Wellington is  a small town near Telford in Shropshire. For  a number of years it has held an autumn literary festival. Today was their children’s day and Catherine Cooper (Author of The Adventures of Jack Brenin ) invited me to attend along with illustrator, Natalie Furnival, young children’s author ~ Ann Scantlebury, poet ~ Elizabeth Leaper, and Georgina Kirk who was a story teller for the day.

Ready for the day. My table at the festival.

I decided to take along a bag full of Anglo-Saxon replica items including weapons, armour, musical instruments, a game and other bits and bobs plus of course my books. I do find that having the replica items really helps with the conversations. Children love trying on helmets, picking up swords and axes and even looking at the things Saxons used to clean their ears!

One of the most amazing groups present was Arty Party. These took up station in the cafe of the Library and  gave poetry recitals. It is a local  group of young people have various problems who publish poetry and books and  work together as a team and run a market stall every week. Some of them cannot write but dictate stories which others publish. Their drive and enthusiasm was amazing and we other authors were soon taking down names of their printers and illustrators.

These types of activities are as much about “getting out there” and making connections and meeting readers as it is about actually selling books and today was enjoyable.

Many thanks to Catherine for  the invitation.

I am looking forward to attending the Wellington Literary Festival’s Children’s day at Wellington Library in Wellington, Shropshire next weekend. There will be several children’s authors along, an illustrator, a Poet and  a story teller. I will be taking some of my Anglo-Saxon replica items and maybe some clothes for the children to try on as well as my books.

The event is on between 10am and 3pm in the Library which is part of Wellington Civic Centre, Lakin Way, Wellington. More details click on this image:

Full details of the whole Festival is here: http://www.wellington-shropshire.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/05367-18th-Literary-festival-programme-v-1.pdf

The cover for my new book The Catacombs of Vanaheim

On Wednesday 8th January I signed off the proof of my latest book ‘The Catacombs of Vanaheim.’  All books have their own story and route to publication and every author will have their own approach. I thought it might be of interest to talk about how The Catacombs of Vanaheim got into print.  Catacombs is actually the second in the Nine Worlds Series. The Nine Worlds series is a Historical Fantasy Adventure For Children of Ages 9+ in which the historical world of Anglo-Saxon England meets the mysterious world of myths and legends, gods and monsters our ancestors believed in. This is the world as it might have been had those stories been true…

I dreamed up the idea for the series in late 2011 and wrote the first novel Shield Maiden over the winter. It was published  in Spring 2012. It received some good reviews and won a prize in the USA. In 2013 I started writing a  sequel.

• Starting with a snow flake. I tend to use an approach to plotting a novel called the snow flake technique. You start with the basic concept of the novel – the essential question that needs to be answered. Then you expand this to a simple outline of the essence of the book -usually a paragraph that discusses the main character, what he/she wants and what prevents them from getting it.  That paragraph can even become the back page blurb as it did in Catacombs:

The Bifrost – the passageway between the Nine Worlds – is open and now Anna’s village is under attack by creatures and horrors the villagers are not prepared to deal with. So now Anna and her companions must travel to Vanaheim, home to the Vanir: gods of wisdom and magic. There the young sorcerer, Wilburh, hopes to obtain a way to protect their village. It is not as easy as all that for Wilburh’s magic is failing him and they find that the gods themselves are prisoners. To free them the children must enter the deadly Catacombs. In there they will need all their courage and skills just to survive.

• Expanding the Outline. From that paragraph I now expand the plot in stages, writing a 3 or 4 paragraph summary in which each paragraph is an ‘act’ in the Novel usually ending in some disaster or problem that only worsens their predicament. From that outline I try and pull out a sentence that will become each chapter and finally we have a plot chapter by chapter.
• Its all about Characters. Books need characters. They should not just be about plot. Its not just about what happens but to whom stuff happens. In particular we need to get a idea and write notes on how characters change especially the main character. Each book should ideally involve a character altering or changing in some way. Characters need  aims and motives – what do they want and why. They should have some weakness ideally or at least an obstacle preventing them getting what they want.
• Writing the book. Finally after some months of plotting I begin writing the book. Now I work full time, run a large hobby convention annually and have 2 kids. So getting words on the page can be hard at times. There is no clever solution beyond this simple advice: Each day sit down and write a paragraph. Just a paragraph. If you cant manage more than that just do that. Often a paragraph  becomes two or three, a page or a chapter but even if it does not you have 30 more words on your page.

