Ethelred to William I
England’s rulers from the king who lost his crown to the Danes, to the French duke who took the crown from the English.
King Ethelred the Unready 978-1016 to King William I 1066-1087
England’s rulers from the king who lost his crown to the Danes, to the French duke who took the crown from the English.
King Ethelred the Unready 978-1016 to King William I 1066-1087
This post is number 2 in the series Kings and Queens of England
The House of Wessex consolidated its rule in 10th-century England, until Ethelred ‘the Unready’ came to the throne in 978. Thereafter, the kingdom was weakened by corruption and intrigue at court, and in 1013 the Danish King Sweyn took the English crown...
ETHELRED ‘the Unready’ forfeited his crown to the Danish king Sweyn in 1013.* He briefly recovered it a year later for his son Edmund to inherit, but despite earning the name ‘Ironside’ in his resistance, Edmund lost out in 1016 to Canute, Sweyn’s son.
From 1035, Harold ‘Harefoot’ and Hardicanute, Canute’s sons by his first wife, shared the kingdom, until Hardicanute became sole ruler in 1040. On his death two years later, the crown passed to Edward ‘the Confessor’, Canute’s son by his second wife, Ethelred’s widow Emma. Edward arrived from Normandy, his mother’s home, and kept the kingdom steady.
Edward had no children, and in 1066, as he lay dying, he appointed Harold Godwinson, his brother-in-law, as his heir. But William, Duke of Normandy and Edward’s cousin once removed, claimed the same promise had already been made to him.* William invaded England, and at the Battle of Hastings on 14th October, 1066, Harold was killed. William of Normandy became King of England.
Next in series: William I to John
‘Unready’ here does not mean ‘ill-prepared’, but ‘badly advised’, being a corruption of the Old English word unrede, ‘no-counsel’. It was a play on his Christian name, Ethelred, ‘wise-counsel’.
William’s grandfather, Richard II, Duke of Normandy, was the brother of Emma of Normandy, Edward’s mother.