The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - March 29, 2026


PREVIEW： Epochs #256 ｜ Henry VI - Part 5

Hosted by
Callum Edmunds Carl Benjamin Connor Tomlinson Harry Robinson John Wheatley Joshua Ferme Edward McLaren Elizabeth Heverin
Mentioned
Richard Duke Churchill Seems Yorkist Queen Margaret Somerset Somerset Edward Gibbon Charles Oman Duke Richard Henry VI Should Edward III Tywin Lannister Charles Downs A.E. Margaret Richard III King Henry Edward Or Henry IV Confiscating Gloucester Mortimers and 7 more
PREVIEW Chronicles #40 ｜ The Bacchae Breakfast With Beau ｜ Monday 30th March 2026

Episode Stats


Length

21 minutes

Words per minute

176.04

Word count

3,768

Sentence count

86

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Toxicity

22

sentences flagged

Hate speech

8

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Continuing my story of the Wars of the Roses, I look at how the House of York and House of Lancaster came to power in the early 17th century, and how they fought each other to the bitter end. I read from Winston Churchill's The History of the English Speaking Peoples and the History of England.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome back to Epochs where I shall be continuing my story of the Wars of the Roses
00:00:25.540 or the story of the whole of the English monarchy, British monarchy ultimately in the end.
00:00:29.120 But we're talking about Henry VI right now, aren't we?
00:00:32.160 The son of Henry V, who's very, very weak and quite possibly suffering from mental health, genuine mental health problems.
00:00:40.540 And that the Hundred Years' War has come to an ignominious end, as far as the English are concerned.
00:00:44.860 And that's morphing now into the Wars of the Roses, where the various cousin branches of the Plantagenets are starting to go to war with each other.
00:00:53.300 Particularly the House of York and the House of Lancaster, descended from the second and third son of John of Gaunt.
00:00:58.200 I'll keep talking about the John of Gaunt and the Lionel, Duke of Clarence.
00:01:04.400 And last time we got up to the Battle of St Albans, which was really the first.
00:01:07.920 It's not really, it's almost a battle, not quite a big proper battle.
00:01:11.780 But I think maybe if you were there, it would seem quite battle-like.
00:01:15.980 But it wasn't a full-blown pitched battle out on the field with thousands of men lining up
00:01:20.480 and loads and loads of massed archery units and a cavalry charge apiece and all that sort of thing.
00:01:26.420 However people did get killed in it
00:01:28.640 People definitely died
00:01:29.640 And the king changed hands
00:01:31.860 You know the king that's a puppet really
00:01:33.560 So that's where we got up to last time
00:01:35.400 Where the Yorkist faction
00:01:37.660 Under Richard Duke of York
00:01:39.520 And Warwick the kingmaker
00:01:41.320 Had just won the Battle of St Albans
00:01:43.400 Taken the king hostage
00:01:45.040 Or they now controlled him one way or another
00:01:47.300 So the fortunes of the Lancastians
00:01:50.500 Are at a low ebb at this point
00:01:52.060 Margaret of Anjou and all the various people in that orbit
00:01:54.280 Are at a low ebb
00:01:55.140 And if you remember last time I talked about how the pendulum swings back and forth wildly during the Wars of the Roses
00:02:01.140 It really does
00:02:02.040 You know, when you look at big wars from the 20th century
00:02:05.420 Quite often it becomes clear long before the end who's going to win, doesn't it?
00:02:10.380 Well, that's not the case here
00:02:12.040 It wildly swings back and forth
00:02:13.900 So at this particular point, i.e. straight after the Battle of St Albans
00:02:17.260 It's back in the Yorkist favour 0.89
00:02:20.440 And it's already swung, what, three or four times, hasn't it? Already
00:02:24.200 So we'll keep doing that
00:02:25.880 So once again I should be reading from
00:02:27.720 Winston Churchill, The History of the English-speaking Peoples
00:02:30.100 And The History of England
00:02:32.220 By Professor Charles Oman
00:02:34.520 One of the very, very best
00:02:35.840 Historians ever to have done it
00:02:38.020 An Oxford historian from the early
00:02:39.960 20th century, very late 19th century
00:02:41.760 Early 20th century, whom Churchill
