, Ethelred “The Unready” Ii

Ethelred, the younger son of Edgar, became king at the age of sevenfollowing the murder of his half-brother Edward II in 978 at CorfeCastle, Dorset, by Edward''s own supporters.
For the rest of Ethelred''s rule (reigned 978-1016), his brother became aposthumous rallying point for political unrest; a hostile Churchtransformed Edward into a royal martyr. Known as the Un-raed or ''Unready''(meaning ''no counsel'', or that he was unwise), Ethelred failed to win orretain the allegiance of many of his subjects. In 1002, he ordered themassacre of all Danes in England to eliminate potential treachery.Notbeing an able soldier, Ethelred defended the country against increasinglyrapacious Viking raids from the 980s onwards by diplomatic alliance withthe duke of Normandy in 991 (he later married the duke''s daughter Emma)and by buying off renewed attacks by the Danes with money levied througha tax called the Danegeld. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1006 wasdismissive: ''in spite of it all, the Danish army went about as itpleased''. By 1012, 48,000 pounds of silver was being paid in Danegeld toDanes camped in London.In 1013, Ethelred fled to Normandy when thepowerful Viking Sweyn of Denmark dispossessed him. Ethelred returned torule after Sweyn''s death in 1014, but died himself in 1016. [Royal]