0:00:04 > 0:00:11In the last decades of the 13th century, the nations of Britain found their voices -
0:00:11 > 0:00:16loud confident and defiant - and they were raised against England.
0:00:17 > 0:00:24"The people of Snowdon assert that even if their Prince gave over lordshipment to the English King,
0:00:24 > 0:00:32"they would refuse to do homage to any foreigner of whose language, customs and law they were ignorant."
0:00:33 > 0:00:39"On account of the endless perfidy of the English and to recover our native freedom,
0:00:39 > 0:00:43"the Irish are compelled to enter a deadly war."
0:00:44 > 0:00:51"For as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, we will yield in no least way to English dominion.
0:00:51 > 0:00:56"We fight not for glory, nor riches, nor honour, but for freedom."
0:00:58 > 0:01:02We know these voices. They have been with us a long time now.
0:01:02 > 0:01:06All the same, it is a shock to hear them this early,
0:01:06 > 0:01:13to discover the politics of birthplace uttered with such passion and such pain.
0:01:13 > 0:01:16Once said, they could not be unsaid.
0:01:18 > 0:01:22When the Welsh, the Scots and the Irish acted on their words,
0:01:22 > 0:01:26the bloody wars of the British nations became inevitable.
0:01:26 > 0:01:30And these would not just be battles about territories,
0:01:30 > 0:01:33they were battles for ideas.
0:01:33 > 0:01:36Ideas of what a sovereign nation should be -
0:01:36 > 0:01:40an extension of the rule as will or something wider,
0:01:40 > 0:01:47something involving the people as well as the Prince, something called "the community of the realm".
0:01:47 > 0:01:53Those battles would be fought between the peoples of Britain - Welshmen would die in Scotland,
0:01:53 > 0:02:00Scotsmen would perish in Ireland, the English would kill and be killed everywhere.
0:02:01 > 0:02:05For the fight to the death between princes and principles,
0:02:05 > 0:02:11the battle for the making of a nation would begin in the very heart of England.
0:02:56 > 0:03:03One man was responsible for provoking the peoples of Britain into an awareness of their nationhood
0:03:03 > 0:03:08and he was England's own, home-grown Caesar, Edward I.
0:03:11 > 0:03:18In 1774, those made curious by his fearsome reputation opened his tomb.
0:03:18 > 0:03:24The man they found inside was every bit as awesome as contemporaries had recorded -
0:03:24 > 0:03:30dressed in the purple robe of a Roman emperor, an impressive six foot two tall,
0:03:30 > 0:03:34fully justifying his nickname, Long Shanks.
0:03:35 > 0:03:41Upon that stark marble tomb, the only ornamentation reads,
0:03:41 > 0:03:48"Edwardus Primus, Scottorum Malleus Hic Est.
0:03:49 > 0:03:52"Hammer of the Scots."
0:03:56 > 0:04:00After a century of rule by kings who were essentially Frenchmen,
0:04:00 > 0:04:06Edward can be called the first truly English King, given an old Anglo-Saxon name
0:04:06 > 0:04:11and imbued with a certainty that it was England's imperial mission
0:04:11 > 0:04:16to take its rule to the four corners of the British Islands.
0:04:16 > 0:04:21His many enemies compared him to one of the big-cat predators.
0:04:21 > 0:04:25"Perhaps he will rightly be called a Leopard.
0:04:25 > 0:04:31"Leo - brave, proud and fierce. The pard - wily, devious and treacherous."
0:04:34 > 0:04:40The Leopard Prince was born to splendid, impossible expectations.
0:04:40 > 0:04:46His father Henry III had named his son for England's royal saint, Edward the Confessor,
0:04:46 > 0:04:51the paragon, so it was then thought, of kingly perfection.
0:04:54 > 0:05:00Though the Confessor had been dead for almost 200 years, Henry ate, drank and worshipped him
0:05:00 > 0:05:08and finally created for the long-dead King a shrine of unparalleled magnificence.
0:05:08 > 0:05:13Of course, such a shrine would need a home that equalled its splendour -
0:05:13 > 0:05:16the new Westminster Abbey.
0:05:22 > 0:05:28Henry demolished the old basilica at Westminster and replaced it with an immense Gothic abbey,
0:05:28 > 0:05:33a building that now fitted his vision of an awe-inspiring English monarch.
0:05:33 > 0:05:38From now on, Westminster would be the symbolic heart of the kingdom,
0:05:38 > 0:05:43the place where all English monarchs would be crowned and buried.
0:05:43 > 0:05:48His father, King Henry III, reigned for 56 years.
0:05:48 > 0:05:53He is not remembered for any stirring achievement or blood-soaked conquest,
0:05:53 > 0:05:57but Henry's time on the throne was driven by a magnificent obsession -
0:05:57 > 0:06:03he wanted to turn the monarchy into England's dominant power.
0:06:06 > 0:06:11Henry's great gift to the nation was more than just a fine new church.
0:06:11 > 0:06:15Across the way, its secular counterpart
0:06:15 > 0:06:19was the great hall of the Palace of Westminster.
0:06:19 > 0:06:23The palace was seat of government AND a residence for King Henry
0:06:23 > 0:06:28one like his Angevin ancestors didn't much like being in the saddle.
0:06:30 > 0:06:34And the hall was a court in both the senses the word suggests -
0:06:34 > 0:06:39a place of judgement and a theatre of ceremony.
0:06:40 > 0:06:45At Westminster, the King had to be seen to be magnificent.
0:06:46 > 0:06:50But the King had also to be seen to be just.
0:06:52 > 0:06:56Westminster may have been the creation of the monarchy,
0:06:56 > 0:07:00but it also belonged to England, a nation of laws,
0:07:00 > 0:07:03the nation of Magna Carta.
0:07:05 > 0:07:11Henry had grown up with the charter, signed by his father King John in 1215,
0:07:11 > 0:07:18which put real limits on the power of the King - a bit of a blow for a king who wanted absolute authority.
0:07:18 > 0:07:22Kings could no longer ignore the complaints of their subjects
0:07:22 > 0:07:26that they could be forced to submit to a council of the barons.
0:07:26 > 0:07:31That council thought of itself as the voice of the community of the realm
0:07:31 > 0:07:35and even now began to be called Parliament.
0:07:35 > 0:07:39Its role would be to hold the King to his contract.
0:07:42 > 0:07:48Since Henry had become King as a boy of nine, he had no choice but to swallow this bitter pill.