00:02:44.200 Seems to have drawn upon quite heavily
00:02:45.780 So okay, I want to read a little bit here
00:02:48.000 From Churchill to sort of
00:02:50.040 Ease us into this episode where he talks
00:02:52.060 In a bit more general terms
00:02:54.140 about things so he says this quote historians have shrunk from the wars of the roses and most
00:02:59.600 of those who have catalogued their events have left us only a melancholy and disjointed picture
00:03:05.340 we are however in the presence of the most ferocious and implacable quarrel of which there
00:03:11.100 is a factual record in other words in other words he's saying it's actually a complicated picture
00:03:16.320 the amount that it swings back and forth is crazy uh the record isn't a hundred percent complete
00:03:22.880 we're still in the 15th century, remember? It's still a very long time ago. And just simply that,
00:03:29.580 the record isn't 100% complete. When you get up to the 18th, 19th, 20th century,
00:03:35.360 it's an embarrassment of riches as far as a historian is concerned. There's far too much
00:03:40.200 documentary evidence. There's too much. You could never get through it all. If you wanted to read
00:03:46.140 everything that there was to read about World War I, say, it's not possible in a lifetime.
00:03:51.060 All the papers across all of Europe or across all of the world, for a start,
00:03:55.880 it would take a lifetime to read those, just that.
00:03:59.000 Whereas if you go back to the 15th century, if you talk about the Wars of the Roses,
00:04:03.220 it's still completely incomplete.
00:04:06.080 And so sometimes, well, often, we just don't know exactly what happened.
00:04:11.380 Why did this alliance fall apart?
00:04:14.060 Why is this person now suddenly switched camps or something like that?
00:04:18.760 and there's so many characters so many personages that are of some importance to keep track of them
00:04:27.220 all unless you're a professional historian and you spend a lifetime on this stuff again it can
00:04:32.860 get very very confusing very very quickly and that's why when I'm telling this story I'm going
00:04:37.060 to I will keep it to just the the key key players and keep reminding you who's who right hopefully
00:04:43.420 i've put in your mind the idea that richard duke of york the father of edward the fourth to be um
00:04:50.800 richard duke of york is like a tywin lannister character he's like charles dance type figure
00:04:55.820 that's that's how i have him in mind maybe that will help you sort of uh anchor at least that
00:05:00.520 character you know um and you've got you've got the the super weak king and his evil wife i was
00:05:06.480 gonna call her margaret von joux evil i mean i don't know if she is particularly she's called
00:05:10.300 the bad queen or something like that wouldn't she and um it's easy to think of her as foreign 0.86
00:05:15.520 and French and evil in some way it's easy but whether she really was it's not quite that simple
00:05:21.040 but um Churchill just saying here that it is a complicated story and there's no two ways about it
00:05:27.460 you know if I have to keep mentioning the family tree I have to keep mentioning that you've got
00:05:34.620 Edward III and all his children, and the second son, well, the first son, the Black Prince, who
00:05:40.780 died, and then his son died, was killed, and then Lionel, Duke of Clarence, and the third son,
00:05:45.480 John of God, I have to keep telling you that, and all those descendants. There's actually much more
00:05:49.680 to it than that, the Mortimers and the Beauforts and so on and so on. So Churchill says, goes on
00:05:53.760 to say here, the individual actors were bred by generations of privilege and war, into which the
00:05:59.740 feudal theme had brought its peculiar sense of honor and to which the papacy contributed such
00:06:06.740 spiritual sanction as emerged from its rivalries and intrigues it was a conflict in which personal
00:06:12.920 hatreds reached their maximum and from which mass effects were happily excluded yeah personal
00:06:19.220 hatreds reached their maximum just to let you know towards the end of the wars of the roses
00:06:23.540 what quite often happened is one side would win a battle and they would and any of the leadership