“The first draft of anything is shit.” Ernest Hemingway

•  Drafts. Hemingway had  a point. The first draft will be rubbish. To me though the hardest thing is getting 30,000 to 50,000 words down. Once you have done that, once you have a book of sorts then the next phase is what creates the novel from that mass of words. The first draft is for me alone. No one else sees that. I now spend a good few weeks redrafting it twice through. In this process I am looking for the overall continuity. I am looking for major holes and story threads that go no where that need tidying up. I am checking if a characters story is developed. I then pass the draft to my first readers – family members. What I want from them is not editing (although if they spot spelling and grammar errors I welcome that) – what I want is an opinion on does the story make sense? Does it go anywhere? Again are there holes and problems? I then redraft again and again. By now we are around 9 months into the writing of Catacombs.
• Sharpen your pencil Gill. At this stage – or actually even earlier when I had an early draft, I asked Gill Pearce of Helion’s Art to start coming up with the images. I identified around 20 scenes I wanted ink drawings of, a map and a front cover. Gill starts getting busy with ideas. Gill has had her share of illness this year so she performed wonders completing the images.

An early sketch for the Nine World Map

• Editing Once I have the draft at a satisfactory point I send it to my editor Jo Field . Jo and I fling versions of the chapters back and forth, arguing about turns of phrase and so forth. Of course spelling is corrected and grammar errors fixed but editing is much more than that. Jo spots continuity errors, makes suggestions for alternatives in certain scenes and generally improves the book. the editing often takes a couple of months or more.
• Book cover. Around the time I send the book for editing I usually engage the services of Cathy Helms of Avalon Graphics. Its Cathy that creates the book cover. In the case of Catacombs that mean taking an image  Gill had drawn and painted and using that to make the book cover. We encountered a slight problem here. I had given the go ahead for Gill to paint the cover before Cathy had fed back that she needed a wider image. Poor gill had to stick card to the image and paint a wider area which she did brilliantly. I learned  a lesson there to check with the book cover graphics designer that the artwork fits!
• Lay it all out man! When all is ready I start laying out the book in Indesign (not word which is poor at layout for books).  Much time is spent ensuring the look of the book is correct margin sizes, style of chapter headings etc. Then I drop the text in and in the magical way that Indeisgn works the text flows through the book. I drop in the images and tidy it all up and export to pdf.

uploading the book

• Signing of on the proof. Once the text of the book and the separate cover pdf (from Cathy) is uploaded I wait anxiously for the message that the files are approved. I then get to see a digital proof of the book. Hopefully there are few or no amendments needed and bingo the book is made ready to print!  It will take 2 or 3 weeks to show up on Amazon etc as on sale but the same day I order a box load of books and send Cathy, Jo and Gil their own copies.
• E-books. Of course it does not end there. The book needs e book conversion to not only 1 but three main distributors – Amazon Kindle, Smashwords for Apple, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, Sony etc  and finally Google E-books.

The whole process took around a year for the 40,000 word novel.

I hope that insight is of interest. Now to get on and write another novel!

Written Evidence

Evidence and guesswork in the 6th Century

I was not long born the day my uncle stood on the battlefield, surrounded by the corpses of his men.

They had died defending this narrow gully through hills which blocked the approach to the city of Eboracum. The city lay to the east under a pall of smoke that arose from a hundred burning houses. King Aelle had taken the army there to capture it but, hearing reports of an enemy warband coming to lift the siege, had sent Cynric and his company around the city to the west to intercept them.

Eighty men marched through the night to reach this sunken road. They planted their flag in the ditch so it streamed in the wind, revealing the image of the running wolf emblazoned upon it. Then, they gathered about it and waited.

