IN AN interview following the release of the third novel in what was then the Saxon Stories, the author was asked how many books he planned for the series?
His answer: “I wish I knew!
“I don’t know how the chapter I’m writing now will end, let alone the book, and the series? No idea!
“I suspect there will be a few more; I just heard that BBC Television have commissioned a series that will follow Uhtred’s escapades.
“The company that makes ‘Downton Abbey’ will make the programs, which is wonderful, and I’ll need to keep them supplied with stories (I hope).
“So? Six more? Eight more? I just don’t know.[“
That third novel, ‘The Lords of the North’ was published in 2006.
In the course of the next 14 years, Cornwell would publish another 10 books in the series.
I am currently reading the third book and enjoying it as much as books one (The Last Kingdom) and two (The Pale Horseman), so on learning there was still 10 to go, I was elated.
But I should back track here to stave off any confusion about the name of the series.
When the first book was published in 2004, the series was promoted as The Saxon Stories in the UK and as Saxon Tales and Saxon Chronicles in the US. The series underwent another name change in 2011 in the UK to The Warrior Chronicles.
Then in 2015, when the BBC released the eight episode TV series based on the first book, it was called ‘The Last Kingdom’ and in time the book series took on that name, too.
The BBC and partners commissioned a second eight episode season of ‘The Last Kingdom’ and Netflix went on to produce seasons 3, 4 and 5, each with 10 episodes.
It seems I am not alone in my enjoyment of Bernard Cornwell’s style of historical fiction.
The central character is Uhtred of Bebbanburg.
He’s an old man telling the stories of events in his life, starting from his childhood and going on. Uhtred is the ‘fiction’.
Uhtred’s narrative places him centre stage in the story of the British Isles at the end of the ninth century – it’s a time when the warring between the Saxons and the Danes could have gone either way – England could just as easily have become Daneland. The stories are a window into how England came into being in the southern and central parts of the island of Britain. That background is the ‘historical’ part of the historical fiction novels.
The fictional Uhtred is the second son of a Saxon lord who rules from the nearly impregnable fortress at Bebbanburg (modern day Bamburgh) in the kingdom of Northumbria.
Danish raiders kill first his older brother, then his father.
Uhtred himself is spared only because the Danish leader, Ragnar the Fearless, is amused when the youngster attacks him.
Ragnar takes Uhtred home and raises the boy like one of his own sons.
Uhtred abandons Christianity in favour of Danish pagan beliefs, such as the gods Thor and Odin, and Valhalla.
When he is an adult, through a series of fateful happenings, he serves Alfred the Great, whom he dislikes but respects, and Alfred’s dream of uniting all English speakers into a single kingdom, Englaland.
Uhtred finds himself saving Alfred’s Christian kingdom of Wessex and other Saxon kingdoms, time and time again from those who threaten it,. And that’s just a small dip into the life of Uhtred and the founding of England.
I have listened to the novels as audiobooks read by Jonathan Keeble, who is a brilliant narrator and a most believable Uhtred, which is important as the stories are told in the first person (well up to book three they certainly are and according to other reviews almost every tale told, is told by Uhtred).
Be warned some of the narrative is confronting, but it was a violent, raw time in the history of England and the context reflects the historical accuracy of the series.
