Aethelred the Unready
Aethelred the Unready reigned for thirty-eight years, longer than any king of the old English line, paid the Danes to go away and had to pay again, ordered the killing of every Dane in his kingdom on one November day, fled to Normandy, was recalled on conditions, and died with Cnut's army in the country. The name is a pun: Aethelred means noble counsel and unraed means no counsel, and it was given him a century after his death. He became king in 978 at about twelve, after his half-brother Edward was murdered at Corfe by men of his own mother's household, and the murder hung over him. The Vikings came back in 980 after a generation's quiet, beat the ealdorman Byrhtnoth at Maldon in 991, and that year the king paid the first Danegeld, ten thousand pounds of silver; the sums rose to forty-eight thousand by 1012, raised by a tax that the kingdom's administration was strong enough to collect, which was the trouble, since it made England worth raiding. In 1002 he married Emma, the sister of the Duke of Normandy, to close the Norman harbours to the raiders. On St Brice's Day, 13 November, he ordered the Danes living in England killed. Sweyn Forkbeard's sister is said to have died in it, and Sweyn came the next year and most years after. His ealdorman Eadric Streona changed sides so often the chronicle stopped counting. In 1013 Sweyn was accepted as king by the whole country and Aethelred sailed to his brother-in-law in Normandy; Sweyn died in February 1014, and the English council invited Aethelred back if he would govern better than before, the first recorded bargain between an English king and his subjects. Cnut returned in 1015. Aethelred died in London in April 1016 while the Danes were on the Thames, leaving the war to his son Edmund Ironside, who lost it in seven months. His law codes, drafted by Archbishop Wulfstan, are the best of the period, which is the kind of thing that was said for him.
- Lived: 966 CE – 1016 CE
- Nationality: English
- Roles: king, monarch
