Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for tuning in. Let's hear it for our super producer, mister Max Williams. Rah, did I do it this time? Right? Benh you're nailing an Oh? Rah ras al Uh? What was the thingan? Yes? Yes? Check check out stuffer sorry, check out hook and stuff. They will want, you know, for more on the infamous Rufio. We're gonna give Max
an honorific for today's episode. You're an old brown I've been bullying' Yes, what if we call what if we call Max the ready?
Williams, Oh, he's always ready, He's he is uh Johnny on the spot as they say yes.
For some reason, I instantly wanted to reply Spotty on the jog, But that.
Feels like why wouldn't you. That's what the mind does. It seeks patterns and then jumbles them up.
Here we go.
I don't want to say what that made me think of everybody, which is one of the nicknames we gave my friend Greg once when he tried to give himself a nickname.
Oh yeah, I remember, legendary Gregg guys, have you ever heard of a porta potty brand called honey bucket?
I have not, and it is that name despicable. Can I just say I think it's just awful. Honey bucket sounds like a bad name for anything, including a literal bucket of honey.
Absolutely, don't want it, don't need it, don't want it around.
I'm not gonna say I'll say this off air, y'all, but I do not have to censor out, so I'm not gonna say it.
Yeah, I'm just now I'm picturing honeybucket as one of those one of those weirdly idiosyncratic Southern nicknames that someone will just drop in conversation, maybe at a diner, and you don't know how to react, like, Okay, what can I get you? Honeybucket? Yeah, somebody sugar and a word. And with this, as you can tell, folks, we are super into nicknames and wordplay. This is part of our
continuing series on something called honorifics Noel. As you and I discovered previously, honorific is just the fancy version of a nickname often assigned to historical figures, to royals, and sometimes without their consent. Coside or agreement.
Typically, that's the way proper honorifics work. To Max's point about his friend Greg giving himself a nickname and that backfiring dreadfully.
Like that old I love that legendary Saturday Night Live sketch about Sting giving himself the nickname Sting and everyone's going, okay, Gordon, Gordon.
This is also reflected in Dana Carvey's Seminal nineteen ninety stand up special, where he does that whole bit and I didn't actually realize that it was originally part of a sketch, and that a lot of the bits he does in that that the first time I was hearing them, like Choppin' Brocoli.
And all that that was from his days on S and M. And speaking of spectacular comedy of yesteryear, let's get into some more terrible hoterrifics. Maybe we start with Charles two, Charles the Second.
That's right, the King ruler of France and the Holy Roman Emperor. When talking about kings and emperors, Charles the Second was actually both of them. Britannica puts it thusly. Charles the Second born June thirteenth, eight twenty three died October sixth eight to seventy seven Bridess Lebon, France. Doing my best there, hopefully casey pegrim is prout. He was the King of France known as Francia Occidentales the West
Frankish Kingdom. He served from eighteen forty three to eighteen seventy seven, and was also the Western Emperor from eight seventy five to eight seventy seven. And you know, if that wasn't complex enough, history has reckoned him as Charles the Second, both of the Holy Roman Empire and also of France.
All right, so be informed, folks. It may sound to a casual reader that there are two different Charles the Second. In this case it's the same guy. He's just pulling double duty in the great gig economy of monarchy. He is the son of Emperor Louis first, the Pious, who is also and he's the grandson. Do you think he was Do you think he was that pious? He probably had a good thing going with the church, fair enough, they liked him.
That's a good example of an honorific bestowed on someone who has a lot of political cachet, right, you know.
Yeah, And Charles the Second is also the grandson of Charlemagne, who is just a fascinating character. Charles the Great another very flattering, honorific. Yes, like our coworker, Charlemagne the God. He is technically our coworker, that is true. Ben He and his second wife, Judith, that's Louis's second wife, not Charlemage. The gods got it, yes, exactly. So Charles was the
unwitting cause of violence. In eight twenty nine, he was granted lands by his father and this essentially led to a the Cavalca, the Domino effect series of internal civil wars. And by internal I mean within the family. Yeah, very secession style, right, that's right. So so Charlie gets a bunch of land, how does that lead to civil war? We have to remember what we what we just mentioned there there was a first wife, you know, and Louie
had three sons with this previous spouse. And these three guys, understandably, they don't like that their younger half brother is getting all this real estate. Those three guys are low there. The first Louis two electric Boogaloo and Pippin one. Pippin what is it? What's that song from Pippin?