They did not have to wait long… (Excerpt from The Amber Treasure)

Some of the historical fiction which I have written is set in a remote and obscure period. Writing about the late 6th and early 7th century in The Amber Treasure puts you right in the middle of the darkest years of the Dark Ages.

When the last Roman soldier departed Britain in about 417 AD reliable documentation of events started to collapse. The invading Anglo-Saxon tribes were effectively illiterate and it was not until the coming of Christianity (which did not fully pervade England until the late 7th century) that some form of regular record keeping returned. It really took until the time of Alfred the Great at the end of the 9th century for reliable continuous commentaries on the goings on in the land to be kept in the form of the Anglo Saxon Chronicle and other documents.

What then do we do when we want to find out what happened in the early Saxon period? Where could I turn to when writing a book set in the late 6th century?

The documents that I turned to when trying to found out what historians knew about this period were:

De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain) by Gildas. Gildas was a monk who lived around AD 500 to 570 in the Dumfries area of Scotland (what was then the British Kingdom of Strathclyde). Much of what we know about the possible existence of Arthur, Vortigern, Ambrosius and so on comes from Gildas. His writing shows the state of chaos and confusion with a land split between half a dozen races and the civilization that had persisted for four centuries collapsing. There are limits to Gildas however. Firstly he had a message to pass on. He wrote about the downfall of Britain – the end of Roman rule and the invasion of the Anglo Saxons and very much argued that this was God’s punishment for their sins. More importantly he died around AD 570 – JUST before the period I was writing about.

The Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum: Ecclesiastical History of the English People by Bede. Bede was a late 7th and early 8th century scholar and monk. His main work is believed to have been completed in 731. Bede writes a lot about the ancient (to him) history of Britain and basically stopped around the fall of Britain and the end of Roman rule, picking up the story with the Augustine mission in 597. He only really gets interested in the conflict between Celtic and Roman Christianity and the conversion of kings and very much argues that the defeat of the Britons is the result of them backing the wrong horse (theologically speaking). So he was quite content to report Pagan English slaughter of Welsh monks as being justified for example. All that said he has a lot of detail from the early 7th century onwards BUT there is an agonising gap before about AD 600.

The Historia Brittonum, or The History of the Britons, is a historical work that was first composed around 830 by the Welsh Monk Nennius. It contains a lot of  of detail on the Arthurian period and some full genealogies of the Royal Families of Deira and Bernicia but again there is an annoying lack of commentary on the late 6th century.

Annales Cambriae, or The Annals of Wales,  and other Annales in Ireland and Scotland are chronologies and lists of dates compiled in the 8th to 12th centuries in various monasteries and then combined together. They offer snippets and brief glimpses of events – particularly brief the further back you go.  Names come up, some useful dates but very little detail. It its like looking at the contents page of history text book! Scholars though can study all these fragments and combine them into something approaching a coherent history and these add some knowledge.

The Anglo Saxon Chronicle (late 9th century and afterwards)

Probably started by King Alfred the Great who at least sponsored and encouraged it, this was a chronicle of events in England and surrounding lands recorded by monks. It focuses on the large events, battles, Kings and Lords and so forth and at first glance would seem to be just the thing. BUT there are limitations to its usefullness. The writers were living in a period over three hundred years after the events they recorded and so were relying on passed on word of mouth or old documents that no longer exist and we cannot validate. Moreover the Chronicle is south centric – focusing for the most part on the events in the southern kingdoms and little on those in Northumbria where my story is set. This is so much so that the chroniclers seems to just simplify matters by lumping the Royal Houses of Deira and Bernician (the two parts of Northumbria) into one. Fortunately other geneaologies do exisit for this period. The historic Battle of Catreath which did so much to shape the north is not even mention in the ASC. Then again it is not mentioned in many places.

Welsh Poetry

Oddly enough it is poetry, not historical documents, that shed some more light on these dark years. The British poets and bards Aneiren and Taliessen witnessed or heard about the great and traumatic moments of the late 6th century. To them it was real life, happening to them and those they knew. Taliessen lived circa 534 to 599 and wrote about Urien and Owain of Rheged. Much of what we know about the struggles between Bernicia and Rheged we read of in his poems. Aneirin was younger – possible a young man in 597 at the battle of Catreath and it was his poem about it – Y Goddodin that is really the only record of the event.

