'In December 1154
'one of the most charismatic of all kings of England
'began his reign.
'Henry II was a star amongst monarchs,
'whose huge personality and keen intelligence
'would extend royal power
'as much by law as by the sword.
'But, like many stars, Henry was cursed with a turbulent family
'whose prides and passions
'would do much to undermine his extraordinary achievements.
'This is the story of King Henry II
'and his heirs.'
'Henry II was just 21 years old
'when he inherited the throne of England.
'But Henry was only half English.
'He spoke French and he was heir to great lands and titles in France.'
The young Henry was a product of that hybrid Anglo-French culture
which had ruled in England since the Norman Conquest.
He was born here, in Anjou,
his father's ancestral lands in the heart of France.
But, if his father were French
his mother was the daughter of the English king, Henry I.
She made sure that the young Henry was familiar with England as well.
Between the ages of 10 and 14 he lived at Bristol
where he had an English guardian and an English tutor
who gave him his lifelong love of learning.
'He then returned to France
'and accumulated territories year by year -
'Normandy, Anjou and finally Aquitaine,
'through his marriage to the beautiful Eleanor.
'But England was the greatest prize of all.
'Fought over for 20 years by Henry's mother Matilda
'and his cousin Stephen,
'it now fell into Henry's grasp -
'partly because Stephen had no heir,
'but above all because the Anglo-Norman aristocracy, the barons,
'saw in Henry a man they had to do business with.
'Though he was the barons' candidate,
'Henry quickly showed them who was master.'
It was a time when God and his angels slept,
as the chroniclers lamented with pardonable exaggeration.
Nowadays, such thuggish disorder
tends to come from those at the bottom of the social pile.
Then it came from the men at the top, known as barons.
The barons seized royal castles
and built new illegal castles of their own.
'And the hard-won unity of England threatened to disintegrate
'into a series of baronial statelets
'each with its own castle capital.
'Henry, with a vigourous sense of authority,
'was determined to stamp on this development.'
So royal castles, he decreed, must be returned to the king
and illegal castles should be demolished.
(Men yelling)
'One man, Hugh Mortimer, the marcher lord
'dared to resist.'
Henry took his forces to the Welsh Marches
the seat of Mortimer's power.
He laid siege simultaneously to all three of Mortimer's castles
including this one at Wigmore in Herefordshire.
One by one, Mortimer's castles surrendered
until finally, on 7th July 1155,
Baron Mortimer himself made a formal submission to the king
in front of a specially summoned assembly
of bishops, earls and barons.
Henry had given an object lesson in the arts of kingship
to his mightiest subjects
and he'd made a spectacularly successful start to his reign.
'Henry's vision of royal authority
'extended beyond England to the whole of Britain
'over which like his greatest predecessors,
'the Anglo-Saxon Edgar and the Norman William the Conqueror,
'he saw himself as having imperial authority.
'The King of Scots was driven back behind the old frontiers of his kingdom.
'In Wales, he made the princes do homage to him,
'formally acknowledging him as their superior.
'For two decades England had been weak,
'but now the crown was worn by a man
'whose personality matched the pretensions of the position.'
'He overawed and faced down opponents at every turn.'
(Man) "He is a great, indeed the greatest, of monarchs,
"for he has no superior of whom he stands in awe
"nor a subject who may resist him."
(Starkey) 'His energy and temper were legendary
'and his physical presence mesmerising.
(Man) "His face was one upon which a man might gaze 1,000 times
"and still feel drawn to gaze on again."
(Starkey) 'Henry's charismatic personality
'gave him the best of both worlds.
'He could consult and take advice as an English king was bound to,
'but he could always be pretty confident of winning the argument.
'He could win even when he wasn't there in person,
'thanks to his innovations in the law which became a kind of mirror
'reflecting and multiplying his royal authority.'
The main writing office was known as the chancery
and these are typical of the documents it produced.
They're called writs - that is, standardised royal orders.
The writ is written out on a slip of parchment
and then it's authenticated by attaching the great seal.
The seal is deliberately large and impressive.
It carried the king's image to the furthest corners of his dominions.
'It makes an important point about the nature of kingship.
'On the front, the king is seated as a law-giver and judge.
'On the reverse he is mounted and armed
'as the warrior-defender of his people.'
The writ is much less, showy than the seal
but its effects were even more far-reaching.
