Having missed the Classic Serial, ‘Plantagenet’, on Radio 4 this Sunday, I caught up this morning on iPlayer.
The first episode, ‘What is a Man?’ focused on the squabbles between Henry II and his sons, Henry the Young King, Richard and Geoffrey, which dominated his reign from the Great War of 1173/4 until the elder Henry’s death in 1189. Fantastic material: this is perhaps one of the stormiest stories in the whole of the later Middle Ages, as the politics of dynasty-building are played out through the folly of human ambition. There was also one hell of a war (in 1173/4), which involved virtually every major magnate from Scotland to the Pyrenees.
Walker’s storytelling was surprisingly tame. He painted the scene by numbers: the conflict between family and kingship exposing the troubled contradictions between the instincts of kings and princes, and the instincts of fathers and sons. But in doing so, the politics were oversimplified and watered down, the characters never fully fleshed out, and the battles literally non-existent. Here were a load of rich folk squabbling. Nothing more.
There were also some clumsy inaccuracies, and while I don’t have any massive objection to historical liberties being taken in the name of improving drama or dialogue, in this case they didn’t really seem to do that.
For example: the old myth about Henry’s family descending from the devil was rehashed. Fine, but none of them subsequently came across very diabolical. A bit peeved and pottymouthed, maybe. But hardly Satanic. Likewise with the Eleanor of Aquitaine stereotype: as per usual she was painted as the jilted poet queen of the south, but in her scene with the old king, as he swept her off to exile in England following her conniving in the rebellion of 1173, she was unflustered and leaden.
There were also a number of howlers. Henry as ‘the King of Anjou and England’? That’d be the King of England, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, count of Anjou (etc) then. And right at the start, Henry II was addressed as ‘your majesty’ - a term introduced for the English monarch by Henry VIII. There were more, but it’s pedantic to list them.
I feel bad hating on a serial I was really looking forward to, and which I applaud Radio 4 for commissioning. But it was just a little bit thin. As I have mentioned here before, I am writing the history of the Plantagenets at the moment, for publication next year. So I wished this series nothing but well - these rich and wonderful times deserve their place in the zeitgeist. I’m hoping it will improve next week, when the story moves on to Richard I’s reign. I will certainly be tuning in.
'Plantagenet' on BBC Radio 4: Episode 2
So. Episode 2 was a little better than the first. We had Henry II dying, betrayed and heartbroken, as his beloved Le Mans burned to the ground. Then we had Richard I giving Saladin’s heathen johnnies the right royal runaround in the Holy Land, then falling out with his ‘lover’ (never bought that, myself) Philip I of France and draining England of its gold in the process.
But this series is still pretty undercooked. The characters are too thin, and their motives painfully oversimplified. It’s not a subtle family drama, but it’s not a political thriller either. There are some infuriating tics: the habit of referring to the ‘King of Anjou and England’ has started to really get my goat.
And weirdest of all, this episode was narrated by a breathy, almost orgasmic Eleanor of Aquitaine, who seemed to be auditioning for a job doing the next batch of M&S food ads. It right gave me goose-bumps, and not in a good way.
Sigh.