Latest / Ebbs of History / When a Viking Teenager Conquered England
Transcript
- Jason: Welcome to The Ebbs of History, the show where we dive into the strangest, wildest, and sometimes downright creepiest stories the past has to offer. From dancing plagues to pirate queens, you'll laugh, you'll gasp, you'll even groan at the occasional dad joke. But most importantly, you're gonna learn how history is way cooler than your textbook ever told you. We're history loving hosts, Zoe, Gavin. And I'm Jason, and in every episode, the three of us will take a quick trip through time and see what lessons we can still learn today. This Is the ebbs of history? Hey there, history lovers. Welcome back to another episode of The Ebbs of History. We're so glad you're here with us today. Gavin, Zoe, how was everyone's week? Well, it's been about like five minutes since our last recorded episode. So from that time period from when we ended the final the last episode and now, I mean it's been pretty good. Good. Our internet's been out all morning, yes. So we're trying to record a bunch at one time while we have nothing else to do. But having no internet is better than having no air conditioning. That is so true. We're of a split opinion here apparently. It's more like three fourths us, including mom, that wants AC and then Gavin. Like I could survive without Internet. Internet. I cannot survive without AC. Yeah, no, I'm with ya. It it is Well, like they are pretty for me they're pretty close. But See I think here's the thing. Here's what separates the three of us and Gavin. We all like to read. Gavin doesn't like to read. I don't like reading. So I think that might be a big divider. Yeah, definitely. And why you would want internet more than air conditioning. That's true. I just don't like reading. All right. Before we get into today's episode, I want to take a minute to tell you what we're doing. Because this is going to be a little bit different from our usual Ebbs of History episodes. We are about to embark on a six episode series about one of my favorite subjects in all of history. The Norman Conquest One of your favorites? It is. Okay. The it is my favorite. Good good point. Good call. The Norman Conquest of England. This one is personal, as you know. The Norman Conquest is something I've been obsessed with since I was probably your age. It's the kind of story that has everything. Viking warlords. Queens who outsmart kings, holy oaths sworn on hidden saint bones, comets that everyone thought predicted the end of the world, brothers betraying brothers, a juggling court jester who started the most famous battle in English history, and a king whose corpse exploded at his own funeral. So this is a passion project for me. I wanted to tell this story on Ebbs of History from the very first episode, but the problem was It's too big. It does not fit in one episode. It does not fit in two episodes. The story of the Norman Conquest spans about seventy one years, from ten sixteen to ten eighty seven. And you cannot do it justice in less than six episodes. I'm not doing it justice in just six, but that is what we're gonna do. Six episodes in a row telling one continuous story from start to finish. Now, our usual podcast format is built around weird, wild, strange historical tidbits. That's our whole identity. And I wanna be clear that we are not abandoning that for this series. The story of the Norman Conquest on its surface a real historical story. But buried inside it, everywhere are the kind of strange, hilarious, gross, ridiculous historical details that make this show what it is. And I've packed every single episode full of them. So when you're listening and you hear me suddenly veer off into a story about how everyone called a real king Bunnyfeet, or how the nursery rhyme London Bridge is falling down is probably about an 11th century battle. That's on purpose. The weird tidbits are still there. There's also just dates and battles in between You know what always sucks is in history class? It's too early for us to actually learn. 'Cause I've never fully delved deep into the Norman Conquest because it is just so early in European history. Like we It's like pretty much the start. Like when w in seventh grade we just it was a it was a it was a sentence in the textbook. Yeah. Like it wasn't anything deep. And then last year when I took European history, it starts at the Renaissance. Even though w My class we did start earlier. We started in like the thirteen hundreds. It wasn't far enough back to get that. So I've really never learned the full breadth of The Norman Conquest. And it's always like I've always wanted to because it's your favorite. You always talk about it. So I know like bits and pieces just of what you talk about. Right. And there's books scattered around our house about the Norman Conquest and everything about it. Yeah. Yeah. It's and then I I've just never gotten the full story in one spot. Yeah, AP European history starts three hundred years after the Norman Conquest. At the beginning of the Renaissance. So