HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: The official website for BBC History Magazine
date: 2025-07-17T15:32:48.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: It felt like the end of the world, but this medieval ‘apocalypse’ left a legacy no one saw coming
items: The final mystery of Richard III: how 21st-century science cracked a 500-year-old cold case
items: Henry III and the Magna Carta that mattered
items: Do you know the correct date of Magna Carta? Here’s why you might be wrong
items: The bloody rise of Henry V: how his brutal upbringing propelled him to greatness
items: Philippa Langley on the Princes in the Tower: “It was clear we had to consider the possibility that they survived”
items: The Charter of the Forest: your guide to the 13th-century law
items: “He was not a great king but he was respected as a most Christian one” | David Carpenter on Henry III
items: The Plantagenet royal dynasty: England's ultimate family drama
items: Why Henry VI’s reign was such a disaster

It felt like the end of the world, but this medieval ‘apocalypse’ left a legacy no one saw coming
type: item
date: 2025-07-17T15:32:48.000Z
creator: James Osborne
subject: Medieval
subject: Period
subject: Plantagenet
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: Historian Helen Carr explores the disastrous 14th century, a time when famine, war, pestilence and rebellion took medieval England to the brink of collapse
encoded: In 14th-century England, the prevailing experience wasn’t of medieval splendour, of chivalric knights, illuminated manuscripts and mighty monarchs. Rather, according to historian Helen Carr, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, it was a time of continuous catastrophe. From the early 1300s to the century’s close, England endured a sequence of calamities so severe and overlapping, that to many it felt like the end of the world had arrived. “The greatest human catastrophe, the Black Death, happened in the 14th century. That was also a period of famine and two major wars. I think it's reasonable that it’s been called the ‘calamitous century’.” But while this period of a hundred years is often defined by collapse, it was also a century that laid the foundations of immense social and cultural transformations that created the framework for a better future. A very wet disaster The first crisis of the 14th century was brought about by rainfall of biblical proportions. Beginning in 1315, England was struck by years of near-continuous rain that resulted in widespread crop failure. What followed was the Great Famine, a disaster that ravaged much of northern Europe, but hit England particularly hard. Harvests failed and food stores ran dry. Grain prices soared. Disease wiped out herds of livestock. Entire villages “ceased to exist because of the famine”, says Carr, and they disappeared from the record. Read more | Britain's Little Ice Age The “appalling situation”, says Carr, “often gets overshadowed by the Black Death, but the famine was pretty bad as well,” Carr explains. “It just constantly rained.” Malnutrition made the population more vulnerable to disease, and the social fabric began to fray. In some regions, reports of theft, cannibalism and infanticide spread. Though the rains would eventually ease by 1317, the memory of the disaster, and the collapse precipitated by it, remained stark and keenly felt. But the population would have little time to recover. <img src="http…

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The final mystery of Richard III: how 21st-century science cracked a 500-year-old cold case
type: item
date: 2025-04-11T11:43:50.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Plantagenet
description: Turi King led the verification team that worked on Richard III’s rediscovered remains. Here, on the 10th anniversary of the king’s reburial service, she reveals how science finally solved a 500-year-old cold case
encoded: History isn't often made in car parks. Yet in the early autumn of 2012, something remarkable was in the air – or, should I say, under the ground. On Wednesday 5 September, 13 years ago, an archaeologist and osteologist called Jo Appleby could be found crouching over a skeleton in what had once been the medieval church of the Greyfriars in Leicester – now an unremarkable car park. Jo was clad head-to-toe in white overalls, wearing a face mask, and giving the human remains below her every last drop of her attention. The reasons for Jo’s great care would soon become all-too evident. The skeleton over which she crouched had lain under the soil for more than 500 years – and it would yield one of the most remarkable historical discoveries of the 21st century. Jo could tell a few things about the skeleton as she, bone by bone, brought it into the light. This appeared to be a male, with injuries incurred at or around the time of death – injuries that could have been sustained in battle. He was aged in his twenties or thirties. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/03/GettyImages-160632583cmyk-7409349.jpg" width="4400" height="2355" alt="Dr Jo Appleby points to an image of the skull of Britain's King Richard III, during a press conference at the university in central England, on February 4, 2013. (Photo by Andrew Cowie/AFP via Getty Images)" title="Dr Jo Appleby points to an image of the skull of Britain's King Richard III, during a press conference at the university in central England, on February 4, 2013. (Photo by Andrew Cowie/AFP via Getty Images)" /> Yet it was when Jo uncovered the spine – and noticed that it was curved – that, as she later told me, the hairs on the back of her neck began to stand on end. Could this skeleton be the remains of Richard III, the monarch so famously described by Shakespeare as a “bunch-back’d toad”? It looked promising. But we had to prove it. Quiz | Richard III quiz: how much do you know about the last …

