I am thrilled to have Edoardo Albert on my blog today talking about the importance of factual content in historical fiction. His Northumbrian Thrones series follows kings Edwin, Oswald, and Oswiu through the 7th century. The impact of division between English kingdoms and coming of Christian missionaries enables him to create exciting narratives with multifacted characters. His latest release is Oswald: Return of the King.
Guest Post by Edoardo Albert
You know, it’s difficult not to feel
jealous of Dan Brown. Apart from the extraordinary sales, the magnificent
disregard for language and having Tom Hanks play his hero in not one, not two
but, as of next year, three films, there’s the fact that he doesn’t have to
waste any time doing research. Obviously, he claims to have spent years
researching the Robert Langdon stories but this is just as clearly a clever
piece of metafiction on Dan Brown’s part (a very intelligent man weaving a
post-modern narrative of fame through the cultural and historical decay of
western culture). Anyone conversant with Leonardo, Dante or albino monks will
know that, as part of his metafiction, Brown introduces nonsense dressed up as
researched fact in order to draw the reader into the story. Then, having done
that, Mr Brown sits back, counts his money and prepares the next piece of
metafiction.
I, on the other hand, as a humble and
(much) poorer narrative craftsman, am constrained: I have imposed upon my story
the straitjacket of actual history. Much as I’d like to, I can’t change events,
or even tidy them up a bit to make a neater narrative package. Now, I know many
fine historical fiction writers believe it is perfectly all right to telescope,
edit or alter events to fit their narrative. For instance, Bernard Cornwell in The
Last Kingdom alters the timeline of events and has his fictional hero,
Uhtred, as the victor in the climactic Battle of Cynwit, and in his Sharpe
novels Richard Sharpe becomes the man who first seizes a Napoleonic eagle and
blows up the Fortress of Almeida. These are superb books, but it is not quite
what I am trying to do in The Northumbrian Thrones series.
What attracted me in particular to this
time and place is its liminal character. Northumbria itself was a borderland
between the Anglo-Saxons and the Britons, it physically straddled the old Wall
delimiting the Roman Empire, and, culturally, the time was immensely
significant as the Anglo-Saxons stood poised upon the edge of settled, unified
states and conversion in religion. Now, many novels set in pagan England seem
to me not to look the facts squarely in the eye: the pagan Anglo-Saxons had
roundly defeated the Christian Britons, driving them into the marginal lands of
mountain and moor; they held mastery and were a martial, warrior people. Yet,
despite this, during the seventh century they freely chose to abandon the
religion of their fathers, the conquerors, and adopt the religion of the
Britons, the vanquished. This is what actually happened.
How can we understand that? On the face of
it, it seems the most unlikely outcome. All the smart gold in the seventh
century would have been on the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms remaining pagan and the
eventual extirpation of Christianity throughout the rest of Britain as the
religion of the kingdoms that dominated, culturally and militarily, became the
norm through the land. Yet, the opposite happened. The Britons, the vanquished,
remained the losers in land and power, and yet the victors took on the mantle
of their belief. In an age when belief in the gods was intimately linked with
success in battle, why on earth should this have happened?
The history of the three successive kings
of Northumbria, Edwin, Oswald and Oswiu, is intimately linked to this
transition. During their reign, Northumbria became the pre-eminent kingdom in
Britain and its king Bretwalda, overlord of the other kingdoms of the
land. All three men were born pagan but became Christian and, as kingdoms
followed kings, they took their people with them into the new religion. But it
was no easy process, as I hope to show in my books; kingship was a fraught and
dangerous business in those days, and few kings died anywhere but upon the
battlefield. Thus, in the narrative of real history, I have an arc of triumph
and disaster, return and fall, that might have been written by a master
storyteller, and yet which actually happened. With such rich material, my
challenge is to do it justice, and make these men and women, who created what
was to become England, live and breathe upon the page and in the minds of the
reader. By keeping strictly to what happened, I found it actually easier to
tell the story and make it real – and I hope it will give the reader an insight
into this crucial but all-but-forgotten period in history.
Learn more about Edoardo Albert
Edoardo Albert is a copywriter, editor and writer of short stories, features and books. His stories have appeared in Daily Science Fiction and Ancient Paths, and he has written features for Time Out, TGO and History Today. His first novel in the Northumbrian Thrones series, Edwin, was published by Lion Hudson in 2014; Northumbria: A Lost Kingdom was published by the History Press in 2013. He is also the editor of the new Time Out Cycle London Guide.
Northumbrian Thrones
Oswald: Return of the King has been recently released as the second book in Edoardo Albert's Northunbrian Thrones series. It is available on
Amazon US and
Amazon UK.
After the death of Edwin, who slew his father, the young prince Oswald seeks to regain the throne.
The exiled family of king Ethelfrith of Northumbria arrive, after much hardship, on the island of Iona, where the monastery founded by St Columba has become a centre of worship and learning. Young Oswald becomes friends with a novice, Aidan. When Aidan professes his final vows, Oswald and his little brother Oswy are received into the church.
As befits a young prince, Oswald learns to fight. However, Aidan’s example attracts him and he is on the point of deciding to become a monk when news reaches Iona that his half brother, Eanfrith, has been killed by Cadwallon, the king who defeated Edwin. Oswald sails back to Northumbria and meets Cadwallon in battle, defeating him and killing him.
Oswald, now undisputed king of Northumbria, gives Aidan the island of Lindisfarne as his base. But Penda, the last great pagan king in England, is raising troops against him…