Knut: The Viking Emperor (2026) s01e03 Episode Script

1
NARRATOR: This is a story
of conquest, betrayal and courage.
(battle cry)
The story of a son
of a Viking sovereign
forged in the shadow of battle.
A man destined for nothing,
yet fated to build an empire.
- He was larger than life
in his lifetime,
and as somebody who had wide-ranging
achievements that surprised
even many of his contemporaries.
NARRATOR: The story of a man
who became ruler of three kingdoms.
A Viking who became an emperor.
- He's one of the great
medieval success stories.
What he does, we have no word for.
It's completely new.
NARRATOR:
This is the legend of Knut,
Emperor of the North Sea.
As his men raise their cups
in celebration
(cheering, chanting)
Knut has every reason to rejoice.
In just a few weeks,
he has subdued Wessex,
the political and economic heart
of the kingdom.
He has won over Eadric Streona,
once the chief adviser
of King Aethelred.
And in the north, he has
laid a trap for Earl Uhtred
before entrusting his
lands to his loyal ally,
the Norwegian Erik of Lade.
Now a large part of the kingdom
lies under his control.
And yet the young Dane
does not savour his victory.
One man, still resists him.
A man who has rallied the English
army to his cause
Edmund Ironside,
son of King Aethelred.
- Edmund's sudden success
as a military leader,
throws a real spanner in the works
for Knut.
Nobody knew quite
what to expect of him,
but his nickname Ironside
is very much contemporary,
and he proves himself very quickly
to be a highly capable
military commander
and willing to take the kind of
risks his father was very wary of.
And so this makes what
looks like a fait accompli, perhaps,
an almost inevitable conquest
by Knut,
suddenly come in to question.
NARRATOR: Knut must
put an end to this swiftly
before Edmund grows too powerful.
So he gives the order:
Tomorrow, they break camp.
Their destination, London.
(thunder rumbling)
King Aethelred is now little more
than a shadow of his former self.
At his side stand his son Edmund,
hastily returned from campaign,
and his second wife,
Emma of Normandy,
accompanied by her two younger sons,
Edward and Alfred.
LESTREMAU: Queen Emma stands
beside the dying King Aethelred.
She is determined to see
her own faction prevail
and to promote the cause of Edward.
But as he is only ten years old,
the chances of success are slim.
- I think we can only imagine
the difficulties of the situation
for Emma at this time.
Her position and her
prestige is reliant on being
the widow of King Aethelred,
but her sons by King Aethelred,
or the younger son of the king,
and obviously Edward Ironside's
seniority within the family
is putting him at a greatly
advantageous situation.
NARRATOR: After 37 years
of an inglorious reign,
King Aethelred is no more.
His body is carried to the
Old St Paul's Cathedral,
where he is granted all due honours.
And yet, even in his final moments,
he had fled from battle, leaving
his people alone to face their fate.
- London has been
very loyal to Aethelred.
Aethelred is buried there as the
first English monarch to be buried
in London at Old St Paul's.
But there's no doubt then,
that once Aethelred is gone,
that Edmund is their king.
- They've probably had enough
of inaction that enough of them
are willing to roll the dice
for one last time
in support of a ruler who looks like
they're ready to save the kingdom.
NARRATOR:
Before the assembled nobles,
Edmund seizes the crown
and claims the throne.
The nobility immediately bows,
recognising in this
25-year-old warrior
the qualities needed to succeed
King Aethelred.
Emma understands then that her
future, and that of her children,
has grown darker.
- She's now in a very difficult
scenario,
because her sons
have definitively lost out
in terms of the succession
to Edmund and her worst fears,
in a sense, risk being materialised.
Edmund's on the throne.
He's now married.
He doubtless will soon be having
children who he'll want to line up
for the succession.
NARRATOR: But for Edmund,
the recognition of the London
nobility is only the first step.
To be crowned, he must first
reconquer the entire kingdom.
(crowd cheering)
In the south of England,
Knut has dropped anchor.
A few days earlier,
his informants had brought him news:
Aethelred is dead,
and his son has claimed the throne.
