Welcome to the British History Podcast. My name is Jamie, and this is episode 470.

Tough Treaties.

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As I mentioned a few times, we're discussing one of those periods of history where everything was

kind of happening all at once. Now, this presents a challenge when trying to create a clear

narrative that you can follow while also trying to stay true to the order of events. And that's

assuming that there is a clear order of events. Unfortunately, this period

of history is also poorly recorded. So creating a correct timeline is really difficult in some

cases. Consequently, it's probably best to think of the last several episodes as happening concurrently with each other.

And that includes the first part of this episode. Because while Malcolm was finally kicking the

bucket and those French knights were rolling down steep Welsh hills to their doom, Duke Robert and King Rufus were also out there,

being terrible brothers and even worse rulers. And to start with, it's possible that Rufus was

shopping for another war. Gerald of Wales tells us,

Rufus made a trip to St. David's

at right around this point in time.

And thanks to the clear weather,

he was able to see Ireland.

Spying the Emerald Isle,

he stated what would become a tradition

...