Helen Hollick - 30th Anniversary Tour!!

Today I'm delighted to turn the blog over into the capable hands of author Helen Hollick who, this year, is celebrating 30 years since her Arthurian Trilogy, Pendragon's Banner, was first published. Here, she talks about King Arthur, and do scroll down because she's also included an excerpt from Book Two of the Trilogy. Enjoy!

From Roman to Anglo-Saxon – via King Arthur

By Helen Hollick

When I started writing my Pendragon’s Banner Trilogy (way, way back in the mid-1970s) many of the ‘facts’ about Roman Britain, the coming of the Anglo-Saxons and the ‘Matter of King Arthur’ were still quite, well, old-fashioned and out of date compared to what we now know. My Trilogy was accepted for publication in April 1993 one week after my fortieth birthday – hence this tour to celebrate thirty years published and my 70th birthday on April 13th. (Though I might add that this growing old lark is not all it’s cracked up to be!)

Back then, it was still widely believed that after Rome abandoned these shores, the Germanic people – the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Friesians – invaded Britain in waves of hostile conquest, sweeping the native Britons before them, and pushing them all into Wales. We now understand things much better. Many ‘Romans’ remained in Britain, it was only the administrative lot (probably those who were fed up with the rain) who went back to sunnier climes. The ordinary people were Romano-British, had been for a few generations, and were well settled into their farmsteads. There was some fighting, particularly along the south-eastern coasts of what eventually became ‘Englalond’ with the immigrating Anglo-Saxons, as we collectively call them, but not as much as when the ‘Vikings’ came several centuries later. (Although even then, outside of the lure of wealth-laden churches and monasteries, Norse settlement was probably much more peaceful than the common idea of widespread ‘raping and pillaging’) 

We now know that the Anglo-Saxons more often peacefully integrated, settling near rivers and coasts and intermarrying with the ’locals’. Over time (several generations) the British became the English, Britain became England –and Rome, apart from the roads and decaying cities, became forgotten. 

But legends live on. The most enduring is that of King Arthur. More familiar, perhaps, in the later Medieval tales of knights in armour, courtly love, the quest for the Holy Grail, Guinevere and Lancelot. Those tales belong firmly to the post-Norman conquest and the twelfth to thirteenth centuries. An era where Arthur, if he existed at all, would definitely have not been found.

Post-Roman however? Let’s be frank, Arthur as a king did not exist. (Sorry!) BUT there might have been a strong warlord who rallied against those early Anglo-Saxon immigrants. Kent (which still bears the older pre-Saxon name of Cantii) seems to have been settled peacefully. The area which we now call East Anglia (East Angles) and Suffolk and Norfolk (South Folk and North Folk) maybe there was some fighting there. Maybe an Arthur figure led his cavalry, the Artoriani against them... But who knows?

In my Trilogy (incidentally, among the earliest of the novels that depicted Arthur as post-Roman, not Medieval,) I use the early Welsh legends as my base, where Arthur was not the Christian king that he eventually became, that Gwenhwyfar (the Welsh spelling of Guinevere) did not have an affair with Lancelot ... there is no Lancelot in my trilogy. No Holy Grail, no Merlin. Instead...

A boy who became a man.

Who became a king.

Who became a legend. 

© Helen Hollick

Helen’s new, self-published, editions with beautiful covers designed by Cathy Helms of www.avalongraphics.org are, alas, only available outside of USA and Canada, where the same books are published by Sourcebooks Inc. (The new covers were offered – free – to Sourcebooks, but the offer was declined.)

ABOUT THE KINGMAKING (Book 1)

There is no Merlin, no sword in the stone, and no Lancelot.

Instead, the man who became our most enduring hero.

All knew the oath of allegiance:

‘To you, lord, I give my sword and shield, my heart and soul. To you, my Lord Pendragon, I give my life, to command as you will.’

