0:00:04 > 0:00:07'Lots of people remember their history lessons from school
0:00:07 > 0:00:12'as dates and battles, kings and queens, facts and figures.
0:00:12 > 0:00:16'But the story of our past is open to interpretation
0:00:16 > 0:00:20'and much of British history is a carefully edited
0:00:20 > 0:00:23'and even deceitful version of events.'
0:00:23 > 0:00:27You might think that history is just a record of what happened.
0:00:27 > 0:00:30Actually, it's not like that at all.
0:00:30 > 0:00:32As soon as you do a little digging,
0:00:32 > 0:00:36you discover that it's more like a tapestry of different stories,
0:00:36 > 0:00:40woven together by whoever was in power at the time.
0:00:41 > 0:00:43In this series,
0:00:43 > 0:00:46I'm going to debunk some of the biggest fibs in British history.
0:00:47 > 0:00:49In the 17th century,
0:00:49 > 0:00:53politicians and artists helped turn a foreign invasion
0:00:53 > 0:00:56into the triumphal tale of Britain's glorious revolution.
0:00:56 > 0:00:58Hello. Woohoo!
0:00:59 > 0:01:03'In the 19th century, a British government coup in India...'
0:01:03 > 0:01:04GUNSHOT
0:01:04 > 0:01:07'..was rebranded by the Victorians
0:01:07 > 0:01:09'as the civilising triumph of the Empire.
0:01:12 > 0:01:13'And in this episode,
0:01:13 > 0:01:18'I'll find out how the story of the Wars of the Roses was invented
0:01:18 > 0:01:21'by the Tudors to justify their power.
0:01:21 > 0:01:25'And then immortalised by the greatest storyteller of them all.
0:01:25 > 0:01:27'Shakespeare presented this
0:01:27 > 0:01:31'as the darkest chapter in the nation's history.'
0:01:31 > 0:01:33Now is the winter of our discontent.
0:01:35 > 0:01:40Two rival dynasties, the House of Lancaster and the House of York,
0:01:40 > 0:01:43were locked in battle for the crown of England.
0:01:43 > 0:01:47This was the real-life Game of Thrones.
0:01:47 > 0:01:49Brothers fought against brothers.
0:01:49 > 0:01:51Anointed kings were deposed.
0:01:51 > 0:01:54And innocent children were murdered.
0:01:54 > 0:01:57Never before had the country experienced
0:01:57 > 0:01:59such treachery and bloodshed.
0:02:01 > 0:02:06In 1485, a wicked king, Richard III, was slain.
0:02:08 > 0:02:10And Henry Tudor took the throne.
0:02:11 > 0:02:15Henry's victory would herald the ending of the Middle Ages
0:02:15 > 0:02:19and the founding of the great Tudor dynasty.
0:02:19 > 0:02:22It was to be England's salvation.
0:02:22 > 0:02:24Or so the story goes.
0:02:24 > 0:02:29With history, the line between fact and fiction often gets blurred.
0:02:42 > 0:02:46In 1455, the village of Stubbins, in Lancashire,
0:02:46 > 0:02:49was the scene of a legendary battle
0:02:49 > 0:02:51in the Wars of the Roses.
0:02:53 > 0:02:57The fighting began with volleys of arrows, but then, to their horror,
0:02:57 > 0:03:00both sides realised that they'd run out of ammunition.
0:03:01 > 0:03:06In desperation, the Lancastrians grabbed some makeshift weapons -
0:03:06 > 0:03:09they happened to have a supply of their local delicacy,
0:03:09 > 0:03:11black puddings from Bury.
0:03:11 > 0:03:14And with these, they pelted the Yorkists.
0:03:16 > 0:03:18But, as luck would have it,
0:03:18 > 0:03:21the Yorkists had their own supply of missiles -
0:03:21 > 0:03:22Yorkshire puddings.
0:03:22 > 0:03:25With which they bombarded the Lancastrians.
0:03:32 > 0:03:34Now, most disappointingly,
0:03:34 > 0:03:39this 15th century food fight never really happened.
0:03:39 > 0:03:45It's a local legend that was conjured up as long ago as 1983.
0:03:45 > 0:03:48But what the Battle of Stubbins Bridge does tell us is that,
0:03:48 > 0:03:52although the dates and the details might be hazy,
0:03:52 > 0:03:54the Wars of the Roses are still alive and well
0:03:54 > 0:03:58in what you might call our national memory.
0:03:58 > 0:04:02What you think you know about the Wars of the Roses though
0:04:02 > 0:04:03and what really happened
0:04:03 > 0:04:06are two quite different things.
0:04:07 > 0:04:09According to the history books,
0:04:09 > 0:04:12the Wars of the Roses is the story of the fatal rivalry
0:04:12 > 0:04:16between the House of Lancaster and the House of York,
0:04:16 > 0:04:18between the red rose and the white.
0:04:18 > 0:04:23But the saga of a country divided by 30 years of bloody wars
0:04:23 > 0:04:27and deadly hate was largely invented by the Tudors,
0:04:27 > 0:04:30then spun into the dynasty's foundation myth
0:04:30 > 0:04:33by the greatest storyteller of all, William Shakespeare.
0:04:39 > 0:04:42And there is a firm basis for this tale
0:04:42 > 0:04:44of devastating national conflict.
0:04:44 > 0:04:48On a single day in 1461, the bloodshed was only too real.
0:04:50 > 0:04:55In the middle of a snowstorm, on the 29th of March, in Towton, Yorkshire,
0:04:55 > 0:04:59the Lancastrian and Yorkist forces clashed head-to-head.
0:05:01 > 0:05:04The result was utter carnage.
0:05:08 > 0:05:10The Lancastrians started out the day pretty well,
0:05:10 > 0:05:13but then the tide began to turn against them.
0:05:13 > 0:05:18They were chased by the Yorkists down this steep and icy slope,
0:05:18 > 0:05:20the blizzard was still blowing,
0:05:20 > 0:05:22and that little river at the bottom was flooded,
0:05:22 > 0:05:24so they couldn't get any further.
0:05:24 > 0:05:27This meant that the Yorkists came down the hill
0:05:27 > 0:05:28and started massacring them.
0:05:30 > 0:05:35So many men died that their blood stained the snow red.
0:05:37 > 0:05:40This became known as the Bloody Meadow.
0:05:43 > 0:05:45A century later,
0:05:45 > 0:05:49William Shakespeare would depict the battle as a medieval Armageddon,
0:05:49 > 0:05:52where fathers slaughtered their own sons
0:05:52 > 0:05:55and sons murdered their own fathers.
0:05:55 > 0:05:59Towton had come to symbolise a country torn apart by war.
0:06:00 > 0:06:05The scale of the killing was so great that there's been nothing else
0:06:05 > 0:06:07quite as bad in the whole of our history.
0:06:09 > 0:06:12On the first day of the Battle of the Somme, in July 1916,
0:06:12 > 0:06:1619,000 British soldiers were killed.
0:06:16 > 0:06:22But here at Towton, contemporary reports talk about 28,000 dead.
0:06:23 > 0:06:28That's 1% of the entire population killed on a single day.
0:06:37 > 0:06:4220 years ago, Bradford University's archaeology department
0:06:42 > 0:06:45revealed the true barbarity of the fighting
0:06:45 > 0:06:49when they uncovered the remains of 43 men killed at Towton.
0:06:52 > 0:06:56George, we've got five skulls of people here on the table.
0:06:56 > 0:06:59How was this gentleman finished off here?
0:06:59 > 0:07:00It's kind of square.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03That is with a horseman's hammer.
0:07:03 > 0:07:10But this particular skull has another sign of extreme violence
0:07:10 > 0:07:12inflicted with a pole axe.
0:07:12 > 0:07:16The head was forced down into the spine,
0:07:16 > 0:07:20so the skull has actually shown signs of splitting.
0:07:20 > 0:07:23This sort of desecration of the body,
0:07:23 > 0:07:27that's actually robbing them of life in the next life.
0:07:27 > 0:07:30You are disfiguring them and they can't be resurrected.
0:07:30 > 0:07:34This battle is truly horrendously brutal,
0:07:34 > 0:07:37but is it the norm for the Wars of the Roses?
0:07:37 > 0:07:42No. It was exceptional. Certainly, in the enormous number
0:07:42 > 0:07:45of people who fought and died at Towton.
0:07:45 > 0:07:48I think people might have the impression that they were just
0:07:48 > 0:07:50fighting for decade after decade after decade,
0:07:50 > 0:07:53but within this period, how many battles actually were there?
0:07:53 > 0:07:57Well, there were skirmishes but, in terms of real battles,
0:07:57 > 0:07:58around about eight.
0:07:58 > 0:08:03The feud between the Houses of Lancaster and York did fester for
0:08:03 > 0:08:08three decades, but the idea that this was a period utterly ravaged
0:08:08 > 0:08:12by all-out war, well, that's just historical fiction.