0:07:48 > 0:07:56However, as he grew older, Henry burned with frustration, becoming determined to escape its shackles,
0:07:56 > 0:08:00to restore the unchallenged authority of the Crown.
0:08:00 > 0:08:07Knowing that this couldn't happen without a fight, Henry accepted a compromise position for many years
0:08:07 > 0:08:12that the King was not free to govern through pure royal will.
0:08:14 > 0:08:20But Henry III was also a Plantagenet and Plantagenets dreamed dangerous dreams,
0:08:20 > 0:08:27expensive dreams of campaigns far abroad, which no-one in York or Canterbury could see the point of.
0:08:27 > 0:08:33And when Plantagenets thought they might get unwelcome advice, they stopped listening...
0:08:33 > 0:08:36until, that is, they were made to.
0:08:38 > 0:08:44In 1258, in the very hall that defined his majesty, Westminster,
0:08:44 > 0:08:48seven of the most powerful barons confronted the King.
0:08:48 > 0:08:52Fully armed, they paused only to leave their swords outside.
0:08:52 > 0:08:57They demanded that Henry meet them at a parliament in Oxford
0:08:57 > 0:09:02and stop trying to turn his European dreams into reality.
0:09:03 > 0:09:10The barons were led in all but name by the most improbable revolutionary in all of British history -
0:09:10 > 0:09:14Simon de Montfort. Here at Kenilworth,
0:09:14 > 0:09:18he presided over a little empire of culture.
0:09:19 > 0:09:24A French aristocrat who inherited the Earldom of Leicester,
0:09:24 > 0:09:28Simon became convinced that he was more English than the English.
0:09:28 > 0:09:34What was good for de Montfort was good for the nation. Love him or hate him, everyone knew
0:09:34 > 0:09:39that Simon de Montfort was a man with a mission.
0:09:39 > 0:09:43That mission, embarked on with his fellow barons,
0:09:43 > 0:09:48was to bring the wayward, self-glorifying monarchy to book,
0:09:48 > 0:09:53to make it the servant, not the master, of the realm.
0:09:53 > 0:10:00At Oxford, amidst wildfire rumours, a camp of soldiers and the growling hunger of a famine,
0:10:00 > 0:10:05Henry III was treated to the emasculation of his sovereignty.
0:10:06 > 0:10:11A document was drawn up for the King to sign - not discuss, just accept.
0:10:11 > 0:10:16And what it said was so startling, so genuinely revolutionary,
0:10:16 > 0:10:22that 1258 ought to be one of those dates engraved on the national memory.
0:10:22 > 0:10:27The Provisions of Oxford were at least as important as Magna Carta.
0:10:29 > 0:10:35In effect, the Crown had been replaced by a new council of nobles and clergy.
0:10:37 > 0:10:44That council now virtually ruled England - foreign courtiers were made to disappear.
0:10:45 > 0:10:52"It has been ordained that there are to be three parliaments a year to view the state of the kingdom.
0:10:52 > 0:10:58"It is provided that, from each county, there are chosen four loyal, worthy knights
0:10:58 > 0:11:03"to hear all complaints for the common benefit of the whole kingdom."
0:11:03 > 0:11:10When the community of the realm, including the King and Prince Edward, swore to uphold the Provisions,
0:11:10 > 0:11:17they could have been in no doubt about the significance of the moment for the fate of the nation.
0:11:18 > 0:11:25And so Henry III's facade of omnipotent rule had come crashing down around his ears.
0:11:25 > 0:11:29But he was not the only royal with a stake in events.
0:11:30 > 0:11:37How did the 19-year-old Edward feel about the drastic shrinkage in the power of the Crown, his crown?
0:11:37 > 0:11:42There is no doubt that, for some time, even the Prince was dazzled
0:11:42 > 0:11:47by the intense magnetism of Simon de Montfort's personality.
0:11:47 > 0:11:50And for a while, Edward went along with it.
0:11:56 > 0:12:01But, inevitably, divisions opened up between the reformers.
0:12:01 > 0:12:07It was all very well to make the King and his officers answerable to the barons,
0:12:07 > 0:12:11but ought the barons to be answerable to THEIR inferiors?
0:12:12 > 0:12:17De Montfort thought yes, the earls thought no.
0:12:17 > 0:12:20And as those divisions opened wider,
0:12:20 > 0:12:25the Leopard Prince began to change his spots and sharpen his claws.
0:12:27 > 0:12:34Now it became increasingly clear that the struggle over who was to rule England and how they would do it
0:12:34 > 0:12:38centred on two men - Simon and Edward.
0:12:38 > 0:12:42Neither could prevail without the other's total defeat.
0:12:44 > 0:12:51Over five years, Henry and Edward manoeuvred against de Montfort for power until finally words ran out.
0:12:51 > 0:12:58For this was no three-month paper revolution, like the original signing of the Magna Carta.
0:13:01 > 0:13:07The issue could now only be settled on the field of battle. For the first time since the Norman conquest,
0:13:07 > 0:13:13the political fate of England was completely fluid, its eventual outcome uncertain.
0:13:13 > 0:13:20In 1264, de Montfort won the first round at the Battle of Lewes on the Sussex Downs.
0:13:20 > 0:13:24King Henry and Edward were both taken prisoner.
0:13:26 > 0:13:30The year which followed, with de Montfort in charge,
0:13:30 > 0:13:35was the closest England came to a republic until the days of Oliver Cromwell.
0:13:35 > 0:13:42And in Parliament, not just aristocrats and bishops, but ordinary knights of the shire
0:13:42 > 0:13:49and even burgesses from the towns presumed to discuss the fate of their superiors, a prince and a king.
0:13:49 > 0:13:55But like the later republic, this one quickly gained the attributes of a dictatorship.
0:13:55 > 0:14:02With power going to his head, Simon seemed more vainglorious adventurer than messianic reformer.
0:14:02 > 0:14:06In the end, he simply repelled more people than he attracted.
0:14:06 > 0:14:10With the impotent Henry III firmly under lock and key,
0:14:10 > 0:14:15the Crown's future lay with Edward, who outwitted his captors
0:14:15 > 0:14:17and made a dashing horseback getaway.
0:14:22 > 0:14:29Even at this stage, it was obvious that there was something extraordinary about Edward.
0:14:29 > 0:14:36He radiated the kind of charisma that drew confused responses of both fear and adoration.
0:14:36 > 0:14:43He purposely kept his signals mixed, the better to convert them into loyalty.
