The Story of Britain Read online

  Edward III grew old and his wife died. He took a mistress called Alice Perrers, but everyone hated her. They said she twisted the old king round her little finger. The war with France started up again, and like his grandfather, Edward I, King Edward summoned Parliament to grant the taxes he needed to pay for it. But one year, Parliament refused. No one likes paying tax, so everyone called it the Good Parliament and cheered the lords and MPs when they passed them in the streets.

  Then the Black Prince fell ill. His arms and legs swelled, and he became so weak he could no longer walk. One day, there was a riot in London and the Black Prince was carried into the street to calm the crowd. When people saw “the greatest knight in Christendom” turned into a poor invalid who couldn’t walk, they all went home in silence.

  The Black Prince died. Then old King Edward died; and the Black Prince’s son, Richard, became king. But Richard was just ten years old. And he had only been on the throne a few years, when the poor people of England rose up in rebellion.

  The lives of peasants – the men and women who worked in the fields – were harder than ever. They laboured until their backs were bent, and never had enough food to eat or firewood to keep them warm. Poor families suffered more than anyone else in the Black Death. When it was over they hoped things might get easier.

  “Now there are less of us to do the work,” they said, “each of us should get paid more!”

  But the king passed a law to say that the poor should be paid the same as before. Then, to raise money for his war, he demanded a poll tax of twelve pence that everyone in the country had to pay, no matter how poor. In those day twelve pence was a lot of money.

  A man called Wat Tyler was at home in Essex when he heard about the poll tax. He quickly put on his coat and went out. Villagers were already gathering around the tavern to complain.

  “Twelve pence!” they shouted. “Where will we get twelve pence?”

  “Let the people who own land pay tax – not us!”

  Wat Tyler pushed his way to the front. “It’s wrong,” he said quietly. “And we won’t pay.”

  Everyone looked worried at that. “Shh,” someone whispered. “They’ll send soldiers!”

  “Let them,” Wat Tyler replied. “Knights may have armour and horses, but there are more of us. It’s time those kings and lords listened to what we say!”

  News of Wat Tyler’s speech soon spread to the surrounding villages. Poor people became more and more angry as they thought how unfair their lives were. They didn’t have a say in Parliament – the House of Commons was for knights and rich townsmen, not peasants. Why should they spend their lives being told what to do by knights and lords?

  “We’ll go to London,” Wat Tyler said, “and force the king to listen to us!”

  So he and his supporters set out from Kent and Essex, tramping along the muddy road to London with sticks, hoes and pitchforks as their weapons. Soldiers came to meet them, but turned back when they saw the great crowd. It was just as Wat Tyler said – if the peasants got together, the lords would have to give in.

  They reached London and gazed in awe at the lords’ palaces, thinking of their own homes, where a whole family lived in a single room. When townsmen pointed out the houses of the most unpopular ministers, they broke in and burned them, tearing down tapestries and smashing furniture. Eventually they reached Smithfield, the great field just outside the city wall where farmers brought animals to market. There the peasants halted. In front of them stood a group of soldiers headed by the lord mayor of London. Next to the mayor was the slight figure of a boy – the king, Richard II.

  The king had never looked at a peasant before. He had seen them out of the window of his carriage, of course. And he knew that somebody had to plough the fields. But he had never really looked at one. He saw men with backs bent by work and faces burnt brown by the sun. He saw hands twisted from holding tools, and bodies scarred by disease and injury.

  How angry they look, he thought.

  Wat Tyler had never seen a king. He had heard stories about kings; he had prayed for the king in church – but he had never seen one.

  He’s only a boy, he thought.

  And, on the day he had been waiting for ever since the revolt began, Wat Tyler suddenly felt uncertain. He knew that many of the peasants had already gone home, worried about what they were doing, and he wondered how his revolution would end. They were only peasants. They couldn’t run the country – they didn’t know how.

  But at least, he thought, we’ve made them listen!

