#ethelred the unready

[illustratus]

Olaf at London Bridge — English School (20th century)

[thevalicemultiverse]

Random history fun fact: in the early 11th century, England had a king known as Ethelred the Unready. It might sound like he was unprepared to rule, but it's actually a pun; in Old English, Ethelred means "good council" and unred means "bad council." Therefore his name translates to "wise council the poorly council" a moniker he earned when he received bad advice from the wrong people during his reign.

Alice: So he actually was unready to rule, it's just that it wasn't his fault.

Smiler: Works on two levels!

[thehistoricalficsbit]

King Ethelred was really like, 

“Pretty please don’t invade, handsome Viking men... pleeease. I’ll... I’ll give you money! Yes money. And all you main leader fellas can have some.”

So the main leaders were all cool with that. Took the money, told Ethel not to worry, said thank you and all that shit...

Then invaded anyway. Class move

[themaresnest-dumblr]

On this day in 1547, King Henry VIII of England died.

Good riddance, you evil fat wank.

[hughjidiot]

Random history fun fact: in the early 11th century, England had a king known as Ethelred the Unready. It might sound like he was unprepared to rule, but it's actually a pun; in Old English, Ethelred means "good council" and unred means "bad council." Therefore his name translates to "wise council the poorly council" a moniker he earned when he received bad advice from the wrong people during his reign.

[thetreaclepeople]

The Treacle People are back!

For the past eleven weeks, we've been uploading fully remastered, HD episodes of the 90s stop-motion comedy TV series to YouTube! There are just two episodes left of Season 1, and it's been wonderful to read all the lovely comments so far.

The show was written by Jonathan and Brian Trueman (the writer of Danger Mouse, Count Duckula and more) and is cunningly aimed at both children and adults, with multi-layered jokes that work for both. And no, it's not pantomime double-entendres (though if you ask, we'll give you one), we've got gags about Ethelred the Unready, Special Relativity, and a policeman lying low on a chop-out (it's like a stake-out except smaller and cheaper).

The premise is thus: as you all know, treacle (the sticky stuff used to make golden syrup) is mined by treacle miners in the North of England, specifically in the village of Sabden, where Professor Baines-Pilling has invented the world's first treacle-powered engine. HOWEVER. The Saben treacle mine has run dry. The community is in crisis. Chief Miner Tapper Knowle is at his wit's end. If they don't find another treacle seam, they'll all be out of a job in a month.

Enter Bill Wizzle and his Treacle Tracker, who reckons he can solve all the village's problems. Enter Rosie Mitton, his best friend and custodian of the village brain cell, without which he couldn't find a seam in his trousers. Enter Bert the Boggart, resident of Gurgle Gorge mine, whose mischievous streak is entirely forgiven on account of him being cute and fluffy. Seriously, he's adorable. Eat your heart out, Baby Yoda.

Can the youngsters save the village, or will The Treacle People come to a sticky end? Find out for yourself on YouTube!

[fideidefenswhore]

While researching Elfrida, I was very struck by the similarities between her story and that of her descendant, and later successor as queen, Anne Boleyn. Anne, like much of the Tudor nobility and gentry, was descended from Elfrida several times over, through her son, Ethelred II (the Unready). Was there something of her royal ancestress in Anne?

Like Anne, Elfrida was the daughter of a middle-ranking man, with her father, a thegn named Ordgar, only becoming an ealdorman after her marriage. Her mother, a woman of royal descent, outranked her father – as Anne’s mother, Lady Elizabeth Howard, did. Both girls were particular favourites of their fathers. It was Anne that Thomas Boleyn chose to send to Margaret of Austria in the Netherlands in 1513, in order to take up a post as lady in waiting. Similarly, Ordgar spent a considerable amount of time with his only daughter, whom he was rumoured to have promised to leave a substantial proportion of his wealth. He taught her to play chess and was a major influence on her childhood.

Queen Elfrida and Queen Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth Norton

[partywithponies]

Listening to the You're Dead To Me podcast and you can really tell when the guest isn't familiar with medieval history. The guest on this episode is shocked and horrified that Ethelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy got married when he was 36 and she was 17.

