The Most Evil British Monarch From Each Era

The Most Evil British Monarch From Each Era Æthelred II came to the throne of England in 978 under circumstances that should have disqualified him from the start — his older brother Edward, already crowned king, was murdered at Corfe Castle, almost certainly at the instigation of Æthelred's own mother or her household, and the ten-year-old Æthelred was installed in his place. Contemporary sources describe him weeping so loudly at Edward's funeral that his mother beat him with candles, which is either a piece of vivid propaganda or a very early warning sign about the kind of household he was raised in.