Your Questions

Q

I have just read your latest book Warriors of the Storm. Having read the first book when it was released in 2004 I have been an avid follower of Uhtred. Having read the Warlord Chronicles I appreciate the content of the books as being fiction but heavily based on facts. It is a wonderful gift you have of bringing a forgotten era to life and generating interest in the period. Your portrait of Arthur as a warrior and not a King sits very comfortably with me. A great story.

Having recently had my DNA tested I find I am a Celt which came as a great surprise being English. Always told the Welsh, Irish and Scots were the real Celts. I have since read more and wonder if this could be an interesting story for you.

At present I cannot wait for what may be Utred's last chapter.

Great work, thanks a lot

Regards

Peter

A

The story is really told in the three Arthurian books which tell (partly) of the Saxon invasion of Britain . . . not sure I’ll go back to that era, though, sorry!

 


Q

Any thoughts of making a series for the Sandman character (Gallows Thief)?

John Dolson

A

Probably not....I like Rider Sandman, but right now I have too many other things on my plate!


Q

Dear Bernard,

My name is Adam Hopper, I'm 20 years old and an Archaeology student at the University of Reading. I have a keen interest in the Anglo-Saxon period and I am a huge fan of your Warrior Chronicles series. I've always wanted to have a go at writing and your books have inspired me to try and write a historical novel of my own. I am only in the beginning stages of research and although I have a good knowledge and understanding of the period, due to my degree, and personal interest, I need some help in producing a more accurate historical context. I wanted to ask mainly, how did you manage to produce a map of Britain during the 9th/10th century and where is the best place to gain information on things like place names and Anglo-Saxon settlements. Also, to what extent do you invent characters such as Lords of certain areas of lands. I want my character to swear oath to a Lord in Northumbria, but I do not know who the lord of an estate near the River Humber in the Early 9th Century is nad whether it is likely that I could find one. Also, How much can land boundaries be theorised?

Thank you for your time and I hope you are able to help,

All the best,

Adam Hopper.

A

You’re writing fiction! The art is to make it up!  There are plenty of available maps of Saxon Britain in the history books – for place names you need either the Oxford or the Cambridge (hugely expensive, but more up to date) Dictionary of English Place Names. If you don’t know of a lord who has land near the Humber then make him up, it’s more fun! And estate boundaries are so finicky that you’re much better inventing them than trying to grub about in old land charters which are, anyway, vague (‘the land runs from the stone by the ash to where the stream enters the pool’ and so on and so on). Be brave! Write fiction!

 


Q

Dear Mr Cornwell,

For the sake of brevity, please take the usual complements as read but nonetheless sincerely meant.

I was intrigued to see that in Warriors of the Storm, you have chosen to site Brunanburh on the Wirral Peninsular. Without wishing to pre-empt book 10, presumably and logically it will be the site of the subsequent Battle of Brunanburh in the spring or summer of 937. As you doubtless know, despite its importance to English (and indeed British) history, the date is as unknown as the actual battle site, which is disputed by several other contending locations.

My question is whether you had considered the merits of the claims of the other contending sites, which would have been your second choice and why you opted for the Wirral (which admittedly seems to be the more favoured location amongst academic opinion).

Best wishes for 2016.

Peter Ranson.

 

Having just finished  THE EMPTY  THRONE, I would like to comment on an alternative location for BRUNANBURH.

If you take a look at the Runcorn / Widnes railway bridge  on Google you will find that it is known locally as the Aethelflaed bridge. According to local historians the south pier of the bridge is built on the remains of Queen Aethelflaed Burh on the banks of the Mersey at Runcorn If so, then the dream of King Alfred for the kingdom of England was started in Runcorn at this site Your thoughts please.

David Duckett

A

I don’t have any, sorry! Whenever we have a lost battle-site, whether it’s Mount Badon or Brunanburh, there are cogent arguments for competing locations and, sadly, a lot of angry argument. It would be wonderful to be able to pin the locations down, either by the discovery of a lost document or by archaeological research, but till then you pays your penny and takes your choice. I’m not going to defend the Wirral Peninsula as the site, though from the research I’ve seen, it does seem to be a very strong contender. Runcorn is just as likely! It’s in the right area (I think) and it’s a very tempting choice. Of course, the nightmare will be to set the battle at Point A and two months later some historian proves it was at Point B. Oh well.