As medieval princesses go, being married off at 17 is extremely good going. Over 100 years later my poor girl Matilda of Anjou was not only already married but already widowed by the ripe old age of 9.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

The History of the Title of Queen

By: Jone Johnson Lewis, 18 November 2019

In English, the word for a female ruler is "queen," but that's also the word for the spouse of a male ruler.

Where did the title come from, and what are some variations on the title in common usage?

In English, the word “queen” apparently developed simply as a designation of the king's wife, from the word for wife, cwen.

It is a cognate with the Greek root gyne (as in gynecology, misogyny) meaning woman or wife, and with the Sanskrit janis meaning woman.

Among the Anglo-Saxon rulers of pre-Norman England, the historical record does not always even record the name of the king’s wife, as her position was not considered one requiring a title (and some of those kings had multiple wives, perhaps at the same time; monogamy was not universal at the time).

The position gradually evolves towards the current sense, with the word “queen.”

The first time a woman in England was crowned—with a coronation ceremony—as queen was in the 10th century CE:

The queen Aelfthryth or Elfrida, wife of King Edgar "the Peaceable," stepmother of Edward "the Martyr," and mother of King Ethelred (Aethelred) II "the Unready" or "Poorly Counseled."

English is unusual in having a word for female rulers that is rooted in a woman-oriented word.

In many languages, the word for a woman ruler is derived from a word for male rulers:

Roman Augusta (for women related to the emperor); emperors were titled Augustus.

Spanish reina; king is rey

French reine; king is roi

German for king and queen: König und Königin

German for emperor and empress: Kaiser und Kaiserin

Polish is król i królowa

Croatian is kralj i kraljica

Finnish is kuningas ja kuningatar

Scandinavian languages use a different word for king and queen, but the word for queen is derived from a word meaning “master”:

Swedish kung och drottning, Danish or Norwegian konge og dronning, Icelandic konungur og drottning

Hindi uses rājā and rānī; rānī derives from Sanskrit rājñī which is in turn derived from rājan for king, as is rājā

A queen consort is the wife of a reigning king.

The tradition of a separate coronation of a queen consort developed slowly and was unevenly applied.

Marie de Medici, for instance, was queen consort of King Henry IV of France.

There were only queens consort, no reigning queens of France, as French law assumed Salic Law for the sake of the royal title.

The first queen consort in England that we can find to have been crowned in a formal ceremony and coronation, Aelfthryth, lived in the 10th century CE.

Henry VIII infamously had six wives. Only the first two had formal coronations as queen, but the others were known as queens during the time their marriages endured.

Ancient Egypt didn't use a variation on the male rulership term, pharaoh, for queens consort.

They were called the Great Wife, or God's Wife.

In Egyptian theology, Pharaohs were considered incarnations of the gods.

A regent is someone who governs when the sovereign or monarch is unable to do so, due to being a minor, being absent from the country, or a disability.

Some queen consorts were briefly rulers in the stead of their husbands, sons or even grandsons, as regents for their male relative.

However, the power was supposed to return to the males when the minor child reached his majority or when the absent male returned.

The king's wife was often a choice for a regent, as she could be trusted to have the interests of her husband or son as a priority, and be less likely than one of many nobles to turn on the absent or minor or disabled king.

Isabella of France, English queen consort of Edward II and mother of Edward III, is infamous in history for having deposed her husband, later having him murdered, and then trying to hold on to the regency for her son even after he reached his majority.

The Wars of the Roses arguably began with disputes around the regency for Henry IV, whose mental condition kept him from ruling for some time.

Margaret of Anjou, his queen consort, played a very active and controversial role during Henry's periods described as insanity.

Although France did not recognize the right of a woman to inherit a royal title as queen, many French queens served as regents, including Louise of Savoy.

A queen regnant is a woman who rules in her own right, rather than exercising power as a wife of a king or even a regent.

Through most of history, succession was agnatic (through male heirs) with primogeniture being a common practice, where the eldest was first in succession (occasional systems where younger sons were preferred have also existed).

In the 12th century, Norman King Henry I, son of William the Conqueror, faced an unexpected dilemma near the end of his life:

His only surviving legitimate son died when his ship capsized en route from the continent to the island.

