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
Issue of Edward III of England by his third cousin Edward, 4th Duke of York of the York faction (great-grandson of Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York, 5th son of King Edward III), who reigned as King Edward IV. The Lancaster kings also had Plantagenet ancestry on the female side from Blanche of Lancaster, wife of John Gaunt, daughter of Henry of Grosmont, 1st Duke of Lancaster (c.1310-1361), descended from Edmund Crouchback, 1st Earl of Lancaster, the second son of King Henry III (1216-1272), the great-grandfather of King Edward III. A legend was developed, although without foundation, claiming that Edmund Crouchback was older than his