Welcome to the Deep Dives, where we take a stack
of historical sources, charters, laws, biased
chronicles, and modern analysis, and dive straight
into the crucial nuggets of knowledge. Today,
we are peering back into the fraught, complicated
heart of Anglo -Saxon England. We're going to
examine a king whose name has, for what, a thousand
years, been synonymous with catastrophic utter
failure we're talking about ethelred ii king
of the english for nearly four decades spanning
the late 10th and early 11th centuries and the
moment you hear the name ethelred the unready
you just you immediately feel the weight of historical
judgment you really do but what if that simple
damning nickname obscures a reign that was in
reality a period of intense administrative innovation
right a cultural zenith even a fundamentally
sophisticated state structure That is absolutely
the central tension we need to get into today.
Our mission is to move beyond the soundbite,
to understand the man who, despite presiding
over one of the most organized governments in
early Europe, still managed to lose his kingdom.
And not just once. Twice. He lost it twice to
foreign invaders. So to start, we really have
to tackle that. famous brutal epithet the name
itself exactly it is rooted in an ancient and
frankly a genius political pun his actual name
ethelred means noble council noble council yeah
it's a proud strong germanic name composed of
ethel meaning noble and red meaning counsel or
wisdom so he was literally named for the very
quality he would historically be accused of Completely
lacking. That's it. That's exactly where the
pun comes in. His contemporary by name or nickname
was Unred. Unred. Okay, so what does that mean?
It means ill counsel or, and this is maybe more
devastating, no counsel. Wow. So by calling him
unread, the historical record in one swift linguistic
move twisted his name into its exact opposite.
The king of noble counsel became the king of
ill counsel. It's the original piece of historical
character assassination. And, you know, it was
devastatingly effective. But what's fascinating
here is the timing. This nickname wasn't something
people were shouting at him in the street. No,
not at all. That epithet, unread, it wasn't actually
recorded contemporaneously. It doesn't show up
on a political pamphlet the day after he fled.
So when does it appear? It first appears much,
much later in the early 13th century, long after
the Norman conquest. And eventually it shifted
into the more familiar adjective we use today,
the unready. So it's the sheer power of centuries
of hindsight shaping how we remember him. Precisely.
It creates a nickname that retrospectively justifies
the conquest that happened almost 50 years after
he died. That context is just so vital because
we are covering a massive span of time here.
We are. Athelred was king of the English from
March 978, right after the chaos of his half
-brother's death, all the way to December 1013,
when he was briefly deposed. Then he comes back
in February 1014 and reigns until his death in
April 1016. That's a 38 -year reign. An incredibly
long reign, and one defined almost entirely by
the disastrous resumption of large -scale Viking
attacks. This is what historians call the Second
Viking Age in England. So he inherited a prosperous
kingdom and left behind. A catastrophe. A total
catastrophe. And we need to understand exactly
how that collapse was engineered, both by external
pressures and internal political decay. Okay,
so let's start at the beginning. This story has
to start in the shadow of regicide. It really
does. Ethelred was the younger son of King Edgar,
who was, you know, the last great Anglo -Saxon
ruler before this era of crisis. His mother was
Queen Elfthrith. And he was probably born around
968. Right. And his father's death in 975 was
sudden and just catastrophic for the stability
of the kingdom. Edgar was only 32. So young.
And the succession immediately threw the aristocratic
elite into turmoil. This wasn't just a question
of who should rule, but... you know, which faction
would rule through the young king. And the sides
were heavily defined. The kingdom split right
down the middle. Oh, absolutely. So you have
Æthelred, the younger son, backed by his incredibly
powerful mother, Queen Elphir. And some big names
with her. Big names. Bishop Æthelwold and the
influential Ilderman Elphir of Mercia. And on
the other side. The opposing faction supported
his older half -brother, Edward, and they were
heavy hitters too. Dunstan, the Archbishop of
Canterbury, and the immensely powerful Ealdorman
Ethelwine of East Anglia. So this was really
a clash of the titans. It was. And while there
were debates over legitimacy and whose mother
had higher status, most scholars agree this was
really a contest between rival family alliances
and land interests that had been suppressed by
Edgar's strong hand. Edward's claim won out at
first, but he was apparently a violent and, well,
unstable young king. He reigned for only three
turbulent years. And that brings us to the pivotal,
horrifying event of Ethelred's early life. Edward
the Martyr's assassination in March 978. Just
the name tells you how it was remembered. Exactly.
So Edward was visiting his stepmother, Elthrith,
and his half -brother, Ethelred, at Corfe Castle
in Dorset. Okay. The primary source, a hagiographer
writing about Edward's subsequent sainthood,
describes Edward seeking the consolations of
brotherly love and being murdered by Ethelred's
own retainers, his things, the moment he arrived.
