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Margaret Beaufort catapulted the Tudors to the throne. But that wasn’t her original plan
Before Bosworth, Margaret Beaufort’s actions were shaped less by maternal devotion to Henry Tudor than by trauma – and the harsh reality of shifting politics
Who was responsible for the ascendency of the Tudor dynasty, defining over a century of English history? There might not be a single answer – but Margaret Beaufort must surely take as much credit as anyone. Often depicted as a Game of Thrones-like schemer, Beaufort could be portrayed as a calculating woman who orchestrated the rise of her son, later Henry VII – and in doing so, sank the fortunes of the Plantagenets while simultaneously ending decades of ferocious civil war. But how much of that view rests on hindsight? Speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, historian Lauren Johnson explains that, rather than following a carefully drawn blueprint for royal success, Margaret’s manoeuvring was born out of constant – though certainly canny – adaptation to changing and dangerous circumstances. Her relationship with her son, and her ambitions for his future, developed gradually. Indeed, in the first phase of her motherhood she seemed to want nothing to do with him. A kingdom in crisis Henry was born during the opening phase of the Wars of the Roses, which rumbled on for some three decades from 1455. This was a series of intermittent conflicts between rival branches of the English royal family: the House of Lancaster and the House of York. Both factions claimed descent from King Edward III, and competed for the throne. Henry Tudor’s claim came through his young mother. Margaret was a descendant of John of Gaunt, a son of Edward III, though through a line that had originally been barred from royal succession. This made Henry’s claim relatively weak, especially compared with rival Yorkist claimants. At the time of his birth, there was no clear expectation that he would ever become king. Read more | Married three times by the age of 15: Margaret Beaufort, the woman who birthed the Tudor Dynasty Henry was born on 28 January 1457 at Pembroke Castle, south Wales. His mother, Margaret, was only 13 years old. In the 15th century, noble girls were technically eligible for marriage at the age of 12 onwards, but actual childbirth at such an age was exceptionally rare – and dangerous. “She was probably physically, as well as psychologically, damaged by the experience,” Johnson says. “We are not talking about a fully grown woman but a very young girl.” Margaret was also isolated at Pembroke Castle, far from her family in England. Adding to that, her husband, Edmund Tudor, had died months earlier, leaving her an exceptionally young widow in a politically unstable landscape. “She has none of… her immediate female support network,” Johnson notes. Childbirth in this period was typically a communal and female-centred event, attended by midwives and relatives. Margaret appears to have faced it largely without any such support. Distance, not maternal focus The months following the birth of her son challenge the later image of Margaret as an intensely focused, domineering mother. “I think it’s really telling that, within two months of childbirth, she sets off across Wales to go and arrange another marriage,” Johnson explains. Travel in 15th-century Britain was slow, physically demanding and potentially dangerous – especially for a woman recovering from childbirth. “She’s still going to be suffering the physical after-effects,” Johnson says. The implication is that she must have been desperate to escape Pembroke Castle – and connections to her former husband. She also left behind her infant son. This was not entirely unusual among the nobility – children were often fostered in other households –but, says Johnson, it seems as if “she gets away from that child as quickly as she can.” Read more | The medieval childbirth guide: 6 tips for pregnant mothers in the Middle Ages Within a year, Margaret had remarried and established a new life in Lincolnshire. Henry, meanwhile, remained in Wales under the care of male guardians. There’s no evidence of any emotional closeness between Margaret and her child at that stage, and certainly no clever political designs for him. “That baby is actually the source of a lot of pain and difficulty for her,” Johnson says. So, for much of his early life, Henry grew up at a distance from his mother, and “there isn’t much of a relationship in the early years,” Johnson explains. This reflects both aristocratic norms and Margaret’s specific circumstances. Noble children were frequently raised in other households to build alliances and receive training. Even so, the separation between Margaret and her son is stark. “As far as we know, the first time she visits him is when he is about 10 or 11,” Johnson says. A gradual shift in priorities By the mid-1460s, Margaret’s attitude toward her son began to change. One likely factor was the absence of other children: Margaret had expected to have more with her new husband, but didn’t. “Margaret must think: ‘If Henry is it, I need to invest more in him’,” Johnson says. This marks a turning point at which Henry clearly became more central to her thinking, not necessarily as a future king but certainly as her only heir. In 1471, Henry’s own situation became far more precarious. After major Yorkist victories, the Lancastrian cause effectively collapsed. Leading figures were killed, and Henry – one of the last viable Lancastrian heirs – was forced into exile in Brittany. Meanwhile, in England, the Yorkist King Edward IV strengthened his rule. “He kills a number of Margaret’s cousins,” Johnson notes, eliminating rivals. Read more | Did