EFL - Enciclopedia delle Famiglie Lombarde

http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLAND,%20AngloSaxon%20&%20Danish%20K ings.htm ÆTHELRED, son of EDGAR "the Peaceable" King of England & hi s second wife Ælfthryth of Devon ([966]-London 23 Apr 1016, bur Old S t Paul's Cathedral). Simeon of Durham names "Eadmuind and Egelræd" a s the sons of King Eadgar and his wife "the daughter of Ordgar duke o f Devonshire…" [1]. Roger of Hoveden gives his parentage [2]. When h is father died, a large number of nobles promoted the election of Æth elred to succeed instead of his older half-brother, maybe because th e latter was considered unsuitable due to his outbursts of rage or bec ause of the inferior status of his mother. He succeeded after the murd er of his half-brother in 978 as ÆTHELRED II "the Unready/Unræd/Rede les" King of England, crowned 4 Apr or 4 May 978 at Kingston-upon-Tham es. Danish attacks on England recommenced in 980, with raids on Hampsh ire, Thanet and Cheshire. Raids on Devon and Cornwall followed in 981 , and on Dorset in 982. A further wave of attacks started in 988 in De von. As part of his plan to control the Danes, King Æthelred agree d a non-aggression pact with Richard I "Sans Peur" Comte de Normandi e on 1 Mar 991, designed apparently to dissuade either party from shel tering Viking marauders [3]. After a third wave of attacks in 991, Kin g Æthelred signed a treaty with Olaf Tryggveson (who succeeded in [99 5] as Olav I King of Norway) under which 22,000 pounds of gold and sil ver was paid in return for a promise of help in thwarting future attac ks. The treaty presumably never came into full effect, despite paymen t of the money, as this was only the first of a long series of "Danege ld" payments funded by heavy taxation which ultimately led to the virt ual ruin of King Æthelred's government. The attack of 994, in which f or the first time Svend King of Denmark took part, resulted in some En glish support to declare Svend king from those who despaired of King