Uh?
Do you know Pippin?
The musical was written by the same guy that real Wicked, and when you listen to the music, you can really tell. I don't know if you guys are musical theater people, but I think he's got a song. It's called My Place in the Sky or something. It's very jubilant and very Wicked esque. But Pippen, yes, the first. Don't think it has anything to do nothing. It has to do with Pippin one. I I like saying Pippin one as well.
It really rolls off the tongue or pops off the lips, so, you know, playing favorites, I suppose is maybe the issue at hand here. Dad gifts Charlie boy a bunch of tracts of very valuable land and it causes some resentment, sure from the aforementioned Lothair one, Louis two, and Pippin one.
Yes, and our research associate for today's episode, Max Williams, speculates that perhaps the brothers three were resentful because Charles had a better name than them, and loth are Louis Pippen those are yeah, they're esoteric, right, So this civil war over this real estate and other resentments goes from eight twenty nine all the way up to eight thirty eight, and this is when one dies, unfortunately for Pip and one.
After the death of the Patter familias Louis the First in eighteen forty, the civil war kicks back into gear and it continues until Louis the Second, whose street name is Louis the German, joins forces with Charles and they banned up against Lothar, and they do this through something called the Treaty of Verdoon in eight forty three. And the Treaty of verdon is kind of bringing order to the chaos, getting everybody on the same page. You know, look,
we're all still one percenters. Can't we all just get along? So they allocate out all the lands they control to these three living brothers in pursuit of peace. However, as any ruler can assure you, peace does not always automatically mean things are simple, So being contrary right right peace can be complicated. So for Charles ruling post verdon Is is kind of tricky for sure.
And really quickly off air, we had a funny little stumble wherein I accidentally played through my speakers a vintage SNL clip called Lothar of the Hill People When I hear the name Lothar in this in this story, I think of like it should be followed up with like the Terrible or the Barbarian or something. And then it turns out Mike Myers played Lothar of the hill people on an old s n ol spelt differently, but it is Lothar, not low Fair. But it's still the mind once with the mind wants.
Mike Myers, famously known for basing all of his sketches on this Civil War Indian Ye, yeah, don't fatch I is there? No? No, no, I mean think about think about Wayne's world, really think about it.
Well, well, now we've got Mike Myers and Jana Carvey entering the chat properly. So I think that was an important assign. So when Lothar's albus son, who is the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Louis the second he passed away in eight to seventy five, Charles took a little sojourn over to Italy and where he was crowned emperor on December twenty fifth by the Pope John the eighth.
So this is how he managed to become both the King of France and the Holy Roman emperor, So you know, no slouch kind of doing double duty there, at least title wise.
Yes, and Max has a great Skyrim reference here. I don't want us to lose, honey. Yeah, Charles was right, like you were saying. Old Charles is in a precarious position because he asked to question the loyalty of his vassals, the minor nobles. They're supposed to be on his team. His real estate is getting raided by these groups of Northerners, and he essentially is reduced to bribing them off, not
conquering them, but paying them to go away. He gets defeated by the Bretons quote presumably using their partially Elvin blood for superior magic abilities. Max, I knew it was important to you that we put that in there.
Thank you, thank you. Yeah, the durani Elves and the needs created the Bretons m Olivia. Olivia wasn't not when this game got ridden.
Okay wait wait wait wait Max with facts Yeah, oh of course, in fact fact to Jason, so as you yes, facted Jason fictional facts. So uh so, like you were saying, there is this fascinating situation where Charles becomes both the Holy Broken Emperor co signed by Pope John and the
King of France at the same time. In eighteen seventy six, after the death of Louis the Second, Louis the German, Charles invades his half brother's land and then he gets defeated by Louis the German's son, who is Louis three and his moniker, his autorific Louis three the Younger, which reminds me, you know, this is very creative. Can I say this for all our aspiring MC's in the crowd this evening. I'm hoping there are a lot of us. Please please please get in front of it with your
street name. Be very careful about calling yourself young something or liull something, because if your career is successful, do you really want to be in your mid fifties and still going by like young mikey aod.
