WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:46.079 Oh. and welcome to a very long titled panel but 00:00:46.079 --> 00:00:48.259 it's covering a lot so it's got a long title 00:00:48.259 --> 00:00:52.299 and this title is The Twice -Crowned Queen, The 00:00:52.299 --> 00:00:55.600 Kingmaker and The Prince Without a Kingdom or 00:00:55.600 --> 00:00:58.780 a Throne, potentially, to be seen. And this is 00:00:58.780 --> 00:01:01.500 all in relation to three fascinating characters 00:01:01.500 --> 00:01:04.739 that have been recently revived and slightly 00:01:04.739 --> 00:01:08.459 rewritten. to a great extent in some cases in 00:01:08.459 --> 00:01:11.620 the Netflix series Vikings Valhalla which is 00:01:11.620 --> 00:01:15.659 focused on the 11th century conflicts and throne 00:01:15.659 --> 00:01:20.280 swapping and throne taking etc in between Norway 00:01:20.280 --> 00:01:23.400 Denmark and of course Anglo -Saxon England at 00:01:23.400 --> 00:01:28.140 the time and a bit of Normandy too. The characters 00:01:28.140 --> 00:01:31.599 involved are Godwin Earl of Sussex or formerly 00:01:31.599 --> 00:01:35.260 as Wessex, sorry, I'm getting my timeline a bit 00:01:35.260 --> 00:01:38.040 confused according to Netflix's wonderful interpretation 00:01:38.040 --> 00:01:41.760 of history. Emma of Normandy, who is of Normandy, 00:01:41.819 --> 00:01:44.180 but she married one king, but then married on 00:01:44.180 --> 00:01:45.840 to a second king and she actually gave birth 00:01:45.840 --> 00:01:48.079 to two kings of England, so she's got quite a 00:01:48.079 --> 00:01:51.379 lot of weight in the English lineage on the throne. 00:01:51.739 --> 00:01:55.280 And of course Harold Hardrada, but he's not Hardrada 00:01:55.280 --> 00:01:57.819 in the series because he hasn't earned that great 00:01:57.819 --> 00:02:00.120 title yet, he's currently just known as Harold 00:02:00.120 --> 00:02:04.099 Sigurdsson. i .e. the son of Sigurd. And his 00:02:04.099 --> 00:02:06.420 wonderful adventures and that kind of thing. 00:02:06.560 --> 00:02:08.919 And I'm delighted to say I'm welcomed by three 00:02:08.919 --> 00:02:12.699 greatly respected and much adored guests on my 00:02:12.699 --> 00:02:16.819 panel. I have got authors Justin Hill of Shield 00:02:16.819 --> 00:02:19.979 Wall and Viking Fire. Do go buy them, they're 00:02:19.979 --> 00:02:22.840 great books. I've also got author Patricia Bracewell 00:02:22.840 --> 00:02:24.979 who's written a wonderful trilogy about Emma 00:02:24.979 --> 00:02:27.360 of Normandy starting with Shadow on the Crown, 00:02:27.539 --> 00:02:30.759 another great series. Please go buy it. And wonderful 00:02:30.759 --> 00:02:33.520 historian who's just finished another book and 00:02:33.520 --> 00:02:37.939 published a new one as we speak. Sharon, I'm 00:02:37.939 --> 00:02:39.539 gonna get your name wrong again Sharon please 00:02:39.539 --> 00:02:40.919 correct me. Is it Connolly Bennett or Bennett 00:02:40.919 --> 00:02:44.300 Connolly? Bennett Connolly. Right I wasn't sure 00:02:44.300 --> 00:02:46.819 whether to believe the text on my screen at the 00:02:46.819 --> 00:02:48.620 time because I got it wrong last time you guessed 00:02:48.620 --> 00:02:50.719 it I do apologize but thank you for correcting 00:02:50.719 --> 00:02:53.740 me. You don't want to know how long my name is 00:02:53.740 --> 00:02:56.159 in its full entirety and everyone gets it confused. 00:02:57.789 --> 00:02:59.990 These three wonderful people have joined me to 00:02:59.990 --> 00:03:02.770 discuss the latest series of Netflix Vikings 00:03:02.770 --> 00:03:04.909 Wellhalla. It's got its second season out. It 00:03:04.909 --> 00:03:09.270 came out in January and it follows a lot of these 00:03:09.270 --> 00:03:13.009 three characters. A good 50 % is Harold Sigurdsson 00:03:13.009 --> 00:03:16.210 stuff with another 50 % Godwin and Emma kind 00:03:16.210 --> 00:03:19.110 of stuff. But we're here to help you, dear viewers, 00:03:19.250 --> 00:03:21.189 whether you've seen the series or not, to learn 00:03:21.189 --> 00:03:24.419 the truth. and the truth is far better than the 00:03:24.419 --> 00:03:26.639 fiction. Trust me, it really, really, really, 00:03:26.639 --> 00:03:29.819 really is. Unless it's our fiction. Yes, because 00:03:29.819 --> 00:03:31.960 it's your fiction. I mean, their fiction, their 00:03:31.960 --> 00:03:34.419 fiction is a lot better as well than the series. 00:03:34.539 --> 00:03:36.759 A bit more truthful, if not say a good lot more 00:03:36.759 --> 00:03:38.800 truthful, more respectful for the actual history 00:03:38.800 --> 00:03:41.919 that occurred. Because Netflix has a wonderful 00:03:41.919 --> 00:03:43.699 thing. It's a bit like Harry Potter in that. 00:03:43.759 --> 00:03:46.060 the unbelievable happens in that characters that 00:03:46.060 --> 00:03:48.759 were dead at the time are alive and kicking and 00:03:48.759 --> 00:03:50.479 getting muddled up in other people's timelines. 00:03:50.659 --> 00:03:53.199 It's a bit like historical Doctor Who. Everyone's 00:03:53.199 --> 00:03:56.599 mixed up. No one's really on the right planet 00:03:56.599 --> 00:04:01.199 or timeline of existence at all. So to begin 00:04:01.199 --> 00:04:04.300 with, I think we should start with one of the 00:04:04.300 --> 00:04:06.240 characters that many people probably don't think 00:04:06.240 --> 00:04:10.289 of that much. Patricia, you may well think, oh, 00:04:10.370 --> 00:04:12.009 that might be Queen Anne, but actually I think 00:04:12.009 --> 00:04:14.889 it's Godwin of Wessex because everyone knows 00:04:14.889 --> 00:04:18.649 his son, Harold Godwinson, who became the Anglo 00:04:18.649 --> 00:04:21.009 -Saxon king. You had to face off Hadrada and 00:04:21.009 --> 00:04:24.709 then face off William the Conqueror. I nearly 00:04:24.709 --> 00:04:28.269 forgot his name. My memory is a bit adult, but 00:04:28.269 --> 00:04:35.399 it's holding. But how Godwin became his position 00:04:35.399 --> 00:04:38.379 at the royal court under both Ethelred, famously 00:04:38.379 --> 00:04:40.879 the Unready, and then of course under Canute 00:04:40.879 --> 00:04:43.899 who became Emma's second kingly husband and thus 00:04:43.899 --> 00:04:47.740 she became Queen twice over in my opinion. So 00:04:47.740 --> 00:04:50.560 we actually have in our panel Justin Hill who 00:04:50.560 --> 00:04:53.620 wrote a wonderful book about Godwin Shieldwall. 00:04:54.459 --> 00:04:57.420 Would you be able to give us maybe a brief explanation 00:04:57.420 --> 00:05:01.540 of Godwin's position within Ethelred's court 00:05:01.540 --> 00:05:04.670 at the time? Yeah I'm not sure he has much of 00:05:04.670 --> 00:05:07.529 a position in Ethel Redd's court. It's good to 00:05:07.529 --> 00:05:11.089 know. I mean I think Godwin is mysterious. I 00:05:11.089 --> 00:05:13.069 mean a lot of what we're talking about here is 00:05:13.069 --> 00:05:16.009 quite mysterious because the sources we have 00:05:16.009 --> 00:05:18.610 often don't tell us the information we want. 00:05:20.089 --> 00:05:22.610 They are often kind of written maybe a hundred 00:05:22.610 --> 00:05:26.930 years or more after the events and they're looking 00:05:26.930 --> 00:05:32.900 at the events in the sense of kind of looking 00:05:32.900 --> 00:05:36.639 at events that happened as instruments of kind 00:05:36.639 --> 00:05:40.279 of God's will. So they're explaining things in 00:05:40.279 --> 00:05:44.360 a way that show that God's will was enacted upon 00:05:44.360 --> 00:05:46.680 the people. The Battle of Hastings was a judgment 00:05:46.680 --> 00:05:49.800 upon Howard Godwinson, for example. So our sources 00:05:49.800 --> 00:05:57.740 are kind of hazy and sometimes misleading. So 00:05:57.740 --> 00:06:01.589 my kind of take on Godwin is largely from Frank 00:06:01.589 --> 00:06:04.410 Barlow's book about the Godwins and him looking 00:06:04.410 --> 00:06:08.509 at the sources and kind of, kind of guessing, 00:06:08.790 --> 00:06:15.730 but very informed guesses. And we have to sort 00:06:15.730 --> 00:06:18.410 of think our way back into the state of Ethelred, 00:06:18.430 --> 00:06:23.329 the Inredis reign, where England or kind of a 00:06:23.329 --> 00:06:25.550 Wessex kingdom has united the various parts of 00:06:25.550 --> 00:06:30.379 England and that... that kind of kingdom is slowly 00:06:30.379 --> 00:06:33.300 being worn down by a series of Viking invasions 00:06:33.300 --> 00:06:37.720 with Kings of Denmark getting increasingly centralized 00:06:37.720 --> 00:06:40.939 and powerful and coming over in ever larger armies 00:06:40.939 --> 00:06:44.819 with a change from just exhorting Dengel from 00:06:44.819 --> 00:06:47.959 the English kingdom to Spain forbid deciding 00:06:47.959 --> 00:06:50.279 he's actually going to conquer England. And in 00:06:50.279 --> 00:06:57.259 this kind of mess and melee, English, what I 00:06:57.259 --> 00:06:59.279 think is quite interesting is kind of the English 00:06:59.279 --> 00:07:02.259 and here again we're kind of limited by the language 00:07:02.259 --> 00:07:05.120 we use and that what we think of English is not 00:07:05.120 --> 00:07:06.480 necessarily what they think of English. English 00:07:06.480 --> 00:07:08.540 is a collection of kind of kingdoms that have 00:07:08.540 --> 00:07:11.100 been united and within that you get many different 00:07:11.100 --> 00:07:15.680 peoples or tribes if you like. You have the West 00:07:15.680 --> 00:07:20.240 Saxons, the South Saxons, you have kind of Dengel 00:07:20.240 --> 00:07:23.579 which has been heavily influenced by the Danish 00:07:23.579 --> 00:07:27.769 settlers from the previous century. and all the 00:07:27.769 --> 00:07:29.949 kind of loyalties to the English throne get kind 00:07:29.949 --> 00:07:33.550 of tested. And what is, I think, really impressive 00:07:33.550 --> 00:07:36.370 is actually how well England stays together. 00:07:36.850 --> 00:07:38.529 We think of these Danish settlers in the Dengel, 00:07:38.610 --> 00:07:40.810 and the Dengel is kind of the Midlands of England. 00:07:42.310 --> 00:07:45.370 It takes a lot for them to kind of go over to 00:07:45.370 --> 00:07:50.949 Spain Fortbeard. And so in this kind of in the 00:07:50.949 --> 00:07:53.870 latter years of Ethelred's reign, essentially, 00:07:54.410 --> 00:08:01.699 you have Ethelred is not fighting for the kingdom, 00:08:02.339 --> 00:08:04.019 Sveinforthbeard or Cnut are going around the 00:08:04.019 --> 00:08:07.040 country and exhorting oaths from people otherwise 00:08:07.040 --> 00:08:09.379 they're going to have their their lands devastated 00:08:09.379 --> 00:08:12.220 and their halls burnt etc and so you have people 00:08:12.220 --> 00:08:15.720 kind of switching sides continually in just a 00:08:15.720 --> 00:08:20.500 kind of mess of civil war really and some vendettas 00:08:20.500 --> 00:08:24.980 and from this kind of this mess Ethelred is kind 00:08:24.980 --> 00:08:32.379 of was always inept And his kind of younger son, 00:08:32.919 --> 00:08:34.980 Edmund Ironside, or the letter becomes no Edmund 00:08:34.980 --> 00:08:38.379 Ironside, eventually kind of rebels against his 00:08:38.379 --> 00:08:43.100 father and starts to wage war against the Vikings. 00:08:43.480 --> 00:08:46.919 And from this kind of chaotic mess, Godwin appears 00:08:46.919 --> 00:08:50.200 and we don't really know where he comes from 00:08:50.200 --> 00:08:53.960 or why, but I think there are hints of who he 00:08:53.960 --> 00:08:57.340 is and very slightly. The explanation is that 00:08:57.340 --> 00:09:01.740 his father is a minor South Saxon fame called 00:09:01.740 --> 00:09:04.659 Wulffnoth, Wulffnoth Kill, which translates directly 00:09:04.659 --> 00:09:07.740 as Wulffnoth the child, which I kind of thought, 00:09:07.740 --> 00:09:09.080 how would you translate that? I kind of thought 00:09:09.080 --> 00:09:14.120 Wulffnoth the bad. Younger. Yeah, kind of, he's 00:09:14.120 --> 00:09:18.659 kind of, he's kind of a hero in some sense. He's 00:09:18.659 --> 00:09:21.860 got a kind of a nomika or nickname. So Frank 00:09:21.860 --> 00:09:24.620 Barlow's theory is that he's been one of the 00:09:24.620 --> 00:09:27.659 more successful feigns in defending his lands 00:09:27.659 --> 00:09:31.039 from the Vikings. And I think he appears in Anglo 00:09:31.039 --> 00:09:34.580 -Saxon Chronicle in 1008 or 1009 when there's 00:09:34.580 --> 00:09:40.299 a big gathering of a naval fleet at Sandwich, 00:09:40.340 --> 00:09:44.259 I think. And in the kind of civil war, Walthmoth 00:09:44.259 --> 00:09:47.700 is accused of something. We don't know what exactly. 00:09:47.759 --> 00:09:50.940 He persuades 20 crews to run away with him. And 00:09:50.940 --> 00:09:55.839 then the rest of the fleet go in pursuit. and 00:09:55.839 --> 00:09:59.159 as he's sailing in his own kind of waters, he 00:09:59.159 --> 00:10:00.940 survives a storm that the rest of the fleet does 00:10:00.940 --> 00:10:03.399 not. It's kind of scattered and shipwrecked and 00:10:03.399 --> 00:10:07.360 the whole effort of raising this huge fleet is 00:10:07.360 --> 00:10:10.820 kind of wasted. And the link between Wolfenhof 00:10:10.820 --> 00:10:16.639 killed and in Godwin is in the will of Ethelred's 00:10:16.639 --> 00:10:20.639 eldest son Athelstan who dies before Ethelred 00:10:20.639 --> 00:10:27.009 and in the will he mentions that he returns the 00:10:27.009 --> 00:10:29.809 manner of competent to Godwin, son of Wolfenoth. 00:10:30.610 --> 00:10:33.370 And so this is probably an estate that's been 00:10:33.370 --> 00:10:37.289 confiscated since Wolfenoth was exiled and then 00:10:37.289 --> 00:10:40.490 ends up with Godwin. And so from this kind of 00:10:40.490 --> 00:10:44.029 mess, Godwin appears. And I'd love to know what 00:10:44.029 --> 00:10:47.750 you two think, Sharon and Sharon, of where Godwin 00:10:47.750 --> 00:10:52.049 comes from. Well, I agree with what with what 00:10:52.049 --> 00:10:54.669 you're saying, I think that he was probably part 00:10:54.669 --> 00:10:57.909 of Edmund's entourage, maybe Appelstein's entourage 00:10:57.909 --> 00:11:02.830 at first, and then Edmund's. There's a story 00:11:02.830 --> 00:11:08.230 that in 1015, Canute was crowned in the South, 00:11:09.950 --> 00:11:13.570 one of the bishops, supposedly. crowned him king 00:11:13.570 --> 00:11:16.110 and when the south submitted to him in early 00:11:16.110 --> 00:11:20.789 1015. And I was wondering if perhaps Godwin was 00:11:20.789 --> 00:11:24.009 part of that group. This was before Ascenden. 00:11:25.250 --> 00:11:28.990 And I went back and I looked and Godwin signs 00:11:28.990 --> 00:11:35.230 more charters in 1018 than any other elder man 00:11:35.230 --> 00:11:38.090 at any other thing, including the Danish ones. 00:11:38.590 --> 00:11:43.549 So he was part of Knut's entourage, followers, 00:11:43.909 --> 00:11:48.470 from very early on. And it may have been because 00:11:48.470 --> 00:11:52.950 of what happened down there in southern Wessex 00:11:52.950 --> 00:11:57.269 in early 1015. What do you think, Sharon? It 00:11:57.269 --> 00:11:59.809 sounds quite likely, and it may well be that 00:11:59.809 --> 00:12:02.309 he had been part of Athelstan's household, but 00:12:02.309 --> 00:12:07.669 then when Athelstan died, he, you know, went 00:12:07.669 --> 00:12:14.259 over to Canoe. There was... Well, Attlestand 00:12:14.259 --> 00:12:19.820 died in 1014, didn't he? And Canute lost power 00:12:19.820 --> 00:12:22.879 about the same time. So it may be that when Canute 00:12:22.879 --> 00:12:29.120 came back, he sided with Canute because... The 00:12:29.120 --> 00:12:31.000 thing is, because we don't know anything before 00:12:31.000 --> 00:12:33.940 then about Godwin, he might have had fallen out 00:12:33.940 --> 00:12:36.440 with Edmund years ago, you know? He might have 00:12:36.440 --> 00:12:38.960 been that Edmund and Attlestand didn't get on 00:12:38.960 --> 00:12:42.399 at one stage and... God, there's so much that 00:12:42.399 --> 00:12:47.820 we don't know that you can be really inventive. 