0:08:14 > 0:08:20Yes, Towton was a truly brutal battle, but it was also unique.
0:08:20 > 0:08:22The other battles in the Wars of the Roses
0:08:22 > 0:08:24had much lower death tolls.
0:08:24 > 0:08:30And the idea that the country was totally consumed by war is wrong.
0:08:30 > 0:08:31Some historians argue that,
0:08:31 > 0:08:35out of the 32 years of the Wars of the Roses,
0:08:35 > 0:08:39the fighting only lasted for a total of 13 weeks.
0:08:39 > 0:08:43That would mean that there were months, years, even a whole decade,
0:08:43 > 0:08:45when England was at peace.
0:08:48 > 0:08:50The reason we talk of this era
0:08:50 > 0:08:53as the Wars of the Roses isn't an accident.
0:08:53 > 0:08:56It's the story told by the winning side,
0:08:56 > 0:08:59the history the Tudors wanted us to remember.
0:09:01 > 0:09:04It began with their account of the battle
0:09:04 > 0:09:06that brought the war to an end -
0:09:06 > 0:09:07the Battle of Bosworth.
0:09:11 > 0:09:13The Lancastrian Henry Tudor
0:09:13 > 0:09:15emerged as a victorious hero
0:09:15 > 0:09:18who had ended 30 years of bloodshed.
0:09:18 > 0:09:20He'd saved the nation
0:09:20 > 0:09:21from a villainous tyrant -
0:09:21 > 0:09:24the Yorkist King Richard III.
0:09:27 > 0:09:31'The Tudors made sure Bosworth would be remembered as the ultimate clash
0:09:31 > 0:09:33'between the forces of good and evil.
0:09:35 > 0:09:37'Helped along by William Shakespeare,
0:09:37 > 0:09:40'who relished their juicy tale,
0:09:40 > 0:09:42'the battle has been so mythologized
0:09:42 > 0:09:45'that it's hard to sort fact from fiction.'
0:09:45 > 0:09:49Historians used to think that the Battle of Bosworth took place
0:09:49 > 0:09:53about two miles away, over there, up on top of the hill,
0:09:53 > 0:09:55but over the last ten years,
0:09:55 > 0:09:59all sorts of interesting finds have been emerging from the fields
0:09:59 > 0:10:00immediately here.
0:10:00 > 0:10:03That's things like parts of 15th-century swords
0:10:03 > 0:10:05and badges
0:10:05 > 0:10:11and about 40 of these fantastically deadly-looking cannonballs.
0:10:11 > 0:10:14The battle must have taken place here.
0:10:14 > 0:10:20Now, despite this confusion about its location, a myth, a legend
0:10:20 > 0:10:23has grown up about exactly what happened that day.
0:10:23 > 0:10:26It's one of our great national stories
0:10:26 > 0:10:28and it goes something like this.
0:10:29 > 0:10:34'King Richard III goes into battle wearing a crown,
0:10:34 > 0:10:37'symbol of what's at stake that day.'
0:10:37 > 0:10:42Richard declares, "This day I will die as King or I will win."
0:10:42 > 0:10:46And even his enemies admit that he fights courageously.
0:10:47 > 0:10:51'Richard gets within a sword's length of Henry Tudor,
0:10:51 > 0:10:54'but the enemy forces overwhelm him.
0:10:54 > 0:10:56'In desperation, he cries out,
0:10:56 > 0:11:01'"My horse, my horse, my kingdom for a horse!"'
0:11:01 > 0:11:04And then he's killed with a blow to the head
0:11:04 > 0:11:05and he loses his crown.
0:11:11 > 0:11:12'After Henry's victory,
0:11:12 > 0:11:16'Richard's crown is discovered in a hawthorn bush.
0:11:16 > 0:11:20'And Henry is crowned with it on the battlefield.'
0:11:27 > 0:11:30Now, how much of this really happened?
0:11:30 > 0:11:33It's impossible to say.
0:11:33 > 0:11:36But the reason that this is the story we know
0:11:36 > 0:11:39is because it's the one Henry wanted us to remember.
0:11:41 > 0:11:44Henry wanted to make everyone aware of his decisive victory
0:11:44 > 0:11:49on the battlefield, but that was the easy part.
0:11:49 > 0:11:50In a nation divided,
0:11:50 > 0:11:53Henry's enemies still believed that he was a usurper,
0:11:53 > 0:11:57who had stolen the crown from the anointed King Richard III.
0:11:58 > 0:12:02Henry needed to legitimise his new reign,
0:12:02 > 0:12:05so when his first parliament met a few months after Bosworth,
0:12:05 > 0:12:09he made sure that it was his version of events that was recorded.
0:12:11 > 0:12:13One telling detail that Henry had written
0:12:13 > 0:12:15into the records of Parliament
0:12:15 > 0:12:21was that his reign had begun on the 21st of August 1485.
0:12:21 > 0:12:24Now, this is a bit odd because the Battle of Bosworth
0:12:24 > 0:12:29wasn't until the 22nd of August 1485.
0:12:29 > 0:12:31Was this a slip of the quill?
0:12:31 > 0:12:33No, it was deliberate.
0:12:35 > 0:12:40Henry was claiming that he'd already been king, even before the battle,
0:12:40 > 0:12:44so he wasn't a usurper stealing the crown,
0:12:44 > 0:12:47he was just taking what was rightfully his.
0:12:47 > 0:12:51He cunningly realised that his success didn't just lie
0:12:51 > 0:12:55in victory on the battlefield, it also lay in the way that the
0:12:55 > 0:12:58history of the Wars of the Roses would be written.
0:13:02 > 0:13:05Henry's next move was equally cunning.
0:13:05 > 0:13:11On the 18th of January 1486, Henry VII married Elizabeth of York,
0:13:11 > 0:13:13daughter of Edward IV.
0:13:14 > 0:13:19Henry would present his match as the start of a glorious new chapter
0:13:19 > 0:13:20in the nation's history.
0:13:24 > 0:13:28Henry realised that picking the right wife was important
0:13:28 > 0:13:33but that telling the right story about the marriage was even more so.
0:13:33 > 0:13:37The story that he wanted to tell was that this was one of the
0:13:37 > 0:13:40most important marriages in history.
0:13:40 > 0:13:45Here he was, a Lancastrian, marrying Elizabeth, a Yorkist,
0:13:45 > 0:13:47they were going to heal the nation.
0:13:47 > 0:13:50They had once been bitter rivals
0:13:50 > 0:13:53but now, they were loving bedfellows.
0:13:53 > 0:13:57But his cunning storytelling had another advantage too.
0:13:57 > 0:14:00It glossed over the very inconvenient fact that
0:14:00 > 0:14:02an awful lot of people thought
0:14:02 > 0:14:04that he had no right to the throne at all.
0:14:12 > 0:14:14Henry hoped that his marriage to Elizabeth
0:14:14 > 0:14:16would be seen as a fresh start.
0:14:19 > 0:14:24It would also divert attention away from his less than royal lineage.
0:14:27 > 0:14:31This is a genealogical roll, showing the kings of England,
0:14:31 > 0:14:34going right back into the mists of time.
0:14:34 > 0:14:36It goes back as far as Brutus,
0:14:36 > 0:14:40the mythical king 1,000 years before the Romans.
0:14:40 > 0:14:42You can't even see Brutus because he's still rolled up,
0:14:42 > 0:14:45we couldn't fit the whole thing onto the table.
0:14:45 > 0:14:48And as you come down this end, towards me,
0:14:48 > 0:14:52you move forwards into the period of the Wars of the Roses.
0:14:52 > 0:14:56These circles contain pictures of all the different kings,
0:14:56 > 0:14:58most of them called Edward.
0:14:58 > 0:15:00This one's called Rex Ted,
0:15:00 > 0:15:02which pleases me.
0:15:02 > 0:15:04As we get down here, we have some Henrys.
0:15:04 > 0:15:06Henry VI.
0:15:06 > 0:15:08Here is another Edward.
0:15:08 > 0:15:10Here is Richard III and then,
0:15:10 > 0:15:12the main red line peters out.
0:15:12 > 0:15:15Where is the next king, Henry VII?
0:15:15 > 0:15:18Well, he's been squished in at the side
0:15:18 > 0:15:21as the husband of Elizabeth of York.
0:15:21 > 0:15:23So, where has he popped up from?
0:15:23 > 0:15:26This black line tells us.
0:15:26 > 0:15:30It goes back to Henry's grandmother, Catherine,
0:15:30 > 0:15:32who was a proper Queen of England,
0:15:32 > 0:15:36but her second husband, Henry's grandfather,
0:15:36 > 0:15:38was this chap, Owen Tudor,
0:15:38 > 0:15:40a servitor in camera,
0:15:40 > 0:15:43that means a chamber servant.
0:15:43 > 0:15:45Or in other words, a bit of rough.
0:15:47 > 0:15:52This family tree reveals Henry's dirty secret.