the Tudors invent the Wars of the Roses? In this context, it would have been extremely dangerous for Henry to return to England. “I think Margaret, quite rightly, is thinking he should not come back,” Johnson says. By the early 1480s, though, the political situation appeared more stable. Edward IV was firmly in power, and there were discussions about bringing Henry back safely. Indeed, with Margaret’s involvement, “there start to be whispers of a marriage alliance,” between Henry and one of Edward’s daughters – a sign that the king was trying to decisively end the internecine violence. This was a pragmatic solution but still, says Johnson, “Margaret wasn’t trying to manoeuvre her son onto the throne.” Crisis and opportunity That changed in 1483. Edward IV died unexpectedly. His 12-year-old son briefly succeeded him as Edward V, but within weeks the boy’s uncle seized power, having himself crowned as Richard III. The disappearance of Edward V and his younger brother Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York – the Princes in the Tower – further destabilised the Plantagenet dynasty. The threat to Henry’s life – as a potential rival to the new king – was so great that “there’s no way he can come back. And it is only then that [Margaret] starts to manoeuvre for Henry to become a rebel,” Johnson explains. Margaret’s role in the political rise of her son then became far more active. She began to build alliances among disaffected nobles, coordinating support and promoting Henry as an alternative ruler. These efforts culminated in Henry’s invasion. Landing in Wales on 7 August 1485, he won a pivotal victory at the battle of Bosworth just over two weeks later – during which Richard III was killed. After the clash, Henry was crowned king. In hindsight, Margaret might well seem like the primary architect of a new dynasty. But, as Johnson says, this perspective smooths over decades of complexity and uncertainty when Margaret had no plans for Henry to become a king. Lauren Johnson was speaking to Emily Briffett on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
History's Greatest Battles: The Wars of the Roses
Emily Briffett and historian and author Lauren Johnson explore the most momentous clashes of the Wars of the Roses, the 15th-century struggle for the English throne that ushered in the Tudor dynasty
History’s Greatest Battles returns with a new run, focusing on that blood-soaked 15th-century struggle for the English throne: the Wars of the Roses. In the company of historian Lauren Johnson, Emily Briffett revisits five of the most gripping clashes of this dynastic showdown. Along the way, they spotlight the decisive moments and power players who flipped fate on its head, and explore what these brutal encounters reveal about power, propaganda and survival in late medieval England. How might history have twisted differently if a single charge, arrow or act of treachery had gone another way?
History's Greatest Battles (podcast series)
Dr Lauren Johnson and Emily Briffett round off our series on the Wars of the Roses with Bosworth, the battle that ushered in the Tudor dynasty
In 1485, England stood at a crossroads, scarred by decades of civil war. Against this grim backdrop, two armies headed for a fateful confrontation: one led by a battle-hardened king determined to ensure the success of a dynasty he had fought to protect for years; the other by a new challenger in an old conflict. In this final episode of our History’s Greatest Battles series charting the Wars of the Roses, Emily Briffett is joined by historian and author Lauren Johnson to explore how, in one fateful meeting on one remarkable day, a new king would be crowned – and history would never look the same again. History’s Greatest Battles is produced by HistoryExtra, the home of ‘History’s Greatest’ podcasts. Listen to our other podcasts: History's Greatest Dishes, History’s Greatest Conspiracy Theories, History’s Greatest Scandals, History’s Greatest Cities and HistoryExtra Long Reads.
Dr Lauren Johnson and Emily Briffett consider the blood and brutality of the battle of Tewkesbury, where the Lancastrian cause was broken
Survivors desperately fleeing to the apparent safety of a nearby abbey. A young prince on the brink of death. A dynasty on the precipice. The battle of Tewkesbury, which played out during May 1471, certainly had its fair share of high drama, and high stakes, as armies clashed and the Lancastrian cause was shattered. In this fourth episode of our History’s Greatest Battles series charting the Wars of the Roses, Emily Briffett joins historian and author Lauren Johnson to consider those remarkable events – and their legacy. History’s Greatest Battles is produced by HistoryExtra, the home of ‘History’s Greatest’ podcasts. Listen to our other podcasts: History's Greatest Dishes, History’s Greatest Conspiracy Theories, History’s Greatest Scandals, History’s Greatest Cities and HistoryExtra Long Reads.
Dr Lauren Johnson and Emily Briffett travel delve into the fog of war of the battle of Barnet
April 1471: a thick, blinding fog smothered the fields near Barnet, swallowing banners, muffling orders and turning friend into foe. Opposing armies became disoriented – and then one mistake proved fatal. In this third episode of our History’s Greatest Battles series charting the Wars of the Roses, Emily Briffett joins historian and author Lauren Johnson to chronicle the clash at Barnet, in which lines buckled and trust collapsed. History’s Greatest Battles is produced by HistoryExtra, the home of ‘History’s Greatest’ podcasts. Listen to our other podcasts: History's Greatest Dishes, History’s Greatest Conspiracy Theories, History’s Greatest Scandals, History’s Greatest Cities and HistoryExtra Long Reads.
