth I, marries the widower of Mary Boleyn.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_00: By contrast, Queen Mary I executes one of Margaret's grandsons.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_00: The irony, it's the irony of it all, it's just remarkable.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_04: The the juiciness of this is why I love this era so much.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_04: There's so much documentation all in all of it, too, that you just have to read it and be like, this can't be real.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_04: The scales are always tipping.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_04: It's just uh truly is a drama.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_04: Well, was there, I mean, we covered so many surprising facts.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_04: Uh is there anything we didn't cover that really surprised you while doing all of your research on this?
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think the thing that surprised me actually was when I when I realized actually that Henry VIII had some justification in behaving how he did to Henry Pole and Well, actually, I I'm gonna, if it's okay, I'll have two.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_00: But they are linked.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's the fact that I didn't go into this expecting that to find any evidence to support any of Henry VIII's actions.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I had to change, or I changed my mind because unfortunately, if Henry Pole did talk about Henry VIII's death, then that does cross a line because there is an update to the Treasons Act of 1534, which states that even thinking about the King's death is treason.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so, under the law of the land as it was at the time, Henry Pole does cross a line and is guilty of treason.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same reason that Anne Boleyn is actually guilty of treason if we accept the dead men's shoes quote.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't believe for a second that she was ever unfaithful to Henry VIII, nor do I believe, as I've made clear, that the Pole family actively conspired to oust Henry VIII.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_00: But if Henry Pole made that statement about Henry VIII's health, it does cross the line.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_00: So that was a surprise.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then the the but the bigger surprise is the biggest surprise I think Henry VIII ever makes.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_00: Jeffrey Pole gets a pardon.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_00: He walks, he walks out of the tower.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's it's such I mean he does attempt suicide twice, which I think we have to take into consideration.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_00: The severity of that, the act of trying to commit suicide at this time, that is that's the gravest of sins as far as the church is concerned.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that tells us a lot about Jeffrey Pohl's state of mind.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so when I when I realized, oh hang on, Jeffrey gets a pardon, that was a real surprise as well.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_03: It's the story that keeps giving so many twists and turns.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_03: That is one thing when I was reading the book, I kept thinking, oh, Jeffrey's gonna get his, like, what's gonna happen to Jeffrey?
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_03: And really nothing.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_03: Nothing happens to him.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_03: Poor little Jeffrey.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um, what would you say the biggest takeaway you hope readers uh are left with after finishing your book?
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully that they go, ah, there's more to the reign than the six wives.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean that I don't mean that I the six wives are iconic, and I love the story of the six wives, but there is more to Henry VIII and the six queens, as we should really refer to them.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_00: There is more to there is much more to his reign going on.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_00: So my hope is that people go actually that it's again to maybe twofold, is that there is more to the story than that main storyline of the six wives.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_00: And also, hopefully, people go, I need to go away and spend some more time getting to know the Plantagenets.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because they're a fascinating bit bunch.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_00: They were on the throne for three times the amount that the Tudors were.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if we've watched, if people have watched Game of Thrones, that's a massive play on the Wars of the Roses.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_00: If you've watched House of the Dragon, that's a massive play on the anarchy, which was back in the 11th century.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_00: There is so much more history out there than just Henry VIII.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_04: They should get their own Broadway musical.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_04: Plantagenets.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_04: The Plantagenet.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_03: Plantagenets, the musical.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_03: I like that.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_03: Uh are you currently watching uh Knight of the Seven Kingdoms?
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_00: I am.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I am.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh it feels so different to the other.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's very different to the other shows.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I'm enjoying it.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I I love I don't know if you've again, if we get the episodes at the same time, but we just finished uh episode three where there's a big reveal at the end of the show.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_03: I don't want to spoil it.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_04: I haven't seen any of the things.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_03: I know that's why I'm not going further, but I just want to say I'm excited for what's next.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_00: I put two and two together with that one.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I should have.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_03: I I knew there was a connection.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_03: I wasn't sure what the connection was because of his reactions.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_03: Again, not spoiling.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_04: I feel like I'm the one like, what are you talking about?
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_03: I want to know, but I don't want to know.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_03: I don't want to know.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_03: Not in on the secret.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_03: But good for you, Adam, for knowing that before they reviewed.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was because something occurred to me from a callback from Game of Thrones.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_00: There's a mo there's a scene in Game of Thrones where do you remember the blind maester at Castle Black at the wall?
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's a scene where he starts saying egg, egg, egg, and I was like, it all just coalesced.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_04: What's with the egg?
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_04: What's the egg?
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, we'll talk offline of this.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_03: We'll talk offline.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_03: Egg is a person.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_03: Egg is a person.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's a little boy.
