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Knut- The Viking Emperor (2026) Season 1 Episode 2
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00:12This is a story of conquest, betrayal, and courage.
00:20The story of a son of a Viking sovereign forged in the shadow of battle.
00:25A man destined for nothing, yet fated to build an empire.
00:31He was larger than life in his lifetime and is somebody who had wide-ranging achievements
00:38that surprised even many of his contemporaries.
00:42The story of a man who became ruler of three kingdoms.
00:47A Viking who became an emperor.
00:51It's one of the great medieval success stories.
00:54What he does, we have no word for.
00:56It's completely new.
00:58This is the legend of Canute.
01:01Emperor of the North Sea.
01:31To be continued...
01:34To be continued...
01:38To be continued...
01:56No longer mere invaders, they are now conquerors.
02:03After a lightning-fast campaign, Knut and Svein have subdued England.
02:10The nobility has sworn allegiance to them.
02:15And King Æthelred has been driven into exile in Normandy.
02:21From this moment on, the land is theirs.
02:26But conquering a kingdom is one thing.
02:30Becoming its rightful rulers is another.
02:36Knut and Svein did not come to fundamentally change everything about English society.
02:40They came to take over its head, the head of the snake, as it were, and control that.
02:45Once Svein has effected military conquest of England, he then must achieve legitimacy and authority.
02:53And that cannot be asserted purely at the end of a sword or a spear.
02:58And so that starts with convening the so-called Witan, that is, leading magnets of England who represent the realm.
03:06And having them elect a monarch.
03:13Knut and Svein must now secure the loyalty of all the members of the Witan.
03:21One of its most influential members resides in York.
03:28Archbishop Wulvstan.
03:31A pious and austere man.
03:34And one of the fiercest opponents of the Vikings.
03:41We know that Wulvstan was deeply concerned by the Viking threat.
03:45He seems generally fearful of the return of unchecked paganism in early 11th century England.
03:50And you see there a man who is railing and screaming about this is the end of the world, this
03:56is the apocalypse, this is the end of everything.
03:58So he sees the Vikings as sent by God to punish the English for their sins.
04:04And I think for Wulvstan, the Vikings become a symbol of the Antichrist.
04:14Winning such a man over may seem impossible.
04:20But Knut is about to present a powerful argument.
04:26Though many Danes still cling to pagan traditions.
04:31Knut himself was raised in the Christian faith.
04:37All of Knut's actions suggest that he was indeed Christian.
04:41And his dynasty was riding on the coattails of Christianity.
04:45It's his grandfather, Harold Bluetooth, who'd also made the Danes Christian.
04:50Because one of the crucial teachings that the church has is that there are monarchs put in place by the
04:55grace of God.
04:56That God has created the social order.
04:58So if tapped into correctly, Christianization and the Christian faith can become a powerful force.
05:08The piety displayed by Svein and Knut appears to reassure Wulvstan.
05:13Yet no one can truly guess their real intentions.
05:19For Svein, the time has come to summon the Wulvstan.
05:29Back in Gainsborough, he sends his messengers across the kingdom.
05:34The assembly will meet in three weeks in York, not London.
05:42For it is from the north that he intends to rule England.
05:46Abandoning Wessex, the traditional heart of English royal power.
05:51After he's conquered England, there's a Witteniumot being called in York.
05:57Well, clearly it's to crown him king.
05:59And it's to give Knut some sort of office or title in that region.
06:03And that is crucial because we can see then how close Svein is to the north.
06:08How much he focuses energies on it.
06:10And also what a dreadful mistake he made.
06:13Because you can't run a kingdom from its least organised part.
06:20The powerhouse of England is in the south.
06:23That's where the bureaucracy is, that's where the towns are, that's where the markets are.
06:26Primarily that's where the money-making machine is.
06:29And if you want to be in England and you want to control it, you've got to do it from
06:32the south.
06:36England is about to open a new chapter in its history.
06:41Nothing seems capable of halting the advance of the two Danes.
06:48And yet, fate will decide otherwise.
07:02Knut rushes back to Gainsborough.
07:10He has been summoned to the royal palace.
07:17At dawn, his father's lifeless body is discovered.
07:24The conqueror of the north has died suddenly at the age of 50.
07:29At the height of his power.
07:34His reaction, of course, to his father's death has to be enormous shock.
