The last kingdom shield wall series#

This thrilling adventure-based on existing records of Bernard CornwellвЂ™s ancestors-depicts a time when law and order were ripped violently apart by a pagan assault on Christian England, an assault that came very close to destroying England.

Above all, though, he wishes to recover his fatherвЂ™s land, the enchanting fort of Bebbanburg by the wild northern sea. By now he is a young man, in love, trained to fight and ready to take his place in the dreaded shield wall. He certainly has no love for Alfred, whom he considers a pious weakling and no match for Viking savagery, yet when Alfred unexpectedly defeats the Danes and the Danes themselves turn on Uhtred, he is finally forced to choose sides. The story is seen through the eyes of Uhtred, a dispossessed nobleman, who is captured as a child by the Danes and then raised by them so that, by the time the Northmen begin their assault on Wessex (AlfredвЂ™s kingdom and the last territory in English hands) Uhtred almost thinks of himself as a Dane. This is the exciting-yet little known-story of the making of England in the 9th and 10th centuries, the years in which King Alfred the Great, his son and grandson defeated the Danish Vikings who had invaded and occupied three of EnglandвЂ™s four kingdoms.

The last kingdom shield wall series#

The first installment of Bernard CornwellвЂ™s bestselling series chronicling the epic saga of the making of England, вЂњlike Game of Thrones, but realвЂќ ( The Observer, London)-the basis for The Last Kingdom, the hit BBC America television series.