553. The Last Viking: Warrior of the New Rome (Part 2)

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Rest Is History, Episode 553 - "The Last Viking: Warrior of the New Rome (Part 2)"

Release Date: April 2, 2025

In the second installment of "The Last Viking: Warrior of the New Rome," hosts Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland delve deeper into the tumultuous life of Harald Hardrada, exploring his transformation from a fledgling mercenary in Constantinople’s Varangian Guard to a formidable king in Norway. This episode masterfully intertwines historical facts with the legendary embellishments found in the Icelandic sagas, offering listeners a rich and engaging narrative.

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Harald’s Early Campaigns and the Varangian Guard

The episode picks up from where the last one left off, with Harald Hardrada enlisting in the Varangian Guard in 1035. The hosts discuss the geopolitical climate of the Byzantine Empire, highlighting the fragmentation of the Abbasid Caliphate and the ensuing chaos in the Middle East. Harald’s initial campaigns against Arab corsairs in the Aegean Sea and later against the Bulgars in Armenia are examined, with Dominic noting the challenges the Varangians faced in siege warfare—a stark contrast to their usual raiding endeavors.

Notable Quote:

Dominic Sandbrook [02:26]: “Now, no sooner has he enlisted, Tom, the news reaches the imperial city that Arab corsairs have sailed into the Aegean...”

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The Intersection of Sagas and Byzantine Sources

Dominic emphasizes the difficulties historians face when reconciling the fantastical elements of the Icelandic sagas with contemporary Byzantine accounts. While the sagas provide a vivid picture of Harald’s exploits, they often contain exaggerated or mythical components, such as the portrayal of Varangians as towering warriors with near-mythical prowess.

Notable Quote:

Dominic Sandbrook [05:30]: “Maniarches. I’m gonna read to the description by the monk and courtier Michael Psellus...”

Tom humorously critiques the sagas’ depiction of Varangians, likening them to figures from J.R.R. Tolkien’s works, which underscores the blend of history and legend.

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Adventures in Constantinople: Legends and Realities

The hosts transition to Harald’s significant expedition to Jerusalem, where he participates in the rebuilding of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. This mission not only holds religious significance but also has broader implications for Christian unity and the impending Crusades. Harald’s generosity, as depicted in the sagas, is contrasted with historical pragmatism, raising questions about the accuracy of these accounts.

Dominic introduces legendary tales from the sagas, including:

1. Bird Action: Harald using burning sulfur-tipped birds to set enemy rooftops ablaze—a tactic also attributed to historical figures like Saint Olga of Kyiv.

   Notable Quote:

   Dominic Sandbrook [10:34]: “Anyone could argue...”

2. Tunnel Drama: A daring escape through a tunnel during a siege, reminiscent of fantastical narratives found in "Game of Thrones."

3. The Coffin Ploy: Harald faking his death to infiltrate and devastate enemy defenses from within, a story that blends historical strategy with legendary flair.

Tom connects these saga tales to broader literary traditions, noting their similarities to other historical and fictional accounts of cunning military maneuvers.

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Political Intrigue and Turmoil in Constantinople

The narrative shifts to the internal politics of Constantinople, focusing on Emperor Michael IV’s deteriorating health and the ensuing power struggle orchestrated by his eunuch, John. The episode highlights the precariousness of Harald’s position within the Varangian Guard amidst court conspiracies and shifting loyalties.

Notable Quote:

Dominic Sandbrook [16:08]: “They're shaking the gates of brass, making walls totter...”

As Michael IV succumbs to edema dropsy, the adoption of Michael V and the subsequent coup attempt reveal the volatile nature of Byzantine politics. Harald’s loyalty is tested as riots erupt, leading to violent confrontations and Harald’s eventual escape following brutal reprisals against Emperor Michael V.

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Saga Narratives vs. Historical Evidence

Dominic candidly discusses the challenges of distinguishing between saga embellishments and historical facts. While the sagas provide a dramatic and engaging storyline, they often include mythical elements like giant snakes guarding dungeons or divine interventions that lack corroboration from Byzantine sources.

Notable Quote:

Dominic Sandbrook [33:34]: “...the eye gouging. There's a bit of a Flashman quality, isn't it, to Harald Hardrada's life slightly.”

The hosts debate the plausibility of these legends, ultimately acknowledging that while some events may have a basis in truth, others likely serve to mythologize Harald’s legacy.

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Harald’s Return to Norway and Ascension to Power

After his tumultuous tenure in Constantinople, Harald returns to Norway around 1043, armed with wealth amassed during his campaigns. The discussion covers his strategic marriage to Elisif, daughter of Yaroslav the Wise of Kyiv, which consolidates his power and wealth. However, rivalries within Scandinavia, particularly with Magnus the Good of Norway and Svein of Denmark, present significant challenges to Harald’s ambitions.

Notable Quote:

Dominic Sandbrook [45:27]: “...it makes complete sense that Yaroslav would be very keen to marry him to his daughter.”

The meeting between Harald and Magnus is dramatized, illustrating the tension over the division of wealth and power. The saga’s portrayal of Harald as a shrewd but perhaps overly ambitious leader is contrasted with Magnus’s diplomatic and politically astute nature.

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Final Reflections on Harald’s Legacy

The episode concludes with reflections on Harald’s reign as King of Norway. Despite his military prowess and the wealth he accumulated, Harald’s efforts to centralize and modernize Norway faced resistance from local landowners, leading to prolonged conflicts and eventual tax revolts. His legacy is painted as one of both glory and relentless ambition, setting the stage for the seismic events of 1066.

Notable Quote:

Dominic Sandbrook [59:23]: “...that is the origin of the nickname Hardrada, which at school I can remember being told it was hard ruler.”

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Looking Ahead: The Climactic Year of 1066

As the episode wraps up, Dominic and Tom tease the next installment, which will cover the pivotal events of 1066—the death of Edward the Confessor, Harold Godwinson’s accession to the English throne, Harald’s invasion of England, and the monumental Battle of Hastings. The anticipation builds for a grand culmination of Harald’s saga, blending historical analysis with the legendary tales that surround his life.

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Notable Quotes from the Episode

1. Harald’s Valor and Prowess:

   Tom Holland [01:44]: “It was an even better writer, yeah.”

2. Saga Enthusiasm:

   Dominic Sandbrook [10:34]: “Harold gets the Varangians to collect birds. They fix bits of burning sulfur to their feet and send them out over the town.”

3. Humorous Exchanges:

   Tom Holland [28:17]: “I hope the opportunity doesn't come about for me to hold you to that.”

4. Dramatic Scene Description:

   Dominic Sandbrook [25:08]: “The flames licked the stones, crackling embers shot from the soot, and columns of smoke rose vertically from the tumbling houses.”

5. Reflections on Harald’s Rule:

   Dominic Sandbrook [55:28]: “He is a man who, you want to know, here's a celebrity, here's a man who will have no problem raising recruits because to serve as awesome as that as well.”

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Conclusion

Episode 553 of "The Rest Is History" offers a captivating exploration of Harald Hardrada’s intricate journey through medieval power struggles, legendary battles, and political maneuvers. Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland adeptly balance historical scrutiny with an appreciation for the rich tapestry of saga literature, providing listeners with a nuanced understanding of one of history’s most storied Vikings. As they prepare for the climactic events of 1066, the episode leaves audiences eagerly anticipating the next chapter in Harald’s legendary saga.

Transcript

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Thank you for listening to the Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes ad free listening, early access to series and membership of our much loved chat community, go to thereestishory.com and join the club that is thereestishistory.com.

[Tom Holland]

Long had the snake lived in the dungeon, coiled in the black and filthy water, bloated from feasting on the Empress's prisoners. It was a colossal, greedy, pitiless thing. A creature of nightmares. Already it had sensed their presence, and even now it was rising for the kill. Its cruel head loomed from the shadows.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

It.

