Possible Clues:

• Not prepared
• Ethelred, the ..., old English king
• Still in rehearsals
• No scout and (for Anglo-Saxon king) no scholar
• Caught short
• Ill-prepared
• Not prepared to study in New York university at first
• Ay, under-prepared
• Ethelred the . . . . . . .
• Ethelred the --, king of England from 978 to 1016