yeah. Well it starts at the end of the medieval period. Yeah. which I think is a travesty that AP European history and starts after Middle Ages because the Middle Ages Is you mean in history Middle Ages. Right. Right. It's what? seven hundred years of European history that a lot happened that shaped what happened afterwards and you don't even learn about it. So you you learn about it? When I hear the word when I hear the word European history I think of the like medieval ages. That's because you live in the house that I live in. But like still I think world history talks about it. A P World talks about it. They they go back really far. Yeah. But I think they actually brought up the start date to It might be like at sixty six. I'm not sure though. interesting. I don't know the dates specifically 'cause I didn't take A P World, but So, you know, we watch a lot of Doctor Who There's a lot of points in history that Doctor Who shows and sees as can never change. Because they're so significant in world history that they change everything that happens after them. Ten66 is one of those moments. Mm-hmm. yeah. Okay. One thing that will be different. Because each of these episodes is doing a lot of plot work, our usual lessons learned section is going to be a little bit smaller or non-existent in some episodes. There's just so much story to tell that I I don't want to spend 10 minutes at the end every episode pulling moral lessons out of it. we'll still do lessons. There are some really great ones, but they're just going to be shorter and more focused. The story is the main event this time. Okay? I do have to give one warning because I do not want anyone to get lost. This series has a lot of people in it. And because 11th century people apparently had zero imagination on how to name their children, a lot of them have the same names. We've got multiple Edwards, Emma's, Harolds, and Williams. And we have three guys named Robert before we're even halfway done. medieval naming conventions are bad. So I'm gonna do my very best throughout the series to give each of these people a memorable hook. So you do not get them confused. Nicknames, weird character details, funny associations. Apple Red the Unready, Harefoot, or Bunnyfeet, Ironside. By the end of the series you should be able to tell each of these people apart, even when half of them have the same first name. Okay? You if you get confused halfway through you're like, well which Emma is that? Or you know, which William is that? Just stop me and I'll make sure that you guys are clear because it does it does matter in this context. I will be asking. 'Cause names they get it it gets a lot. Yeah. Yeah, I I I while writing this I was I I felt like I was diminishing these historical figures by using these monikers throughout. Like Ironside. I just call him Ironside because he is one of the Edwards that has you know, there's like three or four Edwards. Yeah. But I called him Ironside the entire time and I'm like, well that you guys aren't gonna remember that he's an Edward. Yeah. But it's gonna help you remember what he did. So I felt like it was diminishing them in a historical stance, but at the same time I feel like if you can remember them Based on their nickname and what they did, that does more than remembering that their first name was Edward. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's how it's Maybe you could say like avoid eye inside, you know? Well I could, yeah. We'll we'll see how it goes. Like 'cause writing these sometimes comes out different when we actually record the podcast. So you you guys don't hear all the outtakes of just him reading things and then they're just like, This makes no sense. Like at all. Like e even when I host some episodes, I'm like I'm reading it and I'm like, what? That doesn't make any sense. I wrote that? Zero sense. Yeah. Alright, so that's the setup. Six episodes, seventy-one years, one enormous story. This is the project I've been wanting to do since the show started, and I am genuinely excited to be telling it with you. Buckle up, strap in, grab a snack, and let's go to England in the year ten thirteen. Okay, picture this. It's the year ten thirteen. England's a mess. The king was a guy with one all-time great bad nicknames in history. Atholred the Unready. So that nickname is one of the oldest jokes in the entire English language because Atholed in old English literally means noble counsel, like well-advised counsel. It's a good king name. But on red, his nickname means no counsel or bad counsel. So his actual full nickname translates to well advised the ill-advised or noble council the no council. It's a thousand-year-old burn, basically. Some medieval monk sat down with a quill and pen and roasted his own dead king in a in wordplay so good we're still telling it today. Anyway. Old well advised the ill advised had just packed up his wife, his kids, and his ego, and sailed across the channel to hide with his in laws in Normandy. Why? Because a Viking army had just conquered his kingdom. The Viking in