Æthelred the Unready

Template:Short description Template:Redirect Template:Use British English Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox royalty

Æthelred IITemplate:Efn Template:Circa968 – 23 April 1016), known as Æthelred the Unready, was King of the English from March 978 to December 1013 and again from February 1014 until his death in April 1016. He was the son of King Edgar (959-975) and Queen Ælfthryth. Æthelred came to the throne after the assassination of his older half-brother, King Edward the Martyr, a crime which deeply shocked people. The epithet "Unready" is a pun on his name in Old English, Template:Lang (noble) and Template:Lang (counsel).

Shortly after Æthelred's accession Viking attacks resumed after a generation of peace. Minor raids in the 980s escalated to large scale attacks from the 990s, and as the English were rarely victorious in battle the king and his advisers resorted to giving the Vikings tribute to leave England, payments which are often (incorrectly) called Danegeld. In the 1000s increasingly destructive raids by Viking armies wore down English resistance, and in December 1013 King Swein Forkbeard of Denmark conquered England. Æthelred fled to Normandy, but when Swein died in February 1014 he was able to return to the throne and drive out Swein's son Cnut. In early 1015 civil war broke out when Æthelred's favourite Eadric Streona murdered close allies of Æthelred's oldest surviving son, Edmund Ironside. Cnut returned soon afterwards and Edmund and Æthelred tried to unite against him, but they were hampered by suspicion between them, Eadric's treachery and Æthelred's poor health. He died in April 1016 and Edmund carried on the war until he died in December 1016 and Cnut became king of all England.

Æthelred was only nine to twelve years old when he became king, and during his minority the country was governed by his father's leading advisers, including his mother. When he came of age in the mid-980s, he rejected these advisers and adopted new ones, who persuaded him to grant them property at the expense of the church. By the early 990s he had come to regret the course he had followed and to see the Viking raids as God's punishment for his persecution of the church. The 990s and early 1000s was the most successful period of his reign, when his advisers were of high calibre and there were major cultural achievements in Latin and Old English literature. Failure in war continued, and in 1002 he ordered the St Brice's Day massacre of Danes, which is seen by historians as a sign of his increasing paranoia, which culminated in the rise of Eadric Streona in about 1009.

Æthelred was seen as a bad king by historians after the Norman Conquest, and in the later Middle Ages he acquired his epithet "the Unready". This view was endorsed by historians until the late twentieth century, when a new generation reassessed his record and argued that although his reign ended catastrophically there were significant achievements in the 990s and early 1000s.

Primary sources

The principal narrative sources for Æthelred's reign are manuscripts C, D and E of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (ASC C, ASC D and ASC E),Template:Efn which are all based on a version written, probably in London, between 1016 and 1023, after Æthelred's death and the Danish Viking conquest of England.Template:Sfn These versions of the Chronicle attribute the defeat to English incompetence and cowardice, which is blamed on Æthelred's lieutenants rather than on the king himself. Since the 1970s historians have become increasingly sceptical of the reliability of this account, seeing it as biased by knowledge of the disastrous outcome of Æthelred's reign. Levi Roach comments in his biography of Æthelred that "foreknowledge of the eventual English defeat haunts [the chronicler's] writing at every turn",Template:Sfn while to Simon Keynes "he was like a dead man conducting his own post-mortem".Template:Sfn The only year in Æthelred's reign for which two independent annals survive, the contemporary ASC A as well as ASC C, is 1001. ASC A states that at Pinhoe in Devon local officials gathered together what forces they could and were overwhelmed by a Viking army, whereas according to ASC C an immense English army ran away without putting up a fight. In Keynes's view, the contrast shows the bias in the account written in hindsight.Template:Sfn

Historians writing after the Norman Conquest, such as William of Malmesbury, condemned Æthelred as a disastrous king.Template:Sfnm By contrast, Scandinavian skaldic poetry, written in honour of Viking heroes, depicts Æthelred in a favourable light. The Icelandic poet Gunnlaugr ormstunga visited Æthelred's court in the early 1000s and recited a praise poem describing him as a "generous and dauntless prince".Template:Sfnm But skaldic poetry has been less influential in forming Æthelred's reputation.Template:Sfn

Anglo-Saxon kings held periodic meetings of lay and ecclesiastical magnates of the witan (king's council). Charters (grants of land or privileges by the king) were issued at these meetings, and lists of witnesses (or attesters) to charters provide evidence of the names and status of the men (almost never women) at the meetings. However, the lists are often shortened, particularly if they are later copies.Template:Sfnm Charters usually only survive if they have been preserved in the libraries of religious houses, and so there is a bias against those in favour of laymen. Many charters are fraudulent, but some eighty-four survive from Æthelred's reign which are considered authentic, enough to be a representative sample. Ten are originals, with the rest being copies which may have been altered in error or to suit the interests of the copyist's religious house.Template:Sfn Most are dated, but few show the place of issue, and very little information is available about where Æthelred and his court were at any particular time.Template:Sfn Law codes, coins and contemporary literary productions are also important sources.Template:Sfn

Background

In the ninth century, Anglo-Saxon England came under increasing attack from Viking raids, culminating with an invasion by the Great Heathen Army in 865. By 878, the Vikings had overrun the kingdoms of Northumbria, East Anglia, and Mercia, and nearly conquered Wessex, but in that year the West Saxons achieved a decisive victory at the Battle of Edington under King Alfred the Great (871–899).Template:Sfn Over the next fifty years, the West Saxons and Mercians gradually conquered the Viking-ruled areas, and in 927 Alfred's grandson Æthelstan (924–939) became the first king of all England when he conquered Northumbria.Template:Sfnm He was succeeded by his half-brother and Æthelred's grandfather, Edmund (939-946), who almost immediately lost control of the north to the Vikings, but recovered full control of England by 944. He was killed in a brawl with an outlaw, and as his sons Eadwig and Edgar were infants, their uncle Eadred (946–955) became king.Template:Sfn Like Edmund, Eadred inherited the kingship of the whole of England and soon lost it when the magnates of York (southern Northumbria) accepted a Viking king, but he recovered it when they expelled King Erik Bloodaxe in 954.Template:Sfn

Eadred's key advisers included Dunstan, Abbot of Glastonbury and future Archbishop of Canterbury. Eadred, who suffered from ill health, was in his early thirties when he died, and Eadwig (955-959) succeeded at the age of around fifteen.Template:Sfnm He was the first king since the early ninth century not to face the threat of imminent foreign invasion, and England remained free from Viking attacks until early in Æthelred's reign.Template:Sfn Eadwig died only four years later, and was succeeded by Æthelred's father Edgar (959-975).Template:Sfn Eadwig had appointed Ælfhere to be ealdorman of Mercia, and he became the premier layman, a status he retained until his death in 983. His rise was at the expense of the family of the East Anglian magnates, and his rivalry with Æthelwine, Ealdorman of East Anglia, disrupted the country after Edgar's death.Template:Sfnm

Ealdormen were the second rank of the lay aristocracy below the king. They governed large areas as the king's local representatives and led local levies in battle.Template:Sfn Thegns were the third rank, who owned substantial land and played an important administrative and military role.Template:Sfn

