0:06

The herd of pigs grunt

0:08

and snort as their minders drive

0:11

them along the road through the countryside

0:13

in Kent. Steam

0:16

rises from their bristly snouts as

0:18

they snuffle in the bare hedgerows

0:21

beside the road, looking for something

0:23

to eat. There's

0:26

not much about. It's November

0:29

and the countryside is dank and

0:31

barren. Wet leaves

0:33

squelch under the pig herders' feet.

0:36

They curse the animals as

0:38

they try to hurry them along. The

0:41

pigs squeal as sticks prod

0:44

and whip their hairy flanks.

0:49

They can squeal all they like. The

0:52

herders don't have the luxury of

0:54

being late. These

0:56

porkers have to be marched from Dover

0:58

to Rochester, a journey of about 50

1:01

miles. Keeping

1:03

a herd of ravenous pigs under control

1:06

is a tricky one at the best of times, but

1:09

these guys have to do it as fast as

1:11

possible. They've been sent

1:13

for by King John, Plantagenet

1:15

ruler of England, who's currently

1:18

camped outside Rochester

1:20

Castle. And everyone knows

1:22

John's not a man who takes kindly

1:25

to being defied. In

1:31

fact, that's exactly why he's

1:33

at Rochester. For the whole

1:36

of the past year, 1215, John has been defied on

1:38

all sides. His

1:42

barons have rebelled against him, demanding

1:45

he reforms his kingdom. He's

1:48

tried ignoring their demands. He's

1:50

tried taking the cross and promising

1:53

to go on crusade, so he'd have the

1:55

Pope's protection. He's

1:57

even tried negotiating with them. granting

2:00

a treaty people are calling Magna Carta,

2:04

although he did have the Pope cancel it at

2:06

the first chance he got. So

2:09

they still defy him, which

2:11

means it's come to a civil war.

2:15

The country is split between a huge

2:17

band of rebel barons and their supporters

2:19

on the one side, and John's

2:22

dwindling coalition of loyal men

2:24

and foreign mercenaries on the other. Right

2:28

now, as winter sets in, the

2:31

focus of the civil war is at Rochester Castle, a

2:34

sturdy fortress with a huge central

2:37

tower or keep. The castle was in

2:40

the command of the Archbishop

2:43

of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, who

2:45

in theory was meant to be keeping peace between John

2:48

and the barons. But

2:50

earlier that year Langton, who'd

2:53

had enough of the constant drama in England, handed

2:56

the castle over to a rebel supporter

2:59

called William Dobney, then promptly legged it from England to

3:01

escape the fighting. John is seriously fed up with Langton

3:03

and has been ranting to

3:06

his friends

3:11

about how he reckons the erstwhile Archbishop

3:14

is a notorious traitor.

3:17

But John knows that

3:20

cursing out a man who isn't around

3:22

to hear him is not the way to win a war. So

3:26

for the past seven weeks he's had

3:28

Rochester Castle under siege.

3:31

He has a big army camped in Rochester

3:35

where they've taken over the local monastery, much

3:37

to the disgust of the monks who are fed up with mercenaries drinking

3:39

and partying in the holy buildings. Inside

3:46

the castle, Dobney has somewhere

3:48

between 90 and 140 guys with him. That's a lot of hungry mouths,

3:51

so the first thing John has done has

3:53

been to block the supply roads.

3:59

he's ordered up the usual siege

4:02

weapons, catapults and ladders.

4:04

But it's been a long

4:07

slog. The walls of the

4:09

castle are thick enough to withstand

4:11

the barrage, and the rebels in the tower

4:13

are determined not to give it

4:15

up. That's why

4:17

John has sent for his secret weapon, in

4:20

his words, 40 of the

4:22

fattest bacon pigs from those

4:25

least worth eating. So

4:28

what's he up to? Well say

4:30

what you like about John, but he's a wily

4:32

old so-and-so, and a slightly

4:34

sadistic one too. For

4:38

weeks now he's had miners, or

4:40

sappers to use the technical term, digging

4:43

a network of tunnels under the walls

4:45

of Rochester Castle, weakening

4:47

the foundations. As

4:50

the miners dig, they've propped

4:52

up their tunnels with wooden struts.

