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When a Saint, a Strongman, and a Bastard All Wanted England · Ebbs of History

• Jason: Welcome back, history lovers, to the Ebbs of History, the show where we dig up the strangest, wildest, and creepiest true stories the past has to offer. From dancing plagues to pirate queens, you'll laugh, you'll gasp, and you'll love my impeccable dad jokes. But mostly You'll learn that history is way cooler than your textbook led on. We are history loving hosts, Zoe, Gavin. And I'm Jason. This is the Ebbs of History. Sorry, can I much much shorter, right? Yeah, it's Zoe, Gavin, how was everyone's week? Good. It was pretty good. I had a bunch of tests this week, so it's pretty stressful but Fun. I had a science test I don't know the result of but in math I got we did tests and I got a hundred percent on it. Nice. It's a good thing. How do you think you did on yours okay? I think I did pretty good on all of them. Cool. I had my first A push test and it was really, really scary. But I think I did okay. Especially on the SAQ. Good. not much else to say though. Yeah. Last episode, we left off on June eighth, ten forty two. King Heartha Canute of England, Canute the Great's last surviving legitimate son, is standing at a wedding party in Lambeth, mid toast, about to drink to the bride, when he just drops dead. Twenty-three years old, the Norse Empire ends in a puddle of spilled wine on the floor. And suddenly the man holding the throne of England is somebody nobody saw coming. His name is Edward, aka Eddie. I remember him. Yeah. I know him. he is the son of Athelred the Unready and Emma. He has been living in exile in Normandy since he was about ten years old. He's now almost forty. He speaks French better than he speaks English. He has spent the last thirty years being raised by Norman knights and Norman priests, and he is about to be King of England. Welcome to Episode three. This is the calm before the storm. This is the twenty four year reign of Edward the Confessor, the king who would eventually become a literal saint. The king whose biggest problem was that he could not have kids. And the king who, at some point, made a promise to a young Norman Duke across the Channel that is going to start the biggest war in English history. Can I guess who it is? You can guess. Is it William the Conqueror? It is at the time. Just William. Duke William of Normandy, aka William the Bastard. Ooh. Dun dun dun. But first Let me tell you about Edward the Confessor, formerly in our parlance. We will now call him King Eddie the Confessor or just King Eddie. King Eddie is weird. Like a genuinely strange dude. King Eddie gets crowned on April third, ten forty three, at Winchester. He is around forty years old. He's been waiting his whole adult life for this. And he is, by all accounts, intensely religious. We're not talking about goes to church on Sundays religious. We're talking about considering taking a vow to never have sex religious. Which becomes a problem because in ten forty five the English nobles basically force him to marry and they pick the bride for him. Her name is Edith Godwin. Does Godwin sound familiar? Yes. Yes, it's the Earl of Godwin, correct? Not of Godwin, just Earl Godwin. Well, she is twenty two, Supposedly one of the most beautiful women in England, and she's the daughter of Earl Godwin of Wessex. The same Earl Godwin who lured King Eddie's brother Elfie to Guildford in ten thirty six and let him get blinded and killed in the Red Wedding style massacre. That's crazy. Yes. King Eddie is being forced to marry the daughter of the guy who probably murdered his brother. Now, here's the part that historians are still arguing about a thousand years later. King Eddie and Edith Godwin stay married for twenty-four years and they never have a child. Not one. Now lots of medieval royal couples had fertility issues, that's not the weird part. But because King Eddie the Confessor later got declared a saint, the official Catholic Church position became that he and Edith took mutual vows of celibacy and just chose to never have kids. Like, we got married for political reasons, but we're gonna live like brother and sister and just hang out and run a kingdom together, you know, for fun. Wait, was it Earl Godwin's daughter? Yeah. Okay. Was this like the this might be like kinda it was it like actual celibacy or was like glee club celibacy? Like you you know what I mean? you're gonna have to explain glee club celibacy to me. Well, because Quinn was the president of the celibacy club, but she got pregnant. So is it like actual celibacy or is it like just celibacy for the label of celibacy? Well the official church story is actual celibacy. Okay That's the official story. Before I tell you what modern historians think though, why do you think they had no kids? Gavin? Probably like infertility. Okay. Yeah, because it's kind of embarrassing, honestly, like as like the head of England. Like you're just gonna say that he took and it also like the story kinda adds up because he was very religious, right? So honestly. Yeah. Gavin, on your point. Yeah, it could be. You know If King Eddie couldn't have kids or Edith Godwin couldn't have kids, you know, that doesn't say that they didn't consummate the marriage. They just never had kids. Maybe one of them had a problem. Don't know. Zoe, to your point yes, absolutely. You don't want to be the king of England and tell your y all your subjects, Yeah, I can't have kids. That's gonna start problems before well before you even die. And that's any not just English aristocracy. That's any king throughout Europe or Asia, anywhere, you know? Modern historians are skeptical of the official story that the church tells. Some think that King Eddie refused to sleep with Edith specifically because he hated her dad. Some think King Eddie had a vow of chastity from his exile years. Some think they were just unlucky, so that goes towards Gavin's. Some think King Eddie might have just not been