When King Æthelwulf died in 858, Wessex was ruled by three of Alfred's brothers in succession, Æthelbald, Æthelbert and Æthelred.

In April 871, King Æthelred died, and Alfred succeeded to the throne of Wessex and the burden of its defence, despite the fact that Æthelred left two under-age sons, Æthelhelm and Æthelwold.

* Æthelred of Mercia ( 675 – 704, died 716 )

In 899 Alfred the Great, king of Wessex, died leaving his son Edward the Elder as ruler of Britain south of the River Thames and his daughter Æthelflæd and son-in-law Æthelred ruling the western, English part of Mercia.

However, Æthelred returned as king after Sweyn died in 1014.

Æthelred died unexpectedly in 1016 and Cnut became king of England.

Meanwhile another contender for the throne had emerged – Edward the Exile, son of Edmund Ironside and a grandson of Æthelred II, returned to England in 1057, and although he died shortly after his return, he brought with him his family, which included two daughters, Margaret and Christina, and a son, Edgar the Ætheling.

Æthelred was succeeded by Cœnred son of Wulfhere, and both these kings are better known for their religious activities than anything else, but the king who succeeded them ( in 709 ), Ceolred, is said in a letter of Saint Boniface to have been a dissolute youth who died insane.

When Æthelflæd died in 918, Ælfwynn, her daughter by Æthelred, succeeded as ' Second Lady of the Mercians ', but within six months Edward had deprived her of all authority in Mercia and taken her into Wessex.

Within a few weeks, however, Sweyn died and Æthelred was called back to England by the witan.

In 1013 Æthelred sent Emma and her children to her brother in Normandy to escape Sweyn's invasion, and soon followed himself, but they were able to return when Sweyn died in February 1014.

Æthelred was able to hold out against Cnut in London, but in April 1016 Æthelred died, as did Edmund in November.

Sweyn died in February 1014, and leading Englishmen invited Æthelred back on condition that he promised to rule ' more justly ' than before.

Æthelred died in April 1016, and he was succeeded by Edward's older half brother Edmund Ironside, who carried on the fight against Sweyn's son, Cnut.

Æthelred died on 23 April 1016, and the citizens and councillors in London chose Edmund as king and probably crowned him.

Edgar's plans for the succession can only be conjecture as he died as a young man aged about 32, on 8 July 975, leaving surviving sons Edward and Æthelred, neither yet an adult.

Æthelberht died in 865 and was succeeded by his brother Æthelred.

On 23 April 871, King Æthelred died and Alfred succeeded him as King of Wessex.

King Æthelred died on April 23, 871 and Alfred took the throne of Wessex, but not before seriously considering abdicating the throne in light of the desperate circumstances, which were further worsened by the arrival in Reading of a second Danish army from Europe.

When Harthacnut died, the English nobles had chosen as their king Æthelred the Unready's son Edward ( later known as Edward the Confessor ); Magnus wrote to him that he intended to attack England with combined Norwegian and Danish forces and " he will then govern it who wins the victory.

Æthelred (; died after 704 ) was King of Mercia from 675 until 704.

Wulfhere survived the defeat, but died in 675, possibly of disease, and Æthelred became king.

* Æthelred is a bishop of Cornwall and dies shortly after that.

Æthelred ( died 911 ) became ruler of Mercia shortly after the death of its last king, Ceolred II in 879, probably in 882.

* Britain: Cenred succeeds to the throne of Mercia, after his uncle Æthelred abdicates to become abbot of Bardney.

Her father married her to Æthelred, ealdorman of Mercia, and after his death she became ruler of Mercia from 911 AD to 918 AD.

Simon Keynes in 1980 showed that it belongs to the so-called Orthodoxorum group of charters, so named after the initial word of their proem, which he concluded were forgeries based on a charter of Æthelred II's reign.

Ceolred, who was Æthelred's son ( though apparently not by Osthryth ), became king after Coenred ; it is also possible that Æthelred had another son named Ceolwald who was briefly king before Ceolred.

Æthelred took possession of Lindsey again after the battle ; the change in control this time was lasting, and Lindsey remained part of Mercia until the Viking invasion of the 9th century remade the map of England.

It appears that Æthelred continued to have influence in the kingdom after his abdication: a passage in Stephen of Ripon's Life of Wilfrid shows Æthelred summoning Coenred to him and advising him to make peace with Wilfrid.

" Æthelred ( d. after 704 )".

Æthelred recovered Lindsey from the Northumbrians a few years after his accession, but was generally unable to maintain the domination of the south achieved by Wulfhere.

Penda had continued in his traditional paganism despite the widespread conversions of Anglo-Saxon monarchs to Christianity, and a number of Christian kings had suffered death in defeat against him ; after Penda's death, Mercia was converted, and all the kings who ruled thereafter ( including Penda's sons Peada, Wulfhere and Æthelred ) were Christian.

Nothing is known of him after 879, but by 883 Æthelred had become ruler of the part of Mercia still under English control.

Ælfwynn was the daughter of Æthelred, ruler of English Mercia, and Æthelflæd, daughter of King Alfred the Great and herself ruler of Mercia after her husband's death.

In favour of the former, Andrew Wareham has suggested that in naming his third and most ' throneworthy ' son ( b. after c. 964 ) Æthelred, after his great-great-uncle and thus after Ælfgifu's and Æthelweard's ancestor ( see genealogy ↑), Edgar may have intended to make a sympathetic gesture by which he stressed their kinship.

Alfrida plans Edward's death in order to give the throne to her own son Æthelred, and promptly dumps Rumon after her plan succeeds.

The ability to raise large sums of money was needed after the battle of Maldon, as Æthelred decided that, rather than fight, he would pay ransom to the Danes in a system known as Danegeld.

It is significant that it was only after Æthelwold's death in 984 that Æthelred started acting against the interests of some of the reformed monastic houses.

Æthelred the Unready, or Æthelred II ( circa 968 – 23 April 1016 ), was king of England ( 978 – 1013 and 1014 – 1016 ).

The Northumbrian king, Æthelred, was assassinated in April 796, and less than a month later his successor, Osbald, was deposed in favour of Eardwulf.

In April Æthelred died, to be succeeded by Alfred.