Q

I was intrigued by the moving towers you described in 1356. Is there anywhere you might suggest that would show a picture of this? I can't quite my head around what it looks like.

Dave Pierce

A

Go to Google! Choose ‘Images’ and type in Siege Towers . . . you’ll find lots of pictures!

 


Q

Hi Bernard,

Your starbuck chronicles are rated alongside my favourite books, Lord of the rings and the game of thrones series as my favourite re reads. I really hope you go back to finish Nate's story. It was a brilliant read and the kind of book you can't put down once you start.

Do you have plans to finish Nate's story in the near future?

Thank you for writing such brilliant books.

 

Ben

 

Hi Mr Cornwell,

huge fan of your work, whilst I have read and enjoyed your other series the Starbuck series is my favourite work of yours- have you given any recent thought to writing the next in the series? I'd love to find out what happens to the combined Faulconer Legion/Yellowlegs in the Fredericksburg campaign, and of course the fates of Thorne, Delaney and Billy Tumlin!

Regards

Brad Cohen

 

You are with out a doubt my favorite author. Where i live in California Warriors of the Storm has not been released it and its killing me waiting to finally get the book.I love the Starbuck Chronicles and it kills me that the story is left unfinished with no books in sight. I seen on your website that you stopped writing the series due to the Sharpe series getting a TV show made of it, and the two stories being very similar. I know people have asked you this before and probably drove you up the wall asking this question. With the Sharpe done now are there plans to writing the Starbuck Chronicles again. I would love to finally get to complete that unfinished story.

Kenneth Pate

 

I have recently been listening to the Starbuck Chronicles while driving to work. I read the books a few years ago and I was wondering if there might be more someday. I know that you stopped writing them because you were also writing Sharpe stories at the same time, but since Sharpe seems to be done would it be time to continue?

James Elliot

 

A

Hopefully one of these days....


Q

I love all of your books! I love everything about the history of England. and your books are exactly what I have been looking for, in terms of historical facts mixed with fiction.

You have said that the character of Uhtred is an idea based on your ancestor.Have you ever made your genealogy  open to your readers? My family and my husband's family go very far back in English and Scandinavian history- according to Ancestry.com. The  DNA tests that I had done verify this fact. The name Cornwell just showed up in one my DNA matches and I would like to know if we are distantly related. And it would be cool to think that one of my ancestors may have had a role in some of the stories  that you write about.

I know you are very busy right now,but I think that you have an interest in family history as I do. I would love to know more about your family.

Sincerely.

Candace Cobb

A

I really don’t know too much about my ancestors – the Uhtred of the books is invented (though there was a man by that name in that period).  What I know was discovered by a member of my birth family.  The surname is distinctive enough to make them quite easy to trace through a tangle of records. I haven't double-checked the Oughtred family's research, but there is a genealogist in the family, and his researches do appear to be accurate, and we have records of the family stretching right back to the post-Roman period.  The family never lost its high status (an Oughtred was one of the founding knights of the Garter), and high status does often seem to go with such record-keeping.  Cornwell is my birth mother's side - and I know nothing of that genealogy!


Q

I wonder if you have ever met George R.R.Martin? I imagine you might have at some writers' convention. Your Saxon story, which I am currently enjoying hugely, is a fiction created in an actual historical setting whereas his story is a fiction in a fictional historical setting with fantasy elements. I'd love to know what you think of that genre. I hope you had a good Christmas.

A

We’ve corresponded a lot, though we’ve never actually met! I’m a huge admirer of his work! I enjoy it, but could never write it, for myself I like the ‘real’ background, but that’s just a matter of taste

 


Q

Love your books Mr. Cornwell, I have an idea for a last Sharpes book.    Could you write a book where Sharpe looks for his daughter by his wife Teresa, and finds, her and have the adorable character from Sharpe's Peril, Angelina I think come back to him and tie it with a happily ever after retirement.  And maybe tie Harper in it somewhere?

Sophia Mackiewicz

A

Can't do that - Sharpe spends retirement with Lucille.  But maybe he'll see his daughter again one day?


Q

I have really enjoyed your books particularly the non fiction Waterloo. Have you ever considered one for saxon england? I find the historical note and maps as equally fascinating as the story itself.

Kent

 

A

Probably not....I think I'll stick to fiction,