Special Episode: 1066 and the Battle of Hastings

You're Dead to Me

This special edition of You're Dead to Me uses comedy and historical analysis to unpack the succession crisis of 1066, focusing on Edward the Confessor's death and the competing claims of Harold

Key takeaways

• Edward the Confessor died in early January 1066 without an heir, triggering a three-way contest for the English throne.
• Harold Godwinson was crowned king on the same day as Edward's funeral, 6 January 1066, at Westminster Abbey.

Main topics

• English succession crisis in 1066
• Claims of Harold Godwinson, William Duke of Normandy, and Haraldur Sigurdsson

Notable quotes

Harold. I commend the Queen, my wife Edith, and the kingdom to your care.

Conclusion

The episode offers an entertaining but substantive guide to why 1066 remains one

Transcript preview

Speaker 6 (0:00) This BBC podcast is supported by ads Speaker 2 (0:02) outside the UK. Speaker 2 (0:06) Ever wondered what you would do if you found yourself lost in the wild? If disaster struck, would you make the right decisions to stay alive? Real survival stories from the Noisa Podcast Network brings you astonishing tales of ordinary people thrust into extraordinary situations. Speaker 4 (0:22) It's the biggest tiger shark I've ever seen in my life. So I just swam. I just swam and swam as fast as I Speaker 1 (0:30) could. I realize those two parachutes tied up together is what a dead man sees. I am not going to survive. Speaker 2 (0:37) Real survival stories. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 6 (0:51) Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, we're the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner, I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster and today we are collecting our bodyguard, calling up the cavalry and galloping all the way back to medieval England and galloping back again to learn everything about the events of 1066 and the Battle of Hastings. And joining our ranks on this epic campaign, we have two very special guests. In History Corner, she's Associate Professor of Scandinavian Studies at University College London. Luckily for us, she's an expert on Norman and Scandinavian invasions of medieval England. And you might have read her wonderful new book, all about 1066, 19 Days in Autumn. It's Dr. Erin Gores. Welcome, Erin. Thank Speaker 5 (1:31) you. Pleasure to be here. I'm Speaker 6 (1:32) very excited to have you in. And in Comedy Corner, she's an award-winning screenwriter, actor, podcaster and comedian. Maybe you've seen her on tour or heard her BBC Sounds podcast Wheel of Misfortune or her new show Ignore That Feeling with Fern Brady. And of course on the telly, you may have seen her on Nowhere Fast, Celebrity Gogglebox, Richard Osman's House of Games, Pointless Celebrities. But most importantly, you'll remember her from our episode on the medieval papacy. It's Alison Spittel. Welcome back. Speaker 7 (1:57) Mad popes for life. I still talk about them. Even last week I was chatting to someone. It's a Speaker 6 (2:04) lot of people's favourite episode, that one. Mine Speaker 7 (2:06) too. Some Speaker 6 (2:07) pretty strange history. Speaker 7 (2:08) Popes Speaker 6 (2:09) are Speaker 7 (2:09) genuine drag queens to me. I love them. Speaker 6 (2:12) Dead popes on trial. All the good stuff. So we've done medieval popes and we're back in the Middle Ages with you. Speaker 7 (2:17) Yes, we are. And this is a subject I don't know that much about. Sure. Speaker 6 (2:24) Okay, so you grew up in Ireland. Speaker 7 (2:25) I did. I grew up in Ireland. So what Speaker 6 (2:26) does 1066 mean, if anything? Speaker 7 (2:29) 1066, I think there was an advertisement for an insurance company. Was it Churchill? Speaker 6 (2:34) No, no, it's 1066, yeah. It's Speaker 7 (2:35) 1066, that's all I Speaker 6 (2:37) remember. Speaker 7 (2:37) It's Hastings, I think they're