Æthelred the Unready

From a 14th century manuscript

Since Æthelred keeps getting mentioned here (most notably the past two days, due to the contested inheritance of the English throne between him and his half-brother, Edward the Martyr), I thought maybe we should mention a little more about him—or at least explain his not-very-flattering nickname.

When his father, King Edgar, died Æthelred was only about 10 years old. His half-brother, Edward, was a few years older. Edward was illegitimate, whereas Æthelred was the legitimate son of Edgar's last wife, Ælfthryth. Ælfthryth and others fought to have Æthelred succeed Edgar, but others fought for the older Edward, who wound up ruling for three years.

It is highly unlikely that the then-13-year-old Æthelred had anything to do with Edward's death on 18 March 978. Æthelred was crowned a month later.

One of the chief problems faced by Æthelred was attacks by the Danes. About a year after Æthelred became king, small groups of Danes began making raids on the English coast; these happened for a couple years. Then, after a six-year span of peace, a Danish incursion caused a battle between them and the nobles of Devon. England was able at this time to successfully defend itself, but there was an interesting side-effect of these raids, and that was the connection to Normandy.

Upon occasion, the Danes would leave England and cross the Channel to Normandy to give themselves time to rest and recuperate. The Normans ("North Men"), being of Scandinavian extraction originally, "took the side" of the Danes and started viewing England as a rival. Relations between England and Normandy started becoming hostile, so much so that Pope John XV decided to step in and broker a peace treaty between the two nations, in 991. A couple generations later, relations between England and Normandy would change radically, in 1066.

991 also saw the Battle of Maldon, in which the Danes did terrible damage to parts of England and the English nobility. After Maldon,  Æthelred decided that England should pay the Danes to stay away. This started a dangerous precedent: paying off one group of Danes was no guarantee that another (or the same group) wouldn't come back and attack your shores in 997, 998, 999, 1000, and again in 1001. There were more payments, but they were followed by more invasions.

This is a runestone in Sweden,
set up to commemorate a man
who received Danegeld three
times due to raids in England.

Were the payments a good idea? This idea of Danegeld ["Dane gold"] wasn't new: even King Alfred the Great had seen fit to use money to ensure peace. It was a way to get a marauder to go away and leave lives and crops and property intact. Still, it marred Æthelred's reputation, and may have led to his nickname.

"Unready" suggests to modern readers that he was not prepared for the problems that beset his reign. His Anglo-Saxon name and nickname were Æthelred Unræd, which we translate today as "Æthelred the Unready." The ræd element means "counsel" or "advice." The name Æthelred Unræd would be a pun meaning "Noble advice, no advice." The "blame" (if that is what we should assign due to his nickname) may be imputed to his councilors, who gave him bad advice. It is the modern English understanding of the word "Unready" that makes us condemn him personally for not being prepared for what befell England while he was on the throne.

Edward the Martyr's Death

Edward's murder at Corfe Castle

The death of the 16-year-old Edward the Martyr in 978 was not one of England's finest moments. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle described it simply:

“This year was King Edward slain, at eventide, at Corfe-gate, on the fifteenth day before the calends of April. And he was buried at Wareham without any royal honour. No worse deed than this was ever done by the English nation since they first sought the land of Britain. Men murdered him but God has magnified him.” [Entry for 978]

The popular explanation, from later accounts, is that Ælfthryth gave him a poisoned cup, or gave him a cup of mead to drink that distracted him so that others could kill him. One account says that she killed him herself. Her motive would have been to clear the throne for her own son, Æthelred, who was a younger son of King Edgar.

In 980, according to the A-SC, “Alderman Ælfhere fetched the body of the holy King Edward at Wareham, and carried him with great solemnity to Shaftsbury.” Edward's body was found to have the saintly quality of being uncorrupted, and his reputed holiness drew many pilgrims to his grave. He began to be thought of as a saint.

In 1001, his remains were moved to a more prominent place in Shaftesbury. Although he was never canonized, royal decree in 1008 confirmed his recognition all over England as worthy of veneration.

Then it gets interesting.

During the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII (mentioned many times, such as here), Edward's relics were hidden elsewhere in the church in order to save them from destruction.

Their whereabouts were unknown after that for 400 years.

In 1931, an archaeological dig found some bones in a casket under the church. An osteologist in 1970 determined that they were the bones of a young male who had died a violent death; everyone agreed that they had found Edward the Martyr. The director of the ongoing excavation (and owner of the land) announced that he was seeking a final resting place for the bones of this English saint. There were conditions:

1. that they were recognised as the relics of a saint,
2. that a shrine would be established for their reception, and
3. that his feast days would be observed. [link]

The (half-hearted) search was on. Then an odd player joined the negotiations.

In 1979, a schism hit the Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece. Unhappy with the current administration by Archbishop Auxentius, the breakaway group called itself the "Orthodox Church of Greece - Holy Synod in Resistance. " They contacted the possessor of the bones and said "We'll do it!" They founded, in 1982, a monastic group called St. Edward the Martyr Orthodox Brotherhood, housed in a monastery inside Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey, south of London.

In December 1988, over 1000 years after his death, Edward the Martyr's remains were formally brought to their final (?) resting place in the Church of St. Edward the Martyr, Brookwood.