Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
Speaker 1: for tuning in. Let's give a shout out to our
Speaker 1: very own podcast Royalty superproducer mister Max Williams.
Speaker 2: Huzza, tell you.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1: Tickety boo indeed, and shout out, of course to mister
Speaker 1: Noel Brown, they call.
Speaker 4: Me Ben, and shout out to our UK listeners who
Speaker 4: are cringing so hard right now.
Speaker 2: We see you, we see you. I don't think you know.
Speaker 1: I think it's all all well and good in terms
Speaker 1: of gosh, what was I listening to earlier? I was
Speaker 1: listening to U or there was a film where I
Speaker 1: was watching a British actor doing a purposely bad American accent.
Speaker 2: Oh, totally.
Speaker 1: We are the ones with the accents, so we're very
Speaker 1: conscious of that. We're we're returning to a subject of
Speaker 1: continual fascination. You're on Ridiculous History, which is ridiculous royal deaths. Now,
Speaker 1: you don't have to have listened to the earlier episodes.
Speaker 2: There's some refs, there's some callback reps.
Speaker 4: This is sort of an update, or at least an
Speaker 4: escalation you know, but I think that one of the
Speaker 4: reasons that it's so fascinating to look into these ridiculous
Speaker 4: royal deaths because there were just so many more interesting
Speaker 4: ways to die back then, you know, nowadays it's all
Speaker 4: kind of vanilla for the most part, you know, but
Speaker 4: like you know, heart attack in this old age, but
Speaker 4: not in the days of your when anything could kill you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And as of November eighth last year, there were
Speaker 1: officially eight billion plus people alive, and just from the statistics,
Speaker 1: the brutal numbers Game of reality, we know that there
Speaker 1: have been a lot of very strange deaths. We're focusing
Speaker 1: on royals because people in those upper echelons of society
Speaker 1: tend to have more documentation around about their lives. Also
Speaker 1: there they're, you know, a relatively small percentage of the
Speaker 1: overall population. And let's see, we're gonna just give you
Speaker 1: a sense of this how did Max put it? In
Speaker 1: this episode, We're gonna see an example of man versus ocean,
Speaker 1: man versus arrow, and versus share my favorite man versus chair.
Speaker 2: You know, no.
Speaker 1: Spoilers, but one one walks.
Speaker 2: Away the victor in that one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like it might not be well it's gonna
Speaker 4: be you think, is it?
Speaker 2: Who think it is? It is?
Speaker 4: But yeah, like I said, there's just there were a
Speaker 4: lot more options for for hilarious demises, you know, back
Speaker 4: in the days.
Speaker 2: Or the heyday, the glory days of royalty.
Speaker 4: Now it's you know a little more than a big
Speaker 4: old paycheck and fancy digs and you know, the occasional parade.
Speaker 1: And then you know, there's a coronation coming up the
Speaker 1: United Kingdom now and this okay, let's let's get into it.
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll do something on the history of coronations in
Speaker 1: the future in a timely manner. Perhaps no promises, but
Speaker 1: we can promise you. Our first story is a doozy.
Speaker 1: There's a guy named William the second, which I feel
Speaker 1: like is a weird Why does it feel distinguished to
Speaker 1: be the third? But kind of like juniory to be
Speaker 1: the second?
Speaker 4: You know, it's a really good question because they don't
Speaker 4: really indicate stature necessarily, it's literally just order of birth.
Speaker 4: But you're right, something about the third really does just
Speaker 4: feel a little more substantial. But yeah, so we've got
Speaker 4: William the first, which also, you know, the first.
Speaker 2: Is always the best, you know, because you're like the Og.
Speaker 4: The Og William aka the Conqueror, as his name might imply,
Speaker 4: he was killed during battle, but his body was actually
Speaker 4: shoved into a coffin too small, A coffin too small.
Speaker 4: And we've talked about this in the last episode. He exploded,
Speaker 4: mm hmm, yeah, maybe a little maybe a little more
Speaker 4: grand than that, but that's the idea. It all starts
Speaker 4: from a pop and then kind of escalates out from there.
Speaker 5: Right from the research, it wasn't the sound that was
Speaker 5: the most starch. It was the smell. It had been
Speaker 5: a number of days since he had died.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because of the lamp rays that he was stuffed with.
Speaker 3: No, he's not the lamprey guy.
Speaker 2: That's Henry the First.
Speaker 4: Oh, and I got confused every sincle because I thought
Speaker 4: this, this is the guy that was stuffed full of lampreys.
Speaker 4: But this was just literally a case of, like I said,
Speaker 4: a coffin too small.
Speaker 1: Don't cut corners on the funeral, don't save shillings on
Speaker 1: the coffin.
Speaker 2: It's not worth it, you know.
Speaker 1: But yet we also I love that you mentioned lamprey Guy,
Speaker 1: which is our street name for King Henry the First.
Speaker 2: Another first, you know, both of these fellas did not
Speaker 2: die with the most or at least their ends were
Speaker 2: not surrounded with the most dignity worthy of their stature
Speaker 2: as the first.
