On 18th July 1290 King Edward I expelled the Jews from England. Simon Schama, The Story of the Jews II: Among Believers, PBS 2013
Canute ... he went out of his way to change nothing. Simon Schama, A History of Britain: Conquest, BBC 2000
The Normans were descendants of Viking raiders but had long since traded in their longboats for powerful warhorses, and the Duchy of Normandy was in no sense just a piece of France. ibid.
Finally the foot soldiers breaking into a run behind. And then there was just the murderous smashing and crashing of horses, the slicing and thrusting of weapons, screams, cries of the wounded and dying. ibid.
William was crowned at Westminster, Christmas Day 1066. ibid.
Hot on the heels of massacre and starvation came plague. ibid.
And then there appeared a young king – brave and charismatic who stopped the anarchy. His name was Henry and he would become the greatest of all our medieval kings ... The King who ordered the murder in the Cathedral. Or as the father of the much more famous impossibly bad King John, and the impossibly glamorous Richard the Lionheart. Simon Schama, A History of Britain: Dynasty
Henry II, his wife Eleanor and their children Richard and John were the most astonishing of all the family firms to run the enterprise of Britain. ibid.
In 1128 Matilda married Geoffrey of Anjou nicknamed Plantagenet ... His family emblem was three lions. ibid.
Henry had established permanent professional courts sitting at Westminster or touring the counties. ibid.
It was not, ‘Will no-one rid me of this turbulent priest?’ But a much more alarming outcry: ‘What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and brought up in my household who let their Lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric?’ ibid.
In 1189 Richard declared war on his father. This time Henry faced defeat. ibid.
England’s own home-grown Caesar – Edward I. Simon Schama, A History of Britain: Nations
Edward could be called the first really English king. ibid.
Early in his reign Edward, perhaps acting from religious conviction, outlawed money-lending, and so put most of England’s Jews out of business. He then forced them to wear yellow felt badges of identification ... A year after his invasion Edward arrested all the heads of the Jewish households, and hanged nearly three hundred in the Tower. ibid.
It was Scotland that was destined to be on the end of Edward’s power games. ibid.
Just as he had ripped the heart out of the Welsh sense of independence by carrying off their sacred relics, Edward now took the Stone of Scone, the symbol of the independent Scottish Crown, to Westminster. ibid.
Having won a victory on the battlefield if not the war itself, the Scots now sought international recognition of their newly won liberty. The occasion was a letter sent to the Pope. ibid.
For a century and a half there had been an entrenched English colony in east and north Ireland, often safe only in castles ... A bitter civil war broke out between native Irish supporters of both sides. ibid.
In the summer of 1348 the English could be forgiven for thinking themselves unconquerable. They had vanquished the old enemies – the Scots and the French. Their King – Edward III – seemed the most powerful ruler in Europe. But they would be conquered ... [by] king death. His weapon was plague ... Almost half the country would be dead. Simon Schama, A History of Britain: King Death
Despite his famous victory at Agincourt Henry V remains a might-have-been, dead at the age of thirty-five from dysentery. ibid.
The competing wings for the Plantagenet family: for thirty years the Houses of York and Lancaster slogged it out in a roll call of battles we know as the Wars of the Roses. ibid.
Over 150,000 people die or flee their homes. Alongside murder comes the devastation of Anglo-Saxon lands ... William destroys all resistance. The British II: People Power, Sky Atlantic 2012
A network of castles appears across the land. ibid.
The Black Death ... This is now the Bubonic plague. ibid.
From London revolt spreads to towns and villages across the country. ibid.
Matilda: the first woman to make a claim to the English throne in her own right. Dr Helen Castor, She Wolves: England’s Early Queens I, BBC 2012
A handful of extraordinary women did attempt to rule medieval and Tudor England. ibid.
Matilda was the daughter of Henry I and granddaughter of William the Conqueror. ibid.
There was nothing explicit to say a woman couldn’t wear the crown. ibid.
Matilda might have given up on her marriage but her father hadn’t. ibid.
In 1135 ... Matilda stayed in Anjou with Geoffrey. ibid.
As soon as the news of her father’s death reached her Matilda made her first move to become Queen. ibid.
While Matilda hesitated it was her cousin Stephen who seized the moment. Stephen was a powerful man and an effective soldier. ibid.
Stephen’s masterstroke was his speedily arranged coronation. ibid.
Normandy had collapsed into anarchy and so had Stephen’s army. ibid.
All Matilda’s hopes of being crowned Queen were trampled into the dirt along with the feast she had left behind. But things were about to get still worse. ibid.
If the she-wolf couldn’t wear the crown, her cub would. ibid.
Eleanor wasn’t typical in anything she did. ibid.
Eleanor made a particularly powerful match – her new husband was heir to the French throne. And within days of the wedding the old King died. Now at the age of only thirteen Eleanor was Queen of France. Wife of King Louis VII. ibid.
Louis and Eleanor had decided to go on Crusade. ibid.
In 1168 Eleanor went to govern the Dutch [Aquitaine] in her husband’s name. ibid.
Eleanor never had a claim to be a monarch in her own right but her children did. ibid.
She rebelled against her husband. ibid.
She was captured on the road by her husband’s forces. ibid.
Richard sent word that his mother should have the power of doing whatever she wished in the kingdom. ibid.
It was Eleanor who secured the succession of her youngest son John. ibid.
Age and exhaustion caught up with Eleanor. ibid.
England’s Queen haven’t always been greeted with such adoration. Dr Helen Castor, She Wolves: England’s Early Queens II: Isabella and Margaret
Women and power have made an uneasy combination. ibid.
These are the stories of the she-wolves of England. ibid.
Two women who were thrust into a violent and dysfunctional foreign country. ibid.
Isabella ... was a peace-making Queen. ibid.
At Bannockburn Robert Bruce routed Edward’s army. England had lost its control of Scotland. ibid.
It was Isabella herself who precipitated the country into civil war. ibid.
Edward ordered that all French men and women living in England should be arrested as enemy aliens. ibid.
Isabella, Mortimer and Prince Edward set sail for England. ibid.
She was greeted with open arms. ibid.
Her husband’s power simply melted away. ibid.
She, a Queen, had seized power to depose a crowned and anointed King for the first time in English history. ibid.
Over the next hundred years England and France were almost constantly at war. ibid.
Margaret, daughter of the Duke of Anjou. She would marry the English King, Henry VI. ibid.
1471: A new England is being forged in the fire of civil war. Philippa Gregory, The Real White Queen and Her Rivals II, BBC 2013
They are the founders of our nation just as much as their more-famous men. ibid.
‘She [Margaret] plays the game of divided loyalties very effectively: she’s protected by her Yorkish husbands and is at the same time covertly working for her Lancastrian son. But King Edward’s victory was a disaster for her. Forcing her son, Henry Tudor, to flee into exile in France.’ ibid. Lisa Hilton
The York dynasty had an extraordinary capacity for self-destruction. And its downfall would begin with Anne Neville. ibid.