Without hesitation, Knut summons
all the abbots, earls and nobles
of the regions under his control -
the very same men who, two years
earlier, had denied him the crown.
- If you're a leading magnate,
you also don't want to
back the wrong horse.
The results of that
can be catastrophic.
So you are also having
to make a calculation
as to who do I think
is going to win.
And if I think Knut's chances
are notably better,
even if I might prefer Edmund,
I do better to support Knut.
And so it's very likely that some of
the support is highly pragmatic
and it's people who
simply want to survive.
NARRATOR: Now Knut, in his turn,
is recognised as the legitimate king
of the realm.
England, more divided than ever,
has two monarchs.
The young Dane understands
what it means.
From this moment on,
between Edmund and him,
it will be a fight to the death.
NARRATOR: The fleet glides slowly
over the grey waters of the Thames.
In the distance, Knut sees the thick
walls of London take shape.
He has come to confront his rival
on his own ground.
But taking the city
will be no easy task.
For in a century of Viking raids,
London has never been taken.
- At the time, London was
defended by Roman walls
that had been regularly maintained,
and the problem was that the means
available to attack fortified cities
were extremely limited.
- London was as hard a nut to crack.
It is not a place that Knut
is able to very easily take,
even with a substantial
military force.
NARRATOR: From the ramparts,
Edmund watches the hundreds of ships
gathering at the city's gates.
Yet the young king
remains confident.
Across the river stands an obstacle
long considered impassable:
London Bridge.
A massive fortified structure
linking the city to the stronghold
of Southwark on the opposite bank.
- And this means that Danes
going up the Thames past London
are having things thrown or
poured on them as they go past.
I mean, one imagines rocks,
one imagines boiling oil,
whatever there is that could
possibly upset the Danes
going past underneath to
damage their ships or kill the men.
NARRATOR: To surround the city,
Knut has no choice.
He must take the bridge at any cost.
But forcing a passage
would mean devastating losses.
So the young Dane
comes up with a stroke of genius.
If his ships cannot
pass under the bridge,
they will go round it.
- So here is the city,
here is the river,
and here is the bridge.
And they dig on their side,
the southern side.
They dig a trench down here
around the bridgehead where
the bridge meets the land.
And they dig another trench here,
and they dig another trench here.
And as far as an arrow can fly.
And that's where they then
dig the trenches outside.
Because the idea is then
what can the English do
apart from watch this trench go
around them and rejoin the Thames?
And these trenches don't have
to be very deep because
they've got flat bottom boats,
and they've got hundreds of men
sitting around.
NARRATOR: Day and night,
the Danes dig relentlessly.
From Southwark,
English sentries can only look on
as the enemy advances inexorably.
And then, in the course of what,
a couple of days,
200 boats go upstream.
And the English
can't stop them at all.
All they can do is watch from
the other bank and be cross.
It's absolutely pure Knut.
There is minimum effort,
maximum damage to the other guy.
NARRATOR: Knut sets up
his camp on a strip of sand,
safely beyond the reach
of English archers.
- And they sit staring at the city,
making lots of noise,
sharpening weapons, feasting.
But they're sitting there just
reminding the English inhabitants
who are locked inside
their walled city
that this is the army just outside.
The idea is terror.
Terror for this heartland
of Aethelred and Edmund's support,
rather than sort of shimmying
up ladders and waving swords.
NARRATOR: Inside the besieged city,
bread now sells
for its weight in gold,
while the clergy call for prayer.
But no one is under any illusions.
In this duel between Edmund and
Knut, time is working against them.
- If Knut has indeed managed to cut
off supplies to the south of London,
and if he holds part of the walls to
the north and west that still leaves
only very limited opportunities
to enter or leave the city,
inevitably, sending messengers
becomes more difficult,
and food shortages
are likely to arise sooner or later.
- At a place like London would
probably not have more than enough
food stores available to last more
than a few weeks really, at most.
Because London has a population
by this period of more than 10,000.
Plus, there are the defenders
of London, potentially another army,
actually a real army itself,
in addition to the local population.
So it certainly would have
threatened considerable hardship.