0:15:53 > 0:15:57The fact that his claim to the throne was decidedly dodgy.
0:15:57 > 0:16:01It won't surprise you to learn that the scroll belonged to a family who
0:16:01 > 0:16:04didn't like Henry, the De La Poles.
0:16:04 > 0:16:06They were plotting against him.
0:16:06 > 0:16:10The document also explains why he had to marry Elizabeth.
0:16:10 > 0:16:12She really was royal.
0:16:12 > 0:16:14She was the daughter of a king,
0:16:14 > 0:16:18whereas Henry himself was just the grandson of a servant.
0:16:18 > 0:16:22But this isn't the tale that Henry would tell us if he were here.
0:16:22 > 0:16:27He didn't present his marriage as a matter of political expediency,
0:16:27 > 0:16:31he described it as an extraordinary act of reconciliation.
0:16:35 > 0:16:40Henry made his marriage, the union of the Houses of York and Lancaster,
0:16:40 > 0:16:44into the centrepiece of a super successful propaganda campaign
0:16:44 > 0:16:47to secure his new dynastic ambitions.
0:16:47 > 0:16:52This really beautiful book is a medieval anthology of poetry,
0:16:52 > 0:16:56prose and advice for educating a prince.
0:16:56 > 0:17:00But it's best known for its wonderful illustrations.
0:17:00 > 0:17:04Including this one of the Tower of London.
0:17:04 > 0:17:07This particular picture has a coat of arms
0:17:07 > 0:17:10and these two creatures
0:17:10 > 0:17:12are very curly haired lions.
0:17:12 > 0:17:15They are black now because they've tarnished.
0:17:15 > 0:17:16But they were once silver
0:17:16 > 0:17:20and they were the silver lions of King Edward IV.
0:17:20 > 0:17:23They show that this book was once in his library.
0:17:26 > 0:17:29'The Yorkist King Edward won the throne in 1471
0:17:29 > 0:17:33'after defeating his Lancastrian opponents.'
0:17:33 > 0:17:39This time in the border, we have got red and white roses,
0:17:39 > 0:17:42representing the House of Lancaster and the House of York
0:17:42 > 0:17:47and their rivalry in progress at the time, the Wars of the Roses.
0:17:47 > 0:17:50The odd thing though about this illustration is that,
0:17:50 > 0:17:54during the actual time of the Wars of the Roses,
0:17:54 > 0:17:57when this manuscript was first produced,
0:17:57 > 0:18:01the red rose had nothing at all to do with the House of Lancaster.
0:18:01 > 0:18:03The border was changed,
0:18:03 > 0:18:07it was added in at a later date by Henry VII himself.
0:18:07 > 0:18:10He was the one who adopted the red rose
0:18:10 > 0:18:12as the House of Lancaster's symbol.
0:18:12 > 0:18:15And now, look at this.
0:18:15 > 0:18:18Adopting the red rose for Lancaster
0:18:18 > 0:18:20was only the first stage of
0:18:20 > 0:18:24Henry's iconographical plan because now he could combine it
0:18:24 > 0:18:27with the white rose of his wife, Elizabeth of York,
0:18:27 > 0:18:30to create the multicoloured Tudor rose.
0:18:30 > 0:18:34Normally, the inner petals are white and the outer petals are red.
0:18:34 > 0:18:38This one happens to be quartered, but you get the general idea.
0:18:38 > 0:18:40It's red and white together.
0:18:40 > 0:18:46And so this new Tudor rose became the symbol of the new Tudor dynasty
0:18:46 > 0:18:48and it was such a powerful symbol
0:18:48 > 0:18:52that it allowed Henry VII to completely revise history.
0:18:55 > 0:18:58The rose became Henry VII's logo,
0:18:58 > 0:19:03shorthand for the story of how he'd heroically united a divided nation.
0:19:03 > 0:19:07Over time, he made it the universally recognised symbol
0:19:07 > 0:19:08of Tudor might.
0:19:10 > 0:19:13'Across the country, from books to buildings,
0:19:13 > 0:19:15'Tudor roses started to bloom.
0:19:17 > 0:19:21'In Cambridge, Henry made King's College Chapel
0:19:21 > 0:19:22'into the backdrop
0:19:22 > 0:19:26'for one of the most overwhelming displays of Tudor propaganda.'
0:19:28 > 0:19:31Anna, this chapel was begun by Henry VI
0:19:31 > 0:19:32but he didn't finish it, did he?
0:19:32 > 0:19:36Well, the chapel had been being built for quite some time
0:19:36 > 0:19:38but then the Wars of the Roses happened,
0:19:38 > 0:19:41resources got diverted and so, when Henry VII became king,
0:19:41 > 0:19:43it was unfinished.
0:19:43 > 0:19:46It looked nothing like this, none of this beautiful vaulted ceiling.
0:19:46 > 0:19:49It was makeshift, it had a sort of timber ceiling,
0:19:49 > 0:19:52and it was very much a sort of work in progress and really was much more
0:19:52 > 0:19:54of a sort of blight on the landscape
0:19:54 > 0:19:57than anything that made a great statement of power.
0:19:59 > 0:20:02'But in 1508, Henry VII gave the chapel
0:20:02 > 0:20:05'a much-needed cash injection.'
0:20:05 > 0:20:07Now, this is a bit different, isn't it?
0:20:07 > 0:20:09'Henry died the following year
0:20:09 > 0:20:13'but his financial backing ensured that the chapel was completed
0:20:13 > 0:20:16'and decorated according to his Tudor vision.'
0:20:16 > 0:20:18It's fantastic. I mean,
0:20:18 > 0:20:21it's the story really of Henry VII's journey to the throne.
0:20:21 > 0:20:23It's his claim to the throne.
0:20:23 > 0:20:26We have the greyhound, which is the symbol of Margaret Beaufort,
0:20:26 > 0:20:27his mother.
0:20:27 > 0:20:31We have the dragon, highlighting Henry's Welsh descent.
0:20:31 > 0:20:34And we have, of course, Tudor roses everywhere.
0:20:34 > 0:20:36They look like they are on steroids.
0:20:36 > 0:20:38What kind of chemicals have they been treated with
0:20:38 > 0:20:41to make them so juicy and enormous? They look like cabbages.
0:20:41 > 0:20:43It's Tudor chemicals, isn't it?
0:20:43 > 0:20:45It's the sort of vitality, the virility of the Tudors.
0:20:45 > 0:20:48And, of course, above the Tudor rose, you see the crown,
0:20:48 > 0:20:51so again, it's underlying, these are now royal symbols.
0:20:51 > 0:20:56This is Henry saying, "Game over. Now it's the Tudors all the way."
0:20:56 > 0:20:59And really, I would argue it's almost like one of the first sort of
0:20:59 > 0:21:02ubiquitous brands that people across the country,
0:21:02 > 0:21:03you know, identify with.
0:21:03 > 0:21:06They know the Tudor brand, they know the Tudor rose.
0:21:06 > 0:21:10It's all about propaganda, it's all about myth-making, but I think,
0:21:10 > 0:21:13you know, we are still talking about it, so it was hugely successful.
0:21:15 > 0:21:19'With control of the crown, Henry also controlled the narrative.
0:21:19 > 0:21:23'In the emerging Tudor tale of the Wars of the Roses,
0:21:23 > 0:21:27'Henry was the conquering hero and, not surprisingly,
0:21:27 > 0:21:30'the historians during his reign all agreed.'
0:21:31 > 0:21:34This book is called The History Of The Kings Of England.
0:21:34 > 0:21:39'And it's the work of an exceptionally unreliable narrator.'
0:21:39 > 0:21:40It is written by John Rous,
0:21:40 > 0:21:44who was an antiquary and historian. And he is writing it
0:21:44 > 0:21:46during the reign of Richard III
0:21:46 > 0:21:51but he actually finishes it after Henry VII has become king.
0:21:51 > 0:21:55John Rous has written this book for his new boss, Henry VII,
0:21:55 > 0:21:57what's he got to say about him?
0:21:57 > 0:22:00He talks about Henry being such a good king,
0:22:00 > 0:22:03"For he will be remembered for generations to come."
0:22:03 > 0:22:04HE SPEAKS LATIN
0:22:04 > 0:22:06"For many centuries he will be remembered."
0:22:06 > 0:22:12Rous started writing this book when Richard III was still the boss.
0:22:12 > 0:22:14What does he have to say about Richard III?
0:22:14 > 0:22:18John Rous isn't very complimentary about Richard at all.
0:22:18 > 0:22:19And in fact,
0:22:19 > 0:22:24- let's look at the passage where he describes Richard's own birth.- OK.
0:22:24 > 0:22:29It says that he had been in his mother's womb for two years.
0:22:29 > 0:22:32He was born "cum dentibus" - with teeth.
0:22:32 > 0:22:33With teeth.
0:22:33 > 0:22:35"Et capillis ad humeros."
