Kings of Northumbria Series Books #1-8 by H.A. Culley
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Overview: H A Culley served as an Army officer for twenty four years during which time he had a variety of unusual jobs. He spent his twenty first birthday in the jungles of Borneo, commanded an Arab infantry unit in the Gulf for three years and was the military attaché in Beirut during the aftermath of the Lebanese Civil War.
After leaving the Army he spent twenty one years in the education sector. He has served on the board of two commercial companies and has been a trustee of several national and local charities. His last job before retiring was as the finance director and company secretary of the Institute of Development Professionals in Education. Since retirement he has been involved in several historical projects and gives talks on historical subjects. He started writing historical fiction in 2013.
He lives between Holy Island and Berwick upon Tweed in Northumberland with his wife and a Bernese Mountain Dog.
Genre: General Fiction/Classics > Historical Fiction
Whiteblade (Kings of Northumbria #1)
Woken in the middle of the night to flee the fortress of Bebbanburg on the Northumbrian coast, the twelve year old Prince Oswald escapes his father’s killer, Edwin, to establish a new life for himself on the West Coast of Scotland. He becomes a staunch Christian on Iona and trains to be a warrior, making a name for himself in the frequent wars in Ulster and in a divided Scotland. Having earned himself the nickname of ‘Whiteblade’, he establishes himself as the greatest war leader in his adopted homeland. However, he is beset by enemies on all sides and is betrayed by those he should be able to trust the most.
After playing a leading role in deposing the treacherous Connad, King of Dalriada, he helps his successor to extend Dalriada to include the Isles of Skye, Arran and Bute. When King Edwin is killed in battle and those who try to succeed him are also killed by Cadwallon and his invading Welsh army, Oswald decided that his moment of destiny has arrived; he sets out with his warriors to confront Cadwallon and win back the throne of Northumbria.
Warriors of the North (Kings of Northumbria #2)
Oswald defeats the invading horde from Wales and Mercia and establishes himself as King of Northumbria against substantial opposition. After escaping a Mercian ambush he sends his close friend Eochaid to rescue Aidan, who is a fugitive in pagan Strathclyde. Together he and Aidan establish the first monastery on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne and start to convert the North to Christianity.
At home Oswald struggles to cope with deteriorating relationships with both his mother and his son and, whilst he manages to ally himself with Wessex against Mercia, he suffers a series of reverses elsewhere in the south of England. Meanwhile his brother Oswiu is fighting against a rebellion within the kingdom, together with a concerted assault by the ferocious Picts and their allies from Strathclyde.
Eochaid becomes estranged from Oswald just before he leaves to become a king in Ireland and they part on bad terms, never to see each other again. Oswald and Oswiu are then left to face an escalating war on two fronts against Northumbria.
Bretwalda (Kings of Northumbria #3)
When his elder brother is killed Oswiu rides deep into enemy territory to recover King Oswald’s body. The Kingdom of Northumbria is split into two and Oswiu vows to reunite it. However, he is forced to concentrate on securing his northern border first.
Once he becomes overlord of the North he fends off an invasion by Penda, the powerful pagan King of Mercia, before he resorts to underhand tactics to kill his cousin and unite Northumbria once more.
He survives rebellion by the Picts and another invasion by the Mercians, only to be betrayed by his nephew who he raised up to be King of Deira. Matters come to a head at the Battle of the Winwaed where his army is heavily outnumbered. He knows that he must win or see Northumbria torn apart once more.
The Power and the Glory (Kings of Northumbria #4)
The fourth novel of the Kings of Northumbria series is set during the second half of Oswiu’s long and successful reign.
He quickly establishes himself as the King of Mercia as well as of Northumbria after his crushing victory over his nemesis, Penda. His nephew, the treacherous Œthelwald who sided with Penda, disappears in mysterious circumstances and his place as Sub-king of Deira is taken by Oswiu’s son, Alchfrith. However, he will prove to be just as faithless as his cousin in due course.
Oswiu invades North Wales to restore the true king to the throne and makes a friend of an old enemy. The new found harmony is disrupted when Mercia revolts against his rule and he is forced to accept the Rivers Mersey and Humber as the southern boundary of his kingdom. He is then faced with the murder of two of his allies in Scotland and he is forced to intervene in the various petty kingdoms of which it’s composed.
Disharmony within his family and estrangement from his wife follows. No sooner have they been reconciled than a struggle between Roman Catholicism and the Celtic Church erupts. He resolves this in favour of the former at the Synod of Whitby but he loses the support of those who brought Christianity to the North.
Conflict with his son Alchfrith over his support for an overly ambitious bishop follows and Oswiu quickly learns that church politics are every bit as complex as secular ones. Alchfrith is persuaded to lead a revolt and seize the throne but it fails and he flees into exile, as does Wilfrid, the bishop behind the attempted coup. However, the wily bishop soon returns and continues to sow dissention.
