480 – All Gas, No Brakes

Welcome to the British History Podcast.

My name is Jamie, and this is episode 480: All Gas, No Breaks.

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Alright, so when we left off, Edgar, the eldest living son of Malcolm Canmore, had claimed the throne of Scotland.

But in classic medieval style, the way Edgar had gone about that was anything but simple.

Edgar had taken the throne from his uncle, King Donald III, and to pull that off, Edgar had the help of another Edgar, Edgar the Atheling, who happened to be the guy he was named after, as well as King Rufus of England.

And with their support, King Donald III was forced into exile.

But Donald was still out there, somewhere.

And this was a fact that would have made new King Edgar of Scotland more than a little nervous, because one of the reasons that Donald III got on the throne in the first place was thanks to Scottish hostility towards England.

And new King Edgar wasn't just friendly with the English, and also half English himself, he had also sworn an oath of fealty to Rufus, meaning that Edgar had functionally demoted Scotland to a vassal of England.

And that wasn't gonna sit well with Uncle Donald's supporters.

Meanwhile, down south, things with King Rufus were a bit touch and go.

He was governing Normandy, which he always had wanted to do, so that was great.

But he was already picking fights with Maine.

And that wasn't great because he was kind of martially stretched thin.

The English forces were exhausted from the numerous conflicts that Rufus had dragged them into, both on the island and also on the continent.

And most recently, the English Regency Council had tried and failed to conquer Wales through multiple campaigns.

And then Rufus got so exasperated with their failure, he decided to show him how it was done and proceeded to personally fail to conquer Wales himself several times.

And in addition to the fights that he was starting on horseback, Rufus was also picking fights in court.

Having gotten into a huge pissing match with Archbishop Anselm, which had ended with him declaring that if Anselm went and tattled to the Pope, then he'd be exiled.

And as far as Anselm was concerned, that was just one more thing he was going to tattle to the Pope about.

Because this was Anselm.

And I've known some stubborn people in my life.

I married one of them.

And the other calls me dad.

But I've never seen anything like Anselm.

This threat of exile didn't slow him down at all.

If anything, now he was even more excited about his trip to Rome.

And the only good news here for Rufus was that the nobility and bishops of England had gotten to know Anselm in the interim.

And by now, everyone knew that this guy was a lot.

And so, against all odds, they were all siding with the king on this one and basically shrugged and went, yeah man, Anselm is being a total asshole here.

I would have kicked him out as well.

Now, granted, they were a lot more medieval about it and focused on how Anselm might have been violating his oath made at Rockingham.

But essentially, everyone was getting sick of him being a pig-headed maniac, and that was the basic gist of it.

But Anselm, for his part, well, he just didn't care.

Instead, he got all gussied up as a pilgrim and headed over to Dover to make his crossing.

And while they were waiting for the winds to shift into a more favorable direction, one of Rufus' clerks, William Worlwast, appeared.

Now, if Anselm thought that this clerk had arrived to deliver an apology or grant some sort of reprieve from exile, the old priest was sorely mistaken.

Because Worlwast had been sent there personally by the king to supervise the departure.

Basically, the king wanted to make sure that Anselm got the hell out of England.

And when he did, he didn't take anything with him that he wasn't supposed to.

And actually, that list of things that the old archbishop wasn't allowed to bring with him was quite extensive, since, as you might recall, Rufus had told the archbishop that if he left for Rome, he would be forfeiting the archbishopric.

And Anselm had just found the one instance where Rufus always kept his word.

Specifically, when holding to that promise meant that he got someone else's stuff.

And so the king had followed through with his threat and seized the archbishopric and incorporated it into his domain, which meant Anselm could leave England, but he couldn't take anything with him that was the property of the archbishopric.

So, all of the former archbishop's possessions had to be searched.

And as that went on, Anselm was probably mentally cataloging all the things he was going to tell Pope Urban II about Rufus.

And it was quite a list.

Now, over the course of the series, I've tended to highlight every time that Anselm and the church threw a hissy fit over the long, flowing locks that apparently were quite common in Rufus's court.

And I did that because I think it's funny to see grown men having panic attacks over fashion.

But honestly, the hair was the least of the things that Anselm would have taken issue with.

Now, obviously, there is the fact that Rufus and his dudes were looting England through taxes, which, as far as the church was concerned, was a fine condition for the peasants.

But when it was applied to the clergy, well, they had become accustomed to being exempted from paying for such worldly things as roads and wars.