Let's pause on that word, the vine. This is so
crucial to Anglo -Saxon political life. They
weren't just servants, were they? Not at all,
no. The Fines were the absolute backbone of the
military and local administration. They were
the king's noble followers, men of land and influence
who owed military service directly to the crown.
So to have the king killed by his own fangs were
the fangs of his rival's household. It's a complete
breakdown of the entire social contract. It's
unthinkable. And the assassination deeply troubled
contemporaries for a very specific reason, didn't
it? It was about the sacred nature of kingship.
Absolutely. The king was consecrated. He was
anointed into office with holy oil, which made
him literally touched by divinity. So to kill
him. To kill a consecrated king was seen as more
than a crime. It was a sin of the first order.
It created this moral and spiritual taint over
the whole succession. And the real issue is that
the crime went unpunished. No one was definitively
named or charged in the pre -conquest sources.
That's right. And while later chroniclers point
the finger directly at his mother, Queen Elthrith,
modern historians are a bit more cautious. Why
is that? Well, some speculate it might have just
been the accidental result of a sudden affray,
a disastrous escalation of political tension
that got out of hand. But regardless of intent,
Æthelred, who was only, what, 9 to 12 years old
at this point? Becomes the immediate beneficiary
of the murder. He inherits a throne stained by
spiritual crime. And that stain, this original
sin, it really haunted his entire reign and was
often cited by later chroniclers as the root
of all his troubles. The crowning didn't happen
right away, though. It took over a year before
he was finally consecrated at Kingston. It did.
And the Anglo -Saxon Chronicle notes there was
much rejoicing by the counselors. Which seems
a bit strange. It does. But this wasn't joy for
the child king. As you suggested, it was probably
relief that the political crisis had passed and
they had a chance to stabilize the vacuum. So
he starts as a boy king, ruling under a regency.
Exactly. The mighty government was led by his
father's leading counselors, his mother, Elfrith,
Bishop Ethelwald, and Ealdorman Elphir. And Elfrith
was intensely powerful, often attesting his early
charters immediately after the king himself.
But the young king didn't tolerate the leash
for long. What happens when he decides to break
free from his regions in the mid -980s? This
is where we see the first definitive signs of
the instability that would later define his kingship.
After Bishop Ethelwald, who was a key conservative
figure, died in 984, Ethelred dismissed his remaining
regions. Including his own mother. Including
his mother. She just vanishes from the charter
witness lists for nearly a decade. He starts
to bring in a new set of advisors. New players
and new mistakes. Precisely. He was trying to
assert his own independence, but he was doing
it under the influence of new and sometimes self
-serving favorites. This led to some highly controversial
actions. Oh, yes. Actions demonstrating a really
worrying lack of respect for established norms
and the church. For example, he savagely encroached
upon church privileges, specifically ravaging
the diocese of Rochester and distributing the
land to one of his royal retainers. So this indicates
a young king. with poor judgment, who, instead
of uniting the kingdom after the murderer, started
alienating powerful institutions. The church,
key aristocrats, you name it, that's absolutely
right. And this pattern of paranoia and ruthlessness
begins early. It does. In 985, he exiled Ealdorman
Elfrick Sild of Mercia for treason. The details
are a bit shadowy, but it shows a king willing
to move aggressively against powerful figures,
fostering this deep suspicion and aristocratic
resentment, which would come back to destroy
him later. So we've established that his political
start was shaky, stained by murder, and marked
by these early controversial policies. But to
truly understand why he's remembered as the unready,
we have to talk about the sources themselves.
Yes. Because they are the ultimate tool of judgment,
and they are deeply compromised. This is so critical
for our listeners. If you're studying this period
you realize the evidence is not neutral. We rely
heavily on the principal narrative sources, specifically
manuscripts C, D, and E of the Anglisaxon Chronicle.
And the Chronicle isn't a single book, right?
It's a collection of records. A collection of
monastic records, copied and continued in different
places. And these particular later versions,
C, D, and E, were written primarily in London
after the most important event of the era. After
Æthelred's death and the successful Danish conquest
of England under Kennet. Exactly. They were composed...
between 1016 and 1023, possibly by prodigalers
employed by Archbishop Wulfstan, who themselves
had witnessed the collapse. They already knew
Canut, the Dane, had won. Thing of the ending.
They knew the ending, and this foreknowledge,
this power of hindsight, it just poisoned their
entire perspective. So they had an immediate
problem. How do you explain the fall of England?
And the narrative they chose was one of English
incompetence, treachery, and cowardice. And that
conveniently diverts blame away from the strength
of the invaders and places it squarely on the
king's lieutenants. So it's a moral explanation
for a catastrophic political outcome. It is.
Historian Levi Roach notes that foreknowledge
of the eventual English defeat haunts the chronicler's
writing at every turn. It's an unavoidable structural
bias. They frame the whole 38 -year reign as
this inexorable march toward the 1016 disaster.