0:22:35 > 0:22:38- That's hair to the shoulder. - Hair to the shoulders.
0:22:38 > 0:22:39Very hairy.
0:22:39 > 0:22:41And then there's this slightly mysterious word
0:22:41 > 0:22:43that could be talons.
0:22:43 > 0:22:46Talons, which is quite creepy, isn't it?
0:22:46 > 0:22:47That's very monstrous.
0:22:47 > 0:22:51And then it says he was born under the sign of Scorpio
0:22:51 > 0:22:56and he continued to behave in life like a scorpion.
0:22:56 > 0:23:00This is a really striking vilification of Richard III.
0:23:00 > 0:23:03Is this the first one? Does it all start here?
0:23:03 > 0:23:04Essentially, yes.
0:23:04 > 0:23:09The demonization of Richard is taking place here and, in fact,
0:23:09 > 0:23:11later down on this particular page,
0:23:11 > 0:23:15Rous accuses Richard of committing several murders
0:23:15 > 0:23:19including the murder of his own wife, the murder of his nephews
0:23:19 > 0:23:22and also the fact that he had killed,
0:23:22 > 0:23:24with his own hands, Henry VI.
0:23:24 > 0:23:28What do you think Rous' motives were for writing this history in this
0:23:28 > 0:23:33- particular way?- John Rous is writing specifically in order to praise
0:23:33 > 0:23:36the new king of England, Henry VII.
0:23:36 > 0:23:40He was only writing what he expected his readers would want to read.
0:23:42 > 0:23:46Demonising Richard when you're now ruled by his archrival, Henry,
0:23:46 > 0:23:48was certainly sensible.
0:23:48 > 0:23:51And Tudor historians onwards went to town.
0:23:51 > 0:23:53Richard III was said to be
0:23:53 > 0:23:55"malicious, wrathful and envious"
0:23:55 > 0:23:57as a king.
0:23:57 > 0:24:00He was also a "lump of foul deformity."
0:24:00 > 0:24:01"Ill-featured of limbs."
0:24:01 > 0:24:03And "hard-favoured of visage."
0:24:05 > 0:24:09As Rous reveals, telling the truth was less important
0:24:09 > 0:24:12than pandering to the right master.
0:24:13 > 0:24:15At an earlier stage of his career,
0:24:15 > 0:24:20he'd written other works in which he praised Richard III instead.
0:24:20 > 0:24:23This document is called The Rous Roll.
0:24:23 > 0:24:27And John Rous actually made it for presentation to Anne Neville,
0:24:27 > 0:24:29who was the wife of Richard III.
0:24:29 > 0:24:31We've got the same historian, John Rous,
0:24:31 > 0:24:34writing just three years earlier...
0:24:34 > 0:24:36While Richard III is still king of England.
0:24:36 > 0:24:40This is Richard himself and, in fact, he's described here as
0:24:40 > 0:24:46"the most mighty Prince, Richard, King of England,
0:24:46 > 0:24:49"and of France, and Lord of Ireland."
0:24:49 > 0:24:54And then it goes on to say that "he got great thank of God
0:24:54 > 0:24:59"and love of all his subjects, rich and poor.
0:24:59 > 0:25:04"And great love of the people of all other lands about him."
0:25:04 > 0:25:06So, this couldn't be any better, really.
0:25:06 > 0:25:09He's a fantastic king, he's doing a great job and everybody loves him.
0:25:09 > 0:25:12And physically...
0:25:12 > 0:25:15he's not what I was expecting at all.
0:25:15 > 0:25:19There's no sign of a hunchback here at all, is there?
0:25:19 > 0:25:21No, he's the perfect knight, in fact.
0:25:21 > 0:25:23He's wearing his armour.
0:25:23 > 0:25:26He's got rather a lovely face.
0:25:26 > 0:25:28He's got beautiful curly hair.
0:25:28 > 0:25:30Although it's in a bit of a pudding basin,
0:25:30 > 0:25:32which isn't my favourite hairstyle.
0:25:32 > 0:25:35He's actually depicted more as a Renaissance prince
0:25:35 > 0:25:40rather than the deformed caricature that we know of
0:25:40 > 0:25:42from the works of Shakespeare.
0:25:42 > 0:25:46So, Julian, we've got two very contrasting pictures of Richard III
0:25:46 > 0:25:48from the same historian.
0:25:48 > 0:25:50Where does the truth lie?
0:25:50 > 0:25:53Well, who knows where the truth actually lies,
0:25:53 > 0:25:58but what we can say is that John Rous was writing in order to
0:25:58 > 0:26:01gain the favour of the people who were actually paying him.
0:26:01 > 0:26:03That's really depressing.
0:26:03 > 0:26:06We can't believe historians.
0:26:06 > 0:26:08You can never believe a historian.
0:26:09 > 0:26:11Well, tell that to the Tudors
0:26:11 > 0:26:15because Henry and his historians' dodgy stories were unshakeable.
0:26:15 > 0:26:21When Henry VII died in 1509, and his son Henry VIII succeeded him,
0:26:21 > 0:26:26the new Henry didn't abandon his father's dynastic founding myth.
0:26:26 > 0:26:30Far from it, he embraced the tale and made it his own.
0:26:31 > 0:26:32Unlike his father,
0:26:32 > 0:26:35the new King Henry hadn't had to fight for his crown
0:26:35 > 0:26:38and there were no questions over his right to rule.
0:26:38 > 0:26:41But he still emblazoned the dynasty's new symbol,
0:26:41 > 0:26:43the Tudor rose,
0:26:43 > 0:26:47onto one of the country's most formidable institutions,
0:26:47 > 0:26:49the Yeomen of the Guard.
0:26:49 > 0:26:52I think I might have a better codpiece than you.
0:26:52 > 0:26:54I think you might do.
0:26:54 > 0:26:59Alan, I'm clearly wearing the trousers of a muscular giant.
0:26:59 > 0:27:00Like yourself.
0:27:00 > 0:27:06When were the Yeomen of the Guard formalised as a body of men?
0:27:06 > 0:27:09Well, that was after the Battle of Bosworth Field, in 1485.
0:27:09 > 0:27:11Henry VII, of course,
0:27:11 > 0:27:13defeated Richard at that battle
0:27:13 > 0:27:14and having defeated him,
0:27:14 > 0:27:17of course, was pretty much worried for his own safety.
0:27:17 > 0:27:22- Yeah.- And so then, formed up to 300 Yeomen of the Guard.
0:27:22 > 0:27:26Henry VIII adopted his father's Yeomen Guards
0:27:26 > 0:27:29and increased their number to 600.
0:27:29 > 0:27:31When Henry appeared on important occasions,
0:27:31 > 0:27:35he'd be surrounded by this magnificent troop.
0:27:35 > 0:27:36Show me my Tudor version.
0:27:36 > 0:27:41'Henry also introduced the Yeomen's iconic scarlet uniform
0:27:41 > 0:27:44'and a modern version of it is still worn today.'
0:27:45 > 0:27:49You're going to slip into something equally comfortable yourself.
0:27:49 > 0:27:50Yes, I am.
0:27:50 > 0:27:52One arm in.
0:27:52 > 0:27:55Now, let's discuss our chests.
0:27:55 > 0:27:57- OK. - SHE CHUCKLES
0:27:57 > 0:27:59On my chest, I've got a Tudor rose,
0:27:59 > 0:28:02that is going to become the rose of England.
0:28:02 > 0:28:04- It is indeed.- It's still there, 500 years later.
0:28:04 > 0:28:07This is a symbol that's really endured, isn't it?
0:28:07 > 0:28:09- Absolutely.- And that's a very fancy thistle.
0:28:09 > 0:28:14Introduced when King James VI of Scotland became James I of England.
0:28:14 > 0:28:15Of course, over here, the shamrock,
0:28:15 > 0:28:18which was introduced on the Act of Union.
0:28:18 > 0:28:21So you have the whole of the United Kingdom on your belly.
0:28:21 > 0:28:23We do.
0:28:25 > 0:28:26There we go.
0:28:26 > 0:28:30- Superb.- Are we ready for our photo opportunity?
0:28:30 > 0:28:32Indeed.
0:28:39 > 0:28:40'Under Henry VIII,
0:28:40 > 0:28:44'the Tudor rose went from being the symbol of one royal marriage
0:28:44 > 0:28:46'to an emblem for the whole nation.'
0:28:46 > 0:28:50This Tudor rose has been an incredibly powerful
0:28:50 > 0:28:53and long-lasting symbol.
0:28:53 > 0:28:56'You will still find it today representing England
0:28:56 > 0:28:58'on the Queen's coronation dress,'
0:28:58 > 0:29:01on the Duchess of Cambridge's wedding dress,
0:29:01 > 0:29:04and you might even find it in your pocket
0:29:04 > 0:29:07because it's still on the 20p.
0:29:16 > 0:29:19'Henry VIII had nailed down his father's version
0:29:19 > 0:29:21'of the story of the Wars of the Roses.