into it. what do you think that means? Wha wha what's the under undertail there? He just didn't want to. He just wasn't into it? Maybe he wasn't into women. Ooh I like that better. Mm-hmm. Yeah. We genuinely don't know though. That's the thing. But what we do know is that for twenty four years the King of England produced exactly zero heirs. And that is the central problem of this entire episode. Because no heir means anyone with a half decent claim is going to start eyeballing that throne. Alright, more weird King Eddie stuff. There is a story, and this one definitely became part of the official King Eddie legend after his death. That he could heal sick people by touching them. Specifically, he could cure a disease called scrofula, which is a form of tuberculosis that causes these gross swollen lumps in your neck. They call it the king's evil. King Eddie would lay his hands on you, say a prayer, give you a coin, and supposedly you would get better. And what's cool in my eyes, this started a tradition that lasted for seven hundred years. After King Eddie, every English king for centuries did the quote unquote royal touch ceremony. Kings of France, too. They believed God had given anointed kings this healing power. The last English monarch to do it was Queen Anne in the early 1700s. She famously touched a sick little boy named Samuel Johnson, who would grow up to be one of the most famous writers in English history. Samuel Johnson said the touch did not work on him. But Seven hundred years of English and French kings did this ritual because King Eddie the Confessor maybe possibly cured a guy's neck lumps in the ten fifties. What books did that create? He wrote a dictionary of the English language in seventeen fifty five. Wow. So the dictionary that's very famous. In what year? Seventeen fifty five. He published influential critical editions of William Shakespeare's plays and wrote a book called The Lives of Poets. He was just very famous. He has a quote, a famous quote. When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life. For there is in London all that life can afford. I like that quote. That's a good one. I do too. Back to politics. King Eddie becomes king. He hates the Godwins, and he's forced to marry Edith Godwin. So he starts filling his court with his Normandy buddies instead of the Godwin family, like they expected. Norman priests, Norman knights, Norman advisors. He even points a Norman, Robert of Jumige as the Archbishop of Canterbury, which is the most important religious position in England. The English nobles are furious. The Godwin family is furious. Tensions are building. And then, in September ten fifty one, the whole thing explodes over the world's pettiest international incident. King Eddie has a brother in law from his Normandy days, a guy named Eustace, Count of Boulogne. Eustace comes to England for a state visit. He's heading home, and he and his French knights stop in the town of Dover on the south coast looking for places to sleep. And Eustace's guys, being French knights, just walk into people's houses and demand to be put up for the night. Which was apparently a normal thing in France, but absolutely not a normal thing in England. I guess the hospitality aspect of history does have its limits. The Dover townspeople say yeah get out of my house. One of Eustace's knights kills an English guy in his own home. The English guys retaliate and kill a French knight. Then it just spirals. Eustace's men get on their horses and start riding through the streets, slashing at anybody they see. The Dover townspeople grab weapons and fight back. By the time the dust settles, there are twenty Englishmen dead and nineteen Frenchmen dead, lying in the streets. A small medieval war in the middle of an English coastal town. Eustace gallops back to King Eddie and says, These English peasants attacked us. Justice. Vengeance. Burn the town down King Eddie summons Earl Godwin, whose territory includes Dover. And orders him to ravage the town with fire and sword. And Earl Godwin, the most powerful nobleman in England, says what do you think he says? No. He says, These are my people. I'm not punishing them for defending themselves against your French buddies. This is the breaking point. This is the moment King Eddie has been waiting for. He calls Earl Godwin to court to face charges. Earl Godwin refuses, and King Eddie gives him five days to leave the country. Earl Godwin and his entire family, his wife, his sons, including Harold, Tostig, and Swain, they flee. He has more children than just those three, but they are important to our story, so I named them. Some go to Flanders, some go to Ireland. King Eddie sends his own wife, Edith Godwin, to a nunnery. The Godwins are done. The Norman party at court has won. Yay? This next bit is going to be the absolute center of William the Conqueror's argument that he is the rightful King of England, so pay attention. In 1051 The Earl Godwin in exile and the English court suddenly full of Normans, somebody, probably the Norman Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert of Jumiège, travels to Normandy and tells the young Duke William, who's about twenty four or twenty five at this time, Hey, King Eddie says you are his heir. If he dies without children, you get England. Wait, hold on. who said this? Just someone from the court, right? We think that Eddie sent Robert of Jumier, who is the Archbishop of Canterbury. So it had it had religious strength behind it, not just some guy being sent to say, Hey, you know, my my boss says that you're gonna be king. It's the Archbishop of Canterbury. Is Emma still alive? Emma is still alive. She's in a nunnery. Well then. Now, did King Eddie actually say that? Do we do you do you think King Eddie actually sent the Archbishop of Canterbury to Duke William to say, Hey, if I die with no heirs, you get to be King? No. I mean potentially. Potentially, yes. That's that's a good answer. Potentially. There's really no connection between the two of