  The lord mayor of London drew his sword and struck Wat Tyler a dreadful blow across the neck. Soldiers ran forward to attack, and the other leaders of the revolt, Jack Straw and John Ball, were quickly arrested. By the end of the day, the Peasants’ Revolt was over.

  However, no one would ever forget Wat Tyler. Lords and knights had all the power, but ordinary people outnumbered them by far. And one day the country would belong to them!

  The Canterbury Tales

  THE Peasants’ Revolt reminded people that not everyone was a knight or a fine lady. The country was full of ordinary people: millers and merchants, carpenters and farmers, lawyers, sailors and cooks. And just after the Peasants’ Revolt a writer called Geoffrey Chaucer decided to write some stories about them.

  He set his stories among a group of pilgrims who were going to Canterbury Cathedral to see Thomas Becket’s tomb. They met at a pub in London and agreed that each of them would tell a story to pass the time on the journey.

  In those days most books were written in Latin or French, but Geoffrey Chaucer wrote in English so everyone could understand. Most stories were about knights and ladies, but Chaucer told stories of all different kinds. In his book a nun told a story about a miracle, a knight told a story about fighting, and a miller told a rude story. He described all his characters at the beginning:

  The Miller was a strong fellow, be it known,

  Hardy, big of brawn and big of bone;

  He was stoutly built, broad and heavy;

  His beard, as any sow or fox, was red,

  And broad it was, as if it were a spade.

  Upon his nose, right on the top, he had

  A wart, and thereon stood a tuft of hairs,

  Red as the bristles in an old sow’s ears…

  Chaucer called his book The Canterbury Tales. Lots of people couldn’t read in those days, so they had it read aloud to them. Some of the stories were funny, some were magical, and some were sad. And people loved it from the first, because here, at last, was a book that told stories for everybody.

  Owain Glyn Dwr’s Rebellion

  BUT stories didn’t solve England’s troubles. Everyone in the country still felt restless. In fact, everyone in the world seemed restless. French peasants started a rebellion. In Rome the pope quarrelled with the French king, who ordered a new pope to be elected. His pope moved from Rome to France, and then a third pope was elected – so there were three at once, and no one knew which to obey. Meanwhile in England there was trouble with the king.

  English kings seemed to alternate between strong and weak. Edward I had defeated the Welsh and Scots, but his son Edward II was weak. Edward III fought the Hundred Years War, but Richard II grew up weak and became more and more unpopular. Eventually his cousin Henry Bolingbroke led a rebellion against him and made himself King Henry IV. However, because of the way Henry stole the throne, people often complained about him and the two kings who followed him, his son Henry V and grandson Henry VI. Were the Henrys proper kings? Or cheats?

  When Henry IV became king, two rebellions started against him. The first was led by Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland, and his son, a famous knight whom everyone called Hotspur. Henry IV did manage to beat Hotspur, but a second rebellion began in Wales, where Owain Glyn Dwr was determined to rescue his country from English rule.

  When news arrived that the English were fighting among themselves, Owain called the Welsh leaders together.

  “While the Eng
lish are quarrelling,” he said, “we can free Wales, drive out their soldiers and tear down their castles!”

  Soldiers joined Owain from all over Wales, proclaimed him prince of Wales, and followed him to the great English stronghold of Harlech.

  When they saw the Welsh coming, the English soldiers just laughed. “Why should we worry about some Welsh farmers?” they jeered. “The walls of this castle are a hundred feet thick!”

  Yet the Welsh were so determined that even the walls of Harlech Castle couldn’t keep them out. Owain led the final charge, and tore down the English king’s banner. He captured Aberystwyth Castle as well. It seemed as if Wales really might become free.

  But then Henry IV, who had just beaten Hotspur, arrived in Wales with his army.

  “We’ll fight them!” Owain promised his followers. “And one thing I swear: they’ll never catch me alive!”

  But Owain didn’t know about Henry’s new weapon – gunpowder.

  The English laid siege to the Welsh in Harlech Castle. From the battle-ments the Welsh watched their enemies huddle over something on the hillside.