Dr Lauren Johnson and Emily Briffett travel to 1461 and the frost and fury of the battle of Towton
In the bitter spring of 1461, the freezing fields of Yorkshire became a blood-soaked battlefield in which two rivals fought for the throne of a divided nation. But who would emerge victorious? In this second episode of our History’s Greatest Battles series charting the Wars of the Roses, Emily Briffett joins historian and author Lauren Johnson at the 1461 battle of Towton. History’s Greatest Battles is produced by HistoryExtra, the home of ‘History’s Greatest’ podcasts. Listen to our other podcasts: History's Greatest Dishes, History’s Greatest Conspiracy Theories, History’s Greatest Scandals, History’s Greatest Cities and HistoryExtra Long Reads.
History's Greatest Battles: The First Battle of St Albans
Dr Lauren Johnson and Emily Briffett explore the clash that ignited the Wars of the Roses: the First Battle of St Albans
History’s Greatest Battles is back! This time around, Emily Briffett and historian and author Lauren Johnson will be chronicling the most momentous clashes of the Wars of the Roses. In this first episode, they explore 1455’s First Battle of St Albans, a bitter brawl that sparked a dynastic struggle and set in motion a chain of events that would redefine power in England for centuries to come. History’s Greatest Battles is produced by HistoryExtra, the home of ‘History’s Greatest’ podcasts. Listen to our other podcasts: History's Greatest Dishes, History’s Greatest Conspiracy Theories, History’s Greatest Scandals, History’s Greatest Cities and HistoryExtra Long Reads.
It felt like the end of the world, but this medieval ‘apocalypse’ left a legacy no one saw coming
Historian Helen Carr explores the disastrous 14th century, a time when famine, war, pestilence and rebellion took medieval England to the brink of collapse
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="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/GettyImages-599960109-1-ce8c85a-e1752762281396.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="This scene from the Luttrell Psalter (c.1330) shows two men threshing grain — a glimpse into the rhythms of rural life in 14th-century England. The manuscript is famed for its detailed depictions of everyday medieval labour." title="Two men threshing sheaf (From the Luttrell Psalter), ca 1330" /> How wars and brutality abroad led to strain at home England’s kings soon plunged the realm into another ordeal: the Hundred Years’ War. Though the conflict formally began in 1337, its roots lay in earlier tensions between the English and French crowns, particularly over English territorial claims in France. Edward III’s campaigns during the 1340s and 1350s became legendary for their triumphs at battles like Crécy and Poitiers, where English longbowmen routed larger French forces. But the supposed heroism often celebrated in later chronicles – which Carr describes as having been “glamourised” – came at a terrible cost for those living through it. Read more | 10 dangers of the medieval period “It was appalling, what the English did in France and at the behest of Edward III,” says Carr. “Rape, torture and the killing of innocents; people's homes were destroyed. Their very existence destroyed, their families were wiped out.” At home, the war required huge taxation and military levies. The Crown’s efforts to finance its continental ambitions stretched the economy, fuelling resentment among taxpayers, and added to the general climate of strain and instability. The arrival of pestilence The hardship wasn’t over. In 1348 the Black Death arrived, and it swept through the population with devastating speed. “It completely turned the world upside down,” says Carr. “Fifty to sixty per cent of the population were killed,” as the disease left no part of society untouched; even “the king and the queen lost three children to the Black Death.” With no effective medicine and the scale of death incomprehensible, many turned to divine explanation. The plague was seen as punishment for sin, evidence of divine wrath, or a sign that the end of days had come. Read more | 10 shocking torture methods from medieval history Writing in a feature for BBC History Magazine, Professor Samuel Cohn explained that “The devastation wrought by the Black Death was massive and unprecedented. Such was the Black Death’s lethal power, it’s been estimated that it took the world population 200 years to recover to the level at which it stood in the early 1340s. And this was a psychological calamity for the people of Europe, as well as a physical one.” It was, all things considered, a cataclysmic event that shattered England– and Europe. “It was like an apocalypse,” Carr explains. “And I think that's what people thought it was … they thought it was the wrath of God, and this was a divine punishment.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/GettyImages-463898079-1-38a41a2-e1752761919552.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="This 1493 image shows the Brothers of the Cross — a flagellant sect who, during the Black Death, paraded through European towns whipping themselves in a bid to atone for society’s sins and avert what they saw as God’s wrath." title="Flagellants, 1493." /> Revolt, resistance and the rise of new voices As the plague’s death toll slowly receded, England now faced a new type of reckoning. With so much of the population gone, labour became scarce. The survivors of the plague were able to demand better wages, more freedom and improved living conditions. But the ruling classes attempted to clamp down. Laws like the 1351 Statute of Labourers tried to freeze wages at pre-plague levels, provoking widespread resentment. This tension built through the following decades, erupting in 1381 when thousands of peasants, artisans and urban labourers rose up in revolt. Marching on London, the rebels demanded lower taxes, an end to serfdom and greater accountability from their rulers. Though the