00:12:48.519 --> 00:12:50.539 That's right, with that time of history is so 00:12:50.539 --> 00:12:54.120 there's so many gaps that it makes it just, you 00:12:54.120 --> 00:12:59.080 know. fictionalized writers and screenwriters 00:12:59.080 --> 00:13:02.700 can just throw all kinds of stuff in there. For 00:13:02.700 --> 00:13:05.980 me, I just have to put either or every time. 00:13:06.019 --> 00:13:08.179 Well, it could have been this or it could have 00:13:08.179 --> 00:13:10.580 been that. Luckily, I can move it to the reader 00:13:10.580 --> 00:13:12.740 to make their own minds up and just give them 00:13:12.740 --> 00:13:15.100 all the possibilities or say what I think is 00:13:15.100 --> 00:13:17.860 most likely. But with this, we don't even have 00:13:17.860 --> 00:13:22.029 enough to say what was most likely. We know that 00:13:22.029 --> 00:13:24.850 his dad was accused of treason by Britry but 00:13:24.850 --> 00:13:29.570 we don't know what the treason was. We know that 00:13:29.570 --> 00:13:34.049 Athelstan left him his father's estate so he 00:13:34.049 --> 00:13:38.529 must have got on well with Athelstan and he must 00:13:38.529 --> 00:13:41.210 have served Athelstan well for Athelstan to do 00:13:41.210 --> 00:13:45.669 that. But what he did between 1014 when Athelstan 00:13:45.669 --> 00:13:49.529 died and 1018 when suddenly he's signing all 00:13:49.529 --> 00:13:52.669 these charters for Canute. We don't know but 00:13:52.669 --> 00:13:55.250 he must have taken sides with Canute at some 00:13:55.250 --> 00:13:58.990 stage for him to be so quickly so valuable to 00:13:58.990 --> 00:14:03.389 Canute. And this is where Netflix unfortunately 00:14:03.389 --> 00:14:08.809 have tried almost to write his story but without 00:14:08.809 --> 00:14:12.789 knowing a lot if anything because he was around 00:14:12.789 --> 00:14:16.190 in the first season when we briefly ever so briefly 00:14:16.190 --> 00:14:18.830 meet Ethel Reddy and Reddy who dies within two 00:14:18.830 --> 00:14:21.970 episodes, if not the first one. He's shown to 00:14:21.970 --> 00:14:25.409 be some kind of courtier when Emma's trying to 00:14:25.409 --> 00:14:28.450 take the control and fend off the Vikings. Unfortunately, 00:14:28.950 --> 00:14:30.490 and I'm sorry if I'm going to spoil the spread 00:14:30.490 --> 00:14:33.789 you're watching, Godwin was not the enemy. He 00:14:33.789 --> 00:14:37.610 did not murder Edmund. He did not betray Edmund 00:14:37.610 --> 00:14:40.990 in any way, sense or form. Godwin, according 00:14:40.990 --> 00:14:44.490 to history, is quite loyal. He's quite good at 00:14:44.490 --> 00:14:46.850 strategic. And I think the one aspect that they 00:14:46.850 --> 00:14:50.100 have caught of his character which seems to be 00:14:50.100 --> 00:14:54.740 reflecting what you guys are saying is I think 00:14:54.740 --> 00:14:56.940 he even says it in the series kind of like he's 00:14:56.940 --> 00:14:59.620 a survivalist he's a survivor he does what he 00:14:59.620 --> 00:15:02.799 needs to survive um even in the series if it's 00:15:02.799 --> 00:15:05.379 killing off one king to befriend another kind 00:15:05.379 --> 00:15:08.299 of thing um and I guess if you have had your 00:15:08.299 --> 00:15:10.539 family kind of hugely dishonored and your land 00:15:10.539 --> 00:15:12.480 and rights taken from you you are kind of like 00:15:12.480 --> 00:15:16.039 left politically and socially vulnerable in that 00:15:16.039 --> 00:15:19.700 sense. So to have done what he's done to keep 00:15:19.700 --> 00:15:23.159 moving in circles, to even get close to being 00:15:23.159 --> 00:15:26.259 of good use to any kings or princes -to -be, 00:15:26.340 --> 00:15:28.580 that kind of thing, is interesting. I'm glad 00:15:28.580 --> 00:15:31.740 you brought up just in about his father and what 00:15:31.740 --> 00:15:35.000 he possibly or possibly did not do in terms of 00:15:35.000 --> 00:15:37.639 the treason, because he does in the series allude 00:15:37.639 --> 00:15:41.200 to it, to his wife -to -be who, I'm sorry spoilers, 00:15:41.419 --> 00:15:43.840 gets lobbed again, unfortunately Godwin's setting 00:15:43.840 --> 00:15:49.080 a trait, a trait for lobbing off people. He alludes 00:15:49.080 --> 00:15:51.379 to it but he doesn't ever say what, he just says, 00:15:51.620 --> 00:15:53.440 oh I've kind of like, I want to focus on my future, 00:15:53.519 --> 00:15:55.259 I don't want to think about my father and his 00:15:55.259 --> 00:16:00.899 past, and oh. We don't know, so he probably, 00:16:00.899 --> 00:16:03.440 he doesn't know, so instead of making up something 00:16:03.440 --> 00:16:06.639 they just allude to it. Yeah, I guess that one 00:16:06.639 --> 00:16:10.059 aspect is true. What we can say about Godman 00:16:10.059 --> 00:16:13.039 is that he's clearly very successful because 00:16:13.039 --> 00:16:16.700 he manages to stay, he kind of rises very rapidly 00:16:16.700 --> 00:16:20.919 under Knut and then remains for the rest of his 00:16:20.919 --> 00:16:25.240 life, you know, an absolute power broker in the 00:16:25.240 --> 00:16:29.100 country and installs his sons across England. 00:16:30.269 --> 00:16:33.669 My hunch with Godwin, kind of just thinking about 00:16:33.669 --> 00:16:36.789 the characters, was how does he rise to power? 00:16:36.950 --> 00:16:39.250 There's a story and I think it's, is it William 00:16:39.250 --> 00:16:44.389 Mansbury who talks about, he saves someone from 00:16:44.389 --> 00:16:47.429 a battle and then kind of rises that way. But 00:16:47.429 --> 00:16:51.470 my hunch was Cnut is a 17 year old lad when he 00:16:51.470 --> 00:16:54.230 becomes King of England and he's a bit like Alexander 00:16:54.230 --> 00:16:57.950 the Great who's inherited an army of kind of 00:16:57.950 --> 00:17:02.289 hardened, dour, professionals who won't necessarily 00:17:02.289 --> 00:17:06.650 want to listen to a 17 year old lad. The Viking 00:17:06.650 --> 00:17:08.849 army and the English army have trekked around 00:17:08.849 --> 00:17:12.250 England, taking oaths from the same warlords 00:17:12.250 --> 00:17:15.710 who promised to support them. So everyone's broken 00:17:15.710 --> 00:17:20.039 their Everyone has broken their oaths by this 00:17:20.039 --> 00:17:22.559 point. So Canute comes to a country where everyone's 00:17:22.559 --> 00:17:25.059 lied to him or everyone has been betrayed him 00:17:25.059 --> 00:17:28.779 and he doesn't necessarily trust, you know, the 00:17:28.779 --> 00:17:32.420 kind of the big guys upon whom he's, you know, 00:17:32.779 --> 00:17:35.920 his own kind of Viking commanders. And so my 00:17:35.920 --> 00:17:41.140 hunch was if Godwin stayed loyal to Edmund Dineside, 00:17:41.559 --> 00:17:47.539 then that's someone Knute knows he can trust. 00:17:48.259 --> 00:17:50.700 And the idea of trust was quite interesting to 00:17:50.700 --> 00:17:54.519 me because in one of his first charters, Knute, 00:17:54.519 --> 00:17:56.460 when he becomes King of England, Knute raises 00:17:56.460 --> 00:17:59.339 the penalties for oath -breaking. So this sense 00:17:59.339 --> 00:18:01.700 of oath -breaking or disloyalty is clearly something 00:18:01.700 --> 00:18:04.859 that is kind of, is in his mind when he becomes 00:18:04.859 --> 00:18:09.119 King in England. I can imagine and I suppose 00:18:09.119 --> 00:18:11.099 this is how I came back to season one a bit. 00:18:12.329 --> 00:18:14.730 the infamous villainous small villainous than 00:18:14.730 --> 00:18:17.230 Godwin in the series Earl of Stryona is a proper 00:18:17.230 --> 00:18:19.230 villain compared to how the series are depicting 00:18:19.230 --> 00:18:21.529 Godwin they've kind of completely got the role 00:18:21.529 --> 00:18:24.690 to reverse unfortunately and I'll always remember 00:18:24.690 --> 00:18:27.069 kind of late reading my wonderful books on Canute 00:18:27.069 --> 00:18:29.589 about how Canute has Fiona beheaded and say, 00:18:29.630 --> 00:18:31.869 well, let's show you how we treat oathbreakers 00:18:31.869 --> 00:18:34.269 and those who betray their oaths to their king, 00:18:34.410 --> 00:18:35.690 that kind of thing. Here you go, off your head 00:18:35.690 --> 00:18:37.730 and off and off your jobs. And I actually cheered 00:18:37.730 --> 00:18:39.730 when I read that. Yes, he's finally done it, 00:18:39.730 --> 00:18:41.809 because after reading the accounts of how he 00:18:41.809 --> 00:18:44.950 switched sides so many times between Ethelred, 00:18:45.089 --> 00:18:47.450 then Canute, then Edmund, then back to Ethelred, 00:18:47.470 --> 00:18:52.250 then Canute. I can get that how that was a real 00:18:52.250 --> 00:18:54.190 big push for Canute to say right everyone's loyal 00:18:54.190 --> 00:18:59.730 to me or else. Basically. They seem to be following 00:18:59.730 --> 00:19:02.970 a lot of Norman sources want to blacken Godwin 00:19:02.970 --> 00:19:06.009 because he's obviously the father of Harold Godwin's 00:19:06.009 --> 00:19:12.569 son who's William's major rivals. And so if you 00:19:12.569 --> 00:19:15.750 can smear Godwin then you smear his son as well. 00:19:17.130 --> 00:19:19.289 That's a very good point never consider that 00:19:19.289 --> 00:19:20.849 because of course a lot of the viewers of these 00:19:20.849 --> 00:19:23.910 series might not have read much historical non 00:19:23.910 --> 00:19:26.309 -fiction or have even covered this period in 00:19:26.309 --> 00:19:28.849 any history that they might have had educationally 00:19:28.849 --> 00:19:31.930 and of course it all comes from sources all our 00:19:31.930 --> 00:19:34.289 educational teaching and all your research from 00:19:34.289 --> 00:19:36.390 you wonderful people comes from sources and if 00:19:36.390 --> 00:19:38.930 the sources are biased then we're not really 00:19:38.930 --> 00:19:41.029 getting to that we're only getting a half truth 00:19:41.029 --> 00:19:45.079 if if anything so that's a very good point. the 00:19:45.079 --> 00:19:47.940 sources are always biased because whatever you 00:19:47.940 --> 00:19:51.700 write you have an agenda so they're always biased 00:19:51.700 --> 00:19:54.940 in some direction. Trying to figure that out 00:19:54.940 --> 00:20:00.339 is the key. Somebody certainly didn't read the 00:20:00.339 --> 00:20:04.619 one that said that Godwin was loyal to Emma. 00:20:05.880 --> 00:20:11.279 Oh yes, that's a big thing in season two. And 00:20:11.279 --> 00:20:12.619 that brings me actually because of course you 00:20:12.619 --> 00:20:14.740 mentioned about how quickly he rose through the 00:20:14.740 --> 00:20:17.059 ranks, Justin, because of course in season two 00:20:17.059 --> 00:20:21.480 we see through a very almost Beth -style plot 00:20:21.480 --> 00:20:25.039 how Godwin eventually obtains the hand of Geetha. 00:20:25.420 --> 00:20:27.319 Now you ladies may be able to clarify because 00:20:27.319 --> 00:20:29.539 of course in the series she's referred to as 00:20:29.539 --> 00:20:33.119 Cnut's niece. I don't think she's a blood relative, 00:20:33.160 --> 00:20:37.839 is she? No, no. No, I thought not. Her brother. 00:20:38.269 --> 00:20:44.509 is married to Cnut's sister. So in one of the, 00:20:44.670 --> 00:20:47.150 I can't remember which one, but in one of the 00:20:47.150 --> 00:20:49.970 sources she's referred to as Cnut's sister, but 00:20:49.970 --> 00:20:52.970 she isn't. She's Cnut's brother -in -law's sister. 00:20:54.829 --> 00:20:58.029 So she was part of this wider kin group. She 00:20:58.029 --> 00:21:01.990 was part of the wider kin group. So it was bringing 00:21:01.990 --> 00:21:05.609 Godwin sort of into that family grouping, but 00:21:05.609 --> 00:21:09.539 not blood. And so that... you know, the line 00:21:09.539 --> 00:21:12.819 of the hierarchy that leads you to a kingship, 00:21:13.220 --> 00:21:16.779 that wasn't there. She was not a blood relative. 00:21:17.660 --> 00:21:25.220 Because of her relationship with Cnut, Cnut's 00:21:25.220 --> 00:21:29.440 sister's son, who is therefore Githa's nephew, 00:21:30.019 --> 00:21:34.660 does become King of Denmark. So, you know, they 00:21:34.660 --> 00:21:40.960 are semi -royal. And it's not what you know, 00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:43.079 it's who you know. She definitely knew everybody. 00:21:46.099 --> 00:21:49.019 So it was definitely a step up for Godwin to 00:21:49.019 --> 00:21:52.940 be able to marry someone like Githa. Which is 00:21:52.940 --> 00:21:56.920 why the television show which has him proposing 00:21:56.920 --> 00:22:00.460 marriage to one of Emma's handmaidens is utterly 00:22:00.460 --> 00:22:02.920 ridiculous. He would never have done that. He 00:22:02.920 --> 00:22:05.920 would have wanted to marry up. He would have 00:22:05.920 --> 00:22:09.259 wanted to marry into the elite, into the nobility. 00:22:09.920 --> 00:22:11.619 Although I did wonder if they did that, because 00:22:11.619 --> 00:22:15.500 there is a suggestion that Githa was his second 00:22:15.500 --> 00:22:20.039 wife. And there was this woman, was it Daira 00:22:20.039 --> 00:22:24.180 or Thura, who apparently was a slave trader. 00:22:25.079 --> 00:22:28.859 And in some of the chronicles, it suggests that 00:22:28.859 --> 00:22:33.319 they were married first and she died. And then 00:22:33.319 --> 00:22:38.049 he married Githa. I've never seen that. It's 00:22:38.049 --> 00:22:40.829 not certain. And there's a story that they had 00:22:40.829 --> 00:22:45.109 a son, him and his first wife, who rode his horse 00:22:45.109 --> 00:22:50.089 into the Thames and drowned. As you do. And I 00:22:50.089 --> 00:22:53.849 think the matter of one wife is also a bit more 00:22:53.849 --> 00:22:58.690 fluid at this time. Yes. There wasn't strict 00:22:58.690 --> 00:23:04.359 monogamy. No, I mean Knut famously had two wives, 00:23:05.299 --> 00:23:08.079 one Emma and then one Elgie Fu of Northampton. 00:23:09.000 --> 00:23:13.700 Harold the second did and Harold Sigurdsson, 00:23:13.839 --> 00:23:15.819 Harold Hardrada, he had two wives at the same 00:23:15.819 --> 00:23:20.720 time as well. It seems to be a common theme throughout 00:23:20.720 --> 00:23:24.880 the 1066 story, two wives at the same time. Well 00:23:24.880 --> 00:23:27.559 given the era and troubling times that these 00:23:27.559 --> 00:23:29.299 people all lived through, I can understand the 00:23:29.299 --> 00:23:32.440 men wanting to put as many eggs in as many baskets 00:23:32.440 --> 00:23:36.920 as they could to kind of strengthen their survival 00:23:36.920 --> 00:23:41.000 kind of thing. It's okay, so that's good. We've 00:23:41.000 --> 00:23:43.960 clarified there wasn't a direct niece, she was 00:23:43.960 --> 00:23:47.039 further further down the family tree, but I guess 00:23:47.039 --> 00:23:48.980 that's where the creative license is allowed 00:23:48.980 --> 00:23:52.799 in order to kind of like make Godwin's big dream 00:23:52.799 --> 00:23:54.980 of having his firstborn son eventually become 00:23:54.980 --> 00:23:56.740 King of England, and he does say this in the 00:23:56.740 --> 00:24:00.160 series Justin, he's very open. to his now -dead 00:24:00.160 --> 00:24:03.119 fiancé about his political ambition. Because, 00:24:03.140 --> 00:24:04.259 of course, if you tell the dad that, they can't 00:24:04.259 --> 00:24:07.460 tell anyone. I don't think anyone ever would 00:24:07.460 --> 00:24:10.299 have had that ambition at the time, though. I 00:24:10.299 --> 00:24:12.579 think that would have been so far above him. 00:24:12.599 --> 00:24:15.519 He would never, ever have expected one of his 00:24:15.519 --> 00:24:18.700 children to become King of England. No. And it 00:24:18.700 --> 00:24:21.980 wasn't his eldest son, was it? Wasn't Svein his 00:24:21.980 --> 00:24:24.119 eldest son? No, Svein was the eldest son. Well, 00:24:24.779 --> 00:24:26.839 he clearly didn't because he has his daughter, 00:24:26.940 --> 00:24:31.450 Mary. edward the confessor so his his kind of 00:24:31.450 --> 00:24:33.329 his dynastic ambition is through his daughter 00:24:33.329 --> 00:24:36.410 not through his sons yeah yeah he was looking 00:24:36.410 --> 00:24:39.309 at having a grandson on the throne which didn't 00:24:39.309 --> 00:24:41.430 work out very well considering edward the confessor 00:24:44.509 --> 00:24:47.150 And this brings me right round to our second 00:24:47.150 --> 00:24:49.029 kind of like intriguing character, the twice 00:24:49.029 --> 00:24:51.170 crowned Queen Emma, because of course Emma must 00:24:51.170 --> 00:24:54.630 have been in the same circles, groups, possibly 00:24:54.630 --> 00:24:56.930 the same room as Godwin during this time, because 00:24:56.930 --> 00:25:00.549 if Godwin was around with her first husband's 00:25:00.549 --> 00:25:03.390 sons, then she would have observed him doing 00:25:03.390 --> 00:25:05.910 this and doing that. And then I often wondered, 00:25:06.509 --> 00:25:09.089 obviously following watching season two, whether 00:25:09.089 --> 00:25:11.470 historically Emma had any input to Canute say, 00:25:11.509 --> 00:25:13.490 oh, you want to keep that one, he's a good one, 00:25:13.690 --> 00:25:15.589 as in like who to keep in court and who not to 00:25:15.589 --> 00:25:18.250 keep in court kind of thing, or whether it was 00:25:18.250 --> 00:25:21.430 just purely Godwin's own merit and efforts that 00:25:21.430 --> 00:25:23.170 helped him stay, because of course Emma was trying 00:25:23.170 --> 00:25:29.950 to help Canute balance the shifting, what's the 00:25:29.950 --> 00:25:32.250 word I'm looking for, shifting power control 00:25:32.250 --> 00:25:36.660 between like the Vikings and the Saxons. Yes, 00:25:36.680 --> 00:25:39.519 sorry, go on. I think it's entirely possible. 00:25:40.140 --> 00:25:43.819 When Canute married Emma in 1017, a big part 00:25:43.819 --> 00:25:46.539 of it was to get the English on his side, to 00:25:46.539 --> 00:25:50.660 show the continuity and to get the one through 00:25:50.660 --> 00:25:52.660 to support the English, you know, to give them 00:25:52.660 --> 00:25:56.589 a reason to come over to his side. you know if 00:25:56.589 --> 00:26:00.130 he's married to the Queen of England then everybody 00:26:00.130 --> 00:26:03.930 else has a reason, has an excuse to actually 00:26:03.930 --> 00:26:06.549 go oh actually yeah okay then I'll swear to him 00:26:06.549 --> 00:26:11.009 and it gives them a way out. Yeah it's hard to 00:26:11.009 --> 00:26:13.309 appreciate what an extraordinary marriage this 00:26:13.309 --> 00:26:15.869 is because she's probably a good 10 years older 00:26:15.869 --> 00:26:19.349 than him, has two sons already by the Ethelreddian 00:26:19.349 --> 00:26:25.049 ready and he kind of, you know, can pick any 00:26:25.049 --> 00:26:27.869 noble woman, you know, around and he picks Emma. 00:26:29.289 --> 00:26:31.630 So it's really quite an extraordinary marriage. 