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Henry III and the Magna Carta that mattered
type: item
date: 2025-02-20T16:19:13.000Z
creator: Professor David Carpenter
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Plantagenet
description: King John’s sealing of a charter at Runnymede in 1215 is one of the most feted moments of the Middle Ages. Yet, writes David Carpenter, it was the charter issued by his son 10 years later that became fundamental to England’s history
encoded: February 2025 marks the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta. But wait – surely we already commemorated that milestone in 2015? Certainly, on 15 June that year, the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, the archbishop of Canterbury, prime minister David Cameron and assorted dignitaries gathered at Runnymede. At the meadow by the Thames between Windsor and Staines, they celebrated the charter King John had sealed there exactly 800 years earlier. That document, sealed under duress from rebel barons and famously subjecting the king to the law and promising justice to all, is widely lauded today as a milestone in the establishment of English law. Read more | What did Magna Carta mean to the English in 1215? Yet the fact is that, in the centuries after 1215, the term Magna Carta was hardly ever used for John’s document. Rather, that was the name given to the charter issued nearly a decade later by King John’s son, Henry III, at Westminster on 11 February 1225. Although Henry’s charter was based on his father’s, the earlier iteration was usually called simply the ‘Charter of Runnymede’. So when, in 1297 and 1300, Henry’s son Edward I confirmed Magna Carta, he meant the charter of 1225 – and the same was true of all later confirmations. Indeed, though most of its provisions have since been repealed, those chapters that remain on the statute book of the UK today are from the 1225 version. So how did the Charter of Runnymede in 1215 become Magna Carta in 1225? On the podcast | Are we celebrating the wrong Magna Carta? Abandoned promises At the end of 1215 any progression beyond the Charter of Runnymede would have seemed unlikely, for it appeared to be a failure without a future – quashed by the pope, at the king’s behest. It had also, in effect, been abandoned by the rebel barons. Having failed to hold the king to its terms, they had taken another route: they deposed John and offered the throne to Louis, eldest son of the king of France. Louis came to England in May 1216, on a wave of s…

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Do you know the correct date of Magna Carta? Here’s why you might be wrong
type: item
date: 2025-02-11T16:17:25.000Z
creator: Dr David Musgrove
subject: Medieval
subject: Period
subject: Plantagenet
description: Could we have been commemorating the wrong date of Magna Carta all along? Speaking on an episode of the HistoryExtra podcast, Professor David Carpenter shares another date as a contender for the anniversary, and how the story of the charter has been shaped by other forces…
encoded: It’s one of the most memorable dates in English history: 1215, the year of Magna Carta. In that year, under pressure from his rebellious barons, King John was forced to agree to their charter at a meeting by the River Thames at Runnymede. He reluctantly put his seal to Magna Carta on 15 June and then accepted the final version on 19 June. Read more | 6 facts about Magna Carta But according to Professor David Carpenter, one of the world’s leading authorities on Magna Carta, we might have been commemorating the wrong occasion all along. Speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, Carpenter explains that at the time, people didn’t see King John’s 1215 charter as the Magna Carta at all. “For people in the 13th century and beyond, John's charter was not regarded as Magna Carta," said Carpenter. Instead, they saw it as "the Charter of Runnymede.” So if 1215 wasn’t the defining moment, what was? The answer, Carpenter argues, is 11 February 1225 – the date when John’s son, Henry III, issued the final, definitive Magna Carta. “And in that sense, therefore, the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta is 11 February 2025,” Carpenter explains. On the podcast | Are we celebrating the wrong Magna Carta? What was Magna Carta actually about? The 1215 charter, often hailed as a cornerstone of constitutional law, was essentially a peace treaty. It was a response to the significant grievances of England’s barons, who were furious at King John’s military failures, heavy taxation, and abuses of power. The charter established a crucial principle: the king was subject to the law. But unlike modern declarations of rights, Magna Carta wasn’t a sweeping statement of liberty. It was a highly practical document, laying out specific limits on royal power. It regulated taxation, feudal inheritance, and legal procedures, while also talking about more prosaic matters such as fish weirs. One of its most famous clauses, still quoted today, declared: "To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justi…

