London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
Top of the morning to you, London Walkers.
Wherever you are.
It’s Wednesday, February 18th, 2026.
And here we go.
Rolling out your daily London fix.
The Duke in the Barrel
Picture the scene.
The Tower of London.
Cold February air.
Year of our Lord 1478.
And somewhere inside that grim stone labyrinth, a royal duke is about to meet one of the strangest ends in English history.
Not the axe.
Not the rope.
Not the headsman’s block.
No.
If the earliest reports are to be believed, George, Duke of Clarence was quietly – and very thoroughly – drowned in a butt of sweet Greek wine.
Malmsey.
You could not make it up.
And yet on February 18th, 1478 Clarence – brother to a king, brother to a future king – was executed in the Tower.
Age twenty-eight.
Royal blood.
Ambition turned septic.
And honestly – mein Gott – what a family.
Born into the blast furnace
George of York entered the world in Dublin in 1449, fifth son of Richard, Duke of York and Cecily Neville.
The Wars of the Roses were already bubbling nicely.
His elder brothers?
Edward – future Edward IV.
Richard – future Richard III.
Yes. That Richard.
When Edward seized the throne in 1461, young George instantly became heir presumptive. Eleven years old and already one of the most important men in England.
Give that to a cautious soul and perhaps you get loyal service.
Give it to Clarence…
Well.
You get trouble wearing velvet.
The ambition problem
By his late teens Clarence was behaving like a man who fully expected the crown might one day drop into his lap.
He built a household so enormous it made even Edward IV blink.
Hundreds of staff.
Lavish spending.
Grand works at Tutbury Castle.
Problem was, the income lagged behind the ego.
And Clarence had the fatal Plantagenet cocktail: royal blood plus restless ambition plus very poor political judgement.
Warwick and the fatal marriage
Enter the great kingmaker himself, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick.
Clarence wanted Warwick’s daughter Isabel.
Edward IV said no.
Clarence said… watch me.
They married in secret in 1469, and from that moment Clarence began skating on very thin dynastic ice. He joined Warwick in rebellion and, in one of the great family own-goals of English history, helped depose his own brother.
Yes.
Helped depose him.
Christmas dinner at the House of York must have required armour.
The great Yorkist U-turn
But Clarence was nothing if not flexible.
When Warwick’s grand Lancastrian alliance started wobbling, Clarence quietly switched sides again. In 1471 he marched back into Edward IV’s camp with four thousand men and helped defeat Warwick at Barnet.
Warwick ended face-down in the mud.
Edward was restored.
And Clarence – astonishingly – was forgiven.
For a time.
The Warwick inheritance war
What followed was a slow, poisonous family feud between Clarence and his younger brother Richard of Gloucester over the Neville inheritance.
At one point Clarence allegedly hid his sister-in-law Anne Neville, disguising her as a kitchen maid to stop Gloucester marrying her.
You can practically hear the royal crockery detonating.
Edward IV’s patience was wearing dangerously thin.
The moment he went too far
Then came the act that pretty much drowned Clarence’s reputation.
In 1477 he abducted a woman named – wait for it – Ankarette Twynho.
Dragged her to Warwick, accused her – falsely – of poisoning his wife.
And had her tried, convicted, and executed in a single day.
One day.
Even by fifteenth-century standards, that smelled very bad indeed.
Edward IV was now not merely irritated. He was watching.
Closely.
The fatal miscalculation
Clarence’s final blunder was classic Clarence.
One of his retainers was executed for treason. Clarence, unwisely and very publicly, had the man’s protestation of innocence read out to the royal council.
Edward erupted.
Soon Clarence was summoned to Westminster, denounced before London’s civic grandees, and lodged in the Tower.
From there, the trap closed.
And so we come to Shakespeare’s Clarence
And yes, this is so good – this is where Shakespeare gives us one of the great eerie moments in English drama.
In the bard’s great history play, Richard III, Clarence, imprisoned in the Tower, dreams of drowning.