00:26:32.190 --> 00:26:34.150 What does she pick him? That's what I like to 00:26:34.150 --> 00:26:39.509 think. He sent for her. It says an extraordinary 00:26:39.509 --> 00:26:42.849 amount about Emma that Canute wants to marry 00:26:42.849 --> 00:26:44.670 her and that her marriage is so important to 00:26:44.670 --> 00:26:48.630 him. So, you know, through that we know that 00:26:48.630 --> 00:26:50.250 she is really quite an extraordinary character. 00:26:51.279 --> 00:26:55.380 She is, absolutely. And she saw herself as a 00:26:55.380 --> 00:26:58.740 peace weaver. That's how she presents herself 00:26:58.740 --> 00:27:01.339 in Encomium, that she's the one that actually 00:27:01.339 --> 00:27:04.180 brings peace to England through this marriage. 00:27:05.099 --> 00:27:08.259 And I believe that that's what she believed. 00:27:10.119 --> 00:27:14.279 So it's important, and she would have known all 00:27:14.279 --> 00:27:17.980 the... She would have known the hierarchy. She 00:27:17.980 --> 00:27:21.480 would have known how the administration was handled, 00:27:21.700 --> 00:27:26.000 the laws. We see her signing charters, you know. 00:27:26.380 --> 00:27:30.700 So she was deeply involved in what happened in 00:27:30.700 --> 00:27:35.200 England in Knute's reign. Yeah. And you could 00:27:35.200 --> 00:27:37.700 imagine her actually negotiating with Knute when 00:27:37.700 --> 00:27:39.980 he said, I want you to be my wife and her saying, 00:27:40.480 --> 00:27:43.920 well, Ethelred didn't let me do anything. I want 00:27:43.920 --> 00:27:46.480 to be able to, you know, you want me to bring 00:27:46.480 --> 00:27:49.000 these English nobles with me, then I want to 00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:51.160 be able to have a say and at least be listened 00:27:51.160 --> 00:27:56.059 to. And then you find out that when Knute dies, 00:27:58.299 --> 00:28:03.059 his son Harold, Harold Harefoot, has to send 00:28:03.059 --> 00:28:06.440 his troops to Winchester to collect the treasury 00:28:06.440 --> 00:28:09.339 because Emma was so important to Knute that she 00:28:09.339 --> 00:28:16.230 had to let him hold the money. Yeah. Just a great 00:28:16.230 --> 00:28:19.109 way of demonstrating how important Emma was to 00:28:19.109 --> 00:28:24.329 Canute's reign. I think one of your questions 00:28:24.329 --> 00:28:29.269 was about that marriage, Rebecca, and it was 00:28:29.269 --> 00:28:33.410 not unusual for a conqueror at that time to marry 00:28:33.410 --> 00:28:36.769 the widow of the enemy that he's conquered. That 00:28:36.769 --> 00:28:43.069 was not unusual. Macbeth. Yeah, back then it 00:28:43.069 --> 00:28:45.970 was, I think it probably happened in Scotland. 00:28:46.630 --> 00:28:51.609 Yeah it did. Macbeth married the widow of somebody 00:28:51.609 --> 00:28:54.750 who - Brooke, he married Brooke. Hill Congaine, 00:28:55.990 --> 00:28:59.210 who miraculously somehow got burned to death, 00:28:59.250 --> 00:29:01.569 possibly at Macbeth's hand, and then she married 00:29:01.569 --> 00:29:14.160 Macbeth. So if I'm often trying to wonder kind 00:29:14.160 --> 00:29:17.460 of like what and you guys may or may not know 00:29:17.460 --> 00:29:19.240 depending on all the dates of your research kind 00:29:19.240 --> 00:29:21.359 of like what the age difference might have been 00:29:21.359 --> 00:29:24.599 between Emma and Godwin kind of like were they 00:29:24.599 --> 00:29:27.200 kind of like parallel in age or were they one 00:29:27.200 --> 00:29:29.500 slightly older slightly younger because of course 00:29:29.500 --> 00:29:33.349 Godwin was around as a young man, I presume, 00:29:33.589 --> 00:29:35.390 at the same time as Athel Fenn and Edmund. But 00:29:35.390 --> 00:29:37.630 of course, Emma was quite young when she married 00:29:37.630 --> 00:29:40.170 Athel already and ready. So I don't know whether... 00:29:40.170 --> 00:29:43.250 Emma and Godwin probably were, I would have thought, 00:29:43.410 --> 00:29:45.650 between five and ten years of each other. I don't 00:29:45.650 --> 00:29:47.930 think there was much of an age difference. I 00:29:47.930 --> 00:29:51.230 think it should be older than him. Yeah. Because 00:29:51.230 --> 00:29:56.089 she's been King of England since the early... 00:29:56.089 --> 00:30:02.190 2002 she becomes Queen. She was probably about 00:30:02.190 --> 00:30:05.490 13 or 14 then. They died within a year of each 00:30:05.490 --> 00:30:08.349 other, didn't they? She died in 1052 and I think 00:30:08.349 --> 00:30:12.069 he was right around that second time. That's 00:30:12.069 --> 00:30:17.230 a tragic note. Well hopefully they were a lot 00:30:17.230 --> 00:30:19.089 more abacable towards each other than they are 00:30:19.089 --> 00:30:23.529 in the series. I think for a certain amount of 00:30:23.529 --> 00:30:25.430 time their interests would have been very similarly 00:30:25.430 --> 00:30:31.720 aligned. I think in many ways they're both survivors 00:30:31.720 --> 00:30:34.059 and they're both kind of powerful people who 00:30:34.059 --> 00:30:37.700 are good at staying in control. And, you know, 00:30:37.740 --> 00:30:40.380 many times they were very similarly aligned. 00:30:40.559 --> 00:30:42.559 I mean, they were both behind Cnut and they were 00:30:42.559 --> 00:30:47.619 both kind of stalwarts supporting him. They seem 00:30:47.619 --> 00:30:51.279 to have, they weren't aligned during the reign 00:30:51.279 --> 00:30:54.480 of Harold Harefoot because Emma wanted Hirst 00:30:54.480 --> 00:30:57.700 and Hath a Cnut to be king and Godwin was on 00:30:57.930 --> 00:31:00.490 Harold Hereford was the King actually here in 00:31:00.490 --> 00:31:07.269 England, so he supported Harold for a time. I 00:31:07.269 --> 00:31:09.470 think he supported Canute at first, but then 00:31:09.470 --> 00:31:12.490 when Canute didn't, sorry, Halford Canute didn't 00:31:12.490 --> 00:31:15.549 come back from Denmark to claim the throne, he 00:31:15.549 --> 00:31:19.390 decided he'd better be in his best interest to 00:31:19.390 --> 00:31:22.490 be with the King who was actually on hand rather 00:31:22.490 --> 00:31:26.240 than the King over the water. it would have got 00:31:26.240 --> 00:31:28.500 a bit complicated for him if he carried on supporting 00:31:28.500 --> 00:31:31.299 Harthacanew. He looked like the enemy as far 00:31:31.299 --> 00:31:34.640 as Harold Harefoot was concerned, so sensibly. 00:31:35.579 --> 00:31:39.079 He was stuck between a rock and a hard place 00:31:39.079 --> 00:31:42.599 there. They had to make a decision, and once, 00:31:42.599 --> 00:31:46.980 you know, once Harold Harefoot was accepted as 00:31:46.980 --> 00:31:49.380 King of England, there was nothing that he could 00:31:49.380 --> 00:31:51.960 do, and of course Emma's sons coming over from 00:31:51.960 --> 00:31:58.240 Normandy only added chaos to do what was going 00:31:58.240 --> 00:32:05.039 on, but we're not there yet in this story. I 00:32:05.039 --> 00:32:08.099 can't wait to see how they handle that one. I'm 00:32:08.099 --> 00:32:10.380 not sure they will. You know, one thing about 00:32:10.380 --> 00:32:13.400 the show is that they don't, Emma had two children 00:32:13.400 --> 00:32:16.920 by Canute. We don't see those kids anywhere in 00:32:16.920 --> 00:32:21.579 Valhalla. She would have been busy getting, you 00:32:21.579 --> 00:32:25.309 know, raising two young children. So we don't 00:32:25.309 --> 00:32:27.529 see that at all in this show and I don't know 00:32:27.529 --> 00:32:30.329 how they're going to handle it farther on. Am 00:32:30.329 --> 00:32:32.289 I correct in thinking that when she married Canoop 00:32:32.289 --> 00:32:35.470 didn't her sons, well I say sons, because Alfred 00:32:35.470 --> 00:32:38.589 obviously sadly had his eyes put out and then 00:32:38.589 --> 00:32:41.809 died, but Edmund he stayed in Normandy when she 00:32:41.809 --> 00:32:44.490 came back and then eventually married Canoop. 00:32:44.930 --> 00:32:47.730 But of course in the end of season one the two 00:32:47.730 --> 00:32:51.289 sons are still around there, they're not, both 00:32:51.289 --> 00:32:55.569 are alive and both are in Yeah, well, in season 00:32:55.569 --> 00:32:57.750 one, they go with their uncle to Normandy and 00:32:57.750 --> 00:33:00.750 then we don't see them anymore. And they're gone. 00:33:00.829 --> 00:33:03.289 And of course, Alfred, when he came over, that 00:33:03.289 --> 00:33:06.250 was not until after Canute was dead. So both 00:33:06.250 --> 00:33:10.089 sons are in Normandy as is their sister, God 00:33:10.089 --> 00:33:13.569 give you, so she's there and they're being taken 00:33:13.569 --> 00:33:15.390 care of. Meantime, Emma's having two children 00:33:15.390 --> 00:33:19.609 by Canute over in England. So, but we don't, 00:33:19.849 --> 00:33:21.670 you know, they've been totally forgotten, whereas 00:33:21.819 --> 00:33:25.819 Elf Gifu to know his first wife, we see her with 00:33:25.819 --> 00:33:28.259 her two sons in Norway, which is where they actually 00:33:28.259 --> 00:33:31.440 were. Yes, it's going to be interesting seeing 00:33:31.440 --> 00:33:34.079 how Norway eventually turns against Elf Gifu 00:33:34.079 --> 00:33:39.380 now that they've finally got rid of Harald's 00:33:39.380 --> 00:33:43.410 half -brother, Olaf, and that's another character 00:33:43.410 --> 00:33:46.150 that needs a whole other episode to pick. So 00:33:46.150 --> 00:33:55.849 this is, you can see why dear Runa, why we're 00:33:55.849 --> 00:33:57.630 talking to all these wonderful people to try 00:33:57.630 --> 00:34:01.029 and nitpick and unpick the wonderful thing that 00:34:01.029 --> 00:34:03.329 is Netflix history versus the real history, which 00:34:03.329 --> 00:34:05.549 itself is an equally dramatic tangle and more 00:34:05.549 --> 00:34:07.730 dramatic than any series could really do justice 00:34:07.730 --> 00:34:13.639 to. So what else were my questions? Let me think. 00:34:13.659 --> 00:34:15.719 Let me think of my questions. I've got so many. 00:34:15.960 --> 00:34:19.039 I have so many. Where are they? There's one. 00:34:20.340 --> 00:34:23.880 So that was interesting. So in season two, Justin, 00:34:24.360 --> 00:34:28.699 Godwin plays a bit of a kind of a torturer, a 00:34:28.699 --> 00:34:30.619 kind of like bully question. He's got some poor 00:34:30.619 --> 00:34:32.199 bloke strapped to a chair having his eyes put 00:34:32.199 --> 00:34:34.440 out saying, so you hate the Vikings. Everyone 00:34:34.440 --> 00:34:36.760 he does. Why were you trying to assassinate the 00:34:36.760 --> 00:34:39.369 queen? It was a really bad failed attempt on 00:34:39.369 --> 00:34:43.949 assassinating the Queen. It did make me wonder, 00:34:44.269 --> 00:34:46.570 actually, because you don't often see that in 00:34:46.570 --> 00:34:48.269 this particular series, at least, although it 00:34:48.269 --> 00:34:50.650 has been, I've noted, depicted quite well in 00:34:50.650 --> 00:34:52.750 The Last Kingdom, which is another great historical 00:34:52.750 --> 00:34:54.969 series which is slightly better at telling the 00:34:54.969 --> 00:34:58.329 truth than this one. Sorry, Netflix, you're just 00:34:58.329 --> 00:35:01.489 messing with it too much. How much friction there 00:35:01.489 --> 00:35:05.420 might have been amongst population... as the 00:35:05.420 --> 00:35:07.820 Vikings kind of claimed lands, claimed titles 00:35:07.820 --> 00:35:09.920 and settled and the whole court became kind of 00:35:09.920 --> 00:35:13.739 like Anglo -Danish kind of thing, was there any 00:35:13.739 --> 00:35:16.659 friction at the noble society level do you think? 00:35:16.780 --> 00:35:18.019 Because of course people would have lost sons 00:35:18.019 --> 00:35:22.639 in the wars, lost their titles. My sense is that 00:35:22.639 --> 00:35:27.900 the kind of the pain of Ethelred's reign really 00:35:29.280 --> 00:35:33.159 disenfranchised or killed most of the aristocracy 00:35:33.159 --> 00:35:36.159 or the old aristocracy and so in a sense you 00:35:36.159 --> 00:35:38.840 have a country kind of coming out of a civil 00:35:38.840 --> 00:35:42.960 war situation where the kind of the old elites 00:35:42.960 --> 00:35:46.619 have been discredited or killed and you have 00:35:46.619 --> 00:35:52.699 a new kind of vigorous and successful Anglo -Danish 00:35:52.699 --> 00:35:55.659 aristocracy coming in and in a sense Goddman 00:35:55.659 --> 00:35:58.760 is absolutely part of that. I mean He's married 00:35:58.760 --> 00:36:03.159 a Danish princess. Look at the way he names his 00:36:03.159 --> 00:36:05.440 children. His first children are named Svein, 00:36:05.780 --> 00:36:09.400 Harald, Tosti. These are all Viking names. It's 00:36:09.400 --> 00:36:12.199 not until Knut dies that his children start getting 00:36:12.199 --> 00:36:19.280 English names. So you can see England is the 00:36:19.280 --> 00:36:27.650 center of an Anglo -Danish or Nordic a kingdom 00:36:27.650 --> 00:36:31.829 and I think a lot of kind of a lot of the great 00:36:31.829 --> 00:36:35.670 um scaldic poets come to England because um the 00:36:35.670 --> 00:36:39.809 best uh the richest king to who is going to reward 00:36:39.809 --> 00:36:43.030 you is Canute so England becomes you know Winchester 00:36:43.030 --> 00:36:46.170 becomes the centre of scaldic poetry um you know 00:36:46.170 --> 00:36:49.989 you have kind of um you know Danish like Bjorn 00:36:49.989 --> 00:36:53.610 comes down to England again so I think this idea 00:36:53.610 --> 00:36:58.179 of um friction or kind of racial friction between 00:36:58.179 --> 00:37:01.400 Danes and Saxons is really, it's looking at it 00:37:01.400 --> 00:37:06.280 in a kind of a 21st century way that I think 00:37:06.280 --> 00:37:10.800 is probably largely inaccurate. I imagine that 00:37:10.800 --> 00:37:14.880 it may well have been friction, but again, England 00:37:14.880 --> 00:37:17.380 had been settled by Vikings for over a hundred 00:37:17.380 --> 00:37:21.380 years by this point, a large part of it. And 00:37:21.380 --> 00:37:25.159 so, yeah, I think that's kind of artistic license. 00:37:25.559 --> 00:37:31.360 Can I add to that? I think that Knut tried to 00:37:31.360 --> 00:37:33.880 address that, because some of his first laws 00:37:33.880 --> 00:37:37.239 dealt with dealing with widows and their problems 00:37:37.239 --> 00:37:39.920 and land tenure, because so many of the elite 00:37:39.920 --> 00:37:44.440 would have died. And the letter that he wrote 00:37:44.440 --> 00:37:48.039 back to England when he went, I guess it was 00:37:48.039 --> 00:37:51.320 in 1020, he went to Denmark, is written in English. 00:37:51.900 --> 00:37:55.179 His letters are in English. not Latin, they're 00:37:55.179 --> 00:37:58.500 not Danish, they're in English. And so he's trying 00:37:58.500 --> 00:38:06.619 to find the wounds of that kingdom. And I think 00:38:06.619 --> 00:38:10.280 we have to accept that England was almost half 00:38:10.280 --> 00:38:14.739 Danish and half Saxon. And so he's got to bring 00:38:14.739 --> 00:38:17.360 that together. And of course, it's reflected 00:38:17.360 --> 00:38:20.420 in the elite and the Witan which becomes Anglo 00:38:20.420 --> 00:38:24.230 -Danish. Yeah and he was sensible in a way, I 00:38:24.230 --> 00:38:28.429 mean people who talk of the English don't like 00:38:28.429 --> 00:38:32.250 it but he did put, I think it was four earls, 00:38:32.889 --> 00:38:36.030 four of his own people he put in place as earls 00:38:36.030 --> 00:38:39.110 in Northumbria and throughout the country so 00:38:39.110 --> 00:38:42.309 he basically split the country into four for 00:38:42.309 --> 00:38:45.269 government by his people and then everybody else 00:38:45.269 --> 00:38:48.780 was under them. So which is you know, it's sensible 00:38:48.780 --> 00:38:51.199 you've conquered a land. Yeah, you're gonna put 00:38:51.199 --> 00:38:58.039 your own people in charge You know Slowly spreads 00:38:58.039 --> 00:39:03.019 down through the ranks Well, they're going to 00:39:03.019 --> 00:39:05.320 keep a tight rein at the beginning until people 00:39:05.320 --> 00:39:11.840 get used to it With them can use rain it is incredibly 00:39:11.840 --> 00:39:15.539 peaceful it is compared to ethyl reds beforehand 00:39:15.539 --> 00:39:19.539 and compared to what happens in 1066 knute's 00:39:19.539 --> 00:39:23.599 reign is a period of stability for about from 00:39:23.599 --> 00:39:28.059 1018 onwards you know he can go to denmark and 00:39:28.059 --> 00:39:32.739 deal with denmark because england is secure and 00:39:32.739 --> 00:39:37.929 at peace Yeah, I think the idea that it's an 00:39:37.929 --> 00:39:41.190 English state that falls in 1066 is a misnomer. 00:39:41.389 --> 00:39:43.750 I mean, Sharon talks about the Earls. Earl is 00:39:43.750 --> 00:39:48.610 a Viking title that Canute brings in. The symbol 00:39:48.610 --> 00:39:52.170 we have of Anglo -Saxon England is the Huscarl 00:39:52.170 --> 00:39:54.789 fighting in the shield wall. And again, this 00:39:54.789 --> 00:39:58.789 is a Scandinavian name for a kind of Scandinavian 00:39:58.789 --> 00:40:05.190 rank that rises during this time. It's an Anglo 00:40:05.190 --> 00:40:08.489 -Danish state, really, that falls in 1066. Godwin, 00:40:08.489 --> 00:40:12.250 you know, Harold Godwinson, again, he's a Viking 00:40:12.250 --> 00:40:15.849 name. His mother is a Viking and he probably 00:40:15.849 --> 00:40:20.190 grew up speaking Danish as much as English. Yeah, 00:40:20.190 --> 00:40:22.429 and you have to look at England as well. It had 00:40:22.429 --> 00:40:29.530 only been England since 938. 