Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Relics (or ‘How 1000 years ago a King of England carried out what sounds like the silliest robbery in English history’)

(Good morning Imgur; this is a hard core history post that eventually tells the tale of the most insane robbery ever carried out by a King of England)
(MOST VIRAL EDIT: Dudes… once again I post an obscure, utterly nerdy history post about events 1000 years ago, filled with really bad humour, and the generous souls of user sub throw it to the front page? I am a humbled little creature. Thank you)

Sometimes, as a historian, there come moments where we know, just know, that there is more going on than official records at the time say. Sometimes we get the real sense that behind the scenes so to speak, there is extraordinary developments happening, genuinely pivotal moments that will change the course of future events, even if the official records don’t always let on.

In the decade of the 1020’s in England, we run slap bang into the most intense of any of these eras.

England was ruled by the Danish born King Cnut; Conquerer; Dynast; Would be Emperor. He had in the first few years utterly rewritten the basis of English politics and had consolidated power around himself. He was also a man who seemed to have a clear issue with London; he really disliked this place. And was willing to steal their sacred relics from their churches. Not seize them, or order them seized. But steal them. Personally. Supposedly wearing flips flops and a bathrobe.

Allegedly.

You see, over the years according to the primary historical document written during his reign, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (gonna just call it the ASC going forward), we get a rather mundane series of entries. They are quiet, boring, almost sedate.

It presents an England where, sleepily, Cnut’s power just organically grew and expanded.

Yet if you take on board what was being said in documents in Scandinavia, and Europe, and Scotland and Ireland at the same time? Oh suddenly you get a very different picture. Something much more exciting and intense.

In fact the only truth we can ascertain from those sedate English records is that Cnut and London remained hostile to one another. Exceptionally hostile. London was untrusted, had a permenant garrison located near to it and was clearly somewhere Cnut had issues with. And yet paradoxically, as it was the richest part of the richest region of his vast kingdom, it was a place Cnut kept returning to, and would base himself in.

And London, while it never had much love towards Cnut in this early part of his reign, was to see the silliest robbery in the cities history take place because of this relationship. And it is very silly. So this post tells its story but also explains the context of how/why it took place.

So we are looking at the reign of King Cnut, the Danish invader who had taken England in 1016 and was now, as our story starts in 1020 coming up to his fifth year on the throne. And we have a problem. Allow me summarise what the problem is concerning Cnut and explain the difficulties we have in trying to tell the story of his impact upon London.

Cnut’s reign was without doubt one of the most complex periods in English history. Think about it- here is a young warlord who has conquered a foreign country. He is having to pacify the recently defeated peoples, deal with the anger and resentment of nobles who supported the losing side, have to deal with Scandinavian allies who had their own agendas and needs and wants; had to deal with the fact that he had exploited the weakness of England from the mealstorm of Scandinavia but recognised that if he could do it, someone else could do the exact same thing to him.

Within a few years this young man would be trying to take over Denmark, secure it’s borders with the Germans, while dealing with rival states such as Norway and Sweden; he would be trying to subjugate Norway, while trying to pacifiy his own regions; and while all of this was going on, we think that he was at war not just with the Scots but with the Welsh as well.

To manage this would have required quick thinking, strategy, intrigue and much politicking. Alas however, our principle record the ASC is remarkably sparse on detail. And we think we know why.

It is the general consensus amidst most scholars of this era that the ASC had a policy of NOT saying much when things were geopolitically unstable. If the ASC was being mostly composed during the reign of Cnut, as some postulate, then the detailed, painfully detailed examination of the failings of the court of the previous King, Æthelred, that it is filled with just before this era? THAT would make sense.

That was the old regime. You can go hard while talking about then problems the old regime faced.

But the current regime?

Oh no. I’d stay quiet if I were you. Or else.
And so… it does.

As such we get hints of what was happening, but not much. We have to reconstruct events based on what we know from other sources.

Added to that, this is a story with many moving parts; there is real dynamic tension at almost every stage; we lose historical certainty.

All of this is my way of apologising to the reader; I am going to offer a brutally simplistic summery of events that take place over the next few years; these are simple bullet points and each one you could write a whole book upon (and indeed in some cases, people have).