rebellion – known as the Peasants’ Revolt – was ultimately suppressed, it was a moment that signified a social shift. “The Black Death actually really is the initiator of the Peasants' Revolt,” Carr explains. It sparked “the shifting of the class system and the development of these social groups… They didn't want to be taxed as much. They wanted something akin to Magna Carta.” For the first time in centuries, the structures of medieval feudalism faced serious and sustained challenge. How medieval England limped through the crisis Dragging itself through the trauma and upheaval, and limping out the other side, England survived the 14th century and emerged a changed country. The labour shortages caused by the Black Death gave workers more autonomous power. Tenants negotiated better terms. Skilled workers gained mobility. Urban life expanded. “There [was] no serfdom anymore,” says Carr. “With so few people, they suddenly were quite worth something and they could demand higher wages… London became much more of a commercial hub.” Trade networks, too, became more ambitious. “There was a lot more globalisation happening,” she adds. “People were traveling, people were working seasonally.” New guilds formed. New industries grew. And novel ideas began to circulate, laying the groundwork for later shifts in politics, culture and thought. The 14th century was a time of unrelenting horrors: of rotting crops, weeping skies, battlefield butchery and mass graves. It was an age when famine, plague and war struck in endless waves. But, Carr explains, this century of calamity was also one of incredible change that spurred on immense progress – albeit at an unfathomable cost. This article is based on an interview with Helen Carr, speaking to Emily Briffett on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation. The Black Death Member exclusive | Listen to our six-part podcast series on how the Black Death shook the Middle Ages Listen to all episodes now
The final mystery of Richard III: how 21st-century science cracked a 500-year-old cold case
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
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 Plantagenet king? Our first priority was to lift the skeleton and bring it back to the University of Leicester for more extensive analysis. All the while, the media interest in the project to find Richard III was picking up pace – the press and public were captivated by the possibility of medieval England’s most controversial king residing in a car park. What we were about to announce at a joint press conference by the University of Leicester and the Richard III Society would send this fascination into overdrive. Yet we couldn’t let the media feeding frenzy distract us. While newspapers waxed lyrical about the sensational discovery of the ‘king in the car park’, we knew we just had to get our heads down and quietly and calmly get on with a rigorous investigation. Missing for centuries So how did we go about identifying these remains as Richard III? Well, let’s back up a bit. If you were to go missing, how would your family and friends describe you to a search team? Your loved ones would probably provide them with information such as your last known location, what you were wearing when you left home in the morning, your age, and your hair colour. The Richard III project was essentially doing the same thing – only it was attempting to solve one of history’s most famous missing person cases, and that person had been dead for more than five centuries. As in a modern case, we had a list of what was known about Richard that would help us identify him. The king’s last known location, as evidenced by historical documents, was in the church of the Greyfriars friary in Leicester, where he was buried after his death in 1485, having been defeated by Henry Tudor at the battle of Bosworth. More specifically, Richard was known to be buried in the choir, a high-status part of the church. Read more | Alternate history: what if Richard III had won at Bosworth? However, more than 50 years later, the friary had been torn down during Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries, and the land had been sold off more than once and built upon. We knew the location of the friary precinct, but the precise whereabouts of Richard’s grave had been lost to history. Being a king, Richard’s birth and death dates were well known, so we knew he was 32 years old when he died. Shakespeare, in his plays, famously made him out to be a ‘hunchback’ with a limp and a withered arm. But Shakespeare wrote his play Richard III in the early 1590s, more than a hundred years after Richard’s death, so can only have been drawing on previous accounts of the king’s appearance, quite possibly tinged with Tudor propaganda. Read more | Have we completely misinterpreted Shakespeare’s Richard III? Only two of these accounts were from people who, it seems, had actually met Richard III: one of these, John Rous’s renowned Historia Regum Angliae, described Richard as having one shoulder higher than the other. So Richard having a spinal abnormality was a possibility. This gave us our list of characteristics to look for when identifying Richard. Crucially, we also had to put a number on how likely it was that the skeleton belonged to the king. We started by sexing and ageing the skeleton. This can be achieved by examining the bones. For example, men’s pelvises are shaped differently to women’s. And while it’s not possible to precisely determine age at death, an examination of the teeth, skull and ends of bones allows an age range to be specified. From this, Jo Appleby and the team determined that the skeleton belonged to a man, aged 30–34 years when he died. The fact that he was male was also supported by the presence of a Y chromosome, which is inherited down the male line. By examining the bones by eye – as well as using computed tomography (CT) X-ray scanning technology – the team, including forensic engineer Sarah