David Mitchell on England's monarchy

So I started typing about the Vikings. The book’s tone basically came from Simon Winder’s Germania: A Personal History of Germans Ancient and Modern [2010]. He’s extremely learned but also very funny, and I thought I’d try writing something similar – a combination of historical insights, personal anecdotes, jokes and irreverence. When I’d written 30,000 words and hadn’t even got to the Norman Conquest, I thought: right, this is a new form of creativity for me – let’s finish it off and turn it into a book.

You write that the most interesting parts of history “more often than not have something to do with a person wearing a sparkly metal hat”. Is that why you chose to focus on kings and queens?

As a predictable person, my eyes were drawn, like a magpie’s, to the sparkly hat. And talking about the people in charge – who are often very interesting – is the old-fashioned, traditional way of telling history. Obviously that’s not all that was happening but if, for instance, you’re writing about the medieval era, it at least means you’re covering the core of the political story. My book ends in 1603, so following the sparkly hat takes us through most of the important political, if not social, history of England.

You explore the Dark Ages in some depth. Are you particularly drawn to that era?

I’ve always found it interesting, particularly the fact that Roman civilisation was what we would call in superficial, capitalistic terms ‘quite advanced’, with a lot of technological innovations. And then that empire collapsed, which had a particular- ly significant impact on England. The fact that it left such a void – again, in modern terms, there was such a collapse in infrastructure – is fascinating. It’s useful to think about a time when everything suddenly got terrifyingly worse, because it’s important to remember that it can happen.

One of the forms of rhetoric I find most irritating is people saying: “Oh, come on, it’s 2023 – you can’t behave like that,” as if the fact that we’re at a later point in history means people must be behaving better. That’s not how things go. Sometimes we go through a period in which people’s behaviour improves, and sometimes one in which it gets worse. Sometimes life gets easier, and sometimes it gets harder. Broadly speaking, there have been technological advances – but, still, that’s only broadly speaking. So many of the things the Romans could do were then forgotten for centuries. There was central heating in the fourth century, and then it didn’t really come back until the 19th, which is a long, chilly gap. You’d better hope that when your boiler next breaks it’s not 1,500 years before someone can mend it.

When we reach 1066, you write that it’s interesting that “England’s most pukka lineage is a descent from thieving thugs”. Could you talk a bit about this interpretation of that moment?

Well, I mean, that’s what happened! What I say in the book is that the whole notion of kingship derives from, essentially, the same technique used by organised criminals. When the Anglo-Saxons arrived and started settling the land, they coalesced into larger and larger groups. This process of coalescing was driven by violence and protection. The word ‘lord’ in English derives from the Old English for ‘bread-giver’, and the important people in Anglo-Saxon England provided food, shelter and, essentially, a kind of cocoon in which violence from outside was repelled by violence from your own lord. Those groups eventually became kingdoms. Then, when the Anglo-Saxons Chris- tianised, they adopted the notion of coronation and co-opted the idea of a god-given right to rule. That made kingship feel as if it were ancient and natural – but it all just came from the local hardman assuming control over a larger and larger area until it became a kingdom.

When William the Conqueror invaded, he was simply part of this. He claimed that he was Edward the Confessor’s declared – and, therefore, rightful – heir. Harold claimed the same thing. There seems to be slightly more evidence in William’s favour, but we can’t really know. Famously, history is written by the victors – or by some nerdy monks who the victors have told to write it because they’re usually too busy feasting. Well, William had won, which meant he was the rightful king – and that’s broadly theft, in the same way that if you go into someone’s house, take the telly and say: “Because I’ve got the telly, I’m the rightful owner,” you’re a thief. So yes, this all started with thieving thuggery.

The notion of storytelling as the basis of power reached a peak in the reign of John, who you write almost brought down the whole monarchy because he believed so much in kingship.

Kingship started with the techniques of the mafia, but kings soon came to believe their own hype. Some of the most disastrous mon- archs were those who most completely believed in their right to rule, because they essentially felt they could do no wrong. The good kings were the ones who you can imagine, in the back of their minds, must have thought: “I’m quite lucky. I’m on to a good thing here, being in charge of everything. I’d better try to stabilise the situation and make people feel that they’re getting something from this arrangement.”