The monastic Benedictine reform movement reached its peak in Edgar's reign under the leadership of Dunstan, Oswald, Archbishop of York, and Æthelwold, Bishop of Winchester.Template:Sfnm It became dominant with strong support from Edgar, earning him high praise by monastic writers.Template:Sfn He was a strong, indeed overbearing ruler, and he enriched Benedictine monasteries at the expense of lay landowners and secular (non-monastic) religious institutions. Æthelwold was the most active and ruthless of the Benedictine leaders in securing land to support his monasteries, in some cases driving out secular clergy in favour of monks.Template:Sfnm

Name

The elements in Æthelred's name in Old English are Æthel (noble) and ræd (counsel).Template:Sfn His byname unræd is described by Roach as "his immortal epithet", a pun which changed his name from "good counsel" to "ill counsel".Template:Sfn The term is not recorded in the Anglo-Saxon period or by Anglo-Norman historians, and is first recorded in the early thirteenth century. The noun unræd fell into disuse in the later Middle Ages and the epithet changed to the adjective unredi, which led to his being called "Æthelred the Unready".Template:Sfn

Childhood

Æthelred was the younger son of King Edgar and Ælfthryth. She was the daughter of Ordgar, ealdorman of Devon, and widow of Æthelwold, Ealdorman of East Anglia, who died in 962. Edgar and Ælfthryth married in 964.Template:Sfn Very little is known of Æthelred's early life, not even when he was born. The royal family attested the New Minster Charter in 966, including Æthelred's elder brother Edmund, but not Æthelred, and so he cannot have been born then.Template:Sfn This is confirmed by a will in the same year or soon afterwards, which made a bequest to an unnamed ætheling (son of a king), and did not mention any other king's son. Both sons are listed in a genealogical tract of 969, and so Æthelred must have been born between 966 and 969, probably in 968. Edmund died in 971, but Æthelred also had an elder half-brother, the future King Edward the Martyr.Template:Sfn The medievalist Cyril Hart describes Edward as "of doubtful legitimacy", but most historians think that his mother Æthelflæd was a wife of Edgar.Template:Sfnm She was the first of Edgar's three consorts, and by the second one, Wulfthryth, he had a daughter Edith, who was venerated as a saint after her death in her early twenties.Template:Sfn

There is evidence that Ælfthryth's sons may have ranked above their elder half-brother, but it is controversial. Edmund is described in attestations to the New Minster Charter as legitimus prefati regis filius (legitimate son of the aforementioned king), and listed above Edward, who is eodem rege ... procreatus (begotten by the same king). Ælfthryth is legitima prefati regis coniunx (legitimate wife of the king). The cross next to Edward's name is the only one for the royal family not filled in with gold. However, historians think that the charter was drawn up by Æthelwold, who was a close ally of Ælfthryth.Template:Sfn The historian Barbara Yorke sees the denial of Edward's legitimacy as "opportunist special pleading" by Æthelwold.Template:Sfn Dunstan appears to have been one of Edward's supporters, and a genealogy created at his Glastonbury Abbey in 969 gives Edward precedence over Edmund and Æthelred.Template:Sfn

Æthelred's father, King Edgar, was only thirty-two when died in July 975, and his death was probably unexpected.Template:Sfn The succession to the throne was disputed. Both boys were probably too young to play an active role in the contest, and were figureheads for the opposing factions. Æthelred's cause was led by his mother and his supporters included Bishop Æthelwold and Ælfhere of Mercia, while Edward's claim was defended by Dunstan, Æthelwine of East Anglia, and Byrhtnoth, Ealdorman of Essex. In the view of the historian Sean Miller, the cause of the dispute probably lay in rival family alliances rather than which candidate had the best claim to the throne,Template:Sfn but Frank Stenton suggests that opposition to Edward, a youth given to frequent outbursts of rage, was probably opposed partly because he "offended many important persons by his intolerable violence of speech and behaviour."Template:Sfn The two sides quickly agreed that Edward would be king, while Æthelred received all the lands which were allocated to æthelings, including some which had been granted by Edgar to Abingdon Abbey, and which were taken back by force. When he became king, Æthelred retained the æthelings' lands and also acquired those allocated to the king.Template:Sfn

Edward reigned for only three years, and it was a period of political turmoil. The nobility seized the opportunity given by Edgar's removal to recover their lost estates. The conflict was seen in the past by historians as a dispute between supporters and opponents of the monasteries, but this is no longer widely accepted.Template:Sfn According to Hart: "The presence of supporters of church reform in both factions indicates that the conflict between them depended as much on issues of land ownership and local power as on ecclesiastical legitimacy. Adherents of both Edward and Æthelred can be seen appropriating, or recovering, monastic lands". Rivalries and conflicts between different factions of the aristocracy were also important causes of instability.Template:Sfn Ælfthryth and Æthelred maintained their alliance with Æthelwold during Edward's reign, and they visited his Ely Abbey. They were probably both persona non grata at Edward's court.Template:Sfn

Death of King Edward the Martyr

Edward was killed on his arrival to visit Ælfthryth and Æthelred at Corfe in Dorset on 18 March 978.Template:Sfn The monastic hagiographer Byrhtferth gives an account of Edward's death in his Life of St Oswald, written around 1000. He wrote that Edward came "seeking the consolations of brotherly love", and was murdered on his arrival by Æthelred's thegns. Edward's thegns took his body to the house of a churl, and the next day he was buried. A year later, Ealdorman Ælfhere came with a great train and had Edward's body exhumed and taken away for honourable burial.Template:Sfn ASC D, which dates to the second half of the eleventh century or the early twelfth, states that Edward was initially buried at Wareham and translated in the following year by Ælfhere to Shaftesbury.Template:Sfnm

Ælfthryth is blamed for Edward's death by post-Conquest chroniclers and some modern historians,Template:Sfnm but other historians are sceptical.Template:Sfnm No one was punished for the murder, and no perpetrator is named in pre-Conquest sources. Roach comments that contemporaries seem to have been as uncertain as modern historians who was responsible.Template:Sfn Some historians think that Edward was killed by Æthelred's partisans in the hope of personal advantage,Template:Sfnm but Ann Williams suggests in her biography of Æthelred that Edward's death may have been the accidental result of an affray between the violent and unstable young king and one or more of the noblemen attendant on Æthelred.Template:Sfn

Reign

Æthelred's early reign

The manner of Edward's death deeply troubled contemporaries. Roach comments: "Medieval kings were felt to be touched by divinity; not only had they been chosen by God, but like bishops they were anointed into their office with holy oil ... To kill a king was, therefore, more than a crime – it was a sin of the first order."Template:Sfn Æthelred may have started his reign in a weak position both as a beneficiary of the murder and because he was at most twelve years old.Template:Sfnm It was over a year before he was crowned, and some historians see this as evidence of resistance among the magnates to his succession,Template:Sfnm but others argue that a long interval between accession and coronation was normal.Template:Sfnm According to ASC D, "he was consecrated king at Kingston with much rejoicing by the councillors of the English people". Byrhtferth states that "there was great joy at his consecration", and describes the king as "a young man in respect of years, elegant in his manners, with an attractive face and handsome appearance".Template:Sfnm Williams sees these descriptions as reflecting "relief at a crisis passed".Template:Sfn