And we can actually see this amplification of
failure when we compare the different versions
of the Chronicle, right? Like with the Viking
raids of 1001. A perfect example. So ASCA, which
is the contemporary source written much closer
to the event, gives a straightforward military
report. Just the facts. Pretty much. It says
local Devon forces gathered what they could but
were overwhelmed at Pinho by the Viking. army.
It's a defeat but you know a brave effort. But
the later source ASCC tells a much darker much
more morally loaded story. It does. It claims
that an immense English army ran away without
putting up a fight. It turns a military loss
into a moral disgrace. So the later versions
are systematically magnifying the sense of English
collapse and betrayal. Making Ethelred's reign
look feebler than it might have felt day to day.
And this negative view was then cemented by the
Anglo -Norman historians who followed the 1066
conquest men like William of Malmesbury. And
their job was to justify the Norman takeover.
Of course. So they depicted the previous Anglo
-Saxon kings as inept, violent, or weak. Ethelred,
the king who lost his country, was the perfect
scapegoat. Now you mentioned a surprising counterbalance
to this, though. Scandinavian sources. It's a
fascinating wrinkle. Paradoxically, some Scandinavian
skaldic poetry, which was meant to honor Viking
heroes, actually depicts Æthelred surprisingly
favorably. How so? Well, we have the example
of Gunnlaugr Orm Stonda, an Icelandic poet who
visited Æthelred's court around the early 1000s
and recited a praise poem describing him as a
generous and dauntless prince. Well, we know
the generous part is true. He was paying huge
amounts of tribute. Exactly. But dauntless is
a direct contradiction. to the image of the unready.
And while historians rightly treat Scaldic poetry
as highly unreliable for factual history, its
purpose was praise and exaggeration, it does
remind us that not everyone in the North Sea
world viewed him as a total failure. He clearly
had moments of authority and charisma. So where
do we get the reliable, unfiltered insight into
his day -to -day governance if the narrative
accounts are so biased? From the paperwork, as
you might call it. We turn to the administrative
record, the non -narrative sources that weren't
trying to tell a story of defeat. Okay. So we
have incredibly reliable sources like the charters.
Eighty -four authentic charters survived from
his reign. And charters are grants of land or
privileges, essentially official government documents.
Yes, and they were issued at periodic meetings
of the Kings Council. The witness lists. The
witness lists on these charters provide solid
chronological evidence of who was attending the
highest levels of government. So these show us
the actual political hierarchy, who's in, who's
out. Exactly. It's a story of political reality,
far harder to distort retrospectively than a
battle description. And we also rely heavily
on the law codes and the coinage records, which
together paint a picture of a functional, sophisticated
state apparatus, even as the military situation
was collapsing. So Ethelred is governing a state
that is arguably... the best administered in
Europe, but he has to deal with this resurgent
threat. After a generation of peace, the Vikings
returned. Small raids started in 980 and 982,
kicking off the Second Viking Age in England.
Initially, these were just probing attacks, likely
opportunistic raids from Irish Sea Norse communities.
They were minor enough that they might have been
forgotten entirely if they hadn't... you know,
set the stage for the massive fleets that arrived
in the 990s. But those initial raids had an immediate
and maybe unexpected diplomatic consequence connecting
England to Normandy. That's right. The diplomatic
activity resulting from the raids led directly
to a major treaty in 991 with Richard II, Duke
of Normandy. And the Pope was involved. It was
mediated by the Pope, John V, and it stipulated
that neither England nor Normandy would harbor
the other's enemies. This was a critical security
measure. Because it suggests the Danish raiders
were using Norman ports. Exactly. It strongly
suggests they were using them as logistical bases.
Ethelred was trying to cut off the pirates' supply
line. And then everything just escalates dramatically
in 991. The year of the Battle of Malden. This
is the turning point. A much larger Danish fleet
ravaged Epswich and landed near the Blackwater
River estuary. The English response was led by
Ilderman Bertnoff. An aging but fiercely loyal
nobleman. Who led a local militia to meet the
invaders. And this event has been immortalized
by the famous Old English poem, The Battle of
Malden. What does that poem tell us about the
climate of the time? While the battle itself
was a crushing English defeat, resulting in Berthas'
death, but the palm captures the ultimate Anglo
-Saxon virtue, absolute loyalty to one's lord.
It details the heroic resistance of the Thanes
who chose to fight to the death rather than desert
their fallen leader. It acts as a powerful moral
counterpoint to the later chronicle accounts,
which emphasize cowardice. So it proves that
there was still immense martial spirit and loyalty.
but that the overall military strategy and coordination
were failing. The shock of Malden led directly
to the policy that has forever defined Æthelred's
reputation, the decision to pay the invaders
off. Yes. The king and his council, the Witten,
advised by Archbishop Sejeric of Canterbury,
decided to pay a tribute, Orgafol. to the Danes.