charge is a guy named Swain Forkbeard. Top tier name, by the way. And Swain has just become the first Viking King of England. He rules for exactly five weeks. Then he dies. Just drops dead. February third, ten fourteen. Some sources say he fell off of his horse. Some say he was poisoned. The English chroniclers, who hated him by the way, said Saint Edmund himself appeared as a ghost in full armor riding a horse in the middle of a banquet in front of everybody and stabbed Swain with a spear. That sounds like Banquo in Macbeth. Well that's interesting that you say that because when you probably based off of that because when you think about how writers write from Shakespeare through today, they use Stories like this in their I'm like it sounded like when Banko appeared in the hall and was like tormenting him after killing him. Sorry, spoiler. But there you go. so you know, it's a hard claim to fact check, obviously, because it's a ghost, right? Yeah. but anyway, interestingly, Saint Edmund had been killed by Vikings about a hundred and fifty years earlier in eight sixty nine, when a different Viking army shot him full of arrows and cut off his head. So this is basically a medieval revenge fantasy. Hey, remember that king you guys killed? He came back from the grave to get even. 11th century English propaganda was not subtle. But however it happened, Swain is suddenly buried dead, and his army needs a new leader. So they turn to his son, an 18-year-old kid named Canute. Spelled C N U T. That's how I spell it. There's another C A N U T E but what I see most of the time is Canute C N U T. And today I'm going to tell you the story of how this Viking teenager became one of the most powerful rulers in all of medieval Europe. And how his marriage to one very specific woman set up a chain reaction that would, fifty years later, end with William the Conqueror sailing across the English Channel to conquer England. It's all connected. It's all connected. It's why we start in ten thirteen. I was wondering why we didn't start ten sixty six. Like we we started so much farther back than six hastings. End. That's I I just didn't know that. Look there's just so much that was like Yep. when was William the Conqueror born? Ten twenty seven? Okay. He's not even alive yet. No. Like that's crazy. Welcome to episode one of our series on the Norman Conquest. we've got seventy one years of drama to get through and it starts here. So, young Canute, eighteen years old, his dad just died, his army is sitting in England, but the English are not exactly thrilled to be ruled by Vikings. They immediately invite Athelred the Unready to come back from Normandy and reclaim his throne, which Athelred does, slowly and reluctantly, like a dude showing up to a group project two weeks late. Canute looks at the situation and goes, Yeah, I'm not ready for this. So he pulls his fleet back to Denmark, Where his older brother Harald is now king. He needs to regroup. He needs more ships. He needs more men and he needs a plan. Now, I want to be honest with you about young Canute. Because I've been making him sound like a cool, clever Viking teenager in this story, and he is. But he is also eighteen years old. He just lost his dad, his crown got snatched away, and he is not in a great place mentally. On his way back to Denmark, his ship stops at a place called Sandwich on the English coast. his dad, Swain Forkbeard, had taken English hostages when he conquered the country. Important English noble kids basically held his collateral so their families would stay loyal. Canute still had them on his ships. And what he does next is genuinely awful. He has every single hostage mutilated, their hands, ears, and noses cut off, and then dumps them on the beach at Sandwich, alive but maimed, as a message to England. I will be back. This is not a kid story moment. This is a war crime moment. And the reason I'm telling you about it is because the same kid who did this is going to spend the rest of his life trying to be a good king. so keep that in your mind that people can change and sometimes it can be a lot. So for two years, Knut builds his army. He recruits Vikings from all over Scandinavia. He gathers a fleet. Sources say 200 ships, which historians think is exaggerated, but still, it's a lot of ships. And a quick weird history detour here because I can't resist. So you know that nursery rhyme, London Bridges Falling Down. Mm-hmm. You guys have heard it before? Of course. Of course. It's the one you sing in kindergarten and we probably sing it around the house all the time when you were younger. London bitches falling down. Exactly. Falling down copyrighted. No, it's probably in the public domain for sure. It's a little old. There is a really good chance that the nursery rhyme is about a battle that happened during this war. While Canute is over in Denmark gathering his fleet, Athelred the Unready is trying to take London back. The Vikings that are still in England have fortified London Bridge. Actual Vikings standing on it with spears, throwing rocks