00:06:30.060 on the other side that didn't die in the battle but were captured they just all get executed
00:06:35.120 because it's the only way to end a blood feud you know what in a way right the only way to end a 0.99
00:06:40.840 blood feud is to just kill all the other side kill them all now that's brutal even for the 15th 0.90
00:06:47.400 century in england anyway perhaps in the east it's a bit different but the idea that you would 0.99
00:06:51.520 kill loads and loads of members of your own family loads and loads of your own cousins 0.89
00:06:55.080 or all your own cousins you'd kill them all or you felt like you had to that was the only way 0.99
00:07:00.460 to sort of bring it to an end so yeah it gets it gets really bloody and as Churchill said their 0.95
00:07:05.100 personal hatreds reach their maximum we talked yesterday didn't we about that famous quote 0.99
00:07:09.160 that you killed my father and now I'm going to kill you and your father that you know vendetta 0.71
00:07:15.100 it's the nature of vendetta Churchill says there must have been many similar convulsions in human 0.99
00:07:20.460 history none however has been preserved with characters at once so worldly and so expensively
00:07:28.060 chiseled needless causes of confusion may be avoided towns must not be confused with titles
00:07:34.220 this is a good point it's about to make the mortal struggle of York and Lancaster did not
00:07:38.840 imply any antagonism between the two well-known English counties right yeah so the Yorkist family
00:07:44.900 their strongholds weren't necessarily up and around York, the city of York, and the Duchy of
00:07:50.720 Lancaster, the family, the Lancastrian family, weren't necessarily all that strong in Lancaster.
00:07:57.080 So yeah, just be careful about that. York has in fact, this is Churchill again, York was in fact
00:08:01.760 the stronghold of the Lancastrians, and the Yorkists founded their strength upon the Midlands
00:08:06.400 and the south of England. The ups and downs of fortune were so numerous and startling,
00:08:10.780 the family feuds so complicated the impact of national feeling in moments of crisis so difficult
00:08:17.140 to measure because of like the incomplete record basically that it has been the fashion to
00:08:22.620 disparage this period i think it's one of the most fascinating bits of english history in in all
00:08:27.860 personally only shakespeare this is church again only shakespeare basing himself largely upon
00:08:33.240 hall's chronicle has portrayed his savage yet heroic liniments he does not attempt to draw
00:08:39.580 conclusions, and for dramatic purposes, telescopes, events, and campaigns. Let us now set forth the
00:08:46.580 facts as they occurred. And then Churchill picks up the story again from the Battle of St. Albans,
00:08:51.800 saying this. St. Albans was the first shedding of blood in strife. Well, remember the story,
00:08:56.920 not quite. I mean, maybe in something approaching a battle, but it's not the first blood, is it?
00:09:01.600 Gloucester was murdered, and Suffolk was murdered. So there has been blood, and you could draw
00:09:09.420 all of this back to Henry IV, Henry the Boninbroke's usurpation of Richard II, you know, that
00:09:15.420 blood, whether he was just smothered or, you know, whether he was actually murdered or
00:09:19.540 not, we don't know, whether he was just starved to death or smothered or something, but, you
00:09:22.740 know, it's not really the first shedding of blood, but, okay, the Battle of St. Albans,
00:09:27.220 I guess what Churchill's saying is in some sort of open conflagration. He says, St. Albans
00:09:32.960 was the first shedding of blood in strife. The Yorkists gained possession of the king,
00:09:37.340 you know they were able to take him into their power and he's so weak and feeble that you can
00:09:42.000 then claim that you're the whether he signs off on it or not you can just claim you're the government
00:09:47.060 now you've got the you've taken the king prisoner that means you're the government now okay sort of
00:09:51.860 like that but soon we see the inherent power of Lancaster i.e the faction that's just been defeated
00:09:57.640 at the battle of St Albans basically they had the majority of the nobles on their side and the
00:10:02.900 majesty of the crown because the king even though being taken prisoner hostage by the yorkists he 0.99
