Pod Insights Gone Medieval Edmund Ironside: The 222-Day King About this episode What does it take to face a Danish invasion and fight for a kingdom in just 222 days?
In 1016, England is at war as Edmund Ironside meets Cnut for a crown on the line. Matt Lewis and Dr David McDermott trace a young warrior king who fought six battles, won his name for speed and strength, and held the field at Sherston, Brentford, and beyond.
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King Cnut & the End of the Viking Age
Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/king-cnut-the-end-of-the-viking-age/id1564113746?i=1000580739889
Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/0UKVwHgLO3Ea2pquUUZ2Ha?si=471bbc4e26264397
Gone Medieval is presented by Matt Lewis. Audio editor is Amy Haddow, the producer is Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.
All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds.
Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Matt Lewis? From long-lost Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places, to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Yarnagger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on History Hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.
0:42 Speaker 01 Hey, it's Adam Grant from TED's Rethinking Podcast. As businesses scale, success depends on how well knowledge is captured, shared, and kept up to date. Camtasia Pro turns teams' expertise into engaging training, onboarding, and documentation. No professional editing experience required. With the industry's best screen recording, video editing, and AI-powered workflows, you can train faster and boost operational efficiency. Get over $100 off your first year at camtasiapro.com and start building a smarter way to educate customers, onboard employees, and ensure valuable expertise is shared across teams.
1:18 Matt Lewis? Hello, I'm Matt Lewis. Welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We've got the most intriguing mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and latest groundbreaking research, from the Vikings to the printing press, from kings to popes to the crusades. We cross centuries and continents to delve into rebellions, plots, and murders to find the stories, big and small, that tell us how we got here. Find out who we really were with Gone Medieval.
2:00 Matt Lewis? The year is 1016. As the morning mist clings to the damp grass, a young man stands, breathing the fresh air. He wonders what the day will bring, and whether he’ll see the end of it. There will be a fight today, and his crown is on the line. A mighty Danish invader challenges the King of England, and the young man must face him down. His armour has been on for over an hour now. It used to chafe and feel heavy, but now, past his mid-twenty’s, he can hardly remember a day when he hasn’t worn it. It’s comfortable, and somehow comforting, too. He knows what he’s doing when he wears it.
2:45 Matt Lewis? This won’t be his first battle, but he can’t be sure that it won’t be his last. As he ponders the field before him, now pale in the thin light of morning and wreathed in mist that makes the other side as impenetrable as knowing the future, his hand moves to rest on the familiar pommel of his sword, almost without him knowing that he was moving. What does it mean that he finds such peace in the familiarity of war? Today, it means he feels as prepared as any man might to risk life and limb against this terrifying invader. If he falls, will he be remembered? Will they sing songs of him and give him a name worthy of a mighty warrior
3:29 Matt Lewis? who has fought more than he has ruled? Perhaps, but that’s not for him to decide. Gripping his sword pommel a little tighter, he reminds himself there is brutal and bloody work to be done if there is to be any kind of a future for King Edmund’s England. Edmund Ironside is a name to conjure with, but how much do we really know about the man who was king for just 222 days in the 11th century, and who died before he was thirty? Well, to find out, I’m delighted to be joined by Dr David McDermott, who’s lectured in history at the University of Winchester and written extensively about Edmund Ironside, Canute, and 11th-century kings.
4:18 Matt Lewis? Welcome to Gone Medieval, David. It's great to have you with us.
4:20 Speaker 02 Great to be here. Thank you, Matt.
4:22 Matt Lewis? I'm really looking forward to digging into someone who has a very, very cool name. And I guess we're going to try and find out whether he deserves it or not. So we're talking about Edmund Ironside. And I wonder if you could just start us off by telling us where in history are we? When is Edmund born?
4:37 Speaker 02 Well, we have no exact dates. The first historical evidence we have for his existence is a diploma of his father, Ethelred II, known as Ethelred the Unready. But when that diploma is issued, Edmund appears third amongst the list of the Athlons. Now, Athlons are princes, those who are considered to be throne worthy. So there was his eldest brother, Athelstan, second brother, Edgburt. Then there's Edmund, and then the fourth brother, Edwin, I think his name was. So they're all recorded together, but backdating, we think maybe Edmund was born about, let me see, about 989, I think is a working hypothesis for when Edmund was born.
5:21 Matt Lewis? Okey dokey. And is that lack of recording a symptom of him being a younger son? Or just poor records of the time?
5:26 Speaker 02 Combination of both records are, I mean, it has been said that you could put all the primary sources we have for Anglo-Sax and England into a small cardboard box, partly because of record keeping and also a lot has been lost and destroyed over the centuries.
5:47 Speaker 02 But it wasn't, it wasn't the thing at the time to have an official recording of when a new prince is born. And of course, the record for princesses is even worse. Women are even poorly kept in history.
6:01 Matt Lewis? You mentioned that his father is Ethelred the Unready. So that's a name that lots of listeners will be familiar with. We've got a great episode on Ethelred previously. How much do we know about his mother as well?
6:11 Speaker 02 His mother came from the north. His grandfather was a northern thane who was actually outlawed at one point. But we know very little about his mother and she kind of disappears from the historical record. By 1002, Ethelred has remarried Emma of Normandy, his second wife. And we know that Edmund's mother existed because her name appears in the witness lists of Ethelred's diplomas.
6:41 Speaker 02 But other than that, and a few facts we can work out from the the northern records, you know very little about his mother. We don't even know when she died or how she died. It has been suggested that as she was the mother of about nine children, she probably just died of medical complications.
