Welcome to the British History Podcast. My name is Jamie and this is episode 471. How to

Lose Friends and irritate people. This show is ad-free due to member support and as a way of thanking

members for keeping the show independent, I offer members-only content, including extra episodes

and rough transcripts, and you can get instant access to all the members' extras by signing

up for membership at the British History Podcast.com for about the price of a latte per month.

And thank you very much to William, Olaf, and Emmanuel for signing up already.

It was January of 1095, and Rufus was still at war with his eldest brother, Duke Robert.

And this was a war that could have been avoided if the Red King simply kept his word,

or even just apologized.

But Rufus wasn't interested in doing either of those things. So people were

dying in Normandy. But apologizing wasn't the only thing that Rufus didn't want to do. He also

didn't want to fight a war in winter. At least, he didn't want to fight it personally.

He left that nasty business to his subordinates. So instead, the king was spending his winter

nice and cozy in London, partying it up with his younger brother, Henry. And this is one of those

situations where I wish we had some diaries. Because I

can't tell if Rufus simply had the attention span of a goldfish and this habit of abandoning

tasks half finished had to do with a general lack of follow through, or if the king had just created so many conflicts

that he couldn't keep up with all of them no matter how hard he tried.

And honestly, I kind of feel like it was both, because at this point, the Norman campaign

was at a stalemate, which wouldn't be very fun for a warlike

king like Rufus. And at the same time, North Wales had just kicked off. And Robert Rithlin

had been slain, and now the rebels were encouraging neighboring kingdoms to follow suit. So he did have things that needed his

...