  “It looks like a new kind of battering ram,” one of them said.

  Suddenly the English ran back; there was a roar of flame, a crack like thunder, and a moment later something crashed into the wall beneath them with a force that made the whole castle shake.

  “What was that?” gasped one of the Welsh soldiers, who had been sent sprawling by the blast. “Was it a dragon? It breathed fire!”

  “No,” whispered their sergeant, whose face had turned chalk white. “I have heard of this before. That thing is a gun. It can hurl rocks so hard they will knock down the walls of any castle ever built!”

  With guns to help them, the English soon won back their castles, captured Welsh strongholds, and defeated Welsh armies. But they couldn’t capture Owain Glyn Dwr.

  “Have you found him yet?” King Henry asked his officers after each battle. His officers just shook their heads.

  The Welsh remembered what Owain Glyn Dwr had told them: “They’ll never catch me alive!”

  “Where is he?” English knights shouted at them. “Where is Owain Glyn Dwr?”

  But the Welsh never betrayed their leader. Even when the last army had been beaten and the last castle surrendered, Owain Glyn Dwr was never caught. Indeed, to this day no one knows what happened to him, and some say Owain Glyn Dwr is still living in the mountains, waiting to lead his people again.

  Agincourt

  ALTHOUGH Henry IV beat both the rebellions against him, he still felt guilty for stealing the throne, and people still muttered that he wasn’t a proper king. When he died, his son Henry V decided the only way to stop them was to go to war and win a great victory. So he led his army across the Channel to France and the Hundred Years War began again.

  To start with, nothing went well for Henry. His scouts reported that the French army was the biggest ever assembled, with so many knights that their banners filled whole valleys. Then it began to rain and Henry’s soldiers fell sick. They tried to get back to their ships, but the French closed in on them, and eventually the English could go no further. At the village of Agincourt Henry ordered his men to prepare for battle.

  That night there was much feasting in the French camp. Lords boasted about tournaments they had won in the past. Knights prepared their armour and sent squires to sharpen their swords. No one gave the English a chance.

  In the morning the French knights drew up for their charge. They watch-ed the English through the eye slits of their helmets. There were so few of them on the hillside above that they hardly looked like an army at all.

  But what followed was just like the Battle of Crécy, years before. The French started to charge without any order. One knight followed another, each shouting his battle cry, and when the English archers began to fire, the proud French knights became a rabble of screaming, quarrelling men. It seemed to them as if the sky was full of vicious birds. Horses reared; knights fell – and when they did, they found it impossible to get up again in their heavy armour. Before the French knew it, English soldiers were among them, hacking at the fallen and stripping armour from the dead.

  Agincourt was the greatest English victory of the war. Hundreds of French knights were killed or captured. Henry reconquered Normandy and married the French king’s daughter. For a time it looked as if the Hundred Years War was over.

  The victory didn’t last, though. Henry V grew sick and died, and his son, Henry VI, was a weakling who couldn’t rule or fight. So England’s troubles began again.

  The Wars of the Roses

  HENRY VI was only a baby when his father died, but courtiers soon noticed there was something wrong with him. He couldn’t learn his sums; he didn’t seem able to concentrate. A rumour went round that the king was weak in the head.

  “We always said the Henrys weren’t proper kings,” people muttered.

  The French quickly won back what they had lost in the war. A farm girl called Joan of Arc dressed as a knight and led their army. The English were driven out of France (though they kept the town of Calais) and the Hundred Years War finally came to an end.

  The English were furious about losing the war. In Kent a man called Jack Cade started a rebellion. Even though Jack Cade was killed and the rebellion ended, it didn’t stop people complaining. Meanwhile Henry VI lost his mind completely. It was as if England didn’t have a king at all.

  At last, seeing how feeble Henry was, his cousin Richard of York decided to take over. He declared he had a better claim to be king than Henry, and gathered an army. Richard’s family were dukes of York, and the emblem of York was a white rose, while Henry’s family were dukes of Lancaster, with a red rose as their emblem, so the struggle between them became known as the Wars of the Roses.