00:10:08.820 is a lancastrian though isn't he right so nothing will change that in a few months they the
00:10:14.220 lancastrians were as strong as ever continual trials of strength were made there were risings
00:10:19.440 in the country and grim assemblies of parliament legality constitutionalism and reverence for the
00:10:26.300 crown were counted but not yet overthrown by turbulent and bloody episodes the four years
00:10:33.180 from 1456 to 1459 were a period of uneasy truce all seemed conscious of the peril to themselves
00:10:40.020 and to their order but fate lay heavy upon them there were intense efforts at reconciliation
00:10:45.540 the spectacle was displayed to the Londoners of the king being escorted to Westminster by a
00:10:51.820 procession in which the duke of york and queen margaret walked side by side arch enemies remember
00:10:57.200 the duke of york is that they've got the blood royal if the king and now his little baby edward
00:11:02.140 if they were to die he would just be the king he's literally the next in line to the throne
00:11:05.960 um margaret of onjou knows that and so they're just arch enemies the duke of york richard duke
00:11:11.640 of york and margaret of onjou would kill each other if they could right so it's okay but they
00:11:17.580 walked side by side followed by the Yorkist and Lancastrian lords the most opposed in pairs you
00:11:24.060 know trying to heal this rift solemn pledges of amity were exchanged the sacrament was taken in
00:11:30.860 common by all the leaders you know they're all catholic still the reformation hasn't the uh yeah
00:11:35.180 the reformation hasn't happened yet so they're all still good catholics the sacrament was taken
00:11:39.460 in common by all the leaders all sought peace where there was no peace the type of thing you
00:11:44.480 know it's just simmering under the surface you know nothing has truly been resolved everyone
00:11:49.020 still got their ambitions and their grudges even when a kind of settlement was reached in london
00:11:54.420 it was upset by violence in the north in 1459 fighting broke out again a gathering near worcester
00:12:00.500 of armed yorkists dispersed in the presence of the royal army and their chiefs scattered york
00:12:06.680 returned to ireland richard duke of york returned to ireland and warwick to his captaincy of calais
00:12:12.140 In which he had succeeded Somerset
00:12:14.640 Somerset who was killed at the Battle of St Albans
00:12:17.820 Remember
00:12:18.300 Okay, let's go over to Sir Charles Oman
00:12:21.960 And let him tell us about this period
00:12:23.960 See how he describes it slightly differently
00:12:26.340 Okay, Sir Charles Oman
00:12:27.700 At the very beginning of the 20th century
00:12:29.280 Wrote this, quote
00:12:30.400 The first battle of St Albans
00:12:32.180 Put the control of the king's person
00:12:33.800 Into the hands of York
00:12:34.900 Who again assumed the management of the realm
00:12:37.440 But he only kept it for less than a year
00:12:40.120 So the pendulum swings back within a year
00:12:42.640 In 1456
00:12:43.940 The king asserted his constitutional power
00:12:46.780 Of changing his ministers 0.99
00:12:48.260 He suddenly grew a pair of balls 0.98
00:12:50.020 Out of nowhere 0.98
00:12:51.120 Decided to start doing the business of government
00:12:53.300 Except he didn't
00:12:54.440 It was the people around him
00:12:56.060 Who controlled him really
00:12:57.960 Margaret of Anjou's faction
00:12:59.820 And lots of various other very very powerful magnates
00:13:03.500 But on paper the king
00:13:05.200 Asserted his constitutional power
00:13:07.120 Of changing his ministers
00:13:08.160 and turned Duke Richard's friends out of office.
00:13:11.560 As his foe Somerset was now dead,
00:13:13.920 Richard Duke of York's foe Somerset was now dead,
00:13:16.800 York was fairly contented to leave matters in the king's own control.
00:13:20.720 But after the bloodshed at St Albans,
00:13:22.800 there could be no true reconciliation
00:13:24.420 between the friends of the king and the friends of York.
00:13:28.000 The fierce and active young Queen Margaret
00:13:30.040 put herself at the head of the party
00:13:31.940 which Suffolk and Somerset had formerly led.
