Book Companion - Henry VII

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Hello, Charlie Hicks in here once again with Willie Willie Harry Steve, The Podcast.

By combining my own research and having as guests some fabulous historians,

I managed to dig deep into the sometimes very dark depths of the British royal family history.

And now you can read about them as well as listen to them.

It's all there now in print form and it's all beautifully illustrated by my old friend,

Jim Moyer, aka Vic Reeves, Britain's greatest light entertainer.

So a treat for the eyes just as this podcast is a treat for the ears.

So buy your copy now or several copies if you're feeling flush and while you do enjoy this,

another chance to hear the original podcast series in order.

Music

Willie Willie Harry Steve, Harry Dick John Harry 3,

1, 2, 3, and Ed's Richard 2, Henry's 4, 5, 6, then who?

Edwards, 4, 5, Dick the Bad, Harry's Twain.

Yes, we've come to the start of a new dynasty with Henry Tudor.

But what can I say about Henry that hasn't already been said before?

Oh, no, sorry, that's my introduction for Henry the 8th.

This is Henry the 7th, a comparatively unmemorable king.

One of those monarchs that people sort of no vaguely existed.

Well, he must have existed because Henry the 8th must have had a father,

but they don't know that much about him.

He's often dismissed as uninteresting, but I've found looking into his life

that actually he was a fascinating guy at a very interesting reign.

And without him, no Henry the 8th, no bloody Mary, no Queen Elizabeth the 1st,

no Lady Jane Grey the 9-day Queen.

I mean, what on earth would they teach children in history lessons at school?

But I think Henry the 7th should be better known.

He's coming to the throne caused a massive shift in the direction of English history.

After all, it was Henry the 7th who defeated Richard the 3rd at the Battle of Bosworth field

and finally brought the Wars of the Roses to an end after nearly 35 years.

It was Henry who restored order to the country and founded the Tudor dynasty.

It was Henry who properly ushered in the Renaissance into Britain.

And there really does seem to be a shift from this sort of medieval period,

if you think about it, you think of Castles and Knights in armour.

And we're sort of moving into the Tudor period, which

well, I think we all have a sort of image of our head of what Tudor means

and how it looks and how it feels and it was definitely a new era.

But perhaps Henry is not so well remembered and not talked about so much because he wasn't

an unstable, violent psychopath. He brought law and order and stability to the country

rather than tipping it into chaos like so many of our other early kings.

He died without being involved in any scandals.

He seemed to have fathered only one illegitimate child, a son.

And that was when Henry was a 17-year-old exile in Brittany.

And he seemed to genuinely love his wife and children.

He's grief when he was pre-deceased by his eldest child and not long after that.

His wife, Queen Elizabeth, died after childbirth.

His grief was well recorded, you know, that he was for a long time distraught.

So should we dismiss him simply because he was a bit dull and the country didn't fall apart

while he was on the throne, or should we applaud him for being a bit dull?

I mean, he was on so many levels of very good king,

in as much as he settled things down and straightened things out.

And he was certainly what England needed at this time after the turmoil and disruption

of that civil war. It occasionally felt like hacking through a tangled thicket of brambles,

trying to make sense of the wars of the roses from Henry VI to Margaret of Anjou, Richard of York,

Edward IV, the princes in the tower, Richard III, not to mention what was going on across

the channel in France. And I hope you enjoyed all that, and I hope you've got a better understanding

of it all. I think I have. But now we come to the tutors and things really get a lot easier from

here, because so many of us and so many of our children have done the tutors at school,

and they've been so many films, books, TV series, documentaries about them that we kind of know

where we are with the tutors, and then on through the stewards. I think we perhaps hit another

complicated and less well-known phase through James II, William and Mary, and Queen Anne,

but once we hit the Hanoverians with George I onwards, it's all going to be plain sailing again.

Monox from then just tended to sit on the throne and not do very much. Eventually they die,

and are replaced in an orderly fashion by the next in line to the throne, apart, of course,

from the little upset with Edward VIII in the 1930s. But as I say, Henry VII, the man who started

it all, is not a very well-known king. So let's start with the basic facts. It was born in 1457,

and he died in 1509 when he was 52 years old, so not a bad span, and he was king from

1485 until his death in 1509. So he reigned for nearly 24 years, and was peacefully succeeded by his

son Henry VIII. Now he was descended from the tutors of Penn Minnith in Wales, and apologies if I

mispronounced it. And if you want to sort of catch up on more of that history of the early

tutors through to Henry VII, then have a listen to my special episode that I recorded with

Tracy Bournemann, where we looked at the story of the tutors leading up to this period.

So Henry was half-welt on the tutorside, but very English through the female line,

and on his mother's side. And the tutors first really made their mark on English history,

when Henry's grandfather Owen Tudor, who was basically a royal servant, had an affair with,

and then scandalously married Catherine of Valois, at Catherine being the daughter of the

mad King Charles of France, and the widow of Henry V. And she and Henry had had one son

before King Henry V died of dysentery. And that son was poor old mad Henry VI.

There is some speculation that Henry VI inherited his madness from his grandfather,

mad King Charles of France, through his mother Catherine. But I don't know, I mean,

there's nobody else in the family seemed to have gone bonkers. Certainly not anyone on the

tutorside, and certainly not Henry Tudor. So as I say, Catherine, Henry V's widow,

remarries this guy Owen Tudor, and they have two sons Edmund and Jasper, who were therefore

half-brothers of King Henry VI. And Edmund Tudor married a woman called Lady Margaret Beaufort,

and this is another instance of these complicated marriages where different branches of the same

family get entangled. The Beauforts are the branch that I've been calling the illegitimate branch,

or at least the legitimized branch. Descending from King Edward III's son John of Gaunt via his

second wife, Catherine's winefoot, and John of Gaunt is the founder of the House of Lancaster,

and that makes him very much Henry VI's great-grandfather, and Edward III's great-great-grandfather.

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As I say, Owen Tudor's son Edmund married Lady Margaret Beaufort, and for reasons that I will get

onto in a moment, they only had one son, Henry VII. So at least that bit is quite simple.