Modern References

There are many books that have been written that discuss events in he period 550 to 650 AD. It can be tempting to take them at face value and assume they are correct. However you soon discover that they often contradict each other and that many are making assumptions and simplifications themselves and that all struggle with the same paucity of original sources. So all must be taken with  a pinch of salt. That said there are a few useful sources for someone researching this period:

The Mammoth Book of British Kings and Queens Mike Ashley takes all the material including a vast number of commentaries and modern books on the monarchies and nations of the last 2000 years and tries to set out a definitive record. It is the most accesible of the reference tools I used.

The Age of Arthur John Morris. Written by an academic whose area of expertise was the period 350 to 650 this tries to lay out as fact a coherent history for the period. It ha been widely criticised by historians for relying heavily on interpretation but at least Morris gives us A version of history. The problem with many academics work is there is almost NO attempt to sift the evidence and present an interpretation. Morris has the courage to do that.

An English Empire NJ Higham is a work that conducts an analysis of what Bede writting tells us about this period and is a useful commentary although  abit limited to Bede’s perspectice.

The Britons Christopher Snyder is an academic work with  a lot of archaeological references but  is a good summary of current thinking on the period. He presents the arguments that are current (or where a few years ago) and tries to weigh them.

Making sense of it all

This then is the problem that writers of historical fiction set in the late 6th and early 7th century have. There is something like a 150 year gap in reliable data. There are theories and ideas but in the end you just have to examine it all, visit the possible battlefields and locations that are known about and make the best effort to create a believable world, to bring to life those that lived in these forgotten but critical years – the birth of England.

I’ve been tagged in The Next Big Thing by fellow writer Helen Hollick Website: www.helenhollick.net and main Blog: http://ofhistoryandkings.blogspot.com/ who writes historical fiction and pirate-based adventure. Helen reached the USA Today Bestseller list with her novel The Forever Queen in 2011.

I’m instructed by Helen to tell you all about my next book by answering these questions and then I tag four other authors about their Next Big Thing. So here I go!

What is the working title of your next book?

Princes in Exile

Where did the idea come from for the book?

 Princes in Exile is the third book in my Northern Crown Series. This series is set in the early years of Anglo Saxon England around AD 600 and follows the story of a young boy growing up in these – the darkest years of the dark ages when the Kingdom of Northumbria would rise to power.  The series started in the B.R.A.G medallion winning novel, The Amber Treasure. The third book takes up the story when Cerdic is now 23 and guiding a rag-tag band of refugees across a divided nation looking for allies and a plan for the future.

What genre does your book fall under?

Historical Fiction.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Chris Themsworth  (Thor) would be great for huge tough Eduard, Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy) might do a good Hussa, whislt William Mosely (Peter in the Chronicles of Narnia ) might work for Cerdic himself.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

No land, no crown, no plan …

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Self published via my own independent publisher – Mercia Books 

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I am still writing it. I expect the answer will be about 6 months.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

It is a similar style of books to the amazing Bernard Cornwell’s Alfred the Great series (although three hundred years earlier of course).

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

I have always found the Anglo-Saxon period fascinating but whilst the later period has its writers including Bernard Cornwell and Helen Hollick the early period does not have that many writers and many write from the point of view of the Welsh/ British not the English. These times are the birth pangs of the British nations as we know them today and I think there are a lot of stories about this time that should be retold.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

We look back from the vantage point of history and know that England came to exist, thrive and survive. But in AD 597 it was by no means certain that this would be the case. These are dangerous, chaotic, unpredictable times. Journey back with me to a point in history when the future is far from certain.

Here are some lovely authors I’ve tagged to tell you about their Next Big Thing! …..