And Rufus was not playing the game by the old rules.

He was rescinding those church exemptions.

And so originally, Canterbury had a lot of wealth, especially when it came to land.

But now, it had less, thanks to Rufus giving some of those lands to his knights, while probably also giving Anselm the medieval equivalent of the finger.

And thanks to many recorded comments Anselm had already made, and things he will publicly say later, not to mention his surviving letters, we know he had plenty of other issues to bring up to the Pope as well.

For example, he likely planned to complain that there were married and unchaste priests in England, that some church roles were being passed along hereditary lines, that some members of the church held multiple positions.

This was called simony, and Anselm was against it.

He likely also wanted to complain that lay folk were marrying family members.

This was called incest, and Anselm and I are against it.

And finally, a point that probably related back to the hair heresy, the heresy?

Well, there was the accusation that the king tolerated sodomy.

Now, we've gone into this accusation in previous episodes, so we don't need to revisit it.

But thin evidence or not, the accusation was out there, and the church was obsessed with it.

So this was probably number one on the Anselm agenda.

Or maybe number two, since getting exiled for wanting to speak to the Pope did provide some important context, and it had really ticked Anselm off.

So we're talking about a pretty big list here.

And eventually, once Anselm's baggage was cleared by Worlwast and the Norman TSA, Anselm boarded his ship and headed for the continent.

And he was dying to spill a bunch of tea about Rufus to one of the most powerful men in the West who currently had at least four armies in the field answering to him.

And back in court?

Well,

have you ever known when a co-worker was emailing HR about you, but HR hasn't come to your office yet?

I kind of imagine that's where Rufus was mentally.

And wisdom would counsel caution in this situation.

Hell, you don't even need wisdom.

Even basic common sense would say to the king, okay, Thelma, let's just settle down and take our foot off the gas here.

But this was Rufus, and you can't spell de-escalation without escalation, which is probably what Rufus would have said if he could spell.

which he couldn't, but he did know how to spend, and he also knew how to fight.

And he was going to do both.

And sure, England was skinned from all the spending that Rufus had already done and already taxed to the brink to fund his various adventures and hobbies.

But screw it, he was the king, and his wants were the only ones that mattered.

And he wanted to spend.

Maybe so everyone could see how fancy he was.

Maybe so everyone would be distracted from how he just got racked by the Welsh and was about to get racked by an an old man in a pointy hat.

Maybe both.

Whatever the motivation, a huge construction project was ordered to either replace or repair London Bridge, which had been damaged in a recent flood.

And while he was at it, he tacked on an extension to the White Tower, which presumably had been recently completed.

And in this case, it was a new rampart which would provide a bailey around the tower.

But let's be real here.

The public would be using that bridge, and his soldiers would be using that curtain wall.

And I'm guessing that construction projects that served the Hoi Paloi didn't give Rufus the same kind of satisfaction as the ones that were for him personally.

And now that he thought about it, his palace at Westminster was feeling a bit cramped.

So Rufus ordered a new hall.

And not just any hall.

Oh Oh no.

This project was going to be the most extravagant of his reign and was likely the largest hall in all of Europe at the time.

The interior would be 240 feet by 67 feet and that was just the main hall.

This thing was also going to have accessories.

He ordered additional buildings that would be attached to the main hall because a hall of that size would need space to provide services for all the fancy parties and stuff that would be held there.

So when you think of this hall, it's probably best not to think of it as an addition to the palace at Westminster, and instead, think of it as a whole new palace, in addition to the one he already had at Westminster, and the one that he had in London, the White Tower.

Because I know it has a reputation as a prison, but actually it was a lousy prison, and for good reason.

It wasn't designed to be one.

It was designed to to be a fortress and a palace.

So yeah, Rufus was pretty clearly spending through it, which meant his nerds and other officials would need to figure out where to get that money from.

Because this was happening.

He was going to have palace number three.

But building and taxing, that was all peon stuff.

He didn't need to be directly involved in it.

And so the king began making preparations to return to Normandy, because spending was only one part of what he had in mind.

He also wanted to fight.

And actually, he had intended on crossing the channel at roughly the same time as Anselm, but the weather sucked, and so the king and his boys had to hang around for a bit longer.

And I guess they really, really wanted to fight.

Because according to the chronicle, quote, whilst he was waiting for fair fair weather, his court in the county where they lay did the most harm that ever a court or army could do in a friendly and peaceable land, end quote.

Not sure what the king and his men did, but it sounds like at the very least, they rioted.

