Sermo Lupi ad Anglos as the king's chief legal draftsman on into the reign of the Danish king Cnut the Great. It is both remarkable and puzzling that Wulfstan was able to play so central a role in politics under both Æthelred's and Cnut's reigns, especially as it was under Æthelred's reign that Wulfstan, in his "Sermo Lupi", so vehemently decried the depredations of the Danish and Norwegian Vikings. King Æthelred II — nicknamed Æthelred 'The Unready' - ruled England from 978-1016. For virtually his entire reign, England was the object of successive Viking raids. Between the period of 980-1016, few areas of southern
Ælfhere, Ealdorman of Mercia killed at the Battle of Maldon in 991 and Ælfheah's son Godwine may be the same person as Godwine, ealdorman of Lindsey, who died in the Battle of Ashingdon in 1016. Ælfhere, Ealdorman of Mercia Ælfhere (died in 983) was ealdorman of Mercia. His family, along with those of Æthelstan Half-King and Æthelstan Rota, rose to greatness in the middle third of the 10th century. In the reign of Edward the Martyr, Ælfhere was a leader of the anti-monastic reaction and an ally of Edward's stepmother Queen Dowager Ælfthryth. After the killing of Edward by Ælfthryth's servants in 978, Ælfhere