For, in the course of Henry's reign, writs were developed
to deal with the most common legal problems of the king's subjects.
They were mass-produced by the chancery clerks
and were available, for a fee to every freeman.
Previously, the king's justice had depended on the king's presence.
Now, with the writ, the seal and the magic of writing,
the king and his justice could be everywhere for everybody.
'But Henry's was not the only monarchy in England.
'There was another power in the land.
'The Church was a state within a state.
'It was also a superstate
'whose boundaries were even wider than those of Henry's empire.
'Once, the Church had been the nursemaid of monarchy.
'Now it threatened to become its master.'
In the Middle Ages, the power of the Church
soared over England and all Western Europe.
Like the European Union today, whose frontiers it shares
the power of the Church reached everywhere,
crossing borders, claiming rights
and dispensing its own justice in its own courts.
But, unlike the European Union,
the Church also had its own officials on the ground -
the priests, bishops and archbishops.
And above all, it had its own very visible head - the pope in Rome.
The pope, as the successor of St Peter
claimed the religious allegiance of all Catholic Christians
including kings and emperors.
But the pope was also an elective monarch -
the heir of the Roman emperors,
who often claimed to be the political superior of kings as well.
And kings, however good Christians they were,
rarely took that claim lying down.
'No one was less disposed to lie down than Henry.
'He thought he'd found the perfect instrument to control the Church
'in Thomas Becket, whom he appointed Archbishop of Canterbury.
'Becket was a middle-class Londoner
'whom Henry plucked from obscurity to make chancellor, chief minister
'and his closest personal friend.
'He expected similar loyalty from his new archbishop. In vain.'
From the first Becket went out of his way
to pick a fight with the king.
He ostentatiously resigned the chancellorship
and he took an extreme and intransigent stance
on any issue, however petty,
which affected the Church's claim to absolute independence.
Why the transformation in Becket from the king's dearest friend
to his bitterest enemy?
Had he undergone a religious transformation?
Was he just a consummate actor,
throwing himself with zest into a new part?
Was he trying to prove himself to his fellow clergy,
many of whom thought him no better than a royal stooge?
Any and every of these explanations is possible.
What is certain, however is that Becket's behaviour
provoked an equal and opposite reaction in the king.
Neither man would give way.
One or the other would have to break... or to be broken.
'Henry's first ten years on the throne had been a glittering success.
'But now he confronted two major challenges.
'Who should succeed to Henry's vast empire after his death?
'And where did ultimate authority lie -
'with the king or with the Church and churchmen?
'The issue of priests who committed crimes like murder and highway robbery
'sparked off the final clash with the Church.
'These thugs in cassocks were tried in Church courts
'where they received derisory sentences.
'After the collapse of one murder trial,
'Henry demanded that the man be handed over to a royal court.
'Becket refused.'
Henry met the challenge head-on.
And, at a meeting of the council
in the royal palace of Clarendon, near Oxford
he tabled a list of what he claimed were the customs of the realm.
The customs left the Church jurisdiction over matters of faith
but disputes about property
or the punishment of clergy who were convicted of crimes
like robbery or homicide
were to belong in the future to the king's laws.
Becket disdained Henry's pseudo-historical arguments.
Instead, as usual he took the high moral ground,
basing himself on the words in the Bible, "Touch not mine anointed."
But even Becket yielded before Henry's crude threats of force
and accepted the constitutions.
Soon, however, Becket repudiated his submission
on the grounds it had been extorted under duress.
The dispute between king and archbishop
flared up more fiercely than before.
This time, in fear of his life Becket fled abroad.
'But Becket's flight only focused attention
'on the issue of the succession.
'Henry decided to leave each of his four sons
'a substantial inheritance.
'In 1169, he announced
'how his dominions would be divided on his death.
'His eldest son and principal heir, Henry,
'would receive England, Normandy and Anjou.
'Richard would be Duke of Aquitaine and Geoffrey would receive Brittany.
'There was no land, as yet, for his beloved baby son, John.
'Henry had an eye on conquering Ireland for him.'
Henry had two reasons for dividing his lands amongst his sons.
The first was to placate the king of France,
whose kingdom was threatened with extinction
by the vastness of Henry's power.
The second was to try to keep the peace amongst his teenage sons
who, it was already clear, had inherited his own ferocious temper.