It's a good point, I will say this. Sometimes these nicknames can evolve, or by the very nature of one's own success, you can kind of toss him off. Stevie Wonder for a long time early in his career, was known as Little Stevie Wonder because he was a child prodigy. But then he did not continue going by little Stevie. Wonder when he reached adolescents and adulthood.
Yeah, yeah, So word to the wise folks, we're let us help you set yourself up for success. Help us help you. So there's Now, we've told you a lot of autorifics here, and we've talked a lot about our buddy Charles, but we haven't given anyone his honorific yet. We're gonna give you the headline and then we're going to tell you why he got that nickname. Play along at home. Can you guess why his honorific is Charles
the Bald? He was frollically challenged. Yes, yes, he was part of the much maligned and underappreciated class of bald people. He was cranium enhanced.
Hey see, that's how Larry David would be proud er well put.
To understand the full context here, let's go to Aaron Kelly writing for all that's interesting. Aaron puts it thustly.
Charles was the King of West Francia, the King of Italy, and Holy Roman Emperor from eight seventy five to seventy seven. As you mentioned as Charles the Second, a grandson of Charlotte Magne, he actually wasn't bald.
Dang it.
It's an ironic epathetic because he was actually quite harry. Oh, it's like little John in the Robin Hood canon. Okay, well, you know we made an honest mistake, y'all.
Well we got tricked, as did the rest of history.
It's a very Iceland to Greenland thing. Still, though, even with very important historical figures, just the sheer amount of time between eight hundred something in twenty twenty five means that a lot of the true story has been lost to history, and it can be difficult to suss out what is, you know, their equivalent of Internet trolling versus what is factual improven kind of like the debate over Napoleon's height, which turned out to be propaganda, there's no
isn't there something about his penis as well? Napoleon's piedus? I thought there was. I haven't really thought about Napoleon's penis. Yep, that's right, there was a Sorry.
The headline from two thousand and eight at NPRPS the Twisted Journey of Napoleon's Privates. Looking to that yourself, I'm almost positive we've talked about this in some form or fashion. But there is a story behind the provenance and ownership of Napoleon's junk.
People love relics, people love relics, and the weirder, the better, says history. So if you want to learn more about Charles, do check out Charles the Bald, The Story of the Epithet. It's a thesis written by Margaret Audrey Anderson over at Caltech. That's a pretty good one. That's a pretty tame one.
Let's go to another honorific. It's weird to call these honorifics, but let's go to another honorific with Louis the eighteenth And a big, big thanks to our pal Max for replacing the Roman numerals with modern numbers and.
Really quickly, just to sum up a quick off MI a side that I had. I was just curious, like is honorific like a portmanteau of like honor and terrific or something.
No.
In fact, it actually has a Latin origin, meaning that which does honor. It comes from honorific cuss. So in case anyone was wondering, thought we'd go ahead and get that out of the way. But yes, let us do roll through with Louis the eighteenth, the King of France, and Navarre.
Yeah, so we're still in France. We're almost a thousand years in the future flying cars, yet they have some revolutionary ideas. Cookie okay for sure for a nice little thematic bookend. Yes, this guy's name is also Louis. There are eighteen kings in French history who have the name Louis. They were just super into it. A lot of them had very famous names. We probably all have heard of
Louis the fourteenth ak the Son King. We mentioned him in our conversation about ridiculous clothing with aj Bahamas Jacobs. A lot of other people named Louis who had their own honorifics to differentiate them. And if we're positing why these guys keep having the same name, it's likely a move to generate credibility to the throne, right like I'm you know, I'm definitely just like the other king. You like, I've got the same name. We do want to give a shout out to, of course, Louis the fifth, the
do Nothing. That's a heck of a street dame.
No.
Yeah, rough day for Louis, rough rain for Louis.
We're going to get to another sort of diss in terms of laziness horrific coming up in a little bit.