0:14:44 > 0:14:48Edward led his following to Evesham in Worcestershire
0:14:48 > 0:14:52where de Montfort's now outnumbered army camped near the abbey.
0:14:58 > 0:15:02Under stormy skies, the battle was a slaughter.
0:15:05 > 0:15:10Told his son had been killed, Simon replied, "Then it is time to die."
0:15:10 > 0:15:16He charged into the fray and was slain on foot, his devoted knights falling with him.
0:15:22 > 0:15:25Edward ignored the rules of war.
0:15:26 > 0:15:29The wounded were stabbed where they lay.
0:15:31 > 0:15:35Simon's head, hands, feet and testicles were cut off...
0:15:37 > 0:15:41..the genitals hung around his nose.
0:15:48 > 0:15:54The Crown had won, but only after overcoming Kenilworth's mighty defences
0:15:54 > 0:15:58in a siege that lasted nine months.
0:15:58 > 0:16:04But Edward had been given a serious early lesson in the political realities of England.
0:16:04 > 0:16:09He wouldn't cringe before the barons, but he had to make them his allies.
0:16:09 > 0:16:14As partners, they'd go on to create an English empire of their own -
0:16:14 > 0:16:17the reincarnation of Roman Britannia.
0:16:20 > 0:16:25In 1274, Edward I's coronation finally took place
0:16:25 > 0:16:29in a magnificent sanctuary created by his father.
0:16:29 > 0:16:33The Westminster in which he was crowned would,
0:16:33 > 0:16:40if Edward had anything to do with it, be the capital not just of England but of Britain.
0:16:40 > 0:16:47It was in Wales that Edward first made the seriousness of his ambitions crystal clear.
0:16:49 > 0:16:53Here, the dominant Prince was Llewelyn ap Gruffydd,
0:16:53 > 0:16:57ruler of the mountainous kingdom of Gwynedd, Greater Snowdonia.
0:16:57 > 0:17:04Knowing that the almost impossible terrain of his country had been the graveyard of English armies,
0:17:04 > 0:17:11Llewelyn was determined to resist their attempts to subdue central Wales.
0:17:11 > 0:17:16Here, the native Welsh clung on to their language, customs and laws,
0:17:16 > 0:17:21lords in their own lands, but still subjects of the English King.
0:17:21 > 0:17:26By the 13th century, Wales was divided into the principality of Gwynedd,
0:17:26 > 0:17:31the disputed centre and the encroaching English baronial and Crown lands.
0:17:31 > 0:17:38Encroaching, that is, until 1258, when Llewelyn was strong enough to have himself declared
0:17:38 > 0:17:41"princeps wallie", Prince of Wales.
0:17:41 > 0:17:46Exploiting the Civil War in England, and making an alliance with de Montfort,
0:17:46 > 0:17:50Llewelyn's armies overran the now undefended centre,
0:17:50 > 0:17:56but he then overreached himself, marrying de Montfort's daughter,
0:17:56 > 0:18:00an offence Edward was unlikely to forgive or to forget.
0:18:01 > 0:18:07Years later, Llewelyn handed Edward the perfect pretext for retribution -
0:18:07 > 0:18:10he failed to show up at Edward's coronation
0:18:10 > 0:18:15and ignored a total of five summonses to pay homage to his new king.
0:18:15 > 0:18:23Edward, who needed no tutorials on the connections between ceremonies and power, immediately took this
0:18:23 > 0:18:27as a slap in the face, an act of virtual rebellion.
0:18:27 > 0:18:32In 1276, a huge army - the biggest in Britain since the Norman conquest -
0:18:32 > 0:18:39invaded Gwynedd, penetrating right to its furthest corners, to Snowdonia and to Anglesey.
0:18:39 > 0:18:44Faced with this invasion, Llewelyn was forced to surrender.
0:18:47 > 0:18:52But, as so often in these years, humiliation bred defiance.
0:18:52 > 0:18:58In 1282, the Welsh launched a surprise attack on an English garrison.
0:18:58 > 0:19:02Edward now bore down again with an even bigger army,
0:19:02 > 0:19:06but this campaign was far from being a walkover.
0:19:13 > 0:19:20Realising this, the Archbishop of Canterbury attempted to conciliate between the warring factions,
0:19:20 > 0:19:27offering Llewelyn land and title in England if he would renounce his rights in Wales.
0:19:27 > 0:19:30And the answer to this offer was blunt.
0:19:31 > 0:19:36"That they must stand by their laws and rights in defence of all Wales.
0:19:36 > 0:19:40"The people preferred to die rather than to live under English rule.
0:19:40 > 0:19:47"They would not do homage to any stranger of whose language, manners and laws they were ignorant.
0:19:47 > 0:19:53"They would fight in defence of 'nostra natio' - our nation against the English.
0:19:55 > 0:19:57When the war was renewed,
0:19:57 > 0:20:01it was with fresh and unsparing savagery.
0:20:01 > 0:20:05No quarter was given by either side.
0:20:05 > 0:20:11The Welsh exploited their land, ambushed the slow-moving companies of knights
0:20:11 > 0:20:16and then disappeared off again into the hills and forests.
0:20:19 > 0:20:23FEROCIOUS SHRIEKS
0:20:24 > 0:20:30Then, in a minor skirmish in central Wales, Llewelyn was killed by an anonymous English spearman.
0:20:33 > 0:20:38The final annihilation of resistance took another six months
0:20:38 > 0:20:43before the King could claim Wales to be pacified.
0:20:45 > 0:20:52However, the subjugation of Wales was far more subtle than the surgical application of brute force.
0:20:52 > 0:20:56Edward had the chilling, uncannily modern knowledge
0:20:56 > 0:21:02that to break your enemy you must first strip him of his cultural identity.
0:21:02 > 0:21:07Before this place was called Conway by the English, it was Aberconwy.
0:21:07 > 0:21:15It was a monastery housing the tomb of the most powerful of all Welsh princes and home to a sacred relic
0:21:15 > 0:21:19that the Welsh believed to be a piece of the true cross.
0:21:20 > 0:21:24Naturally, then, the monastery became a fortress
0:21:24 > 0:21:29and the cross was taken to London along with Llewelyn's crown.
0:21:33 > 0:21:38The lords called themselves Princes of Wales - fine.
0:21:38 > 0:21:42From 1301, THEY will be the most English of the English,
0:21:42 > 0:21:48the first son of the King, the heir to the throne, the emperor in waiting.
0:21:49 > 0:21:56But the most titanic of all the visible signs of the English empire were its castles,
0:21:56 > 0:22:00a granite ring of fortresses stretching from Builth to Hope,
0:22:00 > 0:22:05most supplied from the sea, depriving the Welsh of any hope of liberation.
0:22:08 > 0:22:15For the Welsh of Snowdonia, the great stone fortresses in their midst were what one of them called
0:22:15 > 0:22:19the magnificent badges of our subjection.
0:22:21 > 0:22:28The symbol not of imperial grandeur, but of crushing national annihilation,
0:22:28 > 0:22:34a permanent, daily, wounding reminder of conquest and humiliation.
0:22:36 > 0:22:42The most colossal exercise, in fact, in colonial domination anywhere in medieval Europe.
0:22:42 > 0:22:48Beneath the lion standard of Edward Plantagenet, the Welsh inhabitants
0:22:48 > 0:22:52had now become second-class citizens in their own country.
0:22:54 > 0:22:59Those natives were treated for the most part like naughty children,
0:22:59 > 0:23:04not allowed to bear arms, of course, but even forced to ask permission
0:23:04 > 0:23:08if they wanted strangers to stay at their house overnight.
0:23:08 > 0:23:13Worst of all, I think, the Welsh were doomed by English superiority
0:23:13 > 0:23:16to become objects of terminal quaintness -
0:23:16 > 0:23:22the quaint language, quaint songs, those amusing choirs and chants.
0:23:24 > 0:23:29It could have been worse, and for the Jews of England, it was.
0:23:30 > 0:23:34The Welsh wars cost ten times the King's annual revenue
0:23:34 > 0:23:42and the price of victory and castle building had so bled the Jews, the usual source of loans and taxation,
0:23:42 > 0:23:49that they had nothing left to yield and so could be dispensed with altogether.
0:23:51 > 0:23:57Early in his reign, Edward, perhaps acting from religious conviction, outlawed moneylending
0:23:57 > 0:24:01and so put most of England's Jews out of business.
0:24:03 > 0:24:08He then forced them to wear yellow felt badges of identification
0:24:08 > 0:24:15and so be recognised as the subspecies of humanity he undoubtedly believed they were.
0:24:15 > 0:24:19A year after his first Welsh invasion,
0:24:19 > 0:24:23Edward arrested all the heads of the Jewish households
0:24:23 > 0:24:27and hanged nearly 300 in the tower.
0:24:31 > 0:24:36Not satisfied with this, he expelled the entire community,
0:24:36 > 0:24:38perhaps 3,000 people, in 1290 -
0:24:38 > 0:24:43an act so overwhelmingly popular, especially with the church,
0:24:43 > 0:24:47that it awarded him a huge tax grant.
0:24:49 > 0:24:51So it's Edward's England
0:24:51 > 0:24:58which became the first country to perform a little act of ethnic cleansing on its Jews -
0:24:58 > 0:25:03the violent uprooting of entire communities in York, Lincoln and London.
0:25:08 > 0:25:14It was not plain sailing for the Jews aboard one deportation boat in the Thames.
0:25:14 > 0:25:21At Queenborough, the captain encouraged his Jewish passengers to stretch their legs
0:25:21 > 0:25:28as the ship beached on the receding tide. As it returned, he barred them from getting back aboard,
0:25:28 > 0:25:34challenging them to call on their God to part the waves as He had with the Red Sea.
0:25:34 > 0:25:38But there was no miracle this time - they all drowned.
0:25:49 > 0:25:56In Lincoln Cathedral lie the entrails of Eleanor of Castile, Queen to Edward I.
0:25:56 > 0:26:00She died within months of the expulsions, leaving her husband,
0:26:00 > 0:26:07normally so thick-skinned and emotionally coarse, distraught, plunged into grief.
0:26:07 > 0:26:14Edward's devotion is best reflected in the monument unique in medieval kingship -
0:26:14 > 0:26:21twelve crosses he built to mark the points where Eleanor's body lay en route to Westminster Abbey,
0:26:21 > 0:26:25the most famous being Charing Cross in London.
0:26:33 > 0:26:40Eleanor's death seemed to transfer Edward's reserve of passion to what now became the real love of his life,
0:26:40 > 0:26:44the single-minded pursuit of imperial power.
0:26:45 > 0:26:52It was Scotland that was destined to be on the receiving end of Edward's deadly power games,
0:26:52 > 0:26:57which began, as always, by converting accidents into opportunities.
0:26:59 > 0:27:06The accident was the death in 1290 of the last surviving direct heir to Alexander III,
0:27:06 > 0:27:09King of Scotland.
0:27:09 > 0:27:13With her gone, the Scottish nobles were lining up for the throne.
0:27:13 > 0:27:18Someone was needed to judge the contestants. Well, guess who?
0:27:20 > 0:27:27The strongest claimants led the two most powerful family factions in Scotland -
0:27:27 > 0:27:32the Bruces and the Comyn-Balliol Alliance. They hated each other.
0:27:34 > 0:27:40Both were determined to have their man made King, and as they pushed their rival claims fully,
0:27:40 > 0:27:45their conflict would cause civil war across all of Scotland.
0:27:46 > 0:27:51Edward came north to decide which of the two rivals would be King.
0:27:51 > 0:27:58The competitors met him on either side of the River Tweed near a place called Norham.
0:27:58 > 0:28:03Of course, Edward being Edward, he had a price on his mind
0:28:03 > 0:28:08in return for being adjudicator/godfather to the Scots.
0:28:08 > 0:28:15And that price, needless to say, was homage, the bent knee, the kiss on the ring of the devoted sword,
0:28:15 > 0:28:21the acceptance by whoever got the job that henceforth he would be Edward's man,
0:28:21 > 0:28:26deeply in his debt, his soldiers at the King's command.
0:28:27 > 0:28:33To prove his point, he gathered an army at Norham - an army of monks, scholars and antiquarians.
0:28:33 > 0:28:38Their heavy artillery were ancient charters and chronicles,
0:28:38 > 0:28:43their job to find the historical proof of English overlordship.
0:28:43 > 0:28:48But they failed, so the King threw the problem right back to the Scots.
0:28:49 > 0:28:57Edward asked the guardians of the realm to find documentary evidence why he was NOT their feudal overlord.
0:28:57 > 0:29:03To which he got a wonderfully canny contradiction - not at all what he wanted to hear.
0:29:03 > 0:29:09"Sire," they said, "the bona gentes, the responsible men who have sent us here, know full well
0:29:09 > 0:29:16"you couldn't possibly make so great a claim unless you actually believed you had a right to it.
0:29:16 > 0:29:19"But of this right we know nothing."
0:29:19 > 0:29:26Which is like saying, "You can't be completely off your head to come up with this sovereignty stuff,
0:29:26 > 0:29:32"but actually it is all news to us, chum, since the Scottish realm on this side of the river
0:29:32 > 0:29:38"is held tribute to no-one but God. We don't have to prove a thing.
0:29:38 > 0:29:45"It's for you to come up with the super-monk with the perfect charter. Let us know when you have it."
0:29:45 > 0:29:52In the end, all those who thought they were still in with a chance of winning the Scots throne
0:29:52 > 0:30:00paid homage to Edward, but the rest of the Scots community of the realm held their noses and stood aloof.
0:30:00 > 0:30:07Was this, as some Scottish historians have always insisted, an Edwardian trap?
0:30:07 > 0:30:11Was he already thinking of turning Scotland into Wales north,
0:30:11 > 0:30:16the next territory to be gobbled up by his imperial appetite?
0:30:16 > 0:30:20Well, I think the appetite grew with the eating.
0:30:20 > 0:30:23A year later, when the final verdict came through,
0:30:23 > 0:30:30Balliol did prove to have the better claim and was the clear choice of Scotland.
0:30:30 > 0:30:33Edward did not force him on anybody.
0:30:33 > 0:30:37For his part, once Balliol had acknowledged Edward's overlordship,
0:30:37 > 0:30:44the English King agreed to keep the separate identity of Scottish institutions.
0:30:44 > 0:30:48Only if their interest crossed would there be trouble.
0:30:48 > 0:30:53Alas, they did and trouble there certainly was.
0:30:55 > 0:31:01Edward wasted no time in humiliating Balliol on every occasion over the next five years,
0:31:01 > 0:31:08driving the Scots community of the realm - the nobles, clergy, gentry and burgesses
0:31:08 > 0:31:11to stand against their own King.
0:31:11 > 0:31:15When war with France coincided with another Welsh rebellion,
0:31:15 > 0:31:22Edward exercised his overlordship of Scotland and summoned their nobility to fight for him.
0:31:22 > 0:31:26They refused and then went one stage further.
0:31:26 > 0:31:31They signed a formal treaty with France against England.
0:31:31 > 0:31:36To Edward, it was self-evidently a declaration of war.
0:31:36 > 0:31:41The army he raised in 1296 put even the Welsh campaign in the shade.
0:31:45 > 0:31:51First to fall was Scotland's wealthiest city port - Berwick-upon-Tweed.
0:31:51 > 0:31:57The siege lasted only hours... the massacre that followed, days.
0:32:01 > 0:32:05"The King of England spared no-one...
0:32:06 > 0:32:09"..whatever the age or sex.
0:32:09 > 0:32:14"And for two days, streams of blood flowed from the bodies of the slain.
0:32:16 > 0:32:21"So that mills could be turned round by its flow."
0:32:25 > 0:32:29At Dunbar, the Scots Royal Army were swept aside.
0:32:29 > 0:32:33Now Edward turned imperial conqueror in deadly earnest.
0:32:33 > 0:32:40King John Balliol's arms were torn from his coat like a court-martialled subaltern.
0:32:40 > 0:32:43English officials took over Scottish government.
0:32:43 > 0:32:50And just as he'd ripped the heart from the Welsh sense of independence by carrying off their sacred relics,
0:32:50 > 0:32:57Edward now took the Stone of Scone, symbol of the independent Scottish crown, to Westminster,
0:32:57 > 0:33:02where a magnificent coronation chair was custom-designed to hold it.
0:33:02 > 0:33:09And when Edward was given the broken Scottish royal seal, he set it aside, commenting...
0:33:10 > 0:33:15"A man does good business when he rids himself of a turd."
0:33:15 > 0:33:19One by one, a host of Scots came to do homage to Edward,
0:33:19 > 0:33:24including the Bruces, but there was one who did not -
0:33:24 > 0:33:28Malcolm Wallace... and this Malcolm had a brother.
0:33:33 > 0:33:39Here he is - the standard-issue freedom fighter of the imagination,
0:33:39 > 0:33:44the give-'em-hell whiskers, the save-me-Jesus eyes,
0:33:44 > 0:33:46the hamstrings from hell.
0:33:46 > 0:33:51We haven't a clue, of course, whether William Wallace looked like this,
0:33:51 > 0:33:59any more than we know if he could have been a stuntman for Mel Gibson who immortalised him in Braveheart.
0:33:59 > 0:34:06But Wallace IS one of those larger-than-life figures whose epic romance refuses to go away.
0:34:06 > 0:34:13It just grows to match this extraordinary monument to him dominating the Stirling skyline.
0:34:15 > 0:34:19There is no doubt, of course, that Wallace DID count.
0:34:19 > 0:34:27His brief, dramatic intervention in the wars between England and Scotland did change British history -
0:34:27 > 0:34:32if only to show that the armies of Edward I were not invincible
0:34:32 > 0:34:35at all times and in all places.
0:34:35 > 0:34:40Beyond that, Wallace was one of the few Scots who never at any stage
0:34:40 > 0:34:46paid homage to Edward, remaining loyal to King John Balliol.
0:34:46 > 0:34:51More gentleman-turned-outlaw than peasant man of the glens,
0:34:51 > 0:34:54Wallace wasn't a one-man war either.
0:34:54 > 0:34:58By mid 1297, all Scotland was on the boil.
0:34:58 > 0:35:06North of the Forth, Andrew Murray matched or surpassed him by leading a wild and brilliant guerrilla war.
0:35:07 > 0:35:11When Murray marched south and Wallace moved north
0:35:11 > 0:35:16to meet here on the Forth at Stirling, the key to Scotland,
0:35:16 > 0:35:21the chaotic, wildfire uprising turned into a major military campaign.
0:35:23 > 0:35:30On the eve of the Battle of Stirling Bridge, Wallace told the English, "We are not here to make peace,
0:35:30 > 0:35:35"but to do battle and to liberate our kingdom."
0:35:37 > 0:35:42The Scots gathered on the Abbey Craig ridge.
0:35:42 > 0:35:47Below, a narrow wooden bridge led to the castle and to the English.
0:35:50 > 0:35:56Wallace allowed half of them to cross the fragile structure, enough for his forces to deal with.
0:36:01 > 0:36:07And so they did, rushing down from their perch, through the woods and into the English ranks.
0:36:14 > 0:36:21"Wallace on foot, with a great sharp sword, goes amongst the very thickest of his foes.
0:36:24 > 0:36:30"The Scots vanquished the savage English, whom they put into mourning for death.
0:36:30 > 0:36:37"Some had their throats cut by swords, others were taken prisoners, others drowned."
0:36:39 > 0:36:43One, the hated English taxman Cressingham, was skinned,
0:36:43 > 0:36:48his fat body made into a belt for Wallace's victorious sword.
0:36:52 > 0:36:59And yet, as so often in Scottish history, defeat quickly followed victory down the Forth at Falkirk.
0:37:01 > 0:37:05Wallace's warriors died by the thousand.
0:37:08 > 0:37:12"They fell like blossoms in an orchard when the fruit has ripened.
0:37:12 > 0:37:17"Bodies covered the ground as thickly as snow in winter."
0:37:18 > 0:37:22Wallace himself managed to escape the slaughter,
0:37:22 > 0:37:25only to be captured years later...
0:37:27 > 0:37:32..betrayed by a Scotsman, possibly even the Bruce himself.
0:37:33 > 0:37:40After a mock trial, Wallace endured the most appalling death that the King's rage could devise -
0:37:40 > 0:37:43a live disembowelment.
0:37:47 > 0:37:53In the intervening six years, Scotland suffered almost as badly by Edward's hand,
0:37:53 > 0:37:59as the Scots drew inspiration from Wallace and fought on.
0:37:59 > 0:38:04Edward came back from 1297 to 1304.
0:38:06 > 0:38:10The war became a murderous academy of siege warfare.
0:38:12 > 0:38:16Edward came from the south west to Caerlaverock Castle,
0:38:16 > 0:38:21took it and left, with its defenders hanged from the walls.
0:38:21 > 0:38:28North to Bothwell, where a huge siege tower overcame its mighty battlements, and on and on...
0:38:30 > 0:38:35Not even Scotland's Westminster was saved from his fury.
0:38:36 > 0:38:43Dunfermline Abbey is one of those places where you can almost smell tragedy in the stonework.
0:38:43 > 0:38:50Pretty much everything you see here was built, or rather rebuilt, after 1303.
0:38:50 > 0:38:55In that year, Edward I, in one of his murderously vindictive tantrums,
0:38:55 > 0:38:59torched the place, burnt it to the ground.
0:38:59 > 0:39:03He was, as usual, making a point.
0:39:03 > 0:39:11To smash up a royal mausoleum was to strike directly at Scotland's sense of independent history.
0:39:11 > 0:39:17The greatest symbol of that independence, as always, was Stirling.
0:39:18 > 0:39:23Its surrender took the fight out of the Scots.
0:39:24 > 0:39:27In 1304, they submitted to Edward.
0:39:29 > 0:39:35"Well," he must have thought, "that was that. Done with, peace."
0:39:35 > 0:39:37A mistake.
0:39:37 > 0:39:43For what Edward couldn't possibly have predicted was the emergence of a Scottish lion
0:39:43 > 0:39:47even more ruthless than the Leopard himself.
0:39:47 > 0:39:50And he was, of course, the Bruce.
0:39:51 > 0:39:57Strangely, when you catalogue the strengths of Robert the Bruce -
0:39:57 > 0:40:04his political cunning, his military ingenuity, his steely resolution, even his intermittent fits of rage -
0:40:04 > 0:40:11they all begin to sound rather like the attributes of the man whose work he had sworn to undo - Edward I.
0:40:11 > 0:40:19If he had read the book of Edward's life, he would have known that lesson one was not "beat the foreigner",
0:40:19 > 0:40:23it was "first, win your battles at home."
0:40:25 > 0:40:28And so, in 1306,
0:40:28 > 0:40:35Bruce, the most politically intelligent and militarily successful figure in medieval Scottish history,
0:40:35 > 0:40:37did just that.
0:40:37 > 0:40:42He met with John Comyn, his main rival, and ended up
0:40:42 > 0:40:48stabbing him before the alter of Greyfriars Church in Dumfries.
0:40:53 > 0:41:00The murder is neither explained nor justified by it being the case of a patriot knocking off a quisling,
0:41:00 > 0:41:07for Comyn had been a lot more consistent in his opposition to the English than Bruce.
0:41:07 > 0:41:13He remained loyal to King Balliol, who still lived and so had to be removed.
0:41:13 > 0:41:20Barely six weeks after he had murdered Comyn, Bruce had himself inaugurated King at Scone.
0:41:21 > 0:41:25Instead of unifying the Scots behind a single leader,
0:41:25 > 0:41:31Bruce's actions only intensified what was already a Scottish civil war,
0:41:31 > 0:41:34one that he initially lost.
0:41:39 > 0:41:45He fled Scotland and so created a vacuum of knowledge filled by heroic mythology -
0:41:45 > 0:41:52the fable of the cave and the spider, whose patience gave Robert the resolution to persevere.
0:41:54 > 0:42:00There was no cave, no spider, but there was something much more extraordinary,
0:42:00 > 0:42:04the polished noble turning himself into a guerrilla captain.
0:42:04 > 0:42:10For Robert the Bruce, not Wallace, wrote the book on partisan warfare.
0:42:11 > 0:42:18On his return, four months later, adversity now made him a great general,
0:42:18 > 0:42:21attacking his Scots and English foes alike.
0:42:22 > 0:42:30In the end, Robert the Bruce simply outlived the old King, who breathed his last fearing the worst,
0:42:30 > 0:42:37should ever his son Edward of Caernarvon have to meet Robert the Bruce on the field of battle.
0:42:39 > 0:42:41Eventually, Edward died,
0:42:41 > 0:42:45here, near Carlisle, in 1307,
0:42:45 > 0:42:48en route to deal with Bruce himself.
0:42:48 > 0:42:51Ironically, at the end of his life,
0:42:51 > 0:42:56Edward turned thoughtful, even writing that he wanted to promote
0:42:56 > 0:43:00"pleasantness, ease and quiet for our subjects."
0:43:00 > 0:43:06Well, if he really believed this, he must have died a truly disappointed man.
0:43:06 > 0:43:14A story says the King ordered his bones to be boiled from his flesh and carried before his son's army,
0:43:14 > 0:43:21believing that as long as his bones marched north, the Scots would never be victorious.
0:43:23 > 0:43:30But Edward junior was going to need more than his father's shinbone if he was to have any chance of success.