[Tom Holland]

Its yellow eyes glittered with hatred. Its fangs glistened with beads of poison. Its forked tongue flickered with pleasure. Harold moved fast, groping among the corpses, scrabbling through the filth. His fingers found a broken piece of wood, but the monster was faster. Suddenly it was on him, its horrible coils winding around his chest, pulling him down towards the water, squeezing the very last breaths from his lungs. So that was JRR Tolkien in his brilliant book Adventures in Time, Fury of the Vikings, chapter entitled the Return of the King. And obviously, Dominique wasn't really JRR Tolkien, was it? It was you.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

It was an even better writer. It was an even better writer, yeah.

[Tom Holland]

And you are describing there one of the countless thrilling scenes in the epic life of Harald Hardrada, fugitive from Norway, mercenary, captain for the Grand Prince of Kyiv. And now he has come to the golden city of Caesar, Constantinople, and he is a recruit in the Varangian Guard. And we will be finding out how giant serpents feature in the story later on. But for now, we are in 1035 and what is going on?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

So we left Harold the last episode at the point in which he has just enlisted in the Varangian Guard, this kind of special forces unit of largely Scandinavian mercenaries.

[Tom Holland]

Very baggy trousers with.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

With great silk trousers. Exactly. Now, no sooner has he enlisted, Tom, the news reaches the imperial city that Arab corsairs have sailed into the Aegean, raiding the towns of the Greek islands and carrying the men, women and children off into slavery. And so, for Harald Hardrada, the adventure begins. Brilliant. Very exciting. So actually, he's now going to be on campaign for the next six or seven years. Can't be sure exactly how long, but let's say roughly six or seven years. As that Adventures in Time book, which I recommend to our listeners describes. His life is a blur of action. Racing into battle on the deck of a war galley, storming ashore on an island at dawn, scaling the walls of an enemy castle, dealing out death with a sweep of his sword. Now Actually, the truth is we're getting most of this from the Icelandic sagas, which, as we said last time, were written down at least 200 years later by people living in a different world.

[Tom Holland]

I mean, living in Iceland, I couldn't really be further away from Constantinople and still be in Europe.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

That's right. And they're also much more obviously Christian, and they are doing an awful lot of projection. There's a lot of fictionalization and there is a lot of use of literary formulae, which means it is very difficult for us to be. To be certain, to have any degree of certainty about what he did. However, we have what people at the time would have called Roman sources, what we would call Byzantine sources. They give a sense of the kind of campaigns the empire was fighting. So we can sketch out a very tentative narrative. I think we do know that they did fight pirates in the spring of 1035. So Snorri Sturlason's saga, King Harald's saga, which is part of the cycle called Heimdall Kringler, that tallies with the account of a Greek chronicler called John Scylitzes, who talks about ships from North Africa attacking the Cyclades. So there probably was a bit of action in the Aegean. And then probably later that summer, 1035, the Varangians are sent to the far eastern borderlands of the empire. So Armenia, where the Imperial army is besieging a city called Berkery on the shores of Lake Van. Now, this is a world that is very kind of fragmented and confusing because the Abbasid caliphate is largely broken up, and there's all kinds of rival emirates across the Middle east, kind of Arab, Turkic, Kurdish and so on. So it's sort of all very confusing. The Roman army is besieging this city. Their Vikings normally hate sieges. They're no good at them. They don't really enjoy them because they don't obviously have many towns and castles in Scandinavia. So sieges aren't really their thing. But this one goes very well. And the sagas say, oh, that's Harold. Harold's just a brilliant man and he's responsible. But in reality, the overall commander, who plays a bit of a part in Harold's story, was a Greek general called George Maniarkes. He was another giant like Harald Hardrada. So Harald Hardrada, I think we established in the last episode, was he seven and a half feet tall?

[Tom Holland]

Seven and a half feet, yes.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Maniarches. I'm gonna read to the description by the monk and courtier Michael Psellus. Michael Seller said Maniarchis was a wrathful man, fully nine feet tall and possessed of a violent temper. A fiery whirlwind with a voice of thunder and hand strong enough to make walls totter and shake gates of brass. He had the quick movement of a lion and the scowl on his face was terrible to behold.

[Tom Holland]

But Michael Sellers says that all, basically all Varangians are, I mean, at least 9, 10ft tall.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, sometimes you just have to trust the sources, don't you? You do. An air of skepticism could carry skepticism too far.

[Tom Holland]

Well, there's kind of hint of Samson there, I think in his description.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

They're shaking the gates of brass, making walls totter. Exactly. So many arches. And Harold didn't get on at all. And the sagas say the Varangians demanded the Harold be put in command. Said this Maniarches has got to go. But actually Maniarchis had Harold recalled to Constantinople. But that worked out well for him because if this story is even remotely accurate, he then got sent on a very exciting expedition. So we do know that the Emperor had concluded a deal with the Fatimids in Egypt to rebuild the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, which had been semi destroyed by a mad caliph in 1009.

[Tom Holland]

So Al Hakim, who features in my thrilling vampire novel, the Sleeper in the Sands.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Really?

[Tom Holland]

Yeah.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Is he a vampire?

[Tom Holland]

No, Al Hakim isn't.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

But vampires are present?

[Tom Holland]

Vampires are definitely present. But also, Dominic, just to say that the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which had been built by Constantine and was pretty, you know, I mean it's, it's the great focus of Christian devotion. It has a massive impact not just on Byzantium, but on Latin Christendom. And the news of it going back to Latin Christendom stirs up all kinds of millennial anxieties. So it's part of this kind of swirl of apocalyptic dread that in the long run will feed into the first crus. So Urban ii, when he does his great sermon kind of summoning the first Crusade, he makes mention of exactly this, the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. And it may not surprise Jewish listeners to discover who a lot of Christians in West in Latin Christendom blamed for this. And it wasn't Al Hakim.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Oh really? So does this give rise to lots of pogroms and stuff?

[Tom Holland]

It gives rise to one of the first kind of big outbreaks of anti Semitic violence in Latin Christendom. Yeah, so it really reverberates.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Right. So anyway, the, the Emperor has concluded this deal to go and rebuild it, and he sends a team of architects and carpenters and stuff and bishops and monks and Roman bigwigs who want to go and see the church. And a Varangian escort was sent with them. And the sagas say Harald was one of them. Jerusalem is a bit of a building site. When they get there, if he does genuinely go. It had been very badly smashed up by this mad caliph and by the fatimids generally. But there'd also been a series of earthquakes in the 1030s, so if they got there, a lot of the stuff was in ruins. The sagas say that Harald is there as part of this escort and he, and I quote, generously gave donations so much gold that no one knows the amount. The sagas also say he'd left all his gold in Constantinople before he left. So those things can't both be true. And given that he's saving all this money. Yeah.

[Tom Holland]

In his saver account, I think it's.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Highly unlikely that he traveled with enormous quantities of gold. Snorri Sturluson in King Harald's saga, says Harald went to the Jordan and bathed in the water in the manner of all pilgrims.

[Tom Holland]

Might be true, mightn't it?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, there's absolutely no reason to believe that wouldn't be true. That's exactly what he would do. But his longest posting, so probably after this, was to Sicily, and this seems to have been from about 1038 to 1041. And Sicily, of course, as you will know, Tom, is the, you know, one of the great strategic prizes in the Mediterranean. And we did the series about Carthage versus Rome. Remember you were taking it through all the battles there. I mean, basically, that hasn't changed at all. Sicily is very fertile, it's very rich, it's perfectly placed. It's been under Islamic rule for what, 140 years? Something like that. The Kalbid emirs, who are based in Palermo, and they're the people who introduced oranges, lemons, sugar, silk and all sorts of exciting irrigation systems.

[Tom Holland]

Do love an irrigation system. On the rest is history, do we not?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Oh, I love it, I love it. Can't get it. I mean, history is basically the story of irrigation systems, isn't it?