Let’s hear it from Clarence himself. Here he is, recounting the rough ride he had the night before. Execution eve, as it happens.
O, I have pass’d a miserable night, So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams,
That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night,
Though ’twere to buy a world of happy days,
So full of dismal terror was the time!
The Constable of the Tower, Sir Robert Brakenbury, says: What was your dream? I long to hear you tell it.
Clarence says:
Methoughts that I had broken from the Tower,
And was embark’d to cross to Burgundy;
And, in my company, my brother Gloucester;
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk845
Upon the hatches: thence we looked toward England,
And cited up a thousand fearful times,
During the wars of York and Lancaster
That had befall’n us. As we paced along
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,850
Methought that Gloucester stumbled; and, in falling,
Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard,
Into the tumbling billows of the main.
Lord, Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown!
What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears!855
What ugly sights of death within mine eyes!
Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
Ten thousand men that fishes gnaw’d upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,860
All scatter’d in the bottom of the sea:
Some lay in dead men’s skulls; and, in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,
As ’twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,
Which woo’d the slimy bottom of the deep,865
And mock’d the dead bones that lay scatter’d by.
Sir Robert Brakenbury.
Had you such leisure in the time of death
To gaze upon the secrets of the deep?
Clarence
Methought I had; and often did I strive
To yield the ghost: but still the envious flood870
Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth
To seek the empty, vast and wandering air;
But smother’d it within my panting bulk,
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.
Sir Robert Brakenbury.
Awaked you not with this sore agony?
Clarence:
O, no, my dream was lengthen’d after life;
O, then began the tempest to my soul,
Who pass’d, methought, the melancholy flood,
With that grim ferryman which poets write of,
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.880
The first that there did greet my stranger soul,
Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick;
Who cried aloud, ‘What scourge for perjury
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?’
And so he vanish’d: then came wandering by
A shadow like an angel, with bright hair
Dabbled in blood; and he squeak’d out aloud,
‘Clarence is come; false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,
That stabb’d me in the field by Tewksbury;
Seize on him, Furies, take him to your torments!’
With that, methoughts, a legion of foul fiends
Environ’d me about, and howled in mine ears
Such hideous cries, that with the very noise
I trembling waked, and for a season after
Could not believe but that I was in hell,
Such terrible impression made the dream.
It is magnificent theatre.
And needless to say – uncannily – deliciously – it mirrors the legend of Clarence’s end.
And let’s back pedal for a moment. Consider that dream of dreams – that unforgettable Shakespeare scene – the drum roll for the show trial
In early 1478 Parliament was carefully stage-managed to destroy Clarence.
The charges were sweeping.
The proof, frankly, rather thin.
Even one contemporary observer was visibly uneasy about the proceedings.
But royal justice in the fifteenth century could move with remarkable… efficiency.
On 18 February 1478 the sentence was carried out in the Tower of London.
Almost immediately the story spread.
Not beheaded.
Not hanged.
Drowned.
In a butt of malmsey wine.
Sweet. Imported. Expensive.
Was it true?
We cannot be absolutely certain.
But the rumour appeared very early.
And it stuck like burrs to velvet.
Because somehow – poetically, theatrically – it fits the man.
And so we come to the family curse
This is the part that makes you sit back and whistle softly.
Look at Clarence’s immediate family roll call.
Father – killed.
Brother Edward IV – dead young.
Brother Richard III – killed at Bosworth.
Son Edward – executed in 1499.
Daughter Margaret Pole – executed in 1541.
Mein Gott indeed.
If dynasties came with hazard warnings, the House of York needed one in flashing red.
Final thought
When you call in at the Tower – ideally with Tom or Brian on their tour of the most important medieval fortress in Europe – do make sure you spare a thought for George, Duke of Clarence.
Royal prince.
Serial turncoat.
Over-mighty subject.
And possibly – just possibly – history’s most expensive wine casualty.
And in this city, the past never stays buried.