Jane Brown author of the The Bitti Chai  http://janegray.webs.com/thebittichai.htm

Michelle Gent horror/thriller writer http://www.dmichellegent.co.uk/blog.html

Claire Kinton author of The Dead Game http://www.clairekinton.com/blog.html

Mick Pearson (details coming)

My thanks to Helen Hollick for Tagging me

Facebook: www.facebook.com/helen.hollick

& Twitter: http://twitter.com/HelenHollick

The Mission of St Augustine

by Richard Denning

Christianity had come to Britain in Roman times but following the Roman withdrawal in about 416 AD and the steady conquest of what would one day be England by the Anglo-Saxon immigrants it was confined mostly to the lands under the control of the Romano-British Welsh (increasingly confined to  the west) , the Irish and the Scots. The vast bulk of the land under the rule of the Saxons was pagan.

Pope Gregory I

The church in Rome was certainly aware of the reversal of its fortunes in the former province of Britannia. According to legend Pope Gregory I (Pope 590 to 604) once saw fair haired Anglo -Saxon boy slaves in the forum in Rome. He enquired who these were and was told they were Angles to which he poetically was said to reply Non Angli, sed Angeli. (“Not Angles, but Angels.”) and determined that this race should be converted to Christianity.  When he became pope he set about just this task. But he needed a man for the job.

Augustine

In the 580s Gregory had founded and been the Abbot of the Monastery of St Andrews on the Caelian Hill in Rome. One of his former monks had now risen to become Prior of St Andrews and it was to this man, Augustine and forty of his monks that Gregory now turned. Now in the year 595 Gregory asked Augustine to go to Britain and convert the English.

We know little about Augustine prior to his appointment. He was probably the son of a wealthy Roman but beyond that there is a scarcity of information. This is NOT St Augustine of Hippo who wrote many of the religious essays that shaped medieval Christianity but a totally different man.

The Mission

There is uncertainty over where the idea of this mission originated. The official version is as we have seen that it was the idea of the pope. There has been a suggestion that Gregory was approached by Bertha the queen of Kent. Bertha was the daughter of a king of the Franks and a Christian. Her husband, Aethelberht of Kent was pagan but tolerated his wife’s religion.  Possibly Aethelberht saw political advantage in requesting ties with Rome.

In any event Kent was the logical choice for a mission. It’s ruler would not oppose their presence and moreover Kent’s alliance with Burgundy and the Franks would allow safe passage for Augustine especially after Gregory wrote to their rulers requesting assistance. Augustine’s route was laid out but after departing from Rome he and his party almost turned back in France. It needed another push from Gregory to finally get them to England in 597 AD.

Kent and it ruler was receptive to the message. Baptisms and the establishment of a monastery soon followed and Aethelburht himself converted after some months. In Canterbury at the same spot where an old Roman church stood (St Martins) the foundations were laid for what would one day be the cathedral that today is the  senior cathedral of the church of England.

In 601 AD Gregory confirmed Augustine as Archbishop of Canterbury and sent more missionaries with instructions to appoint bishops, a plan to have an Archbishop at York (this would not occur for 25 more years) and also encouragement to spread out and incorporate other kingdoms under his authority.

What to do about Pagan Temples and Traditions?

As the Augustine mission expanded it was faced with the issue of the pre-existing pagan culture of the English and their temples and traditions. Should the Roman Christians ban the festivals and destroy the temples. The Pope sent instructions to Augustine on this matter via one of the new Abbots.

‘Tell Augustine that he should be no means destroy the temples of the gods but rather the idols within those temples. Let him, after he has purified them with holy water, place altars and relics of the saints in them. For, if those temples are well built, they should be converted from the worship of demons to the service of the true God. Thus, seeing that their places of worship are not destroyed, the people will banish error from their hearts and come to places familiar and dear to them in acknowledgement and worship of the true God. Further, since it has been their custom to slaughter oxen in sacrifice, they should receive some solemnity in exchange. Let them therefore, on the day of the dedication of their churches, or on the feast of the martyrs whose relics are preserved in them, build themselves huts around their one-time temples and celebrate the occasion with religious feasting. They will sacrifice and eat the animals not any more as an offering to the devil, but for the glory of God to whom, as the giver of all things, they will give thanks for having been satiated. Thus, if they are not deprived of all exterior joys, they will more easily taste the interior ones. For surely it is impossible to efface all at once everything from their strong minds, just as, when one wishes to reach the top of a mountain, he must climb by stages and step by step, not by leaps and bounds…. Mention this to our brother the bishop, that he may dispose of the matter as he sees fit according to the conditions of time and place.’