The most influential magnates during Æthelred's minority had previously been his father's leading counsellors.Template:Sfn Ælfthryth, Æthelwold and Ælfhere, who had been Æthelred's chief supporters in the succession dispute when Edgar died, now acted as his regents,Template:Sfn while Edward's chief supporters also attested Æthelred's early charters and the attacks on the monasteries were halted, suggesting a successful effort to restore unity in the ruling elite.Template:Sfn Ælfthryth became even more powerful as a mother than she had been as a wife, and she often attested Æthelred's early charters immediately after the king, whereas in her husband's reign she had witnessed after the archbishops and bishops.Template:Sfn

After the death of Æthelwold in August 984, Æthelred dismissed his regents, including Ælfthryth, who did not attest his charters between August 984 and the summer of 993.Template:Sfn The historian George Molyneaux observes that "Æthelwold's power had been such that only his death enabled Æthelred to escape maternal tutelage".Template:Sfn Under the influence of new advisers, he carried through policies which involved encroachment on church privileges and the proportion of grants to laymen rather than churchmen increased.Template:Sfnm The king ravaged the diocese of Rochester and gave some of its land to a royal retainer, while Ealdorman Ælfric of Hampshire was able to buy the abbacy of Abingdon for his brother.Template:Sfn In 985 his namesake, Ealdorman Ælfric Cild of Mercia, was exiled charged with treason, the details of which are not known.Template:Sfn Template:Efn

Renewal of Viking raids 980-991

After a generation of peace,Template:Sfn Viking attacks resumed with small scale raids in 980 and 982,Template:Sfn commencing what is sometimes called the "Second Viking Age in England".Template:Sfn In 988, the thegns of Devon defeated a force of invading Vikings in a bloody battle.Template:Sfnm The small-scale raids in the 980s would probably not have been considered worth recording if they had not been followed by major attacks,Template:Sfn and in Stenton's view, their chief significance is that they brought England for the first time into diplomatic contact with Normandy as a result of the Normans allowing Danish raiders to use their ports. This led to a dispute which was mediated by an envoy of Pope John XV, who arranged a treaty agreed on 1 March 991 under which both parties agreed not to harbour each other's enemies.Template:Sfn This interpretation of the treaty has been accepted by most scholars,Template:Sfnm but Jenny Benham argues that the raids were too small scale to cause an international dispute. She also argues that they were directed against the south-west, so they are more likely to have been carried out by Vikings based in Ireland and the Irish Sea who would not have used Normandy as a base. She suggests that the treaty was concerned with attacks on pilgrims and merchants.Template:Sfn The view that the raids in the 980s were probably launched by Vikings based around the Irish Sea is supported by Peter Sawyer.Template:Sfn

In August 991 a much larger Danish fleet than any of the raiders of the 980s ravaged Ipswich. It then made its way around the coast to the estuary of the River Blackwater near Maldon, where it occupied Northey Island. Byrhtnoth led a local militia to give the invaders battle. The result was a crushing defeat for the English and the death of Byrhtnoth. After he fell, most of his army fled, but a group of his thegns fought to the death rather than desert their lord, and their loyalty and heroism inspired one of the most famous Old English poems, The Battle of Maldon.Template:Sfnm

England begins paying tributes 991-994

Byrhtnoth was the second most senior ealdorman, and Roach comments that his defeat and death "sent shockwaves throughout the realm".Template:Sfn The king and his counsellors decided, on the recommendation of Sigeric, Archbishop of Canterbury, to give a tributeTemplate:Efn to the Danes of 10,000 poundsTemplate:Efn to leave England, "because of the great terror they were causing along the coast" according to ASC C.Template:Sfnm In 992 the English unsuccessfully attempted to defeat the Danes at sea, and in 993 a Viking army ravaged the north-east coast. In 994 the Viking army was led by the future king of Norway Olaf Tryggvason and Swein Forkbeard, the king of Denmark. They attacked the south-east and several local leaders entered into agreements to buy peace in their areas. This was followed by a formal treaty entered into by the king later in the year. The English paid 16,000 pounds in return for a promise that the Vikings would cease harrying.Template:Efn King Æthelred sponsored the confirmation of Olaf Tryggvason, who had probably earlier been baptised.Template:Sfn After receiving gifts, Olaf promised "that he would never come back to England in hostility." He kept his promise, leaving to establish himself as king of Norway and never returning, and some Vikings entered King Æthelred's service as mercenaries.Template:Sfn

Æthelred changes course

By 993 Æthelred had changed course and disowned his attacks on the church.Template:Sfn No charters survive from 991 and 992, suggesting that the ordinary business of government was put on hold during the crisis following Byrhtnoth's defeat, and when they resume their tone is very different from those of the period when Æthelred had rejected his father's counsellors.Template:Sfn In Roach's view: "The king clearly saw recent misfortunes as divine justice and in doing so he tacitly accepted the teachings of the reformers."Template:Sfn His mother enjoyed renewed status. Her eldest grandson, Æthelstan, states in his will that she brought him up, and she probably brought up other sons before her death around 1000 as she usually attested the same charters as they did.Template:Sfnm Her brother Ordwulf became one of Æthelred's leading advisers.Template:Sfn

In Charter S 876 of 993 (see right) Æthelred declared that Æthelwold's death had deprived the country of one "whose industry and pastoral care administered not only to my interest but also to that of all inhabitants of the country".Template:Sfnm The charter is one of the grandest in appearance to survive as an original from the Anglo-Saxon period, reflecting its political importance.Template:Sfn It was issued at a meeting of the witan at Winchester, and Æthelred declared that he had summoned the meeting "in order to be free of the terrible curse as quickly as possible".Template:Sfn He attributed his own conduct "partly on account of the ignorance of my youth ... and partly on account of the abhorrent greed of certain of those men who ought to administer to my interest". He particularly blamed Ælfric of Hampshire and the late Wulfgar, Bishop of Ramsbury.Template:Sfn In the same year Æthelred had Ælfric's son blinded.Template:Sfn Ælfric was twice accused in ASC C of treachery in battles against the Danes, but it is uncertain whether the charges are justified. The allegations did not halt his rise in status, and he attested charters as the premier ealdorman between around 998 and the rise to dominance of Eadric Streona ten years later. Ælfric died fighting against the Danes in the Battle of Assandun in 1016.Template:Sfn

In Charter S 893 of 898 Æthelred restored property which he had taken from St Andrew's Church, Rochester, and declared:

Now, however, because I have reached a mature age thanks to merciful heavenly kindness, I have decided to amend my childhood deeds. Therefore, encouraged by the grace of the Lord, I am reconsidering whatever I have unjustly done, encouraged then with wicked instigation against the sacred apostle of God; now, fully before God, with tearful contrition of my heart, I repent and restore freely that which rightly belongs to this place, hoping to receive the tears of my repentance and to be loosened from the fetters of my earlier ignorance by Him, Who does not desire the death of a sinner, but rather that he convert and live.Template:Sfnm

