The story of how Aethelred’s evil mother, Aelfthryth, contrived the murder of her stepson, Eadward II., ‘the Martyr,’ at Corfe is well known. He himself was at the time only ten years of age. For several years the kingdom was probably governed by his mother and her supporters, but they were not strong enough to oust the officials of Eadgar and Eadward II. The minority of the king left the rival ealdormen and reeves ill-controlled, and there is some reason to think that the monachizing religious policy of Eadgar and St. Dunstan was greatly resented. At all events, there was much internal disorder; it is even possible that a state of modified civil war prevailed. Externally the country appeared great and powerful. Aethelred II. at his accession was overlord of all Britain no less than his father. England possessed a navy as strong in numbers as the largest Viking fleet that had ever assailed the country. Yet when the crisis came everything was in hopeless disorder. It was not the people, but the ruling class that was in fault. The exasperation of the nation glows fiercely through the bitter entries of the ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,’ whose compiler is thoroughly aware that sheer ineptitude, if not absolute treachery, was the cause of the national disasters. Of the wretched monarch at whose door the blame for the downfall of the first ‘English Empire’ is usually laid little can be said that is favourable. Aethelred II. is condemned for all time by the scathing epithet bestowed upon him of ‘redeless.’ He was not altogether devoid of courage and enterprise, but his instability and utter incapacity to adopt and execute any sensible plan of action were his bane. In 980, after more than forty years of immunity, the shores of England were once more troubled by Vikings. Pirate squadrons raided Thanet, and the country round Southampton and Chester. Next year another, or the same force--apparently from Ireland--sacked St. Petrocstow (Padstow), and wasted on both shores of the Bristol Channel; and in 982 three pirate vessels touched at Portland for a hurried raid. For five or six years thereafter nothing is heard of Vikings; but there was certainly unrest among the English nobles, and when the raids began again the country was utterly unprepared. Once again was repeated the weary tale of the ninth century--raids, growing ever more murderous and widespread, and met only by local resistance. But besides this there is the foul record of combined action repeatedly frustrated by jealousy, ineptitude, or treachery, and of frequent buying off after the invaders had done as much mischief as possible. In 988 there was another petty raid of Irish Vikings; and in the same year the great Archbishop Dunstan died, taken away betimes from the wrath to come.