A Chronological History of Britain
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Imagine that you went from being a disfavored bastard with little power, to the most powerful English king that had ever existed, in the space of just a few years.
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AEthelstan had completed his annexation of Jorvik, and in doing so he had outperformed every last one of his predecessors, including his grandfather, Alfred the Great. But there were a few loose ends that he still needed to knot up. And as he watched the defenses of Jorvik burn and dolled out Jorvik’s wealth to his loyal men – two of those loose ends, namely his former rivals Guthfrith and Turfrid, slunk away with little more than their lives.
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The last couple of episodes have focused on the political tools that AEthelstan had at his disposal. Marriage alliances, fostering, dynastic cults and diplomatic entreaties were all powerful pieces moving on a huge dark age chess board. And the thing I want you to realize about these things is first, that they took time. A strategic mind – a mind like AEthelstan’s – would see the long game and set his moves accordingly knowing they wouldn’t fully materialize for years to come. The second is that these tools were highly cultural. There’s nothing inherently political about marriage or fostering until a people make it so. By examining the tools that political actors wield we learn something important about the culture and society that underlies it. What it values, and how it prioritizes people and things.
And all of these slow, important tools are working constantly in the background throughout AEthelstan’s reign.