This is one of a number of charters in favour of religious houses by which Æthelred hoped to gain divine favour which would merit victory over his enemies.Template:Sfnm In 898 he gave Wulfsige, Bishop of Sherborne, permission to convert his church's community of secular clergy into a monastic one,Template:Sfnm and bishops and abbots became more prominent as charter signatories. In the mid to late 980s only three or four abbots attested, but from 990 there were often ten or more,Template:Sfn and Æthelred made many grants to the Church in the late 990s and early 1000s.Template:Sfn

Cult of King Edward the Martyr

There was a tradition in Anglo-Saxon England of venerating murdered kings as saints, especially if they were young, and the circumstances of Edward's death made it almost inevitable that he would be revered.Template:Sfn But there is little evidence of a cult before around 990, when miracles were first reported at his grave, just when Viking attacks were increasing.Template:Sfn Æthelred took the lead in promoting his half-brother's cult, and in the mid-990s he founded Cholsey Abbey, which was dedicated to Edward.Template:Sfn In 1001 his remains were translated for a second time on Æthelred's orders, this time to a more prominent place in Shaftesbury Abbey.Template:Sfn Æthelred encouraged his sons to support the cult, and Æthelstan, who died two years before his father, left six pounds to "St Edward and Shaftesbury" in his will.Template:Sfnm Æthelred also promoted the cult of his half-sister Edith.Template:Sfn

Viking raids 997-1002

In 997 Danish raids resumed. In that year a Viking army harried Cornwall, Devon, western Somerset and south Wales, in 998 Dorset, and in 999 Kent.Template:Sfn The only year thereafter when England was free of raids was 1000, when the Viking fleet left England for Normandy.Template:Sfn Æthelred led an army to ravage Cumberland and his navy attacked the Isle of Man, probably in response to raids by the king of Strathclyde and Norse (Norwegian) Vikings based in Ireland and the islands of the Irish Sea.Template:Sfn

In 1001 a Danish fleet – perhaps the same fleet which left in 1000 – ravaged in Hampshire and Devon, though the English mounted a successful defence at Exeter. In the spring of 1002, the English bought peace for 24,000 pounds.Template:Sfnm According to William of Jumièges, writing in the 1050s, in around 1002 an English fleet launched an attack on the Cotentin peninsula in Normandy. This may have been a response to Norman harbouring of the Vikings, although William is not reliable on dating.Template:Sfn The disputes between Æthelred and Richard II, Duke of Normandy were settled by negotiations which resulted in the marriage of Richard's sister Emma to Æthelred in 1002. This was the first marriage of an English king to a foreign bride since the 850s. It is not known whether Æthelred's first wife had died or was set aside.Template:Sfn Emma had a high status at court and attested charters in a prominent position.Template:Sfn

St Brice's Day massacre of 1002

Template:Main ASC C states that Æthelred ordered the massacre of all Danish men in England on 13 November 1002, St Brice's Day, ""because the king had been informed that they would treacherously deprive him, and then all his councillors, of life, and possess this kingdom afterwards".Template:Sfn It is very unlikely that there was a massacre of the whole Scandinavian population. It may have been directed at recent immigrants, who were suspect because of the conduct of mercenaries who took service with the English and then deserted back to the Viking side, such as the Danish chieftain Pallig. The order was probably popular, and there is evidence that it was carried out in Oxford. In 1004 Æthelred renewed the charter of the Oxford church of St Frideswide, which had been burnt down when Danes in the town had taken refuge in it during the massacre. However, the slaughter was limited even in this region, as shortly afterwards Æthelred granted land to Toti the Dane at Beckley and Horton in Oxfordshire.Template:Sfn Roach comments that "even if restricted in scope, these attacks speak unmistakably of desperation and paranoia, both of which were to be very much in evidence in Æthelred's later years. They show that the king was starting to chase shadows, and he was unlikely to stop there."Template:Sfn

Decline 1003 to 1012

Swein returned to England in 1003, after an absence of nearly ten years, most of which he had spent fighting, and finally defeating, Olaf Tryggvason's challenge to his position in Norway.Template:Sfn William of Malmesbury attributed his reappearance to a desire to avenge the murder of his sister Gunhilde on the order of Eadric Streona in the St Brice's Day massacre, and this is accepted by Stenton.Template:Sfnm Other historians are sceptical, as William is the only source for Gunhilde's existence and Eadric did not become prominent until several years later.Template:Sfnm In 1003 Swein sacked Exeter and burnt Wilton. In 1004 he burnt Norwich and sacked Thetford. He was then challenged by an army led by an East Anglian nobleman, Ulfcytel. The Danes were victorious, but they suffered heavy losses and said that "they never met worst fighting amongst the English than that which Ulfcytel dealt them". The Danish army left England in 1005, probably because Britain and the Continent suffered from a severe famine in that year.Template:Sfn

In 1005 and 1006 Æthelred carried through changes at court described by historians as a "palace revolution".Template:Sfnm In about 1006 King Malcolm II of Scotland attacked Durham and was defeated by Uhtred, the son of the elderly Waltheof, ealdorman of Bamburgh in north Northumbria. Æthelred then appointed Uhtred ealdorman of Bamburgh, even though his father was still alive, and made him the ealdorman of the whole of Northumbria by adding York after its ealdorman, Ælfhelm, was murdered by Eadric Streona with the approval of the king.Template:Sfnm The three leading thegns since the 990s left the court at this time. Æthelmær and Ordwulf (Æthelred's uncle) retired to monasteries, and Wulfgeat had his land confiscated.Template:Sfn Eadric Streona started his rise to become the most powerful of Æthelred's counsellors around this time and he was probably behind these changes.Template:Sfn Roach thinks that Æthelred concluded that if he was not to blame for the failures then they must be the fault of his advisers, and the changes were part of an attempt to gain the support of God against the Danes by a moral cleansing of the court.Template:Sfn Eadric Streona and his allies were able to take advantage of Æthelred's growing paranoia to rise rapidly in power.Template:Sfn Nevertheless, many magnates kept their positions, including two ealdormen.Template:Sfn

In 1006, according to ASC C, "the great fleet came to Sandwich, and did just as they were accustomed, ravaged, burnt and slew as they went".Template:Sfn For the first time a national army of Wessex and Mercia was called up, but it achieved nothing. As winter approached the Danes retreated to the Isle of Wight, but they then launched a surprise winter attack and defeated the main English army near Reading. In 1007 they were bought off with a tribute of 36,000 pounds, and for the next two years England was free from attack.Template:Sfn In 1008, a fleet of warships was built and assembled at Sandwich, but a dispute broke out among the magnates. A Sussex noble, Wulfnoth, was accused by Eadric's brother Brihtric of unknown crimes, and Wulfnoth deserted with twenty ships to ravage the south coast. Brihtric chased after him with eighty ships, but they were wrecked in a storm. The king and his council decided not to risk the weakened fleet in a general action and the remaining ships were sailed to London.Template:Sfn