Out Lady Margaret Beaufort was a really formidable woman. One of those tough, powerful medieval

matriarchs. We've seen time and time again how these clever, strong women weren't allowed to take

power in their own right, so they worked really hard to ensure that their sons ended up in key

positions, often sitting on the throne. I talked about Lady Margaret Beaufort with Tracy Bournemon

in the previous episode about the Tudors. So I won't repeat it all here, but she had an

extraordinary life. And if you haven't listened to that episode, then you should go back because she

was an amazing woman. She was only 12 when she married Edmund Tudor, but she'd already been married

once before. And when Helen Kaster was on last, we talked about this idea of the nobility and royalty

marrying very young to make political alliances. But usually the woman, the girl, was not expected

to actually consummate the marriage until she was old enough to safely bear children.

But in Margaret's case, she did consummate the marriage with Edmund while still a child,

and gave birth to Henry Tudor when she was only 13. So she was very close to him in age.

And it looks very likely that having a child at so young and aged did permanent physical damage

to Margaret, and despite marrying twice more after Edmund Tudor, she never had another child,

which did leave her free to devote all her energies to this one son, Henry. And years later,

she even wrote a set of proper instructions for the delivery of potential heirs,

no doubt stemming from her own experiences. As it turned out, her marriage to Edmund Tudor didn't

last long. He died before his son, Henry, was born. Edmund Tudor and his brother, Jasper, weren't

really major players, despite marrying into the royal family. And they sort of kept their options

open through this whole tricky back and forth between the Yorkists and the Lancasterians,

particularly when King Henry VI lost his faculties and Richard of York was basically running the country.

It was really hard to know who you should openly support. And it seems that the Tudor brothers

tried to keep both sides happy. They wanted to lean towards whoever was going to come out on top,

but it was always very hard to say who that was going to be. So Edmund tried to keep out of the

way in Wales, but then he got caught up in this land dispute with a neighbour, and they sort of

went to war with each other. And Edmund came out on top, took his neighbour's lands,

and suddenly found himself in charge of a large part of Wales, which meant that he was now

a major player. And Richard of York did not like this. He saw Edmund as a potential threat

and sent an army into Wales to arrest him. And Edmund was locked up in Camarthen Castle

in West Wales, where he died not long after of bubonic plague. Edmund never saw his son, Henry,

who was born three months after he died of the plague in 1457 at Pembroke Castle.

And Edmund's younger brother, Henry's uncle Jasper Tudor, became the protector of the family.

So the civil war was raging right through young Henry Tudor's early years. He was born into it.

As his half-uncle Henry VI was fighting against first Richard of York and then Richard of York's

son, who became Edward IV. And when that first happened, when the Yorkists first took the throne

and Edward IV, first wore the crown in 1461, uncle Jasper had no choice but to flee into exile abroad,

where he could wait things out and see what was going to happen in England. And Pembroke Castle

was taken over by the Yorkists who also took over the guardianship of the family. And the owner

of Pembroke Castle was a man who was called William Herbert, who was a staunch Yorkist supporter.

He was on Edward IV's side. And Henry Tudor lived in William Herbert's household until 1469.

Now Lord Herbert was hoping he could do well out of all this. Not only was he sucking up to Edward

IV by keeping Henry under his watchful eye, he was also thinking, well, it might be good to get his

daughter married to Henry, who was after all a member of the royal family, so it would be a big

step up in the world for the Herbots of Pembroke. It all went wrong for Herbert, though.

Because after only about a year on the throne, Edward IV was deposed when Warwick, the kingmaker

switched sides to the Lankastrians and brought Henry back. At this point Herbert was captured,

fighting for the Yorkists, and he was executed by Warwick. So at this point, with Henry the sixth

back on the throne in 1470, Jasper Tudor returned from exile and brought Henry to Westminster.

It seemed like things were settled down again. They were on the right side, and they could

resume their life in the royal court. But only the following year, Edward IV came back,

regained the throne, killed King Henry the sixth, and Henry Tudor now had to flee the country,

as did his uncle Jasper once more. Now, one of the main reasons Henry Tudor needed to keep

out of the way was that so many members of the royal family had been killed in battle or executed.

It meant that now Henry Tudor, despite being a relatively obscure member of the family,

was a potential heir to the throne. He was very close in the line of succession,

so there was no way he was safe in England and he crossed the channel to France, where he spent

14 years in exile in Brittany, in northwest France, under the protection of Francis, the second Duke

of Brittany. Although his time there was probably closer to a kind of house arrest,

the Bretons didn't want to do anything to anger Edward, because as King of England,

he might be a useful ally. Because things hadn't changed in France since William the Conqueror's day.

The various Duchies, principalities, or whatever you want to call them, were all still jostling

for power and position, often going to war with the French king, and Brittany was no exception.

There was this constant and complex diplomatic dance going on, so Brittany might need King Edward's

support if they decided to go up against the French king. And for his part, Edward was also making

sure that he was on friendly terms with any potential allies if he decided to take on the French

king, or even possibly needing extra troops in England. At the same time, Edward also was

obviously keeping diplomatic channels open with the actual king of France, because you never

know how things are going to go and who you want to be friends with. And there was always this

jostling for power in France. And the French were all kind of waiting to see who would come out on

top in England. If Edward remained firmly in charge there, might he want to rekindle the

English claims on French lands and territories, and possibly even the French crown.

Now, the French king at this time was only a child, so there was a kind of ruling council in

place. And they too, wanted to keep their options open. Edward might be a useful ally for them,

if there was more trouble, particularly with Burgundy or indeed with Brittany. And the Bretons

also knew that they held a man who had acclaimed to the English throne. And if recent history was

anything to go by, there was a good chance he might become King. There's been a sort of musical

thrones going on in England. So they felt it was best to keep their options open and not piss Henry

off too much. So he wasn't kept avertly as a captive. He wasn't locked up in a castle anywhere,

but as I say, the Bretons sort of kept a BDI on him and didn't allow him too much personal freedom.

However, under mounting pressure from Edward over in England, the Bretons began to treat Henry

more and more harshly, eventually separating him from his retinue and his loyal English servants.

And then in 1476, Duke Francis of Brittany fell ill, and his advisors went behind his back

to try to open negotiations with King Edward. Henry was handed over to some English

envoys, but just before sailing to England from San Marlo, he pretended to be ill just long

enough to delay departure and miss the tide. News then reached them that Francis had recovered,

and in the confusion nobody knowing quite what to do, Henry was able to flee to a monastery

where he claimed to sanctuary. And back in England, things had changed for his mother, Lady Margaret

Beaufort. Not long after the death of Henry's father Edmund, she remarried when she was still

only 14 to a guy called Henry Stafford, although essentially a marriage based on economics and

land ownership and power rather than on love, the marriage does seem to have been happy, though

childless. But this was a time of war, and after they'd been married for about 10 years, Stafford

died of injuries he received at the Battle of Barnett in 1471, somewhat reluctantly fighting for

Edward IV, who at that time was trying to retake his throne. It's a Lady Margaret married again,

she was a good catch, a good prize, being such a sort of key member of the royal family.