4:56

John intends to burn the struts, collapse

4:59

the tunnels, and see what happens

5:01

to the walls. This

5:04

is a fairly standard ploy in siegecraft,

5:06

but here John adds his own diabolical

5:10

twist. Since

5:14

it's November, it's not that easy

5:16

to find a lot of dry tinder to

5:18

set fires with. John

5:21

needs another flammable material. He's

5:25

plumped for pig fat, which

5:28

might seem weird. There

5:32

are plenty of things that burn. Surely

5:34

John doesn't need to go to the hassle of

5:36

getting pigs from 50 miles away,

5:39

slaughtering them, rendering off the fat,

5:41

and then slathering it over the mine struts.

5:45

Well this being John, he kind

5:48

of does. He knows

5:50

that inside Rochester Castle there

5:52

are scores of starving men. They're

5:56

so hungry, they're down to eating

5:58

their horses.

8:01

That's why, as we heard last time, the

8:03

barons send a message to Paris and

8:06

invite Philip Augustus' eldest

8:08

son Louis, known as Louis

8:10

the Lion, to come and seize the

8:12

English throne for himself. Which

8:16

is a kick in the teeth for John, to put

8:19

it mildly. For

8:21

more than sixty years, his Plantagenet

8:24

family have been at more or less permanent

8:26

loggerheads with the French.

8:28

Now the barons are offering

8:30

them the crown on a plate.

8:34

All Louis has to do is get over

8:36

to England, throw his weight behind

8:38

the rebel forces and lead

8:40

them to victory. As

8:43

soon as the barons ask Louis, he

8:46

starts making his preparations to become

8:48

King Louis I of England. He's

8:52

aiming to invade England in the spring

8:54

of 1216. It

8:56

looks like all the barons have to do is keep

8:59

John fighting through the winter of 1215 and

9:03

when Louis arrives, John will

9:05

be toast. Which

9:12

brings us back to Rochester Castle

9:15

in November 1215.

9:17

John is fighting for the castle, of course,

9:20

but by this stage he also knows he's

9:22

fighting for the survival of himself,

9:25

the Plantagenet dynasty and

9:27

in a sense for England's existence

9:30

as an independent country. That's

9:33

why he's prepared to go to any lengths

9:36

to show the barons who's boss and

9:39

devise inventively cruel ways

9:41

to torment them when he can. After

9:45

John blocks off the food supplies, the

9:47

rebels in the castle let a few of

9:49

their number out to try and reduce

9:51

the number of hungry mouths inside.

9:55

John sends his mercenaries to capture them

9:57

and chop off their hands and feet.

10:01

Then there's the pig ploy.

10:04

Using bacon fat to collapse a mine

10:07

might seem like a gimmick compared to

10:09

full-blown amputations, but

10:11

I think it shows a devotion to

10:14

psychological cruelty that

10:16

no other king but John would have come

10:18

up with. What's more,

10:21

it works. Not

10:24

only must the sweet scent of sizzling,

10:27

spitting pig fat drifting up

10:29

from underneath Rochester Castle drive

10:32

the defenders mad with hunger, it

10:34

also really does cause the mines to

10:37

collapse. That brings

10:39

a rumble, and a crashing,

10:42

and then a roar of mason mule, and

10:44

one of the square towers on the corner

10:47

of the castle's keep collapses.

10:58

Oh, and fun fact, if you go to

11:00

Rochester Castle today, you can actually

11:02

see which one it was, because

11:04

when it was rebuilt after the war, it

11:07

was built on a more modern circular plan

11:09

rather than an angular one. Anyway,

11:13

once the tower comes down, it's

11:15

game over, and by the last

11:17

day of November 1215, the

11:20

garrison of Rochester Castle

11:22

gives up.

11:24

John is in the mood to have every single

11:26

one of them slaughtered like his pigs, but

11:28

he's talked out of it by one of his

11:30

captains. Turning

11:33

John away from villainy is no

11:35

mean feat, but they simply point

11:37

out that if he kills all the prisoners,

11:40

it's likely any future royal prisoners

11:42

captured would also be executed.

11:46

But John still hangs the crossbow men who've

11:48

been defending the castle. He

11:51

also takes a ton of knights as

11:53

prisoners, which as we've seen

11:55

earlier in this season, is not necessarily

11:57

a better fate when you're killed.

11:59

John is your jailer.