Speaker 1: Yeah, William the first King, Henry the first part of
Speaker 1: a family line that just had a tough time towards
Speaker 1: the end. And I believe it was Henry the first
Speaker 1: heir to the throne, King William the second who went
Speaker 1: out in a bit of a conspiracy. Okay, if you
Speaker 1: know this guy, if you're like in the inner circle,
Speaker 1: you don't always call him William two. He also goes
Speaker 1: by William Rufus, like you said, Nold. He's a son
Speaker 1: of William one, the Conqueror. Our buddy Willie Rufus is
Speaker 1: King of England from ten eighty seven to eleven hundred.
Speaker 1: He does some big stuff. He makes some moves, you know,
Speaker 1: he keeps Normandy and England politically tied together. But in
Speaker 1: the in the process of doing this, he gets a
Speaker 1: kind of nasty reputation. People say he's super corrupt, he's brutal,
Speaker 1: he's a tyrant with an iron fist. And Rufus also
Speaker 1: gets the name the Red not because he's super blood thirsty.
Speaker 1: Here like King Joffrey about it. He's got a ruddy complexion.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's kind of like a bit of a of
Speaker 4: a backhanded nickname, wouldn't you say? I mean, the Conqueror
Speaker 4: sounds intense and cool, you know, But the Red that's
Speaker 4: like sort of that joke in the wire about like
Speaker 4: snot boogie. You know how one day you have a
Speaker 4: running nose, the next thing you know, you're snop boogey
Speaker 4: for the rest of your life. But you'd think a
Speaker 4: king would have a little more say over their nickname.
Speaker 4: But then I guess you don't really give yourself a nickname.
Speaker 4: This is the nickname history gives you, or the people
Speaker 4: give you. So sort of a double edged sword there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so, as was feudal custom at the time,
Speaker 1: the eldest surviving son usually comes out on top in
Speaker 1: inheritance games. So William the Conqueror bequeaths the Duchy of
Speaker 1: Normandy to his eldest kid, Robert to Curtose, and Rufus
Speaker 1: the Ruddy aka Rufus the Red gets kind of a
Speaker 1: door prize England, England is this consolation prize?
Speaker 4: But wait, but is it in England better than the
Speaker 4: Duchy of Normandy? You know, in terms of risk pieces. Wow,
Speaker 4: that's fascinating.
Speaker 5: So funny story is William the Conqueror was from Normandy,
Speaker 5: he was French, so it's just like that was the
Speaker 5: prize right there. And also another funny story when he
Speaker 5: died riding his horse into battle, he was to go
Speaker 5: fight Robert the Second, his son.
Speaker 2: Very big succession vibes.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, we obviously love these topics and talking
Speaker 4: about the royal deaths and you know, royal stuff in general.
Speaker 4: But I can never get good at, like, you know,
Speaker 4: navigating all of the names and the succession and it
Speaker 4: just gets so like makes your head spin.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like that fantastic Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel
Speaker 1: One hundred Years of Solitude. A lot of people have
Speaker 1: the same name the issue, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: That's why we need these street names. Oh which Willie
Speaker 1: you're talking about talking about the Conqueror or the other guys.
Speaker 2: Or the Ready or the rufous one. Yeah, exactly. So
Speaker 2: let's get to the death. M hmm.
Speaker 4: We're thirsty for blood. So it's August second, eleven hundred.
Speaker 4: William Rufus was asleep in a hunting lodge. His hunting
Speaker 4: lodge at New Forest. They had himself a bit of
Speaker 4: a spooky even a real nightmare.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: And we're getting a lot of this from Dominic Sandbrook
Speaker 1: writing over a history extra. Let's just give you the quote. So,
Speaker 1: according to one chronicler of the time, writes, Dominic, our
Speaker 1: buddy Rufus dreamt that he was let blood by a surgeon,
Speaker 1: and that the stream reaching to heaven clouded the light
Speaker 1: and intercepted the day.
Speaker 2: This is super trippy.
Speaker 1: No bleeding was considered a legit medical operation at the time, right,
Speaker 1: thought to relieve your humors, balance out, you know, your
Speaker 1: colics and so on.
Speaker 2: It's so goth, dude, that is so goth. His blood
Speaker 2: went to the sky. Yeah, I mean the sun. Well,
Speaker 2: the nightmare is extra god. But just the practice of
Speaker 2: bleeding is so metal, you know what I mean. Like,
Speaker 2: it's so medical.
Speaker 1: Maladies and treatments of the past are so in fascinating.
Speaker 1: Imagine you walk into the doctor's office and the doctor says, oh, buddy,
Speaker 1: I tell you what your problem is. You got too
Speaker 1: much blood. Yeah, let's let's balance out those humors.
Speaker 4: So yeah, this dream, uh, he's having the old common
Speaker 4: daily blooding and he just starts gushing, you know, like
Speaker 4: a geyser fourth to the heavens. But Ben and Maxim,
Speaker 4: I need a little help unpacking the last part of
Speaker 4: this account. Uh the idea that the geyser of blood
Speaker 4: clouded the light and intercepted the day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, eclipsed. Okay, it clips like, you know, like a
Speaker 1: volcanic eruption can Yeah for sure.
Speaker 4: Okay, so this is like doomsday apocalyptic type vibes.