07:38Enormous shock.
07:39This is not what they had planned.
07:41They're about to become legitimate rulers.
07:44They're about to be accepted by the nobles, ecclesiastical and secular of the whole country.
07:50And suddenly, his father's dropped down dead.
07:53There would have been a part of him, at least, that is pleased that his father, who was one of
07:59the main obstacles other than his brother, to his own ambitions, was gone.
08:03Because he can't be king fully until Swain's gone.
08:09Standing before the man to whom he owed everything, Knut finds himself utterly alone.
08:16For he knows that now, everything rests upon him.
08:20Swain's conquered England, but has not managed to establish that kind of authority that will allow him to pass the
08:27throne without opposition to a son.
08:30Because he's only been in England a matter of months, not even a full year.
08:34So, for Knut, that's come too fast.
08:37Does he want to claim to be king of England, following his father's death, or does he have to go
08:43back to Scandinavia?
08:44That sort of uncertainty, I think, would have been a tremendous pressure for Knut at this time.
08:52Returning to Denmark is impossible.
08:55His brother, Harald, has almost certainly claimed the crown.
08:59Without hesitation, Knut asserts his right to the throne of England.
09:07He knows he can rely on the loyalty of his army.
09:11And above all, on the hostages handed over by the English nobility the previous year, as pledges of allegiance.
09:22The Witan should be nothing more than a mere formality.
09:26Yet, behind the scenes of power, a very different reality is beginning to emerge.
09:33He is elected king by the Danish army, but the English, unsurprisingly, stop and say,
09:39wait a second, Swain was a known entity, highly experienced campaigner,
09:43we were submitting to him, not to his son.
09:46That wasn't the deal. It was Swain as king.
09:49He's just a young boy to the English nobility.
09:52He's not even the king of the Danes.
09:55And there would be conversations in dark corners about the possibilities here.
10:02What do we do?
10:09In York, Wolfstein has chosen his side.
10:18Before a nobility consumed by doubt,
10:22he delivers a sermon heavy with warning.
10:25The Sermon of the Wolf.
10:29A radical text calling on the English to rise up and save their kingdom.
10:38Sermon Lupi at Anglos is perhaps most famous of the many apocalyptic sermons of Wolfstein of York.
10:45And in this, he is adumbrating all of the terrible things that English have done
10:49and all of the signs of God's wrath upon them, including the fact that they have exiled their king,
10:56that they have sent their king into exile, their rightful king, Æthelred.
10:58As guardian of moral order within the kingdom,
11:02he calls on every man to stand ready to defend his king.
11:10In the utmost secrecy,
11:14the English nobility sends envoys across the channel to Normandy.
11:21There, Æthelred has taken refuge,
11:26under the protection of his brother-in-law, Duke Richard II.
11:33For the old king,
11:34this sudden turn of events may offer one final chance to reclaim his throne.
11:42And so they open negotiations, and part of the deal struck with Æthelred
11:46is that he agrees to rule them more justly than he had before.
11:50That is the condition of their return.
11:54Æthelred appears to acknowledge his past failures.
11:57He accepts the negotiated terms of his return,
12:01promising to rule more wisely,
12:03to show greater respect to his subjects,
12:05and to forgive those who had betrayed him during the previous year.
12:11So, in a sense, they preferred to bring in Æthelred 2.0,
12:15rather than risking it with a relatively unknown canute
12:18from a completely different kingdom.
12:25Æthelred now plays what may be his last card.
12:31He calls upon all those who reject Danish rule.
12:38Among them stands a feared Viking war leader.
12:44Olaf Haraldsson.
12:46The story is told when Æthelred comes back from Normandy to England.
12:51He has the support of Olaf Haraldsson,
12:54this Viking warlord who has his own fleet.
12:59Olaf Haraldsson has been someone who's been involved in
13:04raiding and attacking on England and probably elsewhere in Europe,
13:07has made a name for himself freebooting,
13:09like many of these Viking adventurers do.
13:11But crucially, he's also converted to the Christian faith,
13:15and he seems to be someone who Æthelred and his corps are trying to use
13:19and set up in opposition to Canute.
13:24For Æthelred, the time has come to reclaim his kingdom.
13:30At the head of a fleet, he sets sail for England
13:35and marches toward London.
13:42London represents a potential stronghold.
13:45It's a logistical hub, rich beyond measure.
