General Notes

Name Prefix:<NPFX> King
Ethelred II., the Unready  was born in 968, a boy of ten wh
en he became king in 978. He died April 23, 1016 in London
, reigning for thirty-eight years from 979 to 1016. He wa
s the last of the Boy Kings. The epitaph "The Unready" whic
h is usually assigned to him is a misrepresentation of a wo
rd which properly means the Rede-less, the man without coun
sel. He was entirely without the qualities which befit a ki
ng. He married in 984 (1) Elfflaed (Elgifa) (Aelfgifu) , da
ughter of Earl Thorad, and they had a son as follows:
1. Edmund II., Ironsides
2. Eadwig, died in 1017.
Ethelred married in 1002 (2) Emma of Normandy, "The Flowe
r of Normandy", daughter of Richard I., Duke of Normandy, a
nd sister of Richard II., Duke of Normandy. See his lineag
e elsewhere in Volume I. This marriage was one of the firs
t that joined the Anglo-Saxon lines to the French. They ha
d children as follows:
1. Alfred, who was murdered in 1036.
2. Edward, the Confessor, the last Anglo-Saxon king of th
e House of Wessex, reigning from 1042 to 1066. Edward was b
orn about 1004 at Islip in Oxfordshire. He was an albino, d
ignified, of medium height, and rather childish. Godwin hel
ped to secure Edward's succession to Harthacnut (1042). H
e married Edith (Aldgyth), daughter of Earl Godwin and hi
s second wife, Gytha, and sister of Harold II, who ruled i
n 1066. He built Westminster Abbey shortly before his death
. Harold, son of Godwin and brother of the queen, became ki
ng, a usurper in Norman opinion. Saxons looked back to Edwa
rd's time as to a golden age before the Norman age of iron
, and all remembered his piety.
3. Goda, married (1) Dreux, Count of Vexin (another resourc
e names the first husband as Walter, Count of Mantes), an
d (2) Eustace II., Count of Boulogne. The first marriage pr
oduced a son, Ralph (Ralf) the Timid, Earl of Hereford, die
d 1057.
Emma married (2) Canute the Great (Cnut) I, son of Swein Fo
rkbeard, the Dane, who died in 1016. Canute reigned over En
gland from 1016 to 1035, and died in 1014. They had Harthac
nut (Cnut II), King of England from 1040 to 1042, after hi
s half brother, Harold I, who ruled from 1037 to 1040. Canu
te (Cnut) had a first marriage to Aelfgifu (Elgifrig) of No
rthampton (Mercia). From that marriage there were two sons
: Swein, King of Norway, who died 1036, and Harold I., Kin
g of England (1035-1040).