And this was her fourth and last marriage, another political marriage, this time to a staunch

Yorkist supporter, Lord Thomas Stanley, both of them wanting to move closer to the king

and become part of his inner court. It was useful to King Edward to keep this powerful woman Lady

Margaret close, but he also wanted to keep Lord Thomas Stanley close. The Stanleys were a very

big, powerful family, and if he had full support of the Stanleys, then he was in a much more

secure position. And so Lady Margaret's plan worked, and she was able to influence King Edward

so that his attitude towards Henry Tudor mellowed. And by 1482, arrangements were being put in place

for Henry to return to England. But then the world turned upside down again, the wheel of fate turned

and Edward IV died young. His brother, Richard of Gloucester, quickly made his move. He declared Edward's

children illegitimate and took the throne for himself, crowning himself King Richard III.

On one level, this was a problem for Lady Margaret and young Henry Tudor, because she'd been

working on King Edward. But on another level, this created a huge opportunity for her,

because she could now claim that after Richard, her son Henry, was the next legitimate heir to

the throne, being a direct descendant of both John of Gaunt and Henry V, and Richard was not a

popular King. So she started in secret, promoting Henry as an alternative to Richard, plotting against

him, even though she was married to Lord Stanley, who was a Yorkist. So Henry, still over in France

at this time, made an official pledge to marry Elizabeth of York, who was the eldest daughter

of Edward IV. So she was the sister to the princes in the tower. And this marriage would unite

Henry's Lancasterian branch of the family, with Edward's Yorkist branch of the family,

into a real powerhouse union. And once it was clear that Edward V was dead, murdered in the tower

with his little brother. Henry Tudor was even closer to the throne, and Margaret increased her

plotting with various opponents of Richard, including King Edward's widow, the ex-Queen Elizabeth

Woodfill, who had been so badly treated by Richard. He'd wiped out half her family, declared her

children illegitimate, declared her marriage to King Edward invalid. And so it wasn't long

before various forces opposed to Richard started a rebellion that came together under the banner

of the Duke of Buckingham, and has since been called Buckingham's Rebellion. Lady Margaret was

almost certainly involved behind the scenes, and was indeed accused of being part of the plot

by Richard, who had her basically put under house arrest. The rebels, with the support of the Duke

of Brittany, tried to get Henry over from France as their figurehead. He attempted a landing

on the south coast, but it was swarming with Richard's men, and Henry was blown back to France

by storms. The rebellion fell apart. Buckingham was caught and executed, and Henry switched his

allegiance from the Bretons to the French royal family. The regents who were running the country

for the young King Charles, the eighth, shouted down their opponents, and sold the idea of supporting

Henry against Richard III, who was a ruthless warlike man, who could easily pose a problem for

France in the future. But if they were able to get Henry on the throne as an ally, it would benefit

them hugely. So they gave Henry support in the form of money, ships, and men, and a couple of years

after his first attempt, he went back to England. This time he wisely landed in Wales, in Pembrokeshire,

where he had a lot of local support, coming as he did from a Welsh family and the Welsh

traditionally being the enemies of the Yorkists who had held the Welsh marches against them.

And he had also managed to secure the support of the Woodvills, the family of King Edward IV's

widow. So he was able to recruit a large fighting force in Wales, and he marched towards England

with his uncle Jasper, and an army of about 6,000 men. Henry's plan was to attack Richard as

quickly as possible before he could get himself organised and call together enough reinforcements

for his army. But even so, when the two armies met, Richard's army did outnumber Henry's.

So here we have Henry's Lancastrian and Welsh forces lined up against Richard's Yorkist forces

at Bosworth Field. Now if you've listened to the previous episodes, you'll know that the battle

tipped into Henry's favour when the two powerful Stanley brothers switched sides.

Actually, it wasn't so much a case of switching sides as sitting on the fence to see which way

the wind was blowing. Now of the two brothers, Thomas Stanley, was the husband of Lady Margaret

Beaufort, which made him the stepfather of Henry Tudor, who was in charge of one army,

and he was supposedly a supporter of King Richard, who was in charge of the other.

And Richard had had a bit of a dispute with the other brother, William Stanley, so much.

So if he had taken William Stanley's son George, who was known as Lord Strange, he had taken him hostage

to make sure that William Stanley behaved and that if he misbehaved, George would be probably beheaded.

So the Stanley's held back with their own very significant fighting force.

They kept apart and they shadowed the manoeuvres of both armies because they didn't want to commit

to one side or the other until they were pretty sure who was going to win. So often we've seen

through the Wars of the Rose, is that if you side with the losing side, it is pretty disastrous.

And Richard has only a shaky hold on the throne, so which way are they going to go?

And at the decisive moment, just as Richard leads his charge to try and get to Henry and kill him

himself, the Stanley's make their choice, and they join the fight on Henry's side.

And so it was that Richard was defeated and killed, the last English king to die on the battlefield.

His crown was picked up from where it had fallen in the mud and the blood and placed on Henry's head.

And he became the last English king to win his throne on the battlefield, and thus the chewed

identity was born. So once Henry was officially crowned king in London, he chose to be lenient.

He didn't want to antagonise anybody. The aristocracy had been almost completely shattered,

and there was danger of the country falling into total anarchy. Henry needed support from both

sides, and castrians like himself, and the Yorkists. And although he passed laws that would have

made it easy for him to confiscate lands and powers, he didn't use a heavy hand. He just left that

threat in place, hanging there. He rewarded his supporters, and a few of his enemies were executed.

Some others were imprisoned or fled into sanctuary, but most were keen to make their peace with the

king at least for the moment, and Henry was keen to make peace with them. And he had to accept

their service, especially in the north, where a few of his own supporters had any powers,

because Richard had been a big power in the north of England. So Henry was now ready to officially

marry King Edward's daughter, Elizabeth, and Bishop John Morton hurried to Rome to get

papal dispensation for the Union, as they were both descended from the same person, from John

of Gaunt, and there was the problem of consanguinity. And on the 18th of January 1486, they were married.

