Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England's Kings and Queens

by David Mitchell

It was more a screw-up of execution than of conception, but it nevertheless shows that thinking outside boxes can sometimes result in thousands of young men getting buried in them.

Monarchy is what England has instead of a sense of identity. The very continuity of English government – the rule of kings morphing into the flawed parliamentary democracy of today – has resulted in our sense of nationhood, patriotism and even culture getting entwined with an institution that, practically speaking, now does little more than provide figureheads.

The fact is that, when millions of people are involved, any sense of a nation united in its values can only be portrayed by repressing the feelings and views of many.

History is a very contemporary thing – it’s ours to think about, manipulate, use to win arguments or to justify patriotism, nationalism or group self-loathing, according to taste. In contrast, the past is unknowable. It’s as complicated as the present. It’s an infinity of former nows all as unfathomable as this one. That’s why historians end up specializing in tiny bits of it.

Gandalf is fictional. King Arthur is a lie.

People found it much easier to believe in a rose-tinted view of the past than a utopian future. They still do: hence ‘Take Back Control’ and ‘Make America Great Again’.

The story of Arthur reflects our longing, as a species, for the ancient, concealed and magical.

Rather poignantly, the modern English word ‘lord’ derives from the Old English hlaford meaning ‘bread-giver’.

Violence is a constant, the religious views are just the accompanying spin.

My point is that I don’t think religions are themselves to blame for all the violence in the name of religion, though it has to be said that the religions also totally failed to stop it.

The thought that disasters are your fault is comforting, on some level. It gives you the illusion of control when, in truth, something horrible came out of the blue and ruined your life.

They asked to change service provider! Who ever does that? It’s such a hassle. You start your life with Vodaphone and British Gas and HSBC and you’re stuck with it unless you’re a pervert who gets off on filling in forms.

I rather like the image of William the Conqueror tearing a strip off Henry VIII for closing down Battle Abbey, and all the other abbeys for that matter. Or possibly roughing him up, like Michael Caine does to Bryan Mosley in Get Carter. Henry VIII seems all broad-beamed and martial, but in reality he was a pampered prince – born to a reigning king. Good at sport and jousting in his youth, but his later life was dominated by relationship troubles and a gammy leg. He wasn’t a proper warrior like his Norman ancestor, who was born illegitimate, became duke of Normandy as a child, somehow managed to hold on to the duchy and then made himself a king. ‘You’re a big man,’ the Conqueror would say, ‘but you’re out of shape. With me, it’s a full-time job. So behave yourself.’ Slap.

If you’re planning a trip to see a tapestry or embroidery, or indeed any sort of cloth, I recommend the Bayeux tapestry. If you’re passing quite near. It’s worth going slightly out of your way for, but it’s not Disneyland. Still, I reckon it craps on the Turin shroud. It really is a massive embroidery – the sense of a vast amount of embroidery done to a very high standard is undeniable. Though, as with most medieval art, it looks like it’s based on pictures sent in by a nine-year-old Blue Peter competition winner. I can’t help wondering whether the undoubtedly talented seamstresses who made it didn’t look at each bit, as they finished it, and notice this. ‘What do you think, Aelfgifu? I don’t think we’re getting the faces quite right? And the horses are too small.’ ‘Jesus Christ, Godgifu – get on with it! We’ve not got to the actual battle and I’m already bored shitless.’

It’s the same with William the Conqueror. At least that was fate, not a creative choice. His bowels exploded while some monks in Caen were trying to cram his bloated corpse into a sarcophagus that was far too snug for him. The consequent stench rather ruined the solemnity of the remaining funeral rites. So that was the very last anyone saw of him. The bit before that wasn’t much more dignified. The bloating which necessitated the sarcophagus-cramming had partly happened pre- and partly post-mortem.

Some say that all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. I find that an awkward principle because, in my view, allowing good men to do nothing is the purpose of civilization.

King John was not a good man – He had his little ways. And sometimes no one spoke to him For days and days and days. And men who came across him, When walking in the town, Gave him a supercilious stare, Or passed with noses in the air – And bad King John stood dumbly there, Blushing beneath his crown. I couldn’t resist starting the chapter with that. It’s from ‘King John’s Christmas’, a poem by A. A. Milne. It uses the key thing we all know about King John – that he was bad – and reimagines him amid the values and references of early twentieth-century children’s literature. It continues: King John was not a good man, And no good friends had he. He stayed in every afternoon ... But no one came to tea.

The Black Prince may have understood it too. This renowned warrior’s tomb is in Canterbury Cathedral, where there is a bronze effigy of him in full armour, looking almost exactly like a Cyberman. In his will he asked for the following poem to be inscribed around it: Such as thou art, sometime was I. Such as I am, such shalt thou be. I thought little on th’our of Death So long as I enjoyed breath. On earth I had great riches Land, houses, great treasure, horses, money and gold. But now a wretched captive am I, Deep in the ground, lo here I lie. My beauty great, is all quite gone, My flesh is wasted to the bone. In his slow decline from renown into sickness he must have realized that, when it comes to the human condition, glory only treats the symptoms.

So shaken as we are, so wan with care, Find we a time for frighted peace to pant, And breathe short-winded accents of new broils To be commenced in strands afar remote.

Richard II, for example, was a colossal dick. And yet Shakespeare has him say this: For God’s sake let us sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings: How some have been depos’d, some slain in war, Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed, Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping kill’d, All murdered – for within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king Keeps Death his court, and there the antic sits, Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp, Allowing him a breath, a little scene, To monarchize, be fear’d, and kill with looks; Infusing him with self and vain conceit, As if this flesh which walls about our life Were brass impregnable; and, humour’d thus, Comes at the last, and with a little pin Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king! Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood With solemn reverence; throw away respect, Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty; For you have but mistook me all this while. I live with bread like you, feel want, Taste grief, need friends – subjected thus, How can you say to me, I am a king?

The third big sign that kingship as a concept is irrevocably on the slide is an event that happened less than half a century after Elizabeth’s death: the execution of an English king by order of parliament. By the mores of the centuries covered by this book, the judicial beheading of Charles I on a scaffold in Whitehall was as shocking as a public blowjob being administered on an altar.

They’re a product of a flawed system, like litter or traffic jams. The people themselves are as inconsequential as the biographical specifics of a burglar who has been enabled to take all your stuff by lax security, poor law enforcement and a grim socio-economic environment. The rulers in this book inherited or acquired a lot of power. They did things that affected millions of people’s lives. But, if they hadn’t, someone else would have done. Unlike Shakespeare, they were not important. We had but mistook them all this while.

Marc Morris, The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England (London, 2021) Norman Davies, The Isles: A History (London, 2000) Tom Holland, Athelstan: The Making of England (London, 2016) Hugh M. Thomas, The Norman Conquest: England After William the Conqueror (Plymouth, 2008) Dan Jones, The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England (London, 2012) Charles Spencer, The White Ship: Conquest, Anarchy and the Wrecking of Henry I’s Dream (London, 2020) Catherine Hanley, Matilda: Empress, Queen, Warrior (London, 2019) Ian Mortimer, ‘The Reputation and Legacy of Henry IV’ (Cross Tree Press Audio, 2022) Ian Mortimer, A Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century (London, 2008) Miri Rubin, The Hollow Crown: A History of Britain in the Late Middle Ages (London, 2005) Thomas Penn, Winter King: The Dawn of Tudor England (London, 2011) Susan Brigden, New Worlds, Lost Worlds: The Rule of the Tudors 1485 – 1603 (London, 2001) Tracy Borman, Crown & Sceptre: A New History of the British Monarchy from William the Conqueror to Charles III (London, 2021)