But in practice, the division of his lands
proved to be a disastrous miscalculation.
'He had whetted his sons' appetite with the promise of future power,
'but given them little in the present.
'There was a risk that the irritated princes and the exiled archbishop
'might make common cause.
'For, from his haven in France Becket continued to defy Henry
'by making ever more grandiose claims to the independence of the Church.'
(Man) "It is certain that kings receive their power from the Church...
"..from which you received your promotion and coronation,
"the rank and status it held in the time of your predecessors...
"..you have not the power to absolve or excommunicate anyone,
"nor to drag clerks before secular tribunals."
(Starkey) 'Henry brushed aside Becket's claims
'but Becket, on the loose and abroad
'was more dangerous, Henry felt, than Becket at home.
'So a compromise was patched up
'and Becket was allowed to return to England.'
And what a return.
For at Christmas 1170 word reached Henry
that Becket, who'd learned nothing and forgotten nothing,
was up to all his old tricks.
The archbishop, his enemies insinuated
was careering round the country with armed knights
and excommunicating bishops who were loyal to Henry.
Something snapped and there resulted one of those Plantagenet rages -
"Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" the king exclaimed,
or words to that effect.
Henry had said such things before and nothing much had happened.
But this time, four royal knights took the king at his word
and rode furiously to England and to Canterbury
to bring Becket to account,
whatever that might mean.
'On 29th December, the four knights -
'Reginald fitz Urse, William de Traci
'Hugh of Morville and Richard Brito - arrived at Canterbury Cathedral.
'They accused Becket of treachery.
'Becket hotly denied the charges
'and the knights withdrew, menacingly saying they'd be back.
'The other clergy begged Becket to flee whilst there was still time
'but he refused, deciding instead to make a final stand.
'The knights came back with drawn swords.
'It was Reginald fitz Urse who struck the first blow
'taking off the back of Becket's head.
'Still denouncing his assailants,
'the archbishop fell to the pavement of his cathedral
'and the others piled in.
'Moments later, Becket lay dead.'
When he heard the news Henry plunged into an agony of grief,
shutting himself away for three whole days
so that his friends feared for his health, if not for his life.
Was it personal grief for the death of his one-time friend?
Or horror at what had been done in his name?
In either case, the king's response matched the enormity of the deed.
Europe was stunned by the murder of an archbishop
in his own cathedral on the orders of his own king.
Letters rained upon the pope, even from members of Henry's own family,
demanding that he take action against the sacrilegious king
who was worse than a Nero or even than a Judas.
And Becket's ghost, growing more powerful year by year,
was to serve as the perfect cover
for resistance or rebellion against the murderer king.
'As Henry feared, the problems of the Church and the succession
'came together and threatened to overwhelm him.
'In 1173, a great rebellion started.
'It was led by Henry's own elder sons.
'Henry decided that it was Becket's memory that was the greater threat.
'He would exorcise it with a single, grand gesture
'of self-abasement.'
First, Henry fasted.
Then, stripped only to a rough, woollen shirt,
he walked barefoot to Becket's shrine here in Canterbury Cathedral,
where he prostrated himself before his erstwhile enemy.
Next, he, Henry, King of England,
submitted to a public scourging by all of the clergy present.
Bishops, abbots and each of the monks of Canterbury
took it in turn to flog him.
Finally, he lay all night and all day
on the cold stones in front of the shrine.
It was an extraordinary, untypical gesture
by that proud and passionate man.
But the penance and the humiliation, he calculated, was worth it
if it contrived to separate Becket, the saint as he now was
from the coalition of Henry's enemies now arrayed against him.
And it did, almost immediately.
'The king awoke the following morning
'to hear that an invasion of England, planned by the rebels,
'had been thwarted.
'Henry had indeed stooped to conquer.
'For, despite the fury over Becket's martyrdom,
'Henry was able to preserve many of his claims over the Church
'and subsequent kings of England would reassert and intensify them
'until finally they assumed that supremacy over the Church
'of which Henry had only dreamed.
'His furious energy
'saw off repeated acts of disloyalty and rebellion by his sons
'in alliance with Henry's most dangerous enemy, the king of France.
'But finally, in 1189, Henry lost his grip.
'He was defeated in battle by Richard and the king of France
'and his health collapsed.'