called, yeah. Hastings, yeah, sorry, I got my historical insurance companies mixed Speaker 6 (2:42) up. Speaker 7 (2:42) I'll let you off. Speaker 6 (2:43) It's a very niche subject, yeah. Speaker 7 (2:45) But yes, 1066 to me is either a passcode for something or a phone number for an English person. That's all I know. Fair enough. There's a battle. Speaker 6 (2:57) There is. Yeah. Speaker 7 (2:58) There's actually three. Someone won? Speaker 6 (2:59) There's actually three. But, you know, we're Speaker 7 (3:01) going Speaker 6 (3:01) to get into it. We've got lots to cover. So it's good to know that you've got a kind of baseline, which is insurance companies. And then from there we can build. And you're Canadian originally. So, I mean, you've come to this late as well. I Speaker 5 (3:13) have. I have. Yes. I think for most Canadians, 1066 is just a big question mark. So it was a grand voyage of discovery for me. Speaker 6 (3:21) Lovely. What was it Speaker 5 (3:22) like for you? Speaker 6 (3:23) I love 1066. It's my favourite. I'm very excited. Speaker 5 (3:27) So, Speaker 6 (3:28) what do you know? Speaker 6 (3:33) This is the Sawadian though. This is where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener or viewer, hello, will know about today's subject. And if you're English, 1066 is the most famous date in all of English history, right? We all know it. 1066 and all that. It's William the Conqueror. It's the Battle of Hastings. Harold with the arrow in the eye. You know, our lovely podcast artwork, right? Maybe you got tickets to go see the Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum. Maybe you saw the BBC TV drama King and Conqueror. You probably know a lot about it, but maybe not everything. So who were the men who fought for the English crown in 1066? Did Harold really get an arrow in the eye? And why should you never trust your younger brother? Maybe not. Let's find out. Okay, Alison. Yes. Obviously. Yes. Easy question here. Who was the king before 1066? Speaker 7 (4:18) No, don't Speaker 6 (4:19) you Speaker 7 (4:19) dare. So William is the guy after. Speaker 6 (4:23) Yeah. And Speaker 7 (4:23) then the king before that was just Bob. Speaker 6 (4:26) King Bob. Speaker 7 (4:27) King Bob, yeah. I think he's a minion, Speaker 6 (4:28) isn't he? Speaker 2 (4:29) He's one of the minions, I think. Speaker 7 (4:31) I think Speaker 6 (4:32) that's Despicable Me. It's a very different genre. Speaker 7 (4:34) Is it like Arthur, Merlin, these legendary people that don't really exist before this? Or is it Alfred? Is there a guy called Alfred? Speaker 6 (4:40) Alfred is a king, but it's slightly, a bit earlier, I'm afraid. You're sort of 120 odd years out. Okay. Speaker 7 (4:45) But Speaker 6 (4:45) those are, I mean, Alfred, wrong. Merlin, wrong. Alfred. Was Speaker 7 (4:48) there something to coward? No. Speaker 6 (4:50) Oh? Well, you're... You've gone with an epithet. Yeah. There's an epithet. There's a nickname. Speaker 7 (4:57) There's a nickname. But he's not coward. Okay. The early. The... Speaker 6 (5:02) Barry the punctual. Barry Speaker 7 (5:04) the punctual. Speaker 6 (5:05) Erin, put us out of our misery. No, the Speaker 5 (5:08) epithet is the Speaker 7 (5:09) confessor. The confessor. Oh, Edward? Yes. Why do I know that? Why do you know that? Why do Speaker 5 (5:15) I Speaker 7 (5:15) know that? Why do Speaker 6 (5:15) you Speaker 7 (5:15) know that? Speaker 5 (5:16) I don't know. Speaker 7 (5:17) This feels very Slumdog Millionaire for me. Edward the confessor. Edward the Speaker 5 (5:22) confessor. Exactly. Not known as Edward the confessor in his early life or for some time. Because he had to confess. Well, indeed. He had to. grow old and become holy. And obviously he wasn't that as a young boy. As Speaker 1 (5:36) a Speaker 5 (5:36) young boy, he was the son of King Æthelred. Speaker 7 (5:39) Another epithet. Æthelred the something. Oh gosh. Okay, the