6:57 Matt Lewis? And I guess we're going to dig into his career and get a bit more of an explanation of of this particular aspect. But just to deal with it upfront, why do we remember him as Edmund Ironside?
7:07 Speaker 02 There's a an account very late in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, I think the date is is 1057, that Edmund died in 1016. So a couple of generations after, there's a record that refers to Edmund Ironside, known for his schnellsheep, and that is his his doughtiness, his robustness, the speed with which he reacted to events. You can see the the German word schnell in schnellsheep, his quickness, his rapidity to to respond to situations. So that's the official explanation why he's called Ironside, because he was so quick to respond. And he did fight six battles within the 222 days that he was king. Other
7:51 Speaker 02 accounts are saying that maybe another explanation is because at the time, 1015, when Edmund is active, the English didn't have many many ring shirts and many chainmail shirts. And being a prince, he might have been one of the few people, it is suggested, who would have had a ring shirt, whereas the Vikings, it is thought, had more of them. I'm not so sure about about that theory. But I rather like the idea that he he got his reputation for being robust and quick to react in a quite a doughty fight and quite a quite a belligerent, quite a bellicose warrior king.
8:26 Matt Lewis? Yeah, yeah. So it's a almost certainly a military epithet meant to signal that he was considered to be a great warrior.
8:34 Speaker 02 Absolutely.
8:35 Matt Lewis? Right.
8:35 Speaker 02 Got it in one.
8:36 Matt Lewis? And what's the political situation in which Edmund is growing up in England? His father's reign is famously quite tempestuous and tumultuous. What is happening around Edmund as he's growing up?
8:50 Speaker 02 Well, from early on, in from about 982, Ethelred comes king, comes king in 978. 982, you have a see a return of Viking raids. People sometimes date the Second Viking Age in England from about 982. When we get recurring raids, they were just very few at the beginning. But then as the years progress, they become more frequent. Towards the end of Ethelred's reign, you have an attempt and a successful attempt, actually, by the Vikings to take over England for a few months. Till the end of 1013 and 1014, we actually had a Viking King of England, Swayne Tuskeg,
9:35 Speaker 02 Swayne Tubiants. And he dies in February of 1014, by which time Ethelred had fled to Normandy, where his wife came from, and he was in exile. And then he's asked to come back by the leading fangs. So throughout his boyhood, there are Viking raids, mostly in the south of England. And even about 1002, the the the of Athelingadeen, you know, the the valley of the Athlings, which is a singleton now in West Sussex, that was attacked by Vikings. Now, we don't know if Edmund was there, but the fact that it was named for the Vikings, it may have been a royal estate where Athlings were brought up, suggests that the Vikings
10:19 Speaker 02 make them known of the the political capital to be made of perhaps capturing an Atheling and holding in ransom, or being able to attack a royal estate that was set aside for the raising of the Athlings.
10:32 Matt Lewis? Yeah, so it sounds like everything's quite precarious around him as he's a, you know, growing up into a man.
10:39 Speaker 02 Yes, yeah, that's fair to say. I'm sure, I think, within his immediate surroundings, we don't even know where where he was raised as a child. He may have been, he was probably raised by his grandmother, Elfrith. And we know that she had some estates in the south of England, in Wessex and around Canterbury. So he may have spent his formative years in that part of the world. And is where he spent most of his, most of his adult life, apart from when he's up in the Midlands, when he's in an alliance with his brother-in-law, Uthred of Northumbria. And they attack some of the properties owned by a faine called Yadris Striona, who was a bit of a backstabber and was Athelred's hitman.
11:22 Speaker 02 If Athelred wanted somebody, removed Edric, the kind of man who would remove that person for him.
11:28 Matt Lewis? Yeah. And you mentioned that Edmund has older brothers, Athelstan is the oldest. Do we know much about the relationship between Edmund and Athelstan?
11:39 Speaker 02 Probably very good. In his will, Athelstan leaves the majority of his estate to his brother. In fact, he nominates Edmund as his executor to see that his wishes are carried out. And one of the gifts that Edmund receives from his brother is a sword that once belonged to King Offa, Offa of Mercia. And that sword itself may have been a gift from Charlemagne,
12:05 Speaker 02 the, the Frankian emperor.
12:07 Matt Lewis? Yeah, and it seems like a fairly significant sort of royal gift to be bestowing on his younger brother. Is this in recognition of, of the fact that Edmund is likely to become king next?
12:17 Speaker 02 Well, it has been suggested that there was a following around Athelstan who was seen as the next great hope because he was a more, a military, more martial warrior prince who may have fought against the Vikings. If you like, he's parting on the baton by granting this significant sword to his, his brother. It's kind of a acknowledgement that he, he bequeaths the position of heir presumptive to his brother.
12:43 Matt Lewis? Yeah, yeah, someone's got to sort out dad's mess and it might as well be you.
12:48 Speaker 02 Well, his father wasn't doing it.
12:49 Matt Lewis? Yeah.
12:50 Speaker 02 Yeah.
12:51 Matt Lewis? And do we know how much Edmund is involved in trying to fight off Swain Fortbeard when he arrives?
12:56 Speaker 02 No, there is, there's no kind of evidence for that. The military exploits of Edmund prior.