(Bell chiming)
Mortally sick and already a broken man,
at the age of only 56,
Henry was carried back in a litter
here, to his castle of Chinon in his native Anjou, to die.
One of the conditions imposed on him by Richard and the king of France
was that he should pardon the conspirators against him.
When the list was read out
it included the name of his beloved youngest son, John.
It was the final blow.
"Why should I reverence Christ?"
the dying king cried out, when asked to make his final confession.
"And why should I honour Him who has taken all my honour from me?"
Confess, nevertheless, he did.
And immediately afterwards, on 6th July 1189,
Henry died.
'Henry's body was brought for burial to the nearby abbey of Fontevraud,
'the traditional burial place of the counts of Anjou.
'Like a wounded animal he'd gone home to die.
'Yet he had been one of England's most successful kings,
'able to enforce his authority
'on barons, bishops and even other princes.
'He had turned his vision of kingship into a reality.
'Would his successors be able to sustain it?'
Alongside the tomb of Henry II
here in the abbey of Fontevraud in Anjou,
lies this one of his son and eventual heir, Richard.
Richard ruled the family empire for almost ten years
until he was mortally wounded in a siege here in France.
But during all that time, Richard spent only six months in England.
Instead, he used England merely to bankroll his adventures elsewhere -
above all, on crusade in the Holy Land.
These adventures won Richard a golden reputation
and the name Coeur de Lion - Lion heart.
He would be a hard act to follow
especially as England had got used to an absentee king.
And especially as his heir was his younger brother, John.
"My brother John," Richard sneered,
"is not man enough to conquer a country
"if there is anyone to offer even the feeblest resistance."
'So John was no mighty warrior like his father, Henry II,
'nor a charismatic leader of men
'like his brother Richard Coeur de Lion.
'Still worse, there was a streak of mistrustfulness
'even paranoia, in his character.
'But he was unusually interested in the mechanics of government,
'which he pursued with an often obsessive interest.'
There is no more contrary breed than professional historians.
For John's contemporaries,
and for most succeeding,generations of historians
John was the very model of a bad king.
But now a new generation of historians has come along
who argue on the contrary, that John was a good thing
or at any rate, a good administrator.
Indeed, it's true that his reign sees the start of the great parchment rolls
which record the government's correspondence
and which form the essential basis for scholarly history.
But to praise John for being a royal filing clerk
is historians looking after their own with a vengeance.
For John's obsession with record-keeping
was a sign not of strength but of weakness.
He was so keen on documentation
because he was so mistrustful of his subjects
and his subjects, in turn, distrusted a king who was nit-picking
and always eager to revive an old, outdated royal imposition
and to invent a new one.
'The result was tax, tax and more tax.
'What made things worse was that John had the misfortune
'to confront the most effective king of France for generations,
'Philip Augustus.
'By 1204, John had been shorn of a third of his territories
'including his ancestral lands of Normandy, Anjou and Brittany.
'For the first time since the Norman Conquest,
'the king of England was that and little more.
'Attempting to recover his position,
'John decided to follow in his father's footsteps
'by striking at the power of the Church.
'But again, he had the misfortune
'to encounter one of the greatest medieval popes, Innocent III.'
The struggle began as a dispute
about the appointment of the Archbishop of Canterbury,
but it escalated as both sides wheeled in their heaviest weapons.
Innocent laid England under an interdict.
This was a kind of clerical general strike
in which the clergy refused to say Mass, marry couples
or bury corpses.
In retaliation, John resorted
to one of Margaret Thatcher's favourite weapons against the unions
and confiscated all the property of the Church,
amounting to almost a third of the land in England.
Who would win, the clerical strikers or the royal strikebreaker?
'Pope Innocent, despite his name, was a formidable politician
'who turned both real and spiritual weapons against the king of England.
'He not only excommunicated John, but declared him deposed
'and invited Philip Augustus, John's other great enemy,
'to launch a crusade and seize the throne of England for himself.
'Under threat by two dangerous enemies, John had to buy one off.
'The price he was prepared to pay was astonishing -
'it was England itself.
'On 15th May 1213, King John received the pope's representative
'at Dover Castle.'
At the meeting, John agreed to everything that the pope demanded -
to do penance for his offences against the Church,
to accept the pope's choice as archbishop of Canterbury
and to pay compensation
for everything he'd seized from the Church.
