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
Candaules, King of Lydia, Shews his Wife by Stealth to Gyges, One of his Ministers, as She Goes to Bed the choice of killing Candaules for his instigation of the plot, or of voluntarily accepting his own execution; he reluctantly chose to save his own life by murdering his master. The next night, Gyges hid behind the same door from which he had watched the naked Nyssia, and stabbed Candaules while he slept, taking Nyssia as his own wife and declaring himself King of Lydia. The Delphic Oracle confirmed Gyges as king, as the first of the Mermnad dynasty, and he reigned for 38 years. Etty's "Candaules" shows the moment at which Gyges, hiding behind the door, first catches sight