This is the background to the world London faced during this era and the background to the robbery that was to happen in a few years time.

Firstly, while Cnut had during the years previously, consolidated power unto himself, his reign wasn’t always stable. In fact we don’t think it was often stable. There are references to events and clues that suggest that Cnut faced rebellion and sedition quite a lot more than the ASC would lead us to believe. This was often happening close to home, from amidst his closet allies even. And his most significant rebellion seemed to have come in the form of one of his most trusted advisors…

Thorkell the Tall.

There is much speculation as to why Thorkell, now Earl of East Anglia, turned against Cnut. Some said it had started when Cnut had travelled to Denmark to press his claim to the throne in 1019; he had left Thorkell in charge of England. Thorkell was de facto ruler of England for a few months. During said time there was a rumoured scandle involving Thorkell and his new wife, possibly involving the murder of Thorkell’s first born son. Some have suggested also that his new wife was non-other than the widow of of the deposed King, Edmund Ironsides and/or the widow of recently executed Earl of Mercia, Eadric Streona (depends upon the book you read) and either way, this which sends out VERY mixed signals even at the best of times.

Whatever is the case, we don’t know exactly what happens, but we do know that after Cnut returns to England there is somekind of disturbance and Thorkell is exiled; only to arrive in Denmark. And eventually he reconciles with Cnut, (or Cnut is forced to reconcile with the powerful Jarl), and Thorkell basically becomes Jarl of Denmark for a while, before eventually being killed, supposedly by an angry mob of Danes who disliked him.

This rebellion, or attempted rebellion, must have shaken Cnut to the core; he was still trying to pacify the English after all. We get an idea of just how precarious his regime was when in 1020, Cnut, then then still-loyal Thorkell and the Archbishop of York (one of the few high ranking clerics who seemed to support Cnut) had dedicated a church in Assadun on the site of the battle where he had defeated the late Edmund Ironsides. It was PR designed to appease a peoples who we have reasons to suspect had just rebelled against Cnut over in Dorset.

The story of Thorkell shows that even admist his most trusted advisors, Cnut’s control of England was tenuous and could slip at any time. In truth, Cnut could ONLY rule England if he had a body of supporters from England who would help him.

In our modern age we would call them collaborators; men and women who profited from the new regime and whose fortunes were inextricably linked to the fate of the new regime.

And the poster child for this group of people was a man called Godwin. The son of a pirate called Brithnoth, Godwin had been Cnut’s loyal follower and aide during his conquest and had eventually been rewarded with the title of Earl of Western Sussex. In the early part of his rule Cnut had very smartly decided to rule the old Kingdom of Wessex himself, maintaining control over this vital central nervous system region of the English state.

Godwin had proven himself so loyal that eventually Cnut gave him the west of Wessex; the maybe recently rebellious region around Dorset; what Cnut probably didn’t realise that was in the era before Alfred the Great, Western Wessex was usually the territory given to the heir apparent of the main kingdom of Wessex to run as a subordinate sub-kingdom. That kind of nuance would have been lost on Cnut as an outsider.

Which is why he needed his collaborators to help maintain his state. They came in all types, ranging from his powerful wife Queen Emma, to minor Anglo-Saxon Lords who now found themselves on lists of the Kings charters, elevated as witnesses to the King. And leading them all was Godwin. In time Cnut came to trust him so much, that he made Godwin the Earl of ALL of Wessex; he gave him the most important part of England to run. And it went beyond that. In all the trips abroad Cnut was to make, and he was to make many, Godwin was often left in charge of England. For the residents of London for example, life during the reign of Cnut sometimes had this hostile Dane in charge who gazed upon them with utter suspicion, but just as often had Godwin, who was an English lad, and doesn’t seem to have borne the same resentment towards them.

So keep that in mind. Cnut was to spend a lot of time outside of England; in the period we are looking at, so from 1019 to 1023, Cnut was to spend only one full year in England (1021). Otherwise he was having to travel.

Being an absentee King in England at the time would have been hard enough. Being an absentee King in England with all that was going on would have made it impossible without a body of supporters and collaborators who needed you to remain in power so they could remain in power. And even then he had so much against him; we are fairly sure that with a few exceptions, such as the Archbishop of York, almost the entire English clergy was hostile towards Cnut; in a previous post I went over the confiscations of land he had inflicted upon the Bishops of London for their support of the old regime. But London wasn’t alone in disliking the new King.