NARRATOR: Edmund senses
the trap closing in around him.
If he stays, he risks
losing the initiative.
So, under cover of night,
accompanied by his most loyal men,
he flees the city.
The young king knows he
still has one card left to play:
his reputation as a war leader.
- For Knut, Edmond's
military resistance ends up
being a real thorn in the side,
because Edmonds is
willing to offer battle.
What he's showing is that actually
Knut is not undefeatable,
and that actually there's
potentially a military solution
to these problems.
NARRATOR: With Edmund, a new wave
of hope spreads across England.
From all corners of Wessex,
thousands of men take up arms
and rally under his banner.
After decades of humiliation
and defeat,
England finally begins
to rise again.
NARRATOR: In the Danish camp,
bad news keeps piling up.
For weeks, Knut has been
besieging London in vain,
while boredom spreads
like poison among his army.
- There is a real risk with sieges
that your army becomes stationary,
it loses momentum. It loses focus.
Things like epidemic can
break out much more easily
when you're stationary
as a military force.
So there's all sorts of reasons
why it's actually potentially quite
risky to embark on a lengthy siege
when you have alternative means
of achieving what you wished to get.
NARRATOR: Even worse,
part of Wessex has fallen back
into Edmund's hands.
If he does not want to see
his alliances unravel one by one,
Knut has no choice.
He must lift the siege and
face Edmund once and for all.
NARRATOR: Edmund has won his gamble.
He has gathered the loyal forces
of the south beneath his banner.
He believes this army
can carry him back to victory,
especially now that his scouts
report Knut's army is getting close.
So he deploys his men
along the hillside,
an ideal position
to repel an attack.
- (Edmund rallying his troops)
- Penselwood is a symbolically,
crucially important, political place
within the West Saxon kingdom.
This was the place where Alfred
the Great had gathered his armies
against the Danes
during his victory in 878,
and perhaps Edward Ironside
had hoped to draw on
a little bit of that magic
when he gathered his forces
to fight against Knut in 1016.
NARRATOR: At the head of an army
numbered in the thousands,
Knut advances
toward the English lines.
For the first time, the two kings
face each other on the battlefield.
Each aware that the fate of the
kingdom may be decided here.
- For Edmund and Knut,
England represents everything.
Neither have any other prospects.
Knut's only kingdom and kingship
is going to be in England
at that moment.
No other prospects immediately
in Denmark, as he has discovered.
For Edmund, his entire
dynastic line hinges upon this.
He's seen his father fail
to prevent external conquest.
He's determined to prevent that
repeating itself.
NARRATOR: Edmund rallies his men.
No grand speeches,
only a call to defend their homes,
their families and their land.
- (Edmund rallying his troops)
- The majority of those fighting
are not professional soldiers.
They'll be members of the lower
aristocracy, probably the majority,
and maybe some wealthy peasants.
These are individuals
who are not highly trained.
NARRATOR: The English
defensive line braces itself,
ready to absorb the shock
of the assault.
Though Edmund has
the advantage of ground,
Knut knows his men are
far more battle-hardened.
So he gives the order to attack.
With a roar,
the two armies crash together.
(battle cry)
- It's a straightforward
land army style of fighting
without apparently cavalry support.
It's far more likely to be two giant
blobs hitting each other at speed.
NARRATOR: The Vikings slam into the
English shield wall with full force.
Shield against shield,
axe against sword.
- Combat between Saxons
and Vikings at this time
is very much about the press
of the shield wall.
The idea of large infantry
formations with overlapping shields,
with, one man protecting
his neighbour.
NARRATOR: Knut watches the battle.
Inspired by Edmund's leadership,
the English fight with a ferocity
he has never seen before.
What was meant to be an easy victory
turns into a disaster.
The Viking line breaks and flees,
leaving their dead behind.
- Edmund, despite all predictions, wins.
This isn't meant to happen.
The Danish invading forces are vast.
I think his father died.
He was elevated by that act.
Finally, he can start ordering
people around in a way he couldn't
when his father was alive.
And he's maybe just very good at PR.
NARRATOR: Edmund crosses
the battlefield as a hero.