And the first payment was huge. 10 ,000 pounds,
a massive sum, paid specifically because of the
great terror they were causing along the coast.
We need to clarify the terminology here because
these tribute payments are often just lumped
together. They are, and it's important to distinguish
them. So what's the difference between this first
payment, the gayful, and what came later? This
first gayful was explicitly a one -off payment,
essentially a ransom to make this specific army
leave. Right. It was not yet institutionalized.
It's crisis management. Exactly. It's crucial
to distinguish this from the later, much heavier,
an annual tax that came to be called the Herageld
or army tax. The Gefol was desperate. The Herageld
was a settled system of state extortion. And
critics view this as weakness. But historical
context shows it wasn't always a poor strategy,
right? Modern historians generally agree that
in the short term, it was a sensible, pragmatic
move. Other successful leaders like Alfred the
Great and Charles the Bald in Francia, they adopted
similar policies. To protect the people. To protect
the civil population, their livestock, their
homes. It was a way to buy time, save lives,
and crucially, keep the functioning agricultural
economy intact while the military situation was
being addressed. The problem was that the payments
didn't stop. They just trained the Vikings to
keep coming back for more. And the cost escalated
quickly. By 994, the Viking army returned, led
by two major figures, Olaf Tryggvason, the future
king of Norway, and Svein Forkbeard, the formidable
king of Denmark. The scale must have been terrifying.
It was. They besieged London, though they failed
to take it, which demonstrates London's immense
strategic importance. And the price of peace
went up. To 16 ,000 pounds. For a promise that
the attacks would cease and the fleet would leave.
But in the middle of all this desperation, Ethelred
managed a really sophisticated diplomatic maneuver.
A flash of brilliance. This is a moment of clear
success that often gets overlooked. Ethelred
sponsored the confirmation of Olaf Tryggvason,
who had probably been baptized earlier. And what
did that achieve? Olaf, receiving gifts and an
honor guard, promised never to return to England
in hostility. And he kept that promise. He left
to establish his rule in Norway. And some of
his men were even retained by Ethelred as paid
mercenaries. So it shows he was capable of decisive,
sophisticated diplomatic action that actually
got results. With Olaf, yes. He buys three years
of peace from a major threat, but at an astronomical
financial cost that is just draining the internal
economy. Right. And this brings us to a part
of his reign that really complicated. This section
is absolutely vital for the listener because
it provides the counter -narrative. In the period
immediately following the shock of Malden and
the first major tributes, Uffelred undertook
a massive internal shift. He seems to have had
a change of heart, a kind of moral reckoning.
He did. He began viewing the Viking victories
as divine justice for his earlier persecution
of the church. Remember ravaging Rochester and
dismissing his mother? Yes. By 993, he had accepted
the longstanding critique from church reformers
that his reign was tainted by moral failure.
He convened a medium of the Witten with the stated
goal of being free of the terrible curse as quickly
as possible. He's actively trying to stabilize
his position by aligning himself with the moral
authority of the church. And he didn't just quietly
reconcile. He made a huge public spectacle of
his repentance, which is captured in the charter
S -876 of 993. What's so special about that charter?
S -876 is one of the most powerful and insightful
documents we possess. It's one of the grandest
original charters surviving. And in it, Effelred
publicly and formally disowned his earlier policies.
And he blames his youth. He blames the ignorance
of my youth. but also, and this is key, the abhorrent
greed of certain of those men who ought to administer
to my interest. A public political purge. Absolutely.
It was a formal restoration of land and status
to the church, and he's blaming figures like
Elfrick of Hampshire. This marks a shift in his
political management. His mother, Elfrith. She
comes back into the picture. She does. She gains
renewed status in his charters and ecclesiastics,
bishops and abbots become much more prominent
signatories on these crucial documents. He's
stacking the deck with people who prioritize
moral order. And he smartly tried to neutralize
the most potent political symbol of his failures.
The murder of his half -brother, Edward. He did.
Ethelred actively promoted the cult of Edward
the Martyr. He founded Chelsea Abbey, dedicated
to Edward, and then in 1001, he ordered a second
translation of Edward's remains to a highly prominent
position in Shaftesbury Abbey. That's fascinating.
He's trying to co -opt the moral authority of
the saint whose murder put him on the throne.
It's a brilliant political move. It is exactly
that. It's an attempt to legitimize his rule
by embracing the spiritual debt incurred by the
crime. And despite the Viking pressure. This
period of reform, the late 990s and early on
thousands, is characterized by enormous sophisticated
achievements in governance. It really is. So
let's dig into the evidence that this was a well
-run state. Where do we see this sophistication?