The Bishops of England had been loyal to the House of Wessex for a long, long time. Why should they like this invader?

But on November 1020 Cnut got a break; the Archbishop of Canterbury died and he could place a chosen collaborator to the position. And this is how Æthelnoth became Archbishop of Canterbury, and Cnut lavished him with gifts and rewards and incentives to make good with the King. Cnut now at least had the Archbishops of Canterbury and York on his side. This was a huge help for him going forward.

Meanwhile while he was running around trying to hold onto power in England, Cnut was also trying to gain more power. His older brother, Harald, King of Denmark, was dead, and the throne of Denmark was vacant. Harald has left no children and had indeed died young. So the next in line was his younger brother, Cnut.

Yet we have to ask- why did he go for it?

It’s a legitimate question.

Cnut seems to have his hands full trying to rule England. Several historians have wondered why Cnut, who was having to go all out to just retain the nation, would suddenly try and rule the snake pit like the Kingdom of Denmark.

Understand, part of the reason the Scandinavian kingdoms were so dangerous was they were basically like England had been a couple of centuries earlier; divided, fractious, with little central authority and with regional Lords able to wield extreme amounts of power.

Denmark was the most centralised of them all, having had generations of the Gormssun dynasty consolidating control; Norway was next along, where nominally at least since Harold Fairhair, there had been someone in charge; while Sweden at this time was the nation state equivalent of four ducks in a trenchcoat; it was divided, lacked almost any central authority and was a fairly wild place.

So why, oh why, would Cnut want to invade there? Some historians tell us that he did it because he was a Gormssun, Denmark was his homeland, this was his legacy, and he of course was going to take it. Othyer’s have pointed out that Denmark was becoming more organised and if run properly could have become a very profitable cash cow for Cnut to milk. Several of the Danish islands were still controlled by Viking bands and they were able to operate and raid with permission after paying tribute to the Danish kings. This would offer a big incentive for Cnut.

Added to that there is also the issue that maybe Cnut was simply ambitious. He had shown his ambition and ruthlessness in his ability to take England, and frankly, since he had a claim on the throne? Why NOT take it? And so he did.

Cnut’s initial take-over demonstrates how on PAPER at least this was to be an easy get for him. We know that Cnut had a permanent garrison of 40 ships of his best troops located in London to keep an eye on the city; but when he heard his brother King Harald had died, Cnut sailed to Denmark to take the throne with just 9 ships; he was not expecting a fight.

He was expecting a procession.

Of course back when he took the throne of Denmark Cnut was able to leave Thorkell in charge of England, and everything seemed to be fine. But it was while he was away that he got word that Thorkell was up to shenanigans that eventually led to him being exiled. Understand, contemporary accounts of the time said you could sail between Denmark and England over three days if the weather was good, which suggests a week at most if the weather was bad. Cnut could keep an eye on things in England, and clearly did have a little flock of English stool pigeons keeping him updated with what Thorkell was doing while he was away, probably led by Godwine.

Yet Cnut had a problem that stared him straight in the face and would not go away. If he was King of England, he needed to be IN England; the longer he spent away from the place the more chance he had of someone playing silly bigger and trying to usurp his rule there. Meanwhile Denmark was even worse. To rule Denmark he needed to BE in Denmark. Yet he could not do both.

We had seen that Cnut’s preferred tactic in England was to establish the Jarls, the Earl’s of England. People who would rule big regions of his nation on his behalf and they would have free reign to kind of do whatever they wanted provided they didn’t upset the apple cart like Thorkell did or provided they were not untrustworthy douchbags like Eadric Streona of Mercia. So what Cnut needed was someone to rule Denmark on his behalf.

And he had the ideal candidate- his son Harthacnut (above), the offspring of him and his new trophy Queen, Emma of Normandy.

The issue with that? Harthacnut was at most 4 or 5 years old. Way too young to run Denmark. Cnut wanted his son on the throne but with a small cabal of Danish collaborators to help him run it. And this is where he found himself kinda making peace with the newly exiled Thorkell the Tall. The jarl would help Harthacnut rule Denmark in Cnut’s name. It doesn’t sound like Cnut had much choice in the issue. Still, Thorkell died and in his place emerged a Danish noble called Jarl Ulf.