But John also went much further
and, in a dramatic move
he issued a charter in which of his own free will
he acknowledged the pope as his overlord
and agreed to pay a large, annual cash tribute.
'John had handed ultimate authority over England to the pope
'and had agreed to pay him a yearly fee to lease it back.
'John had saved his neck but at what cost?
'He was humiliated at home and abroad
'as a king and as a man.
'There was now only one way for John to re-establish his authority -
'to reconquer his lost lands in France.
'He raised a great army, but needed a great deal of cash to pay for it.
'The barons were pressed hard and the rest of his subjects wrung dry.
'John was playing a desperate game, for the highest of stakes.
'If the dice rolled in his favour
'and he won a great victory in France, all would be well.
'But once again, his luck failed.'
(Men yelling)
'On 27th July 1214,
'the English and French armies met at Bouvine, in Flanders.
'The English seemed victorious and Philip was thrown from his horse,
'but the French struck back and overwhelmed the English.
'Paris rejoiced, but in England John faced mutiny.
'The barons sank their own differences
'and presented a united front against the king.
'Never again, they decided,
'must a king behave as John had done.
'They backed up their demands with the threat of overwhelming force.'
The broker between the king and the barons
was Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
He professed to be neutral, but in fact he inclined to the barons
and secretly helped them structure their demands.
Finally, the terms were agreed.
And, on 15th June 1215
the two sides met in a field near Windsor
known as Runnymede.
The barons, who were fully armed,
presented their demands.
And King John, reluctantly, and already in bad faith,
granted what they wished.
'The agreement became known as Magna Carta - the Great Charter.
'But it was only the most famous and ambitious of a succession of attempts
'stretching back to the coronation oath of Henry I
'and the memories of Anglo-Saxon England
'to define the rights and duties of king and people.'
The original of Magna Carta, sealed by King John himself,
has long since vanished.
After all, the king had no desire
to preserve the record of his own humiliation.
But this, kept in Salisbury,
is one of the only four survivors
of the copies that were distributed to each county in 1215.
Nowadays, the fame of Magna Carta
rests on clauses like this.
"No free man shall be seized or imprisoned
"or stripped of his goods or possessions
"save by lawful judgement of his peers or equals
"or by the law of the land."
Or this one. "To no one shall we sell or deny or delay justice."
Provisions like these, are or have become
what we call basic human rights.
And echoes of them survive in the statute book
and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
But they come a very long way down the document.
At the top are the provisions
that really concerned the authors of the document -
the bishops and the barons.
The first clause states that "The Church in England shall be free."
That is, free from royal interference.
Whilst the second limits the king's rights
to exact death duties or fines from barons
when their lands were handed over to their heirs.
Magna Carta quickly became, and remained
a touchstone of liberties in the Middle Ages.
It also had very sharp, contemporary teeth
because this clause allows the barons to use force
to bring John into line
if he showed any sign of back-sliding from Magna Carta.
It was tough stuff
and John didn't like it one bit.
'It seemed a total defeat, but John had one last card up his sleeve.
'He appealed to his new overlord, the pope, to have it annulled.
'Innocent agreed and Magna Carta was promptly declared null and void.
'The barons were outraged at the king's faithlessness
'and open war broke out.
'It was no longer a question of restraining John,
'but of dethroning him.
'They even turned to the national enemy
'and invited Louis, son of the French king, to take the English throne.
'Louis invaded and by the autumn of 121'6,
'had seized much of the southeast of England, including London itself.
'Would England be divided?
'Or would there be the first violent change of dynasty since 1066?
'Suddenly, at this point, on the night of 18th October 1216...
'John died.
'His heir was his son Henry, but Henry was only nine years old.
'The child's cause looked hopeless,
'but with John safely out of the way
'the prospect of a French succession
'lost its attraction for an important group of barons and bishops.
'Instead, they decided that the young Henry should be brought to Gloucester
'and crowned as quickly as possible.
'On the morning of 28th October 1216
'the impromptu coronation took place.'
The boy, who was a grave, handsome, golden-haired child,
was brought to Gloucester Cathedral here.
He wore a specially made set of little royal robes.
First, he took the customary coronation oath.
Then he paid homage to the pope's representative, the legate.
Finally, and with all the traditional ceremonies
he was anointed and crowned
though the crown was one of his mother's tiaras or hair ornaments.