Speaker 3: The world is ending because this guy's dying. No ego
Speaker 3: on this guy the.
Speaker 4: Interpret that's really that's good. But there was another account
Speaker 4: as well, right Ben, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, uh nol, I think you and I enjoyed this
Speaker 1: because speaking of metal, William has a dream that I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people have had in the past
Speaker 1: where he meets the actual Facts devil and has always
Speaker 1: shout out to front of the show vocal Bob for
Speaker 1: teaching me the phrase actual facts. It just works so well.
Speaker 1: The devil has some stuff to say to him, right,
Speaker 1: that's right.
Speaker 4: Well, he says that he's gonna He says, I'll be
Speaker 4: seeing you real soon, buddy. This doesn't bode well, and
Speaker 4: uh oh, William Rufus just wakes with a shriek to
Speaker 4: servants to bring forth a light because he was really
Speaker 4: concerned he needed some light in the space because he was,
Speaker 4: you know, felt like he was being covered in darkness
Speaker 4: and perhaps beckoned by the dark Lord himself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean, okay, we've got to exercise some
Speaker 1: empathy here. You know, everybody, I would imagine, at some
Speaker 1: point in their lives has had a dream that is
Speaker 1: so real and so disturbing that you wake up and
Speaker 1: you don't want to go back to sleep, and you
Speaker 1: still sort of feel in between realities, you know, And
Speaker 1: if you have a partner that you sleep in the
Speaker 1: same bed with, you might even wake them up and say, oh,
Speaker 1: this is crazy. I can't and you'll sound like a
Speaker 1: crazy person. Oh yeah, because you'll be like there were
Speaker 1: golf balls, but they were also eyes that turned into teeth,
Speaker 1: and I had to like sell the teeth so I
Speaker 1: could that one get out of jails after my teeth
Speaker 1: fell out of my mouth as well.
Speaker 2: It's a combo, but usually.
Speaker 1: Thankfully, that kind of fugue state and that fear it
Speaker 1: doesn't last super long. And that was the case with
Speaker 1: William right, Like he got better vibe.
Speaker 2: That's just feeling better. And you know it's funny too, Ben,
Speaker 2: you mentioned that I looked.
Speaker 4: I sometimes when I wake up in the morning, in
Speaker 4: that kind of liminal space, I will have some kind
Speaker 4: of mourning anxiety, and I google that and it is very,
Speaker 4: very common because of levels of cortisol in the mornings
Speaker 4: that are like higher, you know, the stress hormone. It's
Speaker 4: something about if people are disposed to having like generalized anxiety.
Speaker 2: Not to dox.
Speaker 4: Myself here, but I think that's a pretty common diagnosis
Speaker 4: for you know, many Americans, so I'm not alone there,
Speaker 4: but yeah, in the morning, those levels can be elevated.
Speaker 4: So perhaps William Rufus also had a little bit of
Speaker 4: generalized anxiety.
Speaker 2: Which I would imagine a lot of people did back
Speaker 2: then too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, you don't know when you're gonna run into
Speaker 1: a wolf or a bear, or the devil himself or
Speaker 1: the devil. You don't know what your blood is gonna
Speaker 1: go against the laws of gravity and blot out the sky.
Speaker 1: You get into situations.
Speaker 4: But again, after that, you know, time had passed that
Speaker 4: direct feeling of anxiety, whether cortisol related or not. He
Speaker 4: was feeling a little bit better, and he decided he
Speaker 4: wanted to go about his day. It was very beautiful
Speaker 4: that day, you know, in the old hunting lodge, and
Speaker 4: I guess so he was there obviously on a hunting expedition.
Speaker 4: This is like a getaway vacation thing. He was gonna
Speaker 4: let some nightmare ruin his day. You know, he was
Speaker 4: a big boy. He was going to sally Forth.
Speaker 1: And as they're getting ready for afternoon of hunting and merriment,
Speaker 1: one of the royal armorers gives the King six arrows.
Speaker 1: William keeps for the arrows for himself and he hands
Speaker 1: the other two to a pal of his, one of
Speaker 1: his hunting partners, a nobleman named Walter Terrell, Lord of
Speaker 1: You'll have to help me with the pronunciation here. Would
Speaker 1: it be po POI?
Speaker 2: Maybe poa pa? Yes?
Speaker 4: Pa am not one hundred percent sure. Terrell, by the way,
Speaker 4: a name lifted by Old George R. R. Martin in The
Speaker 4: Songs of Ice and Fire. No, there was a very
Speaker 4: wealthy kind of more of a traditional British royal family
Speaker 4: that was depicted in that series and in the in
Speaker 4: the TV series.
Speaker 1: The Terrell's spelled differently here. But yeah, you're onto something
Speaker 1: if you want to read the real life account of
Speaker 1: George R. R. Martin Song of Ice and Fire. Check
Speaker 1: out the historical event known as the War of the
Speaker 1: Roses Wars of the Roses. So this guy Walt has
Speaker 1: street cred. He's got a reputation as being really good
Speaker 1: with a bow and arrow. So according to this story,
Speaker 1: they say, Rufus, who is in the mix here, says
Speaker 1: what translates to good arrows for a good shot, And
Speaker 1: all right, Willie divides up his hunting party. Most of
Speaker 1: his entourage remains with his younger brother Henry, who Max
Speaker 1: you healthily pointed out his lamprey dude on our show.