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The bloody rise of Henry V: how his brutal upbringing propelled him to greatness
type: item
date: 2024-10-15T17:26:41.000Z
creator: Dan Jones
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Plantagenet
subject: Hundred Years War
subject: Medieval kings and queens
description: Held hostage at 12. Deciding the fate of captives at 14. Maimed in battle at 16. The future King Henry V learned a series of violent but valuable leadership lessons during his youth. Dan Jones traces the evolution of ‘Prince Hal’ into one of medieval England's most revered warrior monarchs and the victor of Agincourt
encoded: Summer 1403 saw surgeon John Bradmore rush to Kenilworth Castle to attend to a famous patient. Henry, the 16-year-old Prince of Wales and heir to the English throne, was in a critical condition. On 21 July, he had fought alongside his father, King Henry IV, at the battle of Shrewsbury against rebels led by Henry ‘Hotspur’ Percy. The royal army had won – but the cost of victory had been high. During the battle, an arrow had pierced Prince Henry’s cheek and lodged deep in his head. He’d been lucky to survive; without urgent medical attention, he would surely soon die. The procedure Bradmore performed at Kenilworth was a marvel of surgical ingenuity. Over the course of several weeks, the medic widened the entry wound, all the while keeping it clean and free from infection. When the hole in Henry’s face was wide enough, Bradmore used a tool of his own devising to grip and slowly remove the metal arrowhead. Miraculously, during this entire process, the prince hadn’t gone into toxic shock. Bradmore then closed and sewed up the wound. He’d saved Henry’s life. Read more | Why is Henry V's portrait in profile? The operation had been complex and daring. It was also profoundly important for the dynastic history of England, the political history of Britain, and the military history of western Europe. What kind of king was Henry V? In 1413, a decade after Bradmore extracted that arrowhead, his patient succeeded to the English throne as King Henry V. Two years later, he was victorious at the battle of Agincourt. He was the king who realised the Plantagenet claim to the crown of France. He dragged England out of the dire condition into which it had sunk during the tyrannical reign of Richard II and the fractious one of his own father. He dispensed justice and defended traditional religion. He used the English language as a tool to bind his subjects as a nation. And he projected a stern, unyielding, ultra-pious public image; indeed, one observer thought him more like a priest than …

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Philippa Langley on the Princes in the Tower: “It was clear we had to consider the possibility that they survived”
type: item
date: 2023-12-01T09:26:36.000Z
subject: Medieval
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Plantagenet
description: Philippa Langley speaks to Rebecca Franks about new discoveries made during her investigation into one of history’s most enduring mysteries – the fate of the princes in the Tower
encoded: What drew you to the mystery of the missing princes? The inspiration for the Missing Princes Project was the Looking For Richard Project, a research operation gathering and examining information about Richard III’s death and burial. The catalyst happened during the week of the reburial of Richard III in 2015. The headline of a full-page article in the Daily Mail said – I’m paraphrasing – something along the lines of “it’s mad to make this child killer a national hero”. Read more | A ‘car park king’ timeline: the discovery of Richard III The article then cited the traditional narrative around that story – that after King Edward IV died on 3 April 1483 (not 9 April, as was previously believed), his sons Edward and Richard were taken to the Tower of London, and said to have been murdered there on the orders of Richard III. But there was no evidence in it. I thought: okay, maybe that take is right – but you have to go in with an evidence-based analysis and methodology. By the time I was on the train leaving Leicester after the reburial, I was putting together this new evidence-based research project. Read more | Did Richard III really kill the Princes in the Tower? Some sceptics might say that, in light of your work on Richard III, it would be hard for you to be an impartial investigator. Was that a question you had to confront? One hundred per cent. It was something I had to come to terms with in my own mind, because the story of Richard murdering the two princes is so incredibly powerful. It’s enmeshed in our psyche, thanks to Shakespeare’s play and Sir Thomas More’s literary narrative. I had to say to myself that it’s about finding whatever we find. The reburial of Richard III was an attempt to make peace with the past, but I think that – because of this article in the Daily Mail – it was very clear that the debate was still ongoing. In order to lay Richard III to rest, we had to see if we could answer this question either way. Read more | Like father, like son: Rich…