13:48Controlling it, even without fully conquering it,
13:50was likely one of Æthelred's primary objectives upon his return to England.
13:57Æthelred approaches the capital,
14:01the only city that has remained loyal to him.
14:05He knows, however, that the confrontation will be fierce.
14:10London is held by Danish forces loyal to Canute.
14:15There were points of resistance, as if Swain had deliberately garrisoned the main fortifications that had been captured.
14:23It makes sense.
14:24A newly conquered kingdom cannot be left undefended.
14:28There was no way to control the territory.
14:32Danish troops were plausibly stationed across the land, guarding key towns and fortresses.
14:40The garrison entrenched itself in the fortress on the southern bank of the Thames.
14:46Blocking access to the city.
14:52At the heart of this defensive network stands the London Bridge.
14:57A fortified obstacle that controls the river and connects both shores.
15:09Against such a stronghold, a siege borders on the impossible.
15:17So Olaf volunteers for one of the most perilous missions imaginable.
15:24To destroy the London Bridge.
15:30He is said to have assembled a small flotilla, choosing the most skilled and courageous men.
15:36With a few boats, they positioned themselves beneath the bridge.
15:41Secured it with reeds and ropes, and tore away its supports.
15:47The collapse forced the surrender of both Southwark and London.
15:56Whether that story is quite true or not, I think is debatable.
16:03But it is such a good story that it's very much embedded in the history of Viking Age London.
16:13Even if the story of the bridge's destruction may be legend,
16:19Æthelred enters the city as a victor.
16:23Yet he does not linger.
16:26Giving Knut time to regroup would be a grave mistake.
16:32Tomorrow, he will gather his forces and march north.
16:44In Gainsborough, Knut does not yet grasp the approaching danger.
16:54Why worry?
16:55Has Æthelred not repeatedly proven powerless against the Vikings?
17:03Knut's reaction after his father's death is puzzling.
17:07Remarkably, Æthelred moves swiftly, while Knut appears almost inactive.
17:12As if two months passed, without any action.
17:16Knut, he's only a young man. He's not his father.
17:21Can he control his own forces? He can control some of them.
17:25Can he control all of the alliances his father's made with Scandinavians?
17:29I doubt it.
17:30I think, initially, he must have seen certain Scandinavians turn against him.
17:34And then the Danelaw, and the other areas of England that he could count on,
17:39started to show no support.
17:41And this must be his age. This must be his inexperience.
17:47Two young, overconfident men.
17:52Knut does not yet see the ground slipping beneath him.
17:57On April 25th, Easter day, a message reaches him from his scouts.
18:04Æthelred has entered Lindsay with a massive army.
18:11Despite having promised to not repeat parts abuses,
18:14the first thing he does is he charges into the north.
18:18This leads to a massacre in Lindsay, the last unit that supported Knut.
18:25We know Knut had secured the support of Lincolnshire's inhabitants,
18:30promising provisions for his defence,
18:33particularly in anticipation of a campaign.
18:36It is therefore entirely logical that Æthelred, as Swain once did,
18:41raids and plunders areas that show disloyalty or pose potential opposition.
18:51In Gainsborough, Knut finally gathers his forces.
18:58He urges them to defend their king.
19:04But despite his warriors' determination, it is already too late.
19:10This time, the English army holds the upper hand.
19:14Knut, at this point, is on his back foot.
19:17He's in a very difficult position.
19:19And so, when the lights all go out one after another,
19:24Knut is a good tactician, and just like Æthelred,
19:27when he's left with only one region left, he left quickly.
19:31Because, at that point, he's trying to save whatever he's got
19:35for the next assault.
19:42Knut has no choice.
19:45Leave England or die.
19:49He gathers his last loyal men
19:53and takes to the sea at the head of his fleet.
19:59Behind him lies a land ravaged by the vengeful fury of the Anglo-Saxons.
20:05It's an enormous, chaotic, swinging backwards and forwards situation.
20:10Æthelred's been driven from the country.
20:12Sven's come to power.
20:14Sven's died.
20:15There's panic running around of all the various forces.
20:17Some stay with Knut. Most don't.
20:19Knut flees.
20:20The English open negotiations with Æthelred, and Æthelred comes back.
20:25It's...it's...it's an immensely chaotic time.
20:33On his ship, Knut watches the English coast recede.