Speaker 1: And the king himself rides off with his buddy Walt,
Speaker 1: deep into the forest. And this is where the conspiracy
Speaker 1: kicks in. There's a bit of a mystery, thank you.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And as usually is the case with these sorts of
Speaker 4: historical events that are shrouded in mystery, there are multiple accounts,
Speaker 4: and I think probably the most conspiratorial and kind of
Speaker 4: famous version comes from a William of Malmsbury Malmsbury, and
Speaker 4: he writes this, the sun was now declining when the
Speaker 4: King drawing his bow and letting fly and arrow slightly
Speaker 4: wounded a stag which passed before him, and keenly gazing
Speaker 4: followed it, still running a long time with his eyes,
Speaker 4: holding up his hand to keep off the power of
Speaker 4: the sun's rays. Ben should he should keep it going.
Speaker 1: At this point Walter tried to transfix another stag, but
Speaker 1: oh gracious God, unknowingly and without power to prevent it,
Speaker 1: he pierced the King's breast with a fatal arrow.
Speaker 2: Poetry.
Speaker 4: Ah, I love these types of accounts that are just
Speaker 4: so you know, rich with drama.
Speaker 1: A Dick Cheney moment, Oh can I see?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Remember that's right, the whole Dick Chenny thing where he
Speaker 4: he was, you know, wearing his I guess you know,
Speaker 4: when you're hunting in modern day, you're not wearing cool armor.
Speaker 4: You're wearing some dorky kind of orange vest. And even
Speaker 4: despite that, Dick Cheney mistook one of his hunting buddies
Speaker 4: as a stag or whatever beast they were hunting, right,
Speaker 4: that's the official version.
Speaker 1: And for a long time, you know, late night shows
Speaker 1: made a meal of this and heavily implied that Cheney
Speaker 1: had apparently been drinking and purposely like shot at the guy.
Speaker 1: But but nothing was ever proven again, it's a mystery.
Speaker 1: And so here's here's the thing. We establish Our buddy
Speaker 1: Walt here is known for having good aim. He is,
Speaker 1: according to the story, he's not a guy who was
Speaker 1: likely to miss, right, especially in such a catastrophic way.
Speaker 1: So a lot of people at the time, the town criers,
Speaker 1: the other people at the court and so on, they
Speaker 1: were kind of skeptical.
Speaker 2: This is a way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're you're basically like what we're gonna call a
Speaker 1: sniper in a few centuries. How could you have suddenly
Speaker 1: been so bad at shooting that you shoot the king
Speaker 1: in the chest.
Speaker 4: It's a it's a reasonable question, Ben, It is a
Speaker 4: reasonable question. I think it is. And you know, without
Speaker 4: even taking into consideration any political motives of like reporting
Speaker 4: it in the slanted way or whatever. It's a little fishy, right,
Speaker 4: especially given the fellow's reputation Terrell, so fingers immediately pointed
Speaker 4: in Terrell's direction, the thinking being that the King's brother, Henry,
Speaker 4: who was around but not so close that he was
Speaker 4: considered a suspect right, may have put Terrell up to it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, it it doesn't smell great, right, This would
Speaker 6: make an investigator suspicious in the world of modern law enforce.
Speaker 1: But we do know what happened next. William's entourage, the
Speaker 1: party that had split off earlier, they find the body.
Speaker 1: And when they find the body, like in one version
Speaker 1: of the dream, blood is pouring from the wound. They yeah,
Speaker 1: they carry him in a cart. You know, they're trying
Speaker 1: to do their version of triage like staunch the bleeding
Speaker 1: and so on, but he's really leaking and there's a
Speaker 1: trail of blood behind the cart as a result. Henry
Speaker 1: you mentioned just a second ago, is doing some crazy reasoning.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: He's in a think fast situation and he's thinking, Okay,
Speaker 1: my older brother, the Duke of Normandy, Robert is coming
Speaker 1: back from the first crusade. If I act quickly, if
Speaker 1: I nimble and swift, we have to have a king
Speaker 1: so that king can be me. If I get crowned
Speaker 1: before Robert gets word of the death and before he
Speaker 1: it's back.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I've got a quick question. Let's take it
Speaker 4: back to your analogy of the show succession. You know,
Speaker 4: there are things like temporary CEOs, interim CEOs, so if
Speaker 4: you're you know, in an emergency situation while the actual
Speaker 4: air is out of the picture, but returning, wouldn't that
Speaker 4: supersede your you know, kind of clutch crowning there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you.
Speaker 1: Know, I believe it was a little Kim who pointed
Speaker 1: out the importance of money, power and respect, right, and
Speaker 1: he is going through that or order of operations. You're right,
Speaker 1: it is sticky. If things are happening appropriately, then there
Speaker 1: should be some interim ruler. Robert should be notified right
Speaker 1: as soon as he gets back from the crusade, and
Speaker 1: things should continue. If you want to flip the script,
Speaker 1: like young Henry here, what you do is try to
Speaker 1: take over the royal treasury. There at the money, and
Speaker 1: then you get the power, and then you get the respect.