[Tom Holland]

A very real sense. Yes.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yes. So the Roman army landed probably about 10,000 troops under George Maniarchi's 9ft tall. Must have been very displeased to see Howard hard. Yeah, I know. Now this is where the sagas really get stuck in. They have some great fun with all this. So to give you a sense of the sort of stories they tell. We've got bird action. So Harold gets the Varangians to collect birds. They fix bits of burning sulfur to their feet and send them out over the town. You know, they land on all the thatched roofs. The grace of inflame. The. The slight. The slight drawback with this story is that it's been told about every commander in history.

[Tom Holland]

Well, but more specifically, Dominic, it's been told about Saint Olga of Kyiv of Kyiv, who's the grandmother of Vladimir, and she was the very first Kievan ruler to be baptized.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Right.

[Tom Holland]

And she played exactly that trick, didn't she? On, I think it was the Drevlians.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

It was. It was the Drevlians.

[Tom Holland]

So I think you can see a certain influence there. I would say.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Well, hold on. You could say, therefore the story is clearly made up. This is just the Ogre of Kiev story. Or you could say he's been influenced because he's been in Kiev and he's picked up these important military techniques involving birds.

[Tom Holland]

You could say that.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Then there's tunnel drama. So this is outside a town near Mount Etna. And the sagas, which always paint Maniacis with his nine feet of flesh as an absolute fool. He says, oh, this. We can never take this town. And Harold says, no, if you allow me the loot when I get in, I shall show you. And he and the Varangians dig a tunnel all the way from a nearby ravine. They. They burst out of the tunnel into the great hall of the defenders while they're having a feast. Who would have thought it? Yeah, slaughter them all. Throw open the gates. There was good killing that day. And my favorite one is the coffin ploy.

[Tom Holland]

Oh, this is brilliant. This is the Syracuse one.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

This is in Syracuse. So they can't take this town. The Romans don't know how to take this town. He says, I got a brilliant wheeze. They spread the word. Harold is very seriously ill. Then the word spreads. He's dead. And the Varangians send messengers into the city where there are Christian churches as well as mosques, and they say, look, we'd love to give Commander a church funeral. I know we've been besieging you, but would it be okay if we came in? And the local churchmen, very kindly people say, oh, yes, okay, as long as you. You can only bring 12 men in to bury this guy. But, Tom, it astounds you to know this is all a cunning trick. And actually, Harold. Harold is not dead. He's one of the 12 pallbearers and they're all slightly implausibly, wearing armor and carrying swords under their silk mourning clothes.

[Tom Holland]

And they're all 12 foot.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah. So at this point, actually, his. His great friends in the Varangians, they're also part of the pallbearers. And these are two splendid men called Ulf and Haldor. They're both from Iceland. They are described as men of exceeding strength and superb warriors. And the amazing thing is, the three of them map perfectly onto Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli from the Lord of the Rings. So Ulf are told. A man of great understanding, clever in conversation, active and brave and with all true and sincere. So he's clearly Legolas. Whereas Haldor, very stout and strong. He was not a man of many words, but short in conversation, told his opinion bluntly and was obstinate and hard. So he's Gimli.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, he's a dwarf. So, Dominic. So they're both from Iceland.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah.

[Tom Holland]

Do you think that this makes the story less or more plausible? So, in other words, is Norris Dellison kind of making it up and making them be Iceland because he's an Icelander, or is it preserving authentic memories handed down by the. The people of Iceland?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

There's no doubt in my mind that this is preserving authentic memories. Good. That have never been embellished. Good. And scrupulously accurate.

[Tom Holland]

So the story that follows is true.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

They get inside the gatehouse with this coffin and then apparently they drop the coffin, they blow a trumpet. The coffin blocks the gate so then the rest of the army can pile in after them. There's incredibly fierce fighting. All three of them are wounded. Harald's standard bearer is killed. And Harald says to Haldor, pick up the standard. Pick up the standard. But Haldor is fighting off a dozen men at that point, and he says to his to Harold, let the devil carry the standard for you, you coward. And Harold. Do you want to do Harold's laugh?

[Tom Holland]

He gives a great belly laugh, doesn't he?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

He does. You are talkative today, Halder, but fearless all the same.

[Tom Holland]

And then he smacks off another head with his axe.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

This is exactly what happened.

[Tom Holland]

I'm afraid I might have broken the microphone with that mighty laugh.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, I think you've broken the sound barrier with that laugh. So now the sagas say that as a result of all these wheezes, they managed to take Sicily. And people can gauge the accuracy of the sarcasm by the fact that in fact, they don't. Sicily was never taken and the Romans ended up with just a pitiful foothold in the northeast. And actually Sicily didn't, here's the irony, Sicily didn't fall till the end of the century and it fell to the.

[Tom Holland]

Normans because it does fall to people of Scandinavian descent.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah. But not these guys.

[Tom Holland]

So we've, we've been, we've been talking about this in our previous series about the Normans, who adventurers who've been going to the south of Italy at the beginning of the 11th century and building their castles there, employing their armor, their horses in the way kind of predatory manner. And they start looking at Sicily and amazingly they launch an invasion. And there is another famous bird related story in this. So in 1066, Roger de Hauteville the Great, who will become the ruler of Sicily, he defeats a Muslim army and the Muslims have brought along carrier pigeons. And Roger takes these carrier pigeons and he orders the paper that they'd been carrying to be dipped in the blood of the Muslim dead, given to the back to the carrier pigeons who then fly back to Palermo with news of, of the great Muslim defeat. And the Normans then capture Palermo. Wow. So there's a lot of bird related action in this episode.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

People of Scandinavian descent interfering with birds for military purposes.

[Tom Holland]

Yes, it's the theme.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

So they don't take Sicily. But everyone says the Harold has done brilliantly. And when he gets back to Constantinople, he is, we are told, promoted to an elite bodyguard of the Emperor Mangalvites as it's called. And he has a special golden sword. And then the Emperor Michael iv, who you may remember from the previous episode was the Empress Zoe's toy boy, who has basically strangled his predecessor to become emperor. He's going off to fight the Bulgars in 1040. And we know, we really do know that he takes Harald Hardrada with him because serving alongside them was a soldier called Kakaumanos who later wrote a military manual. And in this manual he wrote Araltes campaigned with the emperor and performed great deeds of valor against the enemy, as was fitting for one of his noble race and personal ability, Eraltes Harold.

[Tom Holland]

And it's fascinating because that suggests that there are people in Constantinople now who are aware of Harald's noble descent.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

So though I think they see the manual is probably written after he's become king. So after he has spoiler alert after he's returned to Norway. Anyway, they, they smashed the Bulgars, they captured the Bulgar king, they cut off his nose, they gouged out his eyes, they led him back in chains to Constantinople and Kikomanos says the emperor rewarded Eraltes for his valor and gave him the title of Spatharochandedatos, which is a court rank, not a military one. So a kind of a rank at court, very prestigious for any foreigner, let alone a barbarian from the wilds of the north. So he now gets an even fancier sword and he gets a special golden torque called the Maniacion, which he gets to wear.

[Tom Holland]

It's a bit like the, the Ottomans giving Nelson that massive great jewel.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah. And Harold's only 25 at this point, so he's clearly made a name for himself and he's done extremely well and it's all very exciting. But now this is where the sort of Game of Thrones side replaces the Lord of the Rings. So the emperor Michael, he's Michael iv, he's called Michael the Paflagonian, he's from the Black Sea coast of Anatolia. And he, his brother John, who was the eunuch kind of Lord Chamberlain, had got him a job at the court.

[Tom Holland]

He's got all his brothers a job, hasn't he? And basically all his cousins and stuff. So there's one called Anthony the Fat, he becomes the Bishop of Nicomedia thanks to John's string pulling. And John is essentially the kind of prime minister, isn't he?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

He is, he's Littlefinger. His Littlefinger or Varys, he's a eunuch. So his lord Varys. Varys, yeah, from Game of Thrones. So this guy Michael, he had seduced Zoe, he'd possibly murdered her husband in his bath. He's now been emperor for six years, he's in his late 20s. Michael Sellis says he was as fresh as a blossom, bright eyed and apple cheeked.