13:05 Speaker 02 To him rebelling against his father in about 1015 are really very detailed. We know that Edmund called out the Theanes of Mercia to fight, he raised an army. But none of them actually came to anything because Ethelred disbanded the armies. Several armies before Edmund rebelled, several armies were gathered, they were summoned, but never took to the field, even because Ethelred abandoned them. On one occasion, he was about to join the field, the assembled army, and he got wind of a rumor to assassinate him, somebody close to him, quote unquote, and then he goes back to London.
13:47 Speaker 02 So Edmund then, as the oldest surviving athlete, would have been involved in those deliberations, but wasn't given the opportunity to take to the field because his father kept, you know, summoning armies and then disbanding them.
14:02 Matt Lewis? Yeah. What is the main cause, as far as we know, of this rebellion of Edmund against his father? I mean, it sounds like Ethelred has sons who are much more martially minded than he is. Is it a simple matter of policy that they're disagreeing about?
14:19 Speaker 02 I'd say partly, but another factor, I think, is the assassination of two of Edmund's long-term associates, Seafirth and Morcar. They're described as leading Theanes of the Danelaw, or the Seven Boroughs. Seafirth and Morcar, they're brothers, they're assassinated, their properties are confiscated, and Seafirth's widow, she is incarcerated in Malmesbury. And Edmund bursts onto the historical page in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, first thing we hear about him in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is that he rides to Malmesbury and releases
14:58 Speaker 02 the widow and marries her, and then rides into the eastern Danelaw to claim the properties of the two murdered brothers. And he's acclaimed in that region as their leader.
15:12 Matt Lewis? Fascinating. Do you think we should view this rebellion then as part of, or a symptom of Ethelred's weakness, or a signal of Edmund's ambition?
15:22 Speaker 02 Possibly a bit of both, and also we should have to consider the ambitions of those around him. Did Edmund come up with this idea spontaneously of seizing power in eastern Danelaw?
15:34 Speaker 02 Granting himself a power base from which to increase his influence? Or are there people around Edmund who can see something in it for them? One must also consider, you know, who's giving him advice and what benefit could they gain from it?
15:47 Matt Lewis? Yeah, yeah. And how then do we see Edmund react to the arrival, the invasion of Canute's forces? Because he's primarily raising his forces from the north of England. Does that point to him having strong connections and good relations in the north of England? Perhaps based around his mother?
16:06 Speaker 02 Apart from his alliance with his brother-in-law, Utred. Now, this is before he becomes king. He's in alliance, as I said earlier, with his brother-in-law, Utred. But Canute, having landed in 1015, Canute then systematically works his way through Wessex and then moves through the Midlands and then north and threatens Tred's lands around Banborough. And Utred then breaks off the alliance and he heads north to preserve his territory. And then Edmund is left with maybe half an army. And he then returns to London. And inside London, that's when Ethelred dies on 23rd of April and Edmund becomes king.
16:51 Speaker 02 In the meanwhile, Canute is still at large, so to speak. He's operating in the south of England. When he becomes king, Edmund then leaves London. I think he does that before Canute can arrive to besiege the town. And he rides into Wessex, where we are told he is acclaimed by Wessex, you know, as the new king. At the same time, we have a historian like John of Worcester, writing in the early 12th century, who tells us that while Edmund is, becomes king in London and then rides into Wessex, the leading feyns of southern England have acclaimed Canute their king at Southampton.
17:31 Speaker 02 So there's a, there's a conflict going on for who is going to be King of England. We have two kings of England in effect, because the, because the, the country is so divided politically, it's so fractured, fragmented politically. We have two people who can lay claim to be the acclaimed king of England.
17:49 Matt Lewis? Yeah, two kings and one crown is never a good situation to be in. And should we think of England as, you know, Athelstan is usually acclaimed as kind of the first king of the English of a United Kingdom. And we're, you know, we're almost a century on by this point from, from that happening. Should we think of England as being by now a firm, solid political unit? Or is there any kind of a risk that England still might kind of shatter and break into pieces?
18:15 Speaker 02 I think there is still that risk because the armies that Edmund was able to raise in Wessex, and most of his armies were raised in, in Wessex. You find that you have a contingent from Wiltshire in his army. He recruited Somerset, Wiltshire, Devon and Dorset. If you look at the Battle of Sherston, for example, which was Edmund's second battle after Pencilwood. Sherston is on the fringes of Wiltshire and Somerset and Oxfordshire. There are men from the county of Wiltshire serving in Edmund's army. But there's also a Wiltshire contingent in Canute's army. And there are men from Dorset and Devon in Edmund's army. But on Canute's side, you have a couple of English renegades.
18:58 Speaker 02 One of them, Althgar the Owl, he was a wealthy landowner who had lands in Dorset and Devon. And it has been suggested that with an English turncoat fighting for Canute, he may also have drawn men from his estates in Dorset and Devon, fighting for Canute. So we have men from at least three counties, Dorset, Devon and Wiltshire, who are fighting for Edmund and for Canute.
19:22 Matt Lewis? Yeah, sounds like a mess.
19:24 Speaker 02 So it's politically fractured country. Yeah, one could say it has been said by Anne Williams, for example, that up until Sherston, which is 1015, most of Edmund's support was in the west of England. The east of England, the east of Wessex seems to be, be more in favour for Canute. But after the victory at Sherston, Canute leaves that territory and Edmund is able to recruit without interference.