confessor, the dad. Æthelred the dad. Speaker 5 (5:49) Again, a later nickname, Æthelred the unready. The unready. The unready, which cue many jokes about him not being ready for all the Vikings that attacked his shores. Not what it meant. It meant the badly counseled. He was not a very effective king. The Speaker 1 (6:04) ill Speaker 5 (6:05) -advised, isn't it? The Speaker 7 (6:06) ill-advised, exactly. I don't like the idea of getting these nicknames. So when do you find it out, these epithets? Like, if I went, hey, Greg, you're Greg the Dead. And you're like, what? Speaker 6 (6:16) Yeah, it's going to happen. It's going to, you know, that'll be inevitable. Yes. So Ethelreddy Unready is the father. Speaker 7 (6:21) He's the father. Unready salted. Speaker 5 (6:22) The mum. The mum, Emma of Normandy. Yeah. No epithet. Women don't get any epithets. The wife. The wife. Emma the wife. But no, Emma's a great wife. Yes. Okay. So Speaker 7 (6:32) Emma Speaker 5 (6:32) is a... a fantastic queen of England. She's actually twice a queen of England because Æthelred was so unready, if you like, that the Danes came and nabbed his kingdom. So if we think of Cnut the Great, there's another one. So he kicked out. Wasn't he that great? Didn't Speaker 7 (6:48) he Speaker 5 (6:48) have a fight with the sea? He was great. It's Speaker 6 (6:51) a myth, Alison. It's a myth. Speaker 5 (6:53) It's a myth. But anyway, so in fact, Knut's dad, Svein, came, kicked Æthelred out and the family. So Emma was from Normandy, so across the channel. And she thought, you know what? Might be a bit safer in Normandy. So she and the kids, including Edward, her son, Speaker 7 (7:08) took Speaker 5 (7:09) refuge in Normandy. Knut came, nabbed England again. And Edward basically... stayed in Normandy. He grew up in Normandy while this Danish-born king ruled England. And in fact, you know, we talk about the French or the Normans coming in and grabbing England, but actually Edward grew up in Normandy. He, you know, from a very young age, eight, ten years old perhaps, he effectively grew up as a Norman nobleman because of this issue of getting Speaker 1 (7:40) kicked out of his kingdom. Yeah. Speaker 5 (7:42) And so when he came back to be king of England, he was just as Norman, really, as English. He was a bit French. He was a bit French. Oh, no. That sounds like a slur. He's a bit French. Speaker 7 (7:54) That's a bit French, mate. Speaker 5 (7:55) But in fact, we had two decades, a wee bit more than two decades of Danish rule in England, while Edward was a... over in Normandy growing up. And so when Canute died, there was a bit of a kerfuffle with various sons of his. A very bloody one. Trying, you know, ruling, but they were quite short-lived, these sons. And they had a habit of dying young, which is inconvenient if you want to rule a kingdom. And so eventually... Edward was called back by his mum who had actually married the Danish king, Knut. Wait, Emma. Emma. Indeed. Wow. Power move. This Speaker 7 (8:35) is very Coronation Street. It is. This is very Deirdre, Ken and Mike. Mike, get away from the door. Knut. Listen, Speaker 6 (8:42) we do have an episode on Emma of Normandy. It's Speaker 7 (8:44) a Speaker 6 (8:44) fantastic episode. It's very funny. It's very confusing. And Speaker 2 (8:47) we probably Speaker 6 (8:47) need to move on from Speaker 2 (8:48) the confusion. Speaker 6 (8:48) So, I mean, Edward returns to the throne in England. Having grown up in Normandy, he brings some French allies with him. He does. Which is obviously a little bit controversial because they're foreigners. But he's also got a powerful English ally. Speaker 5 (8:59) Indeed. And Speaker 6 (9:00) who's that? Speaker 5 (9:00) So this is, in fact, an ally of his mum. Emma of Normandy, this is the powerful... She has a lot of allies. Well, you have to, in the medieval period, as a woman, you can't wield a sword. What do you