Ulf’s brother was given lands in England during the early 1020’s and we THINK that Cnut was buttering up Ulf and his family so he would run Denmark as the regent of Harthacnut for the king. Added to that Ulf was married to Cnut’s sister, but we also think Cnut objected to that marriage.

The whole thing sounds messy, complicated, interpersonal, never written down… sounds right up Cnut’s street really.

And which explains why the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is so terse during this era. The whole thing worked in Cnut’s head.
How on Earth do you write that stuff down?

And we may have a perfect example of the clash between what was written in the ASC and what was actually going on in 1023, with an incident involving London.
Remember, London was the place Cnut distrusted, seriously distrusted. Cnut had clipped the wings of London whenever he could in the years leading up to 1020- he had fined it a veritable fortune; he had seized lands of the Bishop of London; he had a permanent garrison now based over in Southwark to keep a lid on it. And in 1023 he saw another opportunity to send it a message.

So that years entry in the ASC says the following:

“This year King Knute in London, in St. Paul's minster, gave full leave to Archbishop Ethelnoth, Bishop Britwine, and all God's servants that were with them, that they might take up from the grave the archbishop, Saint Elphege. And they did so, on the sixth day before the ides of June; and the illustrious king, and the archbishop, and the diocesan bishops, and the earls, and very many others, both clergy and laity, carried by ship his holy corpse over the Thames to Southwark.”

Sounds so sedate does it not?

The king gently moves the remains of a saint from London to Canterbury.

But a few years later a monk based in Canterbury, called Osbern wrote an account of what actually took place, and this account? It was a doozy. What follows sounds like the plot of one of those London heist movies; a mixture of crime and comedy. Basically, a Guy Ritchie special, so outrageous and wild is the tale Osborn described.

In fact I’m going to show my own adoration of the likes of ‘Lock, Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels’ or ‘Snatch’ by describing what follows as if we were sat in a bar in South London, and one of the characters from one of those movies was trying to explain to what went happen (well since I can’t write anything as funny as those movies do, it will be an imaginary wannabe South London gangster)… it’s that much of a wild story.

And please remember no matter how unbelievable the following sounds, everything is what Osbern of Canterbury said happened 1000 years ago…

So, the set-up; It’s 1023. Cnut, the big cheese, is back in England after having a little bit of a kerfuffle over in Denmark. All cushty. But he swings back to London and gets instantly annoyed.

Mad ting!

London gets right on his wick ya see, the place is always making money, like you could choke an elephant on their wad.

And one of the places making money hand over fist? St Paul’s Church. Know why? The church has got itself a bunch of dead saints in there.

Dead saints is important. See for your average English peasant, what with amusement parks not being invented for at least another 1000 years, there isn’t much to do if you are looking for a few days break.

But what you could do, was take a little mini-pilgrimage, visit a big ole church, sing a few come-by-yars, say a dozen Hail Mary’s and get yourself a sweet little blessing.

It’s not long bro, you get me?

And the BEST places to do these were places which had the relics of some saint. People love a bit of saint on saint action. I mean its one thing to ask the Lord Almighty to bless you and save ya from eternal damnation, BUT everyone knows if you get one of the saints to put a word in for you, that means the Big Guy is willing to listen more yeah? Stands to reason.

So then you see, THE biggest saint on the market was St Alphege. You remember St Alphege? He was the Archbishop of Canturbury a few years before, and he’d been captured by none other than the Jomsvikings led by Thorkell the Tall; and they had held him hostage for a year, trying to build up a decent ransom for him.
Like he was bare profit you get me?

Only Alphege was having none of that. He insisted no one pay a penny for him. The sheer rhubarbs of the guy.

Eventually the Jomsvikings demand he lifts the ban on ransom, but Alphege was still having none. So they killed it. Not great but you know, it’s the Jomsvikings.

Them mandem were scary mad. ANYWAY, Alphege was dead.