First, in the central administration. We have
evidence of a highly organized central writing
office. Charters were not just, you know, scribbled
documents. They were drafted centrally. Royal
instructions were sent out across the entire
kingdom. And the royal seal. The royal seal was
used uniformly as the proof of authenticity.
This requires training, organization and a highly
literate staff. You should not underestimate
the degree of sophistication in managing official
business. And this centralization extended right
down to local governance, giving us one of the
most enduring administrative roles. history.
Yes. This is when the royal official known as
the Shire Reef, the king's representative in
the Shire or county is first recorded in this
form. Who we know today is the sheriff. The sheriff.
Exactly. And the Shire Reef wasn't just a local
bigwig. He was the king's direct link to local
power. He was the direct agent of the crown.
Absolutely. Responsible for practical duties.
collecting money and taxes, arranging local courts,
enforcing royal decrees, and critically, organizing
the military forces, the Pfeiffer. This level
of centralized control was pretty much unique
in Europe at the time. And the coinage provides
another stunning example of this functional state
machinery. It truly is a marvel. Ethelred continued
the standardized coinage system inherited from
his father, Edgar, but he applied the principle
of frequent recoinages even more effectively
than before. Meaning he called in all the money.
The entire kingdom's currency was called in,
melted down, and reissued with a new design every
few years, sometimes as often as every six years.
Why do that? Why not just let the currency circulate?
Two main reasons. First, it was a massive revenue
stream. The king charged a high fee for the exchange,
essentially taxing the money supply constantly.
And second, it ensured the purity and standardization
of the currency across dozens of mints, guaranteeing
trust in the medium of exchange. This model influenced
later European coinage. for centuries. And the
designs themselves, they reflect the political
climate. They do. The hand types with the hand
of God represent that early period of reform
and repentance. Then came the hugely important
crux type. And that's the one found in Scandinavia.
In massive quantities. It's the first late Anglo
-Saxon coin type found on a large scale in Scandinavian
hordes, which suggests it was the primary mechanism
for transferring those massive early tribute
payments overseas. So the coinage proves that
even though the money was flowing out, the centralized
mechanism for raising it was incredibly robust.
Precisely. And in terms of pure legislative output,
Ethelred's reign is unmatched. He produced between
10 and 12 surviving law codes more than any other.
Anglo -Saxon king before Edward I. And the quality
of this law, especially in the 990s, is considered
the peak of Anglo -Saxon jurisprudence. Yes.
Take the Wantage Code of 997. This law applied
specifically to the five boroughs of the Dane
Law. regions heavily settled by Danes. So it's
not for the whole country. Right. And the code
is remarkable because it incorporates specific
Scandinavian legal usage and vocabulary. This
shows the royal administration was expert enough
not only to control far -flung, historically
separate regions, but also to integrate complex,
regional, non -English legal traditions into
national law. It requires an extremely detailed,
educated, and well -organized civil service.
But then the nature of the law changes dramatically,
driven by this intellectual giant, Wolfstan,
Archbishop of York. Wolfstan was arguably the
most important intellectual figure of the time.
He wrote the later codes, particularly from 1008
to 1014. And Wolfstan fundamentally changed the
tone of the law. How so? He used what is described
as the language of the preacher. He blended homilies
and legal ordinances. So the law literally becomes
a sermon. In essence, yes. For Wolfstan, the
Viking threat... wasn't a military or political
problem, it was a punishment from God. He explicitly
connected sins and crimes, urging the nation
to return to piety to appease God. The famous
Sermon of the Wolf to the English, the ultimate
example of this. It's a fiery polemic blaming
English moral decay for the current disasters.
And this internal intellectual and administrative
push culminated in a genuine cultural zenith
around the turn of the century. A remarkable
flowering of intellectual activity. This is the
moment when some of the finest Anglo -Saxon illuminated
manuscripts were being created, the illustrated
gospels. And we have the major literary works
of Elfrich of Einscham, whose writing is described
as the highest pinnacle of Anglo -Latin literature.
So we have this incredible paradox, a state that
is intellectually vibrant, legislatively advanced,
and runs its money supply flawlessly. Yet it
is simultaneously hemorrhaging money and territory.
The political infrastructure was solid. The king's
personal judgment, however, was about to fail
catastrophically. Okay, so this brings us to
the dissent. The fragile peace bought by those
first -grade payments did not last. Not at all.
The military situation returned with vengeance
in 997. Danish raids resumed annually, now systematic,
targeting Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, and Kent.
They were learning the routes and the weak spots.
The expense must have been staggering. He bought
peace again in the spring of 1002, this time
for 24 ,000 pounds. More than double the first
payment. The cumulative financial burden was
enormous, and it created this atmosphere of fear
and desperation inside the court. And the only
break was in 1000. Which Æthelred used actively.
