I'm John Baxter with Professor Jonathan Healy. The book is The Blood in Winter. There are scenes here that are hard to believe. You all remember the scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where they arrive at a French court and demand to be let in because they're on a mission from God or something

like that.

And the Lord of the Castle shouts down at them and throws things on them and says you can't

come in.

Well, that actually played out as Charles Mark North, March North.

He wanted a port city with weapons.

That would be Hull, is that correct, Jonathan?

Do I remember that, right?

That's right, yeah, yeah.

And they shouted, did they really, as you position it, was the report back to Parliament

that they were shouting at each other and the Hull wouldn't open its gates?

Yeah, I mean, the governor is standing on the gates, shouting down to the king,

and the king is shouting back, or having his people shout back.

And it's quite farcical in many ways.

It's also with immense constitutional significance, because what Parliament are doing

or what the governor of Hull is doing is he's saying that

the King shouldn't be allowed access to this stuff because Parliament says that he shouldn't.

So then there becomes a question as to at what point, you know, does the King have a right to go

into all of his castles and, you know, all the sort of square yards of England's land.

So it's a very, very significant moment.

It's also very humiliating for Charles because, you know, he is being rebuffed in this way.

And it's of huge military significance because, as you say, Hull is full of weapons.

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