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A Tale of Two Kings: Alfred the Great and Æthelred the Unready

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Simon Keynes
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Abstract

IN the gallery of Anglo-Saxon kings, there are two whose characters are fixed in the popular imagination by their familiar epithets: Alfred the Great and ÆEthelred the Unready. Of course both epithets are products of the posthumous development of the kings' reputations (in opposite directions), not expressions of genuinely contemporary attitudes to the kings themselves: respective personalities. In the case of Alfred, it was the king’s own resourcefulness, courage and determination that brought the West Saxons through the Viking invasions, for it was these qualities, complemented by his concern for the well–being of his subjects, that inspired and maintained the people’s loyalty towards the king and generated their support for his cause. Whereas in the case of jEthelred, it was the king’s incompetence, weakness and vacillation that brought the kingdom to ruin, for it was these failings, exacerbated by his displays of cruelty and spite, that alienated the people and made them abandon his cause. Few historians, perhaps, would subscribe to such a view expressed as bluntly as that, and more, I suspect, would consider such comparisons to be futile and probably misconceived in the first place. I would maintain, however, that something is to be gained from the exercise of comparing the two kings in fairly broad terms: by juxtaposing discussions of the status of the main narrative accounts of each king’s reign we can more easily appreciate how their utterly different reputations arose, and see, moreover, that in certain respects the apparent contrast between them might actually be deceptive; by comparing the predicament in which each king was placed we can better understand how one managed to extricate himself from trouble while the other succumbed; and overall we can more readily judge how much, or how little, can be attributed to personal qualities or failings on the part of the kings themselves.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 36 , December 1986 , pp. 195 - 217
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1986

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References

1 Keynes, S., ‘The declining reputation of King.ÆEthelred the Unready’, in Ethelred the Unready: Papers from the Millenary Conference, ed. Hill, D. (British Archaeological Reports, British ser. lix, 1978), 227–53Google Scholar, at 240–1; see also Walter Map: De Nugis Curialium, ed. James, M. R., revised C. N. L. Brooke and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford Medieval Texts, 1983), 412–13Google Scholar.

2 Stanley, E.G., ‘The glorification of Alfred king of Wessex’, Poetica (Tokyo), xii (1981), 103–33Google Scholar, at 103–4; Keynes, S. and Lapidge, M., Alfred the Great: Asser's ‘Life of King Alfred’ and other contemporary sources (Harmondsworth, 1983), 44Google Scholar. But these re-marks are now in need of modification: for in a marginal note in his Gesta Abbatum, written c. 1250, Matthew Paris states plainly that Alfred was called ‘the Great’ (British Libr., Cotton MS Nero D. i, fo. 30V; see Gesta Abbatum Monasterii Sancti Albani, ed. Riley, H. T. (3 vols., Rolls ser., xxviii, 1867–1869), i. ion.i)Google Scholar.

3 Freeman, E. A., The History of the Norman Conquest of England (6 vols., Oxford, 1867–1879), i (2nd edn., 1870), 297Google Scholar\; compare Freeman's remarkable encomium on Alfred (ibid., 48–52) with his astonishing assault on Ethelred (ibid., 258–60).

4 An earlier version of this paper was given at the 4th meeting of the Haskins Society, in Houston, Texas, on 10 Nov. 1985, and I am grateful to Professors Warren Hollister and Sally Vaughn for making that possible. I should like to thank David Dumville, David Howlett and Janet Nelson for their guidance; Robin Fleming, Katie Mack and Tom Keefe for their conversation; and Richard Abels, Bernard Bachrach and Matthew Strickland for their strategic insights.

5 The study of the Chronicle has been placed on a new footing in a series of important articles by Bately, J.: ‘The compilation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 60 BC to AD 890: vocabulary as evidence’, Proceedings of the British Academy, lxiv (1980 for 1978), 93–129Google Scholar; ‘World History in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: its sources and its separateness from the old English Orosius’, Anglo-Saxon England (hereafter ASE), viii (1979), 177–94Google Scholar; ‘Bede and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’, in Saints, Scholars and Heroes, ed. King, M.H. and Stevens, W. M. (2 vols., Collegeville, Minnesota, 1979), i, 233–54Google Scholar; and ‘The compilation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle once more’, in Sources and Relations, ed. Collins, M., Price, J. and Hamer, A.(Leeds Studies in English, xvi, 1985), 7–26Google Scholar. In the following paragraph I draw on Professor Bateley's material, but differ on some points of interpretation.