at anyone in a boat trying to pass underneath it. And Athelred has a Norwegian ally, A guy named Olaf Haraldsson, who comes up with a wild plan. They cover their boats with batched roofs ripped off of nearby houses so that the rocks bounce off. They row right up under the bridge, they tie ropes under the wooden bridge supports, and then they row away as hard as they can. And the bridge comes Falling down. Falling down. Vikings and all the story shows up in an Icelandic saga written about two hundred years later, and a lot of historians think that is where the nursery rhyme came from. So, the next time some kindergartner sings London Bridge at you, you can nod knowingly and whisper, 11th century Anglo-Viking warfare kid, stay woke. Stay woke. Told you I had a lot of fun writing this episode. I can tell. Alright, back to Canute. In the summer of 1015, this now 19-year-old kid sails back to England with the largest invasion force anyone has seen in a generation. By this time, Athelred the Unready is now an old man and he's dying. And his son, a tough scrappy warrior named Edmund Ironside, is fighting Canute. Basically by himself while his dad lies in bed in London, being completely useless. Edmund Ironside. Yep. Edward Edmund. Edmund. Is Edmund the start of the name Edward? No. Or are they two different names? No, I I mixed up before I said Edward. you meant Edmund. I meant Edmund. I I It that just goes to my point though. Yeah That there's so many names that and they're all so similar you can't remember them. Yeah. Yeah. Edmund Ironside, by the way, also a top tier nickname. Yeah. he got it because he was just tough. Like, take a sword to the ribs and keep on fighting tough. Wow. Did he have an iron side? The English love this guy. He fought Canute in five major battles in ten sixteen alone. Five. that is a battle every other month, and Ironside won most of them. But then comes the Battle of Asendon. October eighteenth, ten sixteen. An Ironside, the unkillable English warrior, is betrayed by one of his commanders, a sneaky guy named Edric Striona. Now, Striona basically means the grasper, because everyone knew he was a backstabber. Striona pulls his troops off the battlefield in the middle of the fight. Ironside's army collapses and Canute wins. After the battle, Ironside and Canute meet on a little island in the middle of the river Severn, and they sit down and they negotiate. These two guys who have been trying to kill each other for a year just sit down and split the country. Ironside gets the south, Canute gets the north. Now, some of the chronicles claim that they may have done more than shake hands. Some say they swore brotherhood, like formally. As in From this day on you are my brother. Which was a real Viking era ceremony. You actually swore oaths, mixed blood, the whole deal. So depending on which chronicle you believe, Ironside and Canute walk off that island as either business partners or as literal sworn brothers. Hm. Guys ever hear the term blood brothers? Yes. Yes. Like you cut yourself and you mix blood. Yes. That's what they're saying one of the chronicles says happened. Side note What do you think I mean when I say chronicles? Well like aren't chronicles like stories and then they're like Aren't they run like stories about battles and like almost like epics and like crazy like I could be wrong, I'm not exactly sure. Okay. So you're kinda right. Chronicles are basically the story of what happened. They do include battles, but it's kinda like like a history book. I don't know. But they call them chronicles. But in my case, when I say chronicles, I'm specifically talking about the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. Now, the thing about the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles is that there are a few different copies. They were written not as one big chronicle about everything going on at the time, but many different versions in monasteries across England. There are generally known to be nine versions, lettered A through I. They were kept in places like Winchester, Worcester, Abingdon, places geographically separate throughout England. one chronicle might say have one sentence about an event. Maybe that it actually happened. While another version could have paragraphs about the same event because they were closer to where the event happened and may have had chroniclers at the event. So when I say some say this while others say this, it's because of the different versions of the chronicle. It almost sounds like different versions of different like textbooks, 'cause yesterday in in A Push we were doing stuff in class and she had a bunch of different US history textbooks and we all had different textbooks. And we were talking we were trying to find stuff I'm coming back to previous episode we talked about the Dutch and like there's different sections of the chart and we were trying to find we were assigned the Dutch section and one of my group members had so much on the Dutch and then the up and me and the other group member had like nothing. Interesting. It