PicoBlog

The Last Kingdom was a great historical fiction epic - up there with Vikings. I loved Vikings - with Vikings Valhalla currently strong too. Though incidentally, I prefer The Last Kingdom because it’s more historically accurate, and is more Anglo-Saxon-centric.

I was sad of course to see The Last Kingdom end, but then eagerly looked forward to Seven Kings Must Die.

I finally saw this on the day of release, and my thoughts on it are below:

The Last Kingdom followed the standard narrative closely, with a lot of artistic licence.

The series covered the life of King Alfred the Great, and his battles with the Norse at Edington and in securing London. The stories of his children, Lady Athelflead of Mercia and King Edward the Elder, were broadly accurate also. Athelflead was shown leading her troops at Tettenhall, where she defeated the Norsemen. King Edward also put down Aethelwold’s Revolt, at the Battle of the Holme, where we saw Uhtred kill Aethelwold in Edward’s victory.

The series ended, of course, with Uhtred finally regaining his earldom of Bamburgh - though denying fealty to both King Edward and King Constantine of Scots. This left the series with a happy ending - Uhtred got his birthright back. Though it left us seeing how England would form, especially as we saw a young future King Athelstan learning under Uhtred.

So, was Seven Kings Must Die accurate?

Like the series, it followed a general narrative, with some diversions unfolding:

The show - King Edward had died prior to the film - and we see a teenage future King Edmund as Queen Ealgifu’s son fighting alongside both Uhtred and King Athelstan.

Reality - This is accurate. Edmund succeeded Athelstan as the second king of a united England. Edmund did fight alongside Athelstan at Brunanburh, which happened in 937 AD.

The show - Aelfweard was another son of King Edward, who had a claim to the throne. Athelstan was seen as a bastard by some - even today, an heir to the British throne should be legally born in wedlock. Aelfweard had support for his kingly claim. He was exiled by Aethelstan, after Aylesbury was ransacked in kind.

Reality - Athelstan’s parentage was questioned - he was even nearly blinded by supporters of Aelfweard, since a royal successor had to be fully abled to be king. Aelfweard was indeed exiled by Athelstan, though he was said to be sent on a boat adrift, and presumably died from exposure and starvation.

The show - Athelstan had an aide/chief minister, who was his gay lover. This lover, who was later found to be a Norse spy, manipulated him into being tyrannical and cruel. This led to Athelstan’s “no quarter” stance at Aylesbury.

Reality - There’s no evidence that Athelstan was gay. He could have been, in reality. Though we do know he was celibate and unmarried. We don’t know the reason for this either. There isn’t any proof for either eventuality.

The show - Athelstan’s minister/lover turned their “sin” (,i.e. gay sex) into conquering the entirety of Britain. The kings of Strathclyde, Scots, Orkney, Mann, and Shetland all held grievances against him, and thus formed an alliance to defeat him.

Reality - Athelstan did proclaim himself Emperor of all Britain. After he succeeded King Edward, he conquered Norse Jorvik, annexed Bamburgh, and then proclaimed himself King of the English at Eamont Bridge in 927 AD. In the process, he gained the fealty of the King of Deuherbarth, Hywel Dda, and the King of Scots, Constantine. It was after gaining this overlordship that he proclaimed overlordship over all of Britain.

The show - Uhtred spoke much of uniting Anglo-Saxons and Norse (or Danes). He didn’t swear fealty to Edward for this reason but was more than willing to swear allegiance to Athelstan.

Reality - King Edward didn’t conquer Jorvik - which was a Norse-led kingdom covering what is now Yorkshire. Most of the Danelaw, including what is now Yorkshire, had many Norse settlers amongst the native Anglo-Saxons who had been there for centuries. Even in the old Wessex, the Norse had settled amongst Anglo-Saxons. This in turn led to linguistic changes - words like husband, window, and egg are Norse in origin. It’s likely that a new dialect emerged as a proto-pidgin between the two languages, though Old English and Old Norse were similar in lexicon and grammar. It was apparent that a king of all the English had to accommodate the many Norse who had made England their home. We don’t know how many Norse settled in England - though given the numerous Norse placenames in northern England, it must have been many thousands.

The show - Egged on by his lover/chief minister, Athelstan invaded Scotland as “penance” for his gay sex, to prove his Christianity and balance his “sin”. This in turn turned the King of Scots against him, and into the arms of the Norse-led anti-English alliance.

Reality - Athelstan invaded Scotland, but after the King of Scots broke away from his treaty of fealty to him. This though happened some years after he established himself as King of England, and not before.

The show - Athelstan exiled Uhtred, under influence of his lover/minister again. He was told to leave the kingdom, and without any help nor assistance from others under pain of death. This led Uhtred to Shetland, where the jarl/king attempted to convince him to kill Athelstan and defeat the potential English threat.

Reality - Outlawing was common at the time, mainly for people who committed grave crimes. It was essentially making a person outside of the law, and thus not entitled to legal protection or even part of the law. Legally, the person was a wild animal, like a boar, deer, or bear, that could be killed at will or treated in any fashion one wished. This practice existed until the late medieval period, and often was an alternative to capital punishment.

The show - Brunanburh was fought in the Wirral peninsula, between the alliance of the Scots, Orkney, Mann, and Strathclyde kings opposing the English forces of King Athelstan.

Reality - We don’t know where Brunanburh was. Though we believe it could have been in the Wirral, amongst other locations cited over the years. Just as in the show, King Athelstan won, though Brunanburh occurred several years after he proclaimed himself King of England.

The show - Athelstan visits Uhtred at Beddanburg, where a sickly and potentially dying Uhtred swears fealty to him, under the condition that he doesn’t marry, and allows his younger half-brother, Edmund, to succeed him. Athelstan agrees and thus proclaims himself king of England - the first sovereign to rule all of the Anglo-Saxon lands as one king and one people.

Reality - Athelstan was indeed the first King of England - or King of the English as was the style he adopted and used until Henry II in the 12th century. He adopted rule of all Anglo-Saxons in 927 AD, as aforementioned, though this was years before the Battle of Brunanburh. Athelstan died in 939 AD, and Edmund did succeed him as King of the English. He in turn died, after quelling resistance from the Five Boroughs, in 946 AD. Edmund’s full brother, and Athelstan’s fellow half-brother, Eadred, then ruled from 946-955 AD. His rule was defined as the suppression of Jorvik’s revolt, led by the former Norwegian king, Eric Bloodaxe. Bloodaxe died at the Battle of Stainmore, in modern-day Durham/Cumbria, and secured the fledging English kingdom. Thus, Eadred fully cemented the English unification project, conceived by Alfred the Great, expanded by Lady Athelflead and King Edward the Elder, and formalised by King Athelstan.

So like the series, Seven Kings Must Die was broadly historically accurate.

Next time - we’ll analyse the show itself.

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