King of England Edmund Ironside
King Ethelred's older son, Edmund, who was 22 years old in 1016 when he became king. He was crowned in St Pauls. He seems to have despised his father and it is likely that only Ethelred's death prevented the young firebrand from taking matters into his own hands. Once free to act, he embarked on a whirlwind of fierce and highly mobile fighting against the Danes, which threw them into unaccustomed disorder. Southern England was cleared of marauders in a matter of months but during the fifth and last great battle of the campaign at Ashingdon near Rochford in Essex, the Saxon revival was reversed with great slaughter -- principally through the treachery of Ethelred's evil genius and advisor, Eadric, whom Edmund had not felt strong enough to discard. Edmund died shortly afterwards at Oxford, probably worn out by his exertions.
Earl of Northumberland Waltheof
Son of Skyward the Saxon. Waltheof was beheaded in 1073.
King of England Ethelred the Unready
The name Ethelred is a compound of two old English words meaning "noble counsel": Unred means "no counsel" or, alternatively, "evil counsel" and "treacherous plot." WE have to look no further than the circumstance of Ethelred's accession to the throne, and the influence of his sinister mother Aelfthryth, to see the origins of his punning nickname. His subsequent failures aagainst the Danes merely reinforced his reputation, though they were such as to cause later generations to distort his "Unraed" into "Unready."
Throughout his long and inglorious reign Ethelred had a knack of picking the worst of men as his counsellors and subordinates, at least if we are to believe the writer of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The chronicle frequently seethes with fury at the incompetence, cowardice and treachery of Ethelred's advisors. The King, for his part, emerges as a man with the mind and morals of a gangster. Ethelred's first recorded independent action was to ravage the lands of his own subjects, and the sum of his ideas for combatting the Viking invasion was either to buy them off or, as on St. Brice's Day in 1002, to order the massacre of any Dane who was trusting enough to live peacably in Ethelred's own dominions.
Some modern historians have tried to justify Ethelred by suggesting that the Danes came looking merely for loot, so that it was wisdom on his part to supply them with what they sought, while avoiding confrontation. But this is to ignore the hideous reality of the damage inflicted on England by successive and increasingly heavy Viking raids, especially in the period 991-1012. Still more, it is to disregard the fact that Ethelred, starting with every advantage that Alfred lacked, contrived in thirty years to lose all that Alfred had gained for Saxon England. He even gave away as king in 1013 to King Swein of Denmark, his greatest enemy, and retired to Normandy. But Swein died in 1014, and Ethelred returned to burden the throne of England for a few more months until his death in 1016.
Duchess of Normandie, Queen Emma
Daughter of the Duke of Normandy
Mormaer, Lay Abbott of Dunkfield Crinan
Warrior-abbot of Dunkeld. Rose against King Macbeth in 1045 and was killed in battle.
The fifteenth and final king of the House of Alpin (crowned at Scone like all his predecessors) succeeded his cousin Kenneth III and kept himself in power by a shrewd combination of tenacity and ruthlessness. In 1018 his victory at the battle of Carham added Lothian to the kingdom of Scotia and when he failed to produce a son he cleared the royal path for his grandson Duncan by murdering the grandson of Kenneth III. This decision to choose a direct descendant was the first step in the substition of primogeniture for tanistry. Malcolm II's heritage was carried by his daughters: Bethoc was the mother of Duncan I, Donada the daughter of Macbeth, and a third daughter the mother of Thorfinn, mightiest of the Norse Earls of Orkney.
In 973, he acknowledged King Edgar of England as his lord in return for recognition that the Scots now held Lothian, which they had seized from the Angles. In about 994, however, he broke his promise to keep the peace and invaded England. He was defeated and lost Lothian again. Was killed in 995 in a blood feud at Fettercairn, Kincardineshire.
He may have supported the establishment of a Danish kingdom in York in the 940s, and he harried the north of England. He was killed in battle, possibly at Fetteresso, Kincardshire by rebels from Moray.
Struggled to repel the Norse invasions.
King of Scotland Kenneth I McAlpin
In 843 Kenneth McAlpin, king of the Scots, acquired Pictland -- more by virtue of Pictish kinship than conquest -- and the united Celtic kingdon was known as Scotia. This did not satisfy Kenneth's territorial ambitions, as we have it on the authority of the 10th century Scottish Chronicle that he unsuccessfully invaded Lothian six times. In two symbolic acts Kenneth moved the centre of his kingdom from Dalriada to the Pictish east: he set the ancient Stone of Destiny in Scone where he was crowned king of Scotia; and he transferred St. Columba's relics from Iona to Dunkeld (though in 943 King Constantine II had them taken to St. Andrews).