[Tom Holland]

Nice.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

So that's nice. Unfortunately, Michael's good looks are starting to curdle because he's always suffered from epilepsy and it's getting much worse. And when he has fits, this is hidden from visitors to the court behind a series of elaborate curtains which can be deployed at any moment. But he's now suffering from edema dropsy, which means that his body is being grotesquely swollen with fluid. And by late 1041, it's pretty obvious that he's dying of this. There's no cure, they don't know what to do. Although I suppose they could try and drain him, but that doesn't work. Now John the eunuch says to him, look, you're gonna have to name a successor and ideally from our family, because we want to stay on top. And as luck would have it, they have another Michael, who is their sister's son.

[Tom Holland]

It's brilliant, isn't it, how everyone is called Michael?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Got loads of Michaels or Harold. He says, why don't you adopt this Michael, you and Zoe adopt him as your son. He'll be named Caesar and we'll put him in a townhouse in the suburbs and, you know, he can hang around and when you die, he'll come in as Michael V. So we come to the 10th of December, 1041. Michael IV is bloated, he's swollen, fluid everywhere, shambles.

[Tom Holland]

So his loving days are over.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

His loving days are over. He's taken to the monastery of St Cosmos and St Damian and there he's given holy orders. Actually, it's not just kind of confession. He's given holy orders, he's tonsured like a monk and then he dies. Meanwhile, Michael V, he's brought to the palace. It's really smooth succession. It works perfectly, so everything looks great. However, there is a twist. So we'd mentioned only in passing, Zoe. Zoe is now in her late 50s. She is the one person in the palace who has the blood of the Macedonian dynasty.

[Tom Holland]

I kind of imagine her as looking like Diana Doors.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yes. Who would she be played by now? She's quite sort of.

[Tom Holland]

Blousy.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

I was going to say blousy. Well, I can tell you what Michael Sellers says. Zoe was well rounded, though not very tall. She had hair of gold and her entire body glowed with the paleness of her skin. There was little sign of her age. In fact, if you noticed the perfect proportions of her limbs and did not know her, you would have thought she was a young woman, for her skin was unwrinkled, glossy and smooth, with no lines anywhere. I think it's fair to say Michael Sellers is slightly objectifying Zoe.

[Tom Holland]

He is, isn't he?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

He's behaved poorly, he's let himself down.

[Tom Holland]

Or he's paying compliment to the power of the unguent merchants of Constantinople.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

He is, because she's a she, as we'd established last time, she loves a.

[Tom Holland]

Potion or cream, so hence wrinkle free.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Wrinkle free. Ointments. She's basically massively into ointments. She is, Michael Sellers says, a woman of passionate desires, prepared equally for life or death. Now, she had placed a bet on Michael IV and actually that had gone horribly wrong, because once he'd. I mean, you say his loving days were over when he became swollen with dropsy, but actually his loving days had ceased before that, because as soon as he became emperor, he'd basically locked her in the women's quarters and said, I've had enough of you. Don't come out. So now she's back and she's got this Michael V who's her adoptive son. Do things work out better with Michael Van they do not. He is determined to have a break with his predecessor and bring in all his own people. Scythian eunuchs. So these are kind of. These may well be Slavs or Pechenegs and. And he get rid of the old guards. But the person he really hates with an absolute passion is Zoe. What Michael Sellers says once he had addressed her as mistress, but now the very idea made him want to bite off his own tongue and spit it away in disgust.

[Tom Holland]

So we'll. We'll put him down as undecided.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, he's not a F. And he waits for a few months till Easter 1042, and then he makes his move. So on Easter Sunday, these Scythian eunuchs burst into her chamber and they drag her out and they drag her before him. And he says, you, I know you've been trying to poison me. You know, you're clearly as guilty as hell. You're going to be sent off to the princess islands in the Sea of Marmara just off Constantinople, and you'll be sent to a nunnery. Get thee to a nunnery. I mean, literally.

[Tom Holland]

So very reminiscent of what's going to happen to Edith a few years later when Edward the Confessor packs her off to a nunnery. I mean, nunneries are obviously very useful if you want to get, you know, an unwanted queen.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Exactly. So we're told she was immediately put on a ship along with certain men who were given free hand to insult her. She's stripped of her purple robes and her head was shaved and I quote as though she was a common whore.

[Tom Holland]

That's very harsh, very harsh. And I imagine her hair. Golden hair, golden hair and much treated again with all kind of ointments and.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Salves and pomades and now casually thrown aside. Very poor. Now, Michael has clearly made a massive miscalculation here because Michael Sellers, the. The chronicler who knows a lot about conical politics, says, you know, everyone despised him. He was regarded as a slave to his emotions, erratic and all this. And Zoe was very popular in the city. So she has been the most glamorous person in the life of Constantinople since she was basically born in 978. She'd been born in the purple. Her father was an emperor, her uncle was an emperor, her grandfather was an emperor. She's part of the furniture and she's a great favorite of the crowds. So on Easter Monday the next day, the word spreads through the city. Everyone was worried about the Empress. Deep down, men knew matters had got out of hand and they were not afraid to speak up about it. Says Michael Sellers, the emperor Michael V. He sends the cities prefect to read out a statement in the. In the Forum to explain what he's done. And the crowd go absolutely berserk, smashing everything up, rioting and whatnot. They end up breaking into the cathedral, Hagia Sophia. They get the patriarch to start ringing the bells. They rouse the city. There's general sort of chaos and fighting and looting and stuff. There's actually a fragment in the sagas by a guy called Valgard, who was a guardsman, a Varangian guard from Iceland who ended up becoming a Skalda poet who says, the flames licked the stones, crackling embers shot from the soot, and columns of smoke rose vertically from the tumbling houses.

[Tom Holland]

You see, I think that's brilliant. And I was saying earlier how I prefer kind of blank verse to rhyming verse when it's Vikings. Also, Dominic, just to say about the patriarch Alexios, that John the eunuch, the Varys of Constantinople, he had tried to get rid of him and replace him.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

And there's all kinds of weird political currents that we can only vaguely glimpse, I think, that are going on, including the Varangians. So the Varangians, their loyalty is pledged to the imperial family. They're mercenaries working for the imperial family. And I think it's a fair assumption that they feel very put out about the arrival of these Scythian eunuchs, the Pechenegs. And there's some form of power struggle, I think, between the two of them. And my guess is that they are probably in on this riot and it's all being planned. And it's actually a little bit more of a counter coup than it is really a riot. Anyway, by the Monday afternoon, it's become a massive street battle. It's Michael and his Scythians against the mob and the Varangians. And on the Tuesday. I mean, this would be an. A superb kind of HBO series or something because on Tuesday the attackers break into the palace partly through the Emperor's box in the Hippodrome, which has a tunnel leading through to the. To the palace or corridor. They kind of fight their way into the imperial quarters. And guess what? Michael has escaped. He's gone off with his Uncle Constantine. They've gone down to the dock this is. The palace has its own dock. They've rushed down to the dock. They grab an imperial yacht.

[Tom Holland]

I love it that they have yachts.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

They have Imperial yacht. I know, I love it. And then they, they head off in this yacht. But it's obviously not an ocean going yacht. They can only go so far. So actually they just go down. They don't even really get out of the city. They dock by the studios monastery, which is near the city walls. And they get out and they go to find sanctuary in the monastery. Now in the meantime, the rioters have got hold of Zoe. She's been brought back from the island, shaven head, which is sad. They've also dug out her sister Theodora, who's been in a nunnery for eight years. She's been a nunnery for ages.

[Tom Holland]

Willingly or no?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

I think slightly unwillingly.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Okay, so they dug her out. They've got the two of them and they say, right, we want you to rule as co empresses. Let's just get rid of this Michael bloke. We hate him. So what to do with him? A load of rioters and Varangian guards break into this monastery. Totally ignoring all the stuff about sanctuary. They drag him and his uncle outside. Now, at this point, I have to say, Michael, who's behaved poorly I think throughout, he completely shames himself. He does not react as a Viking would react. A Viking would meet his death with a quip and a poem.