937? I can't remember 00:40:29.530 --> 00:40:32.750 when the Battle of Brunhumbra was. 937 or 38. 00:40:32.809 --> 00:40:34.369 I only watched The Last Kingdom the other night 00:40:34.369 --> 00:40:35.570 and I can't remember. I only watched it this 00:40:35.570 --> 00:40:40.469 morning. You know, it was only the 930s that 00:40:40.469 --> 00:40:44.210 it was all united as one kingdom, so it was still 00:40:44.210 --> 00:40:48.690 very young as a country. And even that didn't 00:40:48.690 --> 00:40:51.269 last, and even that didn't last out under Athelred, 00:40:51.349 --> 00:40:55.619 it wasn't until Edgar, Athelred's father, became 00:40:55.619 --> 00:40:58.139 king, that it was completely united. So that 00:40:58.139 --> 00:41:03.159 was like nine, I don't know, 940 or something, 00:41:03.539 --> 00:41:06.820 970, I can't remember the dates. It was later, 00:41:06.940 --> 00:41:09.699 it was later. I wanted to point out that, you 00:41:09.699 --> 00:41:13.179 know, for the average person in England, you 00:41:13.179 --> 00:41:18.920 know, your little guy, Unferth, for him, his 00:41:18.920 --> 00:41:22.320 loyalty was to his immediate lord. And so whoever 00:41:22.320 --> 00:41:26.860 was way up on top, as king that didn't impact 00:41:26.860 --> 00:41:31.400 you know England was still quite tribal it didn't 00:41:31.400 --> 00:41:34.179 impact him except for maybe taxes and when he 00:41:34.179 --> 00:41:36.239 had to go fight when he was called to battle 00:41:36.239 --> 00:41:39.960 but still that was coming from his lord he whoever 00:41:39.960 --> 00:41:42.400 the king was didn't have that big an impact i 00:41:42.400 --> 00:41:44.960 don't think on the average joe and i have to 00:41:44.960 --> 00:41:47.599 say where i live i actually live in the danelaw 00:41:47.599 --> 00:41:50.280 so we'd have been probably quite happy that canute 00:41:50.280 --> 00:41:53.710 was on the Because this is the thing that a lot 00:41:53.710 --> 00:41:57.150 of viewers might have forgotten that. Yeah, that 00:41:57.150 --> 00:41:59.889 just like over 100 or so years previously, isn't 00:41:59.889 --> 00:42:02.170 it, or maybe 200 years previously, the Dane law 00:42:02.170 --> 00:42:04.369 was formed so half of England already became 00:42:04.369 --> 00:42:07.050 Danish to a degree. It was like a test run before 00:42:07.050 --> 00:42:09.889 Canute then came over. And of course Canute is 00:42:09.889 --> 00:42:12.210 sadly the forgotten King of England. You don't 00:42:12.210 --> 00:42:13.849 ever learn about him in the history books at 00:42:13.849 --> 00:42:16.469 school, or I didn't anyway. But that's just my 00:42:16.469 --> 00:42:18.889 own personal educational history. So some people 00:42:18.889 --> 00:42:20.630 might have done depending on the generation or 00:42:20.630 --> 00:42:24.519 what school. they went to. My son did in primary 00:42:24.519 --> 00:42:26.760 school, he did about Swain Forkbeard, because 00:42:26.760 --> 00:42:29.280 I remember when he got home, because we lived 00:42:29.280 --> 00:42:31.480 near Gainsborough and Swain Forkbeard died in 00:42:31.480 --> 00:42:33.840 Gainsborough, and Gainsborough was the capital 00:42:33.840 --> 00:42:36.820 of England when Swain Forkbeard was king, so 00:42:36.820 --> 00:42:38.960 they made a big deal of it in school. My son 00:42:38.960 --> 00:42:42.380 came home, he was about eight or nine, and I 00:42:42.380 --> 00:42:45.900 said to him, so when did Swain Forkbeard die? 00:42:46.500 --> 00:42:49.940 Expecting to get 1014, and I got, when he fell 00:42:49.940 --> 00:42:56.010 off his horse, Oh, the innocence of children. 00:42:56.650 --> 00:43:03.090 He's quite right. Well, Knut was really a mover 00:43:03.090 --> 00:43:06.349 and shaker in not just in England, but in Europe. 00:43:06.530 --> 00:43:08.250 I mean, he went to Rome, he was hanging around 00:43:08.250 --> 00:43:10.389 with the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope, and 00:43:10.389 --> 00:43:14.710 I don't think he gets enough credit for how significant 00:43:14.710 --> 00:43:20.389 he was towards the end of his reign. his daughter 00:43:20.389 --> 00:43:23.010 with Emma married the son of the Holy Roman Emperor 00:43:23.010 --> 00:43:27.630 and if she had had a child that lived, which 00:43:27.630 --> 00:43:30.329 she did not, if she had lived longer and had 00:43:30.329 --> 00:43:33.030 a child, can you imagine the Holy Roman Empire 00:43:33.030 --> 00:43:36.489 and Denmark and Norway and England? That would 00:43:36.489 --> 00:43:39.130 have been all one empire. It would have been 00:43:39.130 --> 00:43:43.070 enormous and I think Knut had that in mind when 00:43:43.070 --> 00:43:45.949 he arranged that wedding. Yeah. I mean, if we 00:43:45.949 --> 00:43:48.280 all And I'm going to explain this to you as well, 00:43:48.440 --> 00:43:51.119 dear viewers, if you will pause and think. If 00:43:51.119 --> 00:43:55.000 Emma and Canute had sons and no other sons from 00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:57.500 no other previous marriages, there was no feuding, 00:43:57.739 --> 00:44:02.820 no civil war, no political throne swapses. Who 00:44:02.820 --> 00:44:05.260 knows what kind of dynasty they could have founded? 00:44:05.599 --> 00:44:09.320 It would have been a whole other world. Time 00:44:09.320 --> 00:44:13.000 and present day would have changed a lot. since 00:44:13.000 --> 00:44:15.500 then and it's a shame almost that it didn't get 00:44:15.500 --> 00:44:19.199 to happen I think but I'm biased because I like 00:44:19.199 --> 00:44:24.460 baking so. Half a canute didn't marry and neither 00:44:24.460 --> 00:44:27.500 did Harold Harefoot and Edward the confessor 00:44:27.500 --> 00:44:30.820 married but might as well not have yeah it's 00:44:30.820 --> 00:44:34.219 odd that such a the child children of the generation 00:44:34.219 --> 00:44:38.420 just didn't marry or didn't have heirs it's really 00:44:38.420 --> 00:44:42.849 strange. It is it's it's Tragic. And of course, 00:44:42.869 --> 00:44:45.530 we don't quite know why Arthur couldn't die. 00:44:45.570 --> 00:44:48.750 I think he died suddenly from an illness of some 00:44:48.750 --> 00:44:50.650 sort, but we don't quite know what the illness 00:44:50.650 --> 00:44:53.789 was. Am I right or am I thinking of something 00:44:53.789 --> 00:44:57.349 else? There are theories that maybe there was 00:44:57.349 --> 00:45:01.730 a strain in his genetic line because his brother 00:45:01.730 --> 00:45:09.010 died young and his son died young. We just don't 00:45:09.010 --> 00:45:13.420 know. And his son by of Gifu died young and so 00:45:13.420 --> 00:45:16.739 did so did Harold Harefoot. So what was that 00:45:16.739 --> 00:45:19.179 all about? I mean I suppose if you're writing 00:45:19.179 --> 00:45:23.320 fiction and and you want to you know tell up 00:45:23.320 --> 00:45:26.340 an interesting story you have someone poisoning 00:45:26.340 --> 00:45:29.300 or you know something going on but the reality 00:45:29.300 --> 00:45:32.860 is life then was you know medical care was not 00:45:32.860 --> 00:45:37.320 very good so it could have been it's just odd 00:45:37.320 --> 00:45:41.230 that all the children died in their 20s. I wonder 00:45:41.230 --> 00:45:43.550 if they had something like a hereditary TB or 00:45:43.550 --> 00:45:45.750 something? Yeah, that's what they think. It was 00:45:45.750 --> 00:45:49.409 some sort of hereditary strain maybe in the... 00:45:49.409 --> 00:45:51.389 Certainly Sven didn't have it and Knut lived 00:45:51.389 --> 00:45:53.550 to be what, almost 40, I think, something like 00:45:53.550 --> 00:45:56.230 that. That's young. I mean, Edward Confessor 00:45:56.230 --> 00:46:05.539 lived quite a bit longer. Unfortunately. So, 00:46:06.000 --> 00:46:08.280 not to forget the other candidate that we're 00:46:08.280 --> 00:46:10.380 discussing about, which is of course Harald Hardrada, 00:46:10.639 --> 00:46:13.039 which everyone knows him by that name, but this 00:46:13.039 --> 00:46:15.179 wonderful, I say wonderful, this series, which 00:46:15.179 --> 00:46:17.679 is wonderful to some degrees, is telling the 00:46:17.679 --> 00:46:20.139 wonderful adventures he had before he got the 00:46:20.139 --> 00:46:23.340 nickname Hardrada, aka Hard Ruler, which he obtained 00:46:23.340 --> 00:46:26.539 when he became King of Norway. Justin, of course, 00:46:26.559 --> 00:46:28.840 you've written about him in your much beloved 00:46:28.840 --> 00:46:30.840 Viking Spirits, one of my favourites, I must 00:46:30.840 --> 00:46:34.909 say. Could you please give us another wonderful 00:46:34.909 --> 00:46:39.329 introduction into Harold Sigurdsson's origins 00:46:39.329 --> 00:46:41.829 and how he became to lose the throne of Norway, 00:46:41.829 --> 00:46:46.130 initially, to a degree? I think, having spent 00:46:46.130 --> 00:46:49.429 kind of, you know, trying to particularly know 00:46:49.429 --> 00:46:53.210 that when you're researching a novel you spend 00:46:53.210 --> 00:46:56.469 a lot of time kind of thinking about the characters, 00:46:56.550 --> 00:47:00.679 thinking about their motivations. and what and 00:47:00.679 --> 00:47:04.460 why they did things. And Harold Hardrada, I just 00:47:04.460 --> 00:47:06.260 kind of, I grew to be more and more interested 00:47:06.260 --> 00:47:09.900 in him as the story went on. I think actually 00:47:09.900 --> 00:47:13.019 he, we talk about Cnut being kind of undersolved 00:47:13.019 --> 00:47:15.380 by history and history lessons. I think Harold 00:47:15.380 --> 00:47:17.800 Hardrada as well, I think he's almost a kind 00:47:17.800 --> 00:47:20.420 of Renaissance prince before his time. I mean 00:47:20.420 --> 00:47:27.650 his career is just extraordinary. He's kind of 00:47:27.650 --> 00:47:30.690 a poet king, and he's a king whose kind of poetry 00:47:30.690 --> 00:47:33.409 is not famous because he's king, it's famous 00:47:33.409 --> 00:47:35.730 because his poetry is good. Unfortunately, his 00:47:35.730 --> 00:47:41.409 poetry is scaldic, which doesn't translate to 00:47:41.409 --> 00:47:43.530 kind of modern sensibility. So we can't enjoy 00:47:43.530 --> 00:47:46.429 his poetry in a way that people of his time did. 00:47:47.789 --> 00:47:50.769 I mean, I always like to kind of give the brief 00:47:50.769 --> 00:47:54.670 introduction to him. you know he's kind of dragged 00:47:54.670 --> 00:47:57.909 wounded from battle at the age of 15 he survives 00:47:57.909 --> 00:48:00.829 he crosses the keelback mountains between norway 00:48:00.829 --> 00:48:03.510 and sweden um and kind of the face of winter 00:48:03.510 --> 00:48:08.159 he makes his way down to um the swedish capital 00:48:08.159 --> 00:48:10.679 and and kind of norwegian vikings would typically 00:48:10.679 --> 00:48:13.980 come west to ireland and england um and he's 00:48:13.980 --> 00:48:17.239 forced because of knut he's forced to go east 00:48:17.239 --> 00:48:19.519 to take the russian road and of course russia 00:48:19.519 --> 00:48:21.559 doesn't exist yet it's kind of a nascent state 00:48:21.559 --> 00:48:25.239 in in what is now ukraine and kiev but uh the 00:48:25.239 --> 00:48:28.000 russian road is never kind of the easy one he 00:48:28.000 --> 00:48:31.719 heads east through these um these river systems 00:48:31.719 --> 00:48:36.679 that head down um towards constantinople He ends 00:48:36.679 --> 00:48:40.039 up in Constantinople. He ends up the leader of 00:48:40.039 --> 00:48:41.880 the Varangian Guard with the kind of the elite 00:48:41.880 --> 00:48:46.400 shop troops of the Byzantine Empire. He leads 00:48:46.400 --> 00:48:50.940 them in the invasion of Sicily. He's by the side 00:48:50.940 --> 00:48:52.920 of the emperor in the reconquest of Bulgaria. 00:48:53.300 --> 00:48:55.320 He's possibly lover to the emperor, so he's certainly 00:48:55.320 --> 00:48:58.800 involved in kind of royal machinations. He's 00:48:58.800 --> 00:49:02.099 imprisoned. He's set free by a kind of a... a 00:49:02.099 --> 00:49:05.519 lucky revolt. He escapes eventually from Constantinople, 00:49:05.599 --> 00:49:07.579 picks up a Russian princess on his way back to 00:49:07.579 --> 00:49:10.000 Norway. And this is all before he's 30 years 00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:12.500 old. I mean, he's just the most extraordinary 00:49:12.500 --> 00:49:15.320 character. And then when he's in Norway, again, 00:49:15.360 --> 00:49:20.579 he found Oslo as the capital of Norway. He reforms 00:49:20.579 --> 00:49:22.539 the Norwegian church. He's probably bringing 00:49:22.539 --> 00:49:27.699 in Orthodox priests and monks into Norway. And 00:49:27.699 --> 00:49:29.699 then in 1066, he decides he wants to be King 00:49:29.699 --> 00:49:33.030 of England as well. So just the most extraordinary 00:49:33.030 --> 00:49:36.090 character. And again, I think if you're a betting 00:49:36.090 --> 00:49:39.469 man, your money would have been on Harold Hardrada 00:49:39.469 --> 00:49:43.110 winning the English throne in 1066. He was by 00:49:43.110 --> 00:49:47.389 far the most dangerous opponent. He's the only 00:49:47.389 --> 00:49:50.389 one as a professional soldier. Harold Godmanson 00:49:50.389 --> 00:49:52.889 and William the Conqueror, they're kind of a 00:49:52.889 --> 00:49:56.909 military record. was largely skirmishes, whereas 00:49:56.909 --> 00:49:59.690 Harold Hardrada really was a hard -bitten professional 00:49:59.690 --> 00:50:01.769 soldier in the kind of crucible of the Mediterranean, 00:50:02.210 --> 00:50:05.070 fighting all kinds of battles. He survives it 00:50:05.070 --> 00:50:07.530 all, he gets to England, and Harold Godmanson 00:50:07.530 --> 00:50:10.190 is very lucky to win at the Battle of Stamford 00:50:10.190 --> 00:50:16.139 Bridge. So that's the very quick synopsis. Well 00:50:16.139 --> 00:50:18.219 that's all wonderful, and if you're watching 00:50:18.219 --> 00:50:19.960 Dear Viewer, whether you've seen season two or 00:50:19.960 --> 00:50:22.500 season one, that gives you insight and a bit 00:50:22.500 --> 00:50:24.599 more about what may come potentially in season 00:50:24.599 --> 00:50:27.480 three, which is slightly exciting because it's 00:50:27.480 --> 00:50:29.460 an area where many people don't think of when 00:50:29.460 --> 00:50:32.320 they think of Vikings. Because of course for 00:50:32.320 --> 00:50:36.619 season two we see Hardrada escape wounded from 00:50:36.619 --> 00:50:38.420 a battle, not from the battle with Canute, it 00:50:38.420 --> 00:50:41.179 was a battle with his half, with Olaf. There 00:50:41.179 --> 00:50:44.219 you go, right of license. He didn't quite go 00:50:44.219 --> 00:50:47.059 over the mountains, but he did go with his friend, 00:50:47.380 --> 00:50:49.599 Leif Eriksson. Don't ask me why he's involved 00:50:49.599 --> 00:50:53.760 in this. Again, creative reasons. In a boat without 00:50:53.760 --> 00:50:55.900 supplies, without a sail, just them in their 00:50:55.900 --> 00:51:01.119 furs and two oars, all the way to Jaroslav the 00:51:01.119 --> 00:51:06.719 Wise in... I've forgotten the name of it. Yeah, 00:51:06.719 --> 00:51:10.199 thank you. One of the two, both. Both of them. 00:51:11.320 --> 00:51:13.980 Wherever the roost is at this point in history. 00:51:14.380 --> 00:51:15.519 So yeah, so that was interesting. They missed 00:51:15.519 --> 00:51:17.679 out that entire wonderful adventure of him even 00:51:17.679 --> 00:51:19.579 getting to the roost at all. They just kind of 00:51:19.579 --> 00:51:22.239 like saw him on a ship and then plunked him in 00:51:22.239 --> 00:51:25.199 furs and with a bow and arrow. They also forget 00:51:25.199 --> 00:51:29.059 that by this point he's a teenager rather than 00:51:29.059 --> 00:51:32.079 a grown man. Yes, both him and Canute are at 00:51:32.079 --> 00:51:34.699 the same time. Harold Harada is younger than 00:51:34.699 --> 00:51:37.000 Canute. Yeah, which should be the other way. 00:51:37.019 --> 00:51:38.920 I think how Dryder should have been a baby in 00:51:38.920 --> 00:51:44.579 season one. There's that wonderful scene in season 00:51:44.579 --> 00:51:47.719 one where they go down the waterfall. The ship 00:51:47.719 --> 00:51:50.639 goes, they've got this huge gnar, this trading 00:51:50.639 --> 00:51:53.539 ship, and it goes down this waterfall. The waterfall 00:51:53.539 --> 00:51:56.980 was there. There was that horrible waterfall 00:51:56.980 --> 00:52:00.820 and they had to poach the boats around that waterfall. 00:52:01.199 --> 00:52:04.059 They never would have made it. going on. They 00:52:04.059 --> 00:52:06.619 didn't do a single portage. Where was the portages? 00:52:06.780 --> 00:52:09.440 I've read so much about boat portages between 00:52:09.440 --> 00:52:11.119 kind of like the fur trade and the slave trade 00:52:11.119 --> 00:52:12.860 down all these rivers down to Constantinople. 