Welcome to the British History Podcast.

My name is Jamie, and this is episode 480.

All gas, no breaks.

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and as a way of thanking members for keeping the show independent,

I offer members-only content, including extra episodes and rough transcripts,

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at the British History Podcast.com for about the price of a latte per month. And thank you very much

to Pavel, Brendan, and Anne for signing up already. All right. So when we left off, Edgar, the eldest living son of Malcolm Canmore,

had claimed the throne of Scotland. But in classic medieval style, the way Edgar had gone about that

was anything but simple. Edgar had taken the throne from his uncle, King Donald III, and to pull that off,

Edgar had the help of another Edgar, Edgar the Atheling, who happened to be the guy he was named after,

as well as King Rufus of England, and with their support, King Donald III was forced into exile.

But Donald was still out there somewhere.

And this was a fact that would have made new King Edgar of Scotland more than a little nervous,

because one of the reasons that Donald III got on the throne

in the first place was thanks to Scottish hostility towards England, and new King Edgar

wasn't just friendly with the English, and also half English himself, he had also sworn an

oath of fealty to Rufus, meaning that Edgar had functionally

demoted Scotland to a vassal of England. And that wasn't going to sit well with Uncle Donald's

supporters. Meanwhile, down south, things with King Rufus were a bit touch and go.

He was governing Normandy, which he always had wanted to do, so that was great.

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