And chances are, they pillaged their own kingdom.

before finally setting sail in mid-November.

Now, as you might recall, before Rufus ever even received Normandy, he had been threatening to go to war with Count Hellius of Maine.

So you could reasonably assume that the king was making the crossing in order to make good on that threat.

But you would be wrong.

Actually, he had a different target in mind, the French Vexon.

And to explain why, we're going to have to take a detour through some very French-flavored drama.

And I promise what you're about about to hear is relevant to our story, and I also promise it's very messy.

So if you think back to earlier episodes, the French faxon has been central to a bunch of conflicts for generations.

Do you remember that whole situation with Simon de Creepy and his marriage to Adele, the daughter of William the Conqueror?

And how he was basically forced to enter religious service in order to avoid war?

Well, officially, that was over consanguinity.

But really, it was over control of the French Vexon.

Oh, and do you remember how William the Conqueror was fatally injured while riding his horse around setting stuff on fire during a raid?

Well, that was a raid of, you guessed it, the French Vexon.

Because Bill was still mad about it and felt that those lands should be his.

So not only was this territory the subject of generations of conflict between Normandy and the French crown.

It was also the site where William was mortally wounded by his own saddle, which I find pretty funny.

But Rufus, on the other hand, didn't.

And now that he was the king of England and he was renting the title of Duke of Normandy, he decided he was gonna finish the job that his dad had started.

And here's the odd thing about all of this.

Despite the economic and political disaster back in England, this was actually a pretty good time to make a play for the French Vexon.

Because right now, the region was politically and militarily exposed.

And the reason for that is thanks to none other than King Philip of France and his messy home life.

Now King Philip of France had been married to Bertha of Holland for about 20 years.

They had three kids and had spent about half their lives together.

But in 1092, Philip decided he was over it and over her.

Why?

Well, Malmsbury reports that Philip complained that his wife was just too fat.

Which, if true, means the King of France was body-shaming his wife so hard that even chroniclers in England were hearing about it.

And as if this couldn't get any worse, It's not like Philip was in peak condition himself.

In fact, by this point, the King of France was reportedly too heavy to ride on a horse.

But Bertha couldn't do much about it.

And so she was sent off to her dower lands.

And Philip moved on to the next part of his plan.

Marry Bertrada of Montfort.

Now, personally, I find it pretty telling that Philip just happened to set his eyes on someone who had nearly the same name as his first wife and who was nearly the same age that his first wife had been when they had gotten married 20 years earlier.

And I doubt this escaped his court's notice either.

But we don't hear much about it because they were distracted by a few even larger issues.

First, Philip already had a wife.

So hauling off and marrying someone else is, you know, bigamy.

And the church isn't cool with that.

And I do not like Z's how you say stretch mocks wasn't a valid ground for divorce even in the 11th century.

Second, Bertrada already had a spouse as well.

And it was Count Fulk of Anjou, who was a powerful noble with the nickname the quarreler.

So not a guy you want to cuckhold lightly.

But Philip didn't care, and he just often married Count Fulk's wife.

And as if this couldn't get any worse, there are also allegations that this might have been less of an elopement and more of an abduction.

I don't know if he stole her from a spa,

but it has that kind of vibe.

And we're told that it creeped everyone out.

But also, no one did anything to stop it.

Because apparently, rich people get to do these kinds of things.

A little less than two years later, in 1094, poor Bertha died while still in seclusion.

And that

was great news for Philip, because now he only had one wife.

Though Bertrada still did technically have two husbands, so that charge continued.

But if Philip thought that this would bring an end to his bigamy, abduction, weird creep problems, he was sorely mistaken, because on that same month, Philip was excommunicated by one of the Pope's representatives.

And then, just to make sure everyone knew how creepy they found the King of France, Pope Urban took a break from his crusade roadshow to personally repeat the excommunication in 1095.

So King Philip was in a bad situation.

Politically, maybe spiritually, and actually, the military situation wasn't any better.

The French Vexon was militarily and strategically important to the French crown because it provided a buffer between the crown domains and those bellicose maniacs across the border in Normandy.

And yet King Philip decided to grant that territory to his only son, Louis, who was at the time about 11 years old, which is certainly a choice.

Now, while giving your heir a bit of experience in governing is probably a good idea, it was probably a much better idea to give him literally any other bit of land.

But given his dating behavior, King Philip clearly wasn't risk averse, so here we are.

