History UsefulNotes / TheHouseOfPlantagenet

During his second reign, he had some military success against France (acquiring lots of money) and Scotland (acquiring some territory), but his health failed due to a sedentary lifestyle[[note]]although there has been some academic interest in the possibility that he was poisoned by the Nevilles[[/note]] (Edward became grossly overweight in his late 30s and was thought to be England's second fattest monarch after his grandson Henry VIII - though he only gets the title of ''second'' fattest as he didn't live long enough to get even bigger; some historians believe he could have been ''fatter than his grandson'' if he had enough years behind him). Edward had had his unreliable, alcoholic brother George Duke of Clarence executed[[note]]An urban legend that rose up shortly thereafter has George being drowned in a barrel of malmsey wine, but it appears he was simply starved to death[[/note]], leaving his favourite and youngest brother, [[UsefulNotes/RichardIII Richard, Duke of Gloucester]], as protector of his son...

Dispute has raged ever since with regard to the fate of Edward and his brother Richard. The traditionalists believe that they were killed on their uncle Richard's orders. The revisionists argue that Richard was cast into the role of villain by Tudor propaganda and that his successor, Henry VII, or the Duke of Buckingham, had equal cause to remove the two boys, as they stood as much in their path to the throne as they did in Richard's. The Duke of Buckingham also stood in the line of succession -- he was descended from Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, the youngest son of Edward III.

!!'''Edward IV of England'''

* Creator/WilliamShakespeare's reputation was made, to a certain extent, by his writing of ten (10) "history plays", most of them detailing the final years of the Plantagenets. Eight (8) plays have been organized into two separate tetralogies (the Major or Second Tetralogy written from 1594-1599, and the Minor or First Tetralogy written from 1591-1592). While the eight plays have been collectively dubbed ''The Henriad'' [[note]]elevating these stories to the same level of Literature/TheIliad and Literature/TheAeneid[[/note]] some confine this label only to the Major Tetralogy. ''Theatre/KingJohn'', while a Plantagenet history play akin to the eight (and was actually written between ''Theatre/RichardII'' and ''Theatre/HenryIVPart1'', does not have thematic continuity with the eight plays. The last, ''Theatre/HenryVIII'', is discussed under UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfTudor.

* Creator/WilliamShakespeare's reputation was made, to a certain extent, by his writing of ten (10) "history plays", most of them detailing the final years of the Plantagenets. Eight (8) plays have been organized into two separate tetralogies (the Major or Second Tetralogy written from 1594-1599, and the Minor or First Tetralogy written from 1591-1592). While the eight plays have been collectively dubbed ''The Henriad'' [[note]]elevating these stories to the same level of Literature/TheIliad and Literature/TheAeneid[[/note]] some confine this label only to the Major Tetralogy. ''Theatre/KingJohn'', while a Plantagenet history play akin to the eight (and was actually written between ''Theatre/RichardII'' and ''Theatre/HenryIVPartI'', does not have thematic continuity with the eight plays. The last, ''Theatre/HenryVIII'', is discussed under UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfTudor.

* Creator/WilliamShakespeare's reputation was made, to a certain extent, by his writing of ten (10) "history plays", most of them detailing the final years of the Plantagenets. The earliest of them would be ''Theatre/KingJohn''--but it did not become as well known as the succeeding eight (8) plays. The aforementioned eight plays have been organized into two separate tetralogies (the Major or Second Tetralogy written from 1594-1599, and the Minor or First Tetralogy written from 1591-1592). While the eight plays have been collectively dubbed ''The Henriad'' [[note]]elevating these stories to the same level of Literature/TheIliad and Literature/TheAeneid[[/note]] some confine this label only to the Major Tetralogy. The last, ''Theatre/HenryVIII'', is discussed under UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfTudor.

* ''Theatre/KingJohn'' by Creator/WilliamShakespeare.