Yeah, So, okay, Louis the eighteenth, the subject of our examination here. He didn't have the best time because he happened to be king when this other dude with a penis that will be famous in the future, a guy named Napoleon, was hanging out.
Yeah, apparently it became like this, the consistency of beef jerky, because they didn't put it in for al day, and it like toured around the globe like under glass, the whole thing. Sorry, I don't know why I'm hung up on this, but you brought it back.
Up again then.
So Louis the eighteenth says Britannica was born November seventeen seventy and fifty five in Versailles and the past on September sixteenth, eighteen twenty four, and Perry he was the King of France by title only in seventeen ninety five and in actual facts, to quote Lauren Vogelbaum's genius catchphrase, from eighteen fourteen to eighteen twenty four, We're gonna get more into the whole by title period of this reign
in a little bit. But Meritanica goes on Louis was the fourth son of the Dauphin, which you might have seen in like I believe, the Dauphin comes up in the Three Musketeers, which means the eldest heir to the king, Louis the son of that's right, exactly, the special best boy. So that was Louis, the son of Louis the fifteenth.
By the way, we're gonna get into some confusing naming conventions here because everyone here, as you mentioned Ben as an indicator of you know, prominence or whatever, to remind the people that Louise are the best, they were the good ones. They're all named Louis. So we're going to talk in numbers, so I myself will likely get continue to confuse and Ben, thank you for going through and changing all the minerals.
Two actual numbers. I really appreciate. That's Max's.
Oh well, thank you for Max. Then I'm not insulted at all, but I know I truly am not.
And we eat it because it can be like reading one hundred Years of Solitude if you remember that book, most famous for well, it's great work of magical realism, but also a ton of people have the same name or very similar names so well.
And let's be real, once you get into higher digits of Roman numerals, unless you're really up to snuff on it, it can be confusing for even the best of us.
Of course, yeah, so at times we may refer to these guys as just eighteen and sixteen to save us all the heartbreak. Louis eighteen the eighteenth is given the title it provolts but it sounds like a cheese, it does, and it does sound good. After two of he gets this, and then two of his older brothers pass away, his eldest brother Louis the sixteenth, so they're brothers that are both named Louis. Louis the sixteenth becomes king, Louis eighteen
gets the title of air Presumptive. Louis sixteen has two kids, so the king has two kids, and that means Louis eighteen is going to have a much more difficult time becoming the king because you know, the two direct children will get the throne first. So the revolution happens. French Revolution seventeen eighty nine was a wild time. You may have heard about it, and Louis the eighteenth stays in Paris,
hopefully to exploit the situation. He's thinking, maybe there is opportunity in this chaos, Maybe I can ascend to the throne once this unpleasantness dies down. It did not die down. It's super not die down. And so Louis had to flee the country. He skips town. In June of seventeen ninety one.
Little known detail, the French Revolution was often referred to as the Great Unpleasantness.
Right the age of the Guillotine, Louis the eighteenth publishes all these anti revolutionary manifestos. He gets a bunch of like expat associations together and they go around kind of door to door, castle to castle, asking other monarchs in different countries to help them in the fight against this dirty peasant uprising. Of course, Louis the sixteenth and Marie Antoinette are still, you know, held captive by the revolutionaries.
They're executed in seventeen ninety three. Louis eighteen, here's about this, and he says, well, you know, my nephew is young. Louis is young, and I know he's the Dauphine, but I am going to be his regent. So right now, what we would say is that Louis eighteen is given big scar energy, you know, yeah, yeah, exactly, long live the king.
Indeed, so Louis seventeen would eventually pass away in seventeen ninety five and his uncle would declare himself King Louis eighteen.
Yeah, we had a.
Little more to get through, the more Louis in fact, so there's a huge problem to you. Oh yeah, said on that too with Chris frasciotis here in spirit. Yeah, check that one out from the early days of ridiculous history. So there's a huge problem with Louis the eighteenth plan of like, you know, declaring himself king. At this time that wasn't a thing. There was not a king of France,
hence the by title note that we mentioned above. So between seventeen ninety five and eighteen fourteen, Louis kind of wandered the earth like Cain from Kung Fu, at least, you know, in Europe. He went journeyed between Russia, England and Russia, promoting this notion of royalism, and this whole goal seemed to lose even more steam after Napoleon declared himself emperor in eighteen o four.
