Ethelred was the son of King Edgar by his third wife Elfrida. He ascended the throne at the age of 12 following the murder (possibly on his mother's orders) of his half-brother, King Edward the Martyr. According to tradition, Ethelred was cursed right from the start. It was said that, as he was being christened by St Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury, he defecated in the font. This led St Dunstan to predict that the English monarchy would be overthrown during Ethelred's reign.
That reign is certainly not rated a success – there were many political murders and Church lands were plundered – but Ethelred was unfortunate in having to contend with almost constant Viking raids, beginning in 980. A low point was the English defeat at the battle of Maldon in 991. As a result of this and other setbacks, Ethelred followed the practice of a number of his predecessors (including Alfred the Great) and began paying a tribute, known as the Danegeld, to the invaders. However, this provided only temporary respite as the Danes became more determined to conquer the kingdom.
Ethelred did strengthen the military and built a large fleet. He also tried diplomacy to stave off the conquest by forming an alliance with Normandy and taking Emma, daughter of Duke Richard I of Normandy, as his second wife in 1002.
In the same year, on St Brice's Day, he ordered the massacre of England's Danish population. The result was renewed interest from the Vikings, led by the Danish king, Swein 'Forkbeard', whose sister had been among those killed. In 1013, following an invasion via Gainsborough in Lincolnshire, Swein was accepted as England's ruler by the Saxon nobility, who felt powerless to resist. On Christmas Day, Ethelred fled to Normandy.
On Swein's death the following year, Ethelred was invited to return to England on condition that he govern according to the laws of Edgar. He saw off the claim of Swein's son Cnut, but it was a shortlived victory. Two years later, in 1016, Ethelred died.
The nickname of 'Unready', given to him in the 12th century, is a mistranslation of 'Unraed', which actually means 'bad counsel', a twist on the fact that 'Ethelred' means 'good counsel'.
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 Ethelred II 'The Unready' (r. 979-1013 and 1014-1016)
www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page32.asp
Short biography of Ethelred on the official Royal Family website.
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Aethelred the Unready: The ill-counselled king by Ann Williams (Hambledon & London, 2003)
A leading scholar on his reign discounts the later rumours and misinterpretations that have dogged Aethelred's reputation to construct a record of his reign from contemporary sources.
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