This was a great symbolic act. The Union of the Yorkist and Lancasterian sides of the Plantagenet

family under the new banner of the Tudors. And Henry invented this new badge for the monarchy,

which has become the official emblem of England, made up of the white rows of York,

and the red rows of Lancaster. The wars of the roses were now finally over for good.

And Henry was accepted, in many ways, because Richard had been so unpopular. There was a sort of

feeling of anyone but Richard. But Henry knew that he would always be watching his back and would

never be secure on the throne. First thing he did was to get Parliament to repeal the titulus

Regis. Henry was safe to do this because the male heirs had died and he had married the female

heir, and it suited him that his wife, Queen Elizabeth, was legitimate. And as I say, he wanted

to keep the lords on side, but he couldn't allow them to be too powerful. And he got many of them

to sign bonds over to him. They essentially gave him large sums of money in trust that they would

lose if they ever turned against him. He also brought in laws that banned the lords from being

able to have private armies of uniformed retainers. At the same time, putting together his own inner

court within the palace and creating a personal armed bodyguard, who were the ancestors of the

present yeoman of the guard, the beef eaters. And if you wonder why they dress so strangely,

it's because they're essentially chewed at outfits. Henry still had to deal with several rebellions

though. One of the first of the most dangerous came in 1487. Now bear with me because it does

need a little bit of backstory. There was one other surviving person with a good claim to the throne.

Now, if you remember, there were three important brothers. There was Edward who became King Edward

the fourth. There was Richard who became Richard the third. And there was the other brother Flaky

George, the Duke of Clarence, who was always plotting against Edward, and in the end Edward had him

executed, but not before he had a son. And that son was Edward Earl of Warwick, who is now 10 years old.

And he is basically the oldest surviving male of the House of York. And just to be sure,

Henry kept him at the Tower of London. He wasn't locked up in chains. He had the free run

the place, but he was not allowed out. And so people hadn't seen him for a long while. And in

1487, a guy called Lambert Simmal announced that he was Edward Earl of Warwick. He was really a

puppet set up by a priest called Richard Simmonds, who had seen in Lambert Simmal's features a

similarity to Edward the fourth. And he took the boy to Ireland and trained him in royal etiquette.

And a dissatisfied member of the Dullapoll family, John Earl of Lincoln, joined the conspiracy

and claimed that he had helped Edward Earl of Warwick escape from the Tower of London.

Richard of York had been a very popular figure in Ireland, a strong man who had impressed the

English lords who had their power base in and around Dublin. In fact, it was pretty much the only

part of Ireland that they actually held. And these Irish lords seemed to have gone along with this

plot. They're prepared to believe what was almost certainly fake news, because Henry the seventh

was not popular there in Ireland. And Dullapoll was hoping he could also count on

anti-tuda support in England, and backed by several thousand Irish troops, Lambert Simmal

and his patrons landed in Cumbria. Now you have to remember that the happiness Lambert Simmal

was the same age as the guy he was impersonating. He was only ten years old. And his claim was

ridiculously easy to disprove. Henry simply brought the real Edward out of the tower and put him

on display in London. But Simmal was really just being used. And Dullapoll's army carried on marching

across England. But Henry was the king and had a lot more resources to draw on. He easily raised

a large army and set off to confront the rebels. And on the 16th of June 1487 at East Stoke near

Newark in the Midlands, Henry's archers launched a withering hail of arrows against the unarmored

Irish levies. And Dullapoll's army was simply destroyed. And Dullapoll himself was killed,

fighting. But Henry showed mercy towards Lambert Simmal himself, as he was so young and couldn't

really be blamed for how he'd been used. Henry not only pardoned him, he also decided to employ

him and put him to work. First in the Royal Kitchens, as a scallion, and later on as a groom of the

stool. It's a posh title, but basically he would have to help the king when he went for a shit

and clean up after him. Still, that is better than being hung drawn and courted, I suppose.

Now there was a very similar rebellion a few years later in 1490, when another pretender to the throne

Perkin Warbeck turned up, and he claimed to be Richard, the younger of the two princes in the tower.

And he got the support of Edward IV's sister Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, who had also backed

Dullapoll and Lambert Simmal. And like Simmal, Perkin Warbeck managed to get big support in Ireland.

But first of all, he went to Scotland, where he managed to persuade the new Scottish king

to help him invade England. The all-derliance meant that the Scottish and the French were always

trying to make mischief against the English. Henry had not long ago brought in a new text and raised

a vast sum of money to invade France in support of his old hosts, the Bretons. But the invasion

achieved nothing. It fizzled out. Henry came back, and this vast sum of money was basically wasted.

And perhaps the Scottish king, who was a James inevitably, saw that Henry was weakened,

and so declaring support for the orcists he crossed the border with Perkin Warbeck's troops.

They got about four miles into England, before an English army led by one of the Neville family,

the historic defenders of the North chased them back. Warbeck fled to find support elsewhere.

And King Henry now decided to sort the Scottish out once and for all, and set about raising money

with another new tax. And this was to be a blitzkrieg attack on King James. But it never happened.

All this heavy taxation had caused a lot of discontent in the kingdom, particularly in Cornwall,

down in the southwest, where Henry had also temporarily shut down the tin mining industry.

And so there was an uprising, and this was a very ironic chain of events.

Henry raises a massive tax to attack the Scots. The Cornish are so angry about the tax

that they put an army together and march on London. So Henry now has to use the money that he raised

to fight the Scottish, to send an army west to deal with the Cornish, who was soundly defeated.

So basically this was another huge waste of money. A meanwhile, Warbeck was still plotting.

He tried landing in Kent with another army, but was easily sent packing. He then finally managed

to raise a bigger army in Ireland and decided to land in Cornwall, hoping that the Cornish would

flock to him and have another go at attacking Henry. But the support never materialised. Warbeck

was ultimately no more successful than Simnall. He'd overreached and was soon captured and arrested.

At this point William Stanley, Lady Margaret's brother-in-law, the guy who had helped

win Bosworth for Henry by switching sides, was found to have a large sum of money hidden in

his rooms, and he was accused of receiving it from Perkin Warbeck who had been trying to buy his

support. This may have all been a frame or even a misunderstanding, but he was nevertheless

arrested and executed. Henry could not afford to have any potentially dangerous men in the royal

household. Now the king liked Stanley and appreciated all he'd done to help him defeat Richard,

but he feared that if he showed too much mercy it would encourage further conspiracies against him.

