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
Edward II of England the Count of Flanders, but this too failed after it was blocked by King Philip IV of France. Between 1297 and 1298, Edward was left as regent in charge of England while the king campaigned in Flanders against Philip IV, who had occupied part of the English king's lands in Gascony. On his return, Edward I signed a peace treaty, under which he took Philip's sister, Margaret, as his wife and agreed that Prince Edward would in due course marry Philip's daughter, Isabella, who was then only two years old. In theory, this marriage would mean that the disputed Duchy