EPISODE 224 OUT NOW! King Henry I of England, once and for all, stomps an old foe into obscurity, but his worries are just beginning. If you believe in what I'm doing here, please consider a LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, a FIVE-STAR RATING, and/or even a COMMENT. It takes a single second to help catapult this show into the rafters. And if you'd like to buy me a coffee, consider donating to the show through buymeacoffee.com/FWPodcast!

Legit men, these are. Built from better stuff than the rest of us. @NatlParkService

Just finished writing an episode setting up The White Ship Incident. The most heartbreaking thing about this was summed up in an 1880 poem about this tragedy by Dante Gabriel Rosetti, writing, "But this King never smiled again." As a father myself, I feel this in my bones.

OUTLAW / KING -- starring Chris Pine, Florence Pugh, et al. -- 2018 THE GOOD: Thank God for some color in a medieval film! Hollywood...wake up! Dyes were in widespread use for thousands of years. Not everything was earthy tones and caked with mud during the Middle Ages. It was quite vibrant much of the time, especially the higher up in society you got, including on the battlefield -- a knight loved themselves a little bling. THE BAD: This film was "Braveheart" brought to you by Playskool. The cinematography was awful. Whoever did that should be barred from making movies. It felt like whiplash when the movie is shown as simplistic in its camera angles and scope only to have some guy disemboweled (very graphic) and Chris Pine's nethers on display in a river. The filmmakers screwed this potentially solid movie completely up. THE FAVORITE: The catapult, the hanging cages, the Scottish landscape...these were all fantastic, but, more than all that, it taught me something I didn't know. I love a movie that can do that -- I even looked it up during the film. Did Robert the Bruce actually murder a rival inside a church? The answer is yes, yes he did. Oh, and honorable mentions: Chris Pine didn't look the part of Robert the Bruce, to me, but his portrayal was spot-on. And Aaron Taylor-Johnson's portrayal of "The Black Douglas" was very well done, too. THE WISH: I wish the script and the acting matched the filmmaking. Those who wrote and those who acted in it were very, very good, but those who actually filmed it were god awful.

"The Pieta" by Michelangelo - completed in 1499 (now 527 years old) - Michelangelo was 22-23 years old! - currently in St. Peter's Basilica, The Vatican There is no more powerful sculpture in Western history: She knew from conception that she must raise this boy knowing she must allow him to go off into a world, a world that wanted him dead. This sculpture shows her ultimate sacrifice, the sacrifice every mother must face with her child. She holds her sacrifice in her hands, but she does it with grace and peace, confident that, as heart-wrenching as it may be, she raised this boy to be strong enough to fulfill his destiny. This is the mother's ideal.

Been catching up on some movies. I took quite the hiatus while raising kids, but I'm back at it. First up...The King, starring Timothee Chalamet, Robert Pattinson, et al. THE GOOD: The John Falstaff character -- a total Shakespeare creation and NOT a real person -- is fantastic, a perfect counterbalance to Henry V's more ambitious side. THE BAD: One thing I didn't like about the movie is how The Dauphin was the main antagonist for Agincourt. Small detail in the grand scheme of things, but Agincourt was too important to have to change anything about it. THE FAVORITE: That said, The Dauphin was a perfect foil for Chalamet's version of Henry V. THE WISH: Maybe it took away from the cinematography and storytelling happening on film, but the English longbowmen were so instrumental at Agincourt that I wish they would have played a bigger role in the battle itself.

Have you checked out the new episode yet?! Extortion plots. Assassination attempts. A battle between the kings of France and England. A duchy and a family legacy at the center of it all.

Leave it to @Gentleman_Ways to say it all in just the right way. America is my home, but Europe is precious. I pray for Europe every day.

A day that will live in infamy...

This will only escalate.

When will you protect yourselves, Europe? These aren’t your ancestors’…Wake up. They made them for YOU!

Nature amidst the creation of mankind. Stunning.

Woke up at 5:45 this morning…read a few sources about King Henry, King Louis VI, and the Battle of Bremule in 1119, and wrote eight pages on this clash between two medieval kings. And that’s not even the focus of this episode. 🌖🌊🛥️🍷🌊🍷🌊🍷🌊💥😢