Welcome to the British History Podcast. My name is Jamie. And this is episode 146, King

Ethelball, a whirlpool of tradition. Alright, as you probably already know, we're doing

a Christmas membership drive. This December, if you become a yearly member or renew your

yearly membership, I'll send BHP swag to your door, including a new unseen goodie. Yep, stickers,

buttons, and a mystery present all sent in an envelope licked by me. The BHP is growing,

and our servers are getting hammered. You might have noticed that the site has been slow and has

even gone down from time to time. That's because there are a lot more new listeners, but there

haven't been a lot of new members. Moving servers is expensive and to keep the

site up and to give the Viking Age, which is just around the corner, the attention it truly

deserves, we need help from as many of you as possible. And if you have a friend or family who

might like the show, why not sign them up for a gift membership? It's easy. Just sign up,

and then send me an email telling me who the membership is for, and I'll get it all sorted out.

I'll even send a note wishing them a happy Saturnalia, or any holiday of your choice.

So if you wouldn't mind, head on over to the British History Podcast.com and sign up for a

yearly membership. It really helps out the show a bunch. And thank you very much to Eric,

Pepper, and Rosemary for signing up already. Alright, this episode is a little bit of a strange

one, and not just because of the subject. The first half of this episode is a combination of letting

you know what's happening in the Heptarchy, basically chaos unless you're a merciless,

and it's also setting the stage for the second half, which I'm not going to lie to you,

is going to get a little weird, but stick with me. It's going to get good.

When we last left off, King Aethelbald of Mercya was supreme in the south. Most of the rival kingdoms

of Mercya had been dealing with internal issues in Civil War, and in the vacuum, Aethelbald

...