It rises.
Glass in hand.
You’ve been listening to
This… is London, the London Walks podcast.
Emanating from www.walks.com.
Home of London Walks, London’s signature walking tour company.
London’s local, time-honoured, fiercely independent, family-owned, just-the-right-size walking tour company.
And as long as we’re at it, London’s multi-award-winning walking tour company. Indeed, London’s only award-winning walking tour company.
And here’s the secret: London Walks is essentially run as a guides’ cooperative.
That’s the key to everything.
It’s the reason we’re able to attract and keep the best guides in London. You can get schlubbers to do this for £25 a walk. But you cannot get world-class guides – let alone accomplished professionals.
It’s not rocket science: you get what you pay for.
And just as surely, you also get what you don’t pay for.
Back in 1968 when we got started we quickly came to a fork in the road. We had to answer a searching question: Do we want to make the most money? Or do we want to be the best walking tour company in the world?
You want to make the most money you go the schlubbers route. You want to be the best walking tour company in the world you do whatever you have to do to attract and keep the best guides in London – you want them guiding for you, not for somebody else.
Bears repeating: the way we’re structured – a guides’ cooperative – is the key to the whole thing.
It’s the reason for all those awards, it’s the reason people who know go with London Walks, it’s the reason we’ve got a big following, a lively, loyal, discerning following – quality attracts quality.
It’s the reason we’re able – uniquely – to front our walks with accomplished, in many cases distinguished professionals:
By way of example, Stewart Purvis, the former Editor (and subsequently CEO) of Independent Television News.
And Lisa Honan, who had a distinguished career as a diplomat (Lisa was the Governor of St Helena, the island where Napoleon breathed his last and, some say, had his penis amputated – Napoleon didn’t feel a thing – if thing’s the mot juste – he was dead.)
Stewart and Lisa – both of them CBEs – are just a couple of our headline acts.
Or take our Jack the Ripper Walk. It’s the creation of the world’s leading expert on Jack the Ripper, Donald Rumbelow, the author of the definitive book on the subject. Britain’s most distinguished crime historian, Donald is, in the words of The Jack the Ripper A to Z, “internationally recognised as the leading authority on Jack the Ripper.” Donald’s emeritus now but he’s still the guiding light on our Ripper Walk. He curates the walk. He trains up and mentors our Ripper Walk guides. Fields any and all questions they throw at him.
The London Walks Aristocracy of Talent – its All-Star Team of Guides – includes a former London Mayor. It includes the former Chief Music Critic for the Evening Standard. It includes the Chair of the Association of Professional Tour Guides. And the former chair of the Guild of Guides.
It includes a former Member of Parliament, three terms at Westminster, bringing first-hand experience of power, policy and political theatre to the very streets where it all played out.
It includes two barristers, three doctors, two geologists, a distinguished museum curator and a former Time out Editor.
It includes authors, historians, national journalists, a former London Museum archaeologist, and university professors (one of them an eminent Cambridge University paleontologist).
It includes a criminal defence lawyer, Royal Shakespeare Company and Royal National Theatre actors, and two professional photographers. And last but not least, the creme de la creme of top flight professionally qualified Blue Badge Guides, including a bevy of MVPs, Oscar winners (people who’ve won the big one, the Guide of the Year Award)… well, you get the idea.
As that travel writer famously put it, “if this were a golf tournament, every name on the Leader Board would be a London Walks guide.”
And as we put it: London Walks Guides make the new familiar and the familiar new.
And here’s the clincher. We’re playing at home.
London Walks is London-based. Period.
We’re not an impersonal, faceless platform run from halfway round the world. There’s no chatbot. No call-centre script. When you contact us, you reach a real person. A Londoner. Someone who actually knows the streets you’re about to walk.
That’s not a detail. That’s the difference.
And on that agreeable note… come then, let us go forward together on some great London Walks.
And that’s by way of saying, Good walking and Good Londoning one and all. See ya next time.