6 Keynes and Lapidge, 39–41.

7 For ‘local’ emphasis in the Chronicle, see Stenton, F. M., ‘The south-western element in the Old English Chronicle’, in Preparatory to Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Stenton, D. M. (Oxford, 1970), 106–15Google Scholar; again, however, I differ on points of interpretation.

8 Keynes and Lapidge, 277–9.

9 D. Whitelock, ‘The importance of the battle of Edington’, reprinted in From Bede to Alfred (1980), XIII, 6–15, at 7–8, implies that when the Chronicle was compiled the crisis had passed; but one doubts that Alfred ever felt so secure that he could afford to relax his guard.

10 Keynes and Lapidge, 217 n. 62.

11 Note, e.g., Asser's description of Alfred as ‘a great warrior and victorious in virtually all battles’ (Life of King Alfred (trans, in Keynes and Lapidge), ch. 42).

12 Cf. Davis, R. H. C., ‘Alfred the Great: propaganda and truth’, History, lvi (1971), 169–82, at 170–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel (hereafter ASC), ed. Plummer, C. (2 vols., Oxford, 1892–1899), i. 70–3Google Scholar; English Historical Documents, i, C500–1042, ed. Whitelock, D. (2nd edn., 1979) (hereafter EHD), no. 1, pp. 192–3Google Scholar.

14 ASC, ed. Plummer, i. 72–7; EHD, no. 1, pp. 193–6.

15 The Old English idiom is niman frid void, literally ‘to get peace from’ or ‘to establish a truce with’; cf. Fell's, C. review of Logan, F. D., The Vikings in History (1983), in Slavonic Review, lxii (1984), 592–4Google Scholar.

16 For accounts of negotiations between Franks and Vikings, which are so interesting in this connection, see, e.g., the Annals of Saint-Berlin, s.a. 862, 866 and 873, and the Annals of Saint-Vaast, s.a. 877, 884, 886 and 888; both sets of annals are in Quellen zur karolingischen Reichsgeschichte, ii, ed. Rau, R. (Darmstadt, 1958)Google Scholar.

17 Keynes and Lapidge, 2441m. 79–80, 245 n. 88, and 249 n. 108.

18 Life, ch.56.

19 On this part of the Chronicle, see Bately, ‘Compilation… once more’; Clark, C., ‘The Narrative Mode of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle before the Conquest’, in England before the Conquest, ed. Clemoes, P. and Hughes, K. (Cambridge, 1971), 215–35Google Scholar, at 221–4; and Shippey, T. A., ‘A missing army: some doubts about the Alfredian Chronicle’, In Geardagum, iv (1982), 41–55Google Scholar.

20 It is particularly instructive to compare the impression created by the Annals of Saint- Vaast for the 880s with that created by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the 890s, in terms of the Vikings’ apparent impact on the people, their freedom of movement, the degree of resistance they encountered, and the nature of the sites where they were based.

21 Keynes, , ‘Declining reputation’, 229–32Google Scholar; for a different view, see Hart, C., ‘The early section of the Worcester Chronicle’, Journal of Medieval History, ix (1983), 251–315CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 298–301 and 307–8.

22 ASC, ed. Plummer, i, 132–3; EHD, no. 1, pp. 237–8. See also MSA, ed. J. Bately (The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: a Collaborative Edition, ed. Dumville, D. and Keynes, S., iii, Cambridge, 1986)Google Scholar.

23 The addition was already present in the manuscript when MS G was copied from it, some time during the first decade of the 11th century.

24 This took place in 1002; so the fact that the reference to the making of peace in MS A is an addition may indicate that the annal itself was indeed strictly contemporary.