19:54 Speaker 02 But whether Edmund won the Battle of Sherston is a moot point. The sources seem to agree that fighting went on until after dark. And I discovered that there was actually enough daylight for them to fight until dark. It was a, I asked people from the, the, what was it in effect, is the planetarium in Winchester to do some calculations for me. And they said, yeah, there was enough daylight or moonlight to recognize people and fight by. They kind of separated by mutual agreement, but on the cover of darkness, Knut then leaves the battlefield. Now, holding the battlefield, of course, is the traditional sign of victory.
20:36 Speaker 02 And so one can say Edmund achieved a pyrrhic victory by retaining the battlefield at Sherston, while Knut slinks away under the cover of darkness.
20:44 Matt Lewis? Yeah, yeah. And I'm conscious as well that, so Ethelred, the Unready, dies on the 23rd of April 1016. And we're, we're kind of putting Edmund on a clock here because we've talked about him being the king for 222 days. So there's a bit of a spoiler coming. Do we date his reign from the day that his father died? Or do we need to wait for some kind of a coronation? Do we have any sense of, of, is he officially made king on the same day that his father dies?
21:15 Speaker 02 Well, the maxim is the king is dead, long live the king. In constitutional law, a king does not need a coronation to be king, simply the death of the preceding king. So we don't know if there was a coronation ceremony.
21:31 Speaker 02 I think that Edmund was acclaimed by the citizens of London. I know they gave themselves the right to approve his accession to the throne. Tradition law would have required that Edmund received the approval of the Witam, of the, of the King's Council. So I'm sure he gained that, but the coronation ceremony was, was not essential for him to be king. But I think in, in, in practice, we can regard him as king.
21:58 Matt Lewis? Yeah. And do we get any sense from the Chronicles of whether this switch from Ethelred to Edmund, is that considered a good thing? Were people kind of glad to see the back of Ethelred, given that he hadn't been particularly successful and hopeful for one of his more martial sons to come to the throne?
22:14 Speaker 02 We get a kind of an epitaph, I think it's an early one, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, that says the effect that Ethelred, you know, defended his kingdom as best he could, and then he died.
22:26 Matt Lewis? That's a bit of a pat on the head, isn't it?
22:29 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's a kind of tacit admission that he hadn't really done as good a job as he could. And we know from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, on one occasion, 1009, if I remember correctly, Ethelred is unusually at the head of an army. Of course, in those days, the laws of Ina, going back to the 7th century, say that 35 armed men constitute an army. So I don't know how many men he was leading, but he was leading an army and he had Iadric Streana, this traitorous alderman from Mercia, next to him. They come across a Viking army and Ethelred is persuaded not to attack the Vikings.
23:12 Speaker 02 Ethelred allows them to leave unhindered. Kind of a foretaste of things to come.
23:19 Matt Lewis? Yeah, yeah.
23:20 Speaker 02 So Edmund, Ethelred, has an opportunity to do something, but he's talked out of it by Iadric.
23:27 Matt Lewis? Yeah.
23:28 Speaker 02 And at that time, there was also a movement to discourage kings from actually putting themselves in danger by leading armies, which is something that Edmund subsequently ignored. He's very much in the forefront of the fighting.
23:43 Matt Lewis? It's interesting that that movement comes so early because we tend to think of that being a bit more of an early modern thing, don't we? That all medieval kings and rulers are expected to be at the head of their army, setting an example. But it sounds like there's evidence that already at this point, there is concern that it's a bit too dangerous for a king to be there.
23:59 Speaker 02 Yeah, there was some concern. Now, the only clergyman I know. Of doing that was, I think, is Elfric in the Midlands. I think he was a lone voice arguing that the king should not put himself in danger. Whereas from biblical times, King David, for example, kings are very much at the front of their armies, leading by example. So this movement of, oh, the king shouldn't be at forefront of the battle, it's far too dangerous, was, I think, an exception that proved the rule.
24:26 Matt Lewis? Yeah, yeah. Sounds like a message that Ethelred might have wanted to hear, though.
24:29 Speaker 02 Very good, yeah.
24:32 Matt Lewis? Don't worry about getting out there and fighting Ethelred, it's fine. And so now we've got Edmund as king, we've got Canute in the kingdom as well. So we've got, let's say, two kings, one throne. It's all going to come to a confrontation. And really, I guess, the story of the rest of Edmund's life is the story of his struggle against Canute. So you mentioned that he fights in six battles. I think Pencilwood is the first one. So can you talk us through the events of each of those six battles? If we start at Pencilwood, what happens there? Who wins?
25:01 Speaker 02 Okay, right. Pencilwood, we don't actually know who wins Pencilwood. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle simply says that Edmund fought there. And then we learn that he fights next at Chertam. So yeah, I would attribute a victory to Edmund for doing that. I think later writers, Rube of Marlborough, John of Wuster, the Anglo-Norman historians writing in the early 12th century, I think they would give a victory to Edmund. But you have to bear in mind that one of the reasons for writing about Anglo-Saxon history for the Anglo-Normans was to exonerate and to praise Anglo-Saxon history. They were proud of their Anglo-Saxon ancestry and their
25:45 Speaker 02 heritage, and they wanted to present it in a good light. But the earliest record we have in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle doesn't tell us who won. We have to infer a victory.
25:55 Matt Lewis? I mean, that sounds like it might suggest that Edmund lost it, because otherwise, why wouldn't you say it was a glorious victory for the Anglo-Saxon forces?
26:00 Speaker 02 Well, indeed. Well, one answer is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is notoriously laconic. Very few details are given, even for, I think, really major, important things. So, yeah, we can infer, well, did he lose? And therefore, they didn't want to say he lost, so they don't say anything, simply that he won. I think that's a valid interpretation. We simply don't know.
