Ethelred the Unready

Sir Frank Stenton sums up the reign of Aethelred in these words: ’the evils which give a sinister complexion to the age were the result of conditions which from their very nature were temporary. They were the effects of a state of war realised clearly enough by the unknown man or woman who first described him as Aethelred Unraed - Aethelred No-counsel’.