For the first time in a long while,
England dares to hope again.
- So a comparative victory
at Penselwood in 1016
shows that he is not seen
as the loser.
And military victory at this time
is about being seen as successful.
As long as you'll see as successful,
people are willing to support you,
and evidently Edmund has enough
people supporting him at this time.
NARRATOR: Knut fully grasps
the scale of the disaster.
Many of his men have fallen,
while countless others
tend to their wounds.
He knows that another defeat
could be fatal.
- There must be people around him,
Englishmen around Knut,
who are suddenly thinking,
"Oh, whoops, have I
gone to the wrong side?
What's happening?"
This is a situation in which people
are sort of making their mind up
almost by the day.
And Knut stands a very
serious risk of his forces
draining away from him.
NARRATOR:
But Knut refuses to admit defeat.
Instead, he changes strategy.
From now on, he will
wage a war of attrition -
a slow and calculated
war of pressure and raids.
- He is a true strategist.
He takes no unnecessary risks.
He is, in many ways, representative
of what a Viking truly was.
Not the operatic caricature, but a
man who knows he is outnumbered,
far from home, and must be extremely
cautious before attacking.
Otherwise,
he risks losing both his life
and everything he's come to achieve.
NARRATOR:
Edmund has gathered the finest
of the southern English nobility
around him.
His recent victory
has restored confidence
and brought the wavering lords
back into line.
- Milord.
NARRATOR: Chief among them
is Eadric Streona,
who, after betraying Edmund for
Knut, has once again switched sides.
- (indistinct)
- Why Edmund would have trusted him
is a very good question.
I suspect, frankly, that he didn't.
But Edmund needed support.
This is one of those moments
where people are lining up
behind different backers.
Eadric is one of the most powerful
men in the kingdom.
Edmund cannot say no to him.
He doesn't like him, almost
certainly because he's been part
of different factions in the past.
But Edmund needs every man he can
get if he's going to defeat Knut,
who also has Thorkel on his side.
But I suspect in the long term,
Edmund's plan is to defeat Knut
with Eadric and
then get rid of Eadric.
NARRATOR:
But the Danes remain elusive.
Their ships move along the coasts
of Essex and Kent,
striking wherever they can.
Burning villages.
Slaughtering the inhabitants
and seizing everything of value.
(people wailing)
- Knut is probably nervous
at this point.
I mean, he is dancing around a bit.
He is raiding.
That will certainly help
pay and feed his troops.
So you might suspect that Knut
is biding his time and wondering
what's going to happen next.
NARRATOR:
A deadly game of cat and mouse,
in which Knut always
seems one step ahead.
- This sort of string of battles is
where they focus their attention.
This is the exciting car
chase of the film, as it were,
where they're moving around.
And it is, it is nail biting stuff.
NARRATOR:
A game where every move counts.
A few days before
the battle of Sherston,
Knut quietly succeeds
in winning over
part of the lesser English nobility
who had, until then,
remained loyal to Edmund.
- So, at Sherston,
some deal has been made.
Some almighty great payment
or promise has been made.
It's psychologically devastating
because he's been turned against
by these high ranking Englishmen.
And what's more shocking
than that is almost all of them
that we can trace of these
collaborators, these traitors,
is related to the English
royal family.
This is where the power
drains away from him.
This is where he gets
that sinking sensation
and the sand just
runs through his fingers.
NARRATOR: But at last, fortune
turns in favour of the English king.
His scouts locate
Knut's forces inland,
just a few miles from
the coast near Ashington.
For Edmund,
this is the moment to strike.
As long as the Viking army
is cut off from its ships,
it remains vulnerable.
But above all, a few weeks earlier,
during the battle of Sherston,
Edmund has seen a number
of his soldiers turn against him.
- Medieval battles
are high-risk affairs.
It's not, you know,
for no reason that many commanders
actually avoid open battles.
But if you've got your back
to the wall, as Edmund does,
they're often also high risk,
high gain.
If he wins outright a major victory
against Knut,
that's his best bet for expelling
Knut completely from the kingdom.
NARRATOR:
Knut listens to his commanders.