25 One might even go so far as to suggest that some of the supposed flights might have been tactical withdrawals, or instances of the armies separating of their own accord (as at the battle of Sherston in 1016); and perhaps it was not only at the battle of Maldon that the flight of one man was mistaken for the flight of the leader. Some consideration should be given to the question whether tactics and strategy in ÆEthelred's reign were determined solely by practical experience, or whether there was some input of a more theoretical kind: one thinks of the possible influence of military manuals (cf. Bachrach, B., ‘The practical use of Vegetius’ De Re Militari during the early middle ages’, The Historian, xlvii (1985), 239–55)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and of ÆElfric's remarks in Wyrdivriteras (on which see Keynes, S., The Diplomas of King Æthelred ‘the Unready’ 978–1016 (Cambridge, 1980), 206–8)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and note the chronicler's reference in his annal for 1003 to the saying ‘When the leader gives way, the whole army will be much hindered’ (cf. ASC, ed. Plummer, , ii. 183)Google Scholar.

26 The same idiom is used in MS A's annal for 991, where the main chronicler again refers explicitly to a payment of tribute.

27 Keynes, , Diplomas, 202–3Google Scholar; see also Lawson, M. K., ‘The collection of Danegeld and Heregeld in the reigns of ÆEthelred II and Cnut’, English Historical Review (hereafter EHR), xcix (1984), 721–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Joranson, E., The Danegeld in France (Rock Island, 111., 1923)Google Scholar.

28 The Battle of Maldon, ed. Scragg, D.G. (Manchester, 1981), 57–9, 11. 25–61Google Scholar. The poet's account of the message conveyed by the Viking messenger presents a case for paying tribute which would have made sense to many Englishmen (and note his use of the words ‘niman friô act us’ in this connection); but there is no mistaking what this poet considered to be the more honourable response.

29 For contemporary attitudes to the payments of tribute, see Keynes, , ‘Declining reputation’, 250 n. 66Google Scholar, and Diplomas, 202 n. 182; on the battle of Maldon as a turning-point, see John, E., ‘War and society in the tenth century: the Maldon campaign’, ante, 5th ser., xxvii (1977), 173–95, esp. 189–90Google Scholar.

30 A chapter–heading in Ealdorman ÆEthelweard's Chronicle suggests that he intended to write an account of King ÆEthelred ‘and his deeds’ (The Chronicle of ÆEthelweard, ed. Campbell, A. (Nelson’s Medieval Texts, 1962), 34)Google Scholar; but if ever written, it has not survived.

31 There can be no doubt that Alfred trod heavily on his people, and on the Church, in order to achieve his purposes: see Pope John VIII's letter to Archbishop ÆEthelred (EHD, no. 222), and Asser, Life, ch.91. For the apparent diversion of the lands of the Kentish minsters into royal hands, possibly in the late 9th century, seeBrooks, N., The Early History of the Church of Canterbury (Leicester, 1984), 204–5Google Scholar; and for a similar phenomenon in a wider context, see Fleming, R., ‘Monastic lands and England's defence in the Viking Age’, EHR, c (1985), 247–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Cf. Sawyer, P. H., From Roman Britain to Norman England (1978), 128–9Google Scholar.

33 Keynes and Lapidge, 210 n. 6.

34 ASC, ed. Plummer, , i. 89–90Google Scholar; EHD, no. 1, p. 205; according to the Annals of Saint-Vaast, the Vikings had left the continent in 892 because of a famine in Francia.

35 Keynes, , Diplomas, 224–5Google Scholar.

36 Roesdahl, E., Viking Age Denmark (1982), 134–58Google Scholar; and Lund, N., ‘The armies of Swein Forkbeard and Cnut: leding or lid?’, forthcoming in ASE, xv (1986)Google Scholar.