20:41Defeated by a man he considers weak, he must flee.
20:49Trapped by his own pride.
20:57He must have been furious.
21:00There must have been quite a lot of people who said they would support him,
21:03and then turned against him.
21:05And so he did exactly what he said he was going to do in that scenario.
21:15After several days at sea, his fleet lands at Sandwich.
21:23The hostages, given by the English nobility during his father's conquests,
21:28are cast ashore.
21:35What should be done with these men?
21:39For Knut, mere execution would be far too gentle a revenge.
21:46He wants to make an example.
21:49What if there's a time machine? Would you like to have dinner with Knut?
21:53Absolutely not. I think he was a ruthless, scary individual.
21:56And I don't think...I think we would all...
21:58All of us in the modern world would run screaming from him.
22:01I think if you survive in this environment, if you thrive in this environment,
22:04you're a pretty scary, ruthless creature in yourself.
22:07And Knut is good at it.
22:11Without the slightest remorse, he orders them to be mercilessly mutilated.
22:21Knut employed a range of corporal punishments, standard under the law of the time.
22:26Cutting off hands, parts of the face, ears or nose.
22:31These practices appear in contemporary legal codes, including those issued by Wolfstein.
22:37And so I think for him, this is a parting shot.
22:39This is saying, I may be leaving now, but I'll be back.
22:42And don't underestimate me.
22:45Do not cross me.
22:46This is what happens to people who cross me.
22:49They don't get killed.
22:50They get injured in ways that will maim them for life
22:53and make them and everyone else who meets them remember what I'm capable of.
23:07Harald watches with concern as his brother's ships near the coast.
23:15Crowned King of Denmark upon their father's death,
23:18he cannot know Knut's true intentions.
23:22At the back of Harald's mind, and at the back of Knut's mind,
23:26is this sort of notion that this Danish kingdom isn't big enough for the two of us here.
23:31This is a situation where these two brothers are at some point going to have to face off,
23:38potentially, against one another.
23:41One might imagine that Harald would feel a little bit nervous
23:45about the presence of his war-experienced brother back in the kingdom.
23:55Though always close,
23:57Knut and Harald's brotherly bond cannot mask the tension that day.
24:09Knut initially seems intent on reclaiming part of the Danish kingdom.
24:14From Harald's perspective, Knut is a threat,
24:16because Knut's interests lie in becoming king.
24:20Knut's interests lie in keeping the kingship,
24:23and so Knut back in Denmark is one prince too many for a kingdom that has just lost swaying.
24:32In the throne hall now under his control,
24:35Harald invites Knut to speak.
24:39Yet his younger brother's claims could ignite a dangerous war of succession.
24:47If Harald refuses, Knut must choose.
24:52Submit or fight.
24:56If Knut was the astute politician I believe, it made sense for him to adapt.
25:01Very well, if you're unwilling to grant me anything,
25:03I will demonstrate loyalty and friendship instead.
25:06This may have been the surest way to achieve his aims,
25:09avoiding direct confrontation and certain defeat.
25:14Barely 20 years old, Knut has already lost everything.
25:19His throne, his kingdom, and perhaps even his future.
25:27Unwilling to live in his brother's shadow, he sees one path.
25:33Reclaim by force what he believes is rightfully his.
25:37This is not a man who is accepting his role in Denmark as the second son.
25:44This is instead a man who is waiting for his opportunity to reinvade England.
25:50He's waiting and he's watching for some key mistake
25:54in the English regime to be made that gives him a new way in.
26:08After 30 years of a chaotic reign,
26:14Aethelred finally recovers his throne.
26:20Yet he now faces a nobility steeped in mistrust and betrayal.
26:26A nest of scorpions, at whose heart he believes he has found a loyal ally.
26:36Yadric Streona.
26:41Yadric Streona is the bad man of the first half of the 11th century in English politics.
26:49His nickname, Streona, it means the grasper, the acquisitor.
26:53In addition to which, he doesn't seem to have very much, what we would say, moral fibre.
26:57Or he's a brilliant survivor, which one do you want to say?
27:00And he flip-flops between supporting whoever looks like they might win.
27:05And we don't quite know why, but for whatever reasons,
27:08Aethelred gives Yadric more and more power and authority.
27:11And it's clear that many of those at court resent this,
27:15that this is a new guard coming in, that Aethelred places absolute trust in.