So Stanley was for the chop. Under torture, Perkin Warbeck admitted to being a Belgian called

Pirkin-Wizbeck. He was initially pardoned as he'd confessed to being an imposter. He was no longer

a threat to Henry, and he was made reasonably welcome in the royal court, although he was kept under

guard. When he tried to escape he was locked up in the tower with young Edward Earl of Warwick,

and when there was another plot, an attempt by both Warbeck and Edward to escape together,

Henry finally and reluctantly had them both executed. So having dealt with these threats, Henry

settled down, trying to restore stability and security to the land, and he instigated a punitive

tax regime. Initially this had been to finance his various military operations, but the heavy

taxation was stepped up in order to improve the country's finances. He was inevitably accused

of greed. He did spend a lot on his wardrobe and royal palaces, but most of this tax money made

its way into the exchequer. Under his Chancellor Archbishop John Morton, and Morton famously had

a catch-22 approach to squeezing taxes out of the nobility known as Morton's fork. The idea

of a pitchfork with its two prongs, and if you avoid one prong, you'll get stuck by the other

one. So anyone who had spent very little must therefore have horded big savings, and thus could

be heavily taxed. But anyone who had spent lavishly must have loads of money, and so could be heavily

taxed. Now as I say, Henry didn't spend all of this money on himself. He built or restored several

royal palaces, churches, and chapels, such as the one at King's College Cambridge. He strengthened

the Navy, building new ships and making it a proper fighting force. He essentially just wanted

peace and economic prosperity, and was largely successful. After his half-hearted invasion attempt

in France, he made peace with the French, and they signed a treaty. Maybe this had been Henry's

intention all along. He also made a peace treaty with Scotland, and betrothed his daughter, Margaret,

to King James IV of Scotland, hoping to break the old alliance between Scotland and France.

He didn't quite pull that off, but England and Scotland were eventually to be united. When Margaret's

great-great-grandson, James VI of Scotland, became James I of England, which we will obviously

deal with in a later episode. So he'd made peace with France and Scotland. Now he wanted to make

an alliance with Spain, and he married his eldest son Arthur, Prince of Wales, to Catherine of

Erdogan, and there was this huge party, this huge festival when they married, with tournaments

and shows and pageants, and this was probably a high point for Henry in his reign. Because towards

the end, Henry was rocked by the deaths of many of his leading counsellors and supporters,

including his father-in-law, Thomas Stanley. Well, what hit him even harder was deaths in his own

family. First to go was his beloved eldest son Arthur, who had he lived would have been our first

official King Arthur, but he died from a respiratory illness known as the English sweating sickness.

A mysterious, still unidentified illness that did for many people at this time.

And this meant that Henry's second son, also called Henry, became the heir to the throne.

And this is the future, Henry the Eighth. As I said before, Henry was really upset by all this,

and his intense grief and sobbing at his son's death was noted by his courtiers.

And in the following year, his wife, Queen Elizabeth, gave birth to a daughter Catherine.

But the little girl only lived a few days, and Elizabeth herself died soon after.

So this was a terrible blow to Henry. He had genuinely been in love with Queen Elizabeth. He

wasn't known for having mistresses and siring illegitimate children all over the place.

And so when she died, he was shattered. But he still needed to preserve the Spanish

alliance. And he got the Pope to agree that his son Henry could marry Arthur's widow, Catherine.

Henry never really recovered from this double shock. And six years later, still grieving,

he died of tuberculosis in 1509. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. And there is a bust there

based on his death mask. There is also a very famous portrait of Henry VII,

which is in the National Portrait Gallery, which is well worth visiting. And I think it can

be safely said that this bust and this painting are probably the first truly photographically

accurate portraits of one of our monarchs. And so I think you know, I think you safely can

look at the bust and look at the face and deduce quite a lot about the man. He looks

intelligent, inquisitive, dignified, very much the Renaissance man. And in fact, his executors,

commissioned an Italian Pietro Torisiano, who had probably been the guy who made the effigy

for the King's funeral. They commissioned him to build a tomb for Henry, which is full of all

these Italianate details of saints and angels and elaborate carvings. And it is one of the first

great monuments of Renaissance art in England. You can see a real change from the slightly more

primitive medieval art and architecture to this new blossoming we get with the Renaissance.

And you know, I think it's fitting for Henry, who I think is probably one of our better kings,

and did try to make England more civilized. And then his son Henry VIII comes to the throne.

It'd be hard to say that Henry made England more civilized. He was probably a bit of a

psychopath, but we will get into all of that in the next episode.

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So my guest today to talk about Henry VII in more detail is Nathan. I mean, who is, and I'm going

to read this from Google Books. This is your bio on Google Books. I hope it's accurate Nathan.

An author from Komarvinshire in West Wales, which is appropriate, obviously because Henry being

our first Welsh king, as it were, who focuses on the 15th century and the reign of Henry VII.

The perfect man to have on it is the author of Tudor Wales, the House of Beaufort,

and Henry VII and the Tudor pretenders, similar warbeck and warwick. And it says in Google Books, Nathan,

that your most recent work is the son of prophecy. And then it says it's out in 2024. So

there's a bit of time traveling going on there. I'm quite impressed that the Google Books have

got that there shows that they are the, you know, the fount of all knowledge. No, yeah, the son of

prophecy, the rise of Henry Tudor to give its full title. It's going to be looking at 300 years

of what we would now call the Tudor family origins, tracking it from the 12th century.

Their rise to power in north Wales, and ultimately how the Tudors, as we know the family today,

migrated to England, really, and started their almost improbable rise to the crown. I mean,

within eight years, they have gone from Welsh rebels to English royalty. And I think it's

an incredible story, and possibly unrivaled anywhere in British royal history. Obviously, I hope

it becomes the book that I will be known for. So we'll see. Well, I guess you would say all that

about the Tudors being Welsh. Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's very hard to hide any bite of Syria.

There's a, it doesn't seem to be a huge amount of information about the Tudors of exactly where

they started. And correct me if I'm wrong, that there's, it's slightly confusing, because Tudor

is initially a Christian name, as it were, a first name, and then it becomes a surname. So at

what point they are officially Tudors? Yeah, exactly. I mean, in Wisswee, operated at the

patronymic system. So exactly right, Tudor would have been a Christian name. One of the traps in

coal, in fact, of Henry's ancestors was someone called Tudor, up, Goronwy, Tudor, son of Goronwy.