To Stenton: "The history of England in the next generation was really determined between 1009 and 1012 ... the ignominious collapse of the English defence caused a loss of morale which was irreparable."Template:Sfn In August 1009 a Danish army led by Thorkell the Tall and his brother Hemming landed at Sandwich. It was the most formidable force to invade England since Æthelred became king.Template:Sfn It went to Canterbury, which made terms and then East Kent, which paid 3000 pounds for a truce. London defeated several attacks. In May 1010 the Vikings defeated Ulfcytel in the Battle of Ringmere and went on to burn Thetford and Cambridge. By this stage English resistance had disintegrated and in 1011 the Danish army was able to move around at will.Template:Sfn In September 1011 the Vikings seized Canterbury and captured Archbishop Ælfheah. The English agreed a tribute of 48,000 pounds, and the Vikings demanded an additional ransom for the archbishop, but he refused and in April 1012 he was murdered by drunken Vikings, in spite of Thorkell's attempts to protect him. Shortly afterwards the tribute was paid and the army dispersed, apart from Thorkell's personal following of forty-five ships, which entered Æthelred's service. They were probably paid by the institution of a new tax called the heregeld (army tax), which was the basis of the post-Conquest tax called Danegeld.Template:Sfn

Defeat and exile 1013

In August 1013 Swein Forkbeard launched an invasion of England with a large fleet. This was different from previous attacks because he intended from the start to conquer England and make himself king.Template:Sfn He landed at Sandwich in Kent, but immediately sailed round East Anglia to Gainsborough, perhaps because the south was too strongly guarded by the fleets of Thorkell and Æthelred.Template:Sfn Swein received the submission of Northumbria and the Five Boroughs of the north Midlands.Template:Sfn He then marched south and Oxford and Winchester quickly surrendered, but London, which was defended by Æthelred and Thorkell, stood firm and inflicted heavy losses on the Danes. Swein then went to Bath where he received the submission of the south-west. With almost the whole country under his control, the Londoners accepted his rule and Æthelred sent his wife Emma to her brother in Normandy, followed by her children. Æthelred celebrated Christmas on the Isle of Wight before joining his wife in exile.Template:Sfn

Æthelred's second reign 1014 to 1016

The situation changed suddenly when Swein died on 3 February 1014. The Danish army immediately elected his son Cnut as king, but the leading English magnates seized the opportunity to return to their traditional allegiance in what Keynes calls "a sign of a basic sense of loyalty to a consecrated king".Template:Sfnm According to ASC C:

Then all the councillors who were in England, ecclesiastical and lay, determined to send for King Æthelred, and they said that no lord was dearer to them than their natural lord if he would govern them more justly than he did before. Then the king sent his son Edward hither with his messengers and bade them greet all his people, and said that he would be a gracious lord to them, and reform all the things which they hated; and all the things that had been said and done against him should be forgiven, on condition that they all unanimously turned to him without treachery. And complete friendship was then established with oath and pledge on both sides, and they pronounced every Danish king an outlaw from England for ever.Template:Sfn

These pledges could only have been imposed on Æthelred because his rule was seen as having been both as an unjust ruler and a military failure,Template:Sfn and Molyneaux sees the ability of the magnates to act collectively in the king's absence as "an illustration of the coherence of the English kingdom".Template:Sfn Stenton comments that the terms "are of great constitutional interest as the first recorded pact between an English king and his subjects".Template:Sfn Æthelred returned to England and went to London, the one place which had been consistently loyal to him in recent years. In late April he went north and drove Cnut out of the country. Before he left, Cnut ordered the hands, nose and ears of his hostages to be cut off. Thorkell's army was at Greenwich and Æthelred raised a tax of 21,000 pounds to pay it off.Template:Sfn

Æthelred's oldest son Æthelstan died in June 1014. His will survives and the main beneficiary was his oldest surviving brother, the future King Edmund Ironside, who received estates and the sword of the famous Mercian king Offa. Æthelstan also made a bequest to Sigeferth, a leading north Midlands thegn and an opponent of Eadric Streona. The will suggests that Æthelred's elder sons were probably allied with a party opposed to Eadric.Template:Sfnm The principal magnates of the Five Boroughs, Sigeferth and his brother Morcar, had surrendered to Swein in 1013 and returned to their traditional allegiance when he died. In early 1015 Eadric had them murdered, almost certainly on the order of Æthelred, who seized their lands and confined Sigeferth's widow Ealdgyth in Malmesbury Abbey.Template:Sfnm The killings destabilised the restored regime and Williams describes them as "a serious error of judgement" by Æthelred.Template:Sfn It was an attack on close friends of the æthelings and on key figures in the crown's fragile hold on northern England. Edmund promptly rescued Ealdgyth without the king's permission and married her. By September he had marched north, taken possession of the brothers' lands and accepted the submission of the people of the area.Template:Sfn

Edmund was now in revolt against his father, but the situation changed when Cnut reappeared and ravaged in Wessex. Æthelred was sick, but efforts were made to unite the English against the invasion. Eadric Streona raised an army in the south and Edmund in the north, but Eadric then defected with forty ships and Wessex submitted to Cnut. In December 1015 Edmund raised an army, but they refused to march without the support of the king and the Londoners. Edmund raised another army after Christmas, and persuaded Æthelred to join them, but the suspicion between father and son was too great and Æthelred soon left, fearing treachery. Edmund then persuaded Uhtred of Northumbria to join him. They ravaged the territories loyal to Cnut, who retaliated by ravaging the north. When Uhtred's own lands were threatened, he submitted to Cnut, who executed him. Edmund had to abandon the north and joined his father in London, where Æthelred died on 23 April 1016.Template:Sfn

Legislation

There are between ten and twelve surviving law codes or parts of codes from Æthelred's reign,Template:Efn more than any other Anglo-Saxon king and the most before Edward I (1272-1307). They were issued in two periods, firstly between about 993 and 997, and secondly between about 1008 and 1014.Template:Sfnm In the view of Keynes, the 990s "may have seen some of the finest legislation ever produced by the Anglo-Saxon kings",Template:Sfn while Wormald writes: "It is hard not to be impressed by the panache with which draftsmen were by now handling legal material."Template:Sfn Meetings of the witan in 997 produced two related law codes, named after the places where they were approved: I Æthelred (the Woodstock code) and III Æthelred (the Wantage code).Template:Sfn The Woodstock code applied to areas under English law, whereas the Wantage Code applied to the Five Boroughs of the Danelaw.Template:Sfn Wormald comments that the provisions and vocabulary of the Wantage Code are so thoroughly Scandinavian that it could not have been drawn up by a West Saxon, and its author must have been an expert on Danelaw usage.Template:Sfn However, in the view of the legal historian John Hudson the code is "best interpreted as the English king imposing measures at least some of which resembled those applied elsewhere in the kingdom".Template:Sfn Edgar decreed in the early 970s that Danish areas should be governed by the laws they thought best, but the term Danelaw (Dena lage) was first used in VI Æthelred in 1008.Template:Sfnm