Hainsworth, was also able to detect and examine 11 perimortem injuries (those sustained at or around the time of death). All of these were consistent with being made by weapons from the medieval period. Scans and a reconstruction of the skeleton confirmed the curvature of the spine and suggested that the right shoulder would have been slightly higher than the left. Something fishy What we eat and drink affects the make-up of the chemical elements contained within our bones and teeth. The study of this chemical mix is known as stable isotope analysis, and in this case showed that the individual had a high-status diet that had a strong marine (fish) component to it. Meanwhile, radiocarbon dating delivered a 95.4 per cent probability that the subject died between 1456 and 1530, bracketing the date of Richard’s death in 1485. While Jo and the team studied the individual’s bones, I carried out the genetic analysis of the remains. DNA testing has the potential to unlock the secrets of a skeleton, but there’s absolutely no guarantees: DNA degrades following death, and what remains is often too fragmented and damaged to analyse. Fortunately, with our Greyfriars skeleton, this proved not to be the case. So how exactly did we use DNA to link this particular skeleton to Richard III? DNA testing for identification purposes in this sort of case involves analysing the DNA from the remains and comparing it with that of a known, usually close, relative. But there was a problem: we didn’t have the remains of any of Richard’s close relatives to hand. The solution was to test against living relatives of the medieval king. Yet this approach threw up a further complication: Richard himself left no known living descendants. That meant that the DNA we needed would have to come from descendants of other members of his family. And, as mitochondrial DNA is found in the eggs that mothers generate to produce offspring, we required a relative whose relationship to Richard III was by an entirely female line. Fortunately, we already knew of one such person. His name was Michael Ibsen, and he was descended from one of Richard III’s sisters, Anne of York. Soon our researchers had traced another female-line descendant of Anne, a woman called Wendy Duldig, who also happened to be Michael’s 14th cousin, twice removed. We had our mitochondrial DNA comparators at the ready. Then came a breakthrough moment: those comparators showed a match with the Greyfriars skeleton. Interestingly, analysis of the Y chromosome, which is passed down through the male line, didn’t show a match to the living relatives we tested. However, I knew from my years of research in this field, that we might find what’s known as a false paternity, where the biological father is not the recorded father somewhere on the family tree: the genealogy says one thing, but the DNA tells you some- thing else has gone on! Read more | Rediscovering Richard III: the story of identifying a lost king Picking a winner It was now time to put that all-important statistical number on the likelihood of the skeleton being Richard. And to do that we turned to a method that’s widely deployed in forensic cases such as this: Bayesian statistics. Bayesian statistics is a way of calculating the probability of something, and updating that probability by bringing in various sources of data or knowledge. An example that’s often used is horse racing. Say you have two horses, A and B, racing one another. If you don’t know anything about either horse, you might conclude that the chance of horse A winning is 50/50. But what if we could add some more information here by counting how many times each horse has won when they’d been in a race against each other previously? What if you knew that, out of the 12 times these two horses have raced against one another before, horse A has won eight times (67 per cent of the time)? Well, knowing that, you’d say the probability of horse A winning is higher and the chance of horse B winning is only 33 per cent. Each new piece of information you add will change the likelihood of each horse being the winner. The beauty of the Bayesian method is that it allows us to combine all the evidence together into one calculation to get a statistical number of the likelihood of the skeleton belonging to Richard III. In that, we have only two possibilities: hypothesis 1 is that this is Richard III; the second is that it’s not Richard III. Remember we had our list of features to look for? Well each one gives us a new bit of evidence we can add to the mix and allows us to calculate what’s known as a likelihood ratio for hypothesis 1 (it’s Richard) versus hypothesis 2 (it’s not Richard). The first count was: how often do you find skeletons from individuals in high-status parts of churches who are male and aged between 26 and 35? It’s about 18 per cent of the time, if you want to know. We did the same for each category. We looked at the counts of how often you find skeletons with scoliosis in the medieval period, how often you find skeletons with perimortem injuries in high-status parts of churches, and the likelihood of the radiocarbon date (given that we knew the friary was built in the 13th century and closed in 1538). One piece of evidence that we didn’t throw into the mix was the stable isotope data that showed that this was a person with a high-status diet. We would expect anyone buried in a high-status part of the church to eat better than the vast majority of the population, so adding this to our calculations would, we reasoned, have unduly biased the statistics towards the skeleton being Richard. We also included the fact that the Y chromosome didn’t match. So, what did it all show? We were lucky enough to have David Balding, a world-famous forensic statistician, on the team calculating the likelihood ratio for us. And the results David produced were, I think it’s fair to say, pretty conclusive. Even with our conservative approach, the likelihood ratio was 6.7 million to 1 