And then it was clearly passed down in the, in the family lineage. Now, by the time we get to the

first Tudor, if you want to call him that, who migrated to England, this was a trap called

Owen, up Merideth, up Tudor, or Owen, the son of Merideth, son of Tudor. He was forced to lead

Wales in the early 15th century, because of the uprising, the rebellion, the war of independence,

depending on which term you only use, of his cousin, Owen Glindor. Wales was destroyed as a

consequence of this war. And, you know, young Owen essentially became an economic migrant,

if you will, to England, try and restart his, you know, restart his life. Now, while there,

it does seem that the English clerks at court did struggle with the concept of this,

Owen, up Merideth, up Tudor. I find that very surprising. It gets very contracted to just become

Owen Tudor eventually. At times, he still is referred to as Owen Merideth, which after

being far more accurate. I mean, fast forward in a hundred years, and onwards, when the Welsh

patching in the system starts to decline, after Wales is united with England by the acts of union,

all of the famous Welsh names you now have, like Jones, Prichard, Powell, these are all

contractions of this patching in the system. So anyone who is with a city in Prichard,

they're uncessed at one point in time, would have perhaps been called John App Richard,

John Summoff, John App Powell, which becomes Powell, Jones would have been son of John,

and so on. So yeah, so Owen really should have been Owen Merideth, and we should have had

the Merideth dynasty. So it is a bit of a backward, back way of how we get to the Tudor name,

you know, they themselves, the North consider themselves the Tudors. I have to say, it is fantastic

having someone on who can give the correct Welsh pronunciations, and it's great to hear them,

because I've been mangling this, and I've been expecting a lot of Welsh listeners to be

getting in touch with me with angry comments. So thank you so much for that. I'm not going to try

and copy it. So I noticed you're pronouncing it Tudor, and we English pronounce it Tudor,

but the proper pronunciation you're saying is Tudor? Tudor, Tudor. And this is quite

interesting, because in the run up to the Battle of Bosworth, Richard III is trying to criticise

he's doing propaganda against Henry Tudor, so I think, you know, point to his supported

lowly well-spark ground, and he repeatedly referred to him as Henry Tudor, not Henry Tudor, and

that's quite interesting. It shows that Richard was actually using the correct Welsh pronunciation.

I mean, did he think it sounded more demeaning somehow? I mean, yeah, obviously, the overall point

was to try and demean this deported opponent of his who was trying to come and claim his crown.

How dare this little Welshman, this Tudor, have any hopes or ambitions for the English crown?

And that went well for Richard? Well, exactly. I mean, I've certainly for Richard, he was the

one who ended up slamming over the back of a horse, not Henry. It also says in your Google

books, bio, that you are a trusty and founding member of the Henry Tudor Trust. What is the Henry Tudor

Trust? So, many years ago, I was trying to campaign for a statue of Henry VII in his birthplace

up Embrake. My campaign ultimately, uh, slounded, I was taken up by a group of local enthusiasts

in Pembroke, who were successful in getting that statue. Now, once the statue was unveiled in Pembroke,

you know, ambitions grow, and there was the opportunity to hopefully one day open a museum

dedicated to Henry in Pembroke, the Henry Tudor Centre, championing West Wales's most famous

son, if you don't count any rugby players. And I mean, did you set it up as sort of in opposition

to the Richard III society? Are you at war with each other? Oh, well, I don't feel I'm at war.

I feel like many people are at war with me, many of times. And I feelings can run very high

in this so-called battle between Ricardians and those who support unlike Henry and with the

servants. I mean, I've taken a lot of punishment in my time on social media, I'm in person,

shall we say, just for daring to like a prince from my own backyard. This is about championing

support in Henry Tudor's own accomplishments, his own life, his own background. It doesn't need

to be as supposed to be their mentality, which suddenly sometimes I mean, that is a way of getting

into this and talking about it. And, you know, getting publicity for it and I suppose media

attention is people always like an argument and a spat. And as you say, I mean, in the end,

well, I think you've been doing some events with Matt Lewis, who we had on in the last episode

talking about Richard III. Yeah, so Matt Lewis is someone I met probably over 10 years ago now.

Now, me and Matt, we joke that if you give us one piece of paper, one document from this time

with five lines in it, we will emerge from that one document with two completely different

films on what happened, you know. And we do, you know, that they're quite a bit about this

subject that we do fundamentally disagree on. But the key thing, of course, you know, we are

very good friends, despite all of the historical disagreements we may have and will still

for many years to come out. If the study of history is not bringing some joy to you, you know,

and really being subject positive in your life, then what's the point? I mean, it's great that you

are championing Henry the seventh and working on this center in Pembroke. He's certainly the least

well known of the Judas in the dynasty. And yet, you know, without him, there is no dynasty.

I would argue that certainly in England, he's not a major figure. You know, how is he thought of

in Wales? Is he someone that people know a lot about Judas or is your mission, if you like,

to kind of awaken people to that? I think that this is going to be quite a bit of a generalisation,

but I feel a first and foremost, the reason he's gone under the radar in England is because there

was no shape to be a player about him. We do have, you know, Henry the eighth, written a third,

and so on. There's also an element, I believe, of in English, of course, historically, academic

circles, you know, perhaps go back to the Torians. Well, they sort of diminish eighth Welshness.

Right. I read, I read and understand Henry the seventh to be far more a Welshman, proud of his

Welsh roots, that history has given him the credit for. That's just basically going back and

doing the research, but obviously in English circles, this Welshness has been long denied to him,

and that has had a drop down consequence. But I mean, did the tutors themselves try to

underplay that a bit to say, look, we are legitimate rulers of England, you know, I'm more

English than Welsh. Absolutely from Henry the eighth onwards, you know, Henry the eighth

had no real strong feelings for ending other than his own greatness. He certainly wasn't like,

what we'd call today, you get many Welshmen living in England are big supporters of the Welsh

rugby team, you know, certainly was in the case with Henry the eighth. Henry the seventh definitely

was a champion of his own Welshness. There is untold references to him and his

strong association with Wales. I mean, this is a man who used a big red dragon as his principal

royal badge. He consistently was making payments throughout his life once they became king

to get Welsh Rhymer's Welsh heart based Welsh meat brought to him. He was born and bred in Wales

till he was 14 years old and he really made a big play of his Welsh-Slash-British heritage when he

became king of England as he was a way to show up his credibility. So Henry the seventh definitely

was strong on the Welsh aspect. Henry the eighth onwards, no, they couldn't have cared less about

that and obviously that then does have a not going to affect. Now in Wales over the years,

it is quite complex, you know, there's a complex political and ideological struggle going on over

over the years over what it means to be Welsh, could it be Welsh if you don't speak Welsh and so on.

