Æthelred

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Æthelred (d. 796), king of Northumbria (774–8/9, 790–6). Knowledge of Northumbrian history at this time is ‘nasty, brutish, and short’. Æthelred was displaced after five years' rule by a member of another line, Ælfwald. Regaining power upon Ælfwald's murder in 790, Æthelred butchered Ælfwald's sons and sought to secure himself by marrying the daughter of Offa of Mercia, and faced the shock of the Viking sack of Lindisfarne in 793. In 796 he was murdered. With better sources we could better interpret these miseries.

James Campbell

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