27:23Yadric never leaves the king's side,
27:26feeding his paranoia day after day.
27:31At 47, weakened by illness,
27:35Aethelred faces yet another threat.
27:38The struggle for his own succession.
27:42So all the sons of the king are considered to be Aethelings.
27:46So you actually have a number of contenders to the throne.
27:49It's a bit of a political brawl.
27:51But it also means that the son, who's the best leader,
27:56and who has a strong faction behind him among the noblemen,
28:02will come to the top, rather than necessarily the firstborn,
28:05who may not be the best.
28:11Two lines now vie for power.
28:15First, from his union with Ergifu of York.
28:20Six sons.
28:21Two sons.
28:27At that point, the elder son, Edmund Ironside,
28:31appears to have the upper hand.
28:34He's a young man in his early twenties,
28:36perhaps a little younger or older,
28:38already highly respected and clearly eager to go to war.
28:43Opposing him, the second line.
28:49Edward and Alfred.
28:53Born of Aethelred's second wife.
28:56A noble woman from across the channel.
29:00Emma of Normandy.
29:05Emma of Normandy is the daughter of the Duke of Normandy, Richard I,
29:11who is a descendant of Rollo,
29:13so the Viking who established Normandy as a county in the ninth century.
29:18And she seems to be a very aggressive political figure.
29:22That she's influenced there, as we know by Norman politics,
29:25where women took a much greater role.
29:26They really didn't do this in English politics.
29:29She is extraordinarily powerful and not shy about exerting that power.
29:35So, Emma dedicated her life really to making sure that one of her sons was on the throne.
29:45Emma has no intention of letting the throne slip from her grasp
29:49in favour of a son from a previous marriage.
29:54At court, the treacherous Yadric may prove a valuable ally against Edmund's ambition.
30:01That by Aethelred's later years, Emma, his queen, quite possibly Aethelred himself,
30:06and certainly others at court that's aligned with Eadric,
30:08are creating a faction.
30:10And that faction may well be working to try to line up eventually
30:13the succession of Edward and Alfred, Aethelred's sons with his second wife Emma,
30:20over his sons with his first wife.
30:23And so what we start seeing is a fracturing of the dynasty between rival line.
30:33The king summons a great assembly.
30:39Nobles from across the realm gather.
30:44Among them stand Seerfurth and Morkar,
30:49two leading figures of the Danelaw,
30:52both known for supporting Edmund's claim to the throne.
30:58As the feast reaches its height,
31:03Yadric Streona approaches the king.
31:06With a simple gesture, Aethelred gives the order to strike.
31:12He has Seerfurth and Morkar invited by Yadric Streona to a meeting,
31:19and then they are murdered. They are just murdered.
31:23The king seizes their lands, and he has Seerfurth's widow placed in Malmesbury Abbey.
31:30What happens there is that Aethelred has created a scenario whereby his son,
31:36his trusted friends and allies, are now being attacked by his own father.
31:44For Edmund, it is a crushing blow.
31:49His closest allies are dead.
31:52Worse, Aethelred now openly favors Edward, Emma's son.
31:59On August the 15th, 1015, Edmund acts.
32:06He travels to the monastery of Malmesbury,
32:11a duds Yargith, widow of Seerfurth,
32:14and marries her on the spot, claiming her late husband's inheritance.
32:23It's a crucial and enormous act, is he's aligning himself against Aethelred,
32:29and what we have here is shock and horror,
32:33because suddenly the king and the obvious heir are at loggerheads,
32:37and they're at war with each other.
32:42By attacking the northern nobility, Aethelred fractures his kingdom once again,
32:48pushing England to the brink of civil war.
33:04The news spread like wildfire.
33:07A few days earlier, Knut had issued the call to arms.
33:12Now, from one end of the country to the other,
33:18thousands marched towards the capital.
33:24Knut has waited months for this moment.
33:27The fractures tearing England apart offer him the perfect opportunity for revenge.
33:34The tree has a trunk, and you see one trunk above the ground, as it were.
33:39But if you were to grab that and pull it out of the ground,
33:41you see all these routes, and each route leads to another unit and to another unit,
33:45and they spread out in a myriad of ways.
33:47So Knut doesn't have direct contact with people even a few stages down.