[Tom Holland]

So how would you react in this.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Situation with a quip and a poem? I've already told you. Yes, I think I would.

[Tom Holland]

Okay.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

There's no doubt in my mind.

[Tom Holland]

I hope the opportunity doesn't come about for me to hold you to that.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Well, if I'm ever taking sanctuary in a monastery in present day Istanbul and rioters and Scandinavians drag me out, I hope I don't do what he does, which is he clings to the altar sobbing like a baby. Then he clings to the pillars, weeping, praying to God and worse, saying, it was all my uncle's fault, I never wanted to do it. That's the, that's the. That's low.

[Tom Holland]

I would do that. That would be me.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

So they take him outside, they hold him down. This is a bit that younger listeners will very much enjoy. He's screaming and shouting and they gouge out his eyes. So the point of doing that is if you're mutilated, you can't continue to be emperor, Right?

[Tom Holland]

As with kings. So it's what Godwin has done to Alfred back in England. Gouging out the eyes, as with that, there's always the risk that you may end up killing the person you blinded.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Well, risk, Is that a risk or is that an added bonus? Tom?

[Tom Holland]

Well, yes, I suppose.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

I suppose so. Listeners may be wondering, what about Harrod Hardrada? The sagas say the person who does the eye gouging is Harald. He's the person who did it. So this is in King Harald's saga. It's a scald called Thiodolf. He wrote this. The warrior who fed the wolves ripped out both the eyes of the emperor of the Greeks. The warrior king of Norway marked his cruel revenge on the Emperor of the East. And Snorri the chronicler, writing two centuries later, he says in these songs and many others, it is said that Harald himself blinded the Greek emperor and they would surely have named some duke, count or other great man if they had not known this to be the true account. And King Harald himself and other men who were with him spread this account.

[Tom Holland]

So the historical method in operation there.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

So there is the historical method at the heart of the Icelandic sagas. Men said it numerous sources. We've, we've sifted the sources and it's very clear that Harald Hardrada did this gouging. So you may well say all's well that ends well. Michael Saul's eyes. He dies of his wounds a few months later. There may also have been some castration involved. Do the sources differ on that? I don't know if Harold was also responsible for that. Let's say he was.

[Tom Holland]

So he didn't write a poem about that?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

No, he didn't write a poem.

[Tom Holland]

He scattered the genitals far.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah. If listeners want to send in their own poems, they want to imagine what that poem would be like.

[Tom Holland]

Harry in for the Ravens.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Address them please to Tom Holland, courtesy of Goal Hanger. Zoe and Theodora reign briefly as co empresses and then Zoe marries a nobleman and he becomes Constantine ix. Now, clearly the Varangians have really benefited from this. They regain their old position at the top of the tree. Harald is their commander. We're told that a lot of gold changes hands. So, Michael Sellers. The revenues budgeted for the military were set aside for the use of others. A cluster of sycophants and those who were appointed to guard the empresses.

[Tom Holland]

So that's Harold.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Harold and the Varangian guards. So things appear to have worked out brilliantly for him. He's now very rich. He's more powerful than ever. He's the right hand of the empress. A Genuine player in the politics of Europe's most glittering empire. All looks good. And then Tom one day he is woken by a ferocious hammering on his door. When he opens it, he sees guards outside and their faces are cold.

[Tom Holland]

And admirers of Dominic's Adventures in Time series will know that when guards with cold faces appear on the scene, excitement is bound to follow.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

A giant snake is never far away.

[Tom Holland]

And so adventure will follow in the second part of this super soaraway episode. We'll see you then.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Hello, I'm William Dalrymple. And I'm Anita Arnand. And we are the hosts of Empire, also from Goal Hanger. And we're here to tell you about our recent miniseries that we've just done on the Troubles. In it, we try to get to the very heart of the violent conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted from the 1960s all the way up to 1998. It's something that we both lived through and remember from our childhoods, but younger listeners may not know anything about it. And it's a time when there was division along religious and political lines. Neighbours turned against each other. Residential city streets became battlegrounds. Thousands were killed and the IRA bombed London. It seemed as if an end was out of reach. But in 1998, a peace process finally brought those 30 years of violence to an end. But the memory of the Troubles is still present, not only within Northern Irish communities who experienced it, but in international relations and political approaches to peace. And new audiences are starting to understand this national trauma through films like Belfast and Kneecap and TV shows like Derry Girls. In fact, our guest on the miniseries is Patrick Radden Keefe. Now he's the author of the non fiction book that inspired the hit TV drama say Nothing. It's one of my favourite books. It's I think the kind of Inko blood for our generation. Extraordinary work of nonfiction. And if you'd like to hear more about this very recent conflict that put Northern Ireland on the global stage and hear from Patrick Raden Keefe. We've left a clip of the miniseries at the end of this episod. To hear the full series, just search Empire wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tom Holland]

Hello, welcome back to the Rest Is History. So Dominic, cold faced guards have intruded on Harald. Absolute cliffhanger. What's going on?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Well, this is a good point to stop and ask ourselves how true any of this story is. So as we said in the first episode, any biography of Harald Hardrada has to rely on these very colorful sagas that have three massive, massive problems Number one, they're written down centuries later. Number two, they often wildly contradict each other and the stuff in Constantinople is often incredibly confused and contradictory. And number three, as we've said before, many of the elements of them are clearly fantastical. So for the stuff we would have been describing, you know, effectively, what biographers of Harold are doing is trying to stitch together a plausible narrative out of disparate elements in the sagas.

[Tom Holland]

And that is assuming that any of.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

It might be true, that any of it. But we know that some of it clearly is true because of the, for example, the stuff about our Altis. Right.

[Tom Holland]

But his involvement in what was clearly a very celebrated episode.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah.

[Tom Holland]

If he's your hero, you would want to intrude him into something like that. I mean, it would be like, you know, kind of flashman or something.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, the eye gouging. There's a bit of a flashman quality, isn't it, to Harold Hardrada's life slightly. So there are three elements that we haven't fitted in, that appear in the sagas that historians and biographers have sort of grappled with. Number one, at some point Harold is imprisoned, possibly by Zoe. Number two, there is some kind of love affair, possibly with Zoe, but probably not probably with an aristocrat called Maria. And number three, there is a death defying escape by ship from Constantinople. And they could be completely made up, but they might not be.

[Tom Holland]

Can I just ask Dominic? I mean, the key thing for Harrold has been to get gold.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yes.

[Tom Holland]

And so the question hanging over all of this, if there is, you know, he does get locked up and escapes and makes a death defying escape on a ship, as we will explore, where is his gold? How is he getting his gold out? Has he sent it back already or what is happening there?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

The answer to that is very straightforward. He has already been sending it back because we are told in the sagas quote, all the gold he had sent ahead from Constantinople, a treasure hoard so immense that no one in northern Europe could recall ever seeing so much wealth in one man's possession. And sent ahead to Kyiv, to Yaroslav, to his prospective father in law. And you may say, well, why didn't Yaroslav just steal it? The answer is, if he's going to get it anyway as a bride price for his daughter Elisif, he doesn't need to steal it.

[Tom Holland]

And also, clearly Harald isn't the kind of person you want to get on the wrong side of.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

So to return to this, these, these three elements that we haven't fitted in. Different historians and different biographers propose different combinations. There's a really fun one in the most recent biography of Harold Hardrada, which is a book called the Last Viking by the American writer Don Holway. And he. It kind of makes some sense. So let's go with that. The sagas say Zoe had always had a great fondness for Harold. There is this, I think, probably made up story that at one point she said to him, I'd love a lock of your fair hair. And he said to her, let us make an even trade of it, Majesty, you give me one of your nether hairs.