them, right? there is though. King Eddie was basically raised in Normandy under the Duke of Normandy. So he was their contemporaries, right? Meaning Duke William was at the court of the Normans while Eddie was being raised there. He lived there for thirty years and was raised by the Normans. So is William older than No, William is younger. So did Eddie know William? Absolutely. Okay. There is no doubt that they knew each other. Okay, then I think yeah. Okay. I still say no. Okay. I I feel like potentially still like my answer. Yeah, and no, that's a great answer. That is the the the perfect historical answer. It's like a an attorney always says, Well, it depends. Yeah. It doesn't mean they don't know. It means that it's nuanced. There's different sides to it and it depends. In our writing, we gl we we are told to structure writing as this could be this, but also that. So we 'cause there's literally on the A P there is a point called the complexity point and one way to get it is arguing both sides. There you go. Like it's that you you have to with history. You have to Yes. Yeah. It's not history if you're not it's if if you don't. It's propaganda if y if it's if it's one sided. Yeah. So we don't know if that actually happened. Yeah. English sources from later on say that he did. Norman sources definitely say that he did. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle doesn't mention it at all. And modern historians are split. So let's break that down. English sources from later say that he did. Norman sources definitely say he did, but the one thing that at that time says it, the one primary source that we have, the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, does not mention it. Yeah. So There's two sides. So that is why we do not know if it actually happened or not. That's odd, because both sides are saying it happened, but the one like definite source says it doesn't. That's what's weird. Both sides, you say both sides, but is it really both sides? If it's from the England later. After William the Conqueror has conquered England. Well, because that's kind of more like a PR thing, you're covering up. It's a little bit it could be, yes. Yeah. And that's why we don't know. Ooh, interesting. Where do you stand on this? I think he did. I really do. from everything that I've read and and all that, I've read both sides because there are books about this from the English perspective and from the Norman perspective. And I've r read all, basically. And I think that they they grew up together. They were friends. Yeah. And I do think that Eddie didn't like the English nobility. Because the English nobility is the ones that sent him packing to exile in Normandy. Mm-hmm. So he had this lifelong, you know, built up hatred for the people that sent him. And so when he came back He's not gonna treat the Godwins and the English nobility fairly and i it shows 'cause he sent the Godwins packing as soon as he could, as soon as he found a good reason. Yeah. And he brought in all of his Norman buddies. Of course he's gonna say, Hey, if I don't have kids you get to have it because you were my friend and you harbored me and you treated me well. Yeah. I feel like hold on. That is my personal opinion on it after everything that I've read. I feel like he'd give it to someone like V Robert Jumiej or how how do you Well he was already the Archbishop of Canterbury like that's almost higher than the king at that point in time. It's second only to the king, basically. But still I feel like that's like the name It still has to be blood. Mm-hmm. So that's the other thing. They're not are they blood related? They are blood related through Emma. That's why Emma is so important. William and Eddie. Eddie are related? They are related. They're distant cousins, but they're cousins. Okay. So there's a blood relation there. Yeah. Uhhuh. So I I yeah, I do think that he was kinda the rightful heir. I do. I mean if there's blood. But the thing is I still want to hear that they sigh. You well not only the other side, but there's other people that claim that they are the rightful heir. Not just Not just the two that battled. Right. So Maybe King Eddie made a vague promise. Maybe he made a formal one. Maybe the Norman Archbishop of Canterbury just told William that King Eddie said it without checking. But what is certain is that William of Normandy, heard in 1051 that he was getting England someday, and he never forgot. And neither did Earl Godwin. Because in 1052, one year after being exiled, Earl Godwin pulls off the most incredible comeback in medieval English history. He builds a fleet in Flanders, which is modern-day northern Belgium. His sons build a fleet in Ireland. They sail up the Thames together with this massive combined force. And as they sail past London, the English people cheer them on. The English Navy that was supposed to stop them just sort of joins them. King Eddie looks out of his palace and sees half of England rooting for the Godwins. He has to negotiate. He gives Earl Godwin everything back. He brings Edith Godwin out of the nunnery. He sends his Norman Archbishop of Canterbury fleeing back to Normandy. The Godwins have won. Can either of you think of a modern parallel to the Godwin story where a powerful figure is forced out, their exile gives them time to build outside support and alliances and gather resources, and they return with public support stronger than they were before. Any modern day parallels? the first thing I can think of is like Britney Spears. Like she got kicked out and then the and then the public started to support her because she's like every everyone she was like behind curtain, she was being so controlled. Then she came back later. Kicked out of what? Well, like not like kicked out, but like she was so like micromanaged and so controlled. And then she came back and ever and like the public supported her in such a different way. I don't know. It's not wrong. There's definitely no wrong answer to this. Yes. In certain It's a little bit different. I feel. Because like she lost the support of the public. Yeah. But then she came back stronger. Yeah. And had the support. So yeah, I would say yeah, absolutely. In like in certain ways. I think of Steve Jobs and Apple. So you guys probably don't know this story. Yeah. In 1985, he was pushed out of Apple, the company that he had helped create. I know the story. Do you? I don't, so vaguely know it. Apple executives had decided that he was the reason that they were floundering as a company at the time. So they fired him. Jobs went off and built a company called Next. while also helping turn a struggling computer animation company called Pixar into a serious creative powerhouse. So you know the Pixar story. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know that. Yep. Steve Jobs helped. It was originally a computer, a Pixar computer, but it was like super expensive, so they just changed the animation, I think. There's probably more in between that, but that's like a vuff analysis. Well, I mean look at them today. Yeah. You know, like they are animation. And what's an Apple. Uh-huh. Did Steve Jobs ever come back to Apple? Hold on, I'm not dealing my story yet. Let him cook. Let me cook. Let him cook. Twelve years later, Apple bought next and Jobs came back. And suddenly the person Apple had exiled was the person that Apple needed to save it. And here's my dad joke. And the rest is eye history. Doesn't even make sense. Yeah, it does. Like iPod, iPhone. No, but no eye history. You just I get it. I before history. That's so stupid. That's why it's a dad joke. It's not that serious either. So anyway. The Godwins had done something similar. Edward thought that he had removed the problem by sending them away. But in exile, they built a fleet, gathered their allies, and came back stronger. Exile isn't always the end of your power. Sometimes it is where you build the power you need for your return. Anyway, now we get to the best death story in medieval history. As usual, this story is probably embellished, but with a pinch of truth. The legend goes like this. It's Easter, ten fifty-three. Earl Godwin is sitting at the dinner table with King Eddie at Winchester. They're eating a feast. And at some point during the meal, King Eddie starts staring at Earl Godwin. And then, in front of everyone, Eddie says, Earl Godwin, we have never talked about this. But I've never forgotten what happened to my brother Elfie in ten thirty six. I think you killed him. It's just out public. This is like a drama Yes. The whole hall goes silent. Earl Godwin picks up a piece of bread. He holds it up and he says, Sir King, if I am guilty of your brother's death, may God strike me down so that this bread chokes me as I eat it. he puts the bread in his mouth and he chokes to death right there at the table in front of the king. Now, here's what makes this even more of an ebbs of history moment. There was a real medieval legal practice called coursened. that it's like it's like the witches, the witch trials. How they would like like they would see like if they f if the witch floated, then it's like a witch or like if they sunk. Not quite. But like It's like random trials that don't mean anything. just luck. That's more on b here, lem let me tell you what course net is. Coursened literally means trial by bread. If you were accused of a crime and there was no evidence, you could prove your innocence by swallowing a piece of blessed bread. The idea was that God would let an innocent person swallow normally, but a guilty person would choke. It was legal procedure. It's in the medieval law books. I that So, Earl Godwin's death is either A the most dramatic, ironic punishment in English history, where the guy who got Elfie killed got literally choked to death by God in front of Elfie's brother, or B a great later medieval embellishment of what was actually just a stroke or a heart attack at a fancy dinner. Even the Anglo Saxon chronicle, the closest source we have, just says he suddenly sank down speechless at the table. Which sounds like a stroke. But every later chronicler added more drama. By the eleven hundreds, the bread choking version was the official story. The truth is probably somewhere in between, but the legend is a fun story to tell. Either way, Earl Godwin is dead. And his son, Harold. Becomes the new Earl of Wessex. This Harold, Harold Godwinson, 'cause you know, he's the son of Godwin is a totally different animal from his father. Harold's in his early thirties. He's tall, blonde, athletic, and probably the best general in all of England. Over the next decade he's gonna fight with the Welsh, expand his power, and basically become the de facto co-ruler of England with King Eddie the Confessor. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle calls him Ducks Anglorum, or Duke of the English. By ten sixty-four, King Eddie is in his sixties. sickly, focused entirely on building Westminster Abbey, and Harold is running the country. That's almost ten sixty six. It is. We're close. Two years Westminster Abbey. Yeah, he he's the one that built Westminster Abbey. Ooh, I've been there. You have. Built a thousand years ago. You know, every time like people like bring up like historical stuff from England, I'm like like with the Magna Carta. I'm always like I've seen the Magna Carta. You've seen an actual copy of it, yep. Yeah. Pretty cool. You're welcome, by the way, guys. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Which brings us to the single weirdest event of King Eddie the Confessor's entire reign. Harold goes on a trip across the English Channel. We do not know why exactly. Maybe King Eddie sent him to confirm William of Normandy as the heir. Maybe Harold was going to rescue some Godwin family hostages who had been stuck in Normandy since the family was first exiled back in ten fifty two. Maybe his ship was just blown off course. Norman sources say he was on a diplomatic mission. English sources say he was on a fishing trip. Genuinely, we just do not know. But what we do know is this. Harold's ship gets caught in a storm in the English Channel. It washes up on the coast of Pontiu, in northern France, in the territory of a guy named Count Guy, And Count Guy, who is basically a medieval pirate with a fancy title, captures Harold and throws him in a dungeon. William hears about Harold being imprisoned, and he is the RILD. He sends a message to Count Guy that basically says Hand him over now. Gee hands him over. And now Harold Godwinson, the most powerful man in England, is officially Duke William's quote unquote guest, AKA prisoner. What happens next is legendary. William takes Harold on a military campaign into Brittany, modern day France, south of Normandy, to fight a rebel named Conan. Harold is allowed to fight alongside William, supposedly because they're buddies now. And during this campaign, the Bayou Tapestry, which we'll talk a lot about in episode five, shows Harold doing something amazing. They are crossing some marshy ground near Ma Saint Michel. And two of William's knights get stuck in quicksand. Like real quicksand. They're sinking. And Harold, apparently pretty strong, jumps off his horse, grabs both of them under his arms, one knight under each arm, and just hauls them out. The Bayou Tapestry actually has a panel of this. Harold, the one-man quicksand rescue service. After the Britney campaign, William knights Harold. Like full ceremony. Gives him weapons, makes him a Norman knight. Big honor. And then William says, Hey Before you go home, I want you to swear an oath to me. Just a little one, in front of all my nobles. No big deal. Now before I tell you this next part, do either of you know what a religious relic is? Yes. No. What is it? It's basically something that has like religious powers. It's like an item that is like believed to have like the spirit of God in it, correct? You're on you're on the right track. Because I remember in the Canterbury Tales, one of the characters he sells fake relics to make money. I can't remember which one, but one of them does. I remember in Monty Python's Holy Grail, The Bomb. Like the holy hand grenade. The holy hand grenade. That is not a relic, no. a religious relic is a physical object that was either part of or belonged to a saint or high holy figure. So think like the fingerbone of a saint or a piece of the true cross that Jesus was crucified on, things like that. physical things. Like a holy hand grenade. Like a holy hand grenade, but did that belong to one of the saints? That's the qu that's what makes it not a relic. No, he didn't. Also, it's Monty Piper. I love that you you pulled that up though. Alright, next. Have either of you heard of an ox eye reliquary? No. No, but can I guess what it is? yeah, go ahead. Is it a place that holds the relics? A reliquary is, yes. Yeah. Yes. So a reliquary is basically a display box that holds the relics. But an oxye reliquary is not a display box. It is st it's still a box, but instead of holding a sacred religious item, it has a convex mirror in it. And it is said that when an oxye reliquary was near an actual sacred relic and the mirror could see the relic. The mirror would bring the holy essence of that relic inside the box where it would be trapped. But that box inside one of the box. Sorry, that's all I could think of when you got saying the box. So not an actual relic inside the box, but the quote unquote essence of a relic. Keep that in mind. Cauchy though. So, according to the Norman chronicler Wace, who was writing decades later but was working from older sources William prepared the most theatrical political ceremony in medieval history. He had his priests gather up every holy relic in Normandy bones of saints, pieces of the true cross, old finger bones in golden boxes. He put them all into a giant chest. He covered the chest with a fine silk cloth, And then on top of the cloth he placed one visible, beautiful ox eye reliquary. Do you see where this is going? Mm-hmm. I think so. What do you think? Where where do you think this is going? Gavin, you go first. I haven't formed complete thoughts on it yet. I'm still kind of. So he's got a box full of actual relics. He covers that box with silk cloth and on top of it puts like a fake relic on top. Mm-hmm. The Oxide reliquary? Mm-hmm. He put So I think that if this Oxide Reliquary like s does what it says it does, the spirits l of the relics will like. So he wants he wants Harold to swear an oath on on a holy relic. Mm-hmm. And he's making it look like it's an oxide reliquary that he's swearing an oath on. Zoe, you got any box? Is he trying to like Fake him out like it's like he's trying to like make him prove that he's like not doing something correct or something. You guys are both on the right path. I love him. He brings Harold into the hall. William sits on his ducal throne in front of all of his nobles and he says Harold, place your hand on this Oxai reliquary and swear that when King Eddie dies, you will help me become the king of England. Hold on. Now, Harold did not know what was underneath the cloth. He thought that he was swearing on one relic that really wasn't even a relic. He put his hand on the Ox Eye Reliquary, his hand trembled. He felt that something was wrong, but he couldn't quite figure out what it was. He swore the oath. He swore that he would support William's claim to the English throne. He swore that he would marry William's daughter. He swore that he would give William his own sister in marriage. And then the moment Harold lifted his hand, William stood up and dramatically pulled the silk cloth off the chest. Underneath were hundreds of actual holy relics, saints bones, sacred objects from every church in Normandy. Harold had not sworn on one relic, he had sworn on all of them. The most binding, most sacred oath possible in the medieval world. In front of an entire court of witnesses, the Wace says Harold went pale. He was quote extremely frightened. Because a medieval