0:43:31 > 0:43:37He was certainly not the incarnation of the community of the realm.
0:43:37 > 0:43:43Neither was he the true heir of the Caesar of Britain, the monarch of all he surveyed.
0:43:43 > 0:43:45He was just a loser.
0:43:47 > 0:43:54Bruce, on the other hand, was still a winner. Over seven years, he regained his kingdom.
0:43:54 > 0:44:00So, by 1314, the English only controlled Bothwell, Berwick, Jedburgh
0:44:00 > 0:44:05and the key, Stirling Castle, now besieged by the Scots.
0:44:06 > 0:44:14Faced with complete humiliation in Scotland, Edward II finally acted and marched north.
0:44:14 > 0:44:20He met his nemesis in a muddy field along the banks of the Bannock Burn.
0:44:21 > 0:44:27It was not to be the usual story of charge, arrows away, slash, victory,
0:44:27 > 0:44:30but a relentless, two-day affair.
0:44:30 > 0:44:35Outnumbered three to one, Bruce did get to choose the boggy battlefield,
0:44:35 > 0:44:41knowing that even Plantagenet war machines don't work well on wet ground.
0:44:44 > 0:44:49However, it was almost all over before it had begun.
0:44:49 > 0:44:54Young English knight Henry de Bohun caught Bruce unawares and unarmoured
0:44:54 > 0:44:59on his little mount, some way off from his soldiers.
0:45:00 > 0:45:07"So Henry missed the noble King and he, standing in his stirrups with an axe that was both hard and good,
0:45:07 > 0:45:13"struck him a blow with such great force that it cleaved the head to his brains."
0:45:13 > 0:45:18The shaft of the axe left broken in Robert's fist.
0:45:18 > 0:45:25Skirmishing followed as the short June night fell, Bruce reminding the Scots,
0:45:25 > 0:45:32"The English are bent on obliterating my kingdom, nay, our whole nation."
0:45:33 > 0:45:36The English knights charge.
0:45:37 > 0:45:40The sodden ground and schiltrom -
0:45:40 > 0:45:46hedgehogs of 1,500 men, each holding a 12-foot spear - defeat them.
0:46:04 > 0:46:08Ranks of infantry meet head on.
0:46:09 > 0:46:14"Such a smashing of spears that men could hear it far away."
0:46:14 > 0:46:19English archers are now swept away by Scots cavalry
0:46:19 > 0:46:24or blocked by the four schiltroms, which unite and push forward.
0:46:25 > 0:46:30"Many a splendid, mighty blow dealt there on both sides
0:46:30 > 0:46:37"until blood burst through the mail coats and went streaming down to the earth."
0:46:41 > 0:46:46Edward II fled the field with 500 knights.
0:46:47 > 0:46:54The English force broke behind him and was slaughtered. The burn becomes so choked...
0:46:54 > 0:46:59"Men could pass dry foot over it on drowned horses and men."
0:47:03 > 0:47:07Edward II left his shield, his seal, his honour
0:47:07 > 0:47:11and perhaps 4,000 English and Welsh dead.
0:47:19 > 0:47:24Having won the victory on the battlefield, if not the war itself,
0:47:24 > 0:47:30the Scots now sought international recognition of their newly-won liberty.
0:47:32 > 0:47:36The occasion was a letter sent to the Pope
0:47:36 > 0:47:43giving reasons why Scotland's independence ought to be recognised by the Church as itself sacred.
0:47:44 > 0:47:48The letter was written here in Arbroath Abbey
0:47:48 > 0:47:52and more than anything ever produced south of the border
0:47:52 > 0:47:59represented a perfect fusion between the two ideas of sovereignty we have seen in action -
0:47:59 > 0:48:02the Nation and the Prince.
0:48:04 > 0:48:11At the heart of what we call the Declaration of Arbroath is something much more powerful and deeply moving.
0:48:11 > 0:48:18It is the insistence that the nation lived on beyond and outside the person of the Prince,
0:48:18 > 0:48:22who for a time happened to claim its government.
0:48:22 > 0:48:28We heard something like this earlier, at the very beginning of our story - in Oxford, in 1258.
0:48:28 > 0:48:32But here in Scotland, it is much more eloquent -
0:48:32 > 0:48:39the image of the free patriot, drawn not as a desperado like Wallace or a mighty Prince like Bruce,
0:48:39 > 0:48:43but as one of a band of brother survivors...
0:48:43 > 0:48:50"For as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, we will yield in no least way to English dominion.
0:48:50 > 0:48:56"We fight not for glory, nor riches, nor honour, but for freedom,
0:48:56 > 0:49:00"which no good man gives up except with his life."
0:49:02 > 0:49:08The real lesson of the Battle of Bannockburn was that the Scottish King commanded loyalty
0:49:08 > 0:49:12in ways that just never occurred to Edward II.
0:49:14 > 0:49:21Robert the Bruce knew that he could only be successful if he could be the personification of Scotland,
0:49:21 > 0:49:25the incarnation of the community of the realm.
0:49:25 > 0:49:31That's why he was not Scotland's Edward I, he was Scotland's Simon de Montfort.
0:49:36 > 0:49:42Like de Montfort, Bruce had pinned his personal cause to the flag and to the passions of his country.
0:49:47 > 0:49:54Unlike Edward I, Robert was not just a warlord who hammered the country to his will,
0:49:54 > 0:49:58he had managed to forge a true alliance with the people -
0:49:58 > 0:50:05a community of the realm that, when united and led by King Robert I, could win its freedom.
0:50:12 > 0:50:17And so the emboldened Scots take the war to the English.
0:50:21 > 0:50:26For 22 years, the Scots raided huge areas of northern England,
0:50:26 > 0:50:29reaching as far south as Yorkshire.
0:50:31 > 0:50:36Abbeys and castles fell, cities paid the Scots off to avoid destruction.
0:50:39 > 0:50:42Villages were trashed.
0:50:43 > 0:50:48Border raids on a weakened enemy were what you would expect,
0:50:48 > 0:50:53but what Robert the Bruce did next was utterly unexpected.
0:50:54 > 0:51:03In May 1315, Robert Bruce's brother Edward landed here in north-east Ireland near Carrickfergus Castle
0:51:03 > 0:51:08with a formidable Scots army of many thousands of men.
0:51:08 > 0:51:14What the Bruces were doing, in effect, was opening a second front against the English empire.
