Your Questions

The word enters the language very early - 14th Century - but its popularity seems to explode in the 19th (I'm deducing this from the citations in the OED). In Gallows Thief it's part of the 'Flash' language, which was the argot used by underworld London in the late 18th and early 19th centuries - a 'private' language so dense that some magistrate's courts employed translators. Many flash words crossed over into mainstream English, and I suspect mate was one of them . .in the jocular sense . . it already had a perfectly respectable existence as a naval rank, or to describe a wife or husband.

No preference. I just enjoy him! Probably enjoy him most when he's with Alfred because he really does not like him, but does have a curious admiration for him.

You're absolutely right and I wish you hadn't told me that! I'd always assumed it went back to mediaeval alchemy and, on checking (several years too late) discover that it is 17th Century. Mea culpa. Thanks!

Greetings! Steel did exist! The Saxons even had a word for it - 'steeli' occurs at the period of the books I write! But I know what you mean. You're right, of course, that the steel-making process was not understood until the 19th Century, and today steel means iron containing less than 1.7% of carbon (just looked it up), but steel did exist! Experienced blacksmiths noted the different properties of the iron they forged, and how some was brittle and some was more pliable, and they learned how to make each kind by trial and error. They did not know why it worked! But they knew that keeping the iron on the fire for differing periods produced different types of iron, and one they called steel . . . . and they did use that word (it's mentioned in the great Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf) So I decided I could too . . . . thanks!

I think that's why I didn't go and see the film! Saxons from the north west? Wow, but then Stonehenge was supposedly built by little green men from Mars, so nothing is left to astonish us. Hollywood's liberties drive me up the wall (my wife refuses to sit beside me in historical films), but my mistakes probably drive other folk up the same wall . . . . oh well. Fraid I never am going to see that movie, would be bad for my blood pressure.

I don't think he was that different from today's soldiers, and there certainly was no unseemly shuffle to get in the back rank! They had huge pride in their achievements! They were professionals, and far from facing certain death, they reckoned they were being led to certain victory. Death rates in battle were not that different from, say, the rates in an infantry platoon of the Second World War. It may seem ludicrous to us that they wore bright colours and stood in close rank, but that's a product of the inadequate weaponry they faced and, as soon as those weapons became more accurate (and death more certain) the tactics changed. There was war-weariness, and Sharpe shows it in the books, and only an idiot would not have felt fear in battle, but that is a constant in history. Interestingly it is the French, with their conscript army, who are forced into using columns, from which it's hard to escape. Why didn't they crack? Well some did. But most kept going and, I'm certain, that had nothing to do with King and Country, and everything to do with not letting down your mates . . . how often have we heard of the bonds between men in battle? Tighter than family, and that, I think, is what inspired them and gave them the necessary courage . . . . which was bolstered by discipline, training and a genuine confidence (in Wellington's army, at least) in the quality of the leadership being provided.

There are so many books! You could sink a ship with all those books! So so many it's hard to know where to start - but maybe start at the very top and look for The Wooden World by N. A. M. Rodger. Then follow his bibliography . . . . his more recent book, The Command of the Ocean, is brilliant, and you will find the bibliography there much more up to date - but in both cases slanted heavily towards the Royal Navy. O'Brien is wonderful, of course, and very technical. There was a recent book on the American frigates of 1812 called Six Frigates by Ian Toll, and his bibliography could point you to specifically American sources. Good liuck!

I loved the Hornblower books as a kid and so yes, it's not just a coiincidence but more of a tribute to C.S. Forester.

Having taken Sharpe backwards in time once I'm not inclined to do it again, but who knows? I once said I'd never write the Indian books and I did.

At the battle of Ethandun which ends the second book . . . . .