Welcome to the British History Podcast. My name is Jamie and this is Episode 380.

Everybody is killing everybody else and no one's talking about it. Part 3.

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Up in the hills of Snowdonia pinned between the sea and the English midlands, King

Gropheth fought against the invading forces of the godwinsons. He was giving the English

such a hard time that even the life of King Edward admits it in the record, which honestly

isn't that much of a surprise. Gropheth was a brilliant military commander. The trouble

though was that Harold and Tostig were gifted generals as well. And while Harold's initial

plan, based upon surprise and audacity, hadn't worked out, he still had a few tricks

up his sleeve. With Gropheth dug into the hills, the Saxon brothers deployed a pincer

attack. Not on Gropheth, but on Wales itself. Harold would strike the coastal towns while

Tostig took the fight directly to Gropheth's homelands in the north. Making matters worse,

Harold's hold on the coast was putting Wales in a blockade, making it impossible for

Gropheth to gather Irish support. This put the King into an impossible decision, as no

matter where he deployed his forces, and no matter where he was operating, one part of

Wales, or another, would be abandoned and left to the tender mercies of these Saxons. And

for their part, Harold and Tostig were all too happy to play on that sense of abandonment.

They began to use bribes and promises to sway the panicked and desperate Welsh nobles into

...