Welcome to the British History Podcast.

My name is Jamie and this is episode 408.

Kerosene.

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Happy New Year!

It was 1069.

Nice.

And as the New Year dawned, things in England were getting a bit weird.

To start, England was without its monarch.

And that might surprise you.

After all, the Normans had spent the last couple years fighting to put down rebellions

in Exeter, in the Midlands, up in the North, out to the West, and all the way over to

the East.

Actually, let me rephrase that.

The Normans had spent the last couple years fighting to put down rebellions in every

nook, cranny and bog of England, all while also trying to fend off waves of woodsmen

and bandits laying ambushes and planning assassinations.

So things in England weren't exactly stable.

...