LOUI, Yeah, and so this is this is weird because Napoleon actually tries to broker a deal with Louis the eighteenth, and he says, look, if you abdicate your title and you admit that I Napoleon am the Emperor, will set you up for life, will give you a pension. You won't have to worry about anything. And Louis says, heck, no, man all. And so Napoleon runs into, you know, his own series of defeats. He takes epic victories and absolute defeats,
right right. So it's eighteen thirteen, and this is where Louis the eighteenth issues another manifesto and he says, you know, look, peasants, I will recognize some stuff from the French Revolution as long as we restore my monarchy. This is crazy, right, So Allied armies enter Paris. It's March of eighteen fourteen, and there's this brilliant diplomat who often, yes, she often gets forgotten, but he's really good at me. Can you
get forgotten with a name like Tali rad No? And so he no eighteen and sixteen for that guy, he's just tally Rand. So he's able to negotiate this restoration such that on May third of that same year, eighteen fourteen, Louis is considered again the king, and that's why he was king in title for a while, but now he's king in fact.
So on May the second, Louis eighteen officially declared or at least promised, a constitutional monarchy. He wasn't going to be a iron fisted despot, you know, with the totalitarian regime. He promised a parliament's a a two party parliament, religious tolerance, rights for all citizens guaranteed, a constitution. This is when the shot constitutional now was adopted on June fourth of
eighteen fourteen. This was another you know, I mean, hell, we always refer to our democracy here in the United States as being a bit of an experiment, so this certainly was that.
Oh yeah yeah. And things seemed set to reach a somewhat peaceful conclusion until what's like, anyo moretone music here? Perfect until there's another returning character, a man who is unmess withable because we're family. Show Napoleon right, and he returns from Elba, and this cuts Louise's constitutional experiments short.
No pun intended, because he in fact was of average height. After Marshall michel Ney defected to Napoleon on March the seventeenth of eighteen fifteen, our king fled to Ghent, and he did not have his return of the King, if we're being Lord of the ringsy about it until July the eighth, after a bit of a famous battle known as Waterloo, also a really nice sunset depicted in a lovely song by The Kinks.
Yeah, and after this, Louis serves as king until he passes away on September sixteenth, eighteen twenty four. The autorifics left in his wake are the following You're gonna see two Okay, you're gonna see him called Louis eight, Louis the Desired, or Louis Ahead the smoke Show right, sexy beast right right. They originally went with Louis the Bembo, but them there it is. But he has a little bit more heavy metal one that I think we all prefer, which is Louis the eighteenth, the Unavoidable.
Oh man, he just really insists on himself, doesn't He's just there because he just turn around.
Would stop, He wouldn't stop saying he was king until eventually everybody just agreed with him.
You know, that is a way of doing things. It's not a cool way of doing things. But no little thing we see a little bit around these parts and in the United States. It's just the idea if you repeat something enough times and people just kind of get fatigued, then it just sort of roll over.
Outs to jump in here real quick.
Uh.
The article from a Saint Neo's Museum, which is a museum over in England. I look at the photo that they use of louis the unavoidable. It just it's the epitome. Just go into the article and click into it. I'm just like, tell me when you have it up.
Got it? Yeah?
Are here? Uh you're talking about your talking?
Yeah, he is just like, hi guy, he looks he looks like a wear turtle. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Man, when the full moon waxes, he transforms in the night into a turtle. Remember those yard hermits. Yes, yeah, it's like one of those. I mean, not trying to be a big, big yard hermit vibes.
But when you when you research royals, you can tell when like the change happened from like painting completely to like, you know, trying to be more realistic or you get photos because like a good example of this was in our spiritual prequel to this series, Ridiculous World Deaths Part one, when we talked about the Swedish king who ate himself to death. Every single painting of him, he's just like
the super tall in shape guys and fit. Yeah, in every writing about him said that was nothing like him.
I love that stuff. I love That's one of my favorite things about researching royalty and older historical figures. I like to read a lot about them before I ever see a visual depiction because that there's an unending opportunity for hilarity there. And shout out to all all the artists, the portraitus and so on who had to make these royal depictions. We don't blame you. We know that you would have been murdered if you put it, you know, if you were a little too accurate in your renditions.
