Ethelred the Unready: King of England

His nickname meant “ill-advised” but his failure was not to take the good advice that he was given

The nickname given to King Ethelred (who ruled England from 978 to 1016) is one of the great jokes of British history. This was the king who was so unprepared for what was going to happen that he would forever be known as “Unready”.

Ethelred — Ready for Nothing?

Maybe, but that is not what the name meant. A better translation of “unred” is “ill-advised” and the nickname was a pun on his own name, which meant “well-advised”. It was only after his death that “Unready” was added to his name, and it was done so as a condemnation of his behaviour. It was not so much that the advice was bad but that he failed to take heed of advice that was good.

Ethelred was certainly no great shakes as a king. England was coming under considerable pressure from the Danes who had left England in peace for decades but sensed an opportunity for plunder now that a weak king was in charge.

Ethelred displayed incompetence as a military leader and seemed to manage to have his army in precisely the wrong part of the country whenever a new raiding party turned up. Perhaps there was indeed a sense in which he was “unready” in the generally…