Christian worldview, you do not break an oath made on relics. God will get you. William the C William seems like a drama king. Like he literally seems like he's like Well you thought. Woo! And then like just doing the most like all the all the theatrics. Like I would Exactly. I would love to do an episode about William, but it's just it's it's too boring. Because he is a man of contradictions. Yeah. And you'll see a little bit of it in in the rest of this story. but the actual person, like if I did I could just do a whole episode on him. He is devoutly religious, yet he kills people on a whim. He is a man of contradictions, and yes, he is very about the flare. Yeah. For sure. So it's literally a medieval magic trick that William pulls off. He hid the relics, makes Harold swear, then reveals the relics like he's the world's worst birthday party magician. Ta da! You owe me England. Harold goes home to England a haunted man. He's been knighted by a foreign duke, he has sworn on holy relics to give William the English throne, and he knows that when King Eddie, currently sixty something and getting sicker every day, finally dies, he's going to have a huge problem. Do you think that Harold considered the oath valid? Yes. Thousand percent. Harold. Harold. Harold thinks it's valid. Harold in his mind, because he saw the relics. And he saw everything. He's like, crop, I'm fried. Dots? I think no, 'cause like he like got he feel feels like he got cheated, you know? That's exactly right. He probably didn't consider it valid. It was made under duress with hidden relics while he was a hostage. Medieval law actually said that O's made under duress were not binding. But William considered it valid, and so did the Pope, which is going to matter a lot in two episodes. But for now, let's jump forward to January ten sixty six. We're in the year. King Eddie the Confessor is dying. He's in his early sixties. He's been working obsessively on his new church, Westminster Abbey, which is almost finished. And on January 5th, 1066, he goes into a coma at his palace. According to The Life of King Edward, which was written by his wife Edith Godwin. Eddie wakes up briefly, grabs Harold Godwinson's hand, and says, I commend my widow and the kingdom to your protection. And then he dies. Thoughts on what you think that phrase, I commend the kingdom to your protection, means. He is giving Eddie he's saying you are my heir. Okay. Like Okay. Wait, who did he say it to again? Harold. Harold. Harold Godwinson. So Eddie the Confessor, a second before he dies, says that Harold's heir? I commend no, he doesn't say that. He says I commend the kingdom to your protection. Or it's either he's now like the military leader of the kingdom. Yeah, I feel like that could be taken many different ways. Yes, it can. Does it mean take the throne? Or does it mean protect the throne until the rightful heir arrives? Ooh. Mmm. People are still arguing about this question today. Well, the English nobles who are sitting right there in the room decide it meant take the throne. The very next day, january sixth, ten sixty six, they bury Edward the Confessor at Westminster Abbey. Aww, his chur his church. And on that same day, in the same building, they crown Harold Godwinson as the new king of England. Think about that. How long did it take, just recently, for Charles III, who's now the King of England, to be t for his coronation. It took a long time. It took a while. Like she died in September. He wasn't coronated and crowned king until May of the next year. That is crazy. And this was the next day. That's about standard. That is normal. The next day is or th the next day after he died, the same day that they buried Edward the Confessor is not normal at all. Yeah, that's crazy. You could tell like they were like Vushing. Yes. You could tell that they wanted Hale to be The be on the throne. They didn't want anyone else to get the throne before he could just take it. That's right. So you when you think about it back then news did not travel like it does today. It takes a long time. So it took it took a couple weeks before William found out that Edward the Confessor had even died. So he was crowned the day that they buried him. There's no way in ten sixty six That news is getting to Normandy that fast. No, because And that's on purpose. No, because the nobles they probably knew William's gonna want this. Yes. William wait, does do the nobles know that Harold made this b quote unquote binding contract vow with William? Like I guess. I guess really not bad binding. Probably. So that they're like, We gotta get this done or else he's gonna swoop on in here. I mean he probably I mean, as we know, he did end up swooping. and there's more, but there's more. Just wait. Historiography. The sources for Eddie the Confessor's reign are an unusually rich for this period, but every single one of them has a bias. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle exists in several versions written at different monasteries, and they often disagree with each other, depending on whether they were sympathetic to the Godwins or to the Normans. The Life of King Edward, which was commissioned by Queen Edith Godwin herself in the mid-1060s, and rewritten after the conquest. Its job was to make Edward look saintly and the Godwins look good. So it's propaganda, but it's useful propaganda. The Norman sources were written after the conquest, when their job was to justify William's invasion, so they emphasize Eddie's promise to William and the binding nature of Harold's oath. The hidden relics trick at the Oath Ceremony come from Wace's Roman Duru, written around eleven seventy. more than a hundred years after the fact. So the dramatic version with the silk cloth is probably embellished, but that an oath was sworn is in the Bayou tapestry and in multiple sources, and that it involved relics is universally agreed. Earl Godwin's death by bread is in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle as he collapsed at the