Yeah, I mean to be political at all, but like you don't remember what happened just recently with Donald Trump, the President of the United States, where he had like and what he believed to be an unflattering portrait removed. Well, you know, I mean like back in those these days, that kind of attitude might have led to the artist to your point, Ben being you know, executed summarily.
Yeah, they had to be ready, which brings us to something for all read.
For so long, we've talked about ethel Read before and this is very familiar.
Yes, and we mentioned him often. I think we talked with Jack and Miles about him as well. He comes up as a as a side note whenever we talk about autorifics in general, just because this poor schmuck has one of the most hilarious and insulting autorifics in history, ethel Read the unready. We're not saying he's bad. We're not saying he's terrible. We're not saying he's you know, beat me Max, We're saying he's an asshole. We're just saying he's not prepared. It's bit of a slouch. Yeah, yeah,
to your earlier boint. Ethel Read is part of the Saxon dynasty that rules rules England from the ninth to the eleventh century.
According to the Royal Family website, ethel Read the second, the younger son of Edgar, became king at the age of seven following the murder most foul of his half brother Edward the Second in nine seventy eight at Corfe Castle. Dorset by ethel Red's retainers.
Whatever is it? Like? What is posse? What are his retainers? Yeah? Yeah, like his people is okay? Got it? Yeah.
For the rest of ethel Red's rule reigned nine seventy eight to ten sixteen, his brother became a posthumous rallying point for political unrest. A hostile church transformed Edward into a royal martyr.
Which means that now Ethelred is forced to go against the church. Supporting Ethelred means you may be in opposition to God as the way the public understands it. So it makes it really tough for Ethelred to keep his retainers, to have the allegiance of even the civilian population. And while all this is happening, the Vikings are also trying to take England for themselves. Yeah, you wolf at the door.
You know they are coming for the English people's lands and all that they hold dear.
And Ethelred is a lot of things. He's not ready and he's not a fighter, however, so he so he attempts to kind of stem the chaos by making political alliances in nine ninety one and almost in nineteen ninety one, and he says, look, Duke, you gotta help me out. And so the Duke of Normandy is able to help fend off Vikings, and then later ethel Red also does the bribery move. He buys off renewed attacks from the Danes with a tax called the Dane Guild the Dane Gold.
So imagine, like there's something like, imagine if what's a fun country to invade the US? Imagine if Jamaica all of a sudden has this amazing army and there.
I'm here for that and I would love to be taken over by the Jamaica.
And they're and they're invading the US. And then sure, the President puts out a tax so you have to add X percentage to everything you buy and it's called you know, like uh, the Rost attacks. Okay, the Iri tax. There we go.
Yeah, yeah, I love it. Now either one will workshop it. I love this this this fictional scenario, though, Ben, I don't know why. It just tickles me.
It seems pretty cool, right, But yeah, it's not cool for ethel Red by ten Or, as Max refers to him as, and numerous flippy dips on his nickname.
We've got ethyl sauce ethyl fart for some reason. Yeah, just Ethyl unready, Yeah, Ethyl not ready. I believe this is how he puts Ethyl no ready. I just love how you keep us on our Toastmax. Good job, so good show.
So look, by ten twelve, forty eight thousand pounds of silver have been paid via this tax to Danes that are camped in London. The whole country is just foo bar. It's an absolute mess.
Yeah, the country becomes ravaged and Ethyl Red's efforts to you know, hopefully secure peace through currency not a good move because then he just realized the invaders realized that, Okay, this is a weak individual here trying to pay us off.
We don't need you to pay us. We're just gonna take it right. That's our whole thing. Do you not know about the Vikings? You will? Were you not prepared? Anyway? They're not just invading and doing hit and runs at this point or b and ease. They start settling down, putting down roots and towns, and ethel Red launch as a massacre of these Danish settlers. Sorry, I'm afraid of them. As the Vikings. I meant the Danes. The Danes could be blood thirsty. Two who's to say, yeah, blood's for
everybody if you're thirsty enough. So by the end of ten thirteen, the Danish king at the time swhen one had been accepted as the king in England and ethel Red has to scdaddle off to Normandy. Ethel Fled Ethyl nice good button. Right.