00:52:13.019 --> 00:52:15.860 They didn't do any portaging. Surely he would 00:52:15.860 --> 00:52:18.639 have known that because his uncle would have 00:52:18.639 --> 00:52:20.119 told him oh yeah you can't go down there without 00:52:20.119 --> 00:52:22.019 portaging, hire a crew and some boats and off 00:52:22.019 --> 00:52:26.650 you go. But now he decided to eventually... In 00:52:26.650 --> 00:52:29.110 the fictional telling of this series, Justin, 00:52:29.110 --> 00:52:31.269 he buys a lot of furs and decides he's going 00:52:31.269 --> 00:52:33.210 to go down to Huston Hill as a fur trader and 00:52:33.210 --> 00:52:35.210 sell all the furs and then buy an army that way. 00:52:35.530 --> 00:52:38.929 Of course, that didn't happen because he had 00:52:38.929 --> 00:52:41.030 to bail all the furs out to get the boat over 00:52:41.030 --> 00:52:42.989 the waterfall. I don't know why they couldn't 00:52:42.989 --> 00:52:44.730 just put them on the grass, ladies. Why did they 00:52:44.730 --> 00:52:46.429 have to chop the furs in the river? I'm sorry 00:52:46.429 --> 00:52:49.429 if it was like some symbolic unloading, but they 00:52:49.429 --> 00:52:50.869 should just put the furs on the river. They didn't 00:52:50.869 --> 00:52:54.469 have to dump them in the river. But yes. I wanted 00:52:54.469 --> 00:53:01.960 to ask Justin, Was Yaroslav his uncle? In -law. 00:53:03.179 --> 00:53:09.199 Yeah. He was his in -law, wasn't he? Yeah. Olaf's 00:53:09.199 --> 00:53:16.099 wife's sister was Yaroslav's wife. Yeah. Olaf 00:53:16.099 --> 00:53:21.860 spends quite a time in Yaroslav's court and then 00:53:21.860 --> 00:53:24.500 comes back to die at the Battle of Sticklestead. 00:53:28.400 --> 00:53:32.519 Yaroslav's wife Ingegird was originally betrothed 00:53:32.519 --> 00:53:37.840 to Olaf. It broke off so Olaf ended up marrying 00:53:37.840 --> 00:53:43.619 her illegitimate half -sister. As with Githa, 00:53:43.780 --> 00:53:46.679 the relationship is there. Maybe it's just easier 00:53:46.679 --> 00:53:48.639 to call them niece and uncle as they have done. 00:53:49.550 --> 00:53:52.090 Well, I don't think that a lot of people realize 00:53:52.090 --> 00:53:55.309 the connection between, say, the Vikings and 00:53:55.309 --> 00:54:05.670 the Eastern European regency. For example, Knut's 00:54:05.670 --> 00:54:07.889 mother was the sister of the King of Poland. 00:54:08.059 --> 00:54:11.480 So you have that connection, that east -west 00:54:11.480 --> 00:54:15.619 connection. When I was writing Silk and the Sword, 00:54:15.980 --> 00:54:19.099 that was when I discovered how many links there 00:54:19.099 --> 00:54:24.519 are to Eastern Europe with the Anglo -Saxons 00:54:24.519 --> 00:54:30.739 and the Danes, because Harold II's daughter marries 00:54:30.739 --> 00:54:34.340 Jaroslav's son or grandson, I can't remember, 00:54:34.539 --> 00:54:37.719 Vladimir II Monachmar, whatever his name is. 00:54:37.690 --> 00:54:40.849 but you know there's all these links and then 00:54:40.849 --> 00:54:43.230 of course Yaroslav's daughter Anna marries the 00:54:43.230 --> 00:54:46.409 king of France so you've got these east -west 00:54:46.409 --> 00:54:52.130 links all through the 11th century. Yeah and 00:54:52.130 --> 00:54:54.309 actually the Viking world is far more an eastern 00:54:54.309 --> 00:54:57.210 world we know obviously through England and Ireland 00:54:57.210 --> 00:54:59.960 and Iceland but you know far more of the kind 00:54:59.960 --> 00:55:03.440 of viking exploration um was going down the eastern 00:55:03.440 --> 00:55:05.300 you know through russia was now modern russia 00:55:05.300 --> 00:55:08.340 and ukraine uh and the kind of the amount of 00:55:08.340 --> 00:55:10.800 silver flooding back into europe i mean there's 00:55:10.800 --> 00:55:13.400 a there's a kind of theory that you know the 00:55:13.400 --> 00:55:17.199 medieval economy takes off because there's so 00:55:17.199 --> 00:55:18.760 much silver coming being brought back by the 00:55:18.760 --> 00:55:22.059 Vikings selling slaves into the Middle East that 00:55:22.059 --> 00:55:25.400 it just lubricates the whole European economy 00:55:25.400 --> 00:55:30.739 and changes it fundamentally. That's one thing 00:55:30.739 --> 00:55:33.440 I kind of like was slightly pleased to see and 00:55:33.440 --> 00:55:35.860 not so pleased to see in the sense of that slavery 00:55:35.860 --> 00:55:38.119 is a bad thing but that they did acknowledge 00:55:38.119 --> 00:55:40.519 a small nod to the slave trade that goes to go 00:55:40.519 --> 00:55:42.400 down the Naipa River and the river systems to 00:55:42.400 --> 00:55:44.860 come out in Opel in that Harald's ship had half 00:55:44.860 --> 00:55:48.630 a thousand three Irish red -haired slave girls 00:55:48.630 --> 00:55:51.510 as well although sadly not all of them survive 00:55:51.510 --> 00:55:55.849 that particular river trip. Unfortunately on 00:55:55.849 --> 00:55:58.590 this river trip Netflix does something which 00:55:58.590 --> 00:56:02.030 I'm quite ashamed of and that they have a tribe 00:56:02.030 --> 00:56:05.289 of, well I say tribe, a group of warriors approach 00:56:05.289 --> 00:56:09.030 Harold and his rather odd collection of companions 00:56:09.030 --> 00:56:12.550 on this river ride and they call them the Rangie 00:56:12.550 --> 00:56:15.000 or the Rangian. But I'm thinking, oh, that can't 00:56:15.000 --> 00:56:16.599 be the same Varangian Guards that they're going 00:56:16.599 --> 00:56:19.000 to meet in Constantinople, surely. So I'm hoping 00:56:19.000 --> 00:56:22.940 that that's just some creative license in, because 00:56:22.940 --> 00:56:25.800 surely there weren't other people known as Varangians 00:56:25.800 --> 00:56:27.880 there, or is that where the Varangian Guards 00:56:27.880 --> 00:56:30.860 came from, that they came from a certain collection 00:56:30.860 --> 00:56:35.340 of men or that have chimed in? I think they were 00:56:35.340 --> 00:56:36.460 more like the French Foreign Legion, weren't 00:56:36.460 --> 00:56:39.460 they? They came from everywhere. Yeah, I mean, 00:56:39.599 --> 00:56:42.690 they changed that, I think. They're originally 00:56:42.690 --> 00:56:46.469 a kind of a Viking force and it's not really 00:56:46.469 --> 00:56:49.230 sure where the name comes from. I think there 00:56:49.230 --> 00:56:52.130 is the kind of one of the most likely theories 00:56:52.130 --> 00:56:55.949 is that it comes from the word for vow, which 00:56:55.949 --> 00:57:00.170 is kind of rang. So they're kind of warriors 00:57:00.170 --> 00:57:08.630 held together by a vow. So. I think they. they 00:57:08.630 --> 00:57:10.170 were probably, I'm trying to think if that would 00:57:10.170 --> 00:57:11.949 mean they're, you know, they're Varangians before 00:57:11.949 --> 00:57:13.849 they actually get to Constantinople. I don't 00:57:13.849 --> 00:57:16.190 think so, but when they're in Constantinople 00:57:16.190 --> 00:57:18.630 that's probably the name they're known by. And 00:57:18.630 --> 00:57:21.769 of course, yeah, you know, Sharon's right, they 00:57:21.769 --> 00:57:25.230 are kind of a French Foreign Legion -esque, largely 00:57:25.230 --> 00:57:27.730 Viking in the time of Howard Ardrada, but after 00:57:27.730 --> 00:57:33.269 the Battle of Hastings, a lot of English huskals, 00:57:33.269 --> 00:57:36.889 you know, flee England and end up fighting in 00:57:36.889 --> 00:57:38.809 the Varangian Guard, it becomes very English. 00:57:39.190 --> 00:57:42.789 That's interesting. I think it's still part of 00:57:42.789 --> 00:57:47.190 Istanbul, it has a name that refers in some way 00:57:47.190 --> 00:57:52.929 to the English, so very interesting. I love the 00:57:52.929 --> 00:57:55.849 story, we're not there yet, I'm hoping they do 00:57:55.849 --> 00:58:00.590 put it in the next one, of Harold escaping from 00:58:00.590 --> 00:58:05.969 Constantinople in a ship. a chain across the 00:58:05.969 --> 00:58:09.530 harbour yes is that a real thing and did that 00:58:09.530 --> 00:58:11.570 really happen or was i wasn't entirely sure whether 00:58:11.570 --> 00:58:13.449 to believe it or not when i first read about 00:58:13.449 --> 00:58:18.360 it it's in the saga yeah so it's not necessarily 00:58:18.360 --> 00:58:21.219 true but you want it to be because the idea of 00:58:21.219 --> 00:58:23.539 making a ship he's done so much by that point 00:58:23.539 --> 00:58:26.820 it's believable really well the thing was real 00:58:26.820 --> 00:58:29.099 wasn't it they did have that chain they did have 00:58:29.099 --> 00:58:31.320 a chain yeah yeah if you can see it in the top 00:58:31.320 --> 00:58:34.219 galley top capi palace in istanbul they have 00:58:34.219 --> 00:58:37.059 a link from it so um i think it probably is true 00:58:37.059 --> 00:58:39.179 um yeah he must have done it somehow because 00:58:39.179 --> 00:58:41.550 they wouldn't have released the chain for him 00:58:41.550 --> 00:58:44.610 so he must have gone over some kind of seesaw 00:58:44.610 --> 00:58:47.710 motion maybe to get over, wait for a high tide. 00:58:47.949 --> 00:58:50.690 High speed rowing to rise the ship up and then 00:58:50.690 --> 00:58:53.610 crash back down again. Well they did a good job 00:58:53.610 --> 00:58:56.170 of showing Olaf pull down the London Bridge so 00:58:56.170 --> 00:58:59.789 hopefully they'll do the same. They've just got 00:58:59.789 --> 00:59:05.010 loads of people with axes raised up. Just to 00:59:05.010 --> 00:59:08.449 rewind a bit, when Harald Sigurdsson got to his 00:59:08.449 --> 00:59:12.110 uncle Jaroslav, in the series it seems like quite 00:59:12.110 --> 00:59:14.610 a brief stay, but he did stay for some years, 00:59:14.710 --> 00:59:16.929 did he not? Did he not serve in the military 00:59:16.929 --> 00:59:19.550 though? Oh yes, I think. Yeah, it's hard to say. 00:59:20.050 --> 00:59:23.849 Well, he went to war with Jaroslav. I think he 00:59:23.849 --> 00:59:29.039 leaves Norway when he's like 15 years old. um 00:59:29.039 --> 00:59:31.800 he's bound to you know just kind of grow into 00:59:31.800 --> 00:59:34.920 a man and establish his own reputation as a kind 00:59:34.920 --> 00:59:38.300 of a warlord um i would say kind of four or five 00:59:38.300 --> 00:59:44.079 years um and in that time uh i mean he is in 00:59:44.079 --> 00:59:47.699 the fur trade and it's kind of um all the the 00:59:47.699 --> 00:59:51.719 tribes um the lives i mean um what's now lithuania 00:59:51.719 --> 00:59:56.659 estonia and latvia um they're all pagan um And 00:59:56.659 --> 00:59:59.980 I think basically the Vikings are extorting tribute 00:59:59.980 --> 01:00:03.420 out of them, which is, you know, kind of brutal 01:00:03.420 --> 01:00:07.480 and warlike and uses threat intimidation to get 01:00:07.480 --> 01:00:11.539 furs out of people. That's how they made their 01:00:11.539 --> 01:00:15.320 money. Yeah. In the series as well they've also 01:00:15.320 --> 01:00:17.679 introduced the Peshnegs, which of course the 01:00:17.679 --> 01:00:20.539 scene is like the big obstacle blocking trade 01:00:20.539 --> 01:00:22.300 going up and down the river, and in the series 01:00:22.300 --> 01:00:23.699 you have the staff that says, oh no one's going 01:00:23.699 --> 01:00:25.699 down to Constantinople because the Peshnegs are 01:00:25.699 --> 01:00:28.260 causing trouble again. He doesn't outright ask 01:00:28.260 --> 01:00:30.699 Hadrada to solve it, Hadrada just happens to 01:00:30.699 --> 01:00:34.360 stumble into a very equally confusing, confluited 01:00:34.360 --> 01:00:37.960 plot involving meeting one of the Peshnegs, kind 01:00:37.960 --> 01:00:41.030 of like warlords, and hung by his chest. with 01:00:41.030 --> 01:00:44.130 hooks from some ropes I don't know why the writers 01:00:44.130 --> 01:00:47.590 put that in ladies that was just I'm like yes 01:00:47.590 --> 01:00:49.590 we know he's a tough strong viking he really 01:00:49.590 --> 01:00:51.349 didn't need to boast about it and then get put 01:00:51.349 --> 01:00:57.179 to the test but he did in the script. Did you 01:00:57.179 --> 01:00:58.860 kind of like learn through your research and 01:00:58.860 --> 01:01:00.440 obviously write in the book how much of a trouble 01:01:00.440 --> 01:01:03.360 the Peshnegs were and how much Harold had to 01:01:03.360 --> 01:01:06.719 help in any military campaigns to control them, 01:01:06.800 --> 01:01:09.360 stop them taking control of the riverways or 01:01:09.360 --> 01:01:12.800 anything like that? Yeah, the Peshnegs were a 01:01:12.800 --> 01:01:16.639 Turkic horse -mounted people who lived in, you 01:01:16.639 --> 01:01:22.690 know, the steppes and they were absolutely terrifying, 01:01:22.690 --> 01:01:25.510 I think, to the Vikings because they employ, 01:01:25.630 --> 01:01:27.750 you know, much like the Huns, you know, a kind 01:01:27.750 --> 01:01:32.570 of nomadic way of battle that the Vikings were 01:01:32.570 --> 01:01:36.050 not particularly suited to fighting at all. And 01:01:36.050 --> 01:01:38.030 so we're talking about the portages and the portages 01:01:38.030 --> 01:01:42.690 where the Russian rivers don't meet up, you know, 01:01:42.789 --> 01:01:48.260 I think Don and the Volga. 70 kilometres apart 01:01:48.260 --> 01:01:50.559 and they're now linked by a canal but in Viking 01:01:50.559 --> 01:01:52.739 times if you wanted to cross between those two 01:01:52.739 --> 01:01:55.460 river systems you would have to you know drag 01:01:55.460 --> 01:01:57.699 your boat out and then there were established 01:01:57.699 --> 01:01:59.920 portages where you would you know basically drag 01:01:59.920 --> 01:02:03.099 your boat or have teams of people you pay to 01:02:03.099 --> 01:02:06.119 drag your boat across and the Peshneg were you 01:02:06.119 --> 01:02:09.780 know mounted you know group who would prey on 01:02:09.780 --> 01:02:12.159 those you know Vikings or those groups and plunder 01:02:12.159 --> 01:02:15.980 them. Yaroslav's grandfather I think had gone 01:02:15.980 --> 01:02:19.059 to battle with the Pechenegs and lost. And there's 01:02:19.059 --> 01:02:23.139 a story about how the Pecheneg king used his 01:02:23.139 --> 01:02:25.739 skull, had it plated in gold and used it as a 01:02:25.739 --> 01:02:28.179 drinking vessel. So they were, you know, they're 01:02:28.179 --> 01:02:33.400 terrifying people. And again, I think there's 01:02:33.400 --> 01:02:39.039 there's remains in Ukraine of kind of ramparts 01:02:39.039 --> 01:02:41.420 and bulwarks that were built during this time. 01:02:42.599 --> 01:02:44.519 they have a name and I can't remember what it 01:02:44.519 --> 01:02:48.199 is now. But clearly Yaroslav was attempting to 01:02:48.199 --> 01:02:50.780 kind of define, you know, one of the great problems 01:02:50.780 --> 01:02:53.019 of this kind of this area of Europe is that there's 01:02:53.019 --> 01:02:56.900 no natural barriers. And so this is why there's 01:02:56.900 --> 01:02:59.119 been so many kind of wars that spread between, 01:02:59.219 --> 01:03:01.500 you know, Russia and Poland, because it's very 01:03:01.500 --> 01:03:04.500 hard to define a natural barrier. And clearly 01:03:04.500 --> 01:03:06.760 Yaroslav was attempting to define kind of his 01:03:06.760 --> 01:03:09.980 civilized state from the nobanic areas of the 01:03:09.980 --> 01:03:13.460 Pechenegs. Well, you'd be pleased to know that 01:03:13.460 --> 01:03:15.800 they do use skulls in Harold's encounter with 01:03:15.800 --> 01:03:18.860 the Peshnegs. The warlord sat on a throne made 01:03:18.860 --> 01:03:21.119 of skulls, all intricately carved. I don't know 01:03:21.119 --> 01:03:22.880 how they managed that without breaking the skull 01:03:22.880 --> 01:03:25.960 bone, but there we go. And Hadrada in the script 01:03:25.960 --> 01:03:28.119 boasts that, oh, you don't have a Viking skull 01:03:28.119 --> 01:03:30.039 because the Viking would be drinking your skull, 01:03:30.219 --> 01:03:32.780 blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Very bravado. Very 01:03:32.780 --> 01:03:39.650 full of bravado. So. When, of course, Hadrada 01:03:39.650 --> 01:03:42.889 does get down the river, he survives military 01:03:42.889 --> 01:03:45.750 training with Yugoslav and the Peshnegs, and 01:03:45.750 --> 01:03:49.010 he gets to Constantinople, does he outright automatically 01:03:49.010 --> 01:03:51.190 sign up to the Varangian Guard? Does he have 01:03:51.190 --> 01:03:53.150 to do any training with them before he gets that 01:03:53.150 --> 01:03:56.130 title? Because I was never sure how quickly or 01:03:56.130 --> 01:03:58.789 smoothly he became, because he got to quite a 01:03:58.789 --> 01:04:00.829 high rank, did he not, in the Varangian Guard, 01:04:01.150 --> 01:04:03.409 Justin? Yeah, he leads a thousand Varangians 01:04:03.409 --> 01:04:09.579 in the reconquest of Sicily. It's kind of hard 01:04:09.579 --> 01:04:13.420 to know. The saga is a little confused and it 01:04:13.420 --> 01:04:17.420 kind of mixes dates. But there's enough, there's 01:04:17.420 --> 01:04:20.139 enough, you know, kind of veracity in it to, 01:04:20.460 --> 01:04:26.900 I think historians assume that his kind of, Verengengar 01:04:26.900 --> 01:04:30.880 did many different things for the Byzantines. 