so like she was just giving us all of the stuff to put on the chart, but we were still looking through our textbooks, but there was just nothing on it. Like they would mention New York, but they wouldn't mention the Dutch. Like and that th the other one it had like a chart, it had just so much stuff. Like it 'cause the ones that we were on, they focused more on the natives, and I guess the one that she had, it just focused more on the colonizers. So that is an ex perfect example. Yeah. So think of that when when whenever I say the chronicles. Yeah. Okay? That was a really good example I like. It just happened yesterday. Yeah. It's just crazy. It is crazy. Right, back to the story. Ironside and Canute walk off that island as either business partners or as literal sworn brothers, and then thirty days later, Edmund Ironside dies. Thirty days later. Officially, the chronicles say he died of wounds from the battle. Unofficially? Well, there's a very persistent rumor that he was murdered while sitting on the toilet. The story goes that one of Stryona the backstabbers' sons hid in the privy underneath him and stabbed him from below with a long knife. I like that one better. other versions say it was a crossbow rigged to fire upward when he sat down. You but I feel like honestly, like logically it might be because that blood bond, like he got like a virus transported. That's also true. I was literally thinking, like, when he was describing like like the blood brothers, I'm like, that is so unhygienic. You can get so many diseases from that. Like it's like you read my mind. Like Yeah, no, that's I didn't read too deeply. If I were to go more deeply, I bet you that could be one of the some historian somewhere has argued that. Mm-hmm. You know? But I like how your mind is already not accepting what I just told you. I love that. I love it. I feel like this just sounds cartoonish though. Right. You know? Well, genuinely we do not know if any of this is true. What we do know is that Ironside was twenty two years old and in fighting shape one month and dead the next. The and the only person who benefited from it was who? Canute Canute. Canute. So Canute, who's now at the ripe old age of twenty one years old, is suddenly the king of all of England. What do you expect a young Viking conqueror would do now to show his dominance to the English people? Would you expect him to be brutal? Maybe execute the English nobles, install his buddies, Burn down some monasteries for the heck of it? Vikings gonna Viking, right? I feel like no since he d had that bond with Iron Side. But if you're also positing that he may have killed him or not you positing, but like, you know if historians think that Canute may have had him killed. Mm-hmm. That's true. Mm-hmm. But here is where this teenager does something genuinely brilliant. Knut does the exact opposite. He executes maybe a handful of guys who were specifically dangerous to him, including hilariously the backstabber Striona. Because Knut figured if Striona would betray Ironside, he would betray Knut too. He's kinda smart for that. Smart kid is exactly what I have written down. But the rest of the English nobility, Canute keeps him. He learns their language, he follows their laws, he gives money to their churches. He even goes on a pilgrimage to Rome and writes a letter back to the English subjects that basically says, Hey guys, doing great, met the Pope, he says hi, please be nice to each other while I'm gone. Love Canute. It is the most wholesome letter from a Viking warlord you will ever read. And then Canute does the move that changes everything. The move that fifty years later is going to bring William the Conqueror to England. He decides that he needs to marry. And he does not marry some Viking princess. He does not marry an English noblewoman. He marries the widow of the king he just overthrew. He marries Athelred the Unready's widow, Emma of Normandy. I need to stop and tell you about Emma. Because she is one of the most underrated badasses of the entire medieval period. And she is the single most important woman in this entire seventy-one year story. Everything that happens later, and I mean everything, traces back to Emma. If you ever wanna do a report on the most influential women in all of history Emma would be at the top of that list. Emma was the daughter of the Duke of Normandy. Do either of you know what and where Normandy is? Is it in France? It is in France. Is that the beach that they stormed in D Day? It is. Yes, that was that beach is part of Normandy, yes. It's a region in northern France that was settled about a hundred years earlier by guess who? The Vikings. The name Normandy literally means land of the Northmen. So these guys, the Normans, are basically French speaking Vikings who have been doing the French thing for a few generations by this point. Now remember that because it comes back later. Alright, Emma married Alpha Red the Unready in one thousand and two, when she was maybe seventeen as a political alliance. She had two sons with