So the church was to be pragmatic. It would re-use pagan temples as the people were already used to worshipping in them. They would not ban pagan festivals but adapt them. Saints days and holy days would often fit in which pre-existing pagan dates and so rather than expect the people to lay aside their parties and festivals they would be taken over as time of joy and celebration.

The Mission gets harder

Britain was not one nation. It was divided into Anglo-Saxon eastern kingdoms and Romano-British welsh western kingdoms as well as Irish, Picts and Scots. There were dozens of kingdoms and each of the Saxon lands were pagan. Some were receptive. Some very resistant. Some kingdoms would convert only to revert to paganism when a new king came along. Mercia would not become Christian until as late as the 8th century in parts. Never the less gradually Augustine was able to penetrate other lands and the Augustine mission was deemed a success.

That was until he came across the Welsh.

Meeting the Welsh

In around 603 Augustine requested a meeting with the Welsh bishops at a place known as Augustine’s oak – somewhere around the border of Mercia, Hwicee and the Welsh lands. From the start there was trouble. The Welsh bishops had maintained a Christian church in the land for 300 years. Forcefully separated from Rome by the English lands the church had evolved independently after Rome abandoned Britannia. This led to several differences. The method of appointing bishops, the timing of Easter, the approach to converting the pagan English and even the tonsure (the style of monks hair cut) was now different.

Augustine insisted that the Welsh abandon their traditions and conform to Rome’s teachings. His attitude was so arrogant that the meeting broke up.

A later meeting some months later was arranged. The Welsh bishops were uncertain how to approach it and sought advice from a wise man who suggested that they allow Augustine to arrive first and then go in. If he rose (as if greeting equals) then they should try and reach accommodation. In the event he did not rise and they realised then that he looked down on them and treated them as inferior. To Augustine’s mind HE was the Archbishop and these WERE inferior. The Welsh did not see it that way and left. It would take many years to reach accommodation after this failure.

The end of his mission

It is believed that Augustine died between 604 and 609 AD. In those brief few years he had re-established the Christian church in the land ruled by the English and set the foundation of the structure that would last until Henry VIII separated from Rome. Canterbury is still the seat of the Archbishop. So in that regard he was a success. His failings were arrogance as witnessed by his dealings with the Welsh. He is venerated as a saint in the Roman Catholic church and accepted as the father of the Church in England.  Certainly his mission had a powerful effect on the evolving land that would one day become England.

The Augustine mission will feature in the third book of my Northern Crown series Princes in Exile

I am delighted to announce that Shield Maiden has won a Silver Award in the Literary Classic International Book Awards in the Pre Teen Fantasy section.

Here is the review that the same organisation did on Shield Maiden:

Shield Maiden, by author Richard Denning, is an exciting children’s chapter book which takes place in a Saxon village in 7th century Mercia.  Denning’s characters come to life in this mythological adventure, the story of a 12 year old girl who finds a golden horn in the ruins of a Roman villa.

Shield Maiden, the first book in the Nine World’s Series, will hold great appeal for youngsters, regardless of their knowledge or understanding of Norse mythology; and kids interested in magic or fantasy are certain to appreciate the story of the Shield Maiden.

Brief explanations of some of the Norse mythological characters are included at the conclusion of the story, adding a greater understanding of some of the events which take place in this exciting story.

We recommend Shield Maiden for general reading, and as an educational tool to help youngsters gain insight and understanding into Nordic Mythology.

Shield Maiden earns the Literary Classics Seal of Approval.

Find out more here: http://www.richarddenning.co.uk/shieldmaiden.php

In 1929 an RAF crew took aerial shots of the site of the old Roman town of Venta Icenorum around the church of Caistor St Edmund near Norwich. The photographs revealed an extensive road network and soon the archaeologists moved in. During their excavations they came across a large early Anglo-Saxon cemetery with burials dating from the 5th century.

