Using fiction to plug historical gaps?

Review of 'King of Wessex' by Steven A. McKay

There are few figures more synonymous with early medieval, or Anglo-Saxon, England than Alfred ‘the Great’, king of the West Saxons. Famous for his campaigns against Viking invaders alongside his enthusiastic patronage of the Christian Church and literacy, this ninth-century king has captivated many an author and rightly plays a central role in many fiction and nonfiction depictions of the early medieval world.

It is perhaps this element of struggle, of the battle between ‘good’ and ‘bad’, marauding Viking versus peace-loving Saxon, that draws so many historical fiction writers to the closing years of the ninth-century. We love a good underdog, right? And though we all know that Alfred’s dynasty wins in the end, it’s a hard-fought battle, featuring much heavy-handed negotiation by the Scandinavian leaders. We find ourselves, naturally, rooting for Alfred and his clan.

King of Wessex is the third in Steven A. McKay’s Alfred the Great trilogy, following on from The Heathen Horde and Sword of the Saxons. It tells the story of his campaigns against the Vikings during the A.D. 890s and its close dependence on the narrative provided by extant written sources such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle means that it is a good introduction for anyone new to the history of late ninth-century England. Plus it has a clear historical endnote where the author shares what was based on truth and what was given a little more creative license.

I was fortunate to have access to an advanced reader copy (ARC) through NetGalley (thanks to

The Literary Assistant

and

Amy Turner

for your guidance here!), and have many thoughts to share in my review below.

King of Wessex will be released in the UK and US on 20th February 2025 and you can pre-order at either of the links below.

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Who was Alfred?

Let’s back up a little and explore the protagonist in McKay’s Alfred the Great trilogy.

Alfred came to the West Saxon throne in A.D. 875, after a rather unfortunate run of years for his dynasty. The youngest of six brothers who would all sit on the throne between their father’s death in A.D. 858 and Alfred’s accession almost two decades later, none of his siblings were able to produce heirs old enough to rule upon their death. One can assume that Alfred never expected to be king, certainly not in his youth.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the principle annalistic source for this period, is very brief in its description of Alfred’s accession:

After Easter, King Æthelred died, and he ruled 5 years; and his body lies at Wimborne. Then his brother Alfred, Æthelwulf’s offspring, succeeded to the kingdom of Wessex.¹

For those new to early medieval names, Æthelred is pronounced a-thel-red and Æthelwulf is pronounced a-thel-wolf.

The dynastic uncertainty of Alfred’s siblings is one of the themes McKay touches on in King of Wessex, with the character of Æthelwold ætheling.² The son of Alfred’s predecessor Æthelred, he emerged during Alfred’s reign to promote his claim to the throne over that of Alfred’s own children. I won’t spoil the storyline for you, as it’s explored in detail in McKay’s book and historical endnote, but it’s a scandalous (probably) true story involving the kidnap of a nun that is rarely included in tales of Alfred’s life.

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Why was Alfred ‘great’?

He united Angle and Saxon against the ‘Danes’

Although often credited with ruling over a united England, the reality doesn’t quite match the myth. Alfred certainly considered himself rex angul saxonum (‘king of the Anglo-Saxons’³), signing charters with this title, but so many of his neighbouring kingdoms had fallen to Scandinavian invaders over the preceding years that Alfred couldn’t possibly claim to rule over all the English. He did, however, rule over the last kingdom to remain standing against the Viking settlers, made up of both Angles and Saxons, with Mercia finally coming under his unofficial rule through the marriage of his daughter Æthelflæd to Ealdorman Æthelred of the Mercians. And, with the support of his children, he fortified his kingdom with a network of burhs, fortified towns, many of which still stand today. Without Alfred’s military and political success, I’m not sure his grandson Æthelstan would have been able to title himself ‘King of the English’ legitimately.

This is a huge part of McKay’s narrative and what I particularly enjoyed in this telling was that the focus wasn’t entirely on Alfred. I think that has been a little overdone, especially with the Netflix series the Last Kingdom popularising Bernard Cornwell’s series of novels of the same title (both of which I think are excellent). McKay, rather, shifts the focus to Alfred’s son, Edward, and his engagement with the Vikings during the years when his father was still alive. In his historical endnote, McKay acknowledges that a lot of his narrative here is well-informed speculation based on scant historical records of Edward’s whereabouts during this years. I like this, though: when an author is transparent about the degree of creative license they have used, their understanding of the characters and their context can be of immense value in reconstructing a possible narrative of events.

He was a patron of education

One of the first moments in McKay’s novel tells the story of Alfred inviting the Welsh monk Asser to his court to teach him to read and write in Latin, and this theme continues throughout the narrative. This was a true event in history, and Asser’s Life of King Alfred is an invaluable source for the king’s life, as are the classical texts they worked on translating together. It was a classical trope that moral and political decline was connected to loss of learning, and we can see perhaps Alfred’s determination to educate his court as part of his strategy to defeat the ever-encroaching Vikings.

It’s worth saying at this point that we know much more about Alfred than his contemporaries because his (successful) efforts to reintroduce literacy in the West Saxon kingdom resulted in a greater wealth of written records detailing his life. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle⁴ was essentially a piece of West Saxon propaganda for why Alfred should be king, disseminated throughout the land so that all who read it were clear about who should - and should not - be king. I’m not saying we need to throw out the Chronicle, but we just need to be discerning when we read it: the opening pages tracing his genealogical descent through the god Woden should be enough to prompt us to think critically about the rest of its contents.⁵

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What do you think: does Alfred deserve his epithet?

And is he deserving of all these stories that have been woven around his life? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments, plus your recommendations of other historical fiction novels from the early medieval world.

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1. ASC 871 (870). Tr. Michael Swanton (1996), p.72.

2. Ætheling, pronounced a-the-ling, was a term used to denote an heir presumptive or an individual worthy by birth to be considered heir.

3.

J. Michael Hall

wrote a great Note on what the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’ does and, more importantly, doesn’t mean within medieval studies. You can read it here:

4. Or Chronicles, plural… Much has been written on this and I can’t even hope to brush the surface of it here. I would highly recommend Pauline Stafford’s After Alfred if you want an introduction to the manuscript history of the ASC, though do let me know in the comments if this is something you’d be interested in reading more about here.

5. ASC preface, tr. Swanton, p.2.