Lady Aelswith, for one, retired to a convent and died soon after the death of her husband King Alfred in the Saxon Stories, but is alive and well and planning a move to Bebbanburg by the season five finale. Uhtred’s route home, and who else is left standing by the time he gets there, differs from version to version. In their final moments, he looks out over the water (with Finan in the book, alone on the show) and feels that he’s finally home. Season five and Book 10 The Flame Bearer both end with Uhtred having regained his ancestral seat of Bebbanburg. Kings die and battles are fought, but exactly when, where, how, and who the casualties are, can vary. Both prioritise their own storytelling over slavish adherence to source material, and so wind different paths towards the same destinations. Netflix’s The Last Kingdom approaches fidelity to Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon Stories in much the same way that Cornwell’s novels approach fidelity to historical fact – as inspiration, not obligation. There, in the horror of the shield-wall, he discovers his true allegiance.Warning: contains spoilers for The Last Kingdom season five finale and Bernard Cornwell’s War of the Wolf, Sword of Kings and War Lord. Marriage ties him further still to the West Saxon cause but when his wife and child vanish in the chaos of the Danish invasion, Uhtred is driven to face the greatest of the Viking chieftains in a battle beside the sea. He is left uncertain of his loyalties but a slaughter in a winter dawn propels him to the English side. The struggle between the English and the Danes and the strife between christianity and paganism is the background to Uhtred's growing up. Yet Uhtred's fate is indissolubly bound up with Alfred, King of Wessex, who rules over the only English kingdom to survive the Danish assault. Orphaned at 10, he is captured and adopted by a Dane and taught the Viking ways.
Uhtred is an English boy, born into the aristocracy of ninth-century Northumbria. The first book in a brand-new series, The Last Kingdom is set in England during the reign of King Alfred. Categories Adult Fiction, Historical Novels
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