• 58:51
  unknown: Okay.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_00: The little boy.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you've seen the first two episodes, have you seen the first two episodes?
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_03: No, I haven't seen any of it.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_00: Egg is a boy.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_00: Egg is the little boy in it.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_04: That's a great name for a kid.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_04: Gotta gotta say.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_04: We'll talk offline.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_04: I will continue.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_04: Well, okay, so if you haven't read it, everybody needs to get their hands on Henry VIII and the Plantagen of Pulls, The Rise and Fall of a Dynasty by Adam Pennington.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_04: Um, where's the best is there a preferred place for people to get your book?
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_00: Straightforward Amazon.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's the easiest.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, without Amazon, my my right arm would be cut off.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I know it's I know it's the worst, but it's also so money convenient.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_03: I hate to love it.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_03: Especially us in America.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_03: You know, uh all these authors are like, oh, go to your local bookshop.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, unfortunately, our local bookshop doesn't carry the latest British historians.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_03: As they should.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_03: Should start a protest over that.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_03: We could start our own bookshop.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, start our own bookshop.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_04: That would be a great idea.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_04: Um anything like anything in the works for you right now?
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_04: Are you still heavily focusing on this topic?
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know if you can reveal.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_04: It's okay if it's all hush hush.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's a couple of things.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can't reveal too much.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you asked, uh you mentioned about 20 minutes ago about a movie.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_00: There's not a movie, but there is a documentary um not far in the distance um that I am involved in.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not uh I'm not uh I'm not the the the uh the main star, but I'm involved in it.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_00: I will be on screen.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, um, For National Geographic, which is really exciting.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then I am I'm now working on another another book, um, which is it's three years away because it's a bit of a it's a beast, but I'm basically um and it's it's currently with my agent actually, but I'm what I'm doing, I'm telling the history of the royal consort from Matilda Flanders, who was the wife of William the Conqueror, right through to Camilla.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_04: Oh my goodness.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, that's just like a small, small undertaking.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_04: But what it's super easy to narrowed it down.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_00: What it's it's about really, it's the it's what I'm examining is the office of consort and how so each chapter, each consort that's included, I'm not necessarily telling their birth to their death.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's the window they were the consort.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_00: So how does Anne Boleyn impact Henry VIII's reign from 1533 to 1536?
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_00: How did Guilford Dudley impact the 13 days of Lady Jane Grey?
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_00: How did Prince Philip impact Elizabeth II?
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_00: So it's about the office of consort.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, it's a bit of a beast.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_04: That's awesome.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_04: I gotta say, you did say something, Adam, that I really appreciate and I think is gonna stick with me of how, as a historian doing your research, your mind has changed on some of these things.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that is the true point of the work that you do and historians do is get the evidence, come up with a conclusion.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_04: It I love, I love books like this because it's almost like a you're you're reading its own trial.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_04: Like you get to decipher a little bit on your own after reviewing the evidence of where things land.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_04: And I think it's interesting you went into this, for example, with one idea about, you know, you know, not thinking that Reg had any any leg to stand on, but really not being stuck in your own ideas of this is just how it is because everyone has said that, but being able to explore other options and um it makes me want to be a true professional historian and not just get to interview and talk to historians, but it's uh it's it's a hard job and it sounds like a big task you're bringing on with this new book.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_00: But I think you should always be, I think everyone should be open to being convinced that out of an opinion as well.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm for the longest time I was always with Anne Boleyn's date of birth, I was always team 1501.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now I am firmly team 1507.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_04: I really that's controversial.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know if we knew so.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's probably like a 70-30 split, I would say.
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I'm adamant that she was born in 1507.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't see the earlier date now.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_03: That's awesome.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_03: It's nice to keep an open mind and there's always new evidence coming out.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_00: So Exactly.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I refuse that, you know, that Holbein sketch, that that sort of double chin holbein sketch that people maintain is Anne Boleyn.
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_00: You'd know it if you saw it.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's I just don't believe that is.
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I will, I will, you know, I will stand on my soapbox and defend that till I'm blue in the face it is not Anne Boleyn.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, Owen is convinced it is, and Owen is, you know, a genius, so who knows?
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_04: I love it.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_04: This is why it's fun, and this is why history stays alive, because there's constantly going to be healthy debate over these types of topics.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_03: So um we live for it.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_04: We do.
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_04: Well, Adam, thank you so much for joining.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_04: I loved this conversation.
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_04: You really inspired me to get more into the Plantagenens.
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_04: I gotta get out of my tutor brain sometimes.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_04: I do have my little Henry VIII duck with me, which didn't make it on camera, but we'll put him up front and center for the end of it.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_04: Um, Adam, as we like to end our show with any final words?
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_00: Screw you, Cromwell.