The British King "Bullet Book," (Part 1) Æthelred II, 978 - 1016
BillJones
Posts: 33,481 ✭✭✭✭✭
This is a project I have been working on for quite a while. It is a lose leaf note book that has at least one page with at least one picture and bullet points about each king. It is my way to try get my head around all of this historical information. Some king’s and queen’s stories are more detailed than others. Still I though that some people might find this interesting.
There are many parts. This is the first one.
We will start with Æthelred II who was known as “the unready.” The true translation for “unready” was that he received poor advice. I believe that I will get coins for some of the other kings who ruled prior to 1066, but that will take a while. So I shall start here.
Æthelred II Penny, S-1148
Æthelred II was named king when he was at most 13 years old.
His nickname, “the unready,’ was really translated to mean “the ill counseled.” During this period the Danes and the Norse were raiding and pillaging England. Æthelred accepted the advice of the witan or royal council and began paying protection money to the Danes. As is the often the case with such schemes, the Danes demanded more and more until it nearly bankrupted the kingdom.
My conclusion: Æthelred’s pennies are relatively common. I believe that this a reflection the protection money Æthelred paid to the Danes.Æthelred provided poor leadership in the field. He built a navy without the sailors to man it then did nothing when it was destroyed.
Æthelred ordered the execution of every Dane in England who was not part of the Anglo-Danish population is 1002. This caused many of the old alliances to crumble.
Æthelred was deposed in 1013 by Sweyn Forbeard, a Danish adventurer. Forbeard died when he fell from his horse three months later, and Æthelred returned to the throne, but his leadership did not improve. He died in 1016.
Comments
Bill - You're post's are special, thank you for sharing the history behind the coin!
The portrait on that coin shows marked improvement from what came before (that I am aware of, which isn't much).
Interesting post. I look forward to seeing more like it!
Yes, it's better, but I have stuck my toe into the Roman coin pool, and their portraits of the emperors are far better. Things got worse for English coins, and they got better. They didn’t really get better until Henry VII, but I am getting ahead of myself. That’s some time away, at least for this series.
In the 3 months that Sven Forkbeard ruled England, he issued coins in the name of Aethelred II. The only way to tell which are Sven’s is through die chain analysis.
How does one get a hater to stop hating?
I can be reached at evillageprowler@gmail.com