* The first season of ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'' depicts the accidental murder of Richard III by the fictitious [[UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist Edmund Plantagenet]] AKA The Black Adder, leading to the reign of the similarly-fictitious Richard IV. Edmund also nurses a mysterious nobleman back to health for money, who later turns out to be the wounded Henry VII. In another episode, Richard IV himself explains Henry II's "turbulent priest" gaffe to his wife, [[PoorCommunicationKills which accidentally]] [[HistoryRepeats sends a pair of knights off to kill the Archbishop of Canterbury]] ([[NewJobEpisode Edmund]]). By the finale, all the main characters are dead, and the in-universe version of Henry VII (who apparently took power afterwards) makes Richard IV's reign SecretHistory and portrays Richard III as a villain going forward.

* In the ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' book ''Megamorphs #3'', the first thing Visser Four does when he gets control of the Time Matrix is attempt to assassinate Henry V at Agincourt. (Tobias catching the arrow he fires at Henry alerts him to the fact that the 'Andalite bandits' are hunting him.) The Animorphs are confused as to ''why'' he would do this, until Visser Four's host, John Berryman, explains: he's an actor, and would quote Shakespeare's ''Henry V'' at Four as an act of rebellion, and since it would be too hard to pinpoint a time and place to kill Shakespeare, Four elected to kill Henry V instead so Shakespeare wouldn't write ''Henry V'' and John would shut up.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* The first season of ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'' depicts the accidental murder of Richard III by the fictitious [[UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist Edmund Plantagenet]] AKA The Black Adder, leading to the reign of the similarly-fictitious Richard IV. Edmund also nurses a mysterious nobleman back to health for money, who later turns out to be the wounded Henry VII. In another episode, Richard IV himself explains Henry II's "turbulent priest" gaffe to his wife, [[PoorCommunicationKills which accidentally]] [[HistoryRepeats sends a pair of knights off to kill the Archbishop of Canterbury]] ([[NewJobEpisode Edmund]]). By the finale, all the main characters are dead, and the in-universe version of Henry VII [[InternalRetcon retcons Richard IV's reign into nonexistence]] and makes Richard III a villain.

* All the Plantagenets through Edward III are playable in ''VideoGame/CrusaderKingsII''. You have to pick a custom start date for them, though: most of the bookmarks in that time period deal with events in the Middle East, and you can't pick a custom date after 1337 (the game ends in 1453). The rest of them are playable in ''VideoGame/EuropaUniversalis IV''.

John's one success from a dynastic point of view, especially in contrast with his much more popular brother Richard, was the very large number of legitimate male-line descendants he produced. The streak of five father-to-son successions started by him and ended by his great-great-grandson Edward III is the longest in English history, and every subsequent Plantagenet monarch was a direct male-line descendant of his. Given his fecundity it should come as no surprise that every US President but one is descended from him -- no, not UsefulNotes/BarackObama, but UsefulNotes/MartinVanBuren, who was the descendant of Dutch settlers in the New Netherlands and had no British ancestry.

* ''Series/TheHollowCrown'', two seasons of a mini-series adapts Creator/WilliamShakespeare's ''Henriad'' tetralogies (the Major Tetralogy in 2012 for the Cultural Olympics, and in 2016 for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death).

* Creator/WilliamShakespeare's reputation was made, to a certain extent, by his writing of ten (10) "history plays", most of them detailing the final years of the Plantagenets. The earliest of them would be ''Theatre/KingJohn''--but it did not become as well known as the succeeding eight (8) plays. The aforementioned eight plays have been classified based on the generation they portray (minor and major tetralogies). Some choose to give them the all-encompassing label of ''Henriad''[[note]]elevating these stories to the same level of Literature/TheIliad and Literature/TheAeneid[[/note]]. The last, ''Theatre/HenryVIII'', is discussed under UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfTudor.

