1999 | OriginalPaper | Chapter
The Ill-Counselled King
Æthelred II (978–1016) has been saddled with the worst reputation of all the Old English kings. His pejorative nickname, unræd (‘ill-counselled’) is recorded only from the thirteenth century, but his reign has been seen as a time of disaster, exacerbated by bad advice, vacillation, treachery and cowardice. His most recent biographer has done much to salvage his good name, but still with the proviso that he was ‘a poor judge of men’.2