William had his nobles swear support for his daughter’s right to rule in her own right: Empress Matilda, already widowed from her first marriage to the Holy Roman Emperor.

When Henry I died, many of the nobles supported her cousin Stephen instead, and a civil war ensued, with Matilda never being formally crowned as queen regnant.

In the 16th century, consider the effect of such rules on Henry VIII and his multiple marriages, probably largely inspired by trying to get a male heir when he and his first wife Catherine of Aragon had only a living daughter, no sons.

On the death of Henry VIII’s son, King Edward VI, Protestant supporters tried to install the 16-year-old Lady Jane Grey as queen.

Edward had been persuaded by his advisors to name her as his successor, contrary to his father’s preference that Henry’s two daughters would be given preference in succession, even though his marriages to their mothers had been annulled and the daughters declared, at various times, to be illegitimate.

However, that effort was abortive, and after just nine days, Henry’s elder daughter, Mary, was declared queen as Mary I, England’s first queen regnant.

Other women, through Queen Elizabeth II, have been queen's regnant in England and Great Britain.

Some European legal traditions prohibited women from inheriting lands, titles and offices.

This tradition, known as Salic Law, was followed in France, and there were no queens regnant in France’s history.

Spain followed Salic Law at times, leading to a 19th-century conflict over whether Isabella II could reign.

In the early 12th century, Urraca of Leon and Castile ruled in her own right. Later, Queen Isabella ruled Leon and Castile in her own right and Aragon as co-ruler with Ferdinand.

Isabella’s daughter, Juana, was the only remaining heir at Isabella’s death. She became the queen of Leon and Castile, while Ferdinand continued to rule Aragon until his death.

In the 19th century, Queen Victoria's firstborn was a daughter. Victoria did later have a son who then moved ahead of his sister in the royal queue.

In the 20th and 21st centuries, several royal houses of Europe have removed the male-preference rule from their succession rules.

A dowager is a widow holding a title or property that was her late husband's.

The root word is also found in the word "endow."

Among the British peerage, a dowager continues to use the female form of her late husband's title so long as the present male title-holder does not have a wife.

When the present male title-holder marries, his wife assumes the female form of his title and the title used by the dowager is the female title prepended with Dowager ("Dowager Countess of ...") or by using her first name before the title ("Jane, Countess of ...").

The title "Dowager Princess of Wales" or "Princess Dowager of Wales" was given to Catherine of Aragon when Henry VIII arranged to annul their marriage.

This title refers to Catherine's previous marriage to Henry's older brother, Arthur, who was still Prince of Wales at his death, widowing Catherine.

At the time of the marriage of Catherine and Henry, it was alleged that Arthur and Catherine had not consummated their marriage due to their youth, freeing Henry and Catherine to avoid the church prohibition on marriage to one's brother's widow.

At the time Henry wanted to obtain an annulment of the marriage, he alleged that Arthur and Catherine's marriage had been valid, providing grounds for the annulment.

A dowager queen whose son or daughter is currently ruling is called a Queen Mother.

Several recent British queens have been called Queen Mother.

Queen Mary of Teck, mother of Edward VIII and George VI, was popular and known for her intelligence.

Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, who did not know when she married that her brother-in-law would be pressured to abdicate and that she would become queen, was widowed when George VI died in 1952.

As the mother of the reigning Queen Elizabeth II, she was known as Queen Mum until her death 50 years later in 2002.

When the first Tudor king, Henry VII, was crowned, his mother, Margaret Beaufort, acted much as if she were the Queen Mother, though because she had never been a queen herself, the title Queen Mother was not official.

Some queen mothers were also regents for their sons if the son was not yet of age to take on the monarchy, or when their sons were out of the country and unable to rule directly.

[officecyborg]

Amy is checking out the single player tabletop game Thousand-Year-Old Vampire, and she was researching and went like “What was going on a thousand years ago? What was going on in the year 1000?” and I was just off the top of my head like “Ethelred the Unready?” Which she was very amused by and asked if I wanted the game to be about “this man”. Anyway meet my new public domain vampire Ethelred the Undead

[pastedpast]

Cnut the Great, c. 990-1035 CE, king of England, Denmark, and Norway, and his sons Harald Harefoot and Harthacnut.