him, Edward and Alfred. Now Edward and Alfred are two of the names that come up multiple multiple times. So we're gonna call them Eddie and Elfie. What's it again? I'm sorry. One thousand and two. One thousand and two. Wow. When Ethelred the Unready fled to Normandy in 1013, Emma fled with him, taking the boys to safety in Normandy with her brother, who is now the Duke of Normandy. When Athelred the Unready dies in 1016, she came back to England. Now, in 1017, Canute says, I'm going to marry Athelred the Unready's widow. Why? Because Emma is the connection to Normandy, which is the most powerful neighbor across the channel. Marrying her means Normandy will not invade. It means her sons, who are hiding in Normandy, do not have a great claim to come back and challenge him. It means he gets a smart, experienced, politically savvy queen who already knows how to run England. But here's the wild part. Emma negotiates. She's in her early thirties at this point. She's done the whole Queen of England thing before already, so she drives a hard bargain. She makes Canute agree in writing that any son that they have together will inherit the throne ahead of Canute's existing children from his Viking concubine back in Denmark. And ahead of her own sons by Athelred the Unready. Clean slate. It's like both of them didn't have any kids anymore. They're they're basically like the illegitimate children. They become basically yes, that's exactly right. So like there was no children at all, so whatever kids that her and Canute have together will be the next king of England. Can you see why this is the start of a dynastic problem that ends with William the Conqueror? Seventy years later. Because these children think they have right to the throne. Mm-hmm. But So was William the Conc w was William the Kid of Emma and No. No. No. He ends up being so this I'm gonna go over this later, but just so you know. Mm-hmm. Emma is the sister of the Duke of Normandy. Mm-hmm. And William is a descendant of the Duke of Normandy. Okay. Crazy family tree. Down the road. we need to make a family tree just to have it. There are plenty on there are plenty already made. She's like his great great aunt. We're we're starting back a couple generations. Yeah, this is a this is a long time before. Alright. Any questions? So it's a I guess it's a question for later, but w was William the rightful heir to the throne? That is up for debate. It's why I love this whole entire story is that there's no clear answer. It it this is perfect for our history purposes here on this podcast and what we teach you because if you go from the English perspective after everything happens and their side of the story, he is not. If you go from the Norman slash French side of the story, he is. And there are great there's great evidence on both sides. Yes. And there's something that happens later on in ten sixty six that throws that even into muddle because there's an extra storyline that gets injected in later on. So it's awesome. It's awesome. I'm so excited. And adding on to this, all of these are in medieval history, so we really don't have that many primary documents. Yes, and that's what makes this so muddled. Mm-hmm. I do go over that. I think it's good that we did our fallacy episode before this. Yes. So we had just so much background of like you need to have these certain sources. And even on our previous episode, but if what if that's your only source, you can't do that. You still have to question the one source you have. Right. And we got that, you know. Alright, so she negotiates. Emma negotiates and it works. She marries Canute. He agrees. They have a son together. They call him Hartha Knut. Who de Canute? Heartha. Is his son? yeah. So Hearth Canute is the son of Emma and Canute. And for the next eighteen years, Emma is the queen of one of the largest empires in medieval Europe. Because Canute, by the way, does not just rule England. He inherits Denmark when his brother dies, he conquers Norway, he gets the King of Scotland to bow to him. He briefly controls parts of Sweden. By the year 1028, this guy who started as a runaway Viking teenager rules what historians call the North Sea Empire. England, Denmark, Norway, and chunks of everywhere else around the North Sea. It's massive. Which brings us to the most famous Canute story of all time. Almost everyone tells this story wrong, so we're gonna get it right. Have you heard the story about Canute and the tide? No. I'm I probably have, but just don't know what name. The story goes that Canute, drunk with power, took his throne down to the beach and he ordered the tide to stop coming in. And the tide did not stop. What? Because tides do not listen to kings. And Canute got wet and looked stupid. That's the story that's told. Even today. That is not the actual story. The actual story written down by a monk named Henry of Huntingdon about a hundred years later goes like this. Canute's at the height of his power. He's the most powerful king in all of northern Europe. And his courtiers, basically his flatterers, or