37 Keynes and Lapidge, 38–41.

38 E.g. Asser, Life, chs. 91 and 106, and EHD, no. 100.

39 Above, n. 31.

40 Cf. Stafford, P., ‘The reign of ÆEthelred II: a study in the limitations on royal policy and action’, in Ethelred the Unready, ed. Hill, , 15–46Google Scholar. Much is to be gained in the understanding of these aspects of 10th-century England from a consideration of theEast-Frankish kingdom: see, e.g., Leyser, K., ‘Henry I and the beginnings of the Saxon Empire’, EHR, lxxxiii (1968), 1–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar\, and Rule and Conflict in an Early Medieval Society: Ottoman Saxony (1979).

41 If the unification of England seemed to make particular progress during the reigns of Athelstan and Edgar, this may be in part attributable to the fact that both kings, though members of the West Saxon dynasty, had begun their reigns as kings of the Mercians; ÆEthelred did not enjoy such an advantage. Cf. Wormald's, P. review of Leyser, Rule and Conflict, in EHR, xcvi (1981), 595–601, at 598CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 Cf. SirStenton's, Frank reference (Anglo-Saxon England (3rd edn., Oxford, 1971), 374Google Scholar) to the obliteration in ÆEthelred's reign of the ‘instinctive loyalty of the common people’. In the mind of the Maldon poet, Ealdorman Byrhtnoth's loyalty was to the king, but that of the rest was to Byrbtnoth; in the Chronicle for 1014, it is the counsellors who expressed their loyalty–on certain conditions–to the king.

43 The two most powerful families of the 10th century have been the subject of detailed studies: see Hart, C. R., ‘Athelstan “Half-King” and his family’, ASE, ii (1973), 115–44Google Scholar, and Williams, A., ‘Princeps Merciorum gentis: the Family, Career and Connections of ÆElfhere, Ealdorman of Mercia 956–83’, ASE, x (1982), 143–72Google Scholar. Research in progress by Robin Fleming (on the connections between the lay aristocracy and the royal family) and Katie Mack (on thegns in the 10th century) will add further to our understanding of such matters. Another family in need of reconsideration is that of Ealdorman ÆElfgar of Essex and his two daughters ÆEthelflaed (wife of King Edmund, and latterly of Ealdorman ÆEthelstan of south-east Mercia) and ÆElfflaed (wife of Ealdorman Byrhtnoth of Essex). The wills of all three survive (Anglo-Saxon Wills, ed. Whitelock, D. (Cambridge, 1930), nos. 2, 14 and 15)Google Scholar, and show how elaborate arrangements were made for the provision of a substantial endowment for their favoured religious house at Stoke by Nayland in Suffolk. It is remarkable to find, however, that the endowment was dispersed in the first half of the 11 th century (ibid., p. 105), apparently before the end of Cnut's reign (see Hart, C., ‘The Mersea charter of Edward the Confessor’, Essex Archaeology and History, xii (1980), 94–102, at 96–7)Google Scholar, and one wonders whether this was the outcome of some domestic intrigue; ÆElfflaed appointed ÆEthelmaer, son of Ealdorman ÆEthelweard, to act as advocate for the foundation and its property, and it may be that the dispersal of Stoke's endowment followed ÆEthelrmer's apparent removal from his position of influence in court circles, in 1005–6.

44 Cf. Keynes, , Diplomas, 198 n. 165Google Scholar. The unjust exactions of reeves were perhaps the cause of much of the disaffection in the latter part of ÆEthelred's reign; see also Lawson, 723–32, and Green, J., ‘The sheriffs of William the Conqueror’, Anglo–Norman Studies, v, ed. Brown, R. A. (Woodbridge, 1983), 129–45Google Scholar.

45 John, 176–83.

46 On the strengths and weaknesses of Anglo-Saxon military organization, see Abels, R., Lordship and Military Obligation in Anglo-Saxon England (Berkeley, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

47 One might instance his cultivation of an alliance with Mercia; his extension of the burghal system; his recognition of the need to follow Egbert and ÆEthelwulf in harbouring the resources of theWest Saxon dynasty; and his respect for the legislation of earlier Anglo-Saxon kings. See also Wormald, P., in The Anglo-Saxons, ed. Campbell, J. (Oxford, 1982), 142 and 149Google Scholar, and Janet Nelson's remarks, above, 55–6.

