The British History Podcast · Jamie Jeffers

Eye for an Eye

·27 min·1 clip

Florence of Worcester says Hugh Montgomery cut off Chenred’s genitals, tongue, and eye himself.

1. The British History Podcast episode "Eye for an Eye" follows William Rufus’s England, Bishop Wakellan’s death in Winchester, and the North Wales campaign of 1098. 2. Jamie narrates the episode solo and uses Bishop Wakellan, Ranulf Flambard, Hugh Lupus, Hugh Montgomery, King Griffith ap Cunan, King Cadwagan ap Bleddon, King Magnus Barefoot, Florence of Worcester, and Orderic as the main authorities and actors. 3. The episode asks what happens when royal extraction, marcher rivalry, and Norse movement collide on the Welsh coast. 4. Wakellan dies on 3 January 1098 after messengers demand another 200 pounds during Christmas mass at Winchester. 5. Jamie says Wakellan had overseen construction projects, the royal treasury in Winchester, and the handoff from William the Bastard to William Rufus. 6. The loss of Wakellan leaves his seat empty, his wealth exposed, and Rufus and Ranulf slow to replace him. 7. Hugh Lupus wants Gwynedd back after the Welsh killed Robert of Rithlin in 1093 and pushed his forces out of most of Gwynedd in 1094. 8. Jamie renames Hugh Lupus as "Chester Lupus" and Hugh Montgomery of Shrewsbury as "Montgomery" because the record contains too many Hues. 9. Montgomery’s family background includes Robert of Belem, Lord Talvis, and Mabel, whom Jamie describes as violent, poisonous, and implicated in a beheading conspiracy. 10. Florence of Worcester reports that Lupus and Montgomery crossed into North Wales in 1098 and went through the River Conway toward Anglesey. 11. Griffith ap Cunan and Cadwagan ap Bleddon answer with Welsh forces and Hiberno-Norse mercenaries hired from Dublin. 12. The Welsh avoid a direct cavalry battle, cross the Menai Strait, and try to turn Anglesey into a fortress. 13. Lupus relies on the fact that mercenaries can switch sides for the right price. 14. The Dublin mercenaries ferry Norman knights across the strait and leave Griffith and Cadwagan stranded. 15. Florence says the Normans then overrun the island after a priest named Chenred tries to organize the abandoned Welshmen. 16. Jamie highlights Montgomery’s personal role in mutilation, including the cutting off of hands, feet, genitals, and eyes. 17. Magnus Barefoot appears with six ships while traveling through Orkney, the Hebrides, and the Isle of Man, and Harold, son of Harold Godwinson, is among his crew. 18. Orderic gives a different account of Magnus and Montgomery, which Jamie treats skeptically because it leaves out the torture and seems arranged to flatter Montgomery. 19. The episode’s tone is direct, sarcastic, and heavily voiced in Jamie’s solo narration, with repeated asides about Hues, armor, ships, and 11th-century brutality. 20. Listeners who like Anglo-Norman warfare, Welsh history, and Norse intervention will want this episode, while listeners seeking gentle chronology or low-violence history may skip it.

As heard by us

A brisk medieval campaign story where loyalty fractures around Anglesey and power moves through money.

Eye for an Eye tracks medieval power through the systems that keep it moving: church office, military pressure, mercenary contracts, and money.

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Why you'd press play

You want medieval politics where mercenaries switch sides and 3,000 pounds clears the way to a very large inheritance.

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