And his body had been taken back to London and buried in St Paul’s Cathedral. And there he had stayed. Now, back then, the Danes kept turning up like a rash on a babies arse, so folks were bound to want to ask a particular saint to put in a quiet word to the Almighty for a bit or relief from ‘em were they not? And who better than Alphege right? Bare sense.

So now, cut to 1023, Cnut is a Dane and he’s in charge. But there is still a lot of folks going to pray to St Alphege, like on the daily. And it could be because he’s just a new saint and it’s cool; but it could ALSO be some living ember of national resistance towards the Danish occupation. ‘E was popular. Got a lot of traffic.

Now all those people going to St Paul’s? They not just getting on their knees and asking for a blessing now are they? Oh no. they spending money on drink and food in London; making contributions to the local church; buying goods from London merchants. See a good saint was a money maker. And this is what London had. And that annoyed Cnut. Annoyed him a lot.

So ANWAY, Cnut is ‘aving a bath; don’t ask me why he is ‘aving a bath when all this ‘append, this is just how it goes down.

And coming to visit him is the new ArchBishop of Canterbury, Aethelnoth and Cnut, the moment he ‘ears this, he leaps out of the bath, and… look I’m quoting the source material here; “he rose up from his ablutions without delay and, wrapping merely a cloak around his naked body, he placed his feet in plain sandals and thus quickly made his way to the archbishop”.

Now, I’m not saying anything bruv, but that’s a weird detail to mention you know?

Like this account was written by a monk from Canterbury, and not hinting that this monk was focusing on some weird stuff, but it’s a bit buki innt?

ANYWAY, Cnut sounds like he is in flip flops and a bathrobe, and ‘e asked the new Archbishop if HE wanted the remains of St Alphege. I mean Alphege use to be based on Canterbury didn’t he? Stands to reason he should be buried there.

Doing that would not so much allow Cnut kill a couple of birds within one stone, he could stick a shotgun into a bird box is what he could do.

First, he would show London who was the top boy.
Second, he could get in with his new ArchBishop of Canterbury,
Third, he could stop Aelphage being identified as like an anti-regime figure.

It was sweet. But Æthelnoth probably told him what the issue was…

Not even the ArchBishop of Canterbury could like just order the Bishop of London to hand over the relics. Bishops had rights. Now IF the relics were to somehow get to Canterbury? Allow it! Sweet as your mothers tea.

But the issue was… London wasn’t exactly gonna give away a highly profitable bunch of sacred relics now were they?

So Cnut ‘ad to get the bloody things out of St Paul’s.

So he had a think, looked the Archbishop of Canterbury in the eye and said, ‘Put the kettle on Æthelnoth, me and the boys have got this…’ (or words to that effect)

Now it’s one thing to stage a bit of robbery mate but stealing saints relics out of the main church of a hostile city like London? That is gonna require a crew. Luckily for Cnut he had just that, and now began one of the best robberies in the history of London.

So, the first team were a bunch of hench lads- the huscarls of Cnut’s personal guard. Big boys, not always the brightest, but good in a fight. These he got to wait just outside the city. Then he got another team to guard London Bridge. This would be important later on. So he had his lads set up on the bridge.

Now Cnut also had a fleet of ships based over on the south bank of the river in Southwark. So here he set up the crew of a Viking long ship all armed and ready to go, on standby- these were the getaway.

Last he needed some boys to go like steal the body. But even if he was king, according to that source, he wanted to do it himself. So it was just him, the Archbishop Æthelnoth and two monks who were the the archbishops mandem from Canterbury.

Why Cnut wasn’t bringing a dozen of his warriors with him? No one knows. Maybe for the bantz?

All the pieces in place- Cnut sets his big plan into action…

Firstly he gets his huscarls to make a fuss. Start attacking one of the gates, preferably over the other side of the city. Big noise, start hitting the gates with axes or whatever. Make it seem like a bunch of rampant Vikings were back.

Residents of London, the London fyrd? This is their ends. They need to defend London.

The whole City would jump- blokes everywhere waking up, getting their neighbours; don’t have no phones so they just shout and stuff. Husbands would kiss their wives a hurried goodbye, grab a spear and race to the gate.
Gotta defend the city don’t they?

Eventually the Bishop he’d get word there was trouble and being as he was like the big noise in London, he’d eventually get off his regal arse and make his way to the all fuss… and thats when Cnut and his team would strike.