33:51When a king calls, as opposed to a local nobleman,
33:56you get an enormous amount of uptake of this.
34:00To launch his reconquest, Knut relies on a man from Norway.
34:07Erik of Lade.
34:10An old ally of his father, destined to be the cornerstone of his great army.
34:19Erik's family has been slowly consolidating power over northern Norway,
34:24and pretty much then all of Norway down to the south.
34:28They are probably the most powerful dynasty ruling any part of Scandinavia at that point.
34:33Erik, moreover, has married one of Knut's half-sisters.
34:36He was therefore a family ally, a recognized war leader,
34:39a man of great power and considerable charisma,
34:42widely respected, and very likely someone who played the role of a mentor to Knut.
34:52As the army gathers, an alarm sounds.
34:58A fleet approaches off the coast,
35:02filled with men and weapons.
35:08At its head is Thorkil the Tall.
35:12Fearsome Viking leader.
35:15Ethelred's ally for more than three years.
35:20Of all his followers, Thorkil was likely the most loyal.
35:23Yet, in 1015, he seems to vanish from England,
35:27returning discreetly to Denmark with only a few ships.
35:33And he stays a little bit offshore.
35:35This is a man who's not quite sure if the Danish royal family are going to try and kill him
35:39or not,
35:40but also he doesn't want to give them the opportunity.
35:44Knut is intrigued, and agrees to hear out this formidable adversary.
35:53Thorkil knows England extremely well.
35:55Its balance of power, its terrain, such knowledge could be of great value.
36:01Knut studies the man, 30 years his senior.
36:06Once among his father's greatest enemies.
36:10A single gesture could have ended him.
36:14But instead, Knut offers his hand.
36:21Knut accepts the allegiance very quickly, without reserve.
36:26Securing the support to such an experienced, influential and knowledgeable leader is efficient.
36:32Erich then stands as Knut's positive guiding force.
36:37Thorkil, his darker, more ambivalent counterpart.
36:41Together, they form the two paternal figures, around whom Knut builds himself and his army.
36:49They're the very best allies he could find, both among the Norwegians and the Dates.
36:56His ability to surround himself with talent is extraordinary.
37:05At first light, Knut gives the order to set sail.
37:18At the head of a fleet of 200 ships, he heads towards England.
37:27The encomium of Queen Emma records the fleet as being dazzling to behold.
37:34He uses these sort of grandiose Latin terms,
37:38emphasising sight of this terrible war fleet of Knut
37:43that is brought to England in 1015.
37:48So, for an observer standing on the English coast,
37:52there must have been a view of this kind of forest of masts and sails.
37:57And it must be a terrible sight to behold.
38:05But as the fleet nears the English coast,
38:08Knut turns south.
38:11Unlike his father, two years earlier,
38:14he does not aim for the north.
38:16His target is the heart of power, Wessex.
38:21He's now had a taste of England.
38:23He's been around it a bit.
38:24He's spent a bit of time there.
38:25And he can see that what he needs more than anything else
38:27is he doesn't need to go to the part that looks like Scandinavia
38:31because it's most convenient for him.
38:33He needs to go to the part that's least convenient for him
38:35to understand and interact with,
38:37because that's where you rule England from.
38:40And that's the wealthy south.
38:43The ships skirt the coast of Kent, pushing into Dorset.
38:53On board, carried by the dark waters of the river,
38:58Knut recalls the day a year earlier
39:01when he first set foot on English soil beside his father.
39:08Today, he fights for his own name,
39:12for the oath whispered over Zwein's lifeless body.
39:18By the time Knut comes back to England,
39:21he's still young, but already has considerable experience.
39:26He's had those early moments in England,
39:29working first with his father successfully,
39:31those difficult moments where it all went wrong.
39:33He's had a few years experience.
39:36He's had experience now back at his brother's court in Denmark
39:39and some of the difficulties he's encountered there.
39:41So he's certainly coming back a wilier, more experienced political operator
39:46and not someone who anybody in England, I think, would underestimate.
39:57Wessex is among the kingdom's best defended territories.
40:05But Knut is confident.
40:07His ships give him a decisive edge.
40:11These long ships, often miscalled dracars,
40:15are the key to Vikings' striking power.
40:21Britain may see itself today as a navy first in its military, but it wasn't then.
40:28And it had nothing in comparison to these long boats that the Vikings used.