0:29:23 > 0:29:25'By the middle of the 16th century,
0:29:25 > 0:29:28'the people who'd experienced the wars had pretty much all died,
0:29:28 > 0:29:30'but the story was still alive.
0:29:32 > 0:29:36'But when Elizabeth I came to the throne in 1558,
0:29:36 > 0:29:40'her grandfather's myth-making proved incredibly useful.'
0:29:41 > 0:29:44Ah, here I am in my younger days.
0:29:44 > 0:29:48This is Elizabeth I's coronation portrait.
0:29:48 > 0:29:51She's wearing all the trappings of majesty,
0:29:51 > 0:29:53she's holding her orb and sceptre
0:29:53 > 0:29:57and she's wearing ermine, the royal fur.
0:29:57 > 0:30:01But this picture glosses over the fact that Elizabeth's coronation
0:30:01 > 0:30:04was a bit of a touch-and-go affair.
0:30:04 > 0:30:07The problem was that she was the daughter of Anne Boleyn,
0:30:07 > 0:30:11the product of a marriage that had been declared null and void.
0:30:11 > 0:30:14You could argue that she was illegitimate.
0:30:14 > 0:30:18This was such a big problem that it was actually quite hard to find
0:30:18 > 0:30:20a bishop willing to anoint her.
0:30:21 > 0:30:23Right at the start of her reign,
0:30:23 > 0:30:26Elizabeth had to assert her right to rule
0:30:26 > 0:30:30and she did so in the same way that her father, Henry VIII,
0:30:30 > 0:30:33and grandfather Henry VII had done before her.
0:30:33 > 0:30:37If you look closely at her magnificent gold coronation robe,
0:30:37 > 0:30:41you will see that it is embroidered with the Tudor rose.
0:30:41 > 0:30:47She herself was treated as the living embodiment of the Tudor rose.
0:30:47 > 0:30:51The poet Edmund Spenser even described how in the Royal cheek,
0:30:51 > 0:30:54the red rose was melded with the white.
0:30:55 > 0:30:57In almost every respect,
0:30:57 > 0:31:02Elizabeth brilliantly delivered on the promise of her predecessors.
0:31:02 > 0:31:05But as the decades passed, she failed to produce an heir.
0:31:06 > 0:31:09And without that heir, Elizabeth subjects were haunted
0:31:09 > 0:31:13by spectres of a horribly familiar past.
0:31:15 > 0:31:19As the country faced an uncertain future in the 1590s,
0:31:19 > 0:31:23the memory of the Wars of the Roses took on a new meaning.
0:31:23 > 0:31:26People started to worry that when the Queen died,
0:31:26 > 0:31:29there might once again be civil war,
0:31:29 > 0:31:32with rival claimants fighting for the crown.
0:31:32 > 0:31:34History might repeat itself.
0:31:44 > 0:31:46At the end of the 16th century,
0:31:46 > 0:31:51the history play transformed Tudor fibs into compelling fiction.
0:31:52 > 0:31:55For the nation's greatest playwright, William Shakespeare,
0:31:55 > 0:31:58the Wars of the Roses had all the ingredients for drama.
0:32:00 > 0:32:02And with his Machiavellian plots
0:32:02 > 0:32:04and his murderous villain,
0:32:04 > 0:32:07he wrote the conflict's definitive script.
0:32:12 > 0:32:16'Henry VI Part 1 was the first of Shakespeare's plays
0:32:16 > 0:32:20'covering the wars, and it proved a very palpable hit.
0:32:20 > 0:32:22'One of the play's best-known scenes
0:32:22 > 0:32:25'is set in the gardens of Inner Temple,
0:32:25 > 0:32:27'one of the Inns of Court.
0:32:27 > 0:32:31'It's the very start of the conflict and the leading nobles are deciding
0:32:31 > 0:32:33'which side to fight for.
0:32:33 > 0:32:35'Red or white.'
0:32:36 > 0:32:40Richard, Duke of York, is going to challenge the King, Henry VI,
0:32:40 > 0:32:45for the crown and he tells his supporters to pluck a white rose.
0:32:46 > 0:32:49The Duke of Somerset, who is on the King's side,
0:32:49 > 0:32:53he tells his supporters to pluck a red rose,
0:32:53 > 0:32:55"a bleeding rose", he calls it.
0:32:55 > 0:32:57And at the end of the scene,
0:32:57 > 0:33:01the Earl of Warwick prophesises the bloodshed to come.
0:33:02 > 0:33:06"This brawl today in the Temple Garden," he says,
0:33:06 > 0:33:09"Shall send between the red rose and the white
0:33:09 > 0:33:14"1,000 souls to death and deadly night."
0:33:15 > 0:33:20The scene became famous because it neatly turned the messy reality
0:33:20 > 0:33:24into a straightforward struggle between red and white.
0:33:24 > 0:33:28And it went on to inspire an Edwardian painting
0:33:28 > 0:33:31which is one of the war's most celebrated images.
0:33:32 > 0:33:36This floral phoney war preceding the actual fighting
0:33:36 > 0:33:38didn't really happen.
0:33:38 > 0:33:42But nevertheless, you will see pictures of it in history books.
0:33:42 > 0:33:46And that's because Shakespeare's fictional version
0:33:46 > 0:33:50of the Wars of the Roses is such a good story, it's so powerful,
0:33:50 > 0:33:51that it trumps the truth.
0:33:53 > 0:33:56'From John Rous' character assassination
0:33:56 > 0:33:58'of Richard III onwards,
0:33:58 > 0:34:03'Shakespeare found his history books packed with tales of the conflict.
0:34:03 > 0:34:05'They were ripe for recycling.
0:34:05 > 0:34:09'After Henry VI Parts 1, 2 and 3
0:34:09 > 0:34:12'came one of his masterpieces, Richard III.'
0:34:14 > 0:34:16Andrew, this is an early, very early,
0:34:16 > 0:34:18collected edition of Shakespeare's works.
0:34:18 > 0:34:21And it's split into the comedies and the tragedies.
0:34:21 > 0:34:23But then also, the histories.
0:34:23 > 0:34:25Is that a new category of play?
0:34:25 > 0:34:27There had been history plays before
0:34:27 > 0:34:28but Shakespeare is one of
0:34:28 > 0:34:29the first writers who writes
0:34:29 > 0:34:31a sustained number of histories.
0:34:31 > 0:34:33The Henry VI plays are blockbusters.
0:34:33 > 0:34:37Parts 2 and 3 are written first and they are so popular
0:34:37 > 0:34:39that Part 1 is then written afterwards.
0:34:39 > 0:34:42It's the first kind of trilogy that we have surviving.
0:34:42 > 0:34:45So, history, it's not funny, it's not sad, it's a bit of both?
0:34:45 > 0:34:47You can do what you want with a history,
0:34:47 > 0:34:48depending on what the facts tell you.
0:34:48 > 0:34:50You don't have to stick to the facts, goodness me!
0:34:50 > 0:34:53You don't quite have to stick to the facts, no, that's right.
0:34:53 > 0:34:55How old-fashioned of you! THEY LAUGH
0:34:55 > 0:34:59How does Shakespeare go about taking history and turning it into fiction?
0:34:59 > 0:35:02- What is his method? - Shakespeare is very much a magpie.
0:35:02 > 0:35:06He uses bits and pieces from history, as he wants to.
0:35:06 > 0:35:09He uses chronicles like Holinshed,
0:35:09 > 0:35:12which is one of the most important of Tudor chronicles
0:35:12 > 0:35:15that shows the triumph of the Tudors.
0:35:15 > 0:35:19Sometimes you can catch him in the act of being inspired
0:35:19 > 0:35:21- by these histories, can you? - Oh, certainly.
0:35:21 > 0:35:24There's this passage which describes Richard III.
0:35:24 > 0:35:29"He was small and little of stature, so was he of body greatly deformed,
0:35:29 > 0:35:31"the one shoulder higher than the other.
0:35:31 > 0:35:34"His face small but his countenance was cruel,
0:35:34 > 0:35:39"a man would judge it to savour and smell of malice, fraud and deceit."
0:35:40 > 0:35:42That's a killer line.
0:35:42 > 0:35:43I recognise this character.
0:35:43 > 0:35:46This is the evil Richard that we know and love.
0:35:46 > 0:35:50Exactly. And that is something that Shakespeare clearly expands.
0:35:50 > 0:35:53He's really not afraid to use history, to use the past,
0:35:53 > 0:35:55to make moral points, is he?
0:35:55 > 0:35:58Good, bad, do it like this, don't do it like that.
0:35:58 > 0:36:02That's exactly right. History is told and retold because it tells you
0:36:02 > 0:36:06lessons, because you start to think about things that you might be able
0:36:06 > 0:36:08to do rather better than last time.
0:36:08 > 0:36:09A cautionary tale.