[Tom Holland]

So very Lord Byron behavior.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Very Lord Byron. I don't believe if Varangian guard would have spoken like that to the Empress. Seems just very implausible. Anyway, maybe she did have a fondness for him. And clearly if he was involved in the counter coup against Michael V, she would owe him a debt and she would feel they had a relationship of some kind. Now, King Harald Saga says at this point he falls in love. There was a young and beautiful girl called Maria, brother's daughter of the Empress Zoe. And Harold asked for her hand in marriage, but the Empress gave him refusal. The Varangians, then in Constantinople, have told people here in the north that it was said by well informed people that the Empress Zoe herself wanted Harold for her husband. Although another reason was given out to the public. So what's going on here? There actually is a woman called Maria hanging around at the court at this time. She's not Zoe's niece, but she is her husband Constantine's niece.

[Tom Holland]

This is like the beginning of a very bad play.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

And what is more, she is Constantine's mistress. So this person does definitely exist. Maria Sklerina. In looks, says Michael Sellers, Sklerina was nothing special, but by her character and wit, she could charm a heart of stone. Her voice was musical in conversation, she had a natural lilt, an indescribable style of telling a story. At any rate, says the chronicler, she certainly bewitched me.

[Tom Holland]

You know, that is a passage entirely left from Plutarch's life Cleopatra. I mean, a Life of Anthony.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Exactly. That's the interesting thing about it. It's a portrait. She's not great looking, but her voice is musical. She can speak all these different tongues. She has it when she tells a story, all of this kind of thing. So again, a literary formula within a source. Anyway, she exists. We know that she was Constantine's mistress. They conducted their affair very openly. Is it possible that Harald also carried on with her. I would say personally, very unlikely. But the sagas do insist, different sagas insist that he had taken a fancy to somebody called Maria and that Zoe didn't like it. So this is another saga them called the Morgan Skinner. Nordbricht and Maria continued their affairs and at this time Empress Zoe developed a burning hatred for Nordbricht. Remember that was his alias. So eventually, if the sagas are better believed, Zoe snapped. She accused him of being familiar with the maiden Maria. The emperor had Nordbrick seized and bound and taken to a dungeon. King Harald saga has great fun with this. The prison was an high open topped tower with the cell door at street level. Harald was shoved through this door together with Hal door and Ulf.

[Tom Holland]

So that's Legolas and Gimli.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Legolas and Gimli. So Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli are in this flipping prison. It's dark, it's damp, it's full of bodies, just like you'd want a Tolkien esque prison to be. And Haldor is in the cell because it's given this excellent line. He says it's not brilliant, but I suppose it could be worse.

[Tom Holland]

And then it does turn out worse.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

And then they see this snake rises from from the water. There was a huge venomous serpent that slept by the stream trickling through the cell. The serpent fed on the corpses of men who crossed the emperor or his lords and was subsequently thrown down there. That's the Morkin Skinner saga. So some saga say a serpent dragon. I mean it is possible there was a snake in this prison and that it existed. Of course it's more likely if this is all a mad. It's kind of Beowulf style fantasy anyway in the sagas as we as you described in that beautiful reading, Tom.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Harold gets a stick and finally he manages to jab the stick in this snake's mouth and then stabs it in the heart with a knife. This kind of Lord of the Rings style action. Now if you think that's bonkers and a bit implausible, what then happens? He has a vision. His dead brother Olaf. He's been off the stage for a while, but he's back. He appears to Harold in a vision and says, look, things look bleak for you, but don't worry, I will get you out. They stay in this prison for two nights and then they hear a woman's voice at the door. Would you like to be rescued? And she says, I'm a noble woman. She never gives her name. She always wears a hood and is kind of very mysterious. When they say, well, who are you? She says, your brother King Olaf appeared to me in a dream and told me to come and rescue you. And she lowers a rope to them. She and her servants haul them up out this rope. And then a massive Game of Thrones scene. They run through the night back to the Varangian barracks. They get their weapons, they wake their mates. Back into the night, through the darkness, down to the harbor. They get down to the harbor, they seize two galleys, they row out into the Golden Horn. And then a total disaster. The Golden Horn is blocked, as it always was, by a huge chain, a barrier chain sealing it off from the Bosphorus. And so Harold comes up with a brilliant scheme. He says, listen, everybody pile down to the back of the galley. So weigh it down. So it kind of with your mighty weight is a great weight. Well, if they're 10ft taller than these.

[Tom Holland]

People and Gimli's a dwarf, isn't he? So jump up and down.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

They weigh these boats down so they're angled out of the water and then they sort of like, I don't know, like Roger Moore and the man with the Golden Gun or something. They're able to kind of rock over the chain.

[Tom Holland]

Harold Hardrada's eyebrow is going even higher than it normally is.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Exactly. And don't forget he likes a quip, you know, so it must be some. I wish I could think of some Roger Moore style quip that he makes. You'll never chain me up again. I don't know, who knows? Anyway, they get out, one boat breaks up, a lot of the people drown. But they managed to haul the others onto their Harold's boat. Great. Cheers. As day breaks over the Bosphorus, they turn north towards the Black Sea and safety. Unbelievable. They've escaped. What an amazing scene. And the question that may be in some listeners minds has the rest is history degenerated into mad fan fiction? And the answer is probably yes. I would guess there are some elements of this. A feud at court, an internal power struggle, Harold wanting to get the remainder of his gold out of Constantinople.

[Tom Holland]

Well, you mentioned this book which I haven't read. Don Holloway. Yeah, the Last Viking. What, what is his suggestion?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

He just loves this story and tells it great, tells it in great detail.

[Tom Holland]

I mean, does he have some perspective on.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Well I think he says it's, it's, you know, it's possible that there was some.

[Tom Holland]

That there's a dragon, not that giant snake.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

But there could be an internal feud. Zoe is, you know, she's I think it's fair to say, quite high maintenance. Yeah. And okay, you know, there's a lot of politics. She has got a new husband who maybe resents the influence of the Varangian commander. Okay. Maybe Harald says, I want to go now, I've had enough. And they say, we don't want you to go. You're the head of the guard, you know, what do you want him to go back to Norway for?

[Tom Holland]

Okay. Anyway, he gets away.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah. There's an alternative explanation, which is there is going to be another Kyivan Rus attack on Constantinople in the next few years. Yes.

[Tom Holland]

Because Yaroslav sends that, doesn't he?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yaroslav sends one. So there is an alternative explanation, which is he leaves because he's had word get out, because we're planning to attack and there may be vengeance against Varangians in the city, which is, again, plausible. The truth of the matter, Tom, we don't know. We just don't know.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

What we do know is that probably by about 1043, he gets back to Kyiv. It's 10 years now since he went. He is 28 years old. He's an extremely rich man. He has enough money for the bride price. Elisif, who's now 19, so that age gap, that was a bit preposterous 10 years ago looks slightly less alarming now that she's 19 years old.

[Tom Holland]

The fame of his deeds, which obviously are massively amplified by the time that Snorri's Darlison sits down to write them up. But even at this point, presumably his renown is percolating northwards from Constantinople, do you think?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

I think, definitely. I think Commander of the Varangian Guards, the. At that point, the most celebrated military unit probably in the Christian world. And the Roman Emperor's Guard, you know, that's a. That's not nothing. That's a serious thing. He's very well established, he's obviously got loads of contacts. He is. It makes complete sense that Yaroslav would be very keen to marry him to his daughter. Because, you know what, if he does get back with all his gold, Scandinavia and gets his throne back, he could be a useful ally in the kind of geopolitics of the northern world.

[Tom Holland]

But also the fact that he has made it in Constantinople, presumably. Also people are kind of, you know, people who know him are proud of that.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, of course.

[Tom Holland]

It's like a kind of local striker going to some massively glamorous overseas club and then coming back kind of garlanded with awards and.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Exactly right. He is a man who, you want to know, here's a celebrity, here's a man who will have no problem raising.

[Tom Holland]

Recruits because to serve as awesome as that as well.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah. So they're married probably in the Cathedral of St. Sophia in Kyiv, according almost certainly to the Orthodox rites. There's a lot of smashing of glasses and binding of hands and kind of crowns and stuff. But the thing is, I think that's interesting about Harald is you might think that all the glamour is in the south and all the money is in the south, but actually, the Norwegian side of him clearly matters enormously. He's desperate to get back to Norway to reclaim what he sees as his throne and to avenge his brother.