  The Yorkists and Lancastrians fought a battle at St Albans, and another at Blore Heath, near Wales. Richard of York was killed, but his son Edward kept fighting. At Towton, in Yorkshire, the two sides fought a battle so bloody that, by the day’s end, the rivers ran red and soldiers stood dazed on the field, too exhausted even to raise their swords. At the end of the battle Henry fled and Edward, who was just eighteen years old, was crowned King Edward IV.

  Everybody liked Edward. He was good company, and loved feasting and parties. But the new king had a secret. He had fallen in love with a widow called Elizabeth Woodville, and married her without telling anyone. When the secret came out, everyone was shocked. Kings were supposed to marry princesses! England had never had an ordinary woman as queen! Edward began to argue with his most powerful supporter, the earl of Warwick, who had helped him become king. Eventually Warwick swapped sides, Edward fled to France, and Henry VI became king for the second time. Warwick became known as “the Kingmaker”, because whoever he supported became king.

  But Edward was determined to return. He may have loved good company and feasting, but he was also a skilful soldier. He gathered a new army, defeated Warwick the Kingmaker, then captured Henry and beat the Lancastrian army at the Battle of Tewkesbury. Henry’s son was killed in the battle, and to make sure the Wars of the Roses didn’t go on, Edward put Henry to death as well. There was no one left to challenge him.

  “Congratulations!” said Edward’s younger brother Richard, a thin, secretive man who always seemed to be smiling to himself.

  It looked as if the Wars of the Roses really were over. What Edward didn’t realize was that his younger brother had a secret ambition of his own. He too wanted to be king.

  The Princes in the Tower

  EDWARD didn’t survive long. His life of feasting and drinking took its toll on him. He died, and his son, Edward, who was just twelve years old, set off for London to be crowned, with his younger brother, Richard, accompanying him. But at the gates of the city they were stopped by their uncle Richard.

  “I’m worried there may be a riot,” he said. “I’m going to send you somewhere you will be safe.”

  “Where?” asked Edward, try
ing to sound as much like a king as possible.

  His uncle smiled. “To the Tower,” he said.

  Ever since William the Conqueror built it, the Tower of London had stood guard over the river Thames. No windows relieved its walls. Soldiers stood on every tower. But the castle no longer kept out the king’s enemies, it had become a prison.

  The boys arrived by boat in the dead of night. Someone helped them up the steps and they followed a soldier with a flaming torch along stone corridors that dripped with moisture. They were too scared to speak. Edward kept his arm round his brother’s shoulder. The soldier led them to an office where the keeper of the Tower was waiting next to a huge man in a leather jerkin, the chief jailer.

  Edward tried to make his voice sound commanding. “I am king of England,” he said. “I demand that you send for my uncle at once.”

  “Maybe tomorrow,” said the keeper of the Tower, and added as an afterthought, “Your Majesty.”

  The jailer laughed. Beside him, Edward heard his brother give a sob.

  They were taken to a room without a window, and the jailer locked the door behind them. Edward hammered on the door with his fists but nobody answered the twelve-year-old king of England.

  Days passed. Edward tried to keep his brother’s spirits up.

  “Uncle has put us here for our own safety,” he said. “Perhaps the Lancastrians have started the war again. He will send for us soon.”

  But their uncle didn’t send for them. In fact, he was busy spreading a rumour that Edward IV hadn’t really married Elizabeth Woodville, so his sons were illegitimate and Edward couldn’t be king. Richard had begun to call himself lord protector.

  One night, the boys weren’t brought any food. Edward yelled through the keyhole, but nobody came. The torch went out, leaving them in darkness. Edward couldn’t believe it. He was king of England and he was sitting in a cell in darkness! As the night drew on, it grew colder. The boys hugged each other to stay warm, but cold seemed to seep up from the floor and drip from the vaulted ceiling until they were both shivering.