And the only way I can make any sense out of that decision is that perhaps King Philip figured that his son would be safe because the French Vexon lay so close to Vermandois and Creepy, which were held by the king's younger brother, Hugh the Great.

So, if anything happened to Vexon, Hugh could do another one of those great things that he was known for and sort it out.

That's my best guess.

But if that was the plan, it all fell apart in 1095.

Because on that year, in addition to repeatedly excommunicating King Philip, the Pope also said, 1, 2, 3, 4, I declare a holy war, and Hugh the Great and a bunch of knights and nobles all decided to go on crusade.

And all of a sudden, the French Vexon was left dangerously exposed.

So see?

Messy as hell.

And at the same time, you can see why Rufus was all, well, I'm basically bankrupt, and I've already picked a fight with Hellias of La Flechie, but I'll probably never have a better time to finish up dad's war than now.

And so, he demanded that the King of France hand the territory over to him.

And King Philip said, enon.

Which, according to Orderic, was what Rufus had wanted in the first place.

He tells us that Rufus was so aggressive and bloodthirsty that even if Julius Caesar and his legions were arrayed before him, Rufus wouldn't have hesitated and would have charged straight into battle.

And so the Red King prepared for war.

Meanwhile, Anselm had reached Lyon.

And because Anselm couldn't support himself or his retinue, thanks to the king seizing pretty much everything he owned, Archbishop hugh was providing him with room and board now reaching lyon had taken some time in fact anselm had been traveling for months and he was still in france

which had to have been a bit dispiriting and i get the feeling that anselm was a guy of big emotions and so while his blood was up and he was facing off with the king i'm sure that traveling to rome sounded great i mean that really is an excellent f ⁇ you kind of statement.

But after months of travel, I'm guessing the reality of it all was setting in.

He was exiled, the King of England and acting Duke of Normandy now had a vendetta against him.

It was midwinter, which was just a lousy time to travel, even when you're young and healthy, and Anselm was neither.

And also, Anselm was a rather famous member of the clergy and a supporter of Pope Urban II.

But he wasn't the only pope, and anti-Pope Clement supporters would have also recognized Anselm, and I doubt they would have been fun to run into on the road.

Oh, and thanks to the knights and soldiers of Europe heading out on crusade, bandits were even more of a problem than usual.

Basically, going to Rome was dangerous even at the best of times, and this was not the best of times.

But then again, it wasn't like he was going to back down.

Rufus sucked, and Anselm didn't want anything to do with him.

He just also didn't want to have to follow through with the I'm going to Rome part of his threat.

And so he figured that maybe this meeting could just be an email.

So Anselm decided to do something that Rufus could not.

He wrote a letter.

Now naturally, this thing opens up with an entire symphony of complaints.

But not about Rufus.

At least not at first.

First, Anselm opines about how much it sucks to travel and how he really doesn't want to have to do it anymore.

Then he moves on to how things in England have been really hard and how, if you think about it, none of this was his fault because he never even wanted this job in the first place.

And so his four years in the archbishopric and everything that came out of it, well, none of that was his fault.

Which, I presume, means it's all everyone else's fault.

And then, only after those matters were addressed, did he finally move on to complaining about Rufus and how the king was nicking church lands and giving vacant churches to his followers and doing things like demand the Archbishop provide troops like a lay vassal and pay taxes like a lay vassal.

The point is, Your Holiness, it is absolutely outrageous over there, so please accept my resignation.

I hate it in England, and I hate Rufus even more.

And then, in the guest room of Archbishop Hugh, he waited for a response.

And he better get comfy, because this was the 11th century, and messages traveled slowly.

Not to mention the fact that the Pope was currently involved in a holy war, so Anselm's HR dispute wasn't likely to be high on his priority list.

Meanwhile, Operation Baguette Storm 2 was beginning to take shape, which meant there were logistics and manpower concerns to be handled.

Because Rufus simply couldn't escape the cold, hard reality that his English troops had been absolutely bodied by the Welsh, repeatedly, on at least four separate campaigns.

And that would have resulted in a lack of confidence on the part of Rufus and a lack of limbs on the part of the English.

And all of this could account for why the French abbot, Chuguer, implies that Rufus left most of his English troops, or what was left of them, back in England, and tells us that Rufus chose to rely on hiring continental knights instead.

And how did he hire those knights?

With English money, of course.

And that wasn't the only thing he was spending English money on.

Rufus was also bribing the barons and possibly even even some of the monasteries along the frontier.