Highly unpopular, he was murdered, supposedly by having a red-hot poker applied as an enema, though most historians think it was the less dramatic method of [[VorpalPillow smothering with a pillow]]. Point being that, with English monarchs having assumed divine right, regicide was both high treason and a crime against God; to pull it off you needed a ''damn'' good reason, an impregnable position, or to make it look like natural causes. Now, most of the poisons of the day could leave certain external signs that even the crude physicians of the day might recognise. As did smothering. But with dissection and autopsy forbidden by religious decree, Edward's alleged cauterised bowel would have left no external signs other than a sudden attack of terminal peritonitis. Well, that's what his wife Isabelle (the "She-Wolf of France") and her lover[[note]]Allegedly; the history is ambiguous on whether Roger Mortimer and her were really ''that'' close sexually.[[/note]] hoped, as they planned to [[EvilMatriarch rule though her fourteen-year-old son]]...

Controlled large parts of Scotland around the end of the 13th Century, becoming known as "The Hammer of the Scots". [[HistoricalVillainUpgrade Was not as evil as you see in ]] ''Film/{{Braveheart}}'' ([[WordOfDante Dante]] thought well of him), but when re-crowned on the Scottish stone of Scone (pronounced ''skoon''), is reported to have said "A man does a good thing when he rids himself of shit." The stone was kept in Westminster Abbey, was stolen and broken by four University of Glasgow students in 1950, and only returned to Scotland in 1996. Expelled all Jews from England; Jews were not allowed to return for over 350 years until UsefulNotes/OliverCromwell let them back in because of a prophecy. (Yes, that's the actual reason.)

** Richard IV would have been the royal title of Richard of Shrewsbury, the younger son of Edward IV and the younger brother of Edward V, had he and his brother not mysteriously vanished when they were children.

[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU5KcUHXuUI He once survived an assassination attempt when assassins came to his chambers to kill him...]] because he was having sex with the Queen in ''her'' chambers and thus wasn't in ''his'' at the time.

Henry first language was English as it existed at the time rather than the Norman-French the nobility had largely been speaking since the Norman invasion of 1066. He was the first King of England to claim the crown in English rather than Norman French or Latin since before William the Conqueror took control of the country.

Thereafter, according to accounts, he [[{{Angst}} angsted]] about stealing the crown a fair bit, was rather poorly, and it was up to his son to put down a rebellion intended to put a descendant of an elder son of Edward III on the throne. This was a descendant of Edward [=III=]'s ''second'' son, Lionel of Clarence, whose only child married her cousin, the Duke of York, and combined their claims. The crown instead went to Henry IV's son.

Thereafter, according to accounts, he [[{{Angst}} angsted]] about stealing the crown a fair bit, was rather poorly, and it was up to his son to put down a rebellion intended to put a descendant of an elder son of Edward III on the throne. This was a descendant of Edward [=III=]'s ''second'' son, Lionel of Clarence, whose only child married her cousin, the Duke of York, and combined their claims. The crown instead went to Henry IV's son...

* Edward I turns out to be a major part of the backstory in ''VideoGame/HiddenExpedition: A King's Line'', which is a creative take on the legend of Myth/KingArthur. Edward's historical role as an antagonist of the Welsh factors into the Arthurian mythology.

* ''Film/KingdomOfHeaven'' ends on the eve of the Third Crusade, with Richard I making an appearence.

* ''Film/KingdomOfHeaven'' set during the 3rd Crusade. Richard I makes an appearance.

->'''Nicknames''': ''Henry Curtmantle'' (French: ''Court-manteau''); ''Henry [=FitzEmpress=]'';[[note]](inferring that Henry was the illegitimate son of Empress Matilda; other sources/historians however suggest Henry himself later took it as an AppropriatedAppellation in honor of her lifelong efforts to have him crowned)[[/note]] ''Henry Plantagenet''[[note]]This is considered to be a more modern appellation, just like with his father.[[/note]]

It has been said that his father, Geoffrey V of Anjou, [[TropeNamer gave the Plantagenets their name]] from the broom-plant he wore on his chest, the Latin name of which was ''Planta Genista''. This story, however, cannot be dated back beyond the 15th century. (Neither can members of his family using "Plantagenet" as a last name; the first was Richard, Duke of York, pretender to the throne and father of Edward IV and Richard III).