Æthelred's early codes were mainly concerned with secular law, whereas the later ones, written by Wulfstan, Archbishop of York, were ecclesiastical.Template:Sfn He was a political theorist whose Institutes of Polity advised the king of his responsibilities for the proper government of the kingdom, although Keynes comments that "his advice was more notable for its ideology than valuable for its practicality".Template:Sfn Wulfstan's codes included VII Æthelred, which dates to 1009, and VIII Æthelred, which was issued after the king's return to England in 1014.Template:Sfn Wormald observes that the "intense, almost pleading, tone of Æthelred's later codes was once seen as yet another sign of his government's flailing inadequacy. Yet ... it is hardly less evident in Cnut's laws".Template:Sfn "[Wulfstan's] was the language of the preacher, not the lawyer."Template:Sfn Some historians have complained that Wulfstan's codes are a mixture of homilies and laws, but Martin Ryan argues that this is anachronistic because in the later Anglo-Saxon period they were seen as part of a continuum rather than separate categories.Template:Sfn Wulfstan did not distinguish between sins and crimes.Template:Sfn Wormald describes the codes of the last years of Æthelred's reign and the first decade of Cnut's as the "last phase of Old English law".Template:Sfn

Administration

Major decisions, such as the election of kings, archbishops and bishops, the adoption of law codes, the approval of charters granting land and the settlement of disputes, were taken by meetings of ecclesiastical and lay magnates at meetings of the witan,Template:Sfn and Æthelred often recorded that he was acting after taking counsel with his great men.Template:Sfn Many charters were drafted by officials of a central writing office which was part of the Æthelred's royal household.Template:Sfn The office also sent out Æthelred's instructions in writing and by oral messages, accompanied by his seal as proof of authenticity. Keynes comments that "one should not underestimate the degree of sophistication in the management of private and official business during Æthelred's reign".Template:Sfn London became a key administrative, financial and military centre under Æthelred. It offered the stoutest resistance of any area to the Vikings and became his main base during the later stages of the war.Template:Sfn

There were several types of reeve, royal officials who carried out local administrative duties, and the most important, the shire-reeve or sheriff, is first recorded in Æthelred's reign. The shire-reeve was the king's representative in the shire and his duties included collecting money due to the king, arranging meetings of local courts and organising military forces.Template:Sfn Æthelred appears to have tried to prevent the disputes which disrupted Edward's reign by leaving ealdormanry positions vacant and relying more on reeves. Out of five ealdormen who died or were removed from office between 978 and 1002 who had grown sons, none were succeeded by their sons (except one later) and no son was given any official position. However, Æthelred's manipulation of royal patronage could create tensions among ambitious men seeking the favour of the king.Template:Sfn For most of his reign ealdormen witnessed charters in order of the dates of their appointment, with the longest serving first: Ælfhere of Mercia was senior from 978 to 983, Æthelwine of East Anglia from 983 to 992, Æthelweard of the Western Provinces from 992 to 998, and Ælfric of Hampshire from 999 to 1009x1012. This means that they are an uncertain guide to who was the most influential. From 1009x1012 this pattern was broken: thereafter there was no fixed order apart from Eadric Streona always attesting first even though he was not the longest serving, indicating his rise to dominance.Template:Sfn

Molyneaux argues that administrative reforms around the time of Edgar unified England and made it the single political entity which Æthelred inherited. This increased the power of kings to impose controls on the mass of the people by measures such as laws and coinage reforms, and their dealings became more routine and impersonal. By contrast, royal power over the aristocracy remained personal, dependent on patronage and coercion, such as dismissal from office, expropriation of land, blinding and execution. Æthelred's arbitrary dealings with his magnates and his heavy taxation in support of unsuccessful wars led to increasing efforts to impose restraints on his arbitrary power, which culminated in the pledges Æthelred had to give on his return from exile in 1014. Another important factor was that the concern among religious thinkers that kings should be required to rule justly became stronger in this period.Template:Sfn

Between a quarter and a third of all surviving records of lawsuits in the Anglo-Saxon period date to Æthelred's reign. Contributory factors were the high number of forfeitures and the monasteries' efforts to hold on to the lands granted to them by Edgar.Template:Sfn Like other kings, Æthelred was sometimes unable to enforce his orders in the face of resistance by powerful nobles, as in the case of a man called Wulfbald, who held on to estates he had seized illegally in spite of repeated royal orders to surrender them. Æthelred was able to recover the estates after Wulfbald died, but only after his widow's men had killed a thegn and fifteen of his companions.Template:Sfn

Law codes and sermons demanding piety, lawful and moral conduct, charity to the poor and payment of church dues were an important part of the English efforts to assuage God's wrath and thus save the country from the Vikings.Template:Sfn The sermons and law codes of Wulfstan were a dominant influence. Roach comments that his Sermo Lupi ad Anglos (Sermon of the Wolf to the English) is "in a sense a more impassioned version of the kind of ideas ... expressed in charters, letters and legal ordinances since the 990s: the archbishop sees the Vikings above all as a moral threat, which can only be confronted (if it is to be confronted at all) by a return to pious ways. That the king felt similarly stands to reason".Template:Sfn

Late Anglo-Saxon kings such as Æthelred commanded great wealth. They were able to raise vast sums through taxation and periodic reminting of the coinage, and they owned large royal estates, mainly in Wessex and south-west Mercia.Template:Sfn The total amount paid in tribute to Viking armies was extremely high, particularly compared with the amounts that later medieval English kings were able to raise. Most historians accept their accuracy,Template:Sfnm but John Gillingham argues that they are impossibly high.Template:Sfn

Æthelred had close contacts with the Continent.Template:Sfn Lavelle writes: "The kingdom of the English did not exist in isolation in a forgotten corner of Christendom. By the end of the tenth century, politically, culturally and economically, England was 'at the heart of Europe', and it had been for some centuries."Template:Sfn The treaty with Normandy in 991, Æthelred's marriage to Emma and his exile in Normandy in 1013–1014, show that relations with Normandy were particularly important.Template:Sfn According to the eleventh-century chronicler Ralph Glaber Æthelred sent gifts to King Robert II of France and asked for his assistance.Template:Sfn

Coinage

Edgar had carried through a major overhaul of the coinage, with a single design based on dies supplied from one centre, replacing the old system of local designs. Coins had the king's name and his stylised head on the obverse and the name of the moneyer and town of issue on the reverse. Æthelred carried on this system.Template:Sfn He and his advisers applied the system of frequent recoinages more effectively than it had been in the past, helping to create a system which was influential on the European coinages of the central Middle Ages.Template:Sfn The standard of purity of the silver was high, apart from occasional localised debasement later in the reign.Template:Sfn

The numismatist Rory Naismith summarises Æthelred's coinage:

Æthelred's reign, from the institution of the Hand types onwards, is at the heart of the late Anglo-Saxon coinage system. It saw the fullest development of systematic recoinage, as well as several anomalous types which shed light on the workings of the currency more generally. Yet these small types also emphasise the fact that Æthelred's coinage was still a complex and evolving entity. Its impressive sequence of type-changes only came into being after a period of trial and improvement, especially in the early part of the reign.Template:Sfn