In the cemetery they found some cremation urns as well as pots with possessions in. One of these was full of bones – but they were not human remains. Most were sheep knuckle bones and probably dice or other game pieces. But amongst them was  a bone that was and still is of historical importance.

It was a bone from a Roe deer and upon it there were runic inscriptions:

The runes were old German/ old english runes and spelt this word:

Which means Raihan. What is Raihan?  Well the ‘an’ in old German meant  “belonging to or from” and the Raih is believed to be a very early version of the word ROE. So this inscription which has been dated to circa 420 AD means “from a roe”.

It is not uncomon in the Saxon period to find similar bones from other animals with writing telling us which beast it is from.

So what we have here are the possessions of a man or woman from the VERY first years of Anglo-Saxon settlement of East Anglia buried in a cemetery that would have been very new within or close to a decaying Roman town. What we also have is the VERY FIRST word written in what would one day become England in the language which would one day be called English.

What we see here are the scrapings of one of the first of the mercenaries who crossed the north sea on hearing the call from the Britons for fighters to help protect Britannia from the Picts and Irish. He and thousands like him stayed on to carve out a nation.

There is more on this word an 99 other ones that form part of our history in The Story of English in 100 words by David Crystal. Its a fascinating book.

I just spent Easter weekend on the Isle of Arran. As with most trips to Scotland the weather can be a bit hit and miss but I love trips up here and try and get “North of the Border” every couple of years.

Arran is an island with a rich and LONG history.

People have lived on the island since about 5000 b.c. The old peoples  burial cairns and stones circles litter the landscape. Only 800 yards from the Lagg hotel where we stayed was this burial cairn dating back 5000 years:

The greatest collection of stone age and bronze age remains is on Macrie Mhor which has no less than 6 stone circles and a burial cairn and several other remnants. These date back to between 1000 and 2000 BC:

Along the west shore not far from Macrie Mhor is “King’s Cave” . This is one of the caves that it is claimed Robert the Bruce hid from the English in his campaign to free Scotland. Here is where he is supposed to have seen the spider weaving its web, then when the web blown away by wind, the spider tried again. From this he got the inspiration to return to the fight but also the saying “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” was invented.

At Lochranza on the northern tip of the island is a small but intriguing baronial castle from 14th century which later became a residence of the local Laird.

So, not a bad weekend of walks and exploring. The food in Lagg Hotel was very nice too!!

March 24th is the anniversary of  the day in 1603 when the greatest queen in England’s history so far (and a contender for most powerful monarch perhaps) died.

In 1600 Elizabeth, the last Tudor monarch, had been Queen for 42 years. Many in the kingdom had known no other monarch. At the height of her power during the triumph over the Spanish Armada  in 1588, she had created an image of an almost immortal majesty. Yet in the latter years her influence and hold on power were weakening.

This was a period of unrest. Wars with Spain and conflict in Ireland rumbled on at great cost. This put a strain on the economy that was not helped by poor harvests. At the same time Elizabeth had become more hard line in her approach to religious non conformists – in particular Catholics. The 1590s had been an era of priest holes and raids in the night. Needing money to pursue her policies and not wanting to take it from a parliament who might impose restrictions on her she instead employed a system of patronage whereby she gained money from supporters in exchange for positions of power and influence and the granting of monopolies which made some men rich at the expense of many others and was a deeply unpopular policy.

She maintained an illusion of peace and tranquillity with a combination of propaganda and the suppressing of dissent by the use of a network of informers. Nevertheless support from parliament and the people was waning.

In these last years her senior advisor Robert Cecil began making plans for the succession. Elizabeth was not willing to discuss her choice of heir so Cecil had to move carefully. He approached James VI of Scotland who was descended from Elizabeth’s grandfather, Henry VII via Margaret his daughter. He encouraged James to flatter Elizabeth and charm seemed to work because Elizabeth although not as such naming James as heir pretty much implied it.

In March 1603 Elizabeth’s health deteriorated probably at least in part due to the death of close friends. She died on 24th and James was named King the same day.

James I

You can read more about this on this extended article A decade a week:1600 to 1609