12:04

At the start of December, John leaves

12:06

Rochester with a spring very much

12:08

in his step. His

12:11

luck finally seems to be turning,

12:13

and he manages to take back some more rebel

12:15

castles with far less fuss and

12:18

expense than Rochester took. He

12:21

has a relatively cheerful Christmas in Nottingham,

12:24

then sets off again on the move, constantly

12:27

touring the country, trying to buy

12:29

the favour of whoever he can by

12:32

promising them lands belonging to the

12:34

rebels. But of

12:36

course it's not an easy sell. For

12:39

one, there are plenty of people who, for

12:41

fairly good reasons, simply don't

12:44

trust John. For

12:46

another, while John's in the Midlands,

12:49

more of his foreign mercenaries are flooding

12:51

into England and committing all sorts

12:53

of atrocities. In

12:56

East Anglia, they spend the Christmas holidays

12:58

kidnapping and massacring innocent people

13:01

and plundering churches. All

13:03

the while, the doomsday

13:06

clock is ticking. When

13:09

spring comes, John knows that

13:11

he's going to have problems on a bigger scale

13:13

than anything he's seen already. Louis

13:16

the Lion is gathering his army and

13:19

getting ready to invade. John's

13:21

going to need more than a few pigs to

13:24

get out

13:25

of this one.

13:35

In February 1216, a middle-aged

13:38

cardinal is hurrying through France

13:40

on his way to the coast, where he's planning

13:43

to take a ship to England.

13:48

His name is Gualla Bicieri and he's a trusted

13:50

henchman of Pope Innocent III,

13:53

John's frenemy in chief. Right

13:57

now, Innocent is trying to do everything he

13:59

can to get his army back. and

16:00

it means he has to travel all the way to

16:02

Germany to get on a ship that will take

16:04

a very long route to England. It

16:07

takes him literally months, and

16:10

it means that the French win

16:12

the race to England. On

16:16

May 21st, 1216, Louis

16:18

the Lion sails with his invasion

16:20

fleet and lands on English soil

16:23

at Thanet, just down the coast

16:25

from Rochester, where John scored

16:27

such a thumping victory the previous

16:30

winter. There's no

16:32

one there to oppose him, and Louis

16:34

marches in triumph towards London.

16:37

The capital city is still held by the

16:39

Barons, so when he turns up, there's

16:42

no one to stop him here either. The

16:45

rebel Barons flock to St Paul's Cathedral

16:48

in the heart of London. They

16:50

don't exactly crown Louis, but

16:53

they do proclaim him the new King

16:55

of England, and promise faithfully

16:58

to obey him. It's

17:00

John's worst nightmare come true.

17:03

It's also the papal-legged Guala's, but

17:06

at least he has a plan, and

17:08

his trusty spiritual weapon. He's

17:11

about a week behind Louis getting to England.

17:14

When he arrives, he hurries to Winchester,

17:17

the ancient capital, before London overtook

17:19

it. At Winchester, Guala

17:22

holds a council of as many bishops and

17:24

abbots as he can ruffle up. At

17:27

it, he proclaims that Louis is excommunicated

17:30

from the church, and so are all

17:32

his followers. If they don't

17:34

back off and back down, they're

17:37

going to hell. There's

17:40

a bit of a problem here, though. Pope

17:43

Innocent and his cardinals have

17:45

waved the threat of excommunication about

17:47

so freely in the last few years

17:50

that no one really seems to care very

17:52

much. When Innocent

17:54

excommunicated John during the interdict,

17:57

he basically laughed in the Pope's face.

18:00

When Innocent X communicated Philip

18:02

over his marital problems, Philip

18:05

largely ignored him. So

18:07

now it's hardly a surprise that Louis

18:10

absolutely does not back off

18:12

or back down. He's

18:15

come to England to make it his and

18:17

he's going to stay until the job

18:19

is done. From

18:22

May 1216 there are two

18:25

kings in England. The war

18:27

is going to be vicious and it's going

18:29

to be final.

18:30

In fact,

18:32

it looks like this is curtains for the whole

18:34

Plantagenet dynasty.

18:39

Is there anyone in England who can

18:41

ride to their rescue? Find

18:45

out next time in the season

18:47

finale of This is

18:49

History.

19:05

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19:07

worry, because we have a subscriber

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19:12

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19:14

dive into all the details we don't

19:16

have time for. This week

19:18

we're talking siege tactics and

19:20

getting to know Louis the Lion. Just

19:23

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