The reputation of the two that has been marred somewhat by the act of union in 1536,

modern Welsh nationalists view that act as being the reason that Wales has fallen behind

the rest of Britain, they view it as, you know, the reason that we have been conquered, we are a

colony of England and so on. So that's the moment where Henry the eighth officially says Wales is

essentially part of England now. Yeah, he our next is Wales fully into the political

machine of England, which it remains. Well, certainly up to 1999 when we got the Welsh Government,

you know, the devolutionist started to try and do some of the work, but yeah, I mean England

was merged in and this means that there's two defamely are voting Wales by some people as being

what we call Bradwell, which is Traders. They are the family, the Trader family who

shunned their Welshness and foisted upon us this terrible, you know, lineage and so on that we

have today. I mean, the huge implication of all of this is the Henry Tudor seems to have been

ignored quite on England as the boring Tudor, the Tudor of no consequence. He's been ignored

in Wales outside Welsh language circles as just a mere traitor who exploited his Welshness

for his own benefit. And all of a sudden, year I am popping up and hopefully trying to

revive some of this repetition, which I think he's actually working with at the moment. He's

possibly one of the most operative days to study, particularly because he's now on the

Ailevel curriculum. Oh, is he? Yeah, so I mean, I've certainly developed a significant sunbase

amongst Ailevel students, which is quite interesting because, you know, if these youngsters

hold on to a light-slong interest, it's a subject we studied at school, I've got many years of

book sales ahead of me. Yeah. So our understanding of history is being expanded one moniker to time.

Now, talking about Henry Tudor and controversy, we can't avoid looking at the disappearance of

the princes in the tower. And the Ricardians would have us believe that it was Henry VII who did

away with them. But I'm sure that you're on the other side and would say that the traditional

view that Richard did away with them seems much more likely. I mean, the princely of the towers,

obviously, a fantastic mystery. Quite recently, there was a poll done where it was voted.

It British history, greatest mystery. It has all the classic ingredients,

shadowy conspiracies, royal involvement, innocent victims,

son-resolved, and the key thing is that it almost certainly always will be unresolved.

I can never say I definitely know who did it or who did what, but my reading of all of the history

and everything I've looked over leads me to believe that the culprit in murder in the Prince of the

Tower is Richard III. If Henry VII becomes king in 1485, and he goes to the Tower of London,

and he opens to the door and there's two boys there. The first thing he has to do,

I'm sad to say it, is murder those little boys because they stand in the way of him being king.

He's about to declare their sister legitimate so that he could marry her,

but that would also have the knock on cause of making the boys legitimate. And therefore,

they are back in his way. He has to kill them. However, we've got to believe that those boys have

survived the previous two years. To get to this point, we've had no cycles of them for 18 months

previous to this. I just don't believe they would have survived. Richard III had to eliminate it,

the threat to hate, future prosperity, the footage stability of England by getting rid of those

boys. Now, we're often asked why didn't Richard produce any bodies of these princes, surely he

would have just produced them, or even Henry II when he became king, why didn't he produce

the bodies of the boys so that we can definitively put this case to the bed. My belief,

again, keywords might believe, is that this is because if we read a Welsh chronicle,

written 50 years later, which no one has, because it's in Welsh, which obviously limits a lot of

accessibility to it, it's a famous to the chronicle I call Ellis Griffiths. And Ellis Griffiths

writes that the boys were one day put into an iron chest. They were taken on a ship where nobody

on that ship knew what the chest contained, and they were dropped into a part of the Thames

estuary known as the Black Deep. I believe that the boys were simply put into the water,

because ultimately you are going to kill somebody and you're going to kill two royal princes,

you're not going to bury them at the foot of a stairwell in concrete in the Tower of London,

which is obviously what the general reading of history has been. You need to get rid of those

boys and make sure they never return. And I believe what's happening, Richard's had them killed,

had them thrown in the sea, and therefore he can't produce them, he can't tell them what's happened

the boys are gone. Well you need to do the sort of Henry version of the digging up the car park

in Lester and put an expedition together to find this metal box. But I mean the other thing that

sort of swings in Henry's favour is that the anti-Richard Brigade started out

supporting the princes in the Tower and then they said no forget them we're now going to support

Henry. Yeah and you kind of think well they wouldn't have done that unless they knew that the

princes were dead. Now it does seem that an attack was launched on the Tower of London to try and

free the boys and its sales. After the summer of 1433 the boys disappear. I believe Richard's killed

them because he's realised he needs to get rid of them all these attacks are going to keep on coming

and they will always be. And then as you say the rebels have now decided well the boys have

gone what's our next best bet. Oh it's Henry Tudor, right man right age, right place at the moment

because he's outside England and Married let's create a new plot behind him and they would have

probably believed they were going to get a very pliant up bet on the throne. I mean the other

hell was Henry Tudor. This random well-checked style you know he had never so much as run a bungalow,

their lawn runner a kind them. They clearly thought they were going to get a nobody come in and they

didn't realise they were going to get one of the most strong-minded kings who's ever governed

this country. A man who would do it his way and his way only. A man who would have no power

with his entire life. I want to see big king. He was not given a power to anybody else.

No I mean and you know it is a fantastic story and you do think well why has he been dismissed as

this uninteresting Tudor. He actually did a lot more than Henry the eighth in terms of

well I mean a part obviously the big one in Henry. Yeah I think it's the reformation but I mean

outside that he didn't really do anything. Well I always say with Henry the servants you know when

we're discussing his life just just him get into the throne should be to be a 16-part TV series

alone and I always say you know when you look at Henry's servants life who needs six wives

or a Spanish mother I mean this life like all the drama intrigue brought in you could possibly have

now one thing that always goes against Henry the seventh is that we're always told he was a paranoid

king a suspicious king. This man had been taken from his family four years old he had been raised

by the enemies of his family for the next ten years he was put in the family of the Herbats at