Henry I, for instance, nicked the throne but then ushered in an era of tremendous stability. That was born out of being vicious to those who opposed him but decent to those who were decent to him. And he was even-handed once things were on an even keel. I can’t believe that he wasn’t thinking: “Anyone could be king, so I’d better tread carefully.” Whereas John absolutely exuded a sense of entitlement, which meant that people had to find a way round the institution of kingship – and that’s where Magna Carta came from.

So, in a way, it was one of our most ineffective kings who ushered in constitutional change. Perhaps we should be grateful to John and his son Henry III who, because of their incompetence, triggered both Magna Carta and parliament. While there was a good king on the throne, people didn’t tend to feel the need to rein him in with consti- tutional innovation.

Before we explore your take on some of the later monarchs, we should acknowledge the fact that the majority were men. What do you think that says about the period you’re writing about?

I think we know what it says! It says that this was an incredibly sexist era in which the notion of women making decisions and being in charge of things on any level, right down to the domestic, was entirely rejected by a patriarchal society. So that’s why all the rulers were men, because everyone thought: “Oh, we couldn’t have a woman in charge.”

I say ‘everyone’, because probably some of the women also thought that it had to be a man in charge, just because it had always been that way. So it was both straightforward sexism and sexism projected onto other people. There’s no doubt, for instance, that Matilda was a far more capable operator than Stephen. Starting from a position of huge disadvantage, she nearly took over the kingdom, and certainly secured it for her son. But people will just have thought: “You see – if a woman tries to be in charge, this is what happens.” And so hundreds of years later, when Henry VIII didn’t have a son, he panicked because he thought there’d be chaos if he couldn’t leave a male heir. And, of course, what eventually happened is that he had one feeble male heir, who didn’t survive very long, and two princesses who became queens. The second of those – Elizabeth I – was one of the most effective rulers in the whole period covered by my book.

You write that Richard the Lionheart is a figure with whom we’ve always had a strange and spiky relationship but who, in terms of symbolism, has remained very important. Why is that?

It’s the symbolism that’s the problem. Richard the Lionheart was, essentially, French. He was from a big, posh French family, the Plantagenets, and his priorities were to control areas of France, give the king of France a rough ride, and go on crusade. One of his many, many assets was that he happened to be king of England – and, as far as he was concerned, that asset was just there to be milked for cash to pay for a crusade. That’s who he was, and he never pretended to be anything else. He was hardly in England, so uninterested by it was he.

Unfortunately for his reputation, though, his badge – the three lions – has been adopted as a symbol in England, as has his byname, Lionheart. The fact we think both seem sort of English-ish, because of the lion’s association with England, is bonkers when you think about it, because there are no lions in England apart from in the zoo.

Interestingly, some people think that the three lions on his badge represented not solely England, but that one represented England, one Normandy and one Aquitaine. So it may be that two-thirds of those lions on the England football shirt represent areas of France.

Of Edward I, meanwhile, you write: “If he’d been a batsman in cricket, he would have played spin badly.” Could you talk through that analogy? I have to confess it’s not one I’ve heard before...

I’m glad you haven’t! I’d be shocked if you said: “Oh yeah, the old ‘Edward I can’t play spin line’, that’s a bit of a cliché.” Obviously, Edward was pretty effective. He took over Wales, which you wouldn’t necessarily be in favour of if you were Welsh, but it was definitely his aim so, you know, mission accomplished. He also wanted to take over Scotland and, when its royal line died out, tried his best – but he totally failed, massively souring Anglo-Scottish relations, probably to this day.

So it struck me that, for all his effectiveness, the thing he struggled with was nuance: the idea, for instance, that Scottish and English kings rubbed along together, and that there was an acceptance of England’s greater economic force that meant the Scottish kings would be respectful but still in charge in Scotland. Edward couldn’t handle that: it was just too subtle for him. For me, that’s a bit like the difference between fast bowling and spin bowling. With spin bowling, you have to accept it’s all a bit weird, that you’ve got to be a bit flexible, and that you’ll have to change tack at the last minute. But with fast bowling, if you’ve got a quick eye, you can look at it and hit it. I mean, I can do neither of those things, but I’ve observed them done.