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The Charter of the Forest: your guide to the 13th-century law
type: item
date: 2023-06-20T08:21:51.000Z
creator: Rhiannon Davies
subject: Period
subject: Plantagenet
subject: Medieval life
description: Two years after the issuing of Magna Carta, another piece of landmark legislation that curbed the monarchy's power received royal approval. Rhiannon Davies explores how the Charter of the Forest came about, what it changed, and why its legacy can still be felt to this day...
encoded: What was the Charter of the Forest? The Charter of the Forest was a piece of legislation issued in 1217 on behalf of King Henry III, England’s 10-year-old monarch. The Charter curbed the unbridled power of the monarchy over England’s forests and reasserted the rights of the common people. Since the Norman Conquest of 1066, England’s kings had been able to seize swathes of forest and turn them into hunting grounds, or Royal Forests, meant exclusively for their use. (It’s worth noting that at this time, a ‘forest’ was not quite what we would think of today – it could also refer to heaths, moorland, fields and even villages and towns in rural areas.) This had deeply frustrated the barons, who were unable to develop land unless the king granted them the right to do so. Read more | Where history happened: exploring the ancient forests of England It also caused great misery for the common folk, who had traditionally used the forests to sustain themselves – cutting down trees for firewood and to build their huts; gathering water from streams; foraging for vegetables, fruits and nuts; and hunting the game that darted through the undergrowth. What changes did the Charter of the Forest herald? The Charter contained 17 clauses, which were all centred around issues connected to forest land. It drastically reduced the amount of Royal Forest, by vowing that all land that had been claimed as royal hunting grounds by Henry II, King John and Richard the Lionheart would be “disafforested” if it was not legally part of their estates. It also reinstated the forest’s status as common land, meant for the use of the community. Read more | 5 things you (probably) didn’t know about the Plantagenets According to the Charter, “every free man” could gather firewood there and was entitled to “conduct his pigs through our… wood freely and without impediment”. Moreover, every person that resided in the forest was allowed to “make in his wood or in land he has in the forest a mill, a preserve, a p…

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“He was not a great king but he was respected as a most Christian one” | David Carpenter on Henry III
type: item
date: 2023-06-05T07:20:33.000Z
creator: Professor David Carpenter
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Plantagenet
description: David Carpenter talks to David Musgrove about the second part of his biography of King Henry III, and the extraordinary revolution that removed him from power in 1258
encoded: This is the second volume of a two-part biography of Henry III, covering the period 1258 down to the king’s death in 1272. The year 1258 saw revolt against the king, so had Henry’s reign gone well up to this point? King Henry III would have said that he had given long years of peace to England, linked to an absence of foreign war. He was a pacific king as well as a most Christian one. He had none of the cruelty and irreligion of his father, King John. He gave huge alms to the poor, attended multiple masses, and, most importantly, was rebuilding Westminster Abbey in honour of his patron saint, Edward the Confessor. Henry had accepted Magna Carta, and his financial exactions (though still resented) were far lower than John’s as a result. His critics, though, saw him as a simple-minded, naive king who had plunged into ill-advised projects, including trying to place his second son on the throne of Sicily. In his open-handed way, Henry had also given gigantic rewards to his foreign relatives, thus creating tensions at court and divisions with his English subjects. And Henry, politically unaware, had failed to reform local government. This meant his sheriffs and judges had become increasingly oppressive. Magnates, too, had been allowed to expand their local power. If there was peace, it seemed to be peace with injustice. So when we get to 1258, there was revolution in the court of Henry, with one group of courtiers turning on another, led by Henry’s half-brothers from Poitou. You state that Henry is less central to volume two than to volume one. Who is the key figure in this story? The central character is Henry III’s brother in-law Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, one of the most extraordinary people to have ever dignified and defiled – at the same time – English history. He is central to the seizure of power in 1258, in which a baronial council took over the government of the kingdom in a revolution far more radical than Magna Carta. The sealing of Magna Carta in 1…