his his hype men, basically, are constantly telling him that he's amazing, that he is godlike, that nothing can resist his will, that the very sea itself would obey him if he commanded it to. And Canute, who by all accounts is a very smart and pretty religious man at this point, gets sick of it. So one day he tells his hype man, Okay, you think I can command the tide? Bring me my throne to the beach. Right at the edges of water, and I will show you. So they set up the throne, the tide's coming in, Canute sits down, takes off his crown, and commands the waves to stop. And of course they don't. The water keeps coming in. His royal robes get soaked, his fancy shoes are ruined, and Canute stands up, dripping wet, and turns to his court and says, and this is the actual quote Let all the world know that the power of kings is empty and worthless. There is no king worthy of the name except God, whom heaven and earth and sea obey. He takes his crown, and And he hangs it in Winchester Cathedral and never wears it again. But was it still there when we went? Sorry, it was, yeah. Was it still there when we went? We didn't go inside that one. We had plans to, but we didn't have time. It was closed, yeah. They closed at like four o'clock. I just like when everything closes over there. See if we want again, I would want to do that, you know? Especially now hearing that I like what houses that Winchester is probably one of my favorite places. It Winchester Cathedral has Emma's bones. They're on display. That's cool. There's a whole section, like historical museum section about Emma at Winchester Cathedral. And we didn't go there? We didn't we didn't have time. We ran out of time. Did you go there with the the first time you went? That's how I know. Well 'cause the first time you went you went for William Conqueror. Right. Mm-hmm. The next time you just went for f for fun. It's not a story about a king being arrogant, this one. It's a story about a king teaching his courtiers that power has limits. That even the most powerful man in northern Europe is just a guy. And Canute spent the rest of his life trying to be a good king. A fair king. A Christian king. Not bad for a Viking teenager who took over by force. Canute dies in November of ten thirty five. He's about forty years old. He's been king of England for nineteen years. Histiography! Almost everything we know about Canute's reign comes from sources written after he died, mostly by monks who had their own agendas. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle was written by English clergy who initially hated Canute as a foreign invader, but warmed up to him because he gave generously to the church. The enconium emirigine, literally in praise of Queen Emma, was commissioned by Emma herself in the 1040s and is essentially a PR document. It conveniently leaves out her first marriage to Atholed the Unready entirely. The famous Tide Story comes from Henry of Huntington, written around 1130, almost a hundred years after Canute's death. So we cannot be sure it actually happened. Though Henry says he heard it from older sources. And it actually makes more sense than you know the bombastic story that he tried stopping the tides. Like his Henry of Huntington's story makes a little bit more sense. So it it leaves it it gives some validity to it, right? Yeah. The toilet assassination of Ironside is reported in multiple medieval chronicles, but it is almost certainly legend. Modern historians think that Edmund probably died of battle wounds or illness, which leads to the blood to the blood mixing that Dan was talking about. That's disease. That was really good. and Sriona's reputation as the ultimate backstabber may have been exaggerated. since the people writing about him were the ones who survived him. so you can't take what they say about him all that strongly because They were his enemies. Mm-hmm. The story of Canute mutilating the hostages at Sandwich is well attested. It appears in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, in William of Malmesbury's history, and in multiple later sources. So historians treat it as basically factual, even though it's jarring against his later reputation. So that actually happened. There's so many primary sources from this time. Like that's a lot. No, so especially for the medieval ages. Here's the thing, guys. I'm giving you all the primary source. This is it. Like, this is it. And some of these were written afterwards, like the Huntington Henry of Huntington. That was a hundred years later, so that's not a primary source. That's secondary. Yeah. the London Bridge story, on the other hand, only appears in the Heimskringla. In Icelandic saga written around twelve thirty. More than two hundred years after the fact. And the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle does not mention it at all, so some historians doubt the bridge pulling part ever happened. The connection to the London Bridges falling down nursery rhyme is a popular theory, but not proven. As for Ironside and Canute swearing brotherhood, that