Monarchs · Anglo-Saxon & Danish

Æthelred the Unready

c. 966–1016

House of Wessex — Danegeld and the Danish conquest

In office: 978–1013, 1014–1016

Æthelred came to the throne as a boy after the murder of his half-brother Edward the Martyr and reigned for 38 years, longer than any other Anglo-Saxon king. Renewed Viking attacks were met with huge payments of Danegeld, with the St Brice's Day massacre of 1002, and finally with defeat: Sweyn Forkbeard drove him into exile in Normandy in 1013. He returned after Sweyn's death in 1014 and died in London in 1016, leaving his son Edmund Ironside to fight Cnut.

How to spot them

▸The nickname Unræd, 'ill-counselled' — a pun on a name meaning 'noble counsel', not 'unready' in the modern sense
▸Danegeld; the Battle of Maldon, 991; the St Brice's Day massacre, 1002
▸Marriage to Emma of Normandy, mother of Edward the Confessor — the Norman connection begins here
▸Driven out by Sweyn Forkbeard in 1013 and recalled by the witan in 1014

In the reign

A defeat on the Essex coast that produced a great Old English poem about the fall of the ealdorman Byrhtnoth (991)

The Battle of Maldon; the poem turns on Byrhtnoth's ofermod in letting the Vikings cross the causeway.

The first of many great tribute payments, raised by a national land tax, to buy off Viking fleets (991)

Danegeld — 10,000 pounds of silver in 991, rising to 48,000 by 1012.

A massacre of Danes living in England, ordered for the November feast of a Burgundian saint (1002)

The St Brice's Day massacre, 13 November; a mass grave at St John's College, Oxford has been linked to it.

Marriage to a Norman duke's daughter, the match that would one day give Normandy a claim to the English throne (1002)

Emma of Normandy, sister of Duke Richard II; their son was Edward the Confessor.

Accession as a boy of about twelve after a half-brother was stabbed to death at Corfe (978)

Edward the Martyr was killed at Corfe on 18 March 978; suspicion fell on his stepmother Ælfthryth.

Flight to Normandy when a Danish king was accepted as ruler of England, and a recall five weeks after that king's sudden death (1013–1014)

Sweyn Forkbeard died at Gainsborough on 3 February 1014; the witan took their king back on conditions.

Death in London on St George's Day with a Danish fleet at the gates, and burial in Old St Paul's (1016)

23 April 1016; the tomb was destroyed in the Great Fire of London.

Quick-fire facts

•Son of Edgar the Peaceful; he reigned 978–1013 and again 1014–1016, the longest Anglo-Saxon reign
•'Unready' renders Old English unræd, 'bad counsel'; the nickname is first recorded long after his death
•His chief adviser in the later years was Eadric Streona, ealdorman of Mercia, a byword for treachery
•Archbishop Wulfstan of York's Sermo Lupi ad Anglos (1014) blamed the nation's sins for the Danish scourge
•His first wife was Ælfgifu of York, mother of Edmund Ironside; his second was Emma of Normandy
•Emma afterwards married Cnut, so she was queen to two rival kings and mother to two more
•The 1014 recall, on terms agreed with the witan, is often called the first English political contract with a ruler
•He was buried in Old St Paul's Cathedral; his son Edmund Ironside fought Cnut through 1016 and died that November

Drill it — 9 cards

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Sources

The Royal Household — Ethelred II 'The Unready' (r. 978–1013 and 1014–1016)
John Blair — The Anglo-Saxon Age: A Very Short Introduction