He ravaged Cumberland and attacked the Isle of
Man, retaliating against Norse Vikings based
in the Irish Sea. He could fight back when given
the chance. But he was always reacting defensively.
Always. And then we hit the moment that historians
seize upon to define Ethelred's erratic cruelty
and paranoia, the St. Brice's Day Massacre in
November 1002. We really need to slow down and
emphasize the drama of this moment. This was
a desperate, horrific act. The Anglo -Saxon Chronicle
states that Ethelred ordered the slaughter of
all Danish men in England on November 13th. And
what was his justification? His official justification,
recorded in a later charter, was based on intelligence
that the Danes were planning to treacherously
deprive him and his counselors of life and seize
the kingdom. This action suggests a king utterly
consumed by fear and suspicion. Exactly. It's
interpreted by historians as a clear, dark sign
of his desperation and paranoia. He was seeing
internal plots everywhere, unable to distinguish
between genuine threats and peaceful settlers.
So what was the likely scope? Was he trying to
kill every settler? single person of Danish descent?
It's unlikely. It seems to have targeted recent
immigrants, Viking mercenaries who had settled
in places like the Five Boroughs, and those who
were known to be politically opposed. But where
it was carried out, it was merciless. In Oxford,
Danes who sought refuge in a church were burned
alive. This single bloody act, even if limited
in scope, was the worst possible political error.
It virtually guaranteed massive retaliation.
It was a monumental strategic mistake. Swain
Forkbeard, King of Denmark, returned in 1003.
And while the story that he was avenging his
sister, Gunnhilde, who was allegedly murdered,
is debated. The massacre certainly gave him the
justification he needed. The moral and political
justification to wage a war of conquest, not
just raiding. He systematically sacked Exeter,
Burnt Wilton, Norwich, and Thetford. But even
in this disastrous phase, there are still flashes
of English resistance. Absolutely. Which contradicts
that chronical narrative of universal cowardice.
In 1004, an English army led by the East Anglian
nobleman Ulf Seidel fought the Danes. The English
suffered a defeat. but they inflicted such heavy
losses that the Danes themselves reportedly acknowledged
they never met worst fighting amongst the English.
So the English could fight when properly led.
The problem was coordination and command. Exactly.
And while the external threat was raging, Æthelred
engineered a political purge internally, a palace
revolution, around 1005 -1006. He was desperate
to find someone else to blame. He concluded his
failures were the fault of corrupt advisors.
He forced three leading felines into retirement
or confiscated their land. This created a political
vacuum, and into that vacuum stepped the man
whose name is now synonymous with treachery,
Adric Striona. Adric Striona, what a name. Striona
literally means the gainer or the grabber. And
he was ruthless. He rose rapidly to become the
most powerful counselor, dominating the witness
lists of the Wheaton meetings. And he seems to
have been behind much of this internal instability.
Consolidating his power by eliminating rivals,
he was likely behind the murder of Ilderman Elfhelm
of York, capitalizing ruthlessly on the king's
growing paranoia. So, Æthelred, seeking loyal
servants, instead promotes a man who is actively
destabilizing the aristocracy for his own personal
gain. This is the definition of ill counsel.
It perfectly illustrates the tragedy of his rule,
and the decline became ignominious in 1008. Ethelred,
demonstrating the power of his administration,
ordered the construction of a massive fleet of
warships. A major, impressive national investment.
But this effort was immediately undermined by
internal aristocratic feuding, driven by Edric
and his allies. What happened? The feud was petty
but fatal. Edric's brother... Britrick accused
a Sussex nobleman named Wolfnoth of unknown crimes.
Wolfnoth reacted by deserting with 20 ships and
ravaging the coast. And Britrick chased him.
With 80 ships. And the entire pursuit fleet was
wrecked in a storm. 80 ships. A massive national
military effort paid for by the already overtaxed
populace lost in a squabble between two aristocrats.
This disaster created irreparable loss of morale
and a deep sense of national futility. The remaining
fleet was retired to London, too afraid to risk
further losses. The English defenses were fundamentally
broken. The final clacks began in 1009, when
the most formidable force since Athelred's accession
landed, led by Thorkell the Tall. This army was
organized, disciplined, and massive. English
resistance collapsed completely by 1011. The
Vikings were moving at will across the countryside.
London held out. London held out repeatedly,
proving its loyalty and resilience, but the surrounding
countryside was being devastated. And the ultimate
humiliation came in September 1011 with the seizure
of Canterbury and the capture of Archbishop Elphia.
The English council was forced to agree to a
colossal tribute of 48 ,000 pounds. The Vikings
then demanded an additional ransom for the Archbishop.
And Elphia refused. He refused to let his already
impoverished people pay a single penny more.