[Tom Holland]

So Snorri Sturlison, in his description of the marriage, says he gained a princess, not to mention a hoard of treasure.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah.

[Tom Holland]

And that's always kind of uppermost. And that sounds quite authentic.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, I think so, absolutely. But he wants the treasure for a reason. And the reason is, you know, the crown matters a lot to him now in the 15 years, 15 years that he's been away, because, remember, he left as a teenager, a lot has changed. And this takes us back to the. Away from the realm of fantasy, to the realm of history. Canute, his brother's great rival, is dead. He's been dead for 10 years and his North Sea empire has fallen apart. England is now ruled by Edward the Confessor. Norway is ruled by Harald's nephew Magnus, the illegitimate son of his late brother Olaf. And Denmark is sort of trying to break away from the Norwegian kingdom. There's a. An interminable war between Norway and Denmark. And the guy in Denmark is a jarl called Svein, who is Knut's nephew.

[Tom Holland]

So it's still a family kind of row, really, isn't it? And one of the things that's. I always thought was intriguing is that Ellis, if so, Harold Hardrada's wife, one of her sisters, has married Edward the Exile.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Oh, yeah.

[Tom Holland]

Who is the half brother of Edward the Confessor. So even England is part of this snarl of Kievan Scandinavian matrimonial alliances. I mean, it's so odd, isn't it?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Theo and Tabby were telling me about a series called Vikings Valhalla, which I've never seen, which has some of this in it. Oh, really? But I think this should be like a much bigger budget and more exciting thing because I think all of this stuff is. This makes Game of Thrones look kind of footling and trivial. So just on the north, Norway and Denmark have been Locked in this long running struggle. Magnus in Norway, Svein in Denmark. And for Harald, this offers an opportunity, but also a threat. If he can get back to Scandinavia quickly, he can profit from this and become a third player and profit from the uncertainty. But if he waits too long and Magnus of Norway wins and rules both, then it'll be much harder for him to get a foothold. So perhaps early 1045, late 1044, hard to say, around about this time he makes his move and he goes north. And we do know that in about 1045 he arrives in Sweden in a place called Sigtuna. And there he receives very bad news. Magnus has got the upper hand. He's left it too late. Magnus has been crowned king of both Norway and Denmark and Svein has agreed to be his Jarl, his basically his deputy in Denmark. Now, Magnus is a serious player. He's half English, always a good sign. His mother was an English slave and he'd become king of Norway at the age of just 11. But he proved really good at it. He was brilliant at winning support. He's a. He's actually incredibly skillful politician and he got this nickname, Magnus the Good. And this is in part not just. Not because it's not because he's kind.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, he's good at politics.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

He was well spoken and quick to make up his mind. Noble in character, most generous, a great and valiant warrior, says the Heims Kringle sagas. So Harald is. He's got all this cash, but he's the underdog. And they finally meet uncle and nephew in Skrna, which was then in Denmark and now is of course in southern Sweden that autumn 1045. And the sagas describe how Magnus is there with his fleet and he sees this ship coming from the east with gilded dragon's head, you know, covered in gold and jewels and this huge messenger. In this story in 1066, generally there are always these messengers who actually turn out not to be the, you know, the sort of mouth of Sauron who turn out to be Sauron. This messenger comes and says to Magnus, would your Uncle Harold be welcome? And Magnus says, yeah, sure. And then the messenger says, I am Uncle Harold.

[Tom Holland]

Good fooling.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

And Harold says, you know, hello, nephew. How would you like to divide the kingdom between us?

[Tom Holland]

Oh, not really.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Well, we're told Magnus gave his uncle a friendly answer, saying he would take the advice of his chieftains and the wishes of his subjects. He gives him a diplomatic answer. I said he was good at politics and they part on quite good terms. But it's pretty obvious to Harold that Magnus is going to give him him nothing. So Harold sends a messenger to this bloke Swain in Denmark and says, let's restart that war. Let's divide Norway and Denmark between us. Now, Magnus, he doesn't fancy the war starting again because Norway is not a rich country. You know, it doesn't have many towns and markets, it doesn't have especially rich farmland. I mean, that's one reason they've got involved in the whole Viking business.

[Tom Holland]

But Dominic, it is rich in giant men with double axes.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

It is, but they require payment and he struggles. Norway, it's a big problem for Norwegian kings to raise tax because they don't really have the same infrastructure as somewhere like England. So Magnus thinks, I can't compete with all this gold. I just don't fancy a war. So eventually he sends a message to Harold and he says, look, actually, I will share the kingdom if you will share your gold. And Harald thinks, well, fair enough, because I don't really have many Norwegian contacts and it would be a massive hassle fighting this war. So they have this meeting, this very entertaining meeting to share the gold. Harald makes a huge display of all the gold. He gets a huge ox hide and he pours all the chests out, massive piles of gold. And he says very loudly, I have traveled to many lands and taken many risks in order to earn all this gold. And then they're going to get their men to weigh and divide all the gold equally, but the point is, they've both got to put in what they've got. And he says, nephew, what gold have you to add to all this? And Magnus says, oh, well, I've actually spent all my money on these wars. I've got one thing which is a golden arm ring. One ring. And he puts it in. Harold, this is not much for a king of two kingdoms. And some would say it is not rightfully yours. And Magda says, my father Olaf gave it to me the last time I saw him. True, but only after he took it for my father for no good reason. Massive tension in the air. Yeah, Harold is dissing. He's dissing Olaf, actually, his old. His brother, and saying that Olaf had taken it from his own father, Sigurd the Sow. So everybody is very anxious about this and everybody says, oh, this, this clearly is not going to last. Like, clearly, at some point Harald is going to turn on Magnus, or vice versa, one of them's going to go. But we never get to that point because you remember in the Road to 1066 series. So the last couple of weeks, people were always dropping dead unexpectedly.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, convenient moments.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, convenient points. When their acting contract had come to an end. Well, in 1047, end of 1047, Magnus is off the coast of Denmark fighting Sweyn, and he has a dream in which Olaf appears his father. And Olaf says, look, you've got a choice. You can live to a ripe old age, but you will commit a crime that will damn you to hell. Or you can die young now and join me in the afterlife. And Magnus, I think, foolishly says, well, I'll die young. I'd like to join you in the afterlife.

[Tom Holland]

Do you think that's foolish?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

I think that you don't know what the nature of the crime. I mean, I'd want to know more about the crime, I think.

[Tom Holland]

But this is happening, what, a thousand years ago? And he'd still be in hell now if he'd gone for that with no prospect of release.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

It's like those things, experiments they do on toddlers, you know. Do you want instant gratification now or. Yeah, well, you get two cakes later. I'd probably take the cake now.

[Tom Holland]

I'd opt for death and heaven.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Well, in that case, you would have exactly the same fate as Magnus. He wakes immediately, comes down with a fever, and on the 25th of October, 1047, he dies. And in one of the sagas, there's a lovely bedtime scene, deathbed scene, bedtime scene. I mean, I suppose it is bedtime in a sense. Harold comes in to see Magnus. Ah, nephew, I see you're dying. And Magnus says, leave Denmark alone. Leave it to Sweyn. Let him. Let them go in peace, the Danes. Harald obviously has no intention of doing that. He's now won. He's King of Norway.

[Tom Holland]

It's all he ever wanted.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

It's all he ever wanted. Everything has been the fighting with snakes, the gouging out of eyes.

[Tom Holland]

And do you know what? You've written these Adventures In Time books to inspire your young readers to follow their dreams. And Harold has followed his dream and now he's King of Norway. So there's a lesson there, isn't there?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

But you know what the real lesson is? It hasn't made him happy because his time as King of Norway is a little bit sad, I think, because it's basically 20 years of really boring war against the Danes in which nothing ever happens, just constant raiding and I imagine.