They crossed the river and were out of boat like crap out of a Goose arse; stright over to St Paul’s.

Mind you the church had a wall around it, the part of the city known as Paulsbuyri, so I gotta ask if they had to shimmy over the bloody thing.

And since this account hasn’t said Cnut has like dressed up in ninja bling to do the robbery, he could still be in a robe with flip flops on, its hard to tell.

Anyway, eventually they go straight to the tomb of St Alphege. Just grab the relics right? No. See there was a problem.

Alphege was sealed up tighter than virgin in a convent.

The boys tried but they could not get in. Time started ticking. The stone over the tomb looked like it needed many teams of oxen to even shift it. The Archbishop? He starts bricking it! "The idea is ridiculous," says Æthelnoth. "It must be contemplated at another time and with other forces."

But the king? ‘E’s as cool as a Magnum you know? ‘E says, "It will be very clear, holy father, that the holy man himself wishes to go off with us, if he makes possible of his own will that which is impossible for men. For a difficulty always manages to produce a miracle. Let your holiness therefore prostrate yourself in prayer to God; let the monks approach with confidence to open the doors of the tomb. I shall take on the role of door-keeper".

So picture it- big fricken tomb, all sealed up tight. Two sweaty monks having to break in; the archbishop of Canterbury face down on the stones praying for God (and the dead saint) to give ‘em a sign and let them in, and King Cnut, in a bathrobe, wearing flip flops, stood back at the door keeping an eye out. Mad ting!

Cnut was probably getting into a bit of a sweat. But then, one of the two monks,"tore up the iron candelabrum which stood on the spot, and achieved a break in the upper structure which had been firmly attached to the wall." That’s right he grabbed a large candelabra stood near by, big heavy thing with way too many candles on it. He lifts this thing and starts bringing it down on the tomb. Must have made a hellova racket, but what can ya do? Cnut can’t afford to be caught doing this…

And no sooner had they made a hole than the whole structure fell in on itself like, which to Cnut and everyone- that’s a miracle. Baits.

“The king and archbishop, struck dumb with admiration, rushed up and, with tears in their eyes, looked inside.”

Apparently the body of St Alphege, was totally undecayed in the eleven years since his death, and Cnut exclaims, "Most holy father, sweeter than all delight, most blessed father, more precious than all the treasures of the world, have pity on this sinner of a king, lest either the first indignity or the later cruelty unjustly perpetrated on you by my kinsmen against justice and goodness, should stand to my charge."

Which is a nice speech, an all… but Cnut… mate. We are trying to do a robbery.

You were only suppose to blow the bloody tomb doors off, not get all Shakespeare on us.

MOVE you twat!

Now according to this version the four lads cover the body with the shroud they just so happened to bring, but one of the monks, seeing a part of the body remaining uncovered, runs to a nearby altar and grabs the altar cloth to use as another shroud. But he left half a pound of gold to pay for it, as he’s a monk and he doesn’t do theft.

Aside from the whole body being stolen obviously.

Finally Cnut and the boys make a break for it. But next problem- that break in made noise. The distraction at the gates was only gonna last for so long. Eventually someone would have gotten wind of it. Any second now the fyrd of London could turn up and that was a whole seperate pickle.

In fact it was an entirely different gherkin, you know what I mean. Cnut had to act fast.

Now TECHNICALLY the fastest way out of London would have been from St Paul’s down to Billingsgate. There he could have had his longship ready to go, deep water port, easy access quayside- sweet. Only if you gonna go that way, that meant Cunt and the lads would have been trying to race through London with a corpse on them and the route would have taken them through so heavily built up ends, like Eastcheap. There was always tha chance some residents could slow them down on Eastcheap. Sure, once they got to Lower Thames Street they would be reinforced by the lads in the boat, but why take the risk?

Far easier then to just peg it like your arse was on fire, from St Paul’s straight south to Æthelredshythe just to the south- and jump on the boat to take him across the river… so that’s what they did. Cnut jumps in and holding the body in one arm, steers the ship with his other arm diagonally across the river to Southwark, and the Danish garrison there.

