David Crane

England’s unloved king

Levi Roach describes an extraordinary period of Anglo-Saxon history; but we are no nearer to knowing the ‘ill-advised’ king who lost England to the Danes

issue 15 October 2016

Aethelred the Unready (c.968—1016) has not, as Levi Roach acknowledges, enjoyed a good press. In recent times there may have been some attempt in academic circles to take a more measured view of his calamitous reign, but the fact remains that if most us would have trouble saying quite what he did or did not do, or even what ‘unraed’ actually means, we all know how it ended.

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