This is the tale of Arthur made flesh and bone. Of the shaping of the man who became the legendary king; a man with dreams, ambitions and human flaws. A man, a warlord, who united the collapsing province of post-Roman Britain, who held the heart of the love of his life, Gwenhwyfar - and who emerged as the most enduring hero of all time.

A different telling of the later Medieval tales.

This is the story of King Arthur as it might have really happened...

“Helen Hollick has it all! She tells a great story and writes consistently readable books” Bernard Cornwell

"If only all historical fiction could be this good." Historical Novels Review

"... Juggles a large cast of characters and a bloody, tangled plot with great skill. " Publishers Weekly

"Hollick's writing is one of the best I've come across - her descriptions are so vivid it seems as if there's a movie screen in front of you, playing out the scenes." Passages To The Past

"Hollick adds her own unique twists and turns to the familiar mythology" Booklist

"Uniquely compelling... bound to have a lasting and resounding impact on Arthurian literature." Books Magazine

The Kingmaking: Book One

Pendragon’s Banner: Book Two

Shadow of the King: Book Three

(contains scenes of an adult nature)

BUY THE BOOKS:

THE PENDRAGON's BANNER TRILOGY 

New Editions available worldwide except USA/Canada

https://mybook.to/KingArthurTrilogy

Available USA/Canada 

US TRILOGY

CANADA TRILOGY

ABOUT HELEN:

First accepted for traditional publication in 1993, Helen became a USA Today Bestseller with her historical novel, The Forever Queen (titled A Hollow Crown in the UK) with the sequel, Harold the King (US: I Am The Chosen King) being novels that explore the events that led to the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Her Pendragon’s Banner Trilogy is a fifth-century version of the Arthurian legend, and she writes a nautical adventure/fantasy series, The Sea Witch Voyages. She has also branched out into the quick read novella, 'Cosy Mystery' genre with her Jan Christopher Murder Mysteries, set in the 1970s, with the first in the series, A Mirror Murder incorporating her, often hilarious, memories of working as a library assistant.

Her non-fiction books are Pirates: Truth and Tales and Life of A Smuggler. She lives with her family in an eighteenth-century farmhouse in North Devon and occasionally gets time to write...

Website: https://helenhollick.net

All Helen’s books are available on Amazon: 

https://viewauthor.at/HelenHollick

Subscribe to Helen’s Newsletter: https://tinyletter.com/HelenHollick

Her Blog: https://ofhistoryandkings.blogspot.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/helen.hollick

Twitter: @HelenHollick https://twitter.com/HelenHollick

Follow Helen’s Celebration Tour https://www.helenhollick.net/ 

EXCERPT FROM PENDRAGON’S BANNER

Book 2 of the Trilogy

“Council will not like it.” Cei said.

“I do not ask for, nor want, the council’s opinion,” Arthur answered.

Cei sighed; only three years as King, and already Arthur and his council were squabbling like dogs after the same bone. 

“There are those,” Cei tried again, “who say that to spend more than a week discussing treaties of alliance with a defeated enemy is not good judgment.” 

Arthur, mending a broken bridle strap, made no answering comment. The hail that had sputtered on and off all day drummed a tattoo on the roofing of the leather tent and bounced like tossed pebbles on the worn, hollowed patch of mud-packed turf by the open entrance flap. 

Watching the pea-sized balls of ice a moment, Cei stared, fascinated as the ground turned white - then the sudden-come storm ceased. The wind whipped up the dark clouds and sent them scurrying from a dazzling blue sky. Beyond the tent, everything dripped and gleamed, the white ice melting into fairy-sized diamond-drops. “For Hengest,” he continued as if he had not ceased talking, “your council could see reason behind the giving of territory. Wrong or right, he had been originally invited here to fight on our side by Vortigern - God rot his mouldering soul.” 

“I did not give,” Arthur interrupted. “I rent Hengest those Cantii lands, rent for a large payment of taxation. He rules under my gaze and is ultimately answerable to me. As this man, Icel, shall be when he edges around to seeing reason