in favour of hypothesis 1. That translates to a probability of between 99.999 and 99.99999 per cent that these were indeed the remains of King Richard III. We were pretty excited with the results – and, I would argue, with good reason. Talk of the nation We all know what happened next. Media attention intensified further still. Richard III could soon be seen staring back at readers from the pages of some of our most successful tabloids. He was name-checked in Prime Ministers Questions. Rumour has it that he even became a popular topic of conversation in the nation’s pubs! Then, on 26 March 2015, the medieval king was reinterred in Leicester Cathedral in an extraordinary ceremony that was televised around the world. Yet not everyone was convinced. A handful of people (not one of them, it has to be said, a statistician or geneticist) still didn’t believe we’d found him. Quite often they would pick one bit of evidence (often the DNA) and say it wasn’t robust enough on its own. Or they would claim that the skeleton could have been one of Richard III’s female-line relatives. Read more | Richard III: latest DNA study ‘doesn’t prove bones belong to former king’ As part of our analysis, we constructed a family tree, tracing his female-line relatives going back several generations, out sideways and back down to Richard’s generation. By comparing this with historical information, we were able to show that these known relatives were either female (and so could be ruled out), or either too young, too old or too dead to have fought at Bosworth. Or they were recorded as not being at the battle. So the only person on that tree who could have been at Bosworth was Richard himself. Beyond this, given the rarity of the mitochondrial type, the chances of someone carrying it being alive around the right time, in the right age range, known to be killed in battle, have a spinal abnormality and be buried in the choir of Leicester’s church of the Greyfriars were vanishingly small. Our critics also seemingly didn’t realise that the beauty – indeed the entire point – of Bayesian analysis is that it allows you to combine all the strands to come up with a likelihood. To put it another way, if you were to go missing, people would describe you by such factors as your age, your height, your build and what you were last wearing. The police wouldn’t go on just one distinguishing characteristic, such as brown hair or blue eyes. Just as we did, they would identify you based on all the strands of evidence together. And the evidence was overwhelming that these were the remains of King Richard III. Ten years on, I confess I still have to pinch myself that I was even involved in the project. I’m so proud of all that was achieved. The team that carried out the planning, the excavation and the enormous amount of post-excavation work comprised a huge number of academics and non-academics all bringing their own expertise to the table to make the project the tremendous success it was. No one person could have carried out the project on their own. The whole was greater than the sum of its parts as we came together to solve this 500-year-old cold case. A blonde bombshell? What did Richard III really look like? Analysis of his DNA threw up some interesting possibilities, writes Turi King As someone who studied art history at university, I’ve long been aware that none of the portraits of Richard III date from his lifetime. In fact, the two earliest portraits left to us today weren’t produced until the early part of the 16th century, a generation after his death. One of these is now in the Royal Collection; the other, an arched-frame portrait, is in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries of London. What’s interesting is that, though they were produced at roughly the same time, the portraits differ from one another. The Royal Collection painting shows the king with dark-brown hair (it’s thought that, at some point, the portrait was altered to change Richard’s eye colour from brown to grey). The arched-frame portrait, on the other hand, shows Richard with lighter-brown hair and blue eyes. I was intrigued to know whether science could help give us an indication of which of the two portraits most closely fit what the DNA could tell us. A former colleague of mine, Manfred Kayser, had developed forensic tests to predict someone’s hair and eye colour based on known variants in genes associated with pigmentation. While not an exact science, and certainly not something that could be used as part of the identification, I was curious as to what genetic analysis of these variants in Richard III’s DNA could tell us. After carrying out the sequencing, we compared Richard’s genetic makeup with a database that Manfred had compiled. This indicated a 96 per cent chance of Richard having blue eyes and a 77 per cent chance of him having blond hair. A word of caution: this would have been a childhood hair colour – and, as many people will have experienced themselves, hair can darken with age. However, our investigations do suggest that the arched-frame portrait in the Society of Antiquaries of London is likely to be the most faithful representation of the medieval king. Turi King is director of the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath. In 2012, she led the verification team during the exhumation and reburial of Richard III. This article was first published in the April 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
Henry III and the Magna Carta that mattered
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