0:36:11 > 0:36:13For Elizabethan audiences,
0:36:13 > 0:36:17tales of the country torn apart by rival factions
0:36:17 > 0:36:19struck a powerful chord.
0:36:19 > 0:36:21Just 60 years earlier,
0:36:21 > 0:36:24Henry VIII's break with Rome had caused the country to divide,
0:36:24 > 0:36:27along religious fault lines.
0:36:27 > 0:36:30Protestant and Catholic.
0:36:30 > 0:36:33So another civil war seemed an ever-present danger.
0:36:35 > 0:36:38Is this all happening because Elizabeth I is getting old?
0:36:38 > 0:36:40They are worried she is going to die,
0:36:40 > 0:36:43they are worried there is going to be another War of the Roses?
0:36:43 > 0:36:44That's exactly right.
0:36:44 > 0:36:48There's a great fear that there will be a religious war that will be even
0:36:48 > 0:36:51worse than the dynastic war of the Wars of the Roses.
0:36:51 > 0:36:55So this is water-cooler conversation in the 1590s.
0:36:55 > 0:36:57I would have thought so. Yes.
0:36:59 > 0:37:02Shakespeare redefined the Wars of the Roses
0:37:02 > 0:37:06and he turned Richard III from a crude Tudor cliche
0:37:06 > 0:37:10into a truly captivating antihero.
0:37:10 > 0:37:13From David Garrick in the 18th century
0:37:13 > 0:37:15to Edmund Kean in the 19th,
0:37:15 > 0:37:20the biggest stars of the stage have made their names playing the part.
0:37:21 > 0:37:25Right from the start, audiences were fascinated
0:37:25 > 0:37:28by Shakespeare's character of Richard III.
0:37:28 > 0:37:32There's a story about THE most famous Elizabethan actor,
0:37:32 > 0:37:33Richard Burbage.
0:37:33 > 0:37:37He was playing the part and that night he got a message from a lady
0:37:37 > 0:37:39who'd been in the audience, saying,
0:37:39 > 0:37:43"Come to my room, Mr Burbage, I've taken a fancy to you."
0:37:43 > 0:37:46But she wanted him to come in character.
0:37:46 > 0:37:52She'd been seduced by Richard III's blend of cruelty and charisma,
0:37:52 > 0:37:55which has kept people interested ever since.
0:37:59 > 0:38:03Shakespeare followed the lead of Tudor historians by playing up
0:38:03 > 0:38:06Richard's apparently monstrous appearance.
0:38:07 > 0:38:11'And the Royal Shakespeare Company's costume collection reveals how
0:38:11 > 0:38:16'Richard's physical body has come to define our image of the man.'
0:38:17 > 0:38:21Robyn, how many different depictions of Richard III have you had
0:38:21 > 0:38:24- here in Stratford?- Since 1886,
0:38:24 > 0:38:26which was the first permanent theatre company in Stratford,
0:38:26 > 0:38:29there's been around 45 different productions.
0:38:29 > 0:38:33- Wow!- He's definitely one of the most popular, I think, yes.
0:38:33 > 0:38:35The first one I can show you is actually my favourite
0:38:35 > 0:38:38and that's a 1984 production of Richard III
0:38:38 > 0:38:41and it was actually played by Sir Antony Sher.
0:38:41 > 0:38:43He played it as a spider.
0:38:43 > 0:38:46In the text, he is described as a "bottled spider".
0:38:46 > 0:38:51He was wearing a very tight Lycra body suit.
0:38:51 > 0:38:54It's a bit like those pyjamas that kids wear with Superman,
0:38:54 > 0:38:58- you know, and they have built-in muscles.- Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
0:38:59 > 0:39:04This is one of three humps that were used in the production.
0:39:04 > 0:39:08And it's the one that he wore most of the time on stage.
0:39:08 > 0:39:11So, it's, I guess you could say, his favourite hump.
0:39:11 > 0:39:14Hm, it smells...
0:39:14 > 0:39:15- bad.- Yeah, it does.
0:39:15 > 0:39:19It's a very unattractive item altogether, isn't it?
0:39:19 > 0:39:22It was actually strapped on to Antony Sher.
0:39:22 > 0:39:23Little buttons up the front.
0:39:23 > 0:39:28So he would have worn this, very tight and close to his body.
0:39:28 > 0:39:31It's basically because of Shakespeare that I'm thinking that
0:39:31 > 0:39:36- the smell of Antony Sher's sweat is the smell of evil.- Mm.
0:39:36 > 0:39:39So, can we have a look at a contrasting Richard III?
0:39:39 > 0:39:44This is from a 1980 production of Richard III, Alan Howard,
0:39:44 > 0:39:45who played Richard III.
0:39:45 > 0:39:49Again, this is a different concentration on another disability.
0:39:49 > 0:39:52Critics actually compared it to a surgical boot.
0:39:52 > 0:39:56Unlike Antony Sher, who was very nimble across the stage,
0:39:56 > 0:40:02Alan Howard, his interpretation was very, very slow, very heavy.
0:40:02 > 0:40:07You can see how much pain he was in throughout the production.
0:40:07 > 0:40:09What's going on with this arm here?
0:40:09 > 0:40:12Ah, yes. That's Richard's withered arm.
0:40:12 > 0:40:14It really is withering away.
0:40:14 > 0:40:16It looks like a zombie falling to pieces as he walks along.
0:40:16 > 0:40:17Yes, yes.
0:40:17 > 0:40:22Is he always portrayed with a physical problem of some kind?
0:40:22 > 0:40:26Yes. They do all have some type of disability.
0:40:26 > 0:40:29Today, I think we kind of take that with us,
0:40:29 > 0:40:32so Shakespeare's idea of Richard III
0:40:32 > 0:40:35is, kind of, our idea of Richard III, really.
0:40:37 > 0:40:40For Shakespeare and his first audiences,
0:40:40 > 0:40:43Richard's hunch and his arm and his limp
0:40:43 > 0:40:46weren't just physical deformities.
0:40:46 > 0:40:49They believed in the science of physiognomy,
0:40:49 > 0:40:51that suggested that your outward appearance
0:40:51 > 0:40:54reflected your inner self.
0:40:54 > 0:41:00So if Richard was deformed, he must have had an irredeemably evil soul.
0:41:02 > 0:41:06The tale of the Princes in the Tower reveals the enduring power of
0:41:06 > 0:41:09Shakespeare's depiction of the monstrous Richard.
0:41:12 > 0:41:14In 1483,
0:41:14 > 0:41:18Richard imprisoned his two young nephews in the Tower of London
0:41:18 > 0:41:22after the death of their father, King Edward IV.
0:41:22 > 0:41:26And there he had the tender babes murdered,
0:41:26 > 0:41:28this ruthless piece of butchery,
0:41:28 > 0:41:31giving him the crown that was rightfully theirs.
0:41:36 > 0:41:37'In the 17th century,
0:41:37 > 0:41:41'people were still gripped by tales of evil Richard,
0:41:41 > 0:41:43'so well over 100 years after
0:41:43 > 0:41:46'the disappearance of the unfortunate princes,
0:41:46 > 0:41:49'their fate remained a fascinating mystery to be solved.
0:41:52 > 0:41:53'And in 1619,
0:41:53 > 0:41:58'the historian Sir George Buck heard that the bodies of the princes
0:41:58 > 0:42:00'might still be in the tower.'
0:42:01 > 0:42:06Buck wrote that certain bones, like the bones of a child,
0:42:06 > 0:42:10had been found in a remote and desolate turret of the tower.
0:42:10 > 0:42:12But on closer examination,
0:42:12 > 0:42:15these turned out to be the bones of an ape.
0:42:15 > 0:42:18It's quite a sad story.
0:42:18 > 0:42:21One of the apes from the tower menagerie wandered off,
0:42:21 > 0:42:25it somehow got itself into this turret, and there it died.
0:42:28 > 0:42:33'A few decades later, one John Webb reported a more promising lead.'
0:42:35 > 0:42:38A secret sealed room had been discovered,
0:42:38 > 0:42:42built into one of the walls at the King's lodgings.
0:42:42 > 0:42:45That's a building that was here. It's gone now.
0:42:48 > 0:42:52'And in the secret room, there was a table and on the table,
0:42:52 > 0:42:54'there were bones.'
0:42:54 > 0:42:58This time, at least the bones were human, not animal's,
0:42:58 > 0:43:00but the problem was that these were the remains
0:43:00 > 0:43:02of really little children,
0:43:02 > 0:43:06six or eight years old, too young to have been the little princes.
0:43:08 > 0:43:12'At last, in 1674,
0:43:12 > 0:43:16'the 190-year-old mystery appeared to have been solved.'
0:43:16 > 0:43:21Workmen excavating the foundations of a predecessor at this staircase
0:43:21 > 0:43:27discovered a wooden chest and in it were more children, two of them.
0:43:27 > 0:43:31This time, it was decided that they really and truly were
0:43:31 > 0:43:32the little princes.
