The Last Kingdom Bernard Cornwell
Bernard Cornwell has been awarded an OBE, sold over 20 million copies, and at a rough count he’s written nearly fifty full-length novels since 1981. It’s quite a pedigree, which puts Cornwell at the pinnacle of his trade and he’s best know for his Sharpe series of novels, many of which have been turned into a long-running series of TV films, with Sean Bean (aka Boromir) playing the part of the swashbuckling Englishman caught up in the battles of the Napoleonic era. But Cornwell’s interest has wandered far from Sharpe and Europe and the eighteenth century, and in the past he’s also penned series about the 100 Year War, King Arthur (his self-proclaimed favourite series), the American Civil War as well as nautical thrillers.
Cornwell’s latest interest is the 9th century, when the various kingdoms of England were completely overrun by the Vikings. The last king, Alfred, is driven into the marshes of Athelney, but he makes one of the great come-backs of history: not only rallying his troops and defeating the Vikings, but also founding one of the most vigorous dynasties of Medieval Europe: who went on to unite the English speaking peoples and set the boundaries of what is still ‘England.’
The story of Alfred – a philandering youngest son, quite unlike the saintly figure painted in monk’s writings and in the Victorian image of him - is remarkable in that it has attracted so few novels, when compared with the other ‘the Great’ – Alexander, with few major writer tackling this period since Alfred Duggan’s The King of Athelney, in the 1960s.
Considering that Alfred was the king of Wessex, roughly the part of England in the South and West of England, it’s surprising that Cornwell starts his novel at the other end of the country, in Bamburgh, capital of the High-Reeves of Bernicia, the northernmost half of Northumbria, in the far north and east of the country. But it allows Cornwell to trace the Viking take-over of England as they pushed further south and west.
The narrator of the novels is ‘Earl Uhtred’ from a family of Uhtreds, the ruling family of Bernicia in fact, who hold an almost impregnable fort on a tidal island at Bamburgh, a short ride away from the monastery of Lindisfarne. His childhood coincides with the Viking take-over of Northumbria, and the violence of the times leaves him as a slave in the hands of one of the great Vikings of the time, Ragnar, who adopts him as a son, and he renounces Christianity and proudly wears the Thor’s Hammer.
As part of Ragnar’s household, Uhtred joins the Viking invasion of Mercia and East Anglia, where the East Anglian king is slain in battle, and Burgred, of Mercia, is bought off and spends his days on the continent, praying for his soul. Uhtred then joins the attack on Wessex, where the inexorable tide of events is temporarily reversed.
But the invasion also brings a personal revelation for Uhtred. When he sees his mother’s brother, a Mercian lord, cut down in battle, he feels his blood-ties to the English tighten and by the time of the next Viking assault on Wessex, led by Guthrum, Uhtred is fighting on the English side, and he is instrumental in saving Alfred’s skin at the battle of Cynuit.
There’s a complex play of religion and politics and personal loyalty in 9th century England, and Cornwell’s narrative cuts clearly through this Gordian Knot with strong characters, great action scenes and clear motivations for the various characters – many real some imagined - to do what they do. Cornwell uses old English spellings for place names, which gives a nice flavour to the novel as well as giving insights into the names of places now. Some names are very similar to the modern, Cornwalum-Cornwall; some are names for places that no longer exist – like Dalriada a part of modern Scotland, and some almost comic: Cornwell’s prose betraying a note of distinct pleasure in the name of Snotengaham – ‘the Home of Snot's people’ – which is the rather unfortunate name for modern day Nottingham.
There are many details that can bog down a historical novel, but Cornwell is comfortable and efficient in resurrecting the 9th century world around his characters – with its seal-skin rigging and longships and codes of honour and betrayal – and, like the best historical novels, he manages to explain and illuminate the actions and motivations of characters without sounding like a lecture on early medieval life. His story makes it clear just how difficult it was for English kingdoms to raise and army and defeat an enemy as mobile as the Vikings – able to strike at will like the Huns and Mongols - as well as the techniques and the impression of the shield wall, and the lifestyle of the period.
Cornwell has been dubbed by the Washington Post as ‘the greatest writer of historical adventure novels today’. ‘Adventure’ is a key word here, which means that these books do not aspire to the standards of the Booker or Pullizter. Character’s decisions are sometimes over-influenced by the plotting of the story, which needs twists and turns for momentum; the narrator overshadows Alfred, and assigns himself a lot of the credit for Alfred’s victory’s, which slightly defeat’s Cornwell’s self proclaimed reasons for writing the book, which was to ‘show [why Alfred the Great] gained that title.’ But these are small blemishes on what is otherwise an excellent and exciting read.
There are three sequels to this novel, two already in print, The Pale Horseman and The Lords of the North, with Sword Song yet to be published. (Release date Sept 2007 in the UK, January 2008 in the USA).
Links:
http://www.bernardcornwell.net/index.cfm?page=3 Bernard Cornwell’s Home Page
http://www.bernardcornwell.net/index2.cfm?page=1&seriesid=10 Saxon Novels
http://www.writersfm.com/writersfm/podcasts.aspx Interview on Writer’s FM
http://www.ucsd.tv/library-test.asp?showID=7318 Speaking on University of California TV