Northumbria enters a golden age of prosperity and power and Oswiu feels that at last he can fulfil his dream of making a pilgrimage to Rome, but it is not to be and tragedy strikes as he’s about to depart. Alchfrith returns at this point and Northumbria heads towards civil war.
The Fall of the House of Aethelfrith (Kings of Northumbria #5)
After King Ecgfrith eliminates his brother Alchfrith by devious means, he becomes the last uncontested King of Northumbria. His reign is punctuated by war with the Mercians in the south, the Picts in the north and with the rebellious Britons of Reghed. At home he enlists Bishop Wilfrid’s support to persuade his wife to become a nun so he can marry his mistress, but he remains childless.
Wilfrid proves to be a thorn in his side and, when he returns from exile with the Pope’s edict restoring him to his diocese, Ecgfrith imprisons him.
An ill-conceived raid on Ireland in which monasteries and churches are plundered loses the king the support of the Church and a year later, against the advice of Bishop Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, Ecgfrith leads an army against the Picts. As Cuthbert prophesied, he and his army are lured to annihilation in the mountains of Badenoch.
His illegitimate half-brother, Aldfrith, succeeds him, but Northumbria never regains its previous dominance over Scotland. His reign is mainly peaceful, apart from his struggle with Bishop Wilfrid, who is exiled yet again. When Aldrith dies Wilfrid returns and supports Eadwulf of Bebbanburg’s claim to the throne against that of Aldfrith’s nine year old son, Osred. Northumbria is faced with catastrophe as various contenders subsequently struggle to take the throne. Will be kingdom be able to survive?
Treasons, Strategems and Spoils (Kings of Northumbria #6)
It is a time when no-one is safe, least of all the king who sits on the throne of Northumbria. The kingdom is beset by enemies within and without. The Picts covet Lothian in the north and the Britons of Strathclyde have designs upon Cumbria, whilst Offa of Mercia is busy trying to make himself the master of all England. But the worst threat comes from within; the noble houses fight amongst themselves using assassination, rebellion and banishment to seize the crown. No less than ten kings sit on the throne in the space of thirty two years.
Seofon, the son of the Ealdorman of Bebbanburg, is born into this turmoil and has to tread a careful path if he and his family are to survive. Estranged from his father due to a stupid argument, he serves various kings faithfully, earning a name for himself as a warrior, strategist and diplomat. However, he eventually picks the wrong side and he is forced into exile with his wife and children. When he returns they are abducted and he races to rescue them before it’s too late.
Seofon must depose his enemy and put a king on the throne who can re-unite the kingdom if it is to survive. How he does this and exacts revenge on his enemies makes an enthralling story in this, the sixth of H A Culley’s novels set in Anglo-Saxon England just before the coming of the Vikings.
The Wolf and the Raven (Kings of Northumbria #7)
Two young men, both disinherited, struggle to regain what is rightfully theirs. One is Ragnar Lodbrok, whose father, a minor king in Norway, loses his kingdom to the Swedish King Froh. The other is Edmund of Bebbanburg, exiled by King Eardwulf of Northumbria after the king kills Edmund’s brother.
How Ragnar recovers his father’s kingdom, and goes on to conquer much of Scandinavia, and Edmund becomes the war leader of Northumbria – and the Viking king’s bitter enemy – makes for an enthralling story. The two men clash several times, once during a raid when Ragnar’s son is killed by Edmund’s men and again when Edmund does his best to thwart the capture of Paris by the Vikings in 845.
Ragnar swears to revenge himself against Edmund – now serving King Ælle, the last independent king of Northumbria – and Ragnar invades Edmund’s homeland. The two meet on the field of battle one last time. Only one will survive.
Sons of the Raven (Kings of Northumbria #8)
The sons of Ragnar Lothbrok, the notorious Viking king, vow revenge on King Ælle of Northumbria for killing their father by throwing him into a pit of vipers. They gather a vast host of Danes and Norsemen to invade England and kill Ælle. However, for Ivar the Boneless, Ragnar’s eldest son and the leader of the Great Heathen Army, it is more about conquest than revenge.
After overrunning East Anglia they annihilate the Northumbrian army outside York. Ælle is captured and suffers the blood eagle, a horrendous way to die. Two young men – Ricsige, Lord of Bebbanburg, and his military tutor, Drefan – escape the carnage and must build a new army if their way of life is to survive.
Together they manage to preserve the old Kingdom of Bernicia – the North Eastern part of Northumbria – and hold it against both the Vikings and the Scots, who have long wanted to push their border south to the Tweed.
Whilst the Vikings battle against King Alfred of Wessex in the south and expand their territory across the sea in Ireland, Ricsige and Drefan manage to keep the banner of the Wolf flying in an independent Bernicia against all the odds.
When Ricsige is killed during negotiations with Halfdan – another of Ragnar’s sons and the ruler of the southern half of Northumbria – he is succeeded by his brother, an imperious and overconfident boy of twelve who ignores Drefan’s advice at every turn. Can Anglo-Saxon Bernicia survive?
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