Can you imagine… there is the King of England and Denmark on a ship, the lads rowing like crazy, across the river Thames with all bloody hell breaking loose behind him?

But he wasn’t out of the woods yet. No sooner had he made it to Southwark when he had to get properly out of town. Now here is where the team he left on the bridge came in handy. If the Londoners wanted to get to Southwark they would need to cross the bridge, and his boys were in place to stop ‘em, or if not that, then slow them down.

According to Osbern, Cnut (again, technically still in robe and sandals) bundled the corpse into a cart and under armed escort sent it onto Canterbury, but yeah…

Of course you did mate!

And while that sounds like mine being silly and I AM being silly, please note that IS from a document called ‘The translation of St Alphege’ written 1000 years ago… and yes, William of Malmsbury (who’s as writing a lifetime later), does say that Osbern was great at writing but was prone to not always be historically accurate, but its a heck of a tale.

And it should be noted that soon after, Cnut donated relics from the saint, a finger bone or two, to the Abbey of St Peter’s over on Westminster. And according to those later sources in 1023 Cnut intervened in the politics of the abbey on Thorney Island, making sure that his preferred candidate, a man called Wulfnoth, was elected abbot there.

So in 1023 Cnut is removing a profitable pilgrimage route from London, BUT is allowing a minor one be set up down river on Thorney Island/Westminster, with the monks there under his man now gaining patronage from Cnut.

Indeed it is about now begins the tradition of Cnut starting to lavish this monestary with gifts and the idea that Cnut LIKED to live on Thorney Island. Having a royal residence there would allow him to keep an eye on London without having to BE in London, be close to his garrison in Southwark, and be on his own island.

Tradition says that it was Cnut who first constructed the first foundations of what in time would become known as the Palace of Westminster.

But that wild story of the remains of the saint however hides a deeper truth. Cnut’s hostility towards london was more than just his willingness to rob a few relics. More than just placing a garrison next door to the town. Cnut had plans for London; plans that today we would call colonisation.

Because make no mistake, from aground the 1020’s onwards the Danish population in London skyrocketed, and it wasn’t just based around 40 ships in Greenwich of Southwark. We start seeing a genuine shift in the written and archeological records of London, showing increasing numbers of Danes moving into the region. In Southwark we see the Church of St Olive being constructed, a Scandinavian Saint for a Scandinavian parish. We start seeing runic script start appearing on gravestones.

We have the church of St Magnus being built- named after Jarl Magnus of the Orkney’s. There was a huge influx of Danes coming into London and this had the backing of the King. We see the proof of his work in the fact that fifty years later, when William of Normandy is in charge, the administration of London seemed to be in the hands of men whose names suggested while they were Londoner’s true and high ranking; yet their ancestry was Danish and Scandinavian.

London’s ability to assimilate large bodies of foreigners into her streets seems to have started here in the 1020’s.

Of course this caused resentment. But in this London wasn’t entirely unique. Cnut seemed to be doing the same over iN Denmark; moving Englishmen there to make England more Danish and Danes to London to make London more Danish. He was seeking to establish an Empire.

And yet the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says nothing about this; doesn’t reflect upon these changes. Remains remarkably silent on these political and social upheavals.

And it is in these shadows of historical uncertainty that Cnut was to create an Empire and London’s as to find itself benefitting from this… but we will leave that for another day.

This post started life as the script for a podcast I do called The Story of London, which is me trying to tell the entire story of the city of London as one complete tale. It’s a bit epic as it currently stands as about 24 hours worth of original material and I’m still stuck in the 11th Century…

This episode was the script I used for chapter 36- ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Relics…’ (1020-1023) which you can listen to (with free awful South London accent thrown in) here on RSS: https://rss.com/podcasts/storyoflondon/935716/

Here on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0bKVzzA6ZKF7VIXtXMTY5U?si=7McwmGXSRoWOZdM4qm9uuA

And here on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-story-of-london/id1645316215?i=1000611631823

A full link to the previous 35 chapter scripts can be found here: https://imgur.com/gallery/hajiHGM

And if you feel like supporting this lonely impulse of delight I seem to have, you can do so on www.BuyMeACoffee.com/thefeck

A new episode drops tomorrow (it comes out every Wednesday) and the script of that one is due soon.
Thanks.