Resulting in his brutal martyrdom. In April 1012,
drunken Vikings murdered him, pelting him with
bones from their feast, despite Thorkell the
Tall's personal attempt to protect him. This
was a deep spiritual and political humiliation
for the English church and crown. And after this?
After the payment of the enormous tribute, the
main Viking army dispersed, but Thorkell the
Tall and his personal following of 45 ships entered
Æthelred's service. As mercenaries. Paid for
by a new institutionalized annual tax, the herigeld.
This tax, the final legacy of the tribute policy
would institutionalize the cost of national defense
for decades to come. So by 1013, the objective
of the Danish forces had shifted entirely from
raiding and extortion to outright conquest. Completely.
Swine Forkbeard invaded with the explicit intention
of making himself king of England. And his campaign
was swift. Brutal and strategically brilliant.
He landed in the north and systematically secured
the submission of Northumbria, the five boroughs,
Oxford, and Winchester without having to fight
a single major battle. The political will to
resist had just evaporated. London remained the
last loyal holdout, defended by Ethelred and
Thorkell's newly hired mercenaries. But with
virtually the whole country under Swine's control,
Ethelred had no choice but to flee. He first
sent his wife, Emma of Normandy, and their children
across the channel, securing the loyalty of his
in -laws. He then fled to the Isle of Wight before
joining them in exile in Normandy. For the first
time, Æthelred had lost his throne. But the political
situation changed on a dime. Swine's reign as
king of England was incredibly brief. He died
just five weeks after conquering the kingdom
in February 1014. This sudden death created a
political vacuum, and the English magnates seized
the chance to return to their traditional allegiance.
They showed a basic underlying loyalty to the
consecrated English dynasty, but they would not
do so unconditionally. This is a constitutional
moment of massive importance. What were the magnate's
terms for bringing the king back? The counselors
sent a deputation to Æthelred, but their message
was stern. He could only return if he would govern
them more justly than he did before. The message
was clear. Your failures were political. And
we will tolerate no more arbitrary power. It
was. And Æthelred agreed. He sent his son Edward
to greet them, promising he would be a gracious
lord and reform all the things which they hated.
And he had to forgive them for submitting to
swine. A formal pardon. This exchange is considered
the first recorded pact between an English king
and his subjects. It illustrates in stark terms
the limits placed on the arbitrary power of the
crown. So his past failures had given the aristocracy
legal leverage to demand reform. It's a moment
of political sophistication that often gets lost
in the narrative of failure. So Æthelred returned,
drove Cnut, swine's son, out of the country,
and the kingdom was briefly, tentatively restored.
But Cnut did not leave quietly. He ordered the
savage mutilation of his English hostages, hands,
noses, and ears cut off, a brutal reminder that
the war was far from over. And the restored regime
was fragile, and it soon shattered because Æthelred,
despite the pact, quickly repeated his most fatal
error. Poor judgment and patronage and a return
to ruthless paranoia. Yes, the lesson of Aedric
Stryona was not learned. In early 1015, Aedric,
now back in favor, murdered Siegfirth and Morcar,
two powerful thanes in the north midlands who
opposed him. And this was likely ordered by Eflred.
Or at least tacitly approved. This serious error
of judgment immediately destabilized the north
and demonstrated that the king's promise to govern
justly was hollow. This act also precipitated
an open, devastating rebellion from the one person
who should have been his greatest ally, his oldest
surviving son, Edmund Ironside. Edmund was a
fierce, charismatic warrior, utterly disgusted
by his father's reliance on Edric. He rescued
Siegfried's widow, married her without royal
permission, and openly seized the dead brother's
lands. Setting up a rival power base. In defiance
of his father. And the English unity was shattered
just as Canut returned. The timing couldn't have
been worse. Canut returned in force. And Edric
Streona, the ultimate pragmatist, immediately
defected with 40 ships to Canut's side, realizing
that Dane was the coming power. Wessex immediately
submitted. So the final effort to unite English
forces failed. The suspicion between the ailing,
paranoid father, Aethelred, and his rebellious,
independent son, Edmund, was just too great.
The king, suffering from poor health and fearing
further betrayal, soon retired to London. He
died there. He died in London on 23 April 1016,
a king who, right up until the end, was battling
his own son and his own unreliable lieutenants
while a foreign power conquered his realm. He
was buried in Old St. Paul's Cathedral. The war
continued under his son, Edmund Ironside, who
demonstrated the kind of vigorous military leadership
his father had lacked. Oh, he was a true warrior
king, fighting five battles in seven months,
but the division in the country was too great.
Edmund eventually agreed to divide the kingdom
with Canut, taking the land. south of the Thames.
But Edmund died shortly thereafter. In November
1016, and Canute became the undisputed king of
all England. And what about the poetic justice
for the ultimate traitor, Adrix Triona? A year
later, Canute had him murdered. The ultimate
traitor received his just desserts, not from
the king he betrayed, but from the king he served.
