Hello and welcome to the history of the Germans.

We're now in episode 2, A Dog's Breakfast.

Thank you all for coming back.

Either the first episode hasn't put you off, or you just have extraordinary stamina.

Anyway, back to the show.

Last week, we watched King Henry the Fowler's meteoric rise from Anyway, back to the show.

Last week we watched King Henry the Fowler's meteoric rise from inauspicious beginnings

to the dominant position within the ancient Carolingian Empire.

Henry the Fowler's last, and probably most significant act, came at the end of his life.

When he broke the Merivinian tradition of dividing

the kingdom amongst the sons of the rulers. Instead, Henry determined that his son Otto and

only his son Otto should be king. So far, so wise, but, and there's always a but, what he did not work out was what to do with the spares.

And there were quite a few spares about, three brothers to be precise.

The oldest brother was Tunkma. Tungma was 26 years old, four years older than Otto. Tankma was the son of

Henry the Fowler from his first marriage. His mother was Hatterburg of Meuseburg. Hutterberg was a rich

heiress from Saxony. When Henry first met her, he was, at least according to his chronicler, Vidukind

of Corvay, so enticed by her beauty and the usefulness of her inherited wealth that he

married her on the spot. That was rash. Very rash. Thing is, he did not meet Hatterburg

at a debutante ball or at a dinner party at her parents' house.

No, he found her in a convent where she was about to become a nun.

As a prospective nun, she could only marry under dispensation from at least a bishop.

Blinded by passion, Henry somehow forgot to put the application in the post,

...