26:25 Matt Lewis? You can almost imagine the writer of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle smirking to himself and thinking, in a thousand years' times, this is going to really, really annoy people.
26:32 Speaker 02 Oh, possibly. Yeah, I'll be deliberately intense. The second battle, sure, to me, you know, a little bit more about this from the Chronicle and the later writers. As I said, they fought for a long time until it was kind of too dark and too tired and they withdrew. And Knut then leaves under cover of darkness, leaving Edmund with a fierce, well, with a pretty victory. But the sources do recall that there were heavy losses on both sides. So we think no quarter was given. They were really out to kill each other. Both sides wanted victory, but they were just too exhausted to carry on. So by mutual agreement, you know, they kind of just withdraw from the battlefield.
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29:25 Speaker 04 Yeah, but we can kind of chalk that up as a victory to Edmund in the sense that it's Canute that leaves and Edmund that holds the field.
29:32 Speaker 02 Yeah, I certainly do. Yeah.
29:34 Speaker 04 And what's the third battle we get next then?
29:36 Speaker 02 Well, let's see. There's the relief of the siege of London. Now, Canute tried several times to besiege London, and each time he had to give up. A ditch was dug from south of around the city, or on its three sides, because on one side, of course, is the Thames. So the ditch is dug around the three sides of the city. Canute gives up those sieges, goes into into Wessex to fight London, London, Edmund, then returns to London to resume the siege. In the meantime, Edmund then gathers another army. Having vanquished, Canute is then able to recruit men, as I said, unhindered. And an army arrives outside
30:21 Speaker 02 London. It comes through Tottenham, kind of roundabout way of doing it. And we are told that when Canute hears that Edmund is on his way with an army, the Danes then abandon the siege.
30:36 Speaker 02 They run away and Edmund enters, so he regains London without a single blow. Edmund stays in London for two days. We don't know what he does, but I imagine he sought to the defences and the administration of the town, had a rest, made sure that London could continue to defend itself. Then after two days, he heads west. He goes to Brentford. Now Brentford is the first place outside of London going west where you can cross the Thames. And Edmund catches up with Knut at Brentford and they have a battle and the Danes are then forced across the ford.
31:20 Speaker 02 We are told that the River Thames was clogged with the dead at Brentford, possibly Danish and English dead. And the battle then continues on the other side of the crossing. In fact, there was a ford at Brentford until the 19th century. You can still see the gate at Kew Gardens where the ferry used to go from Brentford to Kew Gardens. And the fighting then continued in what is now the car park of Kew Gardens. And Knut is then driven off, again leaving, I think, another victory for Edmund. But Edmund has lost so many men that he has to go back into Essex to recruit another army.
32:04 Speaker 02 And there's a strange story about Edmund encountering Frisians. Now, I used to get told off for saying Frisians because that implies we're talking about cows. Frisians. Now, we don't know if these were Frisian mercenaries in Knut's employ. And his army was made of mercenaries. We know from runestones, gravestones in Sweden that Knut's army was recruited from men who volunteered from Sweden. It was a Pan Scandinavian army that Knut arrived with. He recruited from Denmark and Sweden. And also, of course, Norway. We have the Laird of Lauda in Norway aiding Knut in his attempt to conquer England.
32:52 Speaker 02 So Pan-Scandinavian army, Edmund goes back into Sussex, recruits another army. Then we hear that, and this is only one source, John of Wuster is our only source for this. Canute is raiding in Mercia because he needs supplies. He's running out of men. He's not recruiting new men to replace those who are killed. And of course, constantly have to renew supplies. He's raiding in Mercia and they're on the way back to their ships. We think they were on the Isle of Shepi. And Edmund rides into what is now Kent and chases the army to Oxford.
33:32 Speaker 02 According to John of Wuster, has a battle and it's recorded as a victory for Edmund at the Battle of Oxford. But John of Wuster is our only source for this battle. So we're not quite sure whether we can believe John of Wuster. Sometimes John of Wuster does fabricate. We know that in his description of the Battle of Assendon, for example, he simply lifted descriptions of a Roman battle that took place in, I think, the first century B.C. And transposed it to Assendon and simply changed the names of some of the weapons used. But attributed the actions of a Roman general to Edmund Ironside.
34:09 Matt Lewis? Which I mean, interesting fabrication, but it's interesting then that John of Wuster is trying to equate Edmund with a Roman general. Because it sounds like across these battles that we've talked about, including, I'll never park in Hugh Corden car parks again without thinking of the fighting going on there. But it sounds like Edmund is doing incredibly well. We tend to have this vision of Canute and his Danish forces, Canute the Great, he's almost unstoppable. But it sounds like Edmund is actually beating Canute.
34:39 Speaker 02 I think that is true. There is a very telling sentence, Immincomium MI, which is a work commissioned by Emma of Normandy, Canute's widow. Canute dies in 1035. And she commissions this work to glorify herself and the Anglo Danish dynasty that she's the the mother of. We're told that after the Battle of Assendon, which is a loss for Edmund, and I'll say more about that shortly, I expect. Edmund is is all is all for fighting on, but his advisers, you know, want him to sue for peace. While he's making up his mind, Edmund is making up his mind, Canute, Canute goes off and, you know, to have a think by himself. And we are told,
35:22 Speaker 02 and this is by a pro Danish source, we are told that Canute admits to himself that Edmund can always find someone to step into a dead man's shoes. He can always recruit new soldiers. While he, Canute, is running out of men and running out of supplies. So he'd better sue for peace. And that's what he does. He goes back to Edmund and says, how about we divide up the country? Yeah, okay, says Edmund reluctantly. So, yeah, Edmund would have won by simply by attrition, by just carrying on, he would have reduced and reduced and worn away bit by bit Canute's ability to to fight.
