Hi, everyone and welcome back to Britain Under the Microscope. 欢迎回来【闲话英伦】. Hi, 安澜

Hi Lulu, hi everyone.

So can I propose a topic？

It depends on the topic.

 I kind of got into historical drama or period drama like British TV show. 就是英国这种历史、什么宫廷剧.

Ok.

I thought it’s interesting, lots of plotting, lots of gossip.  

Yes.

But, as you know, my history sucks.

It is pretty bad, your history.

So all of these dynasties, all of these royal families, royal houses, these really confused me, I thought, can we talk about royal houses, dynasties in England？

Yeah, of course. So similar to china, we calculate history by dynasties or royal houses.

所以你们也有这种概念, 什么我们的唐宋元明清, 然后你们也是按照chronological编年的顺序, can't wait for you to walk me through some of the famous and most important... do you call it dynasties or royal houses？

I would say we call them royal houses.

So there are six of the most famous and important houses. House number one, the Normans, 1066-1144.

诺曼王朝,  the Norman, I thought they came from France. Is that right？

They came from Normandy. They were originally vikings that's settled in Normandy.  And the first king was William the Conqueror. He came from Normandy, he defeated the Anglo-Saxon King Harold at the Battle of Hasting in 1066.  William I or William the Conqueror was not a particularly nice person and he just wanted to get as much money as possible.  What he did was he ordered the Domesday Book to be created.

Now the Domesday Book was an inventory of everything and everyone in England. It was essentially the first census.

相当于第一次人口普查, 所有人都登个记，所有东西都登个记.

It sounds rather boring. But in many cities, many villages it's the first mention in the historical record. And this is where many places in the UK their history starts from the Domesday Book.

How long did he rule？He ruled, you said to 1144?

Not him personally. He had a couple of children,  but it ended during what is known as the anarchy when there was fighting between Matilda who was one of the daughters of the King and her cousin Stephen.

Can I just ask, ... dynasties how it works？Is it just one royal house can hold the power can control the country, then they will just rule.

Yes.

They are usually replaced because they were defeated and chased away or killed.

Well, yes. In the early history. But in many cases, particularly more modern history is because there's no heir, so it goes to another Royal House.

所以更近的历史干脆没有人,后继无人了, 只能是到另外一个 Royal House. I see.

So that leads us now to our next Royal House, the Plantagenets.

The Plantagenet.

这个词非常罕见, 就专门我只在英国历史里面见过叫做金雀花王朝. Plantagenet, is that the name of a flower？

It's a French name of a flower. It's old French. I see. Now the reason why they have a French name is because this Royal House actually ruled huge parts of France, and they were essentially French in the outlook. The most famous King of this period was Richard, the Lion Heart.

狮心王。 

Who went on the Crusades and fought for Jerusalem.

就圣战, the religious Crusade.

He was a particularly bad king. He didn't actually like England. And according to the stories, he didn't actually really speak any English.

I think it was not the only time in European history where a Royal House that doesn't really speak the local language ruled the local people.

It does happen quite a lot, but his brother, King John.

Now that is an interesting character. He was famously bad, wicked, unpopular.  And he was so unpopular, he actually led to the Magna Carta being signed.

大宪章 。Why？

Because his Nobles were so angry with him that they wanted him to sign the Magna Carta to guarantee their rights. But King John didn't really think much of this and he probably ignored it and they carried on fighting.

 I see.

Now the Plantagenets were known for being very angry, very fiery and also very warlike. It was during this time starting in 1337 that we fought the Hundred Years War with France.

啊这个 百年战争，英法之间的.

So basically back then, you guys were already pretty much rivals fighting each other.

If you think back to English history, pretty much we fought French so many times,  now we call it the Hundred Years War, but that's actually not true. It didn't last for 100 years. It actually lasted for 116 years. And even during this time, we had the black death which killed half the population of England.

就是黑死病，鼠疫。

And that was in 1348.  So you can imagine that even though we had the black death, we were still fighting the French.

Now the Plantagenets ended when the last king they had no natural heir and this led to the Wars of the Roses.

玫瑰战争, I thought that's what Game of Thrones is loosely based on.

Very much so.

就是权游里面有很多玫瑰战争的 elements.

Yeah.

And if you listen to our Shakespeare album, we also talk about one of the most famous kings of that period, Richard III. And we talk a little bit about the War the of Roses.

OK, but that dynasty was called..,

The House of York. It actually alternated between the House of Lancaster and the House of York.

So basically you had a Lancasterian King who then was killed by a York King, and then the Lancasterian King then killed the York King. They just go back and forwards.

But that was not one of the major Dynasties.

No, because they just kept trying to kill each other and take over the throne.

So that then led to what's got to be one of the most famous English Royal Houses, the Tutors.

都铎王朝.

Yes, this is also where you see a lot of historical drama based on.

This is one of the things that we always joke about in TV and also at school. Because there's so much about the Tutors. It's just constantly repeated.

Mhm.

Now the Tutors started a war in 1485. They originally came from Wales when Henry Tudor beat Richard III at the battle of Boswell Field.

Ah, so this Dynasty is actually named after a person.

Yeah, or his surname Tudor, Henry Tudor, his son Henry VIII made himself the head of the church of England. And this started the Reformation. .

就是我们之前八卦过的亨利8世，有6个老婆的那个.

That’s the one. If you want to know a little bit more about Henry III, I would certainly recommend listening to that episode.

About Henry III.

Actually I think in the future we should make further episodes on all of these Dynasties, they sound very interesting.

They are. There are some really amazing characters in them. Now Henry III, he made England protestant, his daughter, Mary or Bloody Mary, try to make it catholic. And she tried to make it catholic by killing as many protestants as she could.

And that's also why she was known as Bloody Mary.

Exactly.

血腥玛丽. 当时她希望把英格兰都变成天主教的, 所以她就杀了很多新教徒. Protestants.

Bloody Mary eventually died, and her sister Elizabeth came to the throne.

This is Elizabeth I, 伊丽莎白一世。

Now Elizabeth I famously never married. She was called the Virgin Queen and it was also known as the Elizabethan Golden Age, so the time of Shakespeare. And also the defeat of the Spanish Armada when Spain tried to invade us and we defeated them.

So the reign of Elizabeth I, that was kind of a successful reign, and most people would...

It was successful, but because she never had any children, that meant the Tutors ended with her.

But I thought even if she didn't have any children, this would go to, for example, cousins or...

And that's what it did.