40:33What made Scandinavian ships so effective in this period
40:36was the fact that they managed to be very seaworthy,
40:39could travel significant distances, could carry large numbers of men,
40:43but still have a relatively shallow draft.
40:46And so what that allows them to do is to travel quite far up navigable rivers,
40:50to beach quite easily, and to land and then attack local people.
41:01Knut's army devastates all in its path.
41:07Dorset.
41:09Wiltshire.
41:11Somerset.
41:14The young Dane advances relentlessly.
41:19The young Dane advances relentlessly.
41:32And in his return in 1015 to 1016, there's a dramatic shift.
41:36He knows exactly what must be done.
41:38And he executes it coldly, efficiently, and with calculations.
41:42A highly effective approach.
41:44No doubt advised by the two men at his side.
41:46Probably the finest war leaders of the North.
41:52Knut learned from his past mistakes.
41:56He gives the enemy no respite.
42:00At the head of their troops,
42:03Erich and Thorkell descend on English lands like a swarm of locusts.
42:11Knut rarely goes into battle himself.
42:15Like Octavian during Rome's civil war,
42:18he remains behind,
42:21reflecting, pulling strings, giving orders,
42:24relying on powerful men to act.
42:26But his followers clearly trust him
42:29and are willing to go into battle in his stead.
42:38The Scandinavian forces set up camp in Mercia.
42:42One of the kingdom's richest regions
42:45and undoubtedly one of the most difficult to subdue.
42:52At least, until a man appears on the outskirts of the camp.
43:06Knut is intrigued and watches the stranger approach.
43:13It is none other than Yadric Striona.
43:18Aethelred's closest advisor.
43:22Instead of defending his king,
43:25he presents himself before his most formidable enemy.
43:36Aethelred's choice to side with Knut seems to be one of these key moments in many ways in the strategies
43:45of 10-15.
43:46Why Yadric decides to betray Aethelred is really the million-pound question.
43:53He'd risen on Aethelred's coattails, but if we look at Yadric's later career,
43:58what it seems to teach us is that he's somebody who is interested in one thing and one person only,
44:03and that was Yadric Striona.
44:05So what he does is he decides to jump before he's pushed and figures that his best bet for maintaining
44:12his position of power and influence
44:13is to then be the kingmaker, to be the one who secures Knut's claim to the throne and then hopefully
44:20reaps dividends from that.
44:23Like his father two years earlier,
44:27Knut strikes at the very heart of the kingdom.
44:30Once again, Aethelred does nothing to stop the invasion.
44:38Left to fend for themselves, the nobles have no choice but to submit to the Dane, one after another.
44:47By securing the allegiance of this aristocracy through his very presence,
44:51Knut symbolically exposes the king's absence.
44:54The ruler is not there to defend his ancestral lands.
44:58He's a failed king, and therefore an illegitimate one.
45:01Politically, it's a masterstroke, and above all, it works.
45:10The campaign seems almost effortless.
45:14Yet Knut does not realize that this time, a far more formidable opponent awaits him.
45:20Yet Knut does not realize that this time, a far more formidable opponent awaits him.
45:34Faint intervenes once again.
45:38King Aethelred falls gravely ill.
45:41King Aethelred.
45:50King Aethelred.
46:18King Aethelred.
46:21Hh 🎵
46:30King Aethelred.