So with this we've got a deposed king hiding out in France on the lamb. But it is not the end of ethyl Fled's story. So what happened to seven? I'm gonna go with Sven the First or his much better names seven for just very Viking sounding. He wasn't long for this world. Svend or Svend Seveskaide, which was his native name. It had been around for a bit,
becoming king of Denmark in nineteen eighty seven. He took control of Norway as well in one thousand in a year one thousand, before becoming King of England in ten thirteen, and then he passed away the next year in ten fourteen.
So now there is a power vacuum. This opens an enormous opportunity for Ethelred. Ethelred's counsel of advisors invite him to return to the throne after the death of fork Beard, and they say, well, let you do this asterisk so long as you agree to satisfy our grievances. So I have to kind of pay us off to Ethelred spoiler dies. He doesn't last too long after this. He passes away
in ten sixteen, but he is legacy is secure. The line of Saxon rulers has been restored to the throne, and this is where his son, Edmund the second Ironside much cooler name side note, Uh yeah, he Ironside is not really his father's son in terms of behavior. He's excellent at defending England from Forkbeard's son, who, in a weird way that we won't get into, is also kind of co king of England anyway, Unfortunately for Ironside, we're
just gonna throw that one over there. Unfortunately for Ironside, someone shot him in the ass with a crossbow and he died with a bolt from the crossbow. Sorry, if they didn't throw a whole crossbow out him, Yeah, that would have been like adding insultsanderin. Yeah, and if you.
Want to learn more, check out the Ridiculous or Death episode where we talk about Edmund Ironside and also the debate of whether it was a crossbow or a dagger and if they left the dagger.
In oh right, yeah yeah, but it was definitely as but we do you know that part.
It appears that someone went into the chamber underneath, crawl through all the poop and shot.
Yes, yep, yep, And do check out an episode for kind of what happens and gain in the Song of Ice and Fire, similar to uh, what's his name? Uh till ty Taiwan lanister, he gets shot with a crossbow in the privy.
Yes, crossbow and the privy. It's it's like a clue situation exactly. So let's just talk a little bit about this nickname that we tease so often we should the market. Yeah all right, So Ethel read the unready. It gets a lot of guff from us here, ridiculous history because of what the word unready means in twenty twenty five, back when he got the name, it didn't mean exactly the same thing unread meant no council or that he was stupid.
Okay, so even worse frankly than being unprepared really going after his intelligence there.
Yeah, So maybe on on a more optimistic or empathetic note, maybe Ethel read the unready meant more that he didn't have a lot of people on his side, you know what I mean. Seems so yeah, but it could also just meant that he was dumb as a bag of door nubs.
And actually, if you go a little deeper, the nickname may well have been a kind of cruel twist on the meaning of his actual name ethel Read, which it translates to noble council.
Noble council, no council. Yes, a swiper, no swiping. Yeah, it's good wordplay both ways. We are going to pause. We're gonna go have some adventures here in our fine metropolis of Atlanta, Georgia. Coffee Yeah, a coffee to coffee time indeed ed. We'll be back later this week to figure out why the US doesn't really mess with the metric system. Yeah, if I'm not mistaken too. We also have some fun little bits that.
We're leaving out that we're gonna add to our upcoming bits and Bob's kind of compilation episode with stuff that we didn't get.
To from various topics.
We've got a pretty cool doc that Max has been assembling of some of these little odds and ends, So I'm.
Really looking forward to doing that. Yeah, big, big thanks to our super producer, mister Max Williams. Big thanks to our research associate for this episode, Max Williams.
Indeed huge thanks to Christopher Hasiotis and he was Jeff Coates both here in spirit the Rude Dudes over at Ridiculous Crime, and Alex Williams who composed this biggoty banging bob a.
J Bahamas Jacobs. Jonathan Strickland aka the Quist. Word on the street is that he may return to the show again, just like Napoleon coming back from Elba. I refuse to believe it. Okay, I believe it's true. We'll see you next dop books.
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