Given the circumstances, it was inevitable that Henry's coronation
was a bit of a makeshift affair.
But it was real, nonetheless.
It had imbued him with the magical, mystical authority of kingship.
And he never forgot the fact.
Now it was up to his regents to persuade his country
to accept him as king.
'Their first moves were not military but propagandistic,
'for already there was something called public opinion.
'They appealed to it by issuing a letter in the king's name,
'arguing that his youth meant he'd had no part in the sins of his father.'
"We hear that a quarrel arose between our father and certain nobles
"whether in justification or not, we do not know."
'Next, Henry's regents made a major political concession.
'They reissued Magna Carta
'without the clauses authorising the use of force against the king.
'At a stroke, the charter was rescued from oblivion
'and the cause of civil war removed
'and Henry universally recognised as king.
'For the remainder of his minority,
'the spirit of Magna Carta was adhered to
'and the great men of the kingdom had a real say in government.
'Magna Carta had saved Henry's crown.
'It remained to be seen
'if he would honour the charter when he came of age.
'In 1232, Henry III was preparing a coup d'état
'that would overthrow the men and measures
'that had restrained him for so long.
'Though he was 25, it had been difficult to persuade his nobles
'that he was no longer a child
'and that they should relinquish control.
'Now he was determined to be king in deed as well as king in name
'and he was determined, above all
'to break free from the shackles of Magna Carta.
'Henry was also influenced by the revived monarchy of France.
'He favoured French courtiers
'and his greatest building project was wholly French in style.'
This, the Westminster Abbey that we know today,
is essentially the work of Henry,
though its interior is only a pale shadow of the masterpiece he created,
which glowed with red and blue and gold.
Work started in 1245.
It cost a fortune employed hundreds of craftsmen
and lasted for 25 years,
in the most ambitious project of church-building
that Western Europe had yet seen.
Indeed, it was so ambitious that it almost bankrupted the king
and inflicted severe political damage on him.
But for Henry, it was worth it -
he was building a monument
to the greater glory of God and to the monarchy.
'Westminster Abbey was intended to be
'the crowning glory of Henry's vision of kingship.
'But it was a vision that was intensely controversial
'to some of his barons.
'For it seemed as un-English as the architecture of the abbey itself.
'For Henry's models of kingship were foreign -
'the French monarchy and the papacy.
'And his agents were foreign, too.
'Henry showered power and wealth
'onto a close-knit circle of French relatives and favourites.
'Inevitably, the English barons resented it
'and they were spurred on by Henry's autocratic style of kingship.'
They were furious with the king
for his successful reassertion of royal power
and his appointment of his foreign relations to high office.
They saw the two as being closely connected,
claiming that Henry's foreign officials
treacherously whispered to him that the king was above the law.
The barons were determined to restore the traditional English practice.
They would reimpose Magna Carta
and devise a new machinery of government
that would so tie the king's hands
that neither he nor his heirs would ever be able to escape from it again.
'The nobles quickly found a leader in Simon de Montfort.
'De Montfort was himself a Frenchman.
'Like many of his compatriots, he'd been brought to England by Henry,
'showered with favour and given the earldom of Leicester.
'He'd even dared to marry the king's sister without Henry's permission.
'This marriage sowed the seeds of distrust
'between Simon and the king.
'Once, when the two men were out hunting together
'and had stopped to shelter from a thunderstorm
'Henry is said to have told Simon
'that, much as he feared the lightning,
'he feared Simon more.
'The key to Simon's character
'was his past as a crusader.
'Crusaders see the world in simple black and white.
'Once, Simon's enemy had been the infidel
'but now it was those who supported Henry's autocratic style of monarchy.
'In 1258, de Montfort and six other leading barons
'swore an oath of mutual loyalty.
'Together, they were more than a match for the king.
'They had their own distinct ideas of how England should be run.
'The two sides met at Oxford.'
The council at Oxford drew up
a revolutionary new way of governing the country
that was intended to turn England into a crowned republic.
And Henry, despite his high view of kingship,
had no choice but to agree.
The Provisions of Oxford, as the new constitutional blueprint was known,
looked back to Anglo-Saxon England
with its tradition of a strong national community.
They also looked abroad, to Germany and Italy,
where new, self-governing communes
or city-states, like Florence or Venice, were appearing.
