Thread by @LadyHawkins

OKAY Y'ALL.

IT'S TIME.

MY MOMENT HAS COME.

The first #SexyHistory miniseries IS UPON US.

For the month of February, I'm going to (sexily) be breaking down the Wars of the Roses. This is some fairly complex sh*t, and everyone has the same damn name, so this will definitely be an exercise in HITTING THE HIGH NOTES.

If you want to get more in depth with all this, I WILL PROVIDE A READING LIST at the end, but for now, just GO WITH IT, HOLD MY HAND, LET ME WHISK YOU O'ER HISTORY GENTLY.

Also, I'm genuinely pumped about this as any time I get to explain Dynastic Conflicts, I turn into this gif:

AND SO WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, I Present PART ONE: Too Many D*cks On The Dance Floor.

Now, in a PREVIOUS #SexyHistory, we talked about Edward III whose mom was our beloved She-Wolf of France, Isabella. Edward was a semi-babby king, eventually kicked out his mom and her boyfie, became An All The Way Big Boy King.

Edward III was married to Philippa of Hainault, and she had A) AMAZING hats, and B) Fifty-Leven-Hundred Babies.

Okay, so 13 babies, but 13, Fifty-Leven-Hundred, ALL THE SAME REALLY. And most of those babies LIVED which was CRAZYSAUCE in a time where, like, A Mild Cold could kill you dead.

But the main issue for us/England is that of those babies, 5 were Man Babies who lived to adulthood, and if we've learned ANYTHING here at #SexyHistory, it's that More Than 3 Dudes= A Tangle o'Wangs.

(Why did I use that picture, what is wrong with me, why does anyone follow me, honestly.)

AN! Y! WAY! Edward III has 5 Adult Dude Kids, and THEY ARE!

- Edward, The Black Prince. You may know him as the dude everyone was like, "OOOoooooOOOOOOoooooOOhH! about in The Greatest Film of Our Times, A Knight's Tale.

- Lionel, Duke of Clarence! (For the purposes of this thread, all King Edward's sons EXCEPT for Edward: TBP will be played by Dudes From Merlin.)

- John of Gaunt! (KEEP AN EYE ON THIS ONE, HE'S OUR TROUBLEMAKER, ALBEIT MOSTLY INADVERTENTLY.)

- Edmund of Langley, Duke of York!

- And Last and Totally Least, Thomas of Woodstock, Sir Not Appearing In This Thread.

So those are our FIVE SONS OF EDWARD III whose wangs will eventually cause The Wars of the Roses. (TWotR is often referred to as The Cousins' War, which is super f***ing accurate, it helps to think of this whole deal as a giant Family Feud.)

(Not this kind, but also maybe kind of this kind, idk?)

SO!! Edward The Black Prince is married and has a Babby Boy, YAY BABBYS. Lionel of Clarence, ALSO married, but has a GIRL BABBY, slightly LESS YAY FOR HIM.

John of Gaunt marries Blanche of Lancaster, who is one SUPER LOADED LADY, get it John of Gaunt, and they ALSO have Babbys, most importantly, a Boy Babby called Henry of Bolingbroke.

For the purposes of this thread, Henry Bolingbroke will be played by Another Hot Guy From Merlin.

Okay, so we got BABBYS BABBYS BABBYS. Edward III has had his babbys, his babbys have had babbys, PLANTAGENET LINE SUPER F***KING SECURE, buuuuut then Edward The Black Prince bites it.

He just gets sick and dies, it's nothing all that dramatic, but in any case, we'll pour one out for him while also being like, "Dude, you dying really started some f***sh*t, let me tell you what."

SO! Edward III's heir is dead, but HE had an heir, Wee Babby Richard, and again, he's ALSO got 4 adult brothers, so WE'RE STILL GOOD, PLENTY OF WANGS TO SIT 'PON THE THRONE!

I'm not even trying to find a gif for that last statement, and y'all need to applaud my restraint and also my sense, thank you.

Now, let's swivel on back to John of Gaunt, shall we? Remember, he's Edward III's third son, so his brother Lionel/Lionel's heirs are still ahead of HIM in terms of Succession and What Not, BUT! John of Gaunt, thanks to his marriage, has F*** You Money.

Actual Picture of John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster Upon Their Marriage in 1359.

And that makes him a dangerous dude because money=power and also his dad is a king, etc. etc. (This is one of the biggest problems with this Whole Sitch in general. Edward III basically created a class of super powerful royal dudes, and those f***ers CANNOT! BE TRUSTED!)

So everyone is like, "WHAT IF JOHN OF GAUNT USURPS HIS NEPHEW'S THRONE ALL SEXILY BECAUSE HE HAS MONEY AND POWER?" But John of Gaunt is all, "Chill, I'm not gonna do that, TRUST THIS HOT FACE."

So, TO CATCH UP BECAUSE AGAIN THIS SH*T IS COMPLICATED!

- Edward III Had Many Sons! Many Sons had Edwaaaaard The Third!
- Eldest son, Edward The Black Prince, DEAD.
- The Black Prince's son, Richard, ALIVE, BABBY.
- Edward III, ALSO still alive.

