we let pass the day without a word
noting the death in A.D. 1016
of that most noble and regal being:
“King of the English”, Æthelred the Unready,
whose rule was long. (If not very steady.)
When Edward, his half-brother, was overthrown,
Æthelred, at ten, ascended the throne.
Æthelred, at ten, ascended the throne.
Then throughout his entire reign,
Æthelred ineffectively fought invading Danes,
who in those days were hard to distinguish
because they spoke and largely looked like the “English”.
who in those days were hard to distinguish
because they spoke and largely looked like the “English”.
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*Ethelred the Unready, also spelled Aethelred, also called Ethelred II, or Aethelred Unraed, (born 968?—died April 23, 1016, London, England), king
of the English from 978 to 1013 and from 1014 to 1016. He was an
ineffectual ruler who failed to prevent the Danes from overrunning England. The epithet “unready” is derived from unraed, meaning “bad counsel” or “no counsel,” and puns on his name, which means “noble counsel.”
— Encyclopædia Britannica