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Not without cause was King Ethelred nicknamed The Unready. The name stands not as meaning that he was unprepared, but that he was without counsel, or "redeless". His advisers were few and, for the most part, traitorous and unworthy; they swayed him and directed him just as it suited their own ends, and he had not the manly strength of will that would enable him to act for himself.
Strangely compounded of religious enthusiasm and political ambition, of the redeless spirit of the knight-errant and the cool calculation of the commercial bandit, these half-military and half-migratory movements of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries mark the beginning of that return of the West upon the East which is so persistent a factor in all modern history.
"Shut thy clap, Bartholomew, for it is no time for redeless gossip! Walk down the line, I pray you, and see if there be no frayed string, nor broken nock nor loosened whipping to be mended." The stout bowyer passed down the fringe of bowmen, amidst a running fire of rough wit. Here and there a bow was thrust out at him through the hedge for his professional advice.
This seemeth evil, but let us not be cast down, or die redeless. Ye have heard of what sayeth Sir Leonard of these hauntings in the hall, and how that they have come back again, wherefore why should we not sleep in the hall this night, those of us at least who have not so much fear as not to note them well, to see if we may draw any avail from them? How say ye?
At last the Maid spake again, and said: "Nevertheless we will not die redeless. Now thou must look to this, that from henceforward it is thee, and not the King's Son, whom she desireth, and that so much the more that she hath not set eyes on thee. Remember this, whatsoever her seeming may be to thee.
It was night now, and men had lighted fires about the host, for they said that the Romans knew where to find them if they listed to seek; and about those fires were men eating and drinking what they might come at, but amidmost of that ring was the biggest fire, and men turned them towards it for counsel and help, for elsewhere none said, "What do we?" for they were heavy-hearted and redeless, since the Gods had taken the victory out of their hands just when they seemed at point to win it.
The king who is spoken of was Æthelred who was called the Unready, which word means without counsel, and then of ill-counsel. You know how we talk of "ill-advised" conduct or speech. There is a fourteenth century poem which speaks of Richard the Second as "redeless."
It is thought that he may have been the author of a poem, Richard the Redeless: if so he was, at the time of writing, living in Bristol, and making a last remonstrance to the misguided King, news of whose death may have reached him while at the work, as it stops in the middle of a paragraph.
He spake as a man distraught and redeless; but she smiled on him pleasantly, and said: Now by this time shouldst thou have devised what was to do, and spared me the pain thereof.
The odal-born men could not prevent it when Ethelred took Alfric back. And to-night, few but thanes have resorted thither men whom the Redeless took from ploughing his fields to gild with nobility. Is it likely that they will oppose the hand that can strip off their gilding?" It appeared that the young man could find no answer to that, for he made none.
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