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The Plantagenet royal dynasty: England's ultimate family drama
type: item
date: 2023-01-13T13:04:01.000Z
subject: Medieval
subject: Period
subject: Plantagenet
subject: Medieval kings and queens
description: That a single dynasty, the Plantagenets, was able to rule England for 331 years – when disease or violence could transform the political landscape overnight – is truly remarkable, according to Robert Bartlett
encoded: Monarchies are now rare in the world, numbering around 20 in a system of almost 200 independent states. But for hundreds of years monarchy was the way that politics worked in most countries. And monarchy meant power was in the hands of a family – a dynasty – and hence politics was family politics. It was not elections that shaped political life, but the births, marriages and deaths of the ruling family. This added further unpredictability to the unpredictable business of ruling. Between 1154 and 1485, a period of 331 years, England was ruled by one family. Every king during that time was a descendant in the male line of a French count, Geoffrey of Anjou, whose badge, the broom plant – planta genista in Latin – is the origin of their name: the Plantagenets. The Plantagenet dynasty had its origin in the Loire valley, and the first two Plantagenet kings of England, Henry II and Richard the Lionheart, spent much more time in France than in England. This French connection continued throughout the Middle Ages. The body of Henry III lies in Westminster Abbey, but he commanded that after his death his heart should be interred in the Plantagenet family mausoleum of Fontevrault in the Loire valley. Richard II was sometimes called ‘Richard of Bordeaux’ from the place of his birth, while Edward IV was born in Rouen. Despite these ties with France, the Plantagenets are England’s longest-reigning dynasty. It was their births, marriages and deaths that shaped the political history of England and much of France. They provide a perfect example of what dynastic rule meant. Most Plantagenets, like most people in the Middle Ages, died before their 10th birthday. Those who survived – who are the ones we know something about – might live a fair bit longer. The average age at death of the Plantagenet kings was 45. The unlucky ones, like Edward V, one of the ‘princes in the Tower’, did not make it to their 13th birthday. The longest survivor, Edward I, died at the age of 68. Sudden and une…

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Why Henry VI’s reign was such a disaster
type: item
date: 2022-11-08T06:21:51.000Z
subject: Medieval
subject: Period
subject: Plantagenet
subject: Hundred Years War
description: King Henry VI fell foul of the French, his soldiers, his own advisors, and centuries of historians. Yet, writes Lauren Johnson, perhaps his greatest enemy was the revered warrior-king who is commonly lauded as one of England's greatest monarchs and left him the throne 600 years ago, his own father...
encoded: In Westminster Abbey, the tomb of Henry V is hard to miss. Towering above the mosaic-encrusted tomb of St Edward the Confessor and his royal successors, for centuries Henry’s final resting place was topped by a shield, helm and warhorse’s saddle. All are symbols of the martial glory of a man many still consider to be the best English king of the Middle Ages. Meanwhile, in the Lady Chapel behind, tucked away and noticed by almost no one, is a small wooden pew-end representing Henry V’s successor, and only child, Henry VI. Can anything more aptly demonstrate the reputations of this father and son? Henry V loomed over his offspring from the grave, and in his father’s shadow Henry VI grew up stunted, emotionally and politically. Read more | Henry V's reputation: 5 facts you might not know about the king's softer side On the 600th anniversary of his death, Henry V’s triumphs are still rehearsed in productions of the eponymous Shakespeare play. His appears to be the ultimate underdog success story. Eldest son of a Lancastrian usurper, Henry V united England to claim the French throne, overcame substantial odds to win the battle of Agincourt in 1415, and was rewarded at the Treaty of Troyes in 1420, where he was named heir to the French kingdom and married Princess Catherine of Valois. Revered as “the flower in his time of Christian chivalry”, he died on campaign, aged 35 in 1422, leaving a nine-month-old son who shortly after was proclaimed King Henry VI, of England and France. Henry VI’s life also gained Shakespeare’s attention, but in the three plays bearing his name he is an insubstantial figure with few lines, completely overshadowed by more dynamic characters, chief among them his queen, Margaret of Anjou. Where Henry V’s reign is a litany of triumphs, his son’s reads like a top trumps of failure: he lost the Hundred Years’ War and the Wars of the Roses, was twice imprisoned by his Yorkist rivals and died, almost certainly murdered, in the Tower of London shortly aft…

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