Among them is the fearsome
Thorkel the Tall,
the veteran warrior
who has pledged himself
to Knut's cause against Edmund.
But can Knut really trust him?
For behind this display of loyalty,
no one has forgotten his
former alliance with Aethelred.
- And being seen to be
a part of the conquest in England,
engaging in battle against Edmund
is very important to him,
because it means that he is showing
his loyalty to his new master,
and he's also then lining himself up
for a share of
the spoils of victory.
- I don't think he's
doing it meekly.
He's showing his worth
and he's saying, you need me.
Look at me. Look how glorious.
What a great war leader I am.
He's out there and he's proud
of his role, as one would expect,
of somebody who's
possibly pushing 50
and has been a warlord all his life.
And Knut is a boy by comparison.
NARRATOR: Knut senses
that what is about to unfold
is no ordinary battle.
He knows his future will be
decided here, in mud and blood.
His thoughts drift back
over the past two years:
his first steps on this land,
in the shadow of his father.
Two broken oaths, two humiliations
he has never forgotten.
But those trials have forged him.
He is no longer merely
the son of the great Sven.
He is Knut the Conqueror.
And for the first time, he knows it:
England will be his.
- Here we are at the final battle.
We know that both
leaders are present.
There is no doubt about that,
and both appear to be organising
their battle formations.
The only certainty
our sources provide
is the violence of the fighting.
It is a battle that lasts
a considerable time,
with both sides fighting with
great determination and courage.
- For the King! For the kingdom!
(battle cry)
NARRATOR: In a surge of bravery,
Edmund charges into
the heart of the melee,
cutting through enemy ranks
like fire through dry grass.
Across the front line,
Knut rallies his men,
urging them to fight
to the very last drop of blood.
- If the Vikings have
an edge at this point,
it could be because
these are all crews of warriors,
row together and sail together,
and act as a body with
a kind of [indistinct].
NARRATOR: In the heart of the melee,
Edmund turns toward his flank.
On the ridge above,
Eadric stands motionless,
staring back at him.
In that instant, Edmund understands.
In a final act of betrayal,
Eadric withdraws
and abandons the king to his fate.
Edmund is stunned.
He realises that victory
is slipping from his grasp.
- Some suggest that Eadric
was already on Knut's side,
but pretended to support Edmund,
and that when the battle begins to
turn in favour of the Anglo-Saxons,
he abandons the field.
Others sources, including
Encomium Emma Reginae,
suggest a withdrawal
even before the battle begins,
based on a straightforward argument:
the Danes are too strong.
If we fight, we'll lose
and die for nothing.
Better to withdraw and negotiate.
NARRATOR: Rather than risk his life,
Edmund chooses
to flee the battlefield,
leaving his great army behind, defeated.
- The flower of the English nobility
was killed.
You get the feeling this is
the battle to end them all.
And this is where Edmund's forces
are in retreat.
And they describe it as a massacre.
This is what the Danes are -
what we would say -
mopping up the English as they flee.
So there's not only
this clash in the sand,
and there's probably also a
chasing of the English forces
and killing them on the hoof
as they're leaving.
NARRATOR: Knut has won the battle,
but at what cost?
Facing an enemy who stubbornly
refuses to bend the knee,
perhaps it is time
to change strategy.
NARRATOR: Knut gazes out
over the waters of the Severn,
a natural frontier between
the lands under his control
and those that still
remain loyal to Edmund.
It is here that Eadric Streona,
more elusive than ever,
has arranged a meeting.
- Edmund has arrived.
NARRATOR: On the bank,
Edmund is already waiting.
- The negotiations take
place at Eadric's initiative.
He appears to have pushed
both sides toward discussion.
Edmund wanted to continue fighting.
Knut could've done so as well,
but did not necessarily
stand to gain from it.
- There seems to be more of a sense
that they fought one another
to a stand still.
Neither can one overpower the other,
and they've realised it
at this point.
NARRATOR: The meeting takes place
on a small island lost
in the middle of the river.
On both sides, armies stand ready,
poised to surge forward
at the slightest signal.