Speaker 1: That's what he's thinking, and that's what the Little Kim's
Speaker 1: story is all about. It's about this royal death.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 4: I think that's a really great piece of modern wisdom
Speaker 4: to add some context here, because if he's got the
Speaker 4: money and he's on the throne, then it becomes a
Speaker 4: matter of the Duke of Normandy exercising his claim and
Speaker 4: potentially starting a war, because if his brother's already entrenched
Speaker 4: and has already got the seat and has access to
Speaker 4: all the funds, technically he's in charge, so he can
Speaker 4: exercise the authority that comes along with that position against
Speaker 4: his own brother.
Speaker 1: And he reaches Winchester that very night, in seventy two hours,
Speaker 1: he is officially crowned king. So the question that remains,
Speaker 1: which has yet to be solved conclusively, is whether this
Speaker 1: royal death was an accident, an unfortunate slip of the bowstring,
Speaker 1: or whether it was a planned hit and assassination. Either way,
Speaker 1: it's really strange. There's the dream the guy had before,
Speaker 1: which is on the nose, depend on the version, and
Speaker 1: then there's there's another thing. We'll just maybe we end
Speaker 1: it here. There's an even weirder version that of course
Speaker 1: can't be proven. That says the arrow that Waltz shot
Speaker 1: bounced off a tree and then impaled William. So maybe
Speaker 1: it was an accident, maybe it was an assassination. Either way,
Speaker 1: it changed the course of history.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent. And we see seemingly arbitrary events like
Speaker 4: this changing the course of history all the time. But
Speaker 4: I will say, you know, to give a little bit
Speaker 4: of you know, maybe points to the conspiracy angle. It
Speaker 4: makes sense that the guy who called the hit would
Speaker 4: want to be seen as having been part of the
Speaker 4: punting party, and then his frantic ride back to you know,
Speaker 4: be crowned was more him doing his duty, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1: And also when you are a powerful person, there are
Speaker 1: people who would inevitably see a benefit in your untimely demise.
Speaker 2: But you don't always have.
Speaker 1: To worry about the other people in the mix. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you can't trust the furniture around you. Shout out to Bella,
Speaker 1: the first of Hungary.
Speaker 4: Yeah, heavy weighs the head that wears the crown and
Speaker 4: potentially gets crushed by the throne, not figuratively, right, this
Speaker 4: is a wild This is a wild one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right.
Speaker 1: So Bella is the equivalent of a silver spoon kid
Speaker 1: born into Hungarian royalty. His father Prince Vazoul, which is
Speaker 1: such an awesome name name. Yeah, his father had been
Speaker 1: a nephew of the Hungarian King Stephen I. Stephen the
Speaker 1: First did not have a direct issue I meaning he
Speaker 1: didn't have children of his own, and.
Speaker 2: So the king.
Speaker 1: Bypasses Prince Vazoul and aims another nephew heir.
Speaker 2: To the throne. Vazul doesn't like this.
Speaker 1: He felt like he was he should have been next
Speaker 1: in line, so he rebels he tries to you know,
Speaker 1: he's got to be starting something, and it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: He is captured and as punishment, he is blinded in
Speaker 1: ten thirty one, which just seems brutal to me. So
Speaker 1: Bella has a guilt by association thing going on. His
Speaker 1: dad tried to overthrow the Hungarian regime, so Bella and
Speaker 1: his siblings leave Hungary quick fasten, in a hurry. In
Speaker 1: ten forty six they return, and they return because Bella's
Speaker 1: eldest brother did succeed in regime change. His eldest brother
Speaker 1: deposed the king, seized the crown. And now we have
Speaker 1: to get this is weird. We kind of have a
Speaker 1: weird day job at times because Noel, Now we have
Speaker 1: to get into Hungarian royal customs of the eleventh century.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, it's again, it's just sort of like
Speaker 4: customs of succession. A lot of these things are you know,
Speaker 4: very culturally based. It's not always you know, the eldest son.
Speaker 2: Or whatever it might be.
Speaker 4: In Hungarian custom, the crown is actually passed from brother
Speaker 4: to brother based on seniority, and Bella was actually made
Speaker 4: a duke and named the air.
Speaker 1: So this is again a custom and the thing is
Speaker 1: when you are at the top of an absolute monarchy,
Speaker 1: you get to decide what the customs are. So while
Speaker 1: they were away from Hungary, Bella's brother changed the rules
Speaker 1: and says, I'm gonna nearitytypool. I'm I'm gonna name my
Speaker 1: son the official heir. My son's only four years old,
Speaker 1: but I don't know. He looks pretty smart to me.
Speaker 1: How tough can it be to run a country. He'll
Speaker 1: get the neck of it by the time he's you know, six,
Speaker 1: maybe eight. So Bella doesn't like this.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: Bella's like, I should be king after you, old man,
Speaker 1: And so he gets together an army in Poland and
Speaker 1: then goes into Hungary and says, we're going to keep
Speaker 1: to the customs. It's the right thing to do, not
Speaker 1: just because it's super awesome for me.