00:13:34.980 She feared for her infant son's right of succession to the throne
00:13:38.960 And was determined to crush York to make his path clear 0.97
00:13:42.780 Because again, should the mentally ill king, Henry VI 0.99
00:13:48.120 Should he die, for whatever reason 0.99
00:13:50.120 Then the crown will either pass to his tiny little son, Edward
00:13:54.040 That we're talking about here, little baby son, Edward
00:13:56.820 Or Richard Duke of York, right?
00:13:59.580 The legit heir would be the little baby
00:14:01.440 But, you know how things go in a martial age
00:14:04.880 it's relatively easy just to make a baby disappear or an infant if you really wanted to if an entire
00:14:12.400 kingdom realm was at stake you only need to make one infant disappear and you're a badass dude like
00:14:20.180 Richard Duke of York you've been in all sorts of wars in France and in Ireland and even like members
00:14:26.200 of your own family and things have already been killed and murdered and you're already in a blood 0.89
00:14:30.180 feud of some type, right? You can see why Margaret of Anjou might fear for her position and that of
00:14:36.420 her little baby, because it's not that far away from some sort of situation where, well, she's one
00:14:42.520 heartbeat away, the king's heartbeat, away from being in a position where Richard, Duke of York 0.99
00:14:48.320 will just kill her baby, and maybe her. So you can see why, even though Richard, Duke of York, at this 0.58
00:14:53.060 stage, has shown no real interest in doing something like that, he's very, very clement, if
00:14:57.620 anything for the 15th century, for the 15th century. But nonetheless, you could see why
00:15:01.920 Margaret of Anjou would be paranoid. Except that's what I'm saying, it's not really paranoia,
00:15:07.100 it's sort of a reasonable fear, a reasonable worry. Okay, so because of that worry, she's
00:15:11.420 determined to crush York to make her baby's path clear to the throne. Throughout the years 1457 to 0.84
00:15:19.180 58, while her precarious peace was still preserved, Margaret was journeying up and down the land,
00:15:25.000 enlisting partisans in her calls and giving them her son's badge of the white swan to wear in token
00:15:31.720 of promised fidelity so while there's a bit of peace between them both sides are still really
00:15:37.060 marshalling their forces and you know getting ready for if and when more likely when hostilities
00:15:43.140 break out again and livery has a fair bit to do with all of this i.e what you wear if you wear a
00:15:48.260 certain badge the red or the white rose or in this case the white swan letting the world know
00:15:53.180 which side you're on, heraldry and livery. Okay, Oman continues saying this. The inevitable renewal
00:15:59.560 of war came in 1459. Its immediate cause was an attempt by some of the Queen's retainers to slay
00:16:06.980 the young Earl of Warwick. Warwick being a staunch Yorkist. That's one of the things you should have
00:16:12.120 pinned in your mind, that you've got Richard Duke of York. He's got three sons, the sons in splendour,
00:16:17.860 these sons of York. And Warwick. So in the Yorkist party, you've got Tywin Lannister,
00:16:25.180 Charles Dance, he's got three sons, and Warwick. Warwick the Kingmaker. He's really, really super
00:16:30.920 important to this whole story. Warwick. And the Queen tried to slay him, or her retainers did.
00:16:36.300 Oman describes the young Earl of Warwick as York's ablest and most energetic supporter.
00:16:41.200 then salisbury warwick's father raised his yorkshire tenants in arms the queen sent against
00:16:47.980 them a force under lord audley whom the elder neville defeated and slew at bloreheath after
00:16:54.480 this skirmish all england flew to arms to aid one party or the other york salisbury and warwick
00:17:01.120 met in ludlow on the welsh border while the king gathered a great army at worcester taking the
00:17:07.140 field himself remember it's just you know the king is a puppet the fact that he took the field
00:17:11.920 himself it's not like Henry V taking the field it's not like Edward I or Edward III taking the
00:17:18.080 field he's just a figurehead but okay he himself took the field with a vigor which he never before
00:17:24.140 or afterwards displayed he didn't get involved in any sort of swordplay like his father Henry V