do? You make friends with men who can. Okay. So he's Earl Godwin, so the Earl of Wessex. And he was the kind of right-hand man of the Danish-born Knut. And he becomes this kind of kingmaker, a kind of power broker, after Knut's death and a sort of ally of Emma. And so it makes sense to come, if you're Edward, you... don't know a lot of people in england you don't really have a lot of land or money you don't know a lot of the nobles it makes sense to have a powerful ally your mom's friend earl godwin your mom's friend soon to be soon to be your father-in-law because earl godwin also has a beautiful young daughter um maybe 15 years Speaker 4 (9:52) younger or so than Edward. Oh, dear. How Speaker 5 (9:55) old's Edward? Well, Edward's 38 by the time he becomes king. Right? Okay, yeah. You know, so Edith, Godwin's daughter Edith, when Edward marries Edith, that's really kind of consolidating that alliance with the family of Earl Godwin. Yeah. Speaker 6 (10:11) And he's called Edward the Confessor. Speaker 5 (10:13) Right. Speaker 6 (10:14) Because he's always breaking stuff and then apologizing. But no, it's a religious thing. Speaker 7 (10:19) Right. So Speaker 6 (10:20) he's a man who... reputationally has sort of gone down as a man who's so obsessed with God and with faith, he can't even be bothered to rule the kingdom because he's just busy praying. Yeah. Speaker 5 (10:30) Is that true? No. No, that's ridiculous. His redemption is perhaps after death. We know a lot about Edward's life and character from things that are called saints' lives because there was a kind of move to portray him as a saint. This is what the confessor is sort of alluding to. Speaker 7 (10:48) Yes. Speaker 5 (10:48) After he died for various kind of political. and religious reasons. And he never was made a saint. Speaker 6 (10:54) Ooh. I think he sort of is. He sort of is. I think he is. Is he Speaker 5 (10:58) official? I don't know if he's official. We have to ask John. I think he is a saint in the English church, but yeah, we'd have to check it. We'd have to check that. It's after 1066. I don't bother. Of course. Speaker 1 (11:07) I Speaker 6 (11:07) can confirm Edward the Confessor was a saint and in fact is the only king of England to ever have been canonised by the Pope, although that was 100 years later. Speaker 7 (11:15) Wow. The Pope. Okay, that's proper. That is a proper sainthood. Speaker 5 (11:20) Well done. Wow. So he had these allies. He had to have allies. He seemed to have ruled all right, but he did have to rely on these very powerful men, particularly this family, the family of Earl Godwin. Yeah. His mum's mates. His mum's mates and then his wife's mates. So he's married to Edith for about five years and there's no children. So that's a problem. There's a lot going on. Maybe there's a kind of power play by some of his French and Norman allies. Yes. And this is dangerous to Godwin, Earl Godwin and the family of Earl Godwin. Yeah. Speaker 6 (11:58) So there's a big Speaker 5 (11:59) falling out. Earl Godwin and his sons sort of rebel. Edward kicks them out. He sends his wife to a nunnery. Get thee to a nunnery. Wow. But Godwin comes back with men and ships and swords. And he wins, effectively. There's not a battle. Yeah. But he kind of, there's a bit of armed diplomacy that goes on. And he is reinstated in his position of power. Edith comes back from the monastery and is reinstated in the bedchamber. A bit awkward. Reinstated in the Speaker 7 (12:29) bedchamber. Indeed. I know. This feels very 2am, a wedding situation of my family when it's been around. Speaker 3 (12:36) People have been reinstated in the bedchamber. Speaker 6 (12:40) Yeah, so we have a King of England with no heir. No Speaker 5 (12:43) heir. His Speaker 6 (12:44) brother-in-law is a bit of a red flag. Speaker 5 (12:47) He's a bit of a red flag, but he's also really useful. Yeah, sure. So Harold, this is our