0:51:14 > 0:51:21Robert had written a remarkable letter. "The Scots would come," he said,
0:51:21 > 0:51:25"not as an invader, but as liberators." For...
0:51:25 > 0:51:30"Our people and your people, free in times past,
0:51:30 > 0:51:36"share the same national ancestry and common custom."
0:51:39 > 0:51:46The rhetoric was stirring and in part it found resonance with the native Irish.
0:51:46 > 0:51:52For nearly a century and a half, there had been an entrenched English colony in north and eastern Ireland,
0:51:52 > 0:51:56often safe only in castles like Carrickfergus,
0:51:56 > 0:52:01which Edward Bruce now besieged for a year.
0:52:01 > 0:52:04But the timing was unfortunate,
0:52:04 > 0:52:08for 1315 also saw the worst famine in living memory.
0:52:09 > 0:52:16Very soon, Edward Bruce's army became indistinguishable from any other disorderly gang of knights
0:52:16 > 0:52:22using force to extract the provisions they desperately needed for their men and animals
0:52:22 > 0:52:29and not choosing to distinguish with any care between Gaelic friends and English foes.
0:52:29 > 0:52:35Famished and desperate, the Scots soldiers took what they needed from Irish villages, finally resorting,
0:52:35 > 0:52:42so it was said, to digging up fresh graves and eating the decayed bodies.
0:52:44 > 0:52:51Month by month, the Bruces' war of liberation turned into something remarkably like an occupation.
0:52:53 > 0:52:58Ambitious Edward Bruce also wanted to be a king - a king in Dublin -
0:52:58 > 0:53:03and he didn't much care what taking the throne would cost the Irish.
0:53:03 > 0:53:09It was the usual story - a victory over the Ulster English, then a march south towards Dublin.
0:53:09 > 0:53:16There, many of the population tore down their own houses to use as walls against the Scots
0:53:16 > 0:53:19rather than surrender the city.
0:53:19 > 0:53:25Not all the Irish nobility and kings opened their arms to embrace their Scots liberators.
0:53:25 > 0:53:30A bitter civil war broke out between Irish supporters of both sides.
0:53:30 > 0:53:37A climactic battle in the west took, according to contemporaries, no fewer than 10,000 lives.
0:53:40 > 0:53:47In 1318, Edward Bruce was himself killed. Before the end of the year, the Scots had left.
0:53:47 > 0:53:53Perhaps the experiment of collaboration across the North Channel deserved to fail
0:53:53 > 0:54:00because, from the beginning, Robert the Bruce had his own rather than his Irish brothers' interests at heart,
0:54:00 > 0:54:07needing a second front to divert critical English military resources from Scotland to Ireland.
0:54:10 > 0:54:16Not for the last time, the Irish were being used in someone else's quarrel.
0:54:17 > 0:54:21As grim as the story of the Scots in Ireland was,
0:54:21 > 0:54:26they did leave behind something other than widows and tragic ballads.
0:54:26 > 0:54:32The Anglo-Norman colony stopped expanding from its base in Ulster and Leinster.
0:54:32 > 0:54:37The idea of the unstoppable English empire of the Plantagenets
0:54:37 > 0:54:42had the shine knocked right off its myth of invincibility.
0:54:46 > 0:54:52And, not least, the Bruces gave Irish leaders their voice of resistance -
0:54:52 > 0:54:55an expression of national identity.
0:54:56 > 0:55:00"To recover our native freedom, the Irish..."
0:55:00 > 0:55:07"For as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, we will yield in no least way to English dominion..."
0:55:07 > 0:55:11"The people preferred to die rather than live under English rule.
0:55:11 > 0:55:18All these startlingly modern-sounding declarations of national community come together
0:55:18 > 0:55:23as the epitaph of the idea of the Plantagenet empire of Britain.
0:55:24 > 0:55:30You hear this language - eloquent, fierce, righteously belligerent -
0:55:30 > 0:55:37and you hear a voice which, for better or worse, would shout, roar and lament down through the ages.
0:55:37 > 0:55:45Robert the Bruce outlived both Edwards, and while war would continue with England for generations,
0:55:45 > 0:55:50the Scots HAD won English recognition of their truly independent kingdom.
0:55:53 > 0:56:00This is not what Long Shanks imagined when he had been crowned before his namesake the Confessor's tomb
0:56:00 > 0:56:06or when he had seated himself upon the Stone of Scone.
0:56:07 > 0:56:13Edward's attempt to pound the nations of Britain into a united superstate
0:56:13 > 0:56:19ended up just reinforcing their acute sense of difference.
0:56:19 > 0:56:23The hammer that Edward had taken to the Scots
0:56:23 > 0:56:28had rebounded fatally against his dream of a reborn Britannia.
0:56:29 > 0:56:36For the cost of all those endless marches and mile upon mile of castle walls
0:56:36 > 0:56:38was political as well as financial.
0:56:38 > 0:56:45It meant that Parliament was more, not less, necessary to the government of England.
0:56:45 > 0:56:52It was Parliament which had to agree on how to foot the bills and how big those bills ought to be.
0:56:53 > 0:56:59Edward II, of course, completely failed to bring any attention to this new reality.
0:56:59 > 0:57:02Falling back on rule by favourites,
0:57:02 > 0:57:06Edward made himself an alien in his own land.
0:57:06 > 0:57:11The nobility failed to remove him, but his wife succeeded.
0:57:11 > 0:57:18Legend has it that he was killed in Berkeley Castle from a hot iron thrust up his rectum.
0:57:22 > 0:57:28Edward's murder was proof that the King could be removed, even physically disposed of,
0:57:28 > 0:57:31if he betrayed the community.
0:57:32 > 0:57:38But England would get a new King, more the heir to Edward I than Edward II.
0:57:40 > 0:57:47But Edward III knew he couldn't achieve anything simply by acts of brutal, imperial will.
0:57:47 > 0:57:53He'd learned something from the long wars of Plantagenet Britain.
0:57:53 > 0:57:58He'd learned that his power depended not just on force, but on consent -
0:57:58 > 0:58:02on the consent of his barons and his churchmen,
0:58:02 > 0:58:08on the consent of Parliament, on the consent of the English community of the realm.
0:58:08 > 0:58:11Not for the first or the last time,
0:58:11 > 0:58:18it would take the rest of Britain to teach England just how to be a nation.
0:58:33 > 0:58:40There is much more to discover and debate about the history of Britain on the BBC history website.
0:58:51 > 0:58:55Subtitles by Roger Young BBC - 2000