Hello and welcome to the History of England, Episode 29 England in the Rain of King Henry.

Before we go to any history, I have to tell you about the most exciting thing of all time.

I was wildly excited to get an email telling me that I have been nominated for the massively

prestigious European podcast award. You can only guess at the excitement when I told

the rest of my family the dog wagged his tail and wanted if the European podcast was something

he could eat. One of my daughters informed me that in certain circles I could be considered

to be a loser. The other daughter gave me a look that led me to understand that she could

be part of one of those circles. And I have to admit that I have never heard of the massively

prestigious European podcast awards, and I also understand from the rules that it would have

been perfectly possible for me to nominate myself. But look, I didn't. And one of you kind people

out there did. So whoever you are, thank you, I am genuinely excited. It means that I can now call

myself the award-nominated History England podcast. How fantastic would it be if we actually

won as well as been nominated. I will remember Mike Duncan's excitement on the history of Rome

winning the best education podcast of the year, and while I can't pretend to be in the same

league as that, it would also be great to win an award. So you all have a job to do, and here's

what you have to do, if you'd like to vote. You have to either go to my website at thehistrivingland.typepad.com

and there's a post there with a link, or you can go direct to www.European-podcast-award.eu.

Now I need to fess up and say that I've already been to the website and voted, and yes,

I voted for myself, which I understand is shameful.

Unfortunately, I also managed to do it too quickly, so I've given myself the worst possible score.

I just won star, so look, I really need help.

Okay, so with that excitement out of the way, let's return to the history, which is after all

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