Born into a world of treachery, violence and death, William of Normandy defied all expectations, forging a legacy that lasts to this day. Born out of wedlock and dismissed as an upstart, he was originally known as William the Bastard. Inheriting the Duchy of Normandy at just eight years old, William was faced with betrayal, bloodshed, and anarchy. From the restless Normans, who expanded across Europe as mercenaries and horsemen, to the growing threat of Anjou, the early years of his reign were blighted by power struggles. Following the brutal murder of his guardians, and with Normandy on the brink of collapse, William was forced to survive in a world without loyalty, where ambition was the ultimate currency. Meanwhile, across the Channel, the English throne was in turmoil, as the sons of Æthelred the Unready fought for survival and power… Join Tom and Dominic as they trace William’s rise from a vulnerable child to a formidable young duke, setting the stage for the ultimate confrontation: his claim to the English crown. _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett + Aaliyah Akude Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who were the Normans and what drove their expansion?
Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. At the end of France, there is a plain filled with woods and fruit trees.
In this narrow place, there lived a great number of very tough, strong people, the name of whom was Normans. Such were their numbers that in time, as the population grew, the fields and orchards of Normandy proved insufficient to keep them all fed.
Therefore, the Normans scattered here and there throughout all the various parts of the world, making their way into numerous regions and countries, abandoning what little they had in order to obtain very much more. These people departed their homes, but they did not follow the custom of most people who go through the world, entering into the service of others. rather like warriors of old.
Their aim was to make everybody subject to them and under their lordship. And so they took up arms and broke the bond of peace. And whether as a mass of infantrymen or on horseback, they proved themselves great in deeds. So that was the terrifying opening to the history of the Normans, written, Tom, in the mid-11th century by a monk called Amartas.
And as you have pointed out in your notes, this is very reminiscent of the way that... you know, when the Greeks wrote about the intrusion on the world scene of the Romans or the Chinese about the coming of the Mongols, they would say, oh my God, there's this extraordinary new people who are absolutely formidable, very frightening, very brutal. They kill everybody.
They, you know... Where they come from. Yeah, where they come from. And the Normans... are greeted by writers beyond Normandy's borders with the same kind of awe and terror, aren't they?
Yeah, kind of dread for reasons that Amartya spells out because he says that the Normans are physically hardy, very tough, very strong. So Amartya writes in Latin, but the version we have is translated into French.
And he specifies that the Normans have a lust for seigneury, so lordship, and that they have a particular aptitude for chevalerie, so fighting on horseback, what will in due course come to be the attribute of a knight, chivalry. But basically, they're going around on horses, kind of nicking other people's land and property.
And also, of course, he's very impressed by their wanderlust, this sense that they're spilling out across the world and that their goal is a kind of greatness, that they're not prepared to serve other people. And Amartya is speaking from experience. So he is a monk in Monte Cassino, the great abbey in central Italy, which we last heard of in the podcast because Wojtek The bear, the Polish bear.
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Chapter 2: How did the Normans become a Mediterranean power?
That he had agreed with the Norwegian king, a guy called Magnus, that whichever of the two die first, if they die without an heir, then the other one will inherit the kingdom.
Let's just sow that seed. If later on there's another king of Norway hanging around and there's an English succession crisis, he might dig this out and say, whoa, I am actually entitled. Yeah, I'm in. I'm the king of England now. So how does Harthacnut do? He's terrible.
I think his reign sounds brilliant. It's very Liz Truss-like, isn't it? Yeah, so there's this lettuce sitting in Winchester. So the first thing Half Canoe does is he shows himself a good sport by digging up the corpse of his half-brother, Harold Harefoot, dragging it through a sewer and then dumping it all shit-stained in the Thames. Oh, God.
He then imposes massive tax rises and crashes the economy.
That's only a demi-truss. That's more a kind of Rachel Reeves. That's a Rachel Reeves, but then a truss effect.
So the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and I'm slightly paraphrasing here, writes, all who had enthusiastically welcomed his coming to power now decided he was useless. Oh no. And it may be because he's losing support. It may be because he's already ill by this point. It may be because Emma is still on manoeuvres. He invites his half-brother, Edward, over from Normandy to join him.
And Edward this time does come. I mean, maybe he is ill because on June 1042... So he has ruled only for a couple of years. He's drinking at a wedding feast. In Lambeth, I read. In Lambeth, yes. When suddenly, as the English Action Chronicle puts it, he fell to the earth with an awful convulsion and those who were close by took hold of him and he spoke no word afterwards but passed away.
This is why you could never really make a drama of this, because people would say, I've invested so much in these two characters, this feud between Hereford and Harthacnut that I assume will dominate the rest of the series. And then, no, they're both dropped dead for no obvious reason.
But meanwhile, in Norway, King Magnus, kind of offstage character, but as you've been saying... This is his chance. Well, this is his chance. You know, this is his chance to claim the throne, but the English don't want him. And... That means that the only plausible, possible candidate is Emma's other son, Edward, the son of Athelred, who is a descendant of Alfred the Great and ultimately Kurdic.
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