Speaker 4: And there was a melee and the brother, who was
Speaker 4: currently sitting on the throne was killed. Bella then, you know,
Speaker 4: took his place on the throne and he was crowned.
Speaker 1: And after he became king, there was an uprising. There
Speaker 1: was a culture war, basically, and a large contingent of
Speaker 1: people in the area said we're fed up with Christianity.
Speaker 1: Christianity still kind of had new car smell in this
Speaker 1: part of the world, because Christianity had only become the
Speaker 1: official state religion a couple of decades earlier, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people were vibing with it. They wanted a
Speaker 1: return to paganism, returned to their pre Christian beliefs. And
Speaker 1: Bella said, I hear you, And he raised an army
Speaker 1: and he brutally crushed this rebellion. And then ten sixty
Speaker 1: three he fights off a German invasion that's sent basically
Speaker 1: by the Holy Roman Emperor, and he says, look, from
Speaker 1: now on, Hungary is independent from foreign domination, be it
Speaker 1: political or religious. But amidst all these opponents and all
Speaker 1: this intrigue, there was one assassin he just didn't see coming.
Speaker 2: You never see it coming.
Speaker 4: Well maybe maybe you have a split second of reaction time,
Speaker 4: but you know, no one ever suspects the very seat
Speaker 4: that you find yourself seated in. M you know, the symbol,
Speaker 4: the very symbol of your power. I mean, you got
Speaker 4: the crown too, but the throne is a big one,
Speaker 4: and it was a big throne, and it wasn't I guess,
Speaker 4: I guess it needed a little maintenance.
Speaker 2: It hadn't been anchored properly or or whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's we don't want to be too like
Speaker 1: gleefully ghoulish year. But it is kind of funny because
Speaker 1: a lot of time has passed. It's September. It's a
Speaker 1: nice September day. It's ten sixty three. Bellow one is
Speaker 1: in his summer palace in a town called Domos. He's
Speaker 1: got all his all his top team with him, all
Speaker 1: his senior guys, you know, his entourage, his officials, his
Speaker 1: hangars on. They're gathered before him. He's walking up, he's
Speaker 1: about the old court. I'm walking like the king in
Speaker 1: Hamilton now and he so imagine high pomp and circumstance,
Speaker 1: max the most ridiculous eleventh century music we have. And
Speaker 1: then he sits down and what happens next?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean the whole chair basically just collapsed in
Speaker 4: on him, and he did, you know, he was injured
Speaker 4: pretty badly, but he was not able to be treated,
Speaker 4: you know, in a timely enough manner.
Speaker 2: And he did die a bit later.
Speaker 1: And the throne never went to jail, never saw a
Speaker 1: day in court. And even now, furniture cannot be prosecuted.
Speaker 1: It's a huge miscarriage of justice.
Speaker 2: It is, it is.
Speaker 4: Indeed, I said, I'm just trying to understand because maybe
Speaker 4: you can help us with this. How do you get
Speaker 4: so horrifically injured just by falling through a chair? Like
Speaker 4: I think we've all maybe miscalculated slightly and and and
Speaker 4: you know fallen off No maybe just me. No one's
Speaker 4: fallen off a chair before or.
Speaker 2: Fall off chairs. Okay, I broke a chair at Joe
Speaker 2: McCormick's house. I did.
Speaker 4: I've done that too, especially if they're like some some
Speaker 4: of those like outside chairs.
Speaker 2: There the elements right right for me.
Speaker 3: So, guys, I think I know how to explain it.
Speaker 5: There was one time this back when I was like
Speaker 5: in high school, I had a few friends over and
Speaker 5: my buddy Josh was sitting in this like you know,
Speaker 5: like like poolside chairs that laid out and stuff you see,
Speaker 5: had it in there, and but it was a little
Speaker 5: higher up. It was a weird chair. It was like
Speaker 5: higher up do you expect? But the middle of it collapsed.
Speaker 5: He basically went like that with sandwich, sandwich, And that's
Speaker 5: what I'm kind of expecting this to do.
Speaker 3: But you know, it's like you know it.
Speaker 2: Right the headboard.
Speaker 4: Let's call it really high, really adorned. You know, it's
Speaker 4: made of wood, but perhaps adorned with metal or other
Speaker 4: you know, precious stones or whatever it might be. But yeah,
Speaker 4: it could have been very tall, and that could have
Speaker 4: collapsed in on him, and with the pressure on that fulkrum,
Speaker 4: it could have kind of broken his back maybe or something.
Speaker 2: I mean, again, we don't have exact details here.
Speaker 5: I'm working off the assumption that he also might have
Speaker 5: got impaled somewhere.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so these things are super heavy. It's actually
Speaker 1: a little unfair for us to call it a chair
Speaker 1: and not to make them look bad. But the whether
Speaker 1: it be shoddy design or whether it be a lack
Speaker 1: of maintenance. When heavy furniture falls, it can kill you.
Speaker 1: People do die when furniture falls on them.
Speaker 2: But if it happens in the forest and no one's around,
Speaker 2: does it still make a noise?