01:04:31.719 --> 01:04:34.380 And so probably his first roles would be as kind 01:04:34.380 --> 01:04:38.710 of shock troops on boats or kind of the navy 01:04:38.710 --> 01:04:44.309 who were they were kind of clearing muslim pirates 01:04:44.309 --> 01:04:47.010 out of kind of the greek islands essentially 01:04:47.010 --> 01:04:50.909 and i think you know his career is just as a 01:04:50.909 --> 01:04:54.429 professional soldier he you know he has the advantage 01:04:54.429 --> 01:04:56.570 of having royal birth which would have you know 01:04:56.570 --> 01:04:59.829 certainly helped him along within the the vorangians 01:04:59.829 --> 01:05:05.159 who are mostly vikings and you know success in 01:05:05.159 --> 01:05:11.639 battle he was you know he was a big guy um um 01:05:11.639 --> 01:05:15.199 you know he's kind of image people six foot tall 01:05:15.199 --> 01:05:17.320 and he gets you know six foot of ground from 01:05:17.320 --> 01:05:19.719 harold gobbinson he's a big guy with of royal 01:05:19.719 --> 01:05:22.880 birth who's successful and charismatic and he 01:05:22.880 --> 01:05:25.760 you know slowly rises up i think so you know 01:05:26.599 --> 01:05:30.480 success and an example and so in the reconquest 01:05:30.480 --> 01:05:32.579 of Sicily he's leading a thousand and that's 01:05:32.579 --> 01:05:35.960 the you know the killer shock troops of the Byzantine 01:05:35.960 --> 01:05:38.960 Empire, the Roman Empire essentially. I remember 01:05:38.960 --> 01:05:40.480 right didn't they say something like he fought 01:05:40.480 --> 01:05:45.579 30 or 40 battles as a Varangian just just in 01:05:45.579 --> 01:05:48.260 his time in the Varangian Guard I mean that's 01:05:48.260 --> 01:05:51.119 pretty impressive. Yeah and to survive them. 01:05:51.289 --> 01:05:53.429 Yeah, you would have thought after 20 you'd have 01:05:53.429 --> 01:05:57.349 defeated everyone that there was to defeat. He's 01:05:57.349 --> 01:06:00.530 often taken plunder and I think you had to, you 01:06:00.530 --> 01:06:02.030 know, he gets later accused of not giving enough 01:06:02.030 --> 01:06:05.789 plunder to the Byzantine emperor and he's swirling 01:06:05.789 --> 01:06:09.170 away up the river system to Yaroslav. He does, 01:06:09.190 --> 01:06:11.610 he does, that's right. When he returns to Norway, 01:06:12.010 --> 01:06:14.710 the sagas say something like, you know, he's 01:06:14.710 --> 01:06:17.670 the richest king of Christendom, you know, he 01:06:17.670 --> 01:06:20.889 is, you know, extraordinarily rich. uh he basically 01:06:20.889 --> 01:06:24.289 kind of buys Norway off you know off Magnus or 01:06:24.289 --> 01:06:27.829 half of Norway off Magnus um his nephew uh so 01:06:27.829 --> 01:06:30.250 he's you know obviously incredibly successful 01:06:30.250 --> 01:06:34.469 he's squirreling away a fortune um you know away 01:06:34.469 --> 01:06:37.510 from the Byzantine emperor and you know and rising 01:06:37.510 --> 01:06:39.590 is why I kind of say he's by far the most dangerous 01:06:39.590 --> 01:06:43.250 threat to England in 1066 because he is a professional 01:06:43.250 --> 01:06:46.969 soldier in a time when in Northern Europe there 01:06:46.969 --> 01:06:48.469 aren't really professional soldiers in the way 01:06:48.469 --> 01:06:50.110 that there are in the south because there are 01:06:50.110 --> 01:06:55.869 so much more battles to fight. That's interesting. 01:06:57.369 --> 01:06:59.809 Well you think the training for King Harold II 01:06:59.809 --> 01:07:05.610 was to attack Wales? Harold had rather has been 01:07:05.610 --> 01:07:07.929 fighting in the Varangian Guard for years and 01:07:07.929 --> 01:07:11.090 Harold II had a couple of seasons in Wales. Yeah 01:07:11.090 --> 01:07:14.190 no exactly. Did Harold die at Stamford Bridge? 01:07:14.940 --> 01:07:17.699 Yeah. Yeah, he did. He was one of the ones that 01:07:17.699 --> 01:07:20.539 died, yeah. Yeah, I drove through it actually 01:07:20.539 --> 01:07:25.719 on Sunday, my son's rugby match, and I was thinking 01:07:25.719 --> 01:07:30.840 about it. Yeah, so he fights a battle of Fulford 01:07:30.840 --> 01:07:34.199 Gate, which is just south of York, and he defeats 01:07:34.199 --> 01:07:39.469 the Earls of Mercia and Northumbria. And then 01:07:39.469 --> 01:07:42.250 essentially the kind of the north of England 01:07:42.250 --> 01:07:45.030 promised to meet him a week later and, you know, 01:07:45.110 --> 01:07:48.650 in swear fealty. So he moves kind of a day's 01:07:48.650 --> 01:07:54.030 march east of York and a third of his army is 01:07:54.030 --> 01:07:57.070 down with the ships on the Humber or the Ooze 01:07:57.070 --> 01:07:59.429 and the other two thirds are essentially kind 01:07:59.429 --> 01:08:03.150 of feasting and, you know, relaxing. And Harold 01:08:03.150 --> 01:08:07.469 Gobinson catch them unawares and unarmored. the 01:08:07.469 --> 01:08:09.789 kind of the the army that he brings back with 01:08:09.789 --> 01:08:12.530 him the kind of the again the professional soldiers 01:08:12.530 --> 01:08:15.210 he brings back for them from Norway to Norway 01:08:15.210 --> 01:08:19.510 are there at Stamford Bridge and you know get 01:08:19.510 --> 01:08:22.409 slaughtered larger because they don't have their 01:08:22.409 --> 01:08:26.470 armour or their army and so Harold Gobinson was 01:08:26.470 --> 01:08:29.510 extremely lucky and it again the battle goes 01:08:29.510 --> 01:08:31.250 on is we have an extraordinary thing of kind 01:08:31.250 --> 01:08:36.010 of two battles that go on all day long and Stamford 01:08:36.010 --> 01:08:38.250 Bridge is one of them. and again it flicks such 01:08:38.250 --> 01:08:41.130 a huge toll on Harold Godwinson's army that it 01:08:41.130 --> 01:08:44.750 kind of it it neuters him hugely for the Battle 01:08:44.750 --> 01:08:49.529 of Hastings which is kind of a month later. Yeah 01:08:49.529 --> 01:08:52.710 because Harold Godwinson did an amazing march 01:08:52.710 --> 01:08:55.229 with all of his men up the country and then back 01:08:55.229 --> 01:08:57.130 down the country again. I don't know how they 01:08:57.130 --> 01:08:59.229 kept up the pace or the speed but they must have 01:08:59.229 --> 01:09:04.329 just not stopped basically. But a lot of them 01:09:04.329 --> 01:09:05.810 would have been kind of local troops. So he'll 01:09:05.810 --> 01:09:08.949 have a kind of a coterie of kind of loyal men 01:09:08.949 --> 01:09:10.930 to him and then the rest will be kind of local 01:09:10.930 --> 01:09:15.670 troops he picks up on the way. Yeah. Extraordinary 01:09:15.670 --> 01:09:19.109 period of history. It is, I mean, like with the 01:09:19.109 --> 01:09:21.829 scenario of kind of like what if Emra and Canuta 01:09:21.829 --> 01:09:24.829 lived happily ever after and that lineage carried 01:09:24.829 --> 01:09:27.949 on that year, as they say, is a pivotal year 01:09:27.949 --> 01:09:31.180 because England could have been Say the same 01:09:31.180 --> 01:09:33.979 or gone Denmark or they did go to Normandy in 01:09:33.979 --> 01:09:37.340 the end But so yeah, it's a lot of what ifs in 01:09:37.340 --> 01:09:41.100 season two we do meet I'm guessing possibly the 01:09:41.100 --> 01:09:43.699 potential Empress Zoe, although she's known as 01:09:43.699 --> 01:09:45.960 Eleanor Am I right ladies? I'm thinking that 01:09:45.960 --> 01:09:48.359 was her name before she was presented to the 01:09:48.359 --> 01:09:50.819 Emperor because in the final episode the Emperor 01:09:50.819 --> 01:09:54.720 actually meets Harold and his crew of odd ones 01:09:54.720 --> 01:09:56.640 on their ship whilst they're trying to build 01:09:56.640 --> 01:09:58.340 a sail because they had to get rid of the sail 01:09:58.340 --> 01:10:01.560 when they went down the Waterfall as you do. 01:10:02.619 --> 01:10:04.699 Oh yes you've got something precious for me and 01:10:04.699 --> 01:10:07.079 of course Hyrule doesn't realise it's the girl 01:10:07.079 --> 01:10:09.039 wearing the amulet he thinks it's just the amulet 01:10:09.039 --> 01:10:12.220 but no it's the girl she's the bride ta -da she's 01:10:12.220 --> 01:10:14.140 the new empress and she's like oh don't worry 01:10:14.140 --> 01:10:15.880 I know you love me really but I can now give 01:10:15.880 --> 01:10:22.399 you the army you always want kind of thing. She 01:10:22.399 --> 01:10:24.340 wouldn't have been with Harald for Harald to 01:10:24.340 --> 01:10:26.119 bring her to Constantinople. She was already 01:10:26.119 --> 01:10:31.180 in Constantinople. She was born and grew up there. 01:10:31.819 --> 01:10:36.420 She was the Empress. The Emperor wasn't the Emperor 01:10:36.420 --> 01:10:39.649 until he married her. She was the one with the 01:10:39.649 --> 01:10:43.109 right to the throne and not him. So it's like, 01:10:43.149 --> 01:10:44.909 that was just like, I was trying to work out 01:10:44.909 --> 01:10:48.329 what on earth was going on. Yeah, a big little 01:10:48.329 --> 01:10:50.510 romantic drama there for you. It was just a big 01:10:50.510 --> 01:10:53.310 dramatic drama. Not true. Well, it's also annoying 01:10:53.310 --> 01:10:55.649 because the misogyny of it, the bloke had to 01:10:55.649 --> 01:10:57.310 be the emperor and they were bringing the girl 01:10:57.310 --> 01:10:59.829 to him. And it's like, well, it was the other 01:10:59.829 --> 01:11:02.390 way around in this case. When you have an example 01:11:02.390 --> 01:11:05.649 of history of kind of, you know, a strong independent 01:11:05.649 --> 01:11:11.140 woman. Yeah. Why change that? Why not? Oh, Justin, 01:11:11.939 --> 01:11:14.560 you've opened a can of worms because my one beef 01:11:14.560 --> 01:11:16.600 with this series is not with Emma's depiction 01:11:16.600 --> 01:11:18.560 Godwins or Harada, it's just the fact they had 01:11:18.560 --> 01:11:21.859 an amazing Arabic scholar who was a woman and 01:11:21.859 --> 01:11:24.100 of course the poor thing died of cancer on the 01:11:24.100 --> 01:11:26.939 boat trip. They couldn't just have her survive 01:11:26.939 --> 01:11:30.020 and help Leif Erikson continue his great Arabic 01:11:30.020 --> 01:11:32.479 studies. He learnt Arabic in the entire boat 01:11:32.479 --> 01:11:36.119 trip down, don't ask me how, he just did. He 01:11:36.119 --> 01:11:38.500 learnt how to use a compass and a sundial and 01:11:38.500 --> 01:11:44.619 everything. I liked her because she was intelligent 01:11:44.619 --> 01:11:48.319 and brave and was happy to get nitty -gritty 01:11:48.319 --> 01:11:50.079 when it came to a fight kind of thing and of 01:11:50.079 --> 01:11:53.819 course they had to just... make Leif more unhappy 01:11:53.819 --> 01:11:55.680 by taking away from him. So that's the second 01:11:55.680 --> 01:11:57.739 woman Leif Erickson has lost, I'm just saying 01:11:57.739 --> 01:11:59.819 that. He's lost a pagan and not a Christian. 01:11:59.899 --> 01:12:01.399 I don't know if he's going to go, well not Christian, 01:12:01.479 --> 01:12:05.500 a Muslim, sorry. She was a Muslim I think. Yeah, 01:12:06.300 --> 01:12:10.579 so yeah. So crazy license, it's good but it can 01:12:10.579 --> 01:12:13.800 also be bad. Especially when it's dealing with 01:12:13.800 --> 01:12:16.060 things straight. When you have a powerful woman 01:12:16.060 --> 01:12:22.130 like Zoe, why? take away her power, why not actually 01:12:22.130 --> 01:12:28.329 have her be Empress Zoe? It would have been interesting 01:12:28.329 --> 01:12:31.770 to see a powerful figure toy with him like that, 01:12:31.869 --> 01:12:33.550 kind of like saying, oh I like you but I don't 01:12:33.550 --> 01:12:35.350 like you because I'm Empress, that kind of thing. 01:12:36.390 --> 01:12:38.630 She was also much older than him, I think by 01:12:38.630 --> 01:12:41.550 this point she was past childbearing age. Yeah 01:12:41.550 --> 01:12:44.850 she was about 60 wasn't she at the time when 01:12:44.850 --> 01:12:48.960 she married her second husband. and there are 01:12:48.960 --> 01:12:51.600 rumours that he helped kill her first husband. 01:12:52.579 --> 01:12:54.859 I was going to say he got involved in a lot of 01:12:54.859 --> 01:12:56.680 kind of like emperor disposition because then 01:12:56.680 --> 01:12:59.880 he had to help blind two of them either either 01:12:59.880 --> 01:13:02.180 side of Zoe or was it after Zoe? I can't remember 01:13:02.180 --> 01:13:05.520 which way around it was. I can't remember Michael 01:13:05.520 --> 01:13:09.479 the fourth was killed in the bath. Oh dramatic. 01:13:10.260 --> 01:13:15.270 Well it's so um yeah so Zoe marries uh the I 01:13:15.270 --> 01:13:17.409 forget, he's nicknamed the Corker because his 01:13:17.409 --> 01:13:23.869 family come from, he's the chief eunuch in the 01:13:23.869 --> 01:13:29.130 palace, he has a handsome young nephew and he's 01:13:29.130 --> 01:13:31.229 nicknamed the Corker because his family are from 01:13:31.229 --> 01:13:34.850 a shipbuilding family and he brings his nephew 01:13:34.850 --> 01:13:38.050 into the palace and he gets the attention of 01:13:38.050 --> 01:13:43.270 Empress Zoe who then marries him and then he 01:13:43.289 --> 01:13:47.630 he stages a palace coup. And he sends her to 01:13:47.630 --> 01:13:50.630 a nunnery, doesn't he? He shaves her head, sends 01:13:50.630 --> 01:13:53.050 her to a nunnery, and then tries to marry someone 01:13:53.050 --> 01:13:57.029 else. And this is when Harold Tartrada's moment 01:13:57.029 --> 01:13:58.850 comes, because Harold has been imprisoned at 01:13:58.850 --> 01:14:05.890 this point. And the sagas tell us that his brother, 01:14:06.590 --> 01:14:10.930 now Saint Olaf, comes to him in a dream. or is 01:14:10.930 --> 01:14:13.189 there a dream of a snake? I forget exactly now 01:14:13.189 --> 01:14:18.029 but there's some kind of story and Harold is 01:14:18.029 --> 01:14:21.529 kind of you know is saved but clear that there's 01:14:21.529 --> 01:14:25.590 a palace coup and some of the um again the saga 01:14:25.590 --> 01:14:29.069 tells us that a palace woman comes to where Harold 01:14:29.069 --> 01:14:31.109 is imprisoned because it's not really a dungeon 01:14:31.109 --> 01:14:33.989 it's kind of a it's a kind of barracks really. 01:14:35.019 --> 01:14:38.720 and sets him free. And Harold then leads or helps 01:14:38.720 --> 01:14:45.180 lead the kind of the storming of the palace. 01:14:46.100 --> 01:14:48.659 Yeah, so it's kind of coming back to me as I'm 01:14:48.659 --> 01:14:53.180 talking. So when the palace coup happens, the 01:14:53.180 --> 01:14:57.939 Varangians are replaced in the palace by a force 01:14:57.939 --> 01:15:02.840 of Peshneg kind of children. and so the Varangians 01:15:02.840 --> 01:15:05.779 are kind of upset and unhappy. They've been kind 01:15:05.779 --> 01:15:08.520 of excluded and so naturally they kind of turn 01:15:08.520 --> 01:15:10.859 to Harold Hardrada who then becomes their leader 01:15:10.859 --> 01:15:13.939 and the Varangians essentially storm the palace, 01:15:15.140 --> 01:15:19.020 free the empress from the monastery and then 01:15:19.020 --> 01:15:22.960 the saga, I think the saga doesn't tell us what 01:15:22.960 --> 01:15:25.979 exactly happened? It tells us that the emperor 01:15:25.979 --> 01:15:29.600 is blinded. The emperor flees to a monastery 01:15:29.600 --> 01:15:33.039 to seek sanctuary, and he's dragged out of the 01:15:33.039 --> 01:15:38.520 monastery and blinded. And it doesn't say how 01:15:38.520 --> 01:15:40.739 much I tried as that person, but I think he probably 01:15:40.739 --> 01:15:46.500 was. And so again, in terms of a kind of Norwegian 01:15:46.500 --> 01:15:50.420 adventurer, he is the power broker. He put Zoe 01:15:50.420 --> 01:15:54.489 back on the throne. and you know blinds the emperor 01:15:54.489 --> 01:15:57.989 so he again have extraordinary power that he's 01:15:57.989 --> 01:16:02.369 wielding. But then just imagine the next emperor 01:16:02.369 --> 01:16:05.909 who marries Zoe, the Byzantine aristocracy decide 01:16:05.909 --> 01:16:08.329 okay we can't let Zoe pick you know next handsome 01:16:08.329 --> 01:16:10.029 husband we have to pick one of our own to marry 01:16:10.029 --> 01:16:13.649 her and just kind of to stabilize the state and 01:16:13.649 --> 01:16:17.449 that emperor clearly finds Harold a little disconcerting 01:16:17.449 --> 01:16:19.789 knowing what he did to the previous emperor and 01:16:19.789 --> 01:16:24.680 so Harold's time is quite short. Oh that's a 01:16:24.680 --> 01:16:28.180 wonderful recap because oh he has so many adventures 01:16:28.180 --> 01:16:32.319 just wherever he goes like just even his escape 01:16:32.319 --> 01:16:36.760 from um Cichlisad is one adventure and they kind 01:16:36.760 --> 01:16:39.439 of nod to it in the end of season one with him 01:16:39.439 --> 01:16:42.600 fleeing with the aid of another fictional well 01:16:42.600 --> 01:16:45.739 not fiction entirely fictional um Leif Erikson's 01:16:45.739 --> 01:16:52.069 sister um but yeah He nearly has his happy ending. 01:16:52.909 --> 01:16:55.770 Yeah, there's all sorts going on here. The fact 01:16:55.770 --> 01:16:57.550 that they've got Godwin as the villain is, the 01:16:57.550 --> 01:17:01.250 real is, well, there's lots of untruths mixed 01:17:01.250 --> 01:17:03.470 with slight truths mixed with a lot of fiction 01:17:03.470 --> 01:17:06.090 and just generate a lot of spicy drama, basically. 01:17:08.149 --> 01:17:10.729 But yes. It's been horrible to watch, but I spend 01:17:10.729 --> 01:17:15.010 most of my time going, no! And that's not it, 01:17:15.010 --> 01:17:18.659 he's not the... She's not there! She's too old! 01:17:19.220 --> 01:17:21.319 I think the Game of Thrones was so successful 01:17:21.319 --> 01:17:25.260 in that it didn't go for easy tropes and it did 01:17:25.260 --> 01:17:28.960 play those interesting parallels of powerful 01:17:28.960 --> 01:17:32.840 women, older powerful women, and how they use 01:17:32.840 --> 01:17:34.380 their power and the way they exert their power. 