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To: SunkenCiv

Good old Ethelred the Unready. I laughed at his name in a history class and PO’d the professor.


23 posted on 01/02/2015 4:23:26 PM PST by ozzymandus
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To: ozzymandus; SunkenCiv
Good old Ethelred the Unready. I laughed at his name in a history class and PO’d the professor.

Wonderfully, the pejorative is both apt and wrong yet shows the state of England leading towards the Norman Conquest of 1066. Ethelred of Wessex was indeed unready to assume the throne (Wessex but also the last Anglo-Saxon Kingship in England) at age 10-13 especially when his half-brother, St Edward the Martyr, was apparently murdered by family retainers.

Yet the actual pejorative is 'Unræd' which really translates to 'ill-advised', a good term for the GGGrandson of Alfred the Great, who felt it necessary to pay the Danegeld rather than continue armed resistance to the Danish Invaders (Vikings). Still he was ultimately exiled to Norman safety when deposed by Sweyn Forkbeard, the King of Denmark. Although he returned to England and throne after Sweyn's death, his ultimate successor after his own death was Sweyn's son, Cnut the Great of Denmark.

The ultimate play in this millennial 'Game of Thrones' came 50 years later when the last Wessex King, Harold Godwinson, defeated a Viking Invasion headed by the Norse-Danish King Harald Hardrada and his own younger brother Tostig Godwinson before having to do a forced march south to defend and lose against the Norman (Norseman) Duke, William the Conquer, all in the space of less than 6 weeks.

The joke and wonder of these events was that all the men mentioned here were of a strong amount of Viking descent and probably some degree of cousins by blood.

24 posted on 01/02/2015 5:31:07 PM PST by SES1066 (Quality, Speed or Economical - Any 2 of 3 except in government - 1 at best but never #3!)
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