Hand types, which have an image of the hand of God (see top right) on the reverse, were minted in the 980s.Template:Sfn The Crux type, which has a cross in the inner circle on the reverse, was produced much greater quantities from the late 980s to the mid-990s, and it may have been produced in the context of Æthelred's repentance for his youthful misdeeds. It is the first late Anglo-Saxon type to be found on a large scale in hoards in Scandinavia, and much of it may have been taken there as part of tribute, although this has been questioned as there are even more German coins and few Viking raids have been recorded on Germany.Template:Sfn The Long Cross type, with a cross which extends into the outer circle, was minted from the late 990s to the late 1000s. The rare Helmet type, which has a helmeted bust of the king on the obverse, was minted from around 1003. It may be intended to portray the king taking the fight to the Vikings. The very rare Agnus Dei type (see middle right), which portrays the Lamb of God on the obverse instead of the king, probably dates to the crisis of 1009. The final issue was the Last Small Cross type (see bottom right), the production of which commenced around 1009 and continued briefly into Cnut's reign.Template:Sfn

Achievements

Keynes comments that although Æthelred's reign saw military failures and payments of tribute, "a case could be made for regarding the 990s in particular as a period when the internal affairs of Æthelred's kingdom prospered, under the guidance of the king acting with the assistance and advice of a group of distinguished ecclesiastics and laymen".Template:Sfn Keynes concludes from his study of charter witness lists that "one cannot avoid the impression that during the 990s and early 1000s the king was surrounded by men of considerable calibre, many of whom turn out to have been closely associated with the advancement of the monastic cause".Template:Sfn Williams states that "Æthelred's leading ecclesiastics were a close-knit group, committed in varying ways to the ideals of the monastic reform movement".Template:Sfn Æthelred's appointments to the post of Archbishop of Canterbury were all experienced reformist leaders, Æthelgar, Sigeric, Ælfric, Ælfheah and Lyfing,Template:Sfn and according to the historian Frank Barlow the bishops inherited by Cnut "seem to have been more than respectable".Template:Sfn The turn of the century saw a revival in the monastic reform movement after the decline in Edward's reign and the early part of Æthelred's; in addition to the restoration of land to monasteries, new ones were established and existing ones received new endowments. Keynes comments: "One might even consider the possibility that the period was one of the most prosperous for the advancement of the ecclesiastical cause before the Norman Conquest."Template:Sfn On the other hand, Barlow and John Blair see the period as one when the reform movement lost momentum before gradually declining in the period leading up to the Conquest.Template:Sfnm

At the beginning of the eleventh century, a number of monks, described by the historian of religion David Knowles as "small perhaps but influential", embarked on missionary activity in Norway and Sweden, and many of those who went to Sweden were martyred.Template:Sfn

The period was one of cultural achievements. Some of the finest Anglo-Saxon illuminated manuscripts date to the period around 1000, and there were also major works of Old English and Anglo-Latin literature, especially those by Ælfric of Eynsham,Template:Sfnm who is described by the scholar of Latin philology Claudio Leonardi as "the highest pinnacle of Benedictine reform and Anglo-Latin literature".Template:Sfn

Burial

Æthelred was buried in the choir of Old St Paul's Cathedral, London. The tomb (portrayed right), which dates to the mid-twelfth century, was destroyed along with the cathedral in the Great Fire of London in 1666. A modern monument in the crypt lists important graves lost including that of Æthelred.Template:Sfn Æthelred was the first king to be buried there since Sæbbi of Essex in the seventh century.Template:Sfn

Aftermath

After Æthelred's death Edmund was chosen by the Londoners as king and Cnut was elected at Southampton. Following inconclusive battles at Penselwood in Somerset and Sherston in Wiltshire, Edmund lifted the Danish siege of London and then defeated the Danes at Brentford and Otford. He pursued Cnut into Kent and Eadric Streona defected back to him. On 18 October 1016 Edmund was defeated at the Battle of Assandun with heavy losses, including many leading men, after Eadric and his men fled the field. Edmund and Cnut then agreed to divide the kingdom with Edmund taking the lands south of the Thames and Cnut those north. Edmund died on 30 November and Cnut became undisputed king of England.Template:Sfn

Reputation

In the nineteenth century, historians dismissed Æthelred as a bad man and an incompetent king, and this view was endorsed by leading historians in the early and middle twentieth-century.Template:Sfn In Stenton's Anglo-Saxon England, which is described by Keynes as "magisterial and massively authoritative",Template:Sfn the English defeat is attributed to Æthelred personally:

Much that has brought the condemnation of historians on King Æthelred may well be due in the last resort to the circumstances under which he became king. Throughout his reign he behaved like a man who is never sure of himself. His ineffectiveness in war, which is very remarkable in a man of his line, his acts of spasmodic violence, and the air of mistrust which overhangs his relations with his nobles, are signs of a trouble which lies deeper than mere incapacity for government. They suggest the reaction of a weak king to the consciousness that he had come to power through what his subjects regarded as the worst crime committed among the English peoples since their first coming to Britain.Template:Sfn

Opinion began to change in the 1970s, particularly as a result of PhD dissertations and subsequent publications by Keynes and Stafford. They argue that, although Æthelred was finally unsuccessful, he was not incompetent and there were important political and administrative developments in his reign.Template:Sfn Stafford argues that his reign "is not a time of total failure and treachery; for the first twenty-five years or more Æthelred's reign follows normal tenth-century patterns".Template:Sfn She defends Æthelred: "during this long reign the resistance of the English king and kingdom to the Vikings was protracted and often successful, military collapse, when it came, late. England took the brunt of a renewal of Viking raiding not necessarily because it was weak but because it was a desirable prize ... it was the wealth of the English kingdom which attracted".Template:Sfn Keynes comments "Æthelred's misfortune as a ruler was owed not so much to any supposed defects of his imagined character, as to a combination of circumstances which anyone would have found difficult to control".Template:Sfn In Keynes's view:

There were, it is true, always some who were both prepared and able to exploit a situation in their own interests, whether by persuading the king in his youth to appropriate property from religious houses, or latterly by perpetrating cowardly and treacherous acts for self-preservation at critical times, when the security of the country was seriously threatened and when the outcome of events was in the balance; and there can be no doubt that the closing years witnessed a military collapse that is as damning as it is understandable. But none of this should be allowed to detract from or overshadow the positive and enduring achievements of Æthelred's government, particularly in the last decade of the tenth and early years of the eleventh century, and it should not be forgotten that favourable conditions were created in this period for a remarkable flowering of intellectual activity and material culture.Template:Sfn

Some historians are not convinced. Miller comments that in view of his early domination by bad councillors and later by Eadric Streona his nickname unræd seems well-deserved,Template:Sfn and Cyril Hart disputes Keynes's assessment:

However at the end of the day we are left with the undoubted fact that under Æthelred's rule a great and wealthy kingdom succumbed completely to the ravages of a comparatively small number of ruthlessly determined warriors. The repeated treachery in high places, the craven attempts at bribery and appeasement, the incompetent bungling of the generals in charge of the English forces, the lack of a national will to resist the invaders, are all evidence of a devastating failure of initiative, management and sense of purpose at the top. It was not a single catastrophic error, nor was it a run of bad luck, that brought the country to its knees. Those were the days when a king was expected to lead his nation, and this Æthelred failed conspicuously to do.Template:Sfn

