Tuesday, November 18, 2025

It is the 18th of November 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

There was a time on this show- maybe around the 3rd season- where a friend noted that I had been leaning into, perhaps overwhelmingly, executions. The history of the church- especially in Christendom- is often a story of whose got the levers of state power and against whom they are using it.

Under the model of Christendom, or the fusion of church and state, heresy was seen not just as a bad idea or collection of bad ideas that might hurt the church- they were seen as undermining civil society, and thus death was the preferred sentence.

And so, the death (albeit rather gruesome) of Roger Bolingbroke on this, the 18th of November in 1441, could be “just another” execution in the harsh Middle Ages. But what if I told you that, yes, the charge was treasonable necromancy, and that it involved the King, Henry VI, and not only played into the fevered pitch on the Island amidst the 100 Years War with France and the internal Wars of the Roses. All of this made it such a cause for gossip that over a century later, the story of Roger Bolingbroke was fictionalized to some extent and added to the play Henry VI Part 2 by Shakespeare.

We don’t know much about Bolingbroke except that he was educated at Oxford, that he was ordained, and that he had a reputation for his knowledge of astrology, which, to be fair, in the 15th century was a grab bag of things we might today label under astronomy or astrology. There was a predictive element to it, but it was not necessarily a “dark art”. You might think of it like the similar jumbling of the arts of chemistry, pharmacy, and alchemy.

So, how does Bolingbroke get involved in the machinations involving the crown that get him a cameo in Shakespeare and his untimely end?

It involved his attachment to Humphrey of Lancaster- the Duke of Gloucester, who was the son of Henry IV, the brother to the deceased Henry V, and the uncle to Henry VI, the child king under whom Humphrey served as Lord Protector. Bolingbroke served the Duke as a kind of scholar-in-residence. Humphrey divorced his first wife and married her lady-in-waiting, Eleanor Cobham. Eleanor had a thing for the magic arts and divining. She confessed to having visited the infamous Margery Jourdemayne, the so-called Witch of Eye, who produced, among other things, a love potion for Eleanor such that she could woo Humphrey. If Henry VI didn’t produce an heir, Humphrey would be king, and Eleanor would be queen.  

Now, with an astrologer on staff, she became anxious to know if indeed she would be queen. And so Bolingbroke, with two other clerics, put together a horoscope for Eleanor, and what do you know- they predicted the death of Henry VI and the ascension of Humphrey and Eleanor. This is the part that makes it into Shakespeare. Henry VI, discovering that his apparent death had been foretold, had his astronomers make a similar horoscope that said he would not die (it’s almost like these astrologers often told the people what they wanted to hear). Eleanor flees, blames Bolingbroke and his associates, and they are whisked off to the Tower of London.

Thus, we have a story fit for the bard himself- ex-wives and dueling astrologers mixed up in the politics of the crown. Bolingbroke would be tortured until he confessed to using the dark arts in a way that was incompatible with Christianity. But this confession led to more accusations that his use of the dark arts served as “treasonous necromancy” with shades of the Witch of Endor (see 1 Samuel 28). Bolingbroke claimed that there was no necromancy or conjuring of the dead, nor was there any intent to use the connection with the dead to hasten the death of the young king.

And so, it was on this, the 18th of November in 1441, that Roger Bolingbroke was dragged five miles behind a horse while attached to a kind of sled to the infamous gallows at Tyburn. There, the charges of “laboring to consume the king's person by the power of necromantic arts’ were read, and although Bolingbroke denied this, he said he just went “too far” in trying to see the future. He would be beheaded, quartered, and his body sent to Oxford, Cambridge, York, and Hereford to be displayed as a warning to anyone who might attempt to use the dark arts for their own benefit and against the crown. Henry VI would die, mysteriously, after having been arrested, and this would pave the way for the rise of Richard III- but that’s another story, also taken up by Shakespeare. Today, we’re reminded of the dangers of the dark arts, necromancy, and treason with the death of the cleric and astrologer Roger Bolingbroke.

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and a brief exhortation by Paul in 1 Corinthians regarding foods and the example of Christ:

31 So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. 32 Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God— 33 even as I try to please everyone in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.

1 Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 18th of November 2025, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who knows the Witch of Eye is spelled e-y-e. She wasn’t known for just saying yes to everything… he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who can let you know that “Eye” was just the name of an estate in Westminster… I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.