46:33guard he rides tirelessly across the regions still loyal to the crown calling
46:39upon the fiat the levy of free men
46:45feared is the terms for the army and it would have been composed typically of a
46:50small inner entourage of potentially professional soldiers or near
46:54professional soldiers senior aristocrats who saw war as one of their
46:59main pastimes but then supplemented with a local militia so with individuals
47:04called up from local counties to serve in the army
47:08these men were expected to arrive with their own resources and weapons which was
47:13far from simple such levies often produced armies that were uneven poorly
47:17equipped unevenly trained to resist knut admin repeatedly mobilizes the
47:22kingdom's free men raising new forces whenever possible
47:27to his troops Edmund strives to embody leadership but the conflicts that once
47:34opposed him to his father have left deep scars many distrust the young prince
47:42judging him to be overly ambitious there was a real question for those loyal to
47:50Aethelred as to whether or not Edmund was friend or foe this is one of the things
47:55that hamstrings Edmund's initial attempts to resist is that he's not able to secure
48:01that support and that the main English army under Aethelred's authority is not
48:05willing to join Edmunds this is quite serious this is a refusal to do the
48:10king's bidding Edmund is there on behalf of his father and these armies are
48:14refusing to come to the meeting places and join up this is very very bad news
48:25in London Aethelred receives a message
48:32his son pleads for aid despite the illness consuming him the king orders his guard to assemble
48:40and rides west a few days later Edmund welcomes his father he studies him closely all of
48:58England's hopes now rest on this old weary aging king as a final little sort of bump in
49:06this Aethelred is warned maybe it's real maybe it's just paranoia that some part of the army or
49:12somebody there is going to kill him the king apparently panics and runs into the safety of
49:20London and the army just disbands you can see you can see the problems here and the fragility of the
49:29English forces and this is the major problem that Edmund has
49:36but once again Aethelred withdraws
49:42Edmund is isolated and has no choice
49:46he rides north prepared to risk everything at Bamboura he meets Eutred Earl of Northumbria
50:01the man supported Svein and Knut to the previous year yet remains tied to Edmund through marriage alliances
50:10he's experienced as a warrior he's got troops he's got power and so Edmund reaches out to Aethelred
50:17and Aethelred actually joins forces with the English forces against the Danes this might seem somewhat
50:24anachronistic because earlier Aethelred seems to have some association with the Danes but Aethelred is going to be
50:30friends with whoever gets Uhtred the most power
50:34this is then combined with the fact that he was closely allied with people like Morkar and Sierferth
50:39so who've just been purged from the core and therefore do not look kindly upon Aethelred and his regime
50:45and so for Edmund Uhtred is a logical ally
50:52With Uhtred now at his side Edmund finally commands forces capable of challenging Knut
51:04yet instead of facing his rival he turns south towards Mercia
51:16unleashing his strength against those nobles accused of treachery
51:29once again the English fight among themselves while the Danes devastate the kingdom
51:38everybody thought that they would attack the Danish army but it's much better from their perspective to pursue their own
51:47interests
51:48and at this point I think that their interests are Iadrich Streona
51:53so Knut is a problem yeah sure but Iadrich's support for Knut is the big problem
51:58and I don't think at this point they necessarily have national interests at heart
52:05but you know in these circumstances who could blame them
52:16Facing the growing alliance between Edmund and Uhtred
52:20Knut turns to strategy
52:23A direct confrontation would be too great a risk
52:27Together with his commanders he devises a daring plan
52:32At dawn they will outmaneuver the enemy and strike deep into the heart of Uhtred's own lands
52:41Of course the Uhtred episode glorious though it is for the English
52:45is unfortunately short-lived
52:47What Knut does again always the brilliant tactician
52:50himself and Eric they go to Uhtred's house and they threaten him at home
52:54when he's taken most of his forces away with him to the south
53:03Danish forces descend upon Northumbria
53:07Ravaging territories left dangerously undefended
53:12In their wake towns and villages fall one after another
53:18Uhtred is panicked he was not ready for this at all
53:22and he withdraws from the fight in the south of England
53:25and he heads home
53:31Returning to Bamburgh
53:33Uhtred discovers his stronghold already in Danish hands
53:40In the great hall of his palace
53:42Knut awaits him
53:45Seated upon the throne that once belonged to his host
53:52Facing the young Dane
53:53Uhtred immediately understands that there is no way out
53:59Submission is his only hope of survival
54:05The difference between Knut and Swain is clear
54:08Swain relied on hostages and negotiated loyalty
54:12Knut however had already experienced how fragile aristocratic allegiance could be
54:17Shortly after submitting
54:18Uhtred was most likely assassinated
54:22Uhtred is gone from the picture
54:24This mighty English warrior who could have turned the tide for Edmund
54:28He's a piece that's off the chessboard
54:30Click and he's gone
54:31And it's checkmate to Knut just for the moment
54:36Wessex, Mercia and much of Northern England
54:39Now lie under Knut's control
54:44Edmund can rely only on his own strength if he hopes to prevail
54:50As for Ethelred, sick and weakened
54:52He remains confined within London
54:57For Knut, the conquest of England now seems inevitable
55:02And yet, once more, fate is about to intervene
55:08That is a great thing
55:10And that is great
55:17See you soon
55:18See you soon
55:31There was a lot of opportunity
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