The military historian Richard Abels sees the payments of tribute as "expensive and ultimately futile appeasement", but does think that Æthelred was following grand strategy. He courted the dukes of Normandy in order to close their ports to Viking ships, and paid off some Norwegian Vikings and recruited others to defend his kingdom against attack by Danes. He also recruited Danish mercenaries. In Abels's view, Æthelred's policy of divide and rule was sensible. He undertook a programme of creating new fortified boroughs, refurbishing the defences of old ones, and strengthening the navy. Ultimately these measures failed, partly owing to the strength of the Viking armies and partly because of the "treachery and incompetence of the men whom Æthelred appointed to lead his armies".Template:Sfn The tributes are often held up as displaying the weakness and incompetence of Æthelred's government, but Keynes points out that "the policy had been adopted in the past by Alfred the Great, Charles the Bald, and many others, and in certain circumstances may have seemed the best available way of protecting the people against loss of life, shelter, livestock, and crops. Though undeniably burdensome, it constituted a measure for which the king could rely on widespread support."Template:Sfn

Three academic biographies of Æthelred have been published in the twenty-first century, by Ann Williams, Ryan Lavelle and Levi Roach, and they have continued the partial rehabilitation of his reputation. In Lavelle's view, Æthelred had major achievements in the 990s, and his rule was moderately successful, but he lived too long: "Had he died in the early years of the eleventh century, then we might well remember a king of some competence".Template:Sfn Williams writes:

The failures of Æthelred's kingship were political failures, an inability to control and direct the tensions and rivalries which arose between the royal councillors as they jockeyed for power. Æthelred's apparent inability to hold aloof from such conflicts may to some extent justify his reputation as unræd, though other aspects of his government show him amenable to good counsel as well as bad. Yet the first half of his reign can show successes as well as failures, and only in the last decade did matters go fatally awry. In a kingdom less focused on its king, his personal failings would have been less disastrous, but though England at the turn of the tenth and eleventh centuries was already a 'united kingdom', its unity was centred on and symbolized by the person of its king.Template:Sfn

Roach comments that the picture in Æthelred's last years "is one of failure, but not of an inevitable or unmitigated one, and as elsewhere Æthelred's ongoing efforts to combat these threats deserve a sympathetic hearing".Template:Sfn "Æthelred certainly measures up better to contemporary expectations of rule than his popular image would lead us to believe".Template:Sfn "Indeed, despite his later reputation for inactivity, Æthelred was more than willing to apply himself when called for and it is above all variety which characterises his response to the Scandinavian threat".Template:Sfn Lavelle observes that in his last years, his authority was collapsing, but he "simply proceeded with his appointed task of governing an ever-decreasing realm; the king could still muster his reserves of energy and surprise onlookers".Template:Sfn

Roach does think that Æthelred is fairly criticised for his excessive support for and reliance on favourites, especially at the beginning and end of his rule. This may lie behind the demand for more just rule when he returned from exile after Swein's death.Template:Sfn Roach describes Æthelred's life as a tragedy:

a tale of a ruler who despite energetic – and at times resourceful – efforts could not succeed in bringing his nation the "peace and victory"...they so desperately desired. Whether an Alfred the Great or a Charlemagne would have fared better in his shoes is an interesting question, but ultimately beside the point. What we can say is that Æthelred's reign was too long, too complex and too dynamic to dismiss him as "incompetent" or even "unready"; he deserves better, and so do we. Æthelred may not have been a great or even a good king, but he was not a hopeless one, and the Chronicle's own epitaph perhaps best sums up his reign: "he held the kingdom with great toil and hardship for the length of his life".Template:Sfn

Marriages and children

Æthelred probably married his first wife in the mid-980s as his oldest four sons (Æthelstan, Ecgberht, Edmund, Eadred) attest a charter dated 993. The fifth son, Eadwig, first attests in 997 and the sixth, Edgar, in 1001.Template:Sfnm They were named after Æthelred's recent predecessors, in historical order of their reigns, apart from Ecgberht, who interrupts the sequence, and his immediate predecessor, Edward the Martyr.Template:Sfn Judging by the dates of their marriages, Æthelred's daughters by his first wife, Ælfgifu and Eadgyth, were born by the early 990s. His first wife is not recorded until after the Norman Conquest, and the information about her is limited and contradictory. According to the twelfth-century chronicler John of Worcester she was Ælfgifu, daughter of Ealdorman Æthelberht, but there was no ealdorman with that name.Template:Sfn Another post-Conquest writer, Ailred of Rievaulx, does not name her, but states that her father was Thored, ealdorman of York, who did exist. Ailred served for a period in the household of King David I of Scotland, who was a descendant of Æthelred and his first wife, so he may have had access to reliable information. Combining these two sources, she may have been Ælfgifu, daughter of Thored.Template:Sfn Williams comments that she seems to have been completely eclipsed by Ælfthryth, her mother-in-law.Template:Sfn

Known children of Æthelred and Ælfgifu

Æthelstan Ætheling (died 1014)Template:Sfn
Ecgberht Ætheling (died Template:Circa 1005)Template:Sfn
Edmund Ironside (King of England, April to November 1016)Template:Sfn
Eadred Ætheling (died c. 1012)Template:Sfn
Eadwig Ætheling (killed on Cnut's order, 1017)Template:Sfnm
Edgar Ætheling (died Template:Circa 1008)Template:Sfn
Ælfgifu (married Uhtred the Bold, ealdorman of Northumbria)Template:Sfn
Eadgyth (married Eadric Streona)Template:Sfn

It is possible that John of Worcester and Ailred of Rievaulx were referring to different wives, and therefore that Æthelred married twice before wedding Emma. This suggestion is dismissed by Williams and Keynes,Template:Sfnm but is considered likely by Stafford.Template:Sfn

Known children of Æthelred and Emma

In 1002 Æthelred married Emma, sister of Richard II, Duke of Normandy.Template:Sfn Their children were:

Edward the Confessor (King of England, 1042-1066)Template:Sfn
Alfred Ætheling (died 1036)Template:Sfn
Godgifu (married first Drogo of Mantes, second Eustace II of Boulogne)Template:Sfn

Other possible daughters

Most authorities only recognise three daughters,Template:Sfnm but some list another two as possible.

Wulfhild. According to the Supplement to the Jómsvíkinga Saga Wulfhild married Ufcytel, and he was killed by Thorkell the Tall, who then married Wulfhild. Most historians reject or ignore this suggestion,Template:Sfnm but she is accepted as a possible daughter of Ælfgifu by some historians.Template:Sfnm
Abbess of Wherwell. According to ASC E, in 1051 Edward the Confessor rejected his wife and sent her to his sister, the abbess of Wherwell.Template:Sfn Some genealogies list her as an unnamed daughter of Æthelred, and Stafford suggests that she may have been called Ælfthryth. It is possible that she was a daughter of Cnut, but in Stafford's view it is more likely that she was a daughter of Æthelred.Template:Sfnm

Notes

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Citations

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Sources

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External links

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