table, like I said earlier. And the dramatic bread choking versions appear in twelfth century writers like Henry of Huntington and Alred of Rivelu. The Corsnead trial by bread legal practice is real and well documented in medieval law codes. Do they still use that? No. Okay, that's I thought. just double checking. So the legendary version is at least plausible. Edward's royal touch healing power was being claimed during his lifetime and became hugely important after his canonization in eleven sixty one. And the question of whether Edward really promised William the throne in ten fifty one is one of the great unresolved debates in English medieval history. And just in history in general. Yeah. Doesn't there's genuinely no contemporary English source confirming it? Only Norman sources written after the conquest. Take that as you will. I'm taken. Lessons we've learned today. As this was a long episode already, we're gonna skip lessons today because the only lessons you can learn from this apply to medieval royalty. Like, don't die without an error. Yeah. I'm gonna guess none of our listeners are medieval royalty or current royalty. That's true. So Time for the Fun Fact Challenge! Gavin, do you have a recap? I know Most of it's really enjoying this run. Okay, so the past two games it's been two to one, me. So overall the score is four to two, me. And I've won two of of the two matches. So it it's currently two zero overall. Okay. So that's why I said Most of is really enjoying this run. Yeah, Most of is definitely, I'm sure. I have decided to ask questions for the rest of this series that require a little more than a quick few word answer. I'm so good at these. Let's go. Thank you, A P. I want you to think Challenge accepted. There you go. I want you to to think critically and give a short essay like answer that connects not only the details, but the cause and effect of the details. I'm not gonna miss. So there's no need to lock in because I'm gonna ask the question and get answers from both of you and I will determine which answer is worth one point. Ooh, I really, really like this. I don't like this. So basically what it's been coming down to is who's faster to say locked in. And it's always been gap. Because like and both of you go locked in and then you look for your answer. Mm-hmm. So that's kinda not fair. So I wanna have I want I wanna be a little bit more in depth here. Now I have a full paragraph as an answer for each one. You don't have to do that. Just a couple sentences is perfectly fine. I'm not looking. my god. Question one. Why did the Dover incident become a turning point in the conflict between King Edward and Earl Godwin? Whoever wants to answer first, just go ahead and start. so in Dover basically they it was Eustace, correct? That was there. So he was like really tight with Eddie. Yep. He was really tight with Eddie and basically they tried to get Zeus's law. They were like the all the Frenchmen. They like, Let us in, let us in, we're here, you have to house us. And they were like, no. So it ended up with a bunch of people dying, and then Eustace was like, Bro, please let me in, let me in, let me in. did Val burn the tarot to the ground because they didn't let us in. and then Earl Godwin says no because he owns that part. and then he flees. Him and his family flee. And that's the important part. because that means that the Normans have won and they have basically control of England now. I mean like I have nothing to follow up to that. Like Do you have nothing for that? 'Cause she was wrong on a couple things. Okay. see I I did I didn't think this would be important and so I didn't write much of that down but I I ha I did not take good notes this episode. Like I literally wrote in Dover they tried to get into houses and Zeus is lawed up. So you got nothing? No. Okay, so the point goes to Zoe. You were right there, Zoe, but you missed a couple key points. the first one was that you missed that Eddie asked Godwin to punish his people. Mm. And Godwin refused to do it. And so Eddie exiled them. The Godwins didn't flee. They were exiled. So those are the only the two main parts that you missed there. But yeah, the cause was the French knights killing a bunch of Englishmen. Godwin refusing to punish the Englishman for killing the French knights when Eddie asked. And Eddie exiled Godwin because of it. That's the cause and effect. Alright, that's a point to Zoe. Question two How did William turn Harold's accidental trip to Normandy into an advantage for his claim to the English throne? Take whose trip to Normandy? Harold. You know, he accidentally he like you know there was a storm in the English Channel and he got shipwrecked. Mm-hmm. And Guy, Count Ghee imprisoned him and gave him the Harold. Did William take advantage of this? Yes. I know. I think I I know. I I want him to go first, Okay. William was able to make what's his name? Hold his ally in battle and just like he was like close to William. So that's kinda what gave him the opportunity to do that thing with the ox mirror thing. Ox eye reliquary. Okay. It's not like your answer. I did not take that's a no that's Yeah. Go, shall we? like Gavin said, he takes him into battle and it's proven on the Bayou Tapestry. and then basically he takes advantage of basically the friendship they have because he it's almost like Harold can trust William a little bit more to take the oath, even though he swears and honestly having him do the whole theatrics and swear on that like fake relic or whatever and then showing all the real relics kind of just dissembled the trust, but it also just lays the groundwork of William thinking he has right to the English throne because he's like, I made this I made the vow. I think it's true. The Pope thinks it's true. It's gotta be true, right? Okay. I'm gonna give the point to Zoe. You hit the good points there, buddy, but you missed one big one and that was the the relics doing swearing the oath on the relic no you did say that. I did say that. Yeah. You