Thomas Malory Goes to Prison for Treason, London 1468

Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel got into lots of legal trouble  in 1443, 1451, 1452, and might or might not have done the things he got accused of, but he did indeed enter into a plot, along with Richard Neville, to overthrow King Edward IV, for which he ended up in prison. Too bad for him! But lucky for us, because that's when he wrote The Hoole Book of Kyng Arthur and of His Noble Knyghtes of The Rounde Table, which got published, after his death, by William Caxton, which is why we know it. Caxton, by the way, made a bunch of editing decisions, one of which was to shorten the title to Le Morte d'Arthur . Your hosts explain lots of things -- Malory's legal troubles, where Le Morte d'Arthur  fits into Arthurian literature,  his feud with the Duke of Buckingham -- and some holy oil given to Becket by the Virgin Mary herself, and Dickens' connection to Marshalsea prison. It's all connected.  Really.