0:43:33 > 0:43:38The discovery of these remains only fuelled an obsession with this
0:43:38 > 0:43:43legendary crime and when the princes were at last laid to rest,
0:43:43 > 0:43:47the reigning monarch, Charles II, seized the opportunity
0:43:47 > 0:43:51to condemn wicked King Richard's terrible wrong.
0:43:51 > 0:43:55These bones from the tower were brought to a final resting place
0:43:55 > 0:43:57at Westminster Abbey,
0:43:57 > 0:44:01burial place of kings and queens since Edward the Confessor.
0:44:01 > 0:44:06Charles II commissioned a special marble funeral urn for the little
0:44:06 > 0:44:10princes and this proved to be the perfect place
0:44:10 > 0:44:12to hold their murderer to account.
0:44:12 > 0:44:16The inscription on it said that they'd been killed
0:44:16 > 0:44:20by "their perfidious uncle, Richard the Usurper."
0:44:20 > 0:44:25So the Stuarts took the Tudor tale about Richard's crimes,
0:44:25 > 0:44:29they accepted it as fact and they even set it in stone.
0:44:33 > 0:44:37When Queen Victoria came to the throne more than three and a half
0:44:37 > 0:44:40centuries after the start of the Wars of the Roses,
0:44:40 > 0:44:43the conflict was little more than a distant memory.
0:44:46 > 0:44:49And the Victorian vision of medieval England was shaped
0:44:49 > 0:44:53by the bestselling novelist Sir Walter Scott.
0:44:53 > 0:44:57His rip-roaring tales of knights in shining armour were full of
0:44:57 > 0:45:00historical fantasy but very short on historical fact.
0:45:04 > 0:45:08To 19th-century Romantics like Walter Scott,
0:45:08 > 0:45:13the Wars of the Roses represented the Middle Ages gone wrong.
0:45:13 > 0:45:15Scott wasn't very fond of the period.
0:45:15 > 0:45:19Out of more than 20 novels, he only set one in it,
0:45:19 > 0:45:23the rather obscure Anne Of Geierstein.
0:45:23 > 0:45:26And he doesn't make it sound very nice.
0:45:26 > 0:45:29England is torn and bleeding.
0:45:29 > 0:45:34There are piles of slain bodies and quite a lot of drenching in blood.
0:45:34 > 0:45:38To Walter Scott, the Wars of the Roses had too much brutality
0:45:38 > 0:45:41and not enough chivalry to be a bestseller.
0:45:42 > 0:45:45But what Walter Scott did do for the Wars of the Roses
0:45:45 > 0:45:48was give it its name. Listen to this,
0:45:48 > 0:45:53he talks about "the civil discords so dreadfully prosecuted
0:45:53 > 0:45:56"in the wars of the White and Red Roses."
0:45:56 > 0:46:00This is more than 300 years after the ending of the conflict
0:46:00 > 0:46:03but this is the first time that anybody's called it that.
0:46:04 > 0:46:08Most Victorians didn't question the well-established mythology of the
0:46:08 > 0:46:12Wars of the Roses and they enjoyed a spot of Shakespeare
0:46:12 > 0:46:15as much as their predecessors.
0:46:15 > 0:46:21But 19th-century historians took a very dim view of the period.
0:46:23 > 0:46:26Helen, we are sitting in the middle of a Victorian vision
0:46:26 > 0:46:29of the Middle Ages, which they loved.
0:46:29 > 0:46:31But they didn't much like the 15th century, did they?
0:46:31 > 0:46:32They didn't.
0:46:32 > 0:46:35They were very interested in the Middle Ages as a whole
0:46:35 > 0:46:38but they saw the 15th century as something dark, corrupted,
0:46:38 > 0:46:39an unhappy time.
0:46:39 > 0:46:43Who were these Victorian historians writing about the Wars of the Roses?
0:46:43 > 0:46:46The key figure is William Stubbs, Bishop William Stubbs.
0:46:46 > 0:46:48He was a hugely influential figure
0:46:48 > 0:46:51in the development of the discipline.
0:46:51 > 0:46:53It was while he was Regius Professor at Oxford
0:46:53 > 0:46:55that the first students began
0:46:55 > 0:46:58to be able to take history as a degree subject there.
0:46:58 > 0:46:59But he was also a clergyman.
0:46:59 > 0:47:02He ended his life as Bishop of Oxford.
0:47:02 > 0:47:04He could really turn a phrase, couldn't he, Mr Stubbs?
0:47:04 > 0:47:06Yes, certainly.
0:47:06 > 0:47:10The 15th century in Stubbs' view goes something like this,
0:47:10 > 0:47:15"The son of the Plantagenets went down in clouds and thick darkness.
0:47:15 > 0:47:18"The coming of the Tudors gave as yet no promise of light,
0:47:18 > 0:47:21"it was, as the morning spread upon the mountains,
0:47:21 > 0:47:23"darkest before the dawn."
0:47:23 > 0:47:28It sounds like Victorian historians were quite happy to pass judgment
0:47:28 > 0:47:31on the past. Black and white, good and bad.
0:47:31 > 0:47:33And not only not afraid to judge the past,
0:47:33 > 0:47:35they saw it as part of their job.
0:47:35 > 0:47:37For historians like Stubbs,
0:47:37 > 0:47:39their Christianity was an intrinsic part
0:47:39 > 0:47:42of what it meant to be a historian.
0:47:42 > 0:47:44So they needed to look in the archives,
0:47:44 > 0:47:46they needed to find out the information,
0:47:46 > 0:47:50they were great scholars, but then they needed to stand back
0:47:50 > 0:47:54to assess what they'd found and stand in judgment on it.
0:47:54 > 0:47:56And their judgment had to take in
0:47:56 > 0:48:00the moral dimensions of their worldview.
0:48:00 > 0:48:05They were quite willing to say that certain actions, certain people,
0:48:05 > 0:48:08and certain periods, were evil.
0:48:08 > 0:48:11I'm thinking that he is typical of a type of historian that we call
0:48:11 > 0:48:12wig historians.
0:48:12 > 0:48:16That's a broad grouping, but what is this thing called wig history?
0:48:16 > 0:48:18Really, when we talk about wig history,
0:48:18 > 0:48:21we're talking about a view of history as progress.
0:48:21 > 0:48:25As a movement towards the best of all possible worlds,
0:48:25 > 0:48:30which is embodied in 19th-century society,
0:48:30 > 0:48:3119th-century politics.
0:48:31 > 0:48:35So Victorians see an onward march of progress
0:48:35 > 0:48:37up to the Wars of the Roses, then it slips back.
0:48:37 > 0:48:39And then it's up and up and up again
0:48:39 > 0:48:41to the glorious perfection of Queen Victoria.
0:48:41 > 0:48:44Progress isn't always quite that straightforward.
0:48:44 > 0:48:46Obviously, there are lumps and bumps along the way.
0:48:46 > 0:48:49But the 15th century seemed a pretty dark age,
0:48:49 > 0:48:52when the country collapsed into civil war
0:48:52 > 0:48:54and it seemed as though the forces of law
0:48:54 > 0:48:58and the Enlightenment of constitutional progress were being
0:48:58 > 0:49:03overwhelmed by over mighty subjects and aristocratic faction.
0:49:06 > 0:49:09'Although Bishop Stubbs and his colleagues weren't writing for the
0:49:09 > 0:49:14'mass market, their judgment on the Wars of the Roses as a great leap
0:49:14 > 0:49:18'backwards, as an interruption to the march of progress,
0:49:18 > 0:49:21'has proved extremely influential.'
0:49:28 > 0:49:33Ah, now this is perhaps my favourite history book.
0:49:33 > 0:49:38It's called 1066 And All That, A Memorable History Of England.
0:49:38 > 0:49:44It's basically a spoof of those very self-confident Victorian historians
0:49:44 > 0:49:47like Bishop Stubbs and his chums.
0:49:47 > 0:49:52And like them, it's not afraid to make judgments about history.
0:49:52 > 0:49:55Here's the 17th-century English Civil War, for example,
0:49:55 > 0:49:57between the Cavaliers and the Roundheads.
0:49:57 > 0:50:01The Cavaliers being "Wrong but Wromantic",
0:50:01 > 0:50:05and the Roundheads, "Right but Repulsive".
0:50:05 > 0:50:09What have they got to say about the Wars of the Roses?
0:50:09 > 0:50:11Well, it was all because the Barons,
0:50:11 > 0:50:14who "made a stupendous effort using
0:50:14 > 0:50:17"sackage, carnage and wreckage
0:50:17 > 0:50:20"so to stave off the Tudors for a time.
0:50:20 > 0:50:24"They achieved this by a very clever plan
0:50:24 > 0:50:26"known as the Wars of the Roses."
0:50:26 > 0:50:29So just like the Victorian historians,
0:50:29 > 0:50:33this book thinks that it was the fault of the bad barons.
