Ethelred the Unready

EnglandWessex978-1016
RealmEngland
Reign978-1016
HouseWessex
LegacyDanegeld payer, the massacre, the fall

Biography

Aethelred Unraed, ill-counseled rather than unready. The St Brice Day massacre 1002, Danes killed, Sweyn revenge followed. The Danegeld, 240,000 pounds of silver paid, the tribute that financed more raids. The kingdom fell, Sweyn, then Cnut, Ethelred exiled to Normandy, the Emma marriage tying the 1066 claim. He died amid the final struggle, his son Edmund Ironside weeks later, the Danish conquest completed.

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