The idea here was that with the support of the frontier barons and other influential landholders, they could put pressure on Mons.

And then Rufus could push into the Seine Valley and seize the French Vexon out from underneath Crown Prince Louis.

And reportedly, Rufus had quite the list of commanders who were coming to support him.

We're told that Robert of Boulem, Hugh of Chester, William of Evreux, Walter Giffard, and Rufus' baby brother, Henry, were all captains in his army.

And with that force assembled, he crossed the Epta and made war upon King Philip and his only son, Louis.

There was, however, a problem with this plan.

The local nobility didn't like Rufus, and they sided resolutely with King Philip.

And considering that King Philip was a wife-stealing, double-excommunicated bigamist who was also potentially a kidnapper, that should give you an idea of exactly how unpopular Rufus was in France.

And apparently, no amount of bribery could fix that, which must have stung.

I mean, Rufus wasn't the kind of guy to take being refused in stride, but to lose a popularity contest to Philip?

Ouch.

Even worse, the Red King's attempt to complete his father's war pretty much immediately stalled out.

Meaning that this was threatening to be his third failed conquest in less than a year.

But all wasn't lost yet, because chivalric wars are as much about castles as they are about armies.

And so Rufus pivoted and focused his attention on constructing a fortress at Gizor.

Now this fortress was well positioned and it would allow him to confront Chaumont, but it wasn't just strategically important.

It was also politically sassy, because Rufus was building the fortress on land that Duke Robert Curthose had already granted King Philip nearly a decade earlier.

Which honestly is kind of funny and very much in line with the arrogant, come at me, bro, style that we've come to expect from Rufus.

And uh, it worked because the French did come at him.

In fact, fighting over this construction site is the only armed conflict that Orderic mentions during this campaign.

And it sounds like it got ugly.

Imagine companies of knights riding around, attacking pretty much anyone who wasn't wearing the right colors, making a nuisance of themselves, and generally having a great time.

That's kind of what we're talking about here.

Losses were being taken on both sides during the fighting, but our sources really weren't too too concerned about the losses among the non-nobility, and frankly, neither was the leadership.

They were, however, worried about the high-ranked losses.

And because this was 11th-century chivalric combat, that meant there was a fair amount of kidnapping.

And this time, it wasn't because King Philip was looking for a new bride.

It was because of ransom.

Now, if you're unfamiliar with how this works, basically, if you're of a high enough class, when you find yourself on a losing side of a battle, you can surrender and ask to be ransomed, rather than just being killed or mutilated like us commoners would be.

Now, frankly, I find all this cheeky, since, you know, given their rank, it was probably their orders that led everyone to get captured in the first place.

But here we are.

Anyway, so the knights and nobles were out there having a grand time, kidnapping each other for money and killing commoners.

And the Normans managed to capture a fair number of French aristocrats in the fighting.

But the French, apparently, had not yet acquired fraternité.

And so they were not eager to pay for their comrades' liberté.

And that meant that pretty soon into this campaign, Rufus had a bunch of French prisoners kicking around his camp, probably complaining about the accommodations and generally being annoying.

Now, the Norman forces were also getting captured in the fighting, but Rufus handled it a little differently because he was all about that chivalric life and he had absolutely no interest in keeping a balanced checkbook.

So when his nobles were captured, the king immediately paid their ransoms to retrieve them.

And this might have been good within chivalric culture, but it was awful strategy, since those ransoms provided the French with funds to to continue the fighting.

On top of that, once it became clear that the French were never gonna pay the bill and that the king was instead having to pay to keep these French prisoners fed while also having to devote men to keep them imprisoned, well, he decided it wasn't worth the trouble.

And so he had the nobles swear, maybe pinky swear, that they would never again raise arms against him.

And then he released them.

This imbalance, by the way, where Rufus was paying ransoms, but letting his own prisoners go without getting a ransom in return, was not exactly great for his coffers, nor the economy.

And, as always, England was being told to pay for this nonsense.

The armies, the castles, the lot.

And it was having quite an impact on an already difficult year for them.

Here's what the chronicle says.

Quote, this was, in all things, a very heavy-timed year, and beyond measure laborious from badness of weather, both when men attempted to till the land and afterwards to gather the fruits of their tilleth, and from unjust contributions they never rested.

Many counties also that were confined to London by work were grievously oppressed on account of the wall that they were building about the tower, and the bridge that was nearly all afloat, and the work of the king's hall that they were building at Westminster, And many men perished thereby.

End quote.

Meaning, Rufus wasn't just taxing the English into oblivion on a year where starvation was already a threat due to famine and bad harvests.

He was also mustering them into suicide campaigns for his vanity wars, and he was literally working the English to death through forced labor on his vanity projects.

So that's great.

Then, in February of 1098, with the foundation of Gizors laid down and his campaign for the French Vaixon clearly stuck in the mud, Rufus packed up his army and headed for Maine.

Now, Orderic claims that Rufus didn't want to do this, and that he would have stayed the course were it not for the wicked machinations of Robert of Boulem, who wanted the king's support for his own ambitions against Hellius of La Flechie in Maine.

And so Orderic says that Rufus, pretty much against his will, was dragged towards Maine to deal with this conflict, and he intended just to be an impartial arbiter.

But Orderic is super biased here.

He openly loathed Balem, and fair play, Balem was a pretty loathsome figure.

The guy was famous for being a sadist.

And Orderk also really liked Hellius.

So casting this turn towards Maine as Balem tricking Rufus into getting involved certainly would fit the narrative that he was weaving.

But the truth is more complicated.

First of all, Normandy and Anjou had been struggling over control of Maine for generations.

In fact, you might recall that the conqueror had placed Curt Hose in charge of Maine when he was younger, though that really hadn't gone all that well.

This was a region that had seen revolts, foreign interference, and occasionally the people of Maine even insisted on selecting their own nobility, which the Normans thought was just unseemly.

But the point here is that the Normans, and Rufus in particular, had quite an interest in Maine.

In fact, you might recall that on the very same day that Rufus took command of Normandy, he essentially told Hellias that if the Count left town to go on crusade or even let his guard down for a minute, that he was going to claim Maine for himself.

And that was how Rufus turned a diplomatic meeting into a shouting match, with Hellias saying, oh, I guess I don't need to go east to have a crusade.

I can just have one right here.

And Rufus going, love it.

I'll kick your ass regardless of whether or not you're cosplaying as a crusader, you f ⁇ ing dork.

So the point I'm driving at here is the idea that Rufus was just a disinterested party who didn't have a dog in this fight is nuts.

These two men nearly went to war over Maine on Rufus' very first day on the job.

And actually, the Red King wasn't just mad at Hellias.

He also had a beef with the church in Le Mans, which it considered to be completely insubordinate.

And beyond that, Belem's support was vital for Rufus.

So even if the Red King didn't find Hellias to be a sanctimonious prick, and even if he didn't covet his lands, there was still the fact that he really needed Balem to continue backing him.

Any control over Maine relied upon Belem's alliance.

And if Duke Robert came home from Crusade and wanted to resume his job as Duke,

well, if Rufus wanted to stop that, he would need Balem's support.

Moreover, Hellias had recently built a castle at Danjou, which made Le Mans harder to take and consequently was a threat to Norman ambitions for control of Maine.

And on top of all of that, there were also the interpersonal and cultural elements.

Because for all his faults and his general disinterest in keeping oaths or duties, Rufus did have a sort of chivalric code of honor.

At least for the horsebros he felt deserved it.

And Belem had supported Rufus in his ill-conceived war for the French Vexen and the construction of Gisours.

So he kind of owed Belem.

And finally, chivalric wars are kind of slow and boring.

And Rufus had this army in the field, and his war for the French Vexon wasn't exactly going anywhere.

So, while he was waiting for this war to get interesting, he could just go to Maine and see if there was something more exciting to do over there.

And besides, the threat in Maine was more urgent and likely more winnable than the quagmire that Rufus found himself in at the Vexon.

So this wasn't a matter of Balem scheming to corrupt and mislead an innocent and and easily manipulated Rufus.

This was more that both Balem and Rufus sucked, and they both had reasons to want to go to war with Maine, even though the war in the Vexen wasn't over yet.

And so, the king and a chunk of his forces were on their way to Maine, so they could start yet another war.

Meanwhile, in Lyon, Anselm finally got his response from the

Now unfortunately, we don't have a copy of it, but we can assume that it was something along the lines of, dude, you can't quit your job over text.

Come to my office.

Because in March of 1098, Anselm and his crew reluctantly continued their journey for Rome.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, you can reach me at thebritish historypodcast at gmail.com.

And you can also join us on Reddit.

I feel like that's really the most fun place to hang out these days.

At least our subreddit.

And you can find a link to that and all the other sites in the community section of the British History Podcast.com.

Thanks for listening.