Sworn Sword by James Aitcheson

[parthianbow]

OK, so this book hasn't been released yet. It's coming out in the UK on August the 4th, and for those of you who like HF set in Norman times, or about the conquest of England by William of Normandy, it's one not to miss.

It starts in 1069, 3 years after Hastings. The main character is a knight called Tancred, a scarred battle veteran for all that he's only in his early twenties. The book opens with a Norman attack on York, and the savage reprisals by the locals a few nights later. Aitcheson is a fine writer, and his battle scenes are terrific, but his skill does not just lie there. This is no mere 'hack and slash' tale. Tancred is a complex and sometimes prickly character, who really makes the tale come alive. Left lordless after the first battle, he is forced to enter into the employ of a man whose loyalties to William are circumspect. Ordered to take this lord's wife and attractive daughter south to London, Tancred then has to undertake a perilous mission to the west.

I thought that this book was terrific. Given that it's Aitcheson's first, and that he's only 25 or so, it bodes well for the future. A writer to watch, IMHO.

[EC2]

Looks interesting. Who are Preface Publishing? Are they part of a mainstream house?

[annis]

I've still got a bad taste in my mouth after reading Stewart Binn's Conquest, so here's hoping this book does a better job of post-Norman Conquest England

[parthianbow]

@EC2: yes, Preface is part of Random House. They also publish my hardbacks (Arrow publish my paperbacks).

@Annis: Conquest is in my pile. Sorry that you didn't like it. I thought it looked great. What wasn't to like? I'd be amazed if you didn't like Sworn Sword, he says confidently! PS - just seen your post about it on the Oathsworn thread.

[annis]

I can see Conquest's appeal and tried to be fair about the book in the review I wrote for HNI. It should be seen as fantasy more than HF, though, and it's clear to me that those who love it generally don't have much understanding of the period, while those who do are less enthusiastic. Hereward was a down-and-dirty mercenary kicked out of England by Edward the Confessor because of his violent and disruptive actions, and is more anti-hero than hero. I think Mike Ripley was possibly more on the mark with his novel The Legend of Hereward. As Jim Keys says in his History Times article about Hereward, "he is lionised in legend as a freedom fighter against Norman oppression, but does come with what we would now call, some baggage". Accepting that the chronicles of Hereward's life freely mix fact and fiction, it seems that he wasn't in England at all before and during the Battle of Hastings and that he came back out of self-interest rather than patriotic fervour when he realised his own lands were at risk of being grabbed by grubby mailed Norman paws. It was only later that he became a symbol of English independence.

Binns bravely waves the flag of English nationalism in Conquest, but his view is very simplistic. Although King Alfred promoted the concept of Angelcynn (Englishness) in the ninth century, in 11th century England people would still have been more likely to see things from a regional and personal viewpoint. The exception was King Harold, who did, I think, have a genuinely wider view of Angelcynn. Carla Nayland has described the situation perfectly in her review of Peter Rex's NF book The English Resistance:

"I have my doubts as to whether the sides appeared as clear-cut at the time as they do to us now, looking back with nearly a thousand years of hindsight. Viewing Hastings as a conflict between ‘English’ and ‘Norman’ seems to me to be a modern view, treating it as a war between nation-states like the European wars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In 1066, though, England as a political unit was only about a century old, having been established by Aethelstan, grandson of Alfred the Great, in the 930s. The Anglo-Danish kingdom of York did not always sit easily under a southern monarch, the Danish population in England had suffered the St Brice’s Day Massacre in 1002, and the wars prior to Cnut’s succession and after his death would have been within living memory in 1066. Loyalties of region, lordship, landholding and kinship, and obligations of blood-feud and vengeance, were probably at least as important to most of the protagonists as the relatively recent concept of ‘England’. Some of those labelled as “collaborators” may have considered Harold Godwinsson a usurper. Some may have suffered real or imagined insult or injury during the rise of the Godwin family to power and may have seen Harold as their primary enemy. Some may have remembered the faction fighting before and after Cnut’s reign and believed that William had a better chance of preventing a recurrence. Some may have seen William and his Normans as no more ‘foreign’ than Harold, who was Danish on his mother’s side. Some may have seen it as a private squabble between rival claimants to the throne and been happy to keep out of it until the outcome had been decided on the battlefield, after which they accepted the new status quo. Some may have regarded victory in battle as a sign of divine approval and taken that as proof that William’s claim had been just. So I rather think the author’s division of the English players in the drama into “Resistance” and “collaborators” may be something of an oversimplification."

Edited to say that EC's friend on his horse does make for a spectacular cover, though

[EC2]

Excellent post Annis and I totally agree with your assessment. At some point (she says hah!) I would love to write about William Marshal's great grandfather, Edward of Salisbury, who I'm sure was one of the faction types. He held lands in the middle of Harold's strong areas and should by rights have died messily at Hastings, or been effeciently got rid of afterwards. But no, he flourished, apparently married a Norman lady, and got on with his life and did very well for himself and his descendants. So how did he pull that one off? You'd think if he was pro-Norman, Harold would have duffed him up pre-Hastings, and that if he was anti-Norman, William would have done for him afterwards if he survived, but neither happened. There was some very nifty footwork on Edward's behalf going on there I suspect.
I digress. I thought you made the point very well. It wasn't just 'us' against 'them.'

[quote=""annis""]

Edited to say that EC's friend on his horse does make for a spectacular cover, though [/quote]

Cough. Nigel would be the first to admit he is a terrible tart!

[annis]

Posted by EC

At some point (she says hah!) I would love to write about William Marshal's great grandfather, Edward of Salisbury

So many great subjects, so little time..