know what? I am gonna give the point to Gavin. Pity point. No, it's not a pity point. He hit all the main parts that I wanted you guys to hit. He did it first. You gave a little bit more detail, but y yeah, he did hit him all first. Number three. Why do historians treat the stories about Edward promising England to William, Harold's relic oath, and Godwin's bread choking death with different levels of certainty? I know it. It's because they all the records that they have, like the A like the Anglo Saxon Chronicle doesn't have them in there. I or it has it very vague, very loose. and then Most of them th the Norman side is like, yes, thousand percent it's happened. And then on the English side it says, Yeah, it could have happened, but it's after the conquest. So it's it's almost like revisionist history. It's like we've always been at war with Oceania, like that kind of thing. Okay. since some of the sources that say all this stuff are after William took over England and it's the England's on William's side at at the point of the record making, you know? So like you can't really trust the source. Okay. And yeah, yeah. I'm giving the point to Zoe. You're right, you're not wrong. But that's I d this is more than just locking in and giving a one word answer. And it's kind of the p the point of studying history is that you can both be right. Mm-hmm. Or you can both be wrong. Yeah. It depends. So Zoe? Wins today. And I think I have an advantage on this because I've been I I do I've worked with like the the quote unquote historical thinking skills and written things about it and I've thought about history in this kind of way and you just never had to do that before. So did have the advantage. just like So I'll do it a little bit different next week. I like it. Because I did there was a flaw because it's just basically whoever goes first gets the point. Basically. So Yeah. But I do I do like making you guys think a little bit harder. I like it too. Then faster, you know? Okay. The score is two to one Zoe on this game. Two to one me overall f per each game and five to four me overall points. Ooh, that's even closer. That's all you have to do is come back with one one game for win. Yeah. This day in History! ⁓ today is September twenty-fourth. On september twenty fourth, seventeen eighty nine, the United States Congress passed the Judiciary Act of seventeen eighty nine. What? Who could have predicted that? It creates the federal court system and the Supreme Court. Wow. President Washington nominates John Jay as the first Chief Justice the very same day. And he got sick after writing five. That's right. I was just gonna ask you, what else is John Jay famous for? Writing five Federalist papers. That's right. James Madison will twenty-nine. The other fifty one. All right, on this day in eighteen sixty-nine, Black Friday shook Wall Street. Speculators, Jay Gould and James Fisk attempted to corner the American gold market. causing gold prices to collapse and creating a major financial panic. Now what I found interesting about this is that when I think of Black Friday on Wall Street, what do you what do you guys think of? See, I don't even I don't even know what Wall Street is. Okay. I don't like I I kinda un like What wall she is, but I don't know what wall she is. Financial, it's where the stock exchange is. Okay. In New York. Zoe, any thoughts on what Black Friday? When I think of Black Friday, I think of sales. Okay. Yeah. I can see that. But what I think of is the Great Depression. Yeah. October nineteen twenty nine. Mm-hmm. There was a Friday, I can't remember the exact day. That was called Black Friday that the stock market crashed and basically precipitated the Great Depression. There have been many Black Fridays apparently while I was researching. Many Black Fridays, at least five of them throughout American history, and one of them was today in eighteen sixty nine. that's interesting. Due to gold prices. It's interesting only one of them led to a Great Depression like that. well there's only one Great Depression, but there were there's a bunch of depressions in American history. There's I just I think the the Great Depression is one of the notable ones because it it definitely led to a world war, so it was d well no, but it didn't lead to the world war. Well I guess it did. It had some It was the kind a catalyst. it was a catalyst, but it also helped bring the world out of the Great Depression the war. So And then finally, on this day in 1957, President Eisenhower orders the one hundred and first Airborne Division to Little Rock, Arkansas, to escort nine black students into Central High School and enforce school desegregation. It's a big day in civil rights history today. All right, across the channel in Normandy, William hears the news of Harold taking the throne. And William says, He swore an oath. On relics to me That is my throne. At the same time, way up in Norway, a giant terrifying warrior king named Harald Hardrata, here's the news. And Hardrata says, Actually, the old Viking treaty from Canute's reign says that I get England next. That is my throne. Forgot about that. And down in the south of England, Harold's own younger brother, Tostig, who has been exiled for being a tyrannical jerk to his own people. Well, Tostig hears the news too. And Tostig says, It's mine. That should have been mine. I'm going to find someone to help me take it. Three men and one vengeful brother are about to try and claim the same throne. Plus, a comet is about to appear in the sky and freak everybody out. boy. Welcome to ten sixty six. This is insane. That's it for this episode. Thanks for traveling through time with us. If you like today's story, share it with a friend, a teacher, or your family. Then come find us on Instagram at Ebbs of History with your show ideas, corrections, and questions. Signing off, this is your co-host, Gavin, Zoe. And me, Jason. Until next time. Keep wondering, keep laughing. And keep learning through the Ebbs of History.