More material is coming, but here is a bonus episode to keep you company while you're practicing social distancing.
Bonus Episode: Slavery
Category: Podcast Episodes
Every episode of The British History Podcast. This category includes cultural history, storyline episodes, English history, Welsh history, Scottish history, and even some Irish history and Roman history thrown in.
344 – Cnut’s Mad Lads
In the year of 1021, the Anglo Saxon Chronicle tells us two things. A Bishop died. And Thorkell the Tall was expelled from the country. And that’s all it tells us. We know by now that the Chronicle gets a little quiet when the establishment hits the rocks… and, with Cnut’s right hand man being [...]
Bonus Episode: Shrove Tuesday
Today is Shrove Tuesday. And if you’re not in Britain, you might be wondering what Shrove Tuesday is, and even if you are British, you might be wondering why you’re celebrating it. Shrove Tuesday is the day before Ash Wednesday, and Ash Wednesday is the start of Lent. And if you weren’t raised within a [...]
342 – King Cnut of Denmark and England
If you have heard of King Cnut, what you probably heard was the story of Cnut and the Tides. The most common version of it goes like this. “Canute, the greatest and most powerful monarch of his time, sovereign of Denmark and Norway, as well as of England, could not fail of meeting with adulation [...]
341 – King Cnut of England
Cnut made a lot of smart moves in a very short amount of time. He outlawed much of the corruption that had plagued the courts of AEthelred. He scrubbed his new kingdom of the loyalists to Edmund Ironsides. He granted key lands to key followers. Executed the main claimant to the throne, Eadwig. He executed [...]
340 – A Bit of a Cnut
When we left off, Cnut had managed to get Eadric to go on the record calling for the execution of the English claimants to the throne… and then Cnut rejected the suggestion, and instead outlawed Eadwig, and exiled the sons of Edmund to Sweden. What the public likely didn’t know was the fact that Cnut [...]
339 – Cnut the Conqueror
It’s been a strange few years. The fall of the House of Wessex and the rise of Cnut looks like a simple story of conquest. After all, it’s right there in the title. Virtually every book on this era has a chapter called “The Conquest of England.” And for good reason… Cnut /was/ a conqueror. [...]
338 – The Fall of King Edmund Ironsides
Edmund hadn’t lost, and for now that was enough. He had shown himself to be a contender. So Ironside took his remaining men and marched East… but the accounts are careful to point out that he stayed north of the Thames…. And this decision has lead scholars to believe that Mercia may have already been [...]
337 – The Rise of King Edmund Ironside
Can you feel it? It feels like there is a lull before the storm. AEthelred Unread is now gone, and Normandy is now officially on the board. 1066 is on the doorstep. But the lull is an illusion you experience because you know what is coming next. For the people living it, things are heating [...]
336 – The End Is The Beginning Is The End
Christmas is old. Older than Christianity, in fact. As a consequence, there’s a lot to it. Symbols and traditions that come from all over the world, and from all across time. It’s a complex event that, predictably, can provoke a complex set of emotions from people. But when you look past the trees, and the [...]