Cnut married Emma of Normandy, widow of Ethelred the Unready; she had children with them both, and I'm getting confused again with complicated family trees! In respect to this illustration, Harald Harefoot was Cnut's son with his first wife, Ælfgifu of Northampton, and Harthacnut was his son with Emma. Both wanted to succeed as king, of course, and both achieved their objective, as did Emma's first son (with Ethelred), Edward the Confessor. I think!!!

It doesnt help when the names all start with the same initial. See Edward the Elder, Edweard, Edmund, Edred, Eric Bloodaxe, Edwig, Edgar the Peaceful, Edward the Martyr, Edmund Ironside.... Even worse is when the name is spelt with an Æ !!!!

[qveenofthefullmoon]

1, 24, 31, 36, 37. 39. 42, 47?

What’s the last recipe you tried?

I....I don't really cook. Not my thing.

24. Is there any sort of folklore or mythological creature you were told about as a kid?

The Bell Witch. I think most people born and raised in Tennessee know about it. Creepy.

31. A lyric that feels like it was written specifically for you/about you.

Basically the whole song, "Stand By Your Man".

36. What were your favorite books as a kid?

As in elementary school age? Let's see. Um..American Girl, Baby-Sitters Club, Boxcar Children, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Because of Winn-Dixie, etc. Also my school books for history class. Yes, I read those for fun. Do Not Judge Me.

37. Have you ever memorized a poem?

Yes. The Lorelei in German. Plus other random ones for English classes. No, I will not recite.

39. Are you staying curious? What’s something you’ve learned recently? What do you want to learn more about?

As a cat! Panic at the Disco is breaking up. I didn't know it still existed. I would love to learn about Ethelred the Unready. Why was he so unready?!?!?!

42. What was the first time you remember feeling seen (by another person, a story, a fictional character, etc.)?

I have schizophrenia. I feel seen all the time.

47. What are you looking forward to right now?

Cruise in Maaaayyyy!!!

[sirlawrancealot]

Age Pension

Know I’ve

invested all of my

taxable income life

in this, and have more

than earned it, but that

the likes of Spike Haired

Pseudo Chink and Blue Eyed

Blonde Four Eyes are what’s

left to contribute their considerable

intelligences in bullying others

as the next generation of

human leadership in our

continuing depletion

of the planet

is less than

hoped

just

as I’m

ready and

largely unread:

 what do we learn, eh?

Ethelred The Unready

[theresah331]

Ethelred the unready

[i12bent]

Friday, November 13, 1002 marks the St. Brice's Day massacre, where the English King, Ethelred the Unready ordered the murder of all Danes living in his kingdom. Makes Brexit look harmless, doesn’t it?

Ill.: Historia Ecclesie Abbendonensis, ca. 1220.

[the-laridian]

12 and 13 for the history trivia!

12. Would you take part in reenactment? In what era and as whom?

idk why the font got weird here (at least, it is on my screen)

I'm not sure I have the physical stamina for reenactment, since I mostly sit around messing with computers and spreadsheets, and that doesn't really lend itself to the level of physical ability needed to run around in a grassy field while carrying weapons and/or kit.

If I did I'd probably do something WW1 or WW2-oriented.

13. [share some random historical trivia!]

Æthelred "the Unready" is so called because of a bad interpretation of modern English, which happens depressingly often (the other depressing item in etymology is folk etymology and people making stuff up. Please don't use Tumblr for your etymology needs). Æthelred's actual epithet was "unræd", meaning "poorly counseled"/"poorly advised", and he sure was.

For extra etymological amusement, his name in old English (as opposed to modern English) is Æþelræd, and you may see that same "ræd" in there. Yes, his actual name means "well counseled"/"well advised." It is a Pun or Play on Words (see below about this tho).

That said, an awful lot of what we know about Æthelred was written long after he died, and some of it is flat-out made up by writers who wanted to curry favor with whoever was then in charge. It appears it wasn't so much that he was a bad king as that he had a really, really crappy situation to work with. His nickname, Unræd, didn't show up in historical works until 150+ years after he died, meaning it wasn't assigned to him during his life. Again, probably a smear job.