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 England remained unscathed as first Viking raiding parties, then entire Viking armies looted and ravaged the English countryside. Æthelred, roundly criticised by historians as ineffectual in the face of the Viking onslaught, was never able to mount a successful offense against the nimble Viking fleets, and his efforts to defend his kingdom against Viking armies were continually undermined. Æthelred and his advisors eventually adopted a policy of buying off the Viking armies with money. These enormous payments, known as Danegeld, had to be levied against English landowners and citizens, and this had a devastating impact on the English economy. Together, the Viking raids and the Danegeld payments brought the English people to their knees. But the Viking assaults continued. Few Englishmen during this time would have seen any reason to be optimistic about his own future or that of his countrymen. The situation became desperate in 1013, when, despite Æthelred, a prominent leader of the Viking armies, Swein Forkbeard, managed to position himself as king of England. In response, Æthelred retreated to Normandy where he remained until Swein's death the following year, upon which he immediately negotiated his safe return to England and his reinstatement as king. It is of these events that one of the versions of the "Sermo Lupi" makes mention. Wulfstan's role in these events are unclear, though sentiments he expresses elsewhere in his writings suggest that he would have supported Æthelred's cause over any Dane's. Dorothy Whitelock writes that "we have no evidence where Wulfstan was at the time of the submission England to Swein, but he was at York within a fortnight of [Swegn's] death, and we may suspect that he used his influence to win back the province to the English king Æthelred."