Didn't take to being controlled very well. As soon as he was of age he seized power in his own right and executed his father's murderers. He exiled his mother, who lived out the rest of her days in a castle in Norfolk; he apparently retained a soft spot for her, however, naming his eldest daughter after her. Much more like his grandfather in both physical prowess and military talent. Oversaw the start of UsefulNotes/TheHundredYearsWar, and had several noticeable victories against France and Scotland, such as the Battle of Crécy in 1346, before the Black Death put everything on hold. He never quite regained the initiative after that, and eventually signed a truce in 1367, leaving England better off than when they started. Spent a lot of his time after that trying to [[StatusQuoIsGod prevent the mass social changes unleashed by the plague]], but [[AvertedTrope ultimately failed]]. It was in 1373 that the [[BindingAncientTreaty Anglo-Portuguese Alliance]] was first formalized under the [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Portuguese_Treaty_of_1373 Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1373]]. Edward is regarded today as a very good king, ranking near his ancestor Henry II as the most successful Plantagenet monarch. His early reign though was much stronger than his late reign.

Perhaps England's last true warrior king, and an underrated one at that; Edward IV has the rare distinction of being undefeated in battle. It is telling that once his father, previous champion and claimant to the English throne, had been killed in combat in 1460, he was able to win and take the throne outright within a year. In the two episodes that endangered his throne (Edgcote Moor 1469 and the Lancastrian restoration of 1470), he was not in direct field command and was forced to run mostly by political inconvenience or treason on his side. All the same, he ably won back his throne come Tewkesbury 1471--not even a year since his flight. After his death, in 1483, the House of York lost the throne within two years.

* ''Film/{{Braveheart}}'' is set during Edward I's reign.

The UsefulNotes/WarsOfTheRoses kicked off towards the end of this, so monarchs changed back and forth a bit.

John's one success from a dynastic point of view, especially in contrast with his much more popular brother Richard, was the very large number of legitimate male-line descendants he produced. The streak of five father-to-son successions started by him and ended by his great-great-grandson Edward III is the longest in English history. Given his fecundity it should come as no surprise that every US President but one is descended from him -- no, not UsefulNotes/BarackObama, but UsefulNotes/MartinVanBuren, who was the descendant of Dutch settlers in the New Netherlands and had no British ancestry.

His skeleton was found in 2012-2013 under a car park in Leicester. They were verified as his bones by matching mitochrondrial DNA from multiple enatic descendants of his sister, Anne of York. However, his Y-chromosomal DNA was tested against the only surviving agnatic line of his male-line ancestor Edward III - the illegitimate Dukes of Beaufort - and was found not to be a match, indicating at least one episode of false paternity somewhere along the line.[[note]]It is unclear whether the line from Edward III to Richard III -- four generations -- or the line between Edward III and the 5th Duke of Beaufort -- ''fifteen'' generations -- or of course ''both'' contains a false paternity event. Many of the key figures involved had long been rumoured to be secretly illegimate, including John of Gaunt, son of Edward III and forebear of the Beaufort line, and Richard of Conisburgh, younger son of Edmund of Langley (son of Edward III) and grandfather of Richard III. This of course retrospectively throws an added wrench into that whole War of the Roses thing, though technically Richard III, his older brother and their father all derived their claim to the English throne through a ''female'' line and even if Richard of Conisburgh had not been a male-line descendant of Edward III, that claim would not be affected.[[/note]] Contrary to popular belief, he wasn't a hunchback but suffered from a severe form of scoliosis which may have made one of his shoulders higher than the other. A [[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-21328380 facial reconstruction]] using his skull was made possible.