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Ethelred II Biography

or Aethelred Unraed known as Ethelred the Unready

(968 - 1016)

(born 968?—died April 23, 1016, London) King of the English (978–1013, 1014–16). He became king after his half brother's assassination and was suspected of involvement in the murder. An ineffectual ruler, he failed to mount an organized defense against the Danish invasions (from 980); his massacre of Danish settlers (1002) provoked further attacks. When Sweyn I was accepted as king in England in 1013, Ethelred fled to Normandy. He returned to the throne on the death of Sweyn in 1014, but on his death he was succeeded by the Dane Canute the Great. His epithet “Unraed” means “evil counsel” and has been translated incorrectly as “the Unready.”

Copyright © 1994-2008 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

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