Raglan in Monmouthshire they were the dynastic rivals of his backgrounds he raised by the enemies

of his family there are 14 the Yorkists tried to kill him he had to flee through underground tunnels

in Temby to get into a small boat and then escape over to Brittany where for the next 12 years

he had to escape and evade repeated assassination attempts. Edward IV repeatedly tried to get his

hands on Henry Tudor because Edward IV back in England at what wiped out all of the Lancaster

and threats that was just one person left and I was Henry Tudor and Edward and Richard are

actually sending actual assassins over. Well I guess you're all in diplomats you know we're not

exactly you know assassins creed type killers but you know diplomats at end of all you're going

over repeatedly to try and get hold of Henry. Once Henry comes back to England he would have

been executed. It's like forward to the reign of Richard III similar thing Richard III is now

suddenly shipping over men promises of money gold all to try and get his hands on Henry Tudor

so one night Henry says I'm just going to go visit a friend the Brett and Soldiers they say fine

and he writes for a couple of miles and his horse he gets off his horse and he puts on the disguise

of a servant he gets back on his horse and he just starts riding for hours as fast as he can

towards the French border now the Bretons realize uh oh he's gone we're going to lose all his

English gold they chase after it we are told the Henry crossed the border from Brittany into France

with only one hour to spare once again if he'd been caught he would have been executed and this

is the third flight for his life that he successfully made before the age of 28 once he had

the French go off course this guy's the rightful king of England use money use man go and

uh go and bump off that evil Richard over in England so if faster than for me the by the time

Henry becomes king he already is suspicious he already is paranoid because people have been trying

to kill him his whole life once he becomes king life isn't to what Shakespeare would have

believed that he had made everything hunky door in England was finally at peace he

rained for 24 years and a 24 year rain that faced repeated conspiracies, plots, rebellions and

betrayals within his own household that he had to contend with this is a man who from birth

until the time he died at 52 years old he never slept easily you know he had a tough life

was wondering when that night was coming and of course he had seen what happened to the

princes of the tower he didn't want that you know what he may have believed happened to

the prince in the tower he certainly didn't want that to happen for his own children and he'd also

seen what I mean what he had inflicted on Richard the third he also knew what happens to kings

if they get knocked off they end up under carparks so I mean it's a case of you're not paranoid

they really are out to get you yeah absolutely and I would say that he was one of our good

kings yeah it's really weird because he he'd often viewed it as a dour

miserly king devoid of any warmth our everybody's a screwed king if you will and it's a completely

unfair assessment well he certainly collected a lot of money but I mean he did spend a lot of it

he lavished jewels and surge on his wife he's regularly on record is buying gifts for his children

this month spent so much of his money on enjoying the finer things in life and of course he

was panellists till he was 28 but you know with regards to his personal character I don't know where

this idea that he was dour comes from there's so many records from foreign ambassadors from court

geographers from his own records that he was affable he was gracious widely regarded as quick

with did and I see that he deserves perhaps far more respect that he's getting and I think he

probably in time will get it because based on the conversations I'm half of the people citrus

yourselves with you know numerous year-level students the amount of work that's been put out there

as long as we could try and bat off some of the worst excesses of historical fiction

I think I think I think the reputation of Henry II days is starting to come through

well and you've got to deal with the the Ricardians I mean after the Edward V episode went out and

we'd propose to the little clip of David Mitchell talking about how he was convinced Richard was

to blame he had quite a lot of people on Twitter having a go at David how dare you I used to

really like you but now you've upset me about Richard the third and I have to say they were all

women well I have been in the wars for the ten years you're listening I have some stories I

could tell you about what I've had to put up where they've had a woman I've had a woman

spit at me once if I'm minding a Henry II to stall I've had a woman ripped down the Welsh flag

I've had women hold up their fingers in a cross shape to me as if I'm the devil himself

but daring to like Henry II there I have had thousands of social media comments in my time

that are very aggressive very patty very nonsensical all majority women who are seeking to unmalign

and defend their man and often the target of their fictitious is another woman Margaret

Beaufort who is the mother of Henry Tudor I find it astonishing that we have modern day women

who are seeking to completely destroy the reputation of one of Britain's greatest female

people oh I mean her story is absolutely extraordinary isn't it she is an astonishing figure who

did so much good for this country once she had the full power given to once the sun booking king

I mean you know we owe some incredible buildings and legacies and colleges to her she was a patron of

of the arts of culture of learning you know that's very much a woman at a man's time it was

able to really leave her mark on the world and you know of course there is no suggestion whatsoever

doing at the time that she was anything near this malevolent figure who knew that something that

happened 500 years ago is still a raging shit storm on twitter lots historians will completely

evade this subject they cannot take the hostility aimed up them now again I have been

deep in this world for 12 years and I used to be a rugby front rower I could take I could take

this punishment on my white shoulders that's been fantastic and really found an interesting

talk to you Nathan and it's great to have such a staunch supporter of Henry who I didn't know a

lot about going into this and I've been really impressed by him and I think he did a fantastic job

and you know it always amuses me how anybody who raises taxes is he's always painted as a terrible

villain and you have to say do you not understand that without taxes you can't pay for anything

and of course the very key thing to remember about this is that Henry's done all of this to simply

stabilize the country and the only way that he can merge victorious from a dynastic conflict

is not to hack it off people's heads which are previous kings have done it is to simply make

himself supreme by accumulation of cash then no one can outspend him and as I always say I would

much rather lose my coin than lose my head which is what happens at the kings before and after

Henry VII yes and then we will see in the next episode how Henry VIII basically just squanders

everything and his first act I'm taking a throne is to kill the two main tax collectors and

he never really recovered from that you know what Henry VIII is that he's the typical

a spot bright he's the spot bright to inherited everything I could not live up to his father's

self-made legacy and he's got a squander the all inheritance honest personal fancies brilliant thank

you very much again Nathan and good luck with the Ricardians thank you very much that was Nathan

I mean author of several books on the Tudors mainly coming from a Welsh perspective including

Henry VII and the Tudor pretenders similar warbeck and Warwick and he's also written a book on

the House of Beaufort and his new book on Henry VII is out in 2024 now in our next episode we'll

be looking at one king in this series I can guarantee that everybody will have a picture of

and an opinion about Henry VIII I'm going to split Henry into two episodes though one looking at him

in the wider context of what was going on in Europe at the time which is often ignored in the

juicy personal dramas and a second one all about the juicy personal dramas the story of his six wives

so be sure to come back like and subscribe and recommend and anything else and well thank you for

listening Willie Willie Harry Steve was written and presented by me Charlie Hickson with music by Tom

Jenkins and production by Mark Jeaves Willie Willie Harry Steve the podcast is the copyright of

Charlie Hickson 2023

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