I argue that all writers fall in love with their subjects--they get invested, they learned about their biographees' deeply complicated natures. It's inevitable that they will desire (at the very least) to explain those deeply-complicated natures in full.
Unfortunately, a writer's affection doesn't make a biographee any more likable to the reader. I tried to read a biography about Benedict Arnold and came away unfairly annoyed with the author. I felt the same way about Typhoid Mary although I stuck it out to the end of that book. It wasn't that the biographers didn't do a good job--in both cases, they did. But their need to be fair to their subjects left a bad taste in my mouth.
Oh, come on, Arnold Benedict betrayed George Washington!
Oh, come on, Mary Mallon went to work in a hospital after she was told she might carry a disease!
Biography: Abels, Richard. Æthelred the Unready: The Failed King. Lane, 2018.
I decided to choose a subject who has a terrible reputation but about whom I had no prior opinion or much knowledge: Ethelred the Unready.
His name is usually spelled like this: Æthelred.
But he is listed as Ethelred in the card catalog and even came up without the "E" on my library account. Ah, those pesky Old English letters!
Æthelred began his reign under dicey circumstance although, considering his age at the time (eleven), he was likely not responsible for them: the murder of his older brother. The murder was likely carried out by his mother (older brother's stepmother) or at least with her agreement. The older brother, King Edward, was by all accounts a rather lousy, petulant king.
Æthelred was better except...
He allowed England to be taken over by the Danes. (Technically, Swein took over, then Æthelred returned, then Æthelred died, then Edmund "Ironsides," his son, fought Cnut but was forced into a treaty and ultimately died, leaving Cnut in charge.)
Did Æthelred have any choice? Would England have fallen to the Danes anyway? It's hard to say: hindsight is, after all, 20/20.
Would any king have behaved differently when faced with incipient invasion? It's also hard to say. Abels points out that Æthelred didn't always lead his fighters in battle as a king of that era was expected to do. Abels also points out that "the Chronicler [historian during the events], looking for a morally satisfying explanation for the English defeat, interpreted the military failures and errors by Æthelred's commanders as acts of treachery" (48).
Abels argues on the one hand that few Anglo-Saxon kings had the kind of centralized control that we associate with modern governments (which would have made a concerted military action more possible and more potentially successful). On the other hand, Abels states, "Æthelred's posthumous byname [Unready] is not completely unfair" (88). Æthelred did make mistakes, namely with the counselors he appointed and trusted--a result of becoming king too young perhaps? ("He was not the best judge of character," states Abels (106) rather ruefully.) And he may have gone along with multiple judicial murders. And he had to scramble to defend against invasion.
Abels emphasizes that although the ealdormen and thegns invited Æthelred back to the kingdom when the first Danish victor, Swein, died, they did it with surprising reluctance considering the time period and a king's godly consecration.
Interestingly enough, in one case where an untrustworthy member of the aristocracy traded sides, the Danes first rewarded him, then executed him since a traitor to one king may betray another. Benedict Arnold was treated with equal contempt by the British (though not executed). They were loathe to protect him at the cost of Major Andre, who was an idiot but at least one of theirs who was doing his duty. Arnold was a slime ball.
Also interestingly, in both cases, the world was upending. Historians who lived during the medieval era seem far more miffed about Æthelred than the later Norman invasion. Because marauding invaders from the North were worse than well-armed Latin-influenced invaders from that place that became France? Because the two invasions were seen as connected? (All these invaders are considered a variation of "Viking" by historians.) Or, rather, because when the world upended once, it was expected to do so again? (50 years separate the reign of Cnut from 1066.)
King Arthur mythology arises from a similar upending five hundred years earlier: when the Romans left Britain to inevitable invasion by Anglo-Saxons.
But King Arthur was perceived as noble and heroic: he went down fighting in a hopeless cause.
Æthelred wasn't perceived the same way at all.
Æthelred is a useful scapegoat or "winter king" (political figure who can be literally or symbolically destroyed to "save the crops") since in medieval England, the king was supposed to be appointed by God. If God decides to destroy the kingdom anyway, well...
But then the deeply atavistic part of humans that loves symbolic acts has never gone away. As Abels says succinctly, "If Æthelred had died in AD 1000, history would have remembered him more kindly" (105).
Abels' book is a worthy read though it would be a tad easier to follow if the writer could have used Fred, Bob, and Jane rather than Æthelred, Æthelwold, Æthelwine, Ælfthryth, Æthelflaed, Ælfheah.
However, Abels really knows his material, and he does one thing impressively right: he doesn't pad his narrative. I would argue that about 90% of books about Shakespeare are one chapter on Shakespeare and twenty chapters on the time period. Abels stays focused. His topic is Æthelred; that's what he writes about.
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