Then it happened that king Æthelred passed away before the ships arrived. He ended his days on St George's day, after a life of much hardship and many difficulties.
Æthelred II has not had a good press from historians. His nickname, 'the Unready,' sums up the way he has been presented. During his long reign (978-1016) the country was battered by assault from wave after wave of Viking attack. Years of misery were compounded by the failure of Æthelred and his government to solve the problem. Their military defences were inadequate, and the strategy of paying the Vikings to go away only made matters worse. When he died in 1016, the relatively young Kingdom of the Angles and Saxons was breaking apart, as a final huge Viking onslaught caused the country to splinter again. London was under siege. Prominent chuchmen were declaring that the Apocalypse was upon them.
But this is not the whole picture. Æthelred's epithet appears to come from the Old English for 'poorly advised' and is a pun on his name, which means 'well advised.' Hardly a ringing endorsement, but it does shed a new light on matters. Human beings have always been political animals, and there is just enough evidence to suggest that Æthelred's problems were made worse by the political machinations of those around him. Even today, leaders are hampered when their subordinates offer conflicting advice. The political inertia in France in 1940 brought the country down with it. Æthelred may not have been able to sort out his advisers. But that doesn't mean he is solely to blame for the Viking victories.
The reign of Æthelred also suffers from hindsight. The main account of the events, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, was written after his death. It is hard when you know the ending to avoid seeing everything as leading up to it. Paying the Vikings had worked in the past, including for the benchmark of all Old English kings, Alfred of Wessex; no one has ever said that he was soft on the Vikings.
The Chronicle also tells us that in early 1016 the Anglo-Saxon army refused to fight the Vikings unless Æthelred himself led them into battle. Clearly, by this stage Æthelred was too unwell to do so, but it does beg the question: if Æthelred was so useless, why would the soldiers not take to the field without him? And his apparent lack of skill as king did not reduce loyalty to the royal family; his son, Edmund Ironside, was able to call on the support of the West Saxon militia no fewer than five times between April and October 1016. Edmund managed to lift the siege of London, and held the Vikings under Cnut to a bloody draw. Only his premature death in November 1016 prevented a partition of the country.
More importantly, Æthelred's search for allies led him to marry the daughter of the Duke of Normandy. His children spent Cnut's reign in exile there. One of them returned as King later in the 1000s. His name was Edward the Confessor. Æthelred's Norman alliance would have profound impacts on the whole history of these islands.
Today marks a thousand years since Æthelred II died. The Anglo-Saxons were such a long time ago that they barely seem part of our history, more like something out of a fantasy story. But they were not so different to you or I. The past may be a foreign country, but it is not an alien one.
The reign of Æthelred also suffers from hindsight. The main account of the events, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, was written after his death. It is hard when you know the ending to avoid seeing everything as leading up to it. Paying the Vikings had worked in the past, including for the benchmark of all Old English kings, Alfred of Wessex; no one has ever said that he was soft on the Vikings.
The Chronicle also tells us that in early 1016 the Anglo-Saxon army refused to fight the Vikings unless Æthelred himself led them into battle. Clearly, by this stage Æthelred was too unwell to do so, but it does beg the question: if Æthelred was so useless, why would the soldiers not take to the field without him? And his apparent lack of skill as king did not reduce loyalty to the royal family; his son, Edmund Ironside, was able to call on the support of the West Saxon militia no fewer than five times between April and October 1016. Edmund managed to lift the siege of London, and held the Vikings under Cnut to a bloody draw. Only his premature death in November 1016 prevented a partition of the country.
More importantly, Æthelred's search for allies led him to marry the daughter of the Duke of Normandy. His children spent Cnut's reign in exile there. One of them returned as King later in the 1000s. His name was Edward the Confessor. Æthelred's Norman alliance would have profound impacts on the whole history of these islands.
Today marks a thousand years since Æthelred II died. The Anglo-Saxons were such a long time ago that they barely seem part of our history, more like something out of a fantasy story. But they were not so different to you or I. The past may be a foreign country, but it is not an alien one.
King Æthelred II, as shown in a copy of the Abingdon Chronicle, c. 1200
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