36:04 Matt Lewis? Yeah, and I guess that's the difference between an army that's that's in its own country and an invading army that is is unable to recruit locally in the same kind of way. Edmund has the advantage on that.
36:15 Speaker 02 He does. Now, I think we can, there's also one incident between Oxford that may or may not have happened, and Assendon, Edmund is is chasing Canute. And by this time, the Adric Strina, who'd gone over to the Danes, in fact, Adric was was meant to join up with Edmund in in in in ten fifteen, but didn't and tried to betray Edmund to Canute. And in order to get into Canute's good books, Adric took with him forty ships from the English fleet and kind of sweetened the deal. So the Adric was on Canute's side. And at the Battle of Sherston, we're told that Edmund
36:56 Speaker 02 sees his brother-in-law, another brother-in-law was Adric Striona, the Alderman of Mercia. He sees Adric across the battlefield, fighting for Canute. And Edmund is so angry at this, he picks up a spear, throws it across the battlefield at Adric. And of course, once the spear is held, it cannot be called back. Iadric sees the spear coming at him, so he simply steps aside, which is what you can do. And then we're told that such is the force of the blow, because Edmund is said to be a very large, very powerful man. The spear pierces one Viking and then it pierces the Viking next to him.
37:37 Speaker 02 So two Vikings are kebabed on the same spear at the Battle of Sherston.
37:42 Matt Lewis? Just as a testament to Edmund's sheer strength and power, that's pretty impressive.
37:46 Speaker 02 Indeed, and I want to believe it's true, and it is possible. One of the spears that the Anglo Saxons used at that time was called an angon, which had a very, very long steel neck on the spear with a barbed head. And you can accommodate two people on the very long steel ferrule of the spearhead. I want to believe it's true because I want to believe Edmund was this big, strong, powerful Anglo-Saxon king. Or it might just be fanciful because there are earlier accounts and other battles. For example, when the Vikings besieged Paris in 885,
38:26 Speaker 02 there's a story of two Vikings being pierced by the bolt from a giant crossbow shot from the walls of Paris. It might be a literary trope.
38:35 Matt Lewis? Yeah, interesting. I quite like the way you put that as well, that you can accommodate two Vikings on this spear. It's a very polite way of putting it.
38:43 Speaker 02 So to speak, indeed.
38:44 Matt Lewis? So if we've had Pencilwood, Sherston, Brentford and possibly Otford, that gives us four battles. Where's our fifth?
38:50 Speaker 02 Well, there's a kind of a non-battle, as I was saying, at Aylesford. Sometime after the Battle of Sherston, Iadric has somehow reeled his way back into Edmund's favour. And now he's with Edmund. And at Aylesford, Edmund is persuaded by Iadric not to pursue the Vikings across the ford. So he lets the Vikings get away. We're not told what Iadric said, how he managed to do it, but somehow Iadric had the gift of the gab and could persuade Edmund. I think that was a serious, serious mistake. So we have our fifth battle, which is Assendon, October the 18th.
39:31 Speaker 02 Ten sixteen. We're not quite sure where it was. We know it's in Essex. There are at least two putative places. Assendon, of course, is the Latin. It could be in the Latin. It could be Ashdown or Ashton. I think both places in Essex, you know, could claim their village, their town is the site of the battle. But at that battle Edmund seems to be winning. He gained the high ground because Ashdown, the hill, the hill of the ass. He had the high ground and the Danes then had to fight uphill. But then at some point Edmund takes the battle to them. They rush downhill, have the force, the momentum of the battle. But at some point, early on,
40:12 Speaker 02 Iadric withdraws from the battle and he takes with him his section of the army who come from the Magansatah, which is a border territory in Shropshire. Iadric and the men of the Magansatah, they leave. So the English army is depleted. And when the rest of the English army see this, they become disheartened. And so men also from other contingents start to withdraw. So Edmund's army kind of shrinks and dwindles. And so Edmund has to flee the Battle of Assendon because of a greatly reduced, numerically reduced army. But he goes in into the West and we find him at Olney,
40:58 Speaker 02 which is close to Worcester, the island of Olney. It was an island then. And Knut sends men to barter a peace and Edmund, as I said, reluctantly agrees. And on the island of Ola's island, Olney, next to the river, the Severn, they hold their peace treaty and decide to have Wessex for Edmund. And the Chronicle tells us, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells us, Knut received the North. Now, out of the two, Edmund got the better deal because Wessex was the economically richer part of the country.
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43:13 Matt Lewis? I'm just going to go back because I'm sitting in Shropshire looking out over the Clee Hills as we're talking.
43:17 Speaker 02 Oh, right.
43:17 Matt Lewis? Wondering where I can find my Men of the Magen Sata now. I'm going to have to try and reform them. It sounds very cool.
43:24 Speaker 02 Well, yeah, they're close to Chiche. You know, you find them on the tribal heritage, you know, the lost kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England before they were absorbed by the bigger kingdoms.
43:38 Matt Lewis? Yeah, I know what I'm doing with my weekend now. Going to find the Men of the Magen Sata. Does this splitting of England, again, point to this idea that England isn't yet a kind of really fixed, settled, single unit? We've seen it split into the Danlo previously. It's come back together for a while, and now it's being separated again.