48 Cf. Asser, Life, ch. 78, and Keynes and Lapidge, 260 n. 168.

49 Of course the literary influence of Einhard on Asser was direct; but the parallels between the former's account of Charlemagne's activities and the latter's account of Alfred's areoften so close that one can hardly resist the notion that Einhard's Charlemagne had been held up to Alfred as a model of kingship. The tracts are discussed by Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., Early Germanic Kingship (Oxford, 1971), 135–40Google Scholar; there is no evidence that any one of them was known at Alfred's court, but someone like Grimbald must have been aware of their general contents (and cf. Keynes and Lapidge, 216 n. 43).

50 See Janet Nelson's remarks, above, 49–52.

51 Wallace-Hadrill, 141–8; Keynes and Lapidge, 28–35.

52 Life, chs. 24, 76, 88, 99 and 103.

53 Ibid., ch. I; see also Keynes and Lapidge, 228 n. 4 and 268 n. 208.

54 Wallace-Hadrill, 148–9; Wormald, P., ‘Lex Scripta and Verbum Regis: legislation and Germanic kingship, from Euric to Cnut’, Early Medieval Kingship, ed. Sawyer, P. H. and Wood, I. N. (Leeds, 1977), 105–38, at 132Google Scholar.

55 Asser makes the comparison explicit in his Life, ch. 76; see also ch. 99.

56 The prayer in question is ‘Omnipotens sempiterne Deus’: the main elements ofthe prayer are derived from Carolingian ordines of the late 9th century, but as a whole it is cast in a form applicable to English conditions. For further details, see Nelson, J., ‘The Second English Ordo’, in her Politics and Ritual in the Early Middle Ages (1986)Google Scholar.

57 Keynes and Lapidge, 268 n. 208.

58 Stenton, , Anglo-Saxon England, 374Google Scholar; Campbell, J., ‘England, France, Flanders and Germany: some comparisons and connections’, in Ethelred the Unready, ed. Hill, , 255–70, at 255–6Google Scholar, puts the violence in a continental perspective.

59 Keynes, , Diplomas, 178–80Google Scholar.

60 Cf. Eadred's ravaging of Thetford in 952, and Edgar's ravaging of Thanet in 969; Worcestershire was ravaged on Harthacnut's orders in 1041, and Edward the Confessor ordered the ravaging of Dover in 1051.

61 Keynes, , Diplomas, 203–5Google Scholar.

62 Campbell, , ‘England, France, Flanders and Germany’, 260Google Scholar; cf. Loyn, H.R., ‘Ethelred the Unready’, in Ethelred the Unready, ed. Hill, , 271–3, at 272Google Scholar.

63 Keynes, , Diplomas, 183–4Google Scholar.

64 Ibid., 209–13.

65 See Whitelock, D., ‘Wulfstan Cantor and Anglo-Saxon law’, Nordica et Anglica, ed. Orrick, A. H. (Mouton, The Hague, 1968), 83–92, at 83–7Google Scholar. Professor Whitelock depended on Wulfstan Cantor's poem on St Swithun, composed in the early 990s, but it should be noted that Wulfstan's account is a versification of Lantfred's Translatio et Miracula S. Swithuni (written in the early 970s), ch. 26, which should therefore have priority; an edition and translation of both works will appear in Lapidge, M., The Cult of St Swithun (Winchester Studies 4.2, Oxford, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

66 A similar point is made in a different context by Hollister, C. W., ‘Royal acts of mutilation: the case against Henry I’, Albion, x (1978), 330–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67 I intend to return to this subject in a future paper; cf. Keynes, , Diplomas, 97 and 200–2Google Scholar. See also Wormald, P., ‘ÆEthelred the Lawmaker’, in Ethehed the Unready, ed. Hill, , 47–80, at 48Google Scholar, and ‘Charters, law and the settlement of disputes in Anglo-Saxon England’, in Dispute Settlement in Early Medieval Europe, ed. Davies, W. and Fouracre, P. (Cambridge, 1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68 Keynes, , Diplomas, 101 and 186Google Scholar.