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 support – but said nothing about the charter. Under his benevolent rule, he doubtless assured his supporters, it would be quite unnecessary. It was John’s death during the night of 18/19 October 1216 that transformed the situation. The minority government of his nine-year old son, Henry III – led by regent William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, and the papal legate Guala Bicchieri – was in a desperate situation. Louis controlled much of England. The only way forward seemed to be to accept what John had rejected and Louis was ignoring. Read more | The real King Arthur and his Lancelot? Henry the Young King's remarkable friendship with William Marshal So on 12 November 1216, a new version of the charter was issued in Henry’s name. The most controversial and radical provisions of the Charter of Runnymede were omitted, but the great bulk remained in place. This concession had its effect. Though there were no immediate desertions from Louis’ side, at the decisive battle of Lincoln in May 1217 (when forces loyal to Henry III defeated an army supporting Louis), the rebel barons hardly fought very hard. None were killed; most simply surrendered. With a revised version of the charter accepted, they could believe their cause was won. The baronial victory was confirmed by the peace settlement at the end of the war. Louis abandoned his claim to the throne and returned to France. In return, the minority government restored the rebels to their lands and, in November 1217, issued a new and improved version of the charter, accompanied by an entirely new charter regulating the running of the royal forest. It was at this point that the term Magna Carta (‘Great Charter’) was first introduced, referring not to its grandeur but to its size, to distinguish that physically larger charter from the smaller Charter of the Forest. Those two charters would now always be linked together. With both in place, why might further changes be needed in 1225? Because the 1217 charters remained problematic. How could they be trusted when issued by a king only 10 years old and lacking his own seal? Instead they bore the seals of the legate and the regent. There was another problem. Might it not be claimed that the charters were invalid, having been extracted from the king by rebellion? At a council meeting in 1223, that point was made by one of John’s most rebarbative old minsters, William Brewer. Two years later, the chance arose to put these problems right, thanks to a crisis overseas. In 1224, Louis – now king of France – overran the county of Poitou. Far to the south, Gascony seemed likely to fall as well. A gigantic effort would be needed to save the English king’s one remaining continental possession – and for that, he needed money. Read more | 6 Magna Carta myths explained With no reserves of treasure, the government knew that those vital funds could come only from a tax levied on the whole kingdom. They knew, too, that such a tax could never be collected unless sanctioned by a great council – the kind of assembly soon to be called parliament. How to secure such consent? The answer was for the king to concede, in return for the tax, new versions of Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest – versions that put right the deficiencies of their predecessors. Once again, the exigencies of the continental empire played a central part in the history of Magna Carta. The loss of Normandy and Anjou in 1204, and the heavy taxation designed to fund their recovery, had been a turning point on the road to the charter of 1215. Similarly, the loss of Poitou in 1224 led directly to the Magna Carta of 1225. However, while John failed to recover his continental possessions, the great tax of 1225 did save Gascony, which remained in English hands until 1453. Doing the deal Two men above all were responsible for negotiating the deal that led to the 1225 charters, though acting from very different motives. They were the justiciar Hubert de Burgh, head of government since the death of William Marshal in 1219, and the archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton. For cautious, pragmatic de Burgh, the charters were simply a practical necessity. For Langton, one of the great biblical scholars of the age, they responded to deeply held ideas about the need for rulers to be limited by the law. The texts of both charters, crafted by Langton and de Burgh, had new preambles and new conclusions designed to address the anxieties mentioned previously. In the preamble, the king (now aged 17) was said to act “of his spontaneous and good will” – a statement not found in the 1216 and 1217 charters, nor indeed in John’s Charter of Runnymede. At the end of the new charters now hung Henry’s own seal, introduced in 1218. It showed him on the front crowned and enthroned, and on the back mounted, armoured and brandishing his sword – images that encapsulated the majesty of kingship. Read more | Alternate history: what if Magna Carta hadn’t been written? The conclusion to these revised charters also rebutted the charge that they had been extracted from the king by force. Rather, they stated, in return for his concessions everyone in the kingdom had granted him a 15th part of their movable property – essentially, a 15th part, by value, of their agricultural produce and farm animals. Producing some £40,000, roughly three times the king’s current annual revenue, this was the tax that saved Gascony. The charge of coercion was thus laid to rest. Magna Carta and the Forest Charter were the result of a freely entered bargain between king and kingdom. The consensual nature of the new documents was further demonstrated by lists of those who had witnessed and, thus, affirmed the granting of the charters – unlike earlier iterations, which had no witness lists to speak of. All the good and great of the land witnessed the charters, whatever their stance in the civil war. The witness list was headed by Archbishop Langton, 11 bishops and 20 abbots. Then came Hubert de Burgh, followed by nine earls and 23 magnates. Sensing the significance and novelty of this certification, the copy of the charters made soon afterwards at Cerne Abbey in Dorset set out the witness list in beautifully elaborate fashion, and inscribed the place and date of issue in great capital letters. Inclusivity statement Langton, responding