detail comes from the chronicler John of Worcester writing in the 1100s, so not primary. Most modern historians think it was a formal political alliance dressed up in dramatic medieval language, not literally a Viking blood ceremony. So that takes away your thoughts on the Yeah, but still it's a possibility. Right. Definitely. Absolutely. But the chronicler clearly thought that the portrayal was extra spicy when Ironside died thirty days later. Lessons we've learned today. Canute's story has a great lesson. The smartest thing a conqueror can do is not act like a conqueror. He won England by force. But then he kept it by being fair, learning the language, and respecting English law. And the Tide story isn't about arrogance, it's about a powerful man refusing to believe his own hype. Best of all, the teenager who mutilated hostages became a king who got his shoes wet on purpose. People can change. Time for the Fun Fact Challenge! You know the rules. Reading this you can lock in at any time. Best of three. And just so everybody knows, we're gonna keep track of these. Over the entire six episode series and see who's the best and see what our records are gonna be. Alright, question one. What does ethelred unread mean in English? that was definitely Gavin. Yeah. It means what is it? Well advised the ill advised. Very good. Exactly what I have written here. Question two. How many battles did Edmund Ironside? Five. Five. My God. He fought Canute in five major battles. And so Gavin's already won this one. Yeah, I can tell. Question three. What are the names of the two children Emma had with Ethel Redbean Reddy? This was Edward and Alfred, nicknames Eddie and Alfie. Good job. So It matters, even though you lost this round, you lost this battle, the war is not over is not over. I love this. So Gavin I think I got that though. I think I saw that. It was Zoe. No, it was not definitely Zoe. No, you're just crazy. so A Gavin's up overall, two to one. So next time, we'll keep track of it. See who wins the war. This day in History! ⁓ All right, today is September tenth. And on this day in eighteen ninety seven, London cab driver George Smith plowed his electric taxi into a building on New Bond Street and became the first person ever arrested for drunk driving. Really? He admitted to two or three glasses of beer, and he was fined twenty shillings. Only twenty. Only twenty shillings. In nineteen nineteen, the Allies and Austria signed the Treaty of Saint Germain, officially breaking up the old Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I and forbidding Austria from ever uniting with Germany. A whole empire dissolved with a single signature. Mm. That's crazy how the signatures and like orders like can change history. Completely change history. And it's all I know this is way you know, tangential, but it's all paper. Yeah. Because none of the physical borders, the land didn't change, nothing changed. But these two political powers. Yeah. Even though they're touching each other and are literally part of each other, can't do anything with each other. Exactly. It's all politics and like there's no official boy. Like you're not just gonna see a line you know exactly it on the ground. It's all arbitrary. Like you're not gonna see land on the ground and then you see the border of US and Canada, that's genuinely a line of trees. But You know what that reminds me of? The four points. Here in America. Where like Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah all come. I guess it's not. It's not where it says yeah. Yeah, it's not the actual it's actually not four points. It's not the actual four point. It's like it's a little bit off. It's a little bit off. Yeah. And that just shows you how arbitrary it really is. Honestly. Okay. And then lastly in two thousand eight, scientists at CERN in Switzerland powered up the large hadron collider. The biggest machine humans have ever built, designed to smash particles together and hunt for the secrets of the universe. A few people worried that it would create a black hole the first time it was used. Spoiler. It didn't. Alright, the North Sea Empire is about to fall apart. England is about to have three kings in seven years. And one of those kings is going to do something so horrifying to one of Emma's sons That fifty years later that exact crime is going to be one of the reasons William the Conqueror invades England. We are just getting started. That's it for this episode. Thanks for traveling through time with us on the Ebbs of History. If you like today's episode, share it with a teacher, a friend, or your family on Instagram at Ebbs of History. If you have any show ideas, corrections, or questions, you can contact us at questions at ebbsofistory dot com. Starting off this is my co-host Gavin, Zoe. And me, Jason, reminding you that history is not just about the dates and battles, it's about people, curiosity, and the weird, wonderful choices that shaped our world. Until next time, keep wondering, keep laughing, and keep learning through the ebbs of history.