01:17:34.600 --> 01:17:38.760 I thought in a much more interesting way. I always 01:17:38.760 --> 01:17:40.140 think with the kind of the history, the history 01:17:40.140 --> 01:17:42.600 is always so interesting. If you just stuck to 01:17:42.600 --> 01:17:45.079 the history, you'd need a much more interesting 01:17:45.079 --> 01:17:49.600 story. I think what they did with Vikings Valhalla 01:17:49.600 --> 01:17:52.720 is they, I wonder if they thought they were only 01:17:52.720 --> 01:17:55.600 going to get one season out of it. So they tried 01:17:55.600 --> 01:17:59.760 to get everybody in the first season. which is 01:17:59.760 --> 01:18:02.399 why you end up with Swain Forkby living after 01:18:02.399 --> 01:18:06.100 he's dead and can you call him Edmund the boy 01:18:06.100 --> 01:18:09.159 when they're exactly the same age? Yes. I just 01:18:09.159 --> 01:18:11.039 wonder if they just thought they'd get this one 01:18:11.039 --> 01:18:13.619 season so we'd better have everybody in it and 01:18:13.619 --> 01:18:16.100 then it was oh we've got another season so although 01:18:16.100 --> 01:18:19.439 we did have Harold Hardrada already in it when 01:18:19.439 --> 01:18:22.939 he was only a baby at the time we want him in 01:18:22.939 --> 01:18:27.500 this one because it's nearer. And we keep saying 01:18:27.500 --> 01:18:34.560 Olaf even though he would be dead if he was at 01:18:34.560 --> 01:18:37.560 Harold's age, but he isn't because we haven't 01:18:37.560 --> 01:18:38.939 actually got to the point where he's supposed 01:18:38.939 --> 01:18:43.380 to be dead yet. I sometimes wonder too if whoever 01:18:43.380 --> 01:18:46.460 was writing season two had actually seen season 01:18:46.460 --> 01:18:49.659 one, because for example the character of Emma 01:18:49.659 --> 01:18:52.890 is completely different. in season two than she 01:18:52.890 --> 01:18:56.869 was in season one. And of course, they've totally, 01:18:56.869 --> 01:19:01.250 you know, changed her personality and her character 01:19:01.250 --> 01:19:05.449 and have her do things that she never would have 01:19:05.449 --> 01:19:08.149 done. He would not have solid her hands with 01:19:08.149 --> 01:19:13.430 that. No, no. Yeah. And the idea of torturing 01:19:13.430 --> 01:19:16.869 a woman anyway was just, it would have been abhorrent 01:19:16.869 --> 01:19:20.560 to them. Well, you know, part of it is the minutiae 01:19:20.560 --> 01:19:23.079 of running a kingdom is not terribly interesting. 01:19:23.479 --> 01:19:27.359 And so if you're doing a drama, and Vikings Valhalla 01:19:27.359 --> 01:19:31.119 is aimed towards an audience that wants blood 01:19:31.119 --> 01:19:34.760 and swords. And so you have to figure out how 01:19:34.760 --> 01:19:39.979 to address that. And so the story that they make 01:19:39.979 --> 01:19:45.109 up does that. This is what the writers should 01:19:45.109 --> 01:19:46.829 have done. They should have just made one season 01:19:46.829 --> 01:19:49.770 about the whole Ethelred versus Framespotbeard 01:19:49.770 --> 01:19:53.069 and Edmund versus Canute, with a lovely conclusion 01:19:53.069 --> 01:19:55.949 like in your wonderful series, Patricia, with 01:19:55.949 --> 01:19:57.489 just Edmund minding Canute and having a happy 01:19:57.489 --> 01:19:58.369 ending at the end. And then they should have 01:19:58.369 --> 01:20:00.750 found another series entirely about Harada from 01:20:00.750 --> 01:20:03.890 his teenage exile all the way through to 1066, 01:20:04.369 --> 01:20:06.550 because he deserves a whole series by himself 01:20:06.550 --> 01:20:11.239 covering every year. Yeah, that would be wonderful. 01:20:11.560 --> 01:20:13.920 You know, have one season that's just England 01:20:13.920 --> 01:20:16.279 and what's going on there. And then have another 01:20:16.279 --> 01:20:18.720 one that just looks at what the Vikings are up 01:20:18.720 --> 01:20:21.880 to. And, you know, Harold Hadron is so fascinating. 01:20:22.500 --> 01:20:23.739 That's true, actually. And then you could have 01:20:23.739 --> 01:20:27.590 a third one in Normandy. Yeah. Exactly. Because 01:20:27.590 --> 01:20:29.550 then you have your third series with Edward the 01:20:29.550 --> 01:20:31.289 Confessor coming over and then you lead into 01:20:31.289 --> 01:20:34.109 2026. There you go, Netflix hires us. We'll write 01:20:34.109 --> 01:20:40.170 it for you. We'll write it. And with these two 01:20:40.170 --> 01:20:42.090 authors, it will be wonderful. It really will, 01:20:42.090 --> 01:20:44.189 because I enjoyed all your books, guys. I mean, 01:20:44.369 --> 01:20:46.369 it's what helped me fall in love with characters 01:20:46.369 --> 01:20:50.109 even more. And of course. I'm a history nerd 01:20:50.109 --> 01:20:51.810 so of course as soon as I read your books I wanted 01:20:51.810 --> 01:20:53.489 to read the non -fiction trial. Oh yeah that 01:20:53.489 --> 01:20:55.449 really happened and oh they did do this and that 01:20:55.449 --> 01:20:57.649 really happened and and this is why I'm hoping 01:20:57.649 --> 01:20:59.630 our discussion has enlightened our viewers somewhat 01:20:59.630 --> 01:21:01.630 because whether they've seen season one or season 01:21:01.630 --> 01:21:05.010 two or both or haven't yet we're helping you 01:21:05.010 --> 01:21:06.970 go in with understanding there is a lot of salt 01:21:06.970 --> 01:21:10.050 involved but there is some nuggets of truth hidden 01:21:10.050 --> 01:21:12.550 in there you just need to unweave it and then 01:21:12.550 --> 01:21:15.329 weave it back together again. I did talk at the 01:21:15.329 --> 01:21:21.270 school in October after Vikings Valhalla came 01:21:21.270 --> 01:21:24.050 out and I was talking to this school, it was 01:21:24.050 --> 01:21:25.970 an all -girls school, and I said, right, the 01:21:25.970 --> 01:21:28.210 first thing, who's watched Vikings Valhalla? 01:21:28.649 --> 01:21:35.329 Forget it. If you not ever. Absolutely, absolutely. 01:21:35.600 --> 01:21:38.020 because it's a shame that Emma is depicted the 01:21:38.020 --> 01:21:40.340 way she is and that Godwin is depicted the way 01:21:40.340 --> 01:21:44.039 he is. Hadrad at the moment is basically a lone 01:21:44.039 --> 01:21:46.279 wolf hathrob but he's got no band of warriors, 01:21:47.039 --> 01:21:49.079 he's shown no great military skill yet ladies 01:21:49.079 --> 01:21:52.359 has he? Not really in any extent no, so it's 01:21:52.359 --> 01:21:53.899 going to be interesting to see how they depict 01:21:53.899 --> 01:21:56.260 him being worthy of joining the Varangian Guard 01:21:56.260 --> 01:21:58.039 when he gets there besides just giving him a 01:21:58.039 --> 01:22:01.100 royal title. But that is where season three will 01:22:01.100 --> 01:22:03.720 be. It will be set at Constantinople, which, 01:22:03.800 --> 01:22:06.479 of course, as we've said, is an area that the 01:22:06.479 --> 01:22:09.520 Vikings did go to. Kind of like they did do slave 01:22:09.520 --> 01:22:12.180 trade over that way and they've got dirham coins 01:22:12.180 --> 01:22:15.699 coming back here. So it's hopefully going to 01:22:15.699 --> 01:22:17.500 enlighten a little bit more to the modern audience 01:22:17.500 --> 01:22:20.439 that Vikings went all over the world. They hadn't 01:22:20.439 --> 01:22:22.159 been to the moon, but they basically went all 01:22:22.159 --> 01:22:24.300 over, apart from Antarctic and Antarctic. But 01:22:24.300 --> 01:22:28.430 yes, so. That's it. I don't think I've got any 01:22:28.430 --> 01:22:29.949 more questions. Have you got any more questions 01:22:29.949 --> 01:22:33.449 or points you want to discuss or raise? I do 01:22:33.449 --> 01:22:35.850 want to, you know, I'm very curious about what 01:22:35.850 --> 01:22:37.989 they're going to do with Leif Erickson because 01:22:37.989 --> 01:22:41.989 his name is best known probably of all this group 01:22:41.989 --> 01:22:45.029 among the general population and they have him 01:22:45.029 --> 01:22:48.189 in a place where he never was and I'm wondering 01:22:48.189 --> 01:22:51.310 if they're ever going to send him to North America 01:22:51.310 --> 01:22:54.149 now that he's learned how to use an astrolabe. 01:22:54.909 --> 01:22:57.149 I'm very curious to see what they're going to 01:22:57.149 --> 01:23:02.449 do with Leith. It's clearly a possible future 01:23:02.449 --> 01:23:08.510 series extension. Because right now he's in Constantinople. 01:23:12.829 --> 01:23:15.670 Yes, he's going east instead of west. He's not 01:23:15.670 --> 01:23:19.189 even hit Iceland or Greenland yet. Well, he came 01:23:19.189 --> 01:23:23.409 from Greenland, so he's coming from... Becky, 01:23:23.590 --> 01:23:25.210 you talk about how the Vikings went everywhere. 01:23:26.170 --> 01:23:30.109 If you ever go to Istanbul, you go to Hagia Sophia, 01:23:30.670 --> 01:23:34.729 which is the huge church, Justinian's sixth century 01:23:34.729 --> 01:23:37.270 church he built. Just an extraordinary building 01:23:37.270 --> 01:23:41.630 with a huge dome. I think it's the Al -Aqsa Mosque 01:23:41.630 --> 01:23:43.689 now, isn't it? Isn't it one of the buildings? 01:23:47.760 --> 01:23:51.180 Museum now I'm thinking of one of the other buildings 01:23:51.180 --> 01:23:53.479 then because that used to be a church now it's 01:23:53.479 --> 01:23:55.619 a mosque. So there's the Blue Mosque and then 01:23:55.619 --> 01:24:01.119 across the Hagia Sophia which I think. Yeah, 01:24:01.140 --> 01:24:02.659 it was meant to back into a mosque about two 01:24:02.659 --> 01:24:04.619 years ago, so I was in Greece at the time and 01:24:04.619 --> 01:24:08.020 and a lot of angry Greeks. Anyway, there's Viking 01:24:08.020 --> 01:24:11.359 graffiti in there. So you can imagine some, you 01:24:11.359 --> 01:24:14.260 know, board Vikings, you know, choosing their 01:24:14.260 --> 01:24:18.539 name. I think it's Halfdan. Halfdan is one of 01:24:18.539 --> 01:24:20.939 the names that's been carved into the stone there. 01:24:21.380 --> 01:24:24.359 So, you know, the Vikings are everywhere. Extraordinary. 01:24:25.260 --> 01:24:27.979 And of course, they went into Iran as well. There's 01:24:27.979 --> 01:24:31.760 a lot of, you know, Arabic theorems has been 01:24:31.760 --> 01:24:35.680 found in Sweden. Yeah, so the incredible incredible 01:24:35.680 --> 01:24:39.119 stories and I think in a sense the kind of the 01:24:39.119 --> 01:24:41.180 stereotype of the Vikings as kind of you know 01:24:41.180 --> 01:24:44.859 hairy horned helmeted you know folks doesn't 01:24:44.859 --> 01:24:50.439 do them justice. They were kind of transnational 01:24:50.439 --> 01:24:54.699 and they formed the kind of the modern world 01:24:54.699 --> 01:24:59.439 in a way that our kind of our history lessons 01:24:59.439 --> 01:25:00.899 which obsessed with the Tudors in the Second 01:25:00.899 --> 01:25:04.090 World War and the Nazis you know utterly kind 01:25:04.090 --> 01:25:06.289 of disregard and I again I think you know an 01:25:06.289 --> 01:25:09.810 extraordinary story um to be told you know to 01:25:09.810 --> 01:25:11.390 stick to the facts you know the facts are very 01:25:11.390 --> 01:25:14.289 interesting. Yeah I mean as much as I enjoyed 01:25:14.289 --> 01:25:16.350 learning about Elizabeth first when I learned 01:25:16.350 --> 01:25:19.729 about Emma I was like forget Elizabeth, Emma's 01:25:19.729 --> 01:25:25.050 doing it before Elizabeth was even around. I 01:25:25.050 --> 01:25:27.930 guess I'm the one who married Godwin she was 01:25:27.930 --> 01:25:32.529 incredible she was a really strong powerful woman. 01:25:32.680 --> 01:25:36.119 all the way through the 1066 period. You know, 01:25:36.119 --> 01:25:39.899 she was still raising rebellion in 1068. Well, 01:25:39.920 --> 01:25:42.680 she gave birth to nine kids for crying out loud 01:25:42.680 --> 01:25:48.880 in the United States. Holy cow. Yeah. I mean, 01:25:48.880 --> 01:25:52.060 I hope they bring her into it properly and tell 01:25:52.060 --> 01:25:54.979 some of her story because she was an incredible 01:25:54.979 --> 01:25:58.739 woman. When I wrote my Soak in the Sword about 01:25:58.739 --> 01:26:00.560 the women of the Norman Conquest, it was like 01:26:00.560 --> 01:26:04.539 I expected Emma. to steal the show and then I 01:26:04.539 --> 01:26:08.060 started researching Githa and it was like it 01:26:08.060 --> 01:26:11.119 took me days to write her story she's the longest 01:26:11.119 --> 01:26:13.340 chapter in the book and I used to come downstairs 01:26:13.340 --> 01:26:15.739 going right I'm going to finish Githa today and 01:26:15.739 --> 01:26:17.819 it took me three days to finish her because she's 01:26:17.819 --> 01:26:20.760 like something like 12 000 words long she because 01:26:20.760 --> 01:26:23.920 she's there all the way through right to past 01:26:23.920 --> 01:26:27.939 1066 she is you know she's in every single part 01:26:27.939 --> 01:26:31.010 of the story and all her children survived adulthood 01:26:31.010 --> 01:26:33.869 it was quite extraordinary as far as we know 01:26:33.869 --> 01:26:37.869 yeah yeah yeah but it is considering as we've 01:26:37.869 --> 01:26:39.930 just been discussing kind of like how many differently 01:26:39.930 --> 01:26:42.869 needed Zoldaid out because their sons all died 01:26:42.869 --> 01:26:45.130 young without marriage or without hairs of their 01:26:45.130 --> 01:26:48.829 own well she's the one it's her descendants who 01:26:48.829 --> 01:26:53.449 still sit on our throne you know because um it's 01:26:53.449 --> 01:26:56.430 from her granddaughter who married the Kievan 01:26:56.430 --> 01:27:00.079 prince that came back into the English bloodline 01:27:00.079 --> 01:27:04.739 with Philippa of Hanold. And ever since, it's 01:27:04.739 --> 01:27:07.520 her bloodline that's on the throne. Yeah, because 01:27:07.520 --> 01:27:10.220 I think, isn't it? Harold Godmanson is a orthodox 01:27:10.220 --> 01:27:13.939 saint. Oh, is it Edmund? I forget. Oh, no, that's 01:27:13.939 --> 01:27:19.159 Edward the Martyr. Edward the Martyr, Ethelred's 01:27:19.159 --> 01:27:22.939 older brother, is an orthodox saint. Yeah. And 01:27:22.939 --> 01:27:32.960 I still haven't found out why. And he's buried 01:27:32.960 --> 01:27:38.840 in the Orthodox Cemetery on the outskirts of 01:27:38.840 --> 01:27:41.699 London because the English and Roman Catholic 01:27:41.699 --> 01:27:44.060 churches couldn't decide who could have him so 01:27:44.060 --> 01:27:50.300 they were long looking. Oh blimey. Here's a question, 01:27:50.619 --> 01:27:53.340 is Hadradah buried, I'm guessing in Norway then? 01:27:54.090 --> 01:27:57.329 So I think it was originally buried in York Minster 01:27:57.329 --> 01:28:02.750 and then repatriated and it was very interesting 01:28:02.750 --> 01:28:05.369 when Richard III was found under the car park 01:28:05.369 --> 01:28:12.170 in Leicester. I was doing a series of talks on 01:28:12.170 --> 01:28:15.909 Harold Hardrada and something very similar appears 01:28:15.909 --> 01:28:20.810 to be the case for Harold Hardrada. I can't remember 01:28:20.810 --> 01:28:24.050 exactly where he was buried. but wherever it 01:28:24.050 --> 01:28:27.130 was was an abbey that was dissolved during the 01:28:27.130 --> 01:28:29.850 reformation and is now a stretch of road i have 01:28:29.850 --> 01:28:32.729 a kind of photo somewhere a stretch of road uh 01:28:32.729 --> 01:28:36.909 in uh in oslo um so he's kind of under that stretch 01:28:36.909 --> 01:28:43.560 of road um but fascinatingly um So when I first 01:28:43.560 --> 01:28:46.399 came back to England from Hong Kong, it was just 01:28:46.399 --> 01:28:49.920 the 950th anniversary of 1066. So I was kind 01:28:49.920 --> 01:28:52.659 of at all the battlefields. And when I went to 01:28:52.659 --> 01:28:54.279 the Stanford Bridge, which is kind of my local 01:28:54.279 --> 01:28:59.560 battlefield, someone said, oh, you know, Harold 01:28:59.560 --> 01:29:02.270 Hardrada's descendant is going to be there. and 01:29:02.270 --> 01:29:04.689 I was so excited, I was kind of both excited 01:29:04.689 --> 01:29:07.329 and terrified and I was terrified because I thought 01:29:07.329 --> 01:29:09.350 just imagine if he's kind of you know a weedy 01:29:09.350 --> 01:29:15.270 little um you know uh and I turned up and this 01:29:15.270 --> 01:29:19.609 guy I was just so happy I mean he's from Iceland 01:29:19.609 --> 01:29:21.529 and obviously in Iceland they had nothing to 01:29:21.529 --> 01:29:23.729 do for a thousand years but kind of trace their 01:29:23.729 --> 01:29:26.029 genealogy and he's you know I'm sure everyone 01:29:26.029 --> 01:29:27.729 in Iceland is a senator from everyone but he 01:29:27.729 --> 01:29:29.829 was he's got he has this huge sheet of paper 01:29:30.470 --> 01:29:33.569 which, you know, he's descended from Egil Skallagrimsson, 01:29:33.569 --> 01:29:36.670 the great poet, you know, every Icelandic person 01:29:36.670 --> 01:29:39.050 he can trace his ancestry to. And one of them 01:29:39.050 --> 01:29:44.729 is Harald Hardrada. And his name was Olaf Fikings 01:29:44.729 --> 01:29:46.670 Sigurdsson, I think he goes by. And he was kind 01:29:46.670 --> 01:29:50.550 of six foot four. He was wider than, you know, 01:29:50.550 --> 01:29:55.689 my armspan. And he told me he had a kind of big, 01:29:55.829 --> 01:30:00.289 kind of shaggy, you know, red blonde beard. And 01:30:00.289 --> 01:30:06.189 he said that he had been a bodyguard at the Helsinki 01:30:06.189 --> 01:30:11.010 summit between Gorbachev and Reagan. And his 01:30:11.010 --> 01:30:14.829 grandfather had been Mr. Universe and had done 01:30:14.829 --> 01:30:16.649 something in the Berlin Olympics. I don't remember 01:30:16.649 --> 01:30:20.390 what, but he was just a giant man. I was so happy 01:30:20.390 --> 01:30:25.699 and so excited. If he hadn't been, you'd have 01:30:25.699 --> 01:30:29.920 said, are you sure? Exactly. I have a photo with 01:30:29.920 --> 01:30:31.859 him and I'm six foot and I look like a midget 01:30:31.859 --> 01:30:33.399 next to him. I look like a child. It was just 01:30:33.399 --> 01:30:37.920 great. I was so happy. And he was nothing. Well, 01:30:37.920 --> 01:30:39.960 of course, we know and they're in Canute's bones 01:30:39.960 --> 01:30:43.159 and health Canute's bones are in caskets, aren't 01:30:43.159 --> 01:30:45.260 they? It went to the cathedral. Yes. And they 01:30:45.260 --> 01:30:48.220 were going under some scientific research or 01:30:48.220 --> 01:30:50.420 analysis a few years ago, definitely before the 01:30:50.420 --> 01:30:54.819 pandemic. I'm not sure. because she's the only 01:30:54.819 --> 01:30:58.380 woman yes they've identified emas because there 01:30:58.380 --> 01:31:00.760 is only one woman and it's her so they must be 01:31:00.760 --> 01:31:06.300 emas the others are a bit more harder to do yeah 01:31:06.300 --> 01:31:08.760 they all got mixed up during the english civil 01:31:08.760 --> 01:31:12.460 war but i think the parliamentarians was it that 01:31:12.460 --> 01:31:14.800 threw rocks through the window and knocked all 01:31:14.800 --> 01:31:16.680 the caskets over and some poor soul decided oh 01:31:16.680 --> 01:31:18.140 this bone will go in that box and that bone in 01:31:18.140 --> 01:31:22.439 that box and hope for the best But yeah, it'd 01:31:22.439 --> 01:31:24.600 be wonderful if they could put their full skeletons 01:31:24.600 --> 01:31:27.659 on display and tell more about their connection 01:31:27.659 --> 01:31:29.680 really with Winchester, because it was their 01:31:29.680 --> 01:31:32.600 base for a good many years during their reign. 