Speaker 1: You'd have to ask You'd have to ask our buddy
Speaker 1: Walt with the arrows. Yes, if you shoot a king
Speaker 1: in the forest and it's just you and the king,
Speaker 1: is it an accident or an assassination?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: So we are going to end today's episode on a
Speaker 1: bit of a psa right straight from the twelfth century.
Speaker 1: Here it's a PSA against operating a vehicle while inebriated.
Speaker 1: I don't want to sound all like Dad about it,
Speaker 1: you know, or like a driving instructor in high school.
Speaker 1: But this story, this, this story is one to remember.
Speaker 1: We're going to introduce you to William the Atheling, which
Speaker 1: so it sounds so Skyrim, you know, it sounds like
Speaker 1: a it sounds like a character class in Skyrim.
Speaker 4: The Atheling also referred to as Adeline, which I think
Speaker 4: just accounts for a language, you know, the translation or
Speaker 4: whatever you know from I think Gaelic. But yeah, this
Speaker 4: is the heir and legitimate son, the only legitimate song
Speaker 4: with the claim of the throne of King Henry the
Speaker 4: First of England. And he was ding ding ding. The
Speaker 4: Lamprey guy had too many, you know, of his sly, slippery,
Speaker 4: slimy delicacy friends and did not farewell.
Speaker 1: Especially considered everybody was constantly pointing out that he was
Speaker 1: allergic to him. Anyways, to check out King Henry's story, Yeah,
Speaker 1: very unfortunate family. Eighthleen, by the way, is an interesting
Speaker 1: name for this guy, or Adeline, as you said, because
Speaker 1: it means it literally means Anglo Saxon, prince or noble,
Speaker 1: so he's he's like William the Prince anyway. He's Duke
Speaker 1: of Normandy in his own right because his father fought
Speaker 1: these battles in France that forced the Norman barons to
Speaker 1: recognize William as their duke. And William the eighth Leen,
Speaker 1: as you can tell by his nickname, was pretty spoiled
Speaker 1: as a kid, and folks thought he was such a
Speaker 1: brat that he was going to be quote destined to
Speaker 1: be food for the fire.
Speaker 2: U Oh, that's like Luca Brassi sleeps with the fishes.
Speaker 2: We don't know.
Speaker 1: We will never know what his royal or geopolitical career
Speaker 1: would have been like, because he died in an accident
Speaker 1: when he was pretty young, and his death led to
Speaker 1: absolute pandemonium in the country.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 4: In November of eleven twenty, after he made a visit
Speaker 4: to France on royal business, there was a fleet of
Speaker 4: ships that was being put together to ferry King Henry
Speaker 4: and his court across the English Channel back to England.
Speaker 4: He was seventeen years old at the time, and he
Speaker 4: was meant to board the White Ship, which was like
Speaker 4: the flagship of the English Navy, right, it was you know,
Speaker 4: the most up to dates, you know, shiny and new
Speaker 4: and very fast comparatively, you know, for the time.
Speaker 3: It's like taking daz Camaro out exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's like taking the Camaro out if the
Speaker 1: Camaro is the fastest jet in the country. So this
Speaker 1: is a huge level of opulence. Willie is only seventeen
Speaker 1: and he he turns it into a party. He gets
Speaker 1: down with the bros. They get stupid drunk with the
Speaker 1: crew of this ship. It's one of those things where
Speaker 1: they the way I picture it, they're about to leave.
Speaker 1: The Captain's like, all right, where it's time to go
Speaker 1: on the white ship? All aboard, and then William the
Speaker 1: athleen is going, no, no, one more round, Let's all
Speaker 1: have another round you first, mate, grab a drink with me,
Speaker 1: tell me about the life of a peasant. And then
Speaker 1: after they get very very like multiple sheets to the wind.
Speaker 1: The Prince and his gang we're talking about three hundred
Speaker 1: people now get on the ship and they're gonna sail
Speaker 1: across at night.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean this is the same actually, the equivalent
Speaker 4: of like you know, drunk fishing, you know, but like
Speaker 4: with much higher consequences. They're like, you know, taking the
Speaker 4: pontoon boat out on the lake, you know, with a
Speaker 4: you know, but more like a yacht situation, let's call it.
Speaker 4: And just you know, everyone's drunk, including the captain, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And King Henry had already sailed across several hours earlier,
Speaker 1: so these guys are super drunk. They're hyping each other up,
Speaker 1: these these very very wealthy people, and an actual ship's
Speaker 1: crew decide they're gonna make a race of it. We
Speaker 1: don't know exactly how that went out. William the Athleen
Speaker 1: was the type of dude who would maybe command people
Speaker 1: to race. Anyway, they're all on board. They say, we're gonna,
Speaker 1: we're gonna lap the King. We're gonna catch up, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna beat him to England. This is
Speaker 1: the white ship, it is the fastest, and they decide
Speaker 1: they're going to go for it, and they're rowing their
Speaker 1: keaster's off and they're all just housing wine, and the
Speaker 1: drunk Prince and his friends are doing moral support, cheerleading,
Speaker 1: you know, row faster faster, yeah, frasher faster.