0:50:33 > 0:50:36Clearly, the whole thing is a joke, but minus the jokes,
0:50:36 > 0:50:38and plus a few more dates,
0:50:38 > 0:50:42this was pretty much how generations of school kids
0:50:42 > 0:50:43were taught their history.
0:50:46 > 0:50:48But no account of the Wars of the Roses
0:50:48 > 0:50:51could ever hope to rival the remarkable staying power
0:50:51 > 0:50:54of Shakespeare's drama.
0:50:54 > 0:50:59In the 20th century, his Richard III made the leap from stage to screen.
0:50:59 > 0:51:04March on, join bravely, let us to't pell-mell.
0:51:04 > 0:51:11In 1955, Laurence Olivier, both directed and starred in Richard III.
0:51:11 > 0:51:16He turned Shakespeare's story into a Technicolor spectacular and he
0:51:16 > 0:51:20turned Richard III himself into the ultimate Hollywood villain.
0:51:20 > 0:51:23Complete with prosthetic villainous nose.
0:51:23 > 0:51:26Now is the winter of our discontent
0:51:26 > 0:51:28made glorious summer
0:51:28 > 0:51:31by this sun of York.
0:51:32 > 0:51:36Olivier delivers his scheming monologues straight down the camera,
0:51:36 > 0:51:42eyeball to eyeball, he draws us into his murderous plots.
0:51:42 > 0:51:44I can smile
0:51:44 > 0:51:47and murder whiles I smile.
0:51:47 > 0:51:50'He is both monstrous and magnetic.'
0:51:50 > 0:51:52And wet my cheeks with artificial tears
0:51:52 > 0:51:55and frame my face to all occasions...
0:51:55 > 0:51:58This was the definitive Richard III for the 20th century.
0:51:58 > 0:52:02Everybody else who played the part would be measured against Olivier.
0:52:08 > 0:52:11In America, the film was shown on television
0:52:11 > 0:52:14the same day that it opened in cinemas.
0:52:14 > 0:52:18As many as 40 million people watched it.
0:52:18 > 0:52:22That's more than the total number of people who'd seen it in theatres
0:52:22 > 0:52:26over the whole 350 years since it was first performed.
0:52:31 > 0:52:3340 years after Olivier,
0:52:33 > 0:52:38Ian McKellen played Richard III as the greatest tyrant of them all,
0:52:38 > 0:52:39Adolf Hitler.
0:52:45 > 0:52:49Complete with murderous moustache.
0:52:49 > 0:52:52Now is the winter of our discontent
0:52:52 > 0:52:56made glorious summer
0:52:56 > 0:52:58by this sun of York.
0:52:58 > 0:53:01LAUGHTER
0:53:01 > 0:53:04This version of Richard III didn't make any connection
0:53:04 > 0:53:07to the real events of the 15th century.
0:53:07 > 0:53:09Shakespeare's plot was so well known
0:53:09 > 0:53:13that it had become a sort of timeless parable.
0:53:20 > 0:53:24Richard III had become the biggest baddie in history
0:53:24 > 0:53:28and the Wars of the Roses symbolised a nation's darkest hour.
0:53:38 > 0:53:44But a new and radically different tale of good King Richard was also
0:53:44 > 0:53:50emerging, which turned Shakespeare's familiar story on its head.
0:53:50 > 0:53:51In 1924,
0:53:51 > 0:53:54The Richard III Society was founded
0:53:54 > 0:53:58to counter what they saw as outrageous Tudor lies.
0:53:58 > 0:54:02And to paint a much more flattering portrait of Richard.
0:54:02 > 0:54:05Their Richard was a good lord
0:54:05 > 0:54:06and a mighty prince
0:54:06 > 0:54:09and he definitely didn't have a hunchback.
0:54:14 > 0:54:19'Centuries after Richard's death, his supporters, the Ricardians,
0:54:19 > 0:54:21'were determined to clear his name.'
0:54:22 > 0:54:27The culmination of Richard's rehabilitation came in 2012
0:54:27 > 0:54:31with the extraordinary discovery of his body,
0:54:31 > 0:54:33here in this car park in Leicester.
0:54:34 > 0:54:41After centuries of conjecture and half-truths and even downright lies,
0:54:41 > 0:54:44here was some hard evidence for the real Richard.
0:54:46 > 0:54:49Just five feet under the tarmac,
0:54:49 > 0:54:52archaeologists made the remarkable find.
0:54:57 > 0:55:01The Ricardians were delighted finally to lay eyes on their hero.
0:55:02 > 0:55:04But even from a quick glance,
0:55:04 > 0:55:06it was clear that this man did have
0:55:06 > 0:55:09an abnormal curvature of the spine.
0:55:12 > 0:55:15In a battle where opinions mattered more than facts,
0:55:15 > 0:55:17Richard's physical imperfections
0:55:17 > 0:55:20didn't shake the Ricardians' conviction.
0:55:20 > 0:55:24In the Wars of the Roses, the wrong man had come out on top.
0:55:24 > 0:55:29For them, the final twist in the tale is that Henry VII, not Richard,
0:55:29 > 0:55:32was the true villain of the piece.
0:55:33 > 0:55:34To the Ricardians,
0:55:34 > 0:55:39the triumphant Tudor was nothing more than a ruthless usurper
0:55:39 > 0:55:41who had slandered Richard's good name.
0:55:44 > 0:55:49As Henry VII faced their wrath, his defenders rallied round.
0:55:49 > 0:55:53In 2013, another royal fan club was born.
0:55:53 > 0:55:55The Henry Tudor Society.
0:55:56 > 0:55:57Nathan, what is this?
0:55:57 > 0:55:59It's a small representation
0:55:59 > 0:56:03of a statue that we are hoping to put up in Pembroke.
0:56:03 > 0:56:07I feel that Henry Tudor is an overlooked monarch.
0:56:07 > 0:56:09Since Richard III was dug up,
0:56:09 > 0:56:13there's been a sort of rehabilitation of his reputation.
0:56:13 > 0:56:17Do you think this means that, inevitably, Henry Tudor's gone down?
0:56:17 > 0:56:19Unfortunately, yes, it does seem that way.
0:56:19 > 0:56:21For one king to become unmaligned,
0:56:21 > 0:56:24it seems that some feel that another has to become maligned.
0:56:24 > 0:56:26So, how many members have you got?
0:56:26 > 0:56:29Currently, there's 12,000 people on my Facebook page.
0:56:29 > 0:56:32Wow! And how many has Richard III got, then? Shall we...?
0:56:32 > 0:56:34Let's compare. Did you say you've got 12,000 likes?
0:56:34 > 0:56:3612,358 as of today.
0:56:36 > 0:56:41I hate to tell you this, Nathan, but Richard III has got 16,000.
0:56:41 > 0:56:44- He is ahead of you. But not by much.- Not by much.
0:56:44 > 0:56:46We are hot on your tail, Richard.
0:56:46 > 0:56:48And is there a sort of tension between the two societies?
0:56:48 > 0:56:51How do you get on together? Not well, I imagine.
0:56:51 > 0:56:55If you believe some things you read on Facebook, this man was a monster,
0:56:55 > 0:56:58a usurper, a ruthless, evil king.
0:56:58 > 0:57:02In my opinion, this was a king who was without doubt the cleverest man
0:57:02 > 0:57:03to ever sit on the throne of England
0:57:03 > 0:57:07and he was recognised throughout Europe as a generous family man.
0:57:09 > 0:57:14The need to find a hero and a villain of the Wars of the Roses
0:57:14 > 0:57:16remains as strong as ever.
0:57:17 > 0:57:23In 2015, 530 years after his death on the battlefield of Bosworth,
0:57:23 > 0:57:27Richard III was finally laid to rest in Leicester Cathedral,
0:57:27 > 0:57:29in a tomb fit for a king.
0:57:31 > 0:57:35Ironically, the discovery of Richard's curved spine
0:57:35 > 0:57:37shows that what had seemed to be
0:57:37 > 0:57:39the most outrageous piece of myth-making of all,
0:57:39 > 0:57:44the hunchbacked king, was close to reality.
0:57:44 > 0:57:47But fascinating though Richard's bones are,
0:57:47 > 0:57:50they can't really tell us what sort of a man
0:57:50 > 0:57:52or what sort of a king he was.
0:57:54 > 0:57:59'Because history is more than a series of dates, facts and bones.
0:57:59 > 0:58:01'It's a collection of stories
0:58:01 > 0:58:05'and all stories reveal just as much about their authors as they do about
0:58:05 > 0:58:09'the heroes and the villains they portray.'
0:58:09 > 0:58:11While Richard has been laid to rest,
0:58:11 > 0:58:15the story of the Wars of the Roses certainly hasn't.
0:58:16 > 0:58:21'Next time, I'll be exploring the Glorious Revolution.
0:58:21 > 0:58:23'Was it really glorious?
0:58:23 > 0:58:25'And was it really a revolution?'