Buuuuuut we NOW need to swivel around to Edward III's SECOND oldest son, Lionel of Clarence. Remember, he married, and only had ONE babby, a GIRL BABBY, and also he looked like this (not really, let me live.)

Lionel bites it, also of just Sickness Because Everything Was Gross (And No One Washed Their Hands), leaving his daughter, Philippa, as his only heir. But again- A GIRL. (This is gonna be Such a Thing at some point, so put a pin in it, we'll circle back around.)

So WHERE DO WE STAND NOW?

- Edward III: King, Alive, Kickin' It.
- Edward The Black Prince: Super Dead.
-Lionel of Clarence: Also Super Dead.
-John of Gaunt: Alive, Kickin' It, Richer Than God.
-Edward of Langley: Around
-Thomas of Woodstock: No1Curr.

Then Edward III dies in 1377, POUR ONE OUT FOR EDDIE, but he lived to be 64, so, like, that's Extremely Rad for the time period, 4 for you, Eddie 3! This means that his grandson, Richard, comes to the throne as whaaaaaaat?

Richard II is 10 when he becomes king, and we all know THAT never leads anywhere all that great. And it's ESPECIALLY not great when you have a Babby King, and also a Bunch of Royal Dukes and Sh*t.

AGAIN, everyone gets worried about John of Gaunt. He's now the eldest of Edward III's surviving sons, he ALSO has a bunch of sons, and, again, MONEY MONEY MONEY.

But John of Gaunt also has some ESCANDALO going on! So he had his first wife, Blanche of Lancaster, super rich, super fertile (they had 7 kids over the course of their 9 year marriage), but then she died of the plague because 14th century.

John of Gaunt then remarries Constance of Castile, but he ALSO has a longtime mistress, Katherine Swynford. DAMN, JOHN!

Eventually, when his second wife dies, John of Gaunt marries Katherine Swynford who, by that point, had been his mistress for about 25 years and given him 4 children. I KNOW!!

We could (and still might) do an ENTIRE #SexyHistory about THAT. But the main thing we need to take away from this is that A) John of Gaunt was That Dude, B) He has a lot of power/money, and C) he has a lot of kids.

Remember, he's got a son with Blanche of Lancaster, Henry of Bolingbroke, who's his heir. He's also got these 4 kids born out of wedlock with Katherine Swynford.

And BECAUSE John is so powerful and rich and potentially scary, Richard II wants to keep him happy and do nice things for him, and one of those nice things he eventually does (once he is a Big Boy King)? Legitimize the kids John had with Katherine before he married her.

So now those 4 kids who were PREVIOUSLY Jon Snow-ing It Up, are recognized as the legitimate and legal kids of the son of a king, hahahaha, I'M SURE THAT WILL BE TOTALLY CHILL AND CAUSE NO PROBLEMS IN THE FUTURE.

LET'S DO ANOTHER SUM UP! (I told y'all this was A Lot.)

- Richard II: King.
- John of Gaunt: Drowning in Money and Babies.
- Henry of Bolingbroke, John of Gaunt's Eldest Son: Surely Not Going To Be An Issue, Whaaaa?
- John of Gaunt's Previously Bastard Babbys: LEGIT AF.

MEAN! WHILE! Remember Lionel of Clarence? Here, look at Tom Hopper's arms again.

He is, if you will recall, Extremely Dead, and has been for awhile. His daughter, Philippa, is very NOT dead, and marries into the powerful Mortimer family. She has a Mortimer Babby, Roger, Earl of March.

Richard II marries twice, but has no babbys which means, thanks to the Complexities of Family Trees, this Mortimer Babby? Roger? Richard II's heir presumptive.

(Because Richard is the son of the eldest son, and Lionel was the NEXT eldest son, and Roger is HIS daughter's babby, and OH MY GOD WHY DID EVERYONE IN THIS FAMILY HAVE TO PROCREATE SO MUCH?)

So at this point, we have a Fairly Meh King in Richard II. His heir is a little kid. His uncle is Rich AF. His uncle's SON (Henry of Bolingbroke) is powerful and a Grown Ass Man. And oh yeah, Richard II has just basically created a BRAND NEW LINE of Royal Babbys, the Beauforts.

(Beaufort was the name given to those 4 kids of John and Katherine's that Richard II legitimized. They were supposed to be knocked out of the line of succession, buuuuut....well, we'll get there *winks in Tudor*)

AND SO WE WRAP UP PART I: TOO MANY D*CKS ON THE DANCE FLOOR. OBVIOUSLY we don't have all sorts of complex Dynastic and Wang-Based Issues afoot! (Wangnastic?)

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED SO FAR?

- Just *clenches fists* SO. MANY. BABBYS.

- A Knight's Tale is both extremely great and extremely bad all at once, how did it do that?

- Edward III invented Dukes which means we have him to thank for a LOT of historical romance novels.

- Merlin was not always a great show, but it DID have a real MURDERER'S ROW of hot dudes.

- Sometimes you fight with your cousins over who gets the last slice of pie at Thanksgiving, sometimes you fight over the English throne, SAME DIFF.

- ET FIN. (FOR NOW.)