A clear signal from Canute that there was no
place for such self -serving disloyalty in his
new unified kingdom. A very clear signal. Finally,
let's look at the family legacy, because it's
a line that runs directly through English history.
Absolutely. Ethelred had many children by his
first wife, including the valiant Edmund Ironside.
But his second marriage to Emma of Normandy,
sister of Duke Richard II, was perhaps the most
consequential political move of his life. Because
of their children. Their children included Edward
the Confessor, the future king, and Alfred Etheling.
These connections ensured that the House of Wessex
and its ties to the burgeoning Norman dynasty
would remain critical. Setting the stage for
1066. Exactly. The seeds of the Norman conquest
were sown in the diplomatic desperation of Æthelred
the Unready. So we've seen a king who presided
over periods of exceptional administration. Yet
whose reign was ultimately consumed by personal
and political failures. When we look at his legacy,
the traditional condemnation championed by 19th
and early 20th century historians like Frank
Spenton is brutally harsh. Stetton viewed him
as a classic, weak, incompetent ruler whose failing
stemmed from the original trauma of his half
-brother's murder. Stetton argued Ethelred behaved
like a man who was never sure of himself, citing
his ineffectiveness in war, spasmodic violence,
and deep mistrust of his nobles. All as signs
of a psychological failure rooted in the regicide.
This psychological view that his character doomed
the state was dominant for decades. But since
the 1970s, a new generation of historians, Simon
Keynes, Pauline Stafford, Levi Roach, has offered
a massive necessary partial rehabilitation. They
have. And their core argument is that Ethelred
was not entirely incompetent. His failure was
not systemic across the entire government, but
due to a combination of impossible external circumstances.
The overwhelming strength of the Viking armies.
Organized state level Viking armies led by major
kings like swine and the simple fact that he
lived too long, giving the crisis time to wear
down the state structure. So we can't let the
catastrophic ending overshadow the significant
successes of the middle of his reign. Absolutely
not. They stressed that his government saw positive
and enduring achievements, particularly in the
late 990s and early 1000s. The sophisticated
legislation, the coinage, the Shire Reeve system,
the intellectual flowering. And what about the
tribute payments? Were they really proof of weakness?
The modern view is that the policy of paying
gaffle, while ruinously expensive, was a sensible
strategy in the short term. It bought time to
build up defenses, fortify towns, and commission
the fleet. Which he did attempt in 1008. if that
effort was later ruined by aristocratic feuding.
The policy was fundamentally sound, but its application
was undermined by political disunity. So if the
administration was so robust. Why did the kingdom
ultimately fail? Where was the critical structural
weakness? The failure was political and personal,
specifically concerning the king's relationship
with his aristocracy. As historian Anne Williams
notes, the tragedy lies in his inability to control
the rivalries among his counselors. His ultimate
collects stemmed from his excessive support for
and reliance on favorites, like Edric Streona.
Men who repeatedly used the king's paranoia to
betray the realm and destabilize unity. So he
was a king. who could initiate spectacular reform,
but whose paranoia and catastrophic patronage
choices rendered every success moot, leading
to national disaster. Levi Roach sums up Ithelred's
life as a tragedy. A ruler who, despite energetic
and resourceful efforts, could never achieve
the peace and victory his people desperately
needed. And the most fitting epitaph drawn from
the contemporary chronicler remains the most
neutral and perhaps the most heartbreaking summation.
He held the kingdom with great toil and hardship
for the length of his life. That phrase, with
great toil and hardship, is such a powerful final
image. It strips away the punitive judgment of
unready and leaves us with the sheer unrelenting
difficulty of governing a sophisticated state
under impossible external pressure. It does.
We've seen a kingdom capable of complex legislation,
currency control, and intellectual vigor, a structure
that really should have been unshakable. Yet
that same sophisticated state proved uniquely
fragile because, as we discussed, its unity was
centered on and symbolized by the person of its
king. Anglo -Saxon England was structurally centralized
to the point where the personal character of
the monarch was the ultimate linchpin. Which
brings us to our final provocative thought for
you to mull over as you go about your day. Given
the centralized nature of the English kingdom,
where all power flowed from the king to his Shire
Reeves and his Thanes, where Æthelred's personal
flaws, his paranoia, and his chronic inability
to choose loyal magnates guaranteed to become
national disasters if the system demanded absolute
unity focused on the king did the monarch's psychological
failings inevitably translate into the systemic
collapse of the nation it raises the crucial
question of where historical failure truly lies
with the overwhelming external forces or with
the flawed arbitrary power vested in the individual
leader at the very top of a highly functional
but brittle structure Thank you for joining us
on this deep dive into the ill -counseled king.
We hope you leave here well -informed and certainly
more ready to discuss the complex reign of Ethelred
II. We'll see you next time.