The result was to leave Henry as king, but king in name only.
Instead, his powers would be exercised
by an elected council of 15, which in turn would answer to parliaments
meeting at three set intervals a year.
No other European country
had tried such an audacious governmental experiment
and no other king had been subject to such humiliation.
'The king was determined to avenge himself.
'The only way was force.
'In 1264, the two sides confronted each other
'outside Lewes in East Sussex.'
(Men yelling)
(Horses whinnying)
'Inspired by de Montfort's leadership and wearing the crusader cross,
'his army quickly reduced the king's forces to a broken rabble.'
After the battle, Henry took refuge here, at Lewes Priory.
He was joined by his son Edward,
who'd been victorious in his sector of the battle
but had been unable to save the day for his father.
Would the royalists give in or would they try to resume the fight?
To concentrate minds, Simon's troops shot off a volley of burning arrows,
which set fire to the roof of the priory church.
Intimidated and surrounded
Henry decided to surrender.
But Simon's terms were tough.
Henry had to swear once again
to submit to the baronial government of the Provisions of Oxford.
To make sure that he kept his word this time,
he was compelled to hand over his son Edward
as a hostage for his good behaviour.
The king of England was now a puppet
with only the trappings of kingship
as Simon, in the name of defending freedom,
ruled both king and kingdom.
Not even John had sunk so low.
'Simon was now free to impose his own vision of monarchy on Henry.
'The king was reduced to a mere figurehead,
'whilst all power was exercised by Simon's baronial clique,
'who claimed to be acting in the name of the whole community of England.
'But de Montfort's ideas
'also appealed far beyond the baronial class.
'This led him to broaden dramatically
'the membership of what was already becoming known as Parliament.
'Hitherrto, Parliament had consisted of nobles and bishops,
'but in 1265 Simon enfranchised new groups.'
Simon summoned representatives -
small groups of knights from each county
and burgesses, or local bigwigs, from the more important towns.
Such representatives had been summoned before
to consult on taxation.
But this was the first time that they'd been invited
to discuss and to decide the great affairs of the realm.
It was a blatant bid for support for Simon's revolution
from the groups immediately below the magnates -
the wider community of the realm.
It was also a milestone in the history of Parliament.
'But, despite such bold moves,
'Simon's revolution was to be short-lived.
'There was still a strong royalist party
'and for all Simon's own high ideals,
'his followers proved to be as selfish and grasping
'as the king's fallen favourites.
'Just as the tide was turning,
'the king's son and heir, Edward,
'escaped from captivity and raised an army.
'Edward met fellow royalists here at Ludlow Castle.
'He made the symbolic promise to uphold Magna Carta
'and then marched to meet de Montfort's forces.
'The armies met just north of Evesham.
'Simon was hoping to be joined by his son at the head of reinforcements
'but the reinforcements never arrived
'and without them de Montfort was overwhelmed.
'De Montfort himself was killed
'only 15 months since his great victory at Lewes.'
This monument to Simon de Montfort
was erected in the grounds of the former Evesham Abbey in the 1960s.
It's a sign that, 700 years after his defeat and death
in the battle fought near here, he's not forgotten.
Contemporaries remembered him, too.
Already, at the time of his death, he was a folk hero.
There were reports of miracles at his tomb
and he was even compared
to that other great scourge of kings, St Thomas Becket.
'But the royalists hated him
'and, in a grisly revenge, they dismembered his body
'as the corpse of a condemned traitor.
It would be less easy, however,
to uproot the political ideas that de Montfort had planted.
'But for the moment the royalists had triumphed
'and the authority of the monarchy was restored,
'though in practice it would be exercised by the Lord Edward.'
But there was one final moment of glory left to the old king.
In 1269, the new Westminster Abbey,
which had cost so much money and political goodwill,
was finally consecrated.
The king himself, and his sons,
bore the saint's relics to their magnificent new shrine,
which was encrusted with gold mosaic
and inlaid with precious marbles.
The shrine was the work of Italian craftsmen
and it spoke of Roman imperial power and grandeur.
And, despite all the crises of his reign,
Henry's view of his own position remained equally exalted
and he still saw himself
as combining the powers of pope and emperor in his own kingdom.
Many of his nobility, led by Simon de Montfort,
had taken the opposite point of view
and they'd come within a whisker of victory.
Which way would the balance swing in the future?