to ideas about how just rule should benefit the whole community, also did something to make Magna Carta more inclusive. The concessions in the charters of 1216 and 1217, like those in 1215, had been made only to people who were free – thus excluding the unfree peasantry who made up the largest part of the population. In 1225, this changed. The statement that the concessions had been made to the free remained, but it was qualified – indeed, contradicted – by the new preamble in which these concessions were granted to “everyone in the kingdom”. Likewise, in the conclusion, everyone was said to have agreed the tax in return for which the charters were granted. Langton moved decisively to bring in the church full-square behind the new charters. In 1215, he had felt unable to excommunicate those who contravened John’s charter, in part because it was clearly the product of rebellion. When the charters of 1216 and 1217 were issued, Langton was out of England; now, with the new versions clearly consensual, he and his fellow bishops sentenced to excommunication all who breached them. This set a precedent, and further sentences of excommunication were promulgated in 1237 and 1253, the latter with great publicity and with circulation of the texts. Churchmen could profit as much as laymen from many of Magna Carta’s provisions but, in particular, they treasured the very first chapter, which guaranteed the freedom of the church. How right Langton had been to add it into the charter at Runnymede. Strengthened in these ways, the 1225 texts became the final and definitive versions of Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest – but they were not without flaw. Despite acting “of his spontaneous and good will”, Henry was not yet 21 when issuing the charters, and therefore underage; this defect had to be put right in a proclamation of 1237. More serious was the fact that the charters set out no constitutional means of enforcement. The 1215 document had given 25 barons the power to enforce its provisions, but the barons were omitted from the subsequent versions, with nothing put in their place. Though the sentences of excommunication elevated the status and publicised the texts of the 1225 charters, their practical effect is unclear. Not surprisingly, there were constant complaints that the charters were being broken. The complaints had an element of truth, but some key chapters of Magna Carta were obeyed. The inheritance tax demanded from earls and barons, which sometimes ran into hundreds and thousands of pounds before 1215, was set at just £100. For the most part, widows of barons and knights were not forced into remarriage. Justice was no longer openly sold. The Forest Charter saw substantial areas removed from the royal forest. In general, the rule of Henry III was far less abrasive and extortionate than his father’s. Read more | “He was not a great king but he was respected as a most Christian one”: David Carpenter on Henry III The texts of the charters also became widely known and, thus, sank deep roots into English society. Copies were made by religious houses, magnates, ministers, knights, freemen and lawyers. Of the various versions, that of 1225 was easily the most copied. When the 1217 charter featured, it was often amended in the light of the 1225 changes, thus including from the preamble the king acting of his “spontaneous and good will” and, from the conclusion, him making concessions in return for the tax. Those examining the texts – and marginal annotations bear witness to intensive study – could see that Magna Carta was far more than just a baronial document. Chapters such as those regulating the levying of fines and the running of local government benefited wide sections of society. The Great Charter would never have survived had that not been the case. What’s in a name? By the end of the 13th century, Magna Carta was firmly established at the heart of the English polity and was well set for its long later history. Yet, on that point, one question remains: how and when did the Charter of Runnymede take centre stage and become universally known as Magna Carta? In the early 17th century, when the lawyers Selden and Coke saw Magna Carta as a bulwark against Stuart tyranny, it was still the charter of 1225 to which they appealed; they hardly mentioned John at all. William Shakespeare himself, in his King John, made no reference to the charter. The change came in the next century, thanks to lawyer William Blackstone. His seminal work, The Great Charter, published in 1759, printed for the first time an authentic text of the 1225 Charter under the heading ‘Magna Carta Regis Johannis’. His introduction, too, referred continuously to the ‘Great Charter’ of King John. Blackstone, it seems, was unaware that the word Magna had originally referred simply to the physical size of the 1217 and 1225 charters compared with the Charter of the Forest; he understood it to mean ‘great’ in terms of status, and thus thought it very much applicable to the charter of 1215 – the parent, as he showed, of Henry III’s later Magna Carta. (Blackstone also printed authentic texts of the 1216, 1217 and 1225 charters.) Read more | Is 15 June 1215 the true date of Magna Carta? Two historians debate Blackstone’s terminology stuck. In Bishop Stubbs’ hugely influential Constitutional History of England, published in the 1870s, John’s charter is called “The Great Charter” or Magna Carta. Likewise, JC Holt’s classic book Magna Carta, first published in 1965, was essentially about the charter of 1215. In many respects, this seems absolutely right. Without John’s charter, as Blackstone showed, the Henrician versions would never have existed. And yet the charter of 1225, consensual in a way its predecessors were not, placed Magna Carta on new and firmer foundations. The charters of 1215 and 1225 should always march together. This article was first published in the February 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine