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H-E-L-P. BBC

1:16

Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.

1:19

Today's guest here in Bristol

1:21

is Alice Roberts, anatomist, author,

1:24

professor of public engagement in

1:26

science, and presenter of Digging

1:28

for Britain since 2010. That's

1:31

a TV series about archaeology. But

1:34

to me, Alice, you'll always be famous

1:36

for a cameo in The Detectorists a

1:38

couple of Christmases ago. What

1:41

is it about metal detecting

1:43

obsessives and you? That

1:46

was lovely. It was on my bucket list, I have to say. But

1:49

they're looking for coins. You're looking for bones.

1:51

I mean, it's worth adding that Alice

1:53

trained as a doctor, worked as a

1:55

doctor, has a PhD in paleopathology, the

1:58

study of ancient injury and cancer. disease

2:01

and welcome to Great Lives. Thank you

2:03

very much. Now as the late Queen

2:05

Elizabeth, a later Queen than the one

2:07

you've nominated, was wont to say have

2:10

you come far? Not that far because

2:12

I live just over Clifton suspension bridge.

2:14

You travel over that suspension

2:16

bridge and you're immediately into the

2:18

wonderful leafy realm of North Somerset,

2:20

so that is my home. And

2:23

which Queen have you picked and why? I

2:25

picked Queen Emma

2:27

of Normandy. I came

2:30

across her and became more and

2:32

more intrigued by her because I

2:34

was actually researching a massacre in

2:36

the year 1002 and this is

2:38

a massacre that took place under the reign

2:40

of Ethelred the unready, Ethelred the

2:42

second, when he had

2:44

enough of paying the Vikings

2:46

increasingly large sums of money to try and stop

2:48

them raiding England every year and

2:51

he also there was potential that he thought that some of

2:53

the Danes that had settled in England were going

2:55

to become treacherous and betray him and

2:57

he just issued this incredible edicts and asked

3:00

people to go and find the Danes that

3:02

had settled in England and kill them

3:04

and it was incitement to violence. He called

3:06

the Danes the cockle among the wheat, the

3:09

weeds in the wheat field and unleashed this

3:11

reign of terror. Anyway it turns

3:13

out that he was actually married to a Dane

3:16

Emma of Normandy whose

3:18

own heritage was Danish,

3:21

Scandinavian, so I thought well I want

3:23

to know more about her and she's kind

3:25

of this motherlode of power in

3:27

the 11th century. It's a mind-blowing

3:29

life isn't it? Yeah. Two marriages,

3:32

three kings. Yeah,

3:34

yeah and it provides this point

3:36

of contact between all these powers

3:39

Scandinavia, England, Normandy and all these interconnected

3:41

families I think we tend to think

3:44

that you know you've got Anglo Saxons

3:46

up until 1066 and then you've

3:49

got Normans after that. She straddles the two

3:51

in a way. She straddles the two and the families

3:53

are all completely enmeshed and interconnected. I

3:55

wonder how many people know that we

3:57

had a Queen Emma. She's incredible. She

4:00

arrives in England in the 11th

4:02

century, marries Ethelred, and she has

4:04

a son with him who becomes

4:06

king, and then she later on,

4:08

when she's widowed, ends up marrying

4:10

King Canute and her other son

4:13

with him who also becomes a

4:15

king. So she's kind of right

4:17

there in the centre of all

4:19

these power struggles. You're not a

4:21

huge expert on her yourself. How

4:25

much do you know about this extraordinary

4:27

woman? I know a little bit about

4:29

her, but I've become increasingly obsessed

4:31

with her, and when I was

4:34

asked to do great lives, I thought, no,

4:36

this is an opportunity to find out a lot

4:39

more, and also to catch up

4:41

with one of my best friends, who I

4:43

know knows a lot about Emma. She

4:46

certainly does. I'm delighted that joining

4:49

us is Dr Janina Ramirez.

4:51

Professor now, as of this week.

4:54

Congratulations. Oxford

4:56

historian, author of the best-selling New History

4:58

of the Middle Ages through the women

5:00

written out of it. The

5:03

shorter, punchier title I notice is

5:05

Femina. How much do

5:07

we actually know about this woman, Emma?

5:10

Well, Emma of Normandy is

5:12

one of the better-documented medieval

5:14

women. Her landholdings are recorded,

5:16

charters that she signs off

5:18

on, things that she was

5:20

involved in politically. All

5:22

of those things mean that she has left

5:25

this, this echo, this legacy, which means we

5:27

actually know a lot about her, and she

5:29

kind of wrote her own biography, if

5:32

you like. There's this book called The

5:34

Encomian, which is brilliant. The

5:36

reason it came to notice is because there

5:38

was always a copy in the British library

5:40

holdings, but in 2008, a

5:43

lost copy was discovered hidden in a box

5:45

somewhere in Devon in a county archive. I

5:48

love it. How amazing is that?

5:50

It is slightly different. So what it

5:52

shows is she wrote one book which

5:54

lauded her son by Canute, Arthur Canute,

5:56

and she wrote an alternative ending, which

5:58

lauded her son by Canute. Applered, Ed

6:00

with the Confessor. Just to hit you a bit! It's

6:03

a bit like Boris Johnson writing two columns.

6:05

In fact, yeah. He went through

6:07

practice and one anti-break. When you

6:09

say she wrote it, I mean, did she write

6:12

it or did she commission it? She

6:14

commissioned it and the frontispiece for the

6:16

manuscript is very clear on that. It's

6:18

this powerful image of Emma seated enthroned

6:20

and the writer, the author, is handing

6:22

the manuscript to her and then peeping

6:24

out behind the curtain to the side

6:27

are the two little heads of her

6:29

two sons. So it's sort of

6:31

her role as ruler. But yes, you're right. She

6:33

commissioned it. But she would have

6:35

had a very close hand, I think, in

6:37

monitoring how her legacy was going to be

6:39

preserved. And you definitely get the sense that she's

6:41

sort of defending herself, defending the things

6:44

that she and her family have done over

6:46

these complicated years where there's

6:49

so much conflict. Well, now

6:51

let's begin at the beginning. And either

6:54

of you chip in here. Where was she

6:56

born? Well, she's from Normandy, isn't she?

6:58

But she's very much aware of her

7:00

Scandinavian heritage. Her family were really proud

7:02

of the fact that they were descended

7:04

from Danes. And I

7:06

think it was her great grandfather,

7:09

Orolfo, or Rollo, who invades what

7:11

became Normandy and basically took it

7:13

over. And from then on, it

7:15

was ruled by Vikings. So the

7:18

name Normandy and Norman means

7:20

Norsemen. Born in Normandy,

7:22

brought up in Normandy at what

7:24

age and why did she come

7:26

to England? Well, she comes to

7:29

marry Aethelred, but I think

7:31

exactly how old she was at the time is

7:33

a bit up for grabs, isn't it? Maybe

7:35

20? Anything from sort of teens to 20,

7:37

we're thinking. And why? Why Aethelred? It's

7:41

interesting because it's not for children in

7:43

this case. So when we see women

7:46

being in these diplomatic marriages, it's often to secure

7:48

an heir. But Aethelred actually

7:50

had an heir already, Edmund Ironside.

7:53

And so she was going to try and give him

7:55

children. And indeed, she did give him two sons and

7:57

a daughter. But actually, it was

7:59

a... agreement to sort of put

8:01

the Vikings at bay again. Because

8:04

since Rollo, since the Normans had

8:07

made Normandy their social stronghold in

8:09

the continent, Scandinavian forces

8:11

were launching attacks via Normandy on

8:14

the south coast of England and

8:16

it was a real problem for

8:18

us already could not keep these

8:20

Viking forces away. So by marrying

8:22

the sister to the ruler, Emma,

8:26

he thought that would bring a bit of calm

8:28

and peace to the situation. It didn't. And

8:31

his first wife had died, hadn't she? So

8:33

there was a kind of diplomatic possibility of

8:35

him remarrying. Exactly. Yeah. Giving something politically useful

8:37

with that marriage. But it was quite an

8:39

unusual one because for 150 years no

8:42

Anglo-Saxon king had married anyone outside of

8:45

Anglo-Saxon England. So to marry a Norman

8:47

was actually a big move and he

8:49

would have definitely have been seen as

8:52

a foreigner in England. Time

8:54

to introduce another voice. Just briefly

8:56

on tape. Play it. In 1002

8:59

a young Norman woman crossed the channel

9:02

from northern France. She

9:04

was on her way to marry the English king, Ethelred.

9:06

We don't know whether she spoke

9:08

any English. We're not certain about

9:10

her age, at most in her early 20s, perhaps

9:13

as young as early teens. She

9:15

came to marry a man turned 30. She

9:18

was his second, possibly his third wife.

9:22

The young woman was Emma, sister of the

9:24

Norman Count. She's often

9:26

remembered as the woman who made the

9:28

fateful link between England and Normandy, this

9:30

marriage, the first step towards the conquest

9:32

of 1066 and the

9:35

end of Anglo-Saxon England. But

9:37

all that's hindsight. She'd

9:39

be powerful though that power would wax

9:41

and wane. She'd go

9:43

on to witness the defeat of her

9:45

Anglo-Saxon husband by a Danish conqueror, Knut,

9:48

and she'd marry that conqueror. This

9:51

is Pauline Stafford, professor of early

9:53

medieval history, and she's talking on

9:55

the BBC a decade ago. It's

9:58

often difficult to decide whether she's a good person. a woman

10:00

like Emma is a pawn and victim or

10:03

a mover and player. And that's

10:05

because family politics made her both at

10:07

different stages of her career. Marriages,

10:10

royal marriages especially, were political. They

10:12

weren't love matches. They were about

10:14

alliances between men and about getting

10:16

sons and heirs. Emma's

10:19

first marriage to Ethelred was especially about a

10:21

lion. If it wasn't

10:23

a marriage primarily about producing an

10:25

heir, Ethelred already had plenty of

10:27

children and, most important, plenty of

10:30

sons. What do you

10:32

make of that, Alice? I

10:34

think it's fascinating because he's doing

10:36

something diplomatic creating a virtual alliance

10:38

between England and Normandy. But

10:40

he's storing up trouble for himself because

10:43

he's already got heirs, as we

10:45

heard, and now he's likely to

10:47

get some more. Yes. So then you're going

10:50

to have all sorts of trouble deciding who

10:52

should be the rightful successor, I

10:54

think. And it's also a time

10:56

when marriage is, it's

10:58

not quite the rigid, legally framed

11:00

structure that we have today. So

11:03

you have some instances, particularly over

11:05

in Normandy, where people can live

11:07

together and that's enough to be

11:09

declared married. You have, in the

11:11

case of Knut, he's got multiple

11:13

wives it seems. And that, of

11:15

course, comes back later to be

11:18

a problem. And with Ethelred, it's

11:20

that case of which child will

11:22

succeed? The first born, the oldest,

11:24

or the children? No, I think it

11:26

wasn't automatic. It's not automatic.

11:29

And that's what causes such problems in

11:31

this period. Is it at all

11:33

possible to understand really what Emma's

11:35

life was like? What are the sources?

11:37

My feeling is that it must have

11:39

been extremely precarious, especially as Ethelred already

11:41

had sons. Yeah, I mean, do we

11:43

know what people thought of her? She's

11:45

about nine pounds. Well, from

11:48

the beginning, she is sort of

11:50

like the spare wife, you know. And

11:52

while she's married to us already, it

11:54

seems she plays quite a low profile.

11:56

She keeps quiet. Then Her

11:58

life becomes precarious. If because she's

12:01

got used to this way of

12:03

life, she is extraordinarily rich. We

12:05

have to remember this is wow.

12:07

At her death, she holds more

12:09

land than most of her male

12:11

counterparts and he criticized for that

12:13

is exactly yeah. Rich. standoffish since

12:15

doesn't speak the language and and

12:17

then she has these children and

12:19

they become hurt bargaining. Tools,

12:21

But she was rich. Alice for not

12:23

not just because she was born rich,

12:25

but she oversee liked money. She liked

12:28

gathering roam around him. appears to have

12:30

done it throughout her life. Yeah.

12:32

And she was given false demands of wealth

12:34

and land in England, and some of that

12:36

was taken away from her and her later.

12:39

Years. Maybe we should get

12:41

into that because emanate have

12:43

fortunes changed enormously when seen

12:45

thought they'd the. King. Of Denmark

12:47

turns up in ten thirteen. Attacks

12:50

and invades England. Say he's he's

12:52

been raising. He's been doing this

12:55

before but that intensive seen he

12:57

comes meaning is ethel read bravely

12:59

runs away Census ever of Normandy.

13:02

I sit As I said medal was. Semi

13:04

ruins he owes they gay by said Normandy

13:07

with her sons are they think may end

13:09

up in the same place as a means

13:11

of different places but them We've got this

13:13

situation where we've got a Danish king on

13:15

the strain. Of England's this is commute.

13:18

No no, this is so aim. Of

13:20

this is Swayze Historian yes And he

13:22

has a son Anthony. Yes, he. He

13:24

swiftly married soon English noble women seasonal

13:27

save some money thing else uses of

13:29

Northampton yes else is in Northampton Hundred

13:31

love anything because of the seed her

13:34

family's oversee had major sees it as

13:36

the lead to a father being killed

13:38

my brother been blind is it might

13:41

not be the right way. Rent seekers

13:43

I know, I think that sites and

13:45

the name else if it's one of

13:48

the most common names today it sounds

13:50

say we did. It doesn't have the

13:52

gift of. The just.

13:54

as the elves dare i say else that

13:56

either as he iran all to the they

13:58

are very good pick I'm not sure, might have

14:00

to edit that out. I

14:03

know that Emma is definitely coming

14:05

through this sort of Latinate, Francophile

14:07

sort of tradition. She really was called

14:09

Emma, wasn't she? Christened Emma, yes. That would have

14:12

been her original name. Now hold on, let me

14:14

just get this clear. She's married

14:16

to Ethelred, invasion by

14:18

forkbeard. Ethelred dies

14:20

or disappears. So,

14:23

Ethelred doesn't become king immediately,

14:25

but one of Ethelred's sons

14:27

becomes king for a brief

14:30

period. He exits, what happens to

14:32

him? Yes, so Ethelred dies in the

14:34

April and his son Edmond

14:36

Ironside takes over. He only rules for

14:38

about, I think, six months or so.

14:40

I think he's dead by November. And

14:43

that is this seminal battle where

14:45

Knut is victorious, takes London. So

14:48

game of thrones for us, isn't it? It's so

14:50

dramatic, it's so fast paced. And

14:52

Emma's biding her time. She's

14:55

taken these two boys to kind

14:57

of keep them safe with her

15:00

family. She's watching it all

15:02

over the channel thinking, what's going to

15:04

happen next? So now we've got a

15:06

real parting of the ways between what

15:08

history tells us. Because on the one

15:11

hand, we've got documentation saying

15:13

that Knut sent for Emma.

15:16

And then on the other hand, I

15:18

think in her encomium, she gives herself

15:20

much more agency. So I wondered

15:22

what you thought about that, Nina, and how much

15:24

agency you thought she'd be. Well, the thing is that actually

15:27

this goes back to what Pauline was

15:29

saying in that wonderful quote from the

15:31

interview, that at some times she's a

15:33

victim. I think Emma is

15:35

more often than not a mover and

15:37

a shaker and a player. And

15:40

even when she is in a position of

15:42

victimhood, she always pulls it back

15:44

round. And I think it

15:46

might seem so odd to us that

15:49

she would marry the man who was

15:51

responsible for the conquest of this

15:53

country. But remember, she's not English,

15:56

she's Norman. And Normans are

15:58

essentially Danish. She

16:00

in funny way is in a much more

16:02

familiar pattern with someone like Knute Then

16:05

she would have been with someone like us already

16:07

and what we see quite quickly I think in

16:09

the art more than anything is

16:11

this wonderful Balance where

16:13

they both take advantage of each other

16:15

can you need Emma Emma needs Knute

16:18

and it becomes quite um I

16:20

think quite powerful Union and is she older

16:22

than him? Not sure

16:26

I mean the the way of visualizing this

16:28

if you want to think about an artwork

16:30

There's a beautiful frontispiece to the newly the

16:32

Libra Vitae in Winchester It would have sat

16:35

on the altar and in that you have

16:37

this of netter Moment where

16:39

Emma and Knute are presenting an

16:41

actual enormous gold cross that they're

16:43

donating to the minster And

16:46

what's amazing is Emma is

16:48

positioned alongside Knute Slightly higher

16:50

up and while Knute is

16:52

sort of breaking the frame and reaching up towards the

16:54

angels The angels are literally putting

16:57

a veil on Emma's head So

16:59

she is the sacred one and this

17:02

is the Knute that we know of

17:04

the seaside stunt with

17:06

the tides It's the same Knute

17:08

is it yes now take us

17:10

through the succession crisis in England

17:12

after Knute died It

17:14

sounds like chaos as I understand it

17:16

there were her children from Ethel red

17:19

Her children from Knute Knute's

17:21

own children from other wives all

17:24

jostling for power well that

17:26

the sons are anyway And they're not the only ones

17:28

that the mother I assume is

17:30

also a mover and a shaker Yeah,

17:33

yeah, I mean it is extraordinary isn't

17:35

it and how does she you know? How does

17:37

she maintain her position of power yeah keeping

17:39

other women's sons at bay? She

17:41

seems to strike that balance or achieve that with

17:44

Knute's son half the Knute He's

17:47

not whole can eat his whole thing Sorry,

17:50

that's really done, but then when he

17:52

dies. I think things get really messy. He

17:54

is her son No, he's Knute's son

17:56

by another wife is that right the

17:58

first ruler are The can eight

18:00

vs half. The Canucks older half brother

18:03

yes I accept that he has a

18:05

very short right the Herald half. That's

18:07

right. Effort at office lead a with

18:10

with needs his first wife. She's still

18:12

a power player and says that a

18:14

new through Amas rules being an influence

18:17

with this older child. say a I

18:19

think Emma to sort of wasted a

18:21

lot and it was a time of

18:24

such bloodshed and such rapid turn over

18:26

us that actually before long one of

18:28

her kids seats it sensitive. What's next

18:31

in. Line would. Hold. Using she was

18:33

playing at the time will proceed during

18:35

which he maneuvering. One of things

18:37

I think is really impressive about

18:39

Emma is has she keeps all

18:41

the really important church people on

18:44

her side. She gets the Archbishop,

18:46

see, gets the heads of a

18:48

different church institutions, and that is

18:51

not only. Money. And influence

18:53

is also the people who hold the quills.

18:55

You know describes he will rise again and

18:57

I guess is a three legged kingmakers there

18:59

and queen make does indeed and say yes

19:01

he is Suzy strategic about what friends she

19:03

makes. Me is absolutely central to

19:06

what happens in English history. I'm go

19:08

to read briefly on account of her

19:10

son, Alfred Return We think he was

19:13

captured and taken to a lake where

19:15

he was tried for crimes against Anglo

19:17

Saxon states. This is from a book

19:20

by Hurry to Brian own am Earn.

19:22

It says Alfred her son is given

19:24

no opportunity to speak In his own

19:26

defense. He sentenced to be blinded for

19:29

his sins his hands or unbound and

19:31

his laid spread eagled on his back.

19:33

that. His eyes are brutally cut out

19:36

for what the hell is going on.

19:38

And is it dangerous time to be

19:40

alive? The middle aged isn't a particularly

19:42

dangerous times Be king or queen are

19:44

print Yeah, Princess I in all of

19:46

these powerplays going on. but of course

19:48

his brother would succeed where he didn't

19:50

That was Edmunds to has sworn I

19:52

do it at that was less F

19:54

Why do they want to get rid

19:56

of for Alfred. Who's behind

19:58

the blinding? Entirely sure, but Edward

20:01

somehow managed to get back to Normandy

20:03

and secure himself. But it meant that

20:05

Edwards was so resentful towards his mother.

20:07

When he did suddenly began, he added.

20:10

This is getting more complicated than a

20:12

archers excitement and I'm much more violent.

20:14

One or two. The arts is perfect

20:16

are for have a specific time now

20:19

to bring in another voice, this time

20:21

from far away on the line from

20:23

California. Will Patricia Bracewell author of a

20:25

trilogy of novels about Emma and I

20:27

suppose my first question has to be

20:30

what inspired you to write about her.

20:32

Well, I hello. I'm happy to be

20:34

here. First of all, fellow of Islam

20:37

unless I bumped into Emma back in

20:39

the nineteen nineties. I sowed a quote

20:41

about this woman who was the daughter

20:44

of the Duke of Normandy and. Married.

20:47

To two things as England, the mother

20:49

of two tanks of England. They.

20:52

Could write and of William the Conqueror

20:54

and I thought. Who the heck

20:56

is this woman? And why have I never thought? Of

20:58

harbor or. And so I

21:01

started to research Emma and the

21:03

more I discovered about are the

21:05

more excited I became about writing

21:07

about this woman who lived through

21:09

this remarkable. Period of history. your

21:11

books make me think of Hillary

21:13

Man tells work on Thomas Cromwell

21:15

How easy is it to write

21:17

about someone? Three books so far

21:20

and yodel finished. Yet About whom

21:22

the historical record is is really

21:24

quite thin. Well, thank you. That's

21:26

an enormous compliments. We're

21:28

not all that sand about em up

21:31

partially because he left us the and

21:33

call me i'm as Nina sad but

21:35

I had to essentially master the history

21:37

I had to become. A.

21:39

Kind of a historian myself

21:42

and learn about that period

21:44

and about what it was

21:46

that m the would have

21:48

lived through what she would

21:50

have witnessed and then put

21:52

her into the history. put

21:54

myself inside her brain and

21:56

her skin and imagine. A

21:59

surplus and. Emma have reacted to

22:01

this? How did she react to the news

22:03

that she was going to go across the

22:05

English Channel and marry this king? How would

22:07

she have reacted to the Saint

22:09

Brice's Day Massacre? Did she confront the

22:12

king? What about her children? What were

22:14

her goals for the children? What did

22:16

she want them to be? So

22:19

those were all the questions I had to

22:21

answer. That was my challenge to actually become

22:23

Emma in a way. But not just Emma.

22:26

I had to become every other historical figure

22:28

in the book. I had to become Aethelred.

22:30

I had to become Knut, Aethelred's

22:32

sons, all of them. It was

22:35

horrible sometimes. The Emma

22:37

that's emerging,

22:40

Patricia, is obviously there's

22:42

something quite remarkable about her, something

22:45

quite different. Give us

22:47

a pen picture of the woman that you

22:49

say you've actually had to be. I think

22:52

for one thing she was quite religious

22:54

and because she

22:56

was a Norman, she knew what

22:59

power was like. She had a

23:01

very powerful mother who

23:03

had been involved in essentially ruling

23:05

Normandy all Emma's life. She would

23:07

have seen that. She had powerful

23:10

aunts. So she would have

23:12

recognized what she

23:14

wanted to do, I think, as Queen

23:16

of England. She was only the second

23:19

Queen of all England. And she was

23:21

essentially trying to forge

23:24

that role, I think, in the English

23:26

period. And so she would have been

23:28

strong. I think she had to be

23:30

strong. She was married, for crying out

23:33

loud, to a Viking. I think that's

23:35

really interesting what you were saying about

23:37

her mother because her father had died,

23:39

hadn't he? And she would have seen

23:42

her mother effectively ruling alongside her brother

23:44

Richard II in France. That's correct. And

23:47

her mother had also that sense of

23:49

her Danishness that I think helped

23:51

Emma a lot in her second marriage death as

23:53

to who she was. And she was such a

23:55

powerful Queen as well. I think she's the only

23:57

Queen ever to have been crowned Queen of England.

24:00

Denmark and Norway, there's North Sea

24:02

Empire that she pulls over with Knut.

24:04

But I think there's something else to remember which is

24:06

that we tend to look at these women from the

24:09

point of view of the 21st century backwards and

24:11

a lot of these women were written out,

24:13

their stories were written out so now we

24:16

know for example the name of King Ophir

24:18

but we don't know Queen Kenneth Wryth, we

24:20

know the name of Knut but we don't

24:22

know Emma and yet in their lifetimes they

24:24

were totally recognised as a power pair. It's

24:27

just like you know like Patricia was saying,

24:29

it's the historians of later generations who have

24:31

sort of raised up the men and pushed

24:33

down the women so we

24:36

get this distorted view of their influence.

24:39

But one of the things that made

24:41

Emma so important is that we

24:44

know her because she commissioned that

24:46

in Comium. She made

24:48

sure that her story was told

24:50

the way she wanted it told

24:52

and I think that is

24:54

her ultimate gift to

24:56

us and to the women who

24:58

came after. Yeah. The last

25:01

third of Emma's life strikes me

25:03

as a complicated time, not that

25:05

any of it has been particularly

25:07

straightforward but as I understand it,

25:09

her son Edward the Confessor crowned

25:11

in Winchester in 1043 did

25:13

not allow her an easy late

25:15

middle age, is that right?

25:17

I think he was much less prepared to

25:20

have this, you know, to have this woman

25:22

alongside him. She had all

25:24

her lands taken away at one point and

25:26

this was semi-imprisoned. I think he

25:28

was making a point to begin with. I

25:30

think that there's this sense that he is

25:32

the person

25:34

that the

25:37

English nobles want as king,

25:39

Edward the Confessor and

25:41

he has spent all of his life in

25:43

another country. I mean he knows nothing

25:45

about England. I

25:47

wonder if he even spoke English when he first

25:50

came over as king. So you've got this whole

25:52

sense of him and he's got anxiety,

25:54

he's got to bed himself down

25:57

And one of the ways of doing that is sort of schism to

25:59

be. Right with what's come before

26:01

an Ama was still at that point.

26:04

And indeed, off to it's just the

26:06

hub of power. I

26:08

think that Emma was responsible

26:10

for Edward. Be using words. While

26:12

heart that Knute Five Six note with

26:15

King Emma had him. Ring.

26:17

Edward over and joined them so that they

26:19

were coke kings and that's why we see

26:21

that image on the front of the and

26:23

calm him with the two boys that are

26:26

of on the edge but mm right front

26:28

and center because. And. It would

26:30

have been think about it, a polyglot

26:32

court. right? He talking about languages

26:34

that court would have had Danish, Flemish,

26:37

Inglis, Norman, and so I think by

26:39

that time by the time that hearth

26:41

it's new died Edward was pretty long

26:43

and the tooth he was quite a

26:46

bit older and I think it was

26:48

sort of like mom. Get.

26:50

Out of my way. When she died

26:52

in turn fifty two she was in

26:55

tune with have a canoe to and

26:57

to new to the old months during

26:59

which is stuff but then during the

27:01

Civil War seems her bones were whole

27:03

scattered about and mixed up with other

27:06

people's bones for both big reentered. It's

27:08

a strange sight mean or for a

27:10

woman who polling Stanford describes as having

27:12

been the richest woman in England's. I

27:14

think it's a testament to how powerful

27:16

she was when we look at the

27:19

military cases that were in Winchester. The

27:21

old men stat was replaced by the

27:23

name and sir after the conquest and

27:25

Ten Sixty Six and all a same

27:27

as Kings and com before had all

27:29

been buried at Winchester. And as you're

27:31

absolutely right, the Civil War people broke

27:33

in. Pulled. Out all these birds

27:35

as does seem stained glass windows with

27:37

them. And the local people are Winchester,

27:39

we're fighting. That could do that without

27:41

kings and queens. So they gather them

27:44

all up into these mortuary boxes. And

27:46

then and twenty twelve they did simile

27:48

steel archaeology on them. There was one

27:50

thousand, three hundred pieces of bone in

27:52

these tests. Only one set of bones

27:54

was female so I need people. He

27:56

did his yeah, Tell us

27:58

more of an I. Am. My loving friends

28:00

and M P D C Fi that

28:02

see cake with some brain and Heidi

28:05

Dawson that says all of these bones

28:07

and tried to match them up with.

28:09

Can. We have lists of he's meant to

28:11

be any of the East Texas spot

28:13

they have signed some female remains not

28:16

a whole female skeleton, but about a

28:18

good proportion of it including the left

28:20

pelvic pain. The. Pelvic bone is

28:22

the best part of the body for

28:24

determining facts and this does look like

28:27

a female pelvic bone. The radiocarbon dates

28:29

much help said. we may have Ama.

28:31

I think that's as much as we

28:33

can say at the moment. but when

28:36

Case and Heidi publicist full report including

28:38

ancient Dna. Which has been some

28:40

we should know for sure.

28:42

My thanks to Professor Others

28:45

Roberts to Professor Nino Ramirez

28:47

and out in California to

28:49

Patricia Bracewell Could I. Can.

28:55

Stages in he can he's gain a

28:57

key of know to focus on the

28:59

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