first... person of note. Harold, so he's the Queen's brother, Harold Godwinson, son of Earl Godwin. He's a really useful ally. He does remain loyal to Edward after this kind of slight civil war rebellion kind of problem. He helps administer the kingdom with his brother Tostig, his younger brother Tostig. They do a really good job, you know, there's almost 15 years of... Peace, really. More than 15 years of peace. Yeah. And Edward can kind of adopt a kind of senior statesman sort of approach. Speaker 7 (13:28) He's Speaker 5 (13:28) maybe not out. leading the charge. He's not attacking Wales like Harold and Tostig are doing. But he's a kind of elder statesman. He's off performing kingship, wearing the crown, Speaker 4 (13:40) you Speaker 5 (13:40) know, doing all the things. He's chilled and Speaker 7 (13:42) powerful. Speaker 5 (13:42) He's like Wayne Rooney nowadays. Yes, exactly. He's doing Speaker 6 (13:45) podcasts. He's doing podcasts. He's coming Speaker 5 (13:47) to Nambia. I think he's Speaker 3 (13:48) more of Speaker 5 (13:48) a Beckham kind of. Speaker 6 (13:49) Beckham. Speaker 5 (13:50) Yeah. And he Speaker 6 (13:51) founds Westminster Abbey, right? Speaker 5 (13:53) Exactly. And this is a huge thing. So Westminster Abbey that you can see now is the kind of brain. child of Edward the Confessor. And Speaker 6 (14:02) then our senior king suddenly falls very ill. He does. Speaker 7 (14:05) Out Speaker 6 (14:05) of nowhere. He Speaker 7 (14:06) does. They always do that. Speaker 5 (14:07) They do. Speaker 7 (14:08) They're Speaker 6 (14:08) rubbish Speaker 7 (14:08) that way. Speaker 6 (14:09) And the kind of date is, we're right at the beginning of 1066. We are. Because we are. We're what, January 4th, 5th? 4th or Speaker 5 (14:15) 5th. We're not quite sure. Well. At the end of 1065, December, Edward falls ill and he takes to his bed. And at the very end of December, they're going to consecrate. They're going to have a kind of ceremony to sort of officially open Westminster Abbey. You know, this project which is so close to him. Speaker 6 (14:34) They've got the giant scissors. They've got it ready to go. Speaker 5 (14:36) They've Speaker 7 (14:36) got the Speaker 5 (14:36) ribbon. They've got the ribbon. And he misses it because he's so ill. So it's really obvious he's very, very ill. Yes. January 4th or 5th, he dies. Right. Yeah. Speaker 3 (14:47) So Speaker 5 (14:48) the first on the scene, in fact, at the deathbed, is Harold. Harold. Harold is there. He is there. He is watching, waiting, probably helping a little bit. Not helping. Not Speaker 6 (14:59) helping in that way. He's just waiting. Speaker 5 (15:03) He's calling up dignitas. Speaker 7 (15:05) Yeah, exactly. Speaker 5 (15:07) But as Edward lies dying, he says these, he allegedly says these very important words. He says, Harold. I commend the Queen, my wife Edith, and the kingdom to your care. Please protect her. Speaker 7 (15:23) Did anyone else witness this? Well, well, Speaker 5 (15:26) well, this is a question. I love your Speaker 6 (15:27) suspicious mind. This is very Speaker 5 (15:29) suspicious. Well, this is in a text which was commissioned, if not kind of heavily influenced by Edith, the Queen. And it's a very pro-Harold and Tostig version of events. So one, did he say it? Not quite sure. Two, what does it mean? I commend the kingdom to you? Does that mean you're the next king? Or does it mean, could you please look after the kingdom until William gets here? Speaker 7 (15:54) We Speaker 5 (15:55) don't know. That's the trouble with a Speaker 7 (15:56) deathbed, isn't it? You're Speaker 5 (15:57) not really that clear. No. Speaker 7 (15:59) You're not thinking clearly at that point. No. And Speaker 6 (16:02) the amazing thing, of course, is that the funeral for Edward is on the 6th of January. Speaker 7 (16:09) January 6th. Speaker 6 (16:09) January 6th. Obviously, a lot of listeners will