43:56 Speaker 02 Well, we have examples of it being split even before. So, for example, when Edward the Elder dies, 924, up in Cheshire, we find that one of his sons is declared king in Winchester, and yet Mercia decides for the young Aethelstan.
44:15 Speaker 02 And when Iadred dies in the 10th century, we find the country split between Edmund the first two sons. Edmund has two sons, but they were too young to inherit the crown. And so Edmund's brother Iadred becomes king and you have Edwy and Edgar. The country is split between them. After a couple of years Edgar becomes king of all England and he's the Edgar we know, who donates riches to the Old Minster in Winchester.
44:50 Matt Lewis? Is this Edgar the peaceable?
44:51 Speaker 02 Edgar the peaceable Edgar, who is said to have six kings row him on the River Dee as a kind of symbol of their subservience to him.
44:59 Matt Lewis? Is there any sense in which we can think of Edmund here at Ulney, almost replicating what Alfred had done a few generations earlier? He's what, three times great grandad or something?
45:10 Speaker 02 That's right, yeah.
45:11 Matt Lewis? In the sense that he's, he's taking back, you know, the core heartlands and allowing himself to rebuild, that there's almost, you know, another creation of the Dane law, but with the intention always of rebuilding and going, taking that back. Is he taking a leaf out of Alfred's book, maybe?
45:25 Speaker 02 It's sort of like that, maybe, yes. I'm sure the story of great, great grandfather Alfred, you know, dividing the country as a temporary measure, as it turned out, because we know that Alfred's son and then grandson, Athelstan, and of course Ethelfrada, Lady of Mercians, they retake all the territory ceded to the Danes. Edmund may have had in mind, and we simply don't know, pure conjecture on my part, may have had in mind a plan for his sons and grandsons to gradually take back any territory that was ceded to Cunut. Even, even London, which Alfred took back with the help of Ethelred, the fae of Mercia,
46:06 Speaker 02 who was married to one of Alfred's daughters, well Ethelfrada, other Lady of Mercians. So Edmund is granted Wessex. Cunut goes to London, which then becomes a kind of a Danish town.
46:20 Speaker 02 There are lots of churches dedicated to Saint Olaf in Anglo Danish London.
46:26 Speaker 02 Well, we simply don't know what the ultimate plan was because on the 30th of November, St Andrews Day, Edmund unexpectedly dies. Maybe the age of 27.
46:36 Matt Lewis? Yeah, incredibly young. And I guess, so before we deal with with his death, do we get, is there any opportunity for how for us to have any sense of what Edmund was like as a as a political ruler? Or is he so engrossed in the the military aspects that we simply don't see the nature of his rule?
46:53 Speaker 02 There's very little evidence for that, but I've I've said that it's difficult to judge the reign of Edmund by the reign of of other kings. He only had 222 days. He didn't have time to pass laws, didn't have time to reform the currency, didn't have time to make church appointments, didn't even have time to issue new new coins. I think, yeah, his his focus was to retain England, to stop Canute from becoming the next king of England from replacing him. Thereafter, who who knows? Certainly, I think he was, he must have been charismatic to be able to recruit and recruit and recruit
47:36 Speaker 02 and have men essentially die for him. This suggests something about the magnetism, the charisma of an ally, and must have had the gift of the gab to some extent to persuade people to continue fighting.
47:52 Matt Lewis? It's such an elusive but interesting character. If you think he has all of this kind of charisma to draw men to him, and also, you know, the physical prowess to supposedly be lobbing spears that pierced two Vikings at a time, it'd be so much, I don't know, it'd be incredible to know so much more about him, wouldn't it? But our opportunity because of his 222 days is is just curtailed. So I guess, what is the, what is the immediate impact of Edmund's death in November 1016?
48:19 Speaker 02 The story goes goes a bit quiet. We hear that Edmund is, it dies on the 30th of November. He's buried at Glastonbury, close to his grandfather Edgar.
48:32 Speaker 02 And that's in 1016. Then in 1017, the next entry, the Alexander's Chronicle, we hear that Canute becomes king. Now, Anne Williams has suggested that something was going on in that interval, and Canute probably had to put down rebellions for people who favoured Edmund, people who didn't want him to be king. And one piece of telling evidence is the fact that, once Canute becomes king in 1017, two men are executed. One of them is Iadric Striona.
49:10 Speaker 02 Canute has him executed. This is a man who has gone over to Canute, then gone back to Edmund, and then after Edmund's death, he'd gone back to Canute. And I think, once Canute's position was secure, he then had Iadric executed. One story is that he had him beheaded in London, and his headless body thrown over the walls of the city for the dogs to devour. And another Englishman was the son of a leading thein in the West Country. We don't know why he was killed.
49:51 Speaker 02 We don't know. One possibility is that he had been organising opposition in the West Country to the rule of Canute. Why else would Canute have this otherwise unknown man, little recorded person, put to death? Probably because of the threat he posed.
50:12 Matt Lewis? Yeah. So, I mean, it seems like, from such a promising start, Edmund has ultimately, through no fault of his own, I mean, there's, how clear are we about why he dies, what kills him?
50:22 Speaker 02 Stories emerge, again, in the 12th century, as to how he died. And they're all variations on a theme. And each retelling becomes more gruesome. But basically, it involves Edmund going to the toilet, and then somebody skewering him in the fundament with a spear.