01:31:33.899 --> 01:31:36.420 And she was a Queen of England, twice. I like 01:31:36.420 --> 01:31:39.659 Germaine de Rhone, twice! It's really too bad 01:31:39.659 --> 01:31:42.319 that her skull is not intact, because they can't 01:31:42.319 --> 01:31:45.800 do a reconstruction, you know, like they've done 01:31:45.800 --> 01:31:50.039 with some of the other characters from history. 01:31:55.560 --> 01:31:58.619 Well in terms of season three Vikings Valhalla, 01:31:58.819 --> 01:32:00.880 we know they're definitely going to be in Constantinople. 01:32:01.279 --> 01:32:03.880 We discussed and learned therefore that Elena 01:32:03.880 --> 01:32:07.300 may get her name changed to Zoe, but she won't 01:32:07.300 --> 01:32:09.819 be living the life of the real Zoe in any way 01:32:09.819 --> 01:32:12.640 shape or form unless Hadrada helps her get rid 01:32:12.640 --> 01:32:16.119 of her husband by pulling a coup. poking out 01:32:16.119 --> 01:32:18.220 his eyes. Spoilers, it might happen. We don't 01:32:18.220 --> 01:32:19.800 know what the writers are going to do. They might 01:32:19.800 --> 01:32:26.239 do some craziness. Who knows? We know, of course, 01:32:26.380 --> 01:32:29.899 that Emma is dealing with Lady Macbeth -Tall 01:32:29.899 --> 01:32:32.600 guilt, Godwin is Marita Gita, so whether he does 01:32:32.600 --> 01:32:36.020 any more manipulation and wickedness behind the 01:32:36.020 --> 01:32:38.300 scenes, who knows? Canuti is back in England 01:32:38.300 --> 01:32:41.500 after dealing with the Wens. Did he have to deal 01:32:41.500 --> 01:32:43.399 with the Wens? Were they really a problem for 01:32:43.399 --> 01:32:46.000 him at any point? oh they were and that's at 01:32:46.000 --> 01:32:48.840 least true then that's at least true um because 01:32:48.840 --> 01:32:51.960 i'm assuming were the wens bothering norway is 01:32:51.960 --> 01:32:53.760 that when he went oh no he went to denmark didn't 01:32:53.760 --> 01:32:55.899 he went to denmark to deal with the wens running 01:32:55.899 --> 01:32:59.159 denmark i think yes because was that after his 01:32:59.159 --> 01:33:02.420 brother harold died and he claimed denmark yeah 01:33:02.420 --> 01:33:04.100 because that's one thing as well the series have 01:33:04.100 --> 01:33:06.439 missed off that missed off that he had multiple 01:33:06.439 --> 01:33:10.539 crowns and thrones going all over the shop because 01:33:10.539 --> 01:33:11.859 they've just said, oh he's come over and taken 01:33:11.859 --> 01:33:13.800 over England and that's it, he's not really focused. 01:33:13.899 --> 01:33:16.399 Plus we've got Swain Forkbeard to eventually 01:33:16.399 --> 01:33:18.380 possibly kill off in season three, who knows, 01:33:18.439 --> 01:33:20.399 we haven't really seen him in season two, have 01:33:20.399 --> 01:33:21.779 we? I know we saw him, we did see him in season 01:33:21.779 --> 01:33:28.140 two. He did that sun swap, didn't he, with Olaf, 01:33:28.340 --> 01:33:30.979 so he's got Magnus who will eventually indeed 01:33:30.979 --> 01:33:33.680 take the throne of Norway because Sven and Ilgefjord 01:33:33.680 --> 01:33:35.300 will get kicked out because no one likes them 01:33:35.300 --> 01:33:39.699 anymore. We're just telling you the truth people, 01:33:39.859 --> 01:33:41.260 just telling you the truth so you're prepared 01:33:41.260 --> 01:33:45.020 for when it's not the truth. So then you can 01:33:45.020 --> 01:33:47.220 feel our frustration when everything goes wrong. 01:33:51.719 --> 01:33:54.180 randomness of leaf ericson and if he ever stops 01:33:54.180 --> 01:33:56.340 going west and ever starts heading back east 01:33:56.340 --> 01:33:58.420 and how long that'll take him because he's so 01:33:58.420 --> 01:34:03.079 far away from everything why on earth they decided 01:34:03.079 --> 01:34:06.399 to put leaf in it why didn't they just have a 01:34:06.399 --> 01:34:09.789 viking you know a fictional character rather 01:34:09.789 --> 01:34:11.569 than somebody who was doing something totally 01:34:11.569 --> 01:34:13.569 different at the time. It just seems a tough 01:34:13.569 --> 01:34:17.229 thing to do. I think it's just so well known 01:34:17.229 --> 01:34:19.350 that they said, you know, they took all these 01:34:19.350 --> 01:34:22.350 well -known Vikings and put them in a pot and 01:34:22.350 --> 01:34:25.489 stirred it up and said, there, there's the story. 01:34:26.390 --> 01:34:29.010 We've added some extra spice. Because of course, 01:34:29.130 --> 01:34:31.189 Lee Ferguson is more well known in America than 01:34:31.189 --> 01:34:34.270 he is in the UK, because of course, he did find 01:34:34.270 --> 01:34:37.489 America 500 years before Columbus did, or more 01:34:37.489 --> 01:34:39.609 like 500 years, so many hundreds of years before 01:34:39.609 --> 01:34:42.189 Columbus did. I'm wondering if maybe they had 01:34:42.189 --> 01:34:44.430 to have him meet up with the lovely Arab scholar 01:34:44.430 --> 01:34:47.710 that they then killed off to help have him more 01:34:47.710 --> 01:34:49.949 be more clever, be more clever and have more 01:34:49.949 --> 01:34:52.550 abilities in order to find that waste because 01:34:52.550 --> 01:34:54.810 of course the Vikings would have known of Iceland 01:34:54.810 --> 01:34:57.430 and of course he was from Greenland. At the time 01:34:57.430 --> 01:34:59.590 of the series presumably his character didn't 01:34:59.590 --> 01:35:02.909 know or think of lands any further west so that's 01:35:02.909 --> 01:35:05.829 why he's now got his dialy thingy and his compass 01:35:05.829 --> 01:35:10.329 and his map reading skills and stuff. That's 01:35:10.329 --> 01:35:12.909 my current theory. So then they can all say, 01:35:13.029 --> 01:35:15.250 yes, he did find us because he did this and this 01:35:15.250 --> 01:35:17.590 and this and then he found us all on the other 01:35:17.590 --> 01:35:20.229 side of the world kind of thing. But that could 01:35:20.229 --> 01:35:21.630 have been a whole series in itself because it 01:35:21.630 --> 01:35:23.489 would have been nice to see Viking life in Iceland 01:35:23.489 --> 01:35:25.710 and Viking life in Greenland, because again, 01:35:26.109 --> 01:35:29.310 people are vaguely aware of them. But often Vikings, 01:35:29.989 --> 01:35:33.560 as a modern sense, do tend to focus on England 01:35:33.560 --> 01:35:36.020 and Europe, and that's it. We're like in the 01:35:36.020 --> 01:35:37.659 middle. No one thinks I'm looking east. It's 01:35:37.659 --> 01:35:39.020 what they did. No one thinks we're looking that 01:35:39.020 --> 01:35:43.420 far west. It's what they did. Well, and Leif's 01:35:43.420 --> 01:35:47.720 sister went to North America too. She did. And 01:35:47.720 --> 01:35:50.739 so what the heck she's doing over in wherever 01:35:50.739 --> 01:35:52.920 they've got her in this story. Johnsburg with 01:35:52.920 --> 01:35:55.220 the Johns Vikings, which was another very confusing 01:35:55.220 --> 01:35:59.210 plot line. It didn't make any sense. But she 01:35:59.210 --> 01:36:02.109 only receives a couple of sentences in the sagas, 01:36:02.210 --> 01:36:04.390 you know, they talk, she's mentioned in a couple 01:36:04.390 --> 01:36:08.350 of them. But she'd be an interesting character 01:36:08.350 --> 01:36:11.369 to actually take a look at what she might have 01:36:11.369 --> 01:36:15.649 actually done because she was a voyager. Yeah, 01:36:15.930 --> 01:36:18.170 that made her a bit of a kind of like a pagan 01:36:18.170 --> 01:36:27.600 religious saint slash advocate. Well, she's a 01:36:27.600 --> 01:36:30.960 foil to Olaf. She's a foil to Olaf. She's holding 01:36:30.960 --> 01:36:33.300 up a big... Yes, they found her there, big climax. 01:36:34.119 --> 01:36:36.800 Yeah. I must admit, his death I found slightly 01:36:36.800 --> 01:36:38.659 disappointing. I thought being skewered on a 01:36:38.659 --> 01:36:41.180 spear through the armpits wasn't that... I don't 01:36:41.180 --> 01:36:44.899 know. Wasn't a great epic death. I wanted to 01:36:44.899 --> 01:36:47.119 see more bloody injuries to him or maybe his 01:36:47.119 --> 01:36:49.039 head lopped off. I don't know. Well, he died 01:36:49.039 --> 01:36:52.199 in Norway, didn't he? Yes. Yes, because... Yeah, 01:36:52.380 --> 01:36:56.270 we're quite extraordinary. There was a solar 01:36:56.270 --> 01:36:58.149 eclipse during the battle. The saga says there 01:36:58.149 --> 01:37:02.510 was a solar eclipse during the battle. And we 01:37:02.510 --> 01:37:05.130 know from historical records that there was a 01:37:05.130 --> 01:37:11.170 solar eclipse. And you can imagine its battles 01:37:11.170 --> 01:37:13.470 taking place in a solar eclipse. And I was in 01:37:13.470 --> 01:37:15.210 Prague for the last, there was a solar eclipse 01:37:15.210 --> 01:37:19.250 in 1999, I think, in Europe. And it was so kind 01:37:19.250 --> 01:37:23.069 of chilling. birds will go silent and you're 01:37:23.069 --> 01:37:24.369 going to feel the silence and the day starts 01:37:24.369 --> 01:37:27.489 to go dark and cold and it started to rain you 01:37:27.489 --> 01:37:31.670 know so this happens during the battle um so 01:37:31.670 --> 01:37:33.750 uh it made an extraordinary kind of comment again 01:37:33.750 --> 01:37:35.449 you know Harold Tartar is there and you know 01:37:35.449 --> 01:37:40.550 survives it um so you know fascinating yeah and 01:37:40.550 --> 01:37:42.930 this is the thing i think they're confused in 01:37:42.930 --> 01:37:44.850 the series because i'm sure there was another 01:37:44.850 --> 01:37:47.250 Olaf involved in pulling that yeah because there 01:37:47.250 --> 01:37:53.020 was Olaf the tall Yes, Olaf. And then there was 01:37:53.020 --> 01:37:55.500 Olaf the... I'm thinking of Thorkell the Tall. 01:37:55.520 --> 01:37:57.479 I'm thinking of someone else entirely. Olaf was 01:37:57.479 --> 01:38:00.420 king of Nolra. Sorry. I was getting confused. 01:38:00.520 --> 01:38:03.760 I was getting their version of Olaf confused 01:38:03.760 --> 01:38:06.520 with Thorkell the Tall because he did help in 01:38:06.520 --> 01:38:08.380 terms of London Bridge and Emmerich and everything. 01:38:08.619 --> 01:38:12.340 But of course, in the series, this very fictionalist 01:38:12.340 --> 01:38:14.640 series, it's very confusing. I'm picking all 01:38:14.640 --> 01:38:18.899 this. Their Olaf is both alive and not alive 01:38:18.899 --> 01:38:22.899 at the same time. Right, anyway, anyway. Gosh, 01:38:22.979 --> 01:38:25.800 we have talked about so much, and I hope, dear 01:38:25.800 --> 01:38:28.279 viewers, you managed to keep up with this rollercoaster 01:38:28.279 --> 01:38:30.920 ride through history and the wonderful characters 01:38:30.920 --> 01:38:32.960 involved. I know we focused on three, but we've 01:38:32.960 --> 01:38:34.859 pretty much picked out the entire cast because 01:38:34.859 --> 01:38:39.199 they all impact on each other. No man is an island, 01:38:39.319 --> 01:38:41.760 and indeed, in this great period of time, all 01:38:41.760 --> 01:38:43.739 these players move and interact with each other 01:38:43.739 --> 01:38:45.460 and betray each other or marry each other or 01:38:45.460 --> 01:38:48.939 fall in love and... So yeah, but I really do 01:38:48.939 --> 01:38:51.140 appreciate your time joining me for this wonderful 01:38:51.140 --> 01:38:53.579 talk. I hope you've enjoyed it. I certainly have, 01:38:53.640 --> 01:38:58.060 as you can tell by my big grin. And your knowledge 01:38:58.060 --> 01:39:00.760 and insight has been really helpful and insightful. 01:39:00.920 --> 01:39:03.680 And I've learned things again that I might have 01:39:03.680 --> 01:39:06.659 forgotten or didn't know before now. And definitely 01:39:06.659 --> 01:39:10.079 seeing the series in a different light, but hopefully. 01:39:10.829 --> 01:39:12.829 We'll have more to talk on season three, which 01:39:12.829 --> 01:39:15.310 may come out next year. Who knows? I know they're 01:39:15.310 --> 01:39:18.029 kind of like they gave a sneak peek trailer and 01:39:18.029 --> 01:39:22.649 showed Harold in some very almost like gold Romanesque 01:39:22.649 --> 01:39:24.970 type armour looking out over a sunny balcony 01:39:24.970 --> 01:39:27.130 over a nice blue sea. And I was thinking, oh, 01:39:27.510 --> 01:39:30.029 I don't know about that armour, but we'll see. 01:39:31.890 --> 01:39:35.090 We'll see. So we've got lots, lots to go for. 01:39:36.640 --> 01:39:39.399 But yes, thank you so much for your time, Patricia. 01:39:39.579 --> 01:39:41.079 Thank you so much for your time, Justin. And 01:39:41.079 --> 01:39:42.819 of course, thank you so much, Sharon Bennett 01:39:42.819 --> 01:39:48.039 Connolly, her lovely book, The Silk and the Sword. 01:39:48.819 --> 01:39:50.000 I was going to say The Silk and the Steel. I 01:39:50.000 --> 01:39:52.520 was getting yours and Patricia's book. That's 01:39:52.520 --> 01:39:57.319 true. Well, that's why I couldn't use Silk and 01:39:57.319 --> 01:40:02.520 the Steel, isn't it? But yes, dear viewers, do 01:40:02.520 --> 01:40:05.039 go up these lovely authors and writers and historians. 01:40:05.220 --> 01:40:07.060 They've written some wonderful books and it really 01:40:07.060 --> 01:40:09.720 will help you learn the real history, what Netflix 01:40:09.720 --> 01:40:12.859 is adapting and retelling and rewriting in ways 01:40:12.859 --> 01:40:15.699 more than one, because the real history, as you 01:40:15.699 --> 01:40:18.699 said, is a lot better. And I will end on the 01:40:18.699 --> 01:40:20.500 quote that I knew I was going to find at the 01:40:20.500 --> 01:40:23.659 start and didn't read out. So I will do that 01:40:23.659 --> 01:40:26.949 now. Where is it? It was this one. Would you 01:40:26.949 --> 01:40:29.369 mind reading it for me because my email's failing 01:40:29.369 --> 01:40:34.409 me. It's from Rory Mantel and the quote is, as 01:40:34.409 --> 01:40:38.109 soon as we die we enter into fiction. Once we 01:40:38.109 --> 01:40:41.630 can no longer speak for ourselves we are interpreted. 01:40:43.189 --> 01:40:45.970 Brilliant. I think that sums up beautifully what 01:40:45.970 --> 01:40:49.729 my aim was with this whole discussion ultimately 01:40:49.729 --> 01:40:52.289 and it reflects as well what Netflix are doing 01:40:52.289 --> 01:40:55.060 because basically no one can repute them, no 01:40:55.060 --> 01:40:57.739 one can tell them that wasn't true. We can only 01:40:57.739 --> 01:41:00.300 do what the records say and there's only so many 01:41:00.300 --> 01:41:02.180 records and even then the records have their 01:41:02.180 --> 01:41:05.239 own biases and problems and just lack of. Sometimes 01:41:05.239 --> 01:41:07.159 there's there are gaps which you wonderful authors 01:41:07.159 --> 01:41:10.739 put in beautifully and sometimes TV series writers 01:41:10.739 --> 01:41:14.149 don't. Brilliant, beautifully. To a degree, to 01:41:14.149 --> 01:41:16.510 a degree. It's all a pinch of salt, all a pinch 01:41:16.510 --> 01:41:19.029 of salt. So thank you, Davias, for spending time 01:41:19.029 --> 01:41:21.189 with us. Thank you, dear panellists, for spending 01:41:21.189 --> 01:41:23.989 time with me and putting with my questions and 01:41:23.989 --> 01:41:26.630 over eagerness and excitement. And hopefully 01:41:26.630 --> 01:41:29.270 we can reunite for season three when it comes 01:41:29.270 --> 01:41:32.090 out at some point in the future. But thank you 01:41:32.090 --> 01:41:35.710 very much for watching. Thank you. Bye.