I'm ready - or am I?

Was Ethelred II (10th century King of England) unready?  That's how history has it - he is known as Ethelred the unready.  Certainly his reign (there were actually two of them, but that's another story) was nothing to write home about.  The country was under pretty well constant invasion by the Danes and Ethelred's attempts to buy them off  - the infamous "danegeld" - only served to make matters worse. Anyway, back to the main question, and the answer is no - Ethelred was no more unready than his predecessors and successors.  The word used of him was "unraed" which, although it looks a bit like unready, actually means "badly advised".