00:17:28.400 Henry V literally involved in melee fighting hand-to-hand combat in Agincourt at Agincourt
00:17:35.040 Henry VI not doing any such thing, of course.
00:17:38.280 Oman continues saying,
00:17:39.480 It seems that York's adherents were moved by the vehement appeals
00:17:43.840 which King Henry made to their loyalty,
00:17:46.420 and cowed by the superior forces that he mustered.
00:17:49.660 At the rout of Ludlow, they broke up without fighting,
00:17:52.880 leaving their leaders to escape as best they might.
00:17:55.320 York fled to Ireland, Salisbury and Warwick to Calais,
00:17:58.880 of which the younger Neville, Warwick, was governor.
00:18:01.580 So, again, the pendulum swings.
00:18:03.600 Now the Lancastrians are at a super high ebb
00:18:06.480 The entire Yorkist party is dispersed
00:18:08.720 Fled in ignominy
00:18:10.180 The king and his party of Lancastrians
00:18:12.260 Complete victory
00:18:13.260 But the surprising and sudden
00:18:16.300 Vicissitudes of fortune
00:18:17.860 That's a classic Edward Gibbon turn of phrase there
00:18:20.480 The vicissitudes of fortune
00:18:22.300 I.e. the pendulum swinging back and forth
00:18:24.480 The vicissitudes of fortune
00:18:26.120 Were the order of the day
00:18:27.660 All through the Wars of the Roses
00:18:29.200 The queen and her friends ruled harshly and unwisely
00:18:32.660 after they had driven York out of the land,
00:18:35.280 they assembled a parliament at Coventry
00:18:37.140 which dealt out hard measures of attainder
00:18:39.920 and confiscation against all who had favoured Duke Richard.
00:18:44.320 A.E. Margaret of Anjou realises,
00:18:46.240 you know, it's a complete victory,
00:18:47.220 Lancashire victory,
00:18:48.160 so she's just gonna, well,
00:18:49.860 she clamped down too harshly, really.
00:18:52.740 Who finds that?
00:18:53.420 Who finds that? 1.00
00:18:54.080 It's either kill all your enemies 1.00
00:18:56.060 like a Turkish sultan, 1.00
00:18:57.900 murder every single last one of them 1.00
00:18:59.820 and all their kin, 0.99
00:19:00.540 Or be extremely kind and forgiving and put massive amounts of effort into reconciliation.
00:19:08.220 But to do a halfway house, I mean, you're quite strict on them.
00:19:11.820 You're quite harsh on them.
00:19:13.280 But you're not going the full bore nuclear option.
00:19:17.280 Well, well, it doesn't work out well.
00:19:19.380 Let's continue reading here.
00:19:20.840 OK, bills of attainder and confiscation against all who favor Duke Richard.
00:19:24.160 They sacked the open town of Newbury because it was supposed to favor York
00:19:28.660 And hung seven citizens of London 0.52
00:19:31.320 Of the Duke's party
00:19:32.740 These cruel actions
00:19:34.360 Turned the heart of the nation from the king
00:19:36.600 And the ruthless Queen Margaret 0.98
00:19:38.060 Just the optics of it don't look good
00:19:40.600 And you're not strong enough
00:19:42.260 To do the nuclear option
00:19:43.520 To do the Mongol option 0.99
00:19:46.540 The Scipio option
00:19:48.200 Of forcing an entire country to your will
00:19:51.100 Regardless of how ruthless or brutal it is
00:19:53.540 They're not capable of that
00:19:54.820 They're not even really trying to do that
00:19:56.540 So the halfway house of, you know, just executing seven people here
00:19:59.860 Sacking a town there
00:20:01.500 Confiscating the property and estates of a small number of people here or there
00:20:05.280 Yeah, the politics, the optics of that
00:20:07.440 Just turned the country against them
00:20:09.760 Well, some of the country, half the country anyway
00:20:12.340 It's the nature of a civil war, Omon continues
00:20:14.660 Hearing of this state of affairs
00:20:16.320 Warwick and Salisbury suddenly made a descent from Calais
00:20:19.600 I.e. that the country turned against Margaret and the king
00:20:22.760 So, you know, the Neville's
00:20:24.260 Warwick decides oh maybe we can just bounce back across the channel try our luck again
00:20:29.300 and they landed at Sandwich and pushed boldly inland the whole of Kent rose to join them
00:20:34.900 and they were able to march on London that pendulum swinging again we hope you enjoyed
00:20:41.240 that video and if you did please head over to lotusseaters.com for the full unabridged video
00:20:54.260 Thank you.