[Tom Holland]

Quite a lot of stuff involving cow buyers and that kind of thing.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, yeah. Kind of burning people's cottages and stuff in a desultory way. Really bad weather. He just fights for so long. He's got a massive warship. I mean the best thing about it is this warship called the Great Serpent.

[Tom Holland]

I mean Freud would love this.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

So Olaf Tryggvason had had a ship called the Long Serpent, but Harald Hardrada insisted having a ship called the Great Serpent. And he commands this ship. There's one battle, a battle at a place called Nisor, which is off western Sweden, between the Norwegians and the Danes. The Norwegians win, but they're all, they're all just miserable and cold and you know, they both massive losses. No one's ever going to win this war.

[Tom Holland]

But the Great Serpent is still erect and proud.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

It is, but there's just a sense of joylessness to it at this point I think it's fair to say. So basically this war has gone on for what, 15 years or something. And eventually Harold gives up his ambitions. It's fine. Spain can have their mark. I've had enough. And all this has been very, very expensive. Now during all this, Harold had, has clearly been trying to turn Norway into a more centralized, kind of nationalized, tax paying kingdom like dare I say England or to some degree, I guess in.

[Tom Holland]

Future Denmark or of course more obviously, I'd have thought Constantinople.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Oh, Constantinople. Which is seen. Yeah, but it's going to look more like England, I suppose in the long run. Yeah, because he's also doing other modernizing things. He tries to develop a national coinage. And although he himself is clearly not a, you know, if he is pious, he's not definitely not a turning the other cheek kind of man. He does encourage Christianity and he brings in priests and monks from Kyivan Rus. And of course you can see why he would do that. He likes the idea of one God, one ruler, one church, state, power.

[Tom Holland]

He's got his brother, hasn't he, Olaf, who is well on the way to becoming St Olaf, who gets enshrined in the great cathedral.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

And it's interesting, a lot of the kingdoms that are formed at about this point in time have patron saints who are from the ruling family. You know, Olaf is the, is the paradigmatic example who are just massively, massively important to the regime because they give divine legitimacy to the, to the dynasty. But it's a difficult process. In Norway, I mean Norway, the terrain isn't ideal for trying to impose a kind of a nationalizing regime. There's constant tension with the landowners in the, in the north and in the center of Norway.

[Tom Holland]

It's not hanging out with glamorous blonde empresses. Is it? It really is a bit miserable.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

And also, I think there's an element of Harald is becoming possibly a little bit insufferable. Snorri Sturluson, who writes this very admiring biography of him in the saga, says King Harald was an absolute monarch and the more secure he felt on the throne, the more imperious he became, so that hardly anyone dared to differ with him. Him. And the big issue, as always, it's money, it's tax. He has been trying to raise taxes to pay for this incredibly boring war with the Danes. In 1064, the last full year of the war, the farmers of Norway's uplands basically refused to pay their taxes. It was tax revolt.

[Tom Holland]

So it's like he's. He's turned into Keir Starmer. He's having to deal with angry farmers.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Angry farmers. It's the same old story. Well, don't forget angry farmers had killed his brother. Yeah, angry farmers and people in reindeer magic cloaks had killed his father.

[Tom Holland]

We seem a long way now from magic reindeer cloaks. And I have to. I have to say, slightly, the poorer for it.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, we are the poorer for it. There's no doubt in my mind things have got worse. And this is the point at which they do so. 1065, when the war is over, Harold launched a savage harrying campaign against the uplanders that in some way actually anticipates William of Normandy's harrying camp. I mean, this is what. There's a definite similarity here, that when you have kind of. These are very, very ferocious, merciless monarchs who, when they are challenged by provincial, perhaps more small c. Conservative interests that are resisting the modernizing efforts of the monarchy, they react with lethal and terrifying force. Snorri Sturluson, the king, ordered farmers seized, some of them maimed, others slain, and most of them robbed of everything they owned. The peasants pleaded for mercy, but his verdict came with fire.

[Tom Holland]

So again, advice, a lesson there from history for Keir Starmer.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

His scowled. No skull can find words for the royal vengeance that left the uplands ravaged and empty. King Harald's deeds will be remembered forever. And exactly that. As you said, Tom, this is the origin of the nickname Hard Rada, which at school I can remember being told it was hard ruler.

[Tom Holland]

It's kind of severe, isn't it? That's the translation now.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Or even tyrannical or. I mean, some people might say robust. Tom, if you admire a strong leader as I do, you would say robust, like our own greatest ruler. In the 1650s. But anyway, that's. That's by the by. We've got to the end now of 1065. Harald is now probably 50 years old. Elisif has borne him two daughters, but she has pretty much vanished from the sources. We know he has a second wife called Torah, who has had two sons, but we know virtually nothing else about her. I think there's a slight sense of Harold, of. Of. I don't know, ambitions unfulfilled or a frustration or.

[Tom Holland]

It's a very powerful scene, isn't it? And I guess it would require not just a great historian.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah.

[Tom Holland]

But a great historian with an incredible command of the English language fully to evoke the mingled glory and pathos of the scene. And I wonder, Dominic, if you can think of such a writer and whether perhaps you have a passage of his prose to hand.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Do you know, Tom, it's so. It's extraordinary that you ask that question, because by a remarkable coincidence, I can think of such a person.

[Tom Holland]

Shall I read it?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, why don't you? Because you. I think you'd give these readings the power and the majesty that they deserve.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah. And when I finish it, people can try and work out who they think wrote it.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah. And maybe order the book.

[Tom Holland]

The golden sheen in his hair had long since faded and he could feel a stiffness creeping into his bones. Though Harold would never have admitted it, he seemed a figure out of time, waiting for the end. Sometimes he wondered if he would ever again know the thrill of adventure, the joy of battle. And then, one cloudless day, a ship rounded the headland and turned into the fiord. And Dominic, that author is, of course, yourself. Your thrilling book about the Vikings, available from all good bookshops. And we know it's a cloudless day. We know this ship has rounded the headland and turned into the fjord. And I think it's fair to say that with that ship and the advent of the year 1066, everything will change, won't it?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

It will change, Tom. So to give people a little preview of what is coming, 1066 is upon us. And next week we'll begin our climactic series on the epic events of that year. The death in England of Edward the Confessor and the accession of Harold Godwinson. Harold Hardrada invades England and the great showdown at Stamford Bridge. And then the invasion of William of Normandy and the battle to end all battles at Hastings. And Tom, there's some amazing news, isn't there? For members of the Rest Is History Club. Would you like to Share that news with them. Yeah.

[Tom Holland]

Incredible news. You'll never have heard anything like it before, ever, while listening to this podcast. But just to break it to you, if you're a member, you will hear all four episodes immediately. And, Dominic, more stunning news that again, will come as a total revelation into listeners that if you're not a member of the Rest of History Club, there is a website where you can sign up. And that is the Rest is history Dot Com.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

It's what Howard Hardrada would have wanted, isn't it?

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, it is.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

I mean, he would definitely be. He'd be one of the elite Varangian guard of the Rest Is History Club. Of that there is no doubt. All right. On that bombshell, we'll return next time with 1066. Goodbye. Bye. Bye. So here's a clip from our series on the Troubles. This is the strangest thing about this story is that Northern Ireland is so small. And listen, there are other. I mean, you could tell a similar story about Sarajevo or any number of other types of places where there's been a conflict, Rwanda, and then the conflict ends and everybody still kind of lives in the same community. And you see these people. But, you know, there's an instance, even as adults, where Helen McConville was with her own family in McDonald's and sees one of the people who abducted her mother. There's a moment that I describe in the book where Michael McConville actually gets into the back of a black taxi in Belfast as an adult, and he sees in the mirror in the front of the taxi, he realizes that the man driving him is one of the people who decades earlier abducted his mother. And the strangest, most eerie aspect of this is he doesn't say anything and he doesn't even know if that guy recognizes him. And they drive in silence. And then he just pays the guy his money and leaves. To hear the full series, just search Empire, wherever you get your podcasts.