biography
| name: |
Ethelred II
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known as Ethelred the Unready, also spelled Æthelred
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pronunciation:
[ethelred]
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (c.968–1016)
|
| biography:
| King of England (978–1016), the son of Edgar. He was aged about 10 when the murder of his half-brother, Edward the Martyr, placed him on the throne. In 1002 he confirmed an alliance with Normandy by marrying as his second wife Duke Richard's daughter Emma - the first dynastic link between the two countries. Renewed attacks by the Vikings on England began as raids in the 980s, and in 1013 Sweyn Forkbeard secured mastery over the whole country, forcing Ethelred into exile in Normandy. After Sweyn's death (1014), he returned to oppose Canute, but the unity of English resistance was broken when his son, Edmund Ironside, rebelled. He died in London. ‘Unready’ is a mistranslation of Unraed, not recorded as his nickname until after the Norman Conquest; it means ‘ill-advised’ and is a pun on his given name, Ethelred (literally, ‘good counsel’). |
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