50:43 Matt Lewis? Ouch.
50:44 Speaker 02 Yeah, indeed.
50:46 Matt Lewis? Yeah, yeah.
50:48 Speaker 02 But probably, having fought so many battles in such a short space of time, he may have received a fatal wound.
50:57 Speaker 02 Which wasn't life threatening to begin with, but the lack of antibiotics and modern medicine, it just may have got worse. We don't know why his brother died either. Again, it has to be inferred, possibly from illness, or it could have been from a wound received in an engagement in ancient days.
51:16 Matt Lewis? Yeah, yeah. And what would you say then is Edmund's legacy? Because we've seen him from the promising start, he's ultimately lost to Canute. Canute is now king of all of England, but the House of Wessex does return, not least in the guise of Edmund's half-brother, Edward the Confessor. So should we see his legacy as in some way keeping Anglo-Saxon alive despite the Danish victory?
51:42 Speaker 02 Edmund had two children by his wife. I'm not quite sure where she came from. I have my suspicions. She was Mercian. I have my suspicions. But the two children who are infants, because don't forget, he doesn't marry until 1015, the widow of Seafirth, they're whisked away, they end up in Hungary. One of them dies, and then we have Edgar the Athlin comes back in 1057. And he's the presumptive, I think that's the intention of Edward the Confessor, you know, that his relative become the next king. Then we have William comes
52:22 Speaker 02 across. But Edmund's granddaughter Margaret, of course, marries Canmore, Malcolm Canmore of Scotland, has many children by him. And her daughter, Edith Matilda, marries then Henry I. And so that connection between the Anglo-Saxon bloodline is maintained through sects of the family. As I said, going back to Edith, renamed Matilda to Henry I. Yeah, the Anglo-Saxon bloodline survives. It has been suggested that, somebody did a piece
53:04 Speaker 02 of research, who traced all the presidents of America bar one, he was of Dutch descent. But all the presidents of America bar one are descended from King John, good King John. And yet, King John was an ancestor of Edmund Ironside.
53:22 Speaker 02 And so is that, if you can believe that that that research, you know, the bloodline of Edmund Ironside has flown through the the veins of American presidents.
53:30 Matt Lewis? Yeah. So, I mean, despite only being king for 222 days, that's an incredible physical legacy in the world right up until today.
53:39 Speaker 02 It is. And and then, of course, but it also demonstrates, I mean, he had Edmund had a posthumous legacy as well, because for centuries he has been remembered for his snail ship, for being the name Ironside. No other King of England, you know, has has that supercay Ironside. No other King of England has that same reputation for for being so so battle hardened, for being so bellicose as Edmund. And it it does go to show that it was possible, but, you know, kingship very much did depend on the personality of the king and it being very difficult to remove a king, not impossible, but being
54:20 Speaker 02 very difficult to remove an hereditary king. And now people just had to make the best of what they got.
54:26 Matt Lewis? Yeah. This is fascinating. And it makes it all the more frustrating that we can't see him more clearly. But just to end on, how how would you sum up Edmund Ironside in a few words?
54:34 Speaker 02 I would say patriotic, charismatic, inspirational and warlike.
54:42 Matt Lewis? Yeah. Yeah. What a combination. It's a good sales pitch for him. This has been absolutely fascinating, David. It's been really great to get to know Edmund a little bit better. He feels like such an obscure figure, but you've really helped to draw him into the light for us and bring him to life a little bit. So thank you very, very much for joining us.
55:01 Speaker 02 I I hope so. I I hope I've been able to say a few intelligent things about Edmund and and draw him out of the shadows. And, you know, one of the reasons I I got involved with Edmund was I I wanted to know more about Edmund because I was reading Henry of Huntingdon, who says Edmund's first battle was and his second battle was and his third battle was. And he writes so enthusiastically about Edmund Ironside. I thought, I want to know more. But I, you know, I I looked for papers and books and I couldn't find any. And suddenly I had an epiphany. I thought, if I want to read a book about Edmund Ironside, I'm going to have to write it. Then I thought, I've got a PhD subject here. And as they say, the rest is history.
55:40 Matt Lewis? Yeah, perfect. Wonderful. I'm very glad that you did. So you're able to share all of that with us today. Thank you very much.
55:46 Speaker 02 Thank you. Glad to be able to do it.
55:47 Matt Lewis? Thank you, David. That made me wish that we knew more about Edmund, but also made me grateful of the work people like David do to unearth the stories that we get to share with you. There's a great episode on Edmund's father Ethel Reddy and Reddy with Levi Roach in our back catalogue, as well as one on Knut with Dr Caitlin Ellis, if you'd like the bread on either side of the Edmund sandwich. The new instalments have gone medieval every Tuesday and Friday, so please come back to join Eleanor and I for more from the greatest millennium in human history. Don't forget you can also subscribe or follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. You can also sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries
56:28 Matt Lewis? with a new release every week at historyhit.com/subscribe. Anyway, I'd better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis and we've just gone medieval with History Hit.
57:01 Speaker 01 Hey, it's Adam Grant from TED's Rethinking Podcast. As businesses scale, success depends on how well knowledge is captured, shared and kept up to date. Camtasia Pro turns teams' expertise into engaging training, onboarding and documentation. No professional editing experience required. With the industry's best screen recording, video editing and AI-powered workflows, you can train faster and boost operational efficiency. Get over $100 off your first year at camtasiapro.com and start building a smarter way to educate customers, onboard employees and ensure valuable expertise is shared across teams.
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