69 Wharton, H., Anglia Sacra (2 vols., 1691), ii. 132Google Scholar (from Osbern's Vita S. Elphegi); cf. Florentii Wigomiensis monachi Chronicon ex Chronicis, ed. Thorpe, B. (2 vols., 1848–1849), i. 159–60Google Scholar. Henry of Huntingdon introduces Eadric as ‘a new traitor, but a great one’\.

70 Keynes, , Diplomas, 211–14Google Scholar; see also Keynes, S., ‘The additions in Old English’, The York Gospels, ed. Barker, N. (Roxburghe Club, 1986), 81–99, at 95 n. 67Google Scholar.

71 See Keynes, Diplomas, Table 6. Among nine previously unknown Anglo-Saxon charters, copied in the 16th century from a lost cartulary of Barking abbey, are two dated 18 Apr. 1013 and 20 Apr. 1013 respectively: in the first the ealdormen are listed in the order Eadric, Leofwine and ÆElfric, and in the second, in the order Eadric, ÆElfric, Leofwine and Uhtred. I owe my knowledge of these charters to the kindness of C. R. Hart, who is currently preparing an edition.

72 Hemingi Chartularium Ecclesiae Wigomiensis, ed. Hearne, T. (2 vols., Oxford, 1723),i. 280–1Google Scholar; Finberg, H. P. R., The Early Charters of the West Midlands (2nd edn., Leicester, 1972), 234Google Scholar. For the suggestion that Eadric profiteered from the geld, see Lawson, 732–4.

73 Stafford, 35 7; see also the summary of a lecture on Eadric by Campbell, M.W., in the Anglo-Norman Anonymous, ii (2) (1984), 9–10Google Scholar. There is no evidence that Emma had managed to gain preferential treatment for any sons of her own by her marriage to ÆEthelred, at least to judge from the order in which the aethelings attest ÆEthelred's charters (Keynes, Diplomas, Table 1); but she had more success with Cnut (Encomium Emmae Reginae, ed. Campbell, A. (Camden 3rd ser., lxxii, 1949), 32–3)Google Scholar.

74 Their importance is suggested by their description in the Chronicle as ‘thechief thegns of the Seven Boroughs’; and note that Morcar was the beneficiary of at least three charters issued between 1009 and 1012 (Charters of Burton Abbey, ed. Sawyer, P. H. (Anglo-Saxon Charters, ii, British Academy, 1979), nos. 32, 34 and 37)Google Scholar. They were kinsmen (by marriage) of Ealdorman ÆElfhelm (ibid., xxxviii–xliii), and so might well have been hostile to Eadric (who had been involved in ÆElfhelm's murder); and they had some association with the auheling Athelstan (EHD, no. 129), which might account for their relationship with his brother Edmund. At the risk of reading too much into the charters, it may be that from a point in 1013 the influence of what might be regarded as Eadric's own faction among the thegns at court (his father and brothers, and ÆEthelmaer, ÆEthelwold and ÆElfgar: see Keynes, , Diplomas, Table 8, and p. 227 n. 265Google Scholar) was eclipsed by Ulfcetel, Godwine, Sigeferth, Morcar and others; and that in 1015 his own position was at stake.

75 There is no reason to believe that Edmund was for long in defiance of his father; two charters which he issued in 1015–16 contain no hint of it, and when he ravaged Mercia in company with Uhtred, in 1016, he was probably striking against Eadric himself.

76 Keynes, , Diplomas, 197 n. 163Google Scholar.

77 As the chronicler puts it, ‘no greater folly (unræed) was ever agreed to than that was’.

78 Campbell, , ‘England, France, Flanders and Germany’, 257Google Scholar, reminds us that the burnt Cotton MS of Asser's Life of King Alfred was copied during ÆEthelred's reign; see also Keynes and Lapidge, 45–6 and 57 (and note that some understanding of an ÆEthelredian attitude to Alfred may be gained from an examination of Byrhtferth's treatment of Asser's Life in his historical miscellany).