Speaker 6: And.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately the crew, which did pick up a lot of speed,
Speaker 1: they spend so much time focusing on speed that they
Speaker 1: didn't have a lookout. You definitely need a sober lookout.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you do, make a designated lookout. Sin them becomes
Speaker 4: a bit of a Titanic situation. They run aground on
Speaker 4: a particularly nasty rock that splits the hall and they.
Speaker 2: You know, eventually sink.
Speaker 1: Hundreds of people die as a result, and one of
Speaker 1: the people who dies is the Prince William the Athleen
Speaker 1: is the only legitimate male child. A succession war begins,
Speaker 1: a crisis of the state eight. King Henry doesn't have
Speaker 1: another son, and so he tries to get his daughter
Speaker 1: to be the official heir, his daughter Matilda. The Barons
Speaker 1: sort of agree, but you know, they're being insincere. They're
Speaker 1: waiting for Henry to die.
Speaker 3: Which he did when he decided to eat a bunch
Speaker 3: of eels.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, right, it's all full circle circle of life.
Speaker 2: So that he does die.
Speaker 4: In eleven thirty five, and the barons flip flopped and
Speaker 4: decided instead of backing Matilda to back his nephew, you know,
Speaker 4: because of the whole him being a man thing and Missostrate. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it was pretty big at the time. Yeah, for sure,
Speaker 4: Stephen of bloih bloyse bloh b l o I s
Speaker 4: I'm gonna say bloy, but it might be blah blaws bloss.
Speaker 2: That's a very odd name. Let us yeah, blow eye.
Speaker 2: Who knows.
Speaker 4: I'm sure there's a way, but we're gonna just go
Speaker 4: with all of those potential options. And he did, in
Speaker 4: fact succeed and claiming the crown because he was the
Speaker 4: eldest male relative of the of the king Blueaw.
Speaker 2: Can you believe it? It's Blueaw? Is it really? Uh? Huh? Yeah,
Speaker 2: well done.
Speaker 4: The more the more he know. But you know, we
Speaker 4: talked about Mozilda kind of being in the game or
Speaker 4: in play, and so Mazilda was like, no, that's not cool.
Speaker 4: I will I challenge you.
Speaker 1: You guys, Dad said, this is the uh is the energy.
Speaker 1: But uh but also yeah, Matilda sees this clear enormous opportunity.
Speaker 1: This is of course you're going to fight for this.
Speaker 1: It is good to be in charge, right, And this
Speaker 1: conflict between Stephen and Matilda leads to almost twenty years
Speaker 1: of civil war. It's now collectively known as the anarchy.
Speaker 1: It only ends when they reach a compromise, Stephen being
Speaker 1: recognized this king says Okay, Matilda, your son will be my.
Speaker 2: Heir, and yeah, compromise, Yeah, could have been worse.
Speaker 1: I mean sure, yeah, there's that. And so uh Matilda's
Speaker 1: son ascends to the throne eventually and is crowned Henry
Speaker 1: the Second when Stephen dies in eleven fifty three and
Speaker 1: founds a dynasty which would go on to rule England
Speaker 1: for centuries, all because of an ill advised drunken boat race.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, the dull drunken boat race thing
Speaker 4: really does feel very succession, very on brand for just
Speaker 4: kind of modern debauchery. Like I said, it just the
Speaker 4: idea of like absolutely we've seen The've seen the film
Speaker 4: Triangle of Sadness, Ben I have, Yeah, yeah, yeah, just
Speaker 4: you know, drunken, opulent boat Shenanigans abound on that in
Speaker 4: that particular film. Highly recommend it. I I haven't seen it.
Speaker 4: It's a lot.
Speaker 1: It's kind of fun also to have a cocktail on
Speaker 1: a boat, you know, I'm not above it, but never
Speaker 1: when you are driving.
Speaker 2: Never when you are driving or piloting the boat.
Speaker 1: Right, you sit in the back, watch the sunset, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe see a dolphin, sip a cocktail and stay away
Speaker 1: from the helm.
Speaker 4: Definitely do unlock yourself in a cabin and start spouting
Speaker 4: communist manifesto shenanigans over the intercom.
Speaker 2: Maybe read the room, you know, read the boat.
Speaker 1: And with this we are going to call it a
Speaker 1: day on another episode of Ridiculous Royal Deaths. Shout out
Speaker 1: to our super producer, mister Max Williams. Shout out to
Speaker 1: our resident opponent Jonathan Strickland, who once back in the day,
Speaker 1: believe it or not, years.
Speaker 2: Ago, would appear on our show.
Speaker 4: It's true and I do believe that will come in
Speaker 4: time when he will appear again. This would have been
Speaker 4: a good opportunity.
Speaker 2: He loves, he loves royalties, he likes he likes doing
Speaker 2: arch voices too.
Speaker 4: He's a big fan, but also hughes Thanks Chris for
Speaker 4: uciotis here in spirit he was Jeff co man Max Williams,
Speaker 4: who did the research on this episode and also is
Speaker 4: our super producer, extraordinary.
Speaker 1: And shout out to any Royalty present or future who
Speaker 1: is tuning in today.
Speaker 2: Let's see you next time, folks.
Speaker 4: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 4: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,