Hello everyone and welcome to the history of England, episode 66, The Road to Revolition.

Last week we gave Henry a bit of thoroughly well-deserved grief and explained some of the

reasons why his reign was so unpopular. We talked about all those injustices and financial

exactions and all that sort of thing, but I'm rather conscious that none of it was

particularly new. The gross amount of money exacted for example was nowhere near as much

as John or Richard's time, and Henry was nowhere near as exacting or as predatory in his

use of debt, for example, as a form of control. He basically did indeed observe the Magna Carta.

Another point is that if Henry's shortcomings had been part of a glorious and successful

regime that beat up the French and extended the prestige of the monarchy, he might just

have got away with the foreign stuff. But it wasn't, and he didn't.

We should start with Pwattu of course, just simply to remind you that by the time he reached

1242, Henry has already lost a couple of wars in Pwattu and is looking like a loser. It

also brings us back to the relationship between Demonford and Henry. The last time he met

them together they were in a bad way. They had an argument at Sand with language that showed

Demonford's lack of respect for Henry and the latter's weakness.

But in 1243, Henry healed the wounds. He lavishly restored Demonford to his favour. He gave

Eleanor a £500 marriage portion, he pardoned £1000 of the couple's debts, and he gave

them kennel with castle.

Demonford was now clearly often at court, witnessing charters. So while the body of grievances

were slowly building up in the body politic, Demonford was actually part of the King's

Party rather than the Reform Party, political reform, what political reform?

Nonetheless between 1245 and 48, he becomes a little less visible at court because he's

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