Welcome to the British History Podcast.

My name is Jamie and this is Episode 343 by Thorkelles Beard.

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This is a story of palace intrigue, of murder, and of atypical alopecia.

And it all begins where these things usually do, with real estate transactions.

An Englishman owned some lands in Ellsworth, which is in Cambridgeshire.

And we don't know his name, nor do we know why he was executed by the king.

What we do know, though, is that following the royal execution, this Englishman's lands

didn't go to his heirs.

Instead, they went to the king.

And that's how Canute became a land magnate in Cambridgeshire.

And that would be a positive turn for most of us, but Canute wasn't most of us.

Canute didn't want lands in Cambridgeshire.

After all, Cambridgeshire, during this period, was likely being ruled over by one of his

chief men, Earl Thorkelva Tall, of East Anglia.

And as we've learned, Canute was a big believer in delegation.

So his focus was on greater west-X.

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