The Tudors obviously wanted to depict Richard III as a villain, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t one, and doesn’t mean they had nothing to go on

I think that, for Edward, things were easy when he was marching into Wales. He knew what was going on. But the idea of nuanced diplomatic relations, essentially necessitated by the feudal system of power, was a bit much for him. Relations between England and Scotland had been pretty good, but Edward absolutely destroyed them. He created a Scotland with very independent feelings, which saw England as an enemy rather than a neighbour, and which imme- diately forged a long-term alliance with France. In terms of the aims of the English monarchy, it couldn’t have been a bigger disaster.

One king who continues to spark strong feelings is Richard III. How did you approach your take on his reign?

I think the whole idea that Richard has been slandered by the Tudors – and then, as a result, by historians – has been a bit overplayed. The Tudors obviously wanted to depict him as a villain, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t one, and it doesn’t mean they had nothing to go on. The fact that they wanted him to seem nasty doesn’t suddenly mean he was nice. No kings were, at that time: they were all ruthless. It seems to me that it’s very unlikely the Princes in the Tower were killed by order of anyone other than Richard – because where were they if he hadn’t done away with them at the beginning of his reign? He definitely usurped the throne, so it doesn’t seem likely that he would have allowed them to continue to potter about the palace as more rightful claimants. Henry VII was a cold, ruthless figure, and probably would have killed the princes himself, but the evidence suggests that the equally nasty man who preceded him had already done it.

Does this story have lessons for how we view today’s monarchy?

The short answer is: no. The monarchy now is a very different institution. I think it’s quite a sensible system to structure a country around a figurehead rather than give both the power and the adulation to the same figure: in other words, to separate a figurehead, to whom respect to the nation might be directed, from the day-to-day running of a democratically elected government. I don’t think we’d be getting better service out of our prime ministers if they were also crowned. It’s weird that it came out of an institution of real power, but it seems to be a relatively effective fudge – and I certainly wouldn’t back our current crop of politicians to forge a better constitution.

The Americans tie themselves into terrible knots, for instance, when they elect an obviously reprehensible human being who has nevertheless assumed the highest office in the land and has therefore become a personification of the United States.
I don’t think we get in the same knots about the failings of Liz Truss, for instance. We know she was briefly prime minister, but the fact that she was unsuccessful doesn’t reflect on the whole notion of the United Kingdom in the same way.

The last monarch you cover is Elizabeth I. Why did you decide to end at that point?

A book on the kings and queens of England made sense to me, but I didn’t want it to be totally superficial – and, to have taken the story beyond 1603, it would either need to be much longer or much more superficial. Also, you can’t tell the story via kings alone after 1603 as effectively as you can up to that point.

Interestingly, the final person you focus on isn’t a king or queen – it’s Shakespeare. Why did you end the book on that note? Well, I’m obsessed with him. I’ve played Shakespeare in a sitcom [BBC comedy series Upstart Crow], and even before that I thought that he was the greatest writer ever. That’s not a particularly interesting insight – most people think he was the greatest writer ever – but I do think that his sudden existence puts these kings and queens into context.

Here’s one of the most special people who ever lived, and he just randomly emerged from provincial England in the late 16th century. It reminds me how wonderful humanity is, frankly: that we can produce people who have such insight, and who give things to the world that make it a better place. Everyone who’s enjoyed his plays and poetry ever since has had their lives enriched by his existence.

You can’t really say that about any of the kings and queens. None of them have contributed in a positive, meaningful way to the lives of strangers in the way that Shakespeare has – or, frankly, in the way that Elton John has. There are artists, singers and writers that, to me, are far more important than rulers – and certainly more important than rulers who got their power just by an accident of birth.

So, for me, the emergence of Shakespeare in the 16th century is a reminder that you can build a society in which the things that really matter come to the fore. The society we’re in is an example of that, as imperfect as it is. Yet across these hundreds of years, all everyone has focused on is the doings of people whose power is entirely illegiti- mate. For me, Shakespeare is an uplifting way to end this story because he’s a sign of the Renaissance, which ushered in something else, something meaningful: greater literacy, and an extraordinary artistic flourishing.

Was Henry V the underdog at Agincourt? Listen to the extended interview with David Mitchell on our podcast

This article was first published in the December 2023 issue of BBC History Magazine