House / Group: Saxon
Born / died: 968-1016
Reign: 979-1016 (deposed 1013-1014)
Next: Edmund II
aka Æþelred and Ethelred the Unready.
Son of King Edgar and his second wife, Elfrida.
Ethelred succeeded his half-brother Edward to the throne on the latter's murder.His first wife was Ælfgifu and his second Emma of Normandy. Ethelred had at least 16 children, details of whom I am still seeking, although Edmund II and Edward the Confessor are known.Ethelred had a lot of trouble with Viking invaders and had to run away to Normandy from Sweyn Haraldsson who ruled briefly but is not counted in the list of England's kings. Ethelred returned on Sweyn's death.
The Unready tag, according to Wikipedia, 'does not mean that he was ill-prepared, but derives from the Anglo-Saxon unræd meaning without counsel. This is also a pun on his name, Æþelræd, which means "Well advised".'
He was buried in the old St. Paul's Cathedral (finally destroyed in the Great Fire of London, 1666, but not in much of a state at that time).
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