- Obviously,
an island is the best place
to have any form of
negotiation like this,
because both kings are
coming with an army.
Even if they strip that army down,
they're going to come with enough
forces to really have a very
ugly incident, as it were.
NARRATOR: For the first time,
Knut and Edmund face one
another within sword's reach.
Time itself seems
suspended between them.
Knut knows that everything
could still tip either way.
As a gesture of good faith,
he salutes his adversary.
- One of the things about scouting
first is respect for the enemy.
If you respect your enemy, and
even if you slightly fear your enemy
then the fact you've defeated him
glorifies you as well as him.
So one imagines that is also
part of Knut's makeup, as it were.
When he meets Edmund, he
meets him as a fellow warrior
who he's got an enormous amount
of respect for.
NARRATOR: Negotiations begin.
Each man seeks compromise,
without losing face.
Gradually, mistrust fades
and a strange complicity
settles between the two rivals.
- Both saw, I think,
almost a reflection of themselves:
someone young, ambitious,
militarily capable,
and that may well
have fed into, in the end,
a willingness to strike
an agreement.
- The two men divide the kingdom.
Edmund is offered the North.
Knut takes the South, a logical
division in light of his ancestry.
The two men thus become
co-kings of the England,
effectively bringing the war
to an end.
Most of our sources agree
that both armies
are extremely satisfied
with the outcome,
having been severely tested by
a year and a half of campaigning.
NARRATOR: For Knut, this victory
is not the one he had hoped for.
He sought to conquer
an entire kingdom.
Instead,
he must settle for half of it.
But fate has one final,
cruel twist in store.
NARRATOR: A few weeks after
signing a peace treaty with Knut,
Edmund -
young king and tireless warrior -
dies suddenly at the age of 26.
Whether from a sudden illness or the
result of a plot remains uncertain.
- There is, however, a villain
who perfectly fits the archetype:
the ultimate traitor, Eadric.
He is said to have bribed or
persuaded men to kill King Edmund
while he was in the privy -
allegedly striking from below,
either with a hook or a dagger.
- These are conceivable,
if horrible, horrible ways to die,
and also horrible ways to have to
kill somebody if you're an assassin,
climbing up a toilet, it's probably
not the best way to go.
NARRATOR: Edmund's body is
laid to rest at Glastonbury Abbey,
beside his grandfather, King Edgar.
For Knut, Edmund's disappearance
is a blessing.
It's almost too good to be true.
- Edmund's death is one of those
suspicious deaths for which
a conspiratorial interpretation
offers a convenient explanation.
Who benefits from it? Knut does.
By the end of 1016,
he becomes sole king.
Many medieval historians
were inclined to apply
this line of reasoning.
In other words, Knut may
have arranged Edmund's death.
- It's perhaps just most likely that
Edmund Ironside had wounds.
I mean, people often overlook that.
But after the division
of the kingdom,
a few months later, Edmund is dead.
This is exactly what you'd expect
from some nasty gangrenous cuts.
(church bell tolling)
NARRATOR: In St Paul's Church,
the Archbishop of Canterbury
crowns Knut King of England.
From this moment on,
nothing escapes him.
The Dane is ready to assert his
authority and rule without rival.
But conquering a kingdom is
one thing, holding it is another.
NARRATOR: Aethelred
and Edmund are dead,
yet for Knut,
one final threat remains.
He must silence those who, one day,
might challenge the legitimacy
of his reign,
beginning with Edmund's
two young sons.
LESTREMAU:
They are heirs presumptive -
sons of a king, entirely
legitimate claimants to power,
provided they come of age.
- Any of those English athelings
are a potential rallying point
for some of the noblemen.
And there's always a possibility
that, you know,
as those young men get older,
that they could become a flashpoint
for a rebellion against Knut.
NARRATOR: Faced with the children,
Knut hesitates.
Eliminating them would be tempting,
but politically dangerous.
- It seemed to me too controversial
to kill an atheling,
to kill somebody who might
inherit the throne one day.
In Scandinavia, I'm certain it would
have been done in ten minutes,
but he sends them out to Sweden,
whether they're meant to be murdered
there or just forgotten,
they continue to survive.
NARRATOR: But the most serious
threat does not come from England;
it comes from the Continent.
Edward and Alfred,
the sons of Aethelred and Emma,
have found refuge
with their uncle Richard II,
the powerful Duke of Normandy.
And Knut has no way
of reaching them.
Worse still, Edward,
only 14 years old,
could one day lay claim
to the throne of England.
- The Normans are very power hungry,
extremely ambitious,
very power hungry, and they have now
got sitting in that court, in exile,
these heirs which give them
a method of ruling England.
Knut is worried that the Norman
Conquest is going to happen in 1016,
not 1066.
He's worried that they're
going to try and sweep in
and take control of some
part of England for the wealth,
and they're going to use
one of these little boys
as an excuse for doing it.
NARRATOR:
The Norman threat cannot be ignored.
So Knut devises a plan -
one whose cornerstone is none other
than the widow of his former enemy:
Emma of Normandy.
- There's a lot of good reasons for
him to marry Emma of Normandy.
She's the English queen.
But she also represents
an alliance with Normandy.
And that also means that the
Duke of Normandy, Richard II,
is much less likely
to support his nephews
as a flashpoint for
rebellion against Knut.
- Once you've married Emma,
she's now not just part of
Aethelred's establishment,
she's part of Knut's establishment.
And they will not move against
a powerful member
of their own dynasty.
NARRATOR: The plan seems perfect,
with one complication:
persuading Emma to marry the man
responsible for her downfall.
- The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says
that Knut fetched Emma, to be wed.
Of course, if we read the word
fetched, it kind of indicates
that Knut has some kind
of power in this situation.
And quite possibly,
she does have no choice.
- But Emma tells her own story.
She tells that Knut sends
men to woo her to persuade her
to become his queen,
so she tells it
as kind of a love story.
He has everything, and now he
needs the perfect imperial spouse.
NARRATOR: For Emma,
the temptation is immense.
To accept, would be to
regain her status as queen.
But it would also mean
abandoning her two sons in exile.
- She quickly decides as part
of that marriage negotiation,
that's what's most important to her,
is not supporting Edward and Alfred,
but having a son with Knut
and seeing that son on the throne.
- It is a poisoned chalice for her,
in a sense,
because up to this point,
she's worked so tirelessly
to try to secure the succession
of her two sons with Aethelred,
and she has to decide what she loses
and how best to maintain
her power and influence,
and she ultimately opts for her
own prospects over those of her sons
and her sons never forgive her.
NARRATOR: Before marrying Emma,
Knut must settle one final matter:
to inform his first wife,
Aelfgifu of Northampton,
married according to
Scandinavian custom,
that she will never
be queen of England.
- He must have just sat
down with her and said:
"Look, I'm terribly sorry, darling.
You know, I'll give you
X amount a year.
Keep the children,
but you and me are done,
because I got to get married again."
And he hasn't broken any
religious or social or moral code
by setting aside Aelfgifu,
all that happened is life changed,
the world changed.
She became irrelevant.
And that marriage in that union
became irrelevant.
And so he can set her off and say:
"Emma, come here.
Now we're going to be married".
(bells tolling)
NARRATOR: Knut and Emma
pass through the doors of St Paul's.
Ironically, it is here that
Aethelred lies buried,
an impotent witness to his widow's
remarriage to his greatest enemy.
This is, above all,
a political union.
Emma regains her influence
while Knut secures a partner
who knows the English court
intimately.
(priest speaking Latin)
- Emma has been married to
an English king for a long time.
She knows how it works.
She knows what to do.
She knows which way to hold
a knife and fork, as it were.
- And she understands what it
was like to come in as an outsider
into the English political system.
So she has that experience
to pass on to Knut,
and they seem to work
very closely together.
- So they end up becoming
this real power couple, if you will,
of the 1020s, 1030s
who dominate English and
Northern European politics.
- (breathing heavily)
NARRATOR: A few months later,
Emma gives birth to a son
(newborn wails)
Harthacnut.
The child becomes the first
cornerstone of a dynasty
Knut hopes to place at the head of
the kingdom for centuries to come.
NARRATOR: Knut spends
most of his time in Winchester,
the capital of Wessex.
The city houses the royal treasury,
the archives,
the mint,
as well as the most
powerful monasteries
and religious institutions
of the realm:
churchmen whom the young king
must win to his cause.
- Welcome!
NARRATOR: For a Christian England,
no power can endure
without the support of the clergy.
And from among them, Knut
chooses his eminence Wulfstan,
the austere and formidable
Archbishop of York.
- For Knut, Wulfstan is the key
player, alongside Emma,
in solidifying his control
of the regime
and remodelling himself
in the traditions,
local traditions of monarchy.
- It seems quite clear that Knut
follows Wulfstan's advice almost
to the letter in order to
become a king of the English,
indeed, a better king
than the English themselves.
He integrates himself immediately
into the kingdom.
He writes in Old English,
he communicates in Old English.
He adopts all the titles and
regalia, and appears to have
been more popular than many
of the previous English kings,
particularly because of his policies
notably his extraordinary generosity
toward the Church
and the monasteries.
NARRATOR: With Wulfstan at his side,
Knut begins to learn the subtleties
of the English court.
And gradually exchanges his Viking
garb for that of an English king.
- (inaudible speech)
NARRATOR: Yet behind appearances,
the young Dane has not forgotten
where he comes from,
or to whom he owes his victory.
These allies he must now reward.
East Anglia in the east is
granted to Thorkel the Tall.
Northumbria in the north
is entrusted to Erik of Lade.
Mercia in the west
remains in the hands
of the notorious Eadric Streona.
For himself, Knut keeps Wessex,
the historic heart of power.
- He cannot rule
simply through terror,
so he needs to bring
some of the English onside.
At the same time,
he needs to reward some of his
Scandinavian men with them.
And with these two imperatives
are somewhat at odds,
because if he does too much of one,
it threatens the other.
- Then Knut is waiting for
people to step out of line,
and as they step out of line,
he gets rid of them
and then he sprinkles in
Scandinavians who are loyal to him.
That's how you do it.
You do it carefully, slowly,
trying to keep as much of the
existing machine as possible.
But putting your guys,
putting your Scandinavians
into just the right place
so that they have control.
NARRATOR:
Eadric Streona has every reason
to believe himself untouchable.
He survived the deaths of Aethelred
and Edmund alike,
shifting loyalties time and again
to stand with the stronger side.
And now he wants more
from the young Dane
he helped place upon the throne.
- England is yours. I have done
NARRATOR: Without him,
perhaps Edmund
would still be sitting there.
- Eadric is said to have
killed Edmund Ironside,
then demanded his reward.
Knut is supposed to have replied:
"Ah, you have taken the head
of my sworn brother?
Very well. I shall give you what
I owe you, the loss of your own."
And Erik strikes him with an axe,
settling the matter.
Here, we are dealing with a Knut
who may appear extremely calculating
politically,
but also with a ruler who
understands the cost of betrayal.
Betrayal may happen.
But when it happens repeatedly, it
proves that a man cannot be trusted.
Knut's reasoning is,
in a way, defensible:
if someone was unable to remain
loyal to his rightful king,
why should he now
be considered reliable?
NARRATOR: Eadric's
head is mounted on a spike
MAN:
Hey! Cease this foolishness at once!
NARRATOR: and displayed for all
to see on Tower Hill outside London.
A dishonourable fate
reserved for traitors.
- Later Anglo-Norman chroniclers
tell a story that this was done
very justly by the Tower of London,
essentially,
what becomes a later
royal execution site.
This is an indication that Knut is
willing to act in a ruthless fashion
when the circumstances suits.
NARRATOR: In barely two years,
Knut has pacified England.
He has ended the Viking raids
- (cheering)
NARRATOR: rewarded his allies
and eliminated his enemies.
But in a world where
nothing is ever secure,
where power rests
upon fragile balances,
the winds are about to change.
And already, across the North Sea,
a new challenger is already rising,
still little known,
but destined to become one of
the greatest threats to his reign.