King Arthur's Country (Hardback)
One Land, Two Kings and Two Centuries that Changed Britain Forever
Imprint: Pen & Sword Military
Pages: 216
Illustrations: 70 mono illustrations
ISBN: 9781399053594
Published: 5th November 2024
Review
This book is a fundamentally new perspective on the historical Arthur, which for the first time since Leslie Alcock’s Arthur's Britain, written 50 years ago, provides genuine insights using archaeological evidence.
Professor Mark Horton
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England today is a rich, complex mix of identities, cultures, and heritages. However, in the decades after Roman Britain collapsed in the fifth century, the cultures of the Angles and of the Saxons, with significant degrees of homogeneity, spread rapidly westwards across much of eastern, southern and central England.
Then it stopped. Or was stopped. For the area then still beyond Anglo-Saxon reach is characterized by a network of military and economic links across the island. Perhaps significantly, this includes parts of Britain traditionally associated with King Arthur. Later, the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural kingdom of Mercia, in alliance with British kingdoms in Wales, spread from the Midlands across England under the mysterious King Penda, dominating the earlier Anglo-Saxon kingdoms with its wealth and military power. The region that gave birth to Mercia is also a region that was a most likely base for the elusive figure of King Arthur.
The authors use historical and archaeological evidence, much of it new, to explore the link between Arthur’s kingdom and the rise of Penda’s Mercia. They seek to locate lost Arthurian battlefields and understand what happened there, with exciting, new results. This is the story of one region, two kings and two centuries that changed England forever.
This book is a fundamentally new perspective on the historical Arthur, which for the first time since Leslie Alcock’s Arthur's Britain, written 50 years ago, provides genuine insights using archaeological evidence.
Professor Mark Horton
About Christopher Gidlow
Chris Gidlow, studied history at Oxford and was president of the university’s Arthurian Society. He subsequently became Live Interpretation Manager of Historic Royal Palaces and is now a teacher.
About Stuart Laycock
Stuart Laycock studied Classics at Cambridge and is now a historian and or author, or co-author, of a number of books, including All the Countries We've ever Invaded and Britannia the Failed State.
Penda, Mercia's First King The Last Great Heathen Warlord of Anglo-Saxon England (Hardback)
Since the Venerable Bede wrote his iconic Ecclesiastic History of England in the eighth century, King Penda has been relegated to the role of villain and treated as a barrier to advancement in a battle between new ideas and a new culture. Paul Barrett outlines the background to the Anglo-Saxon takeover in England and explores the broad concepts of the Angles’ traditional culture, before delving into the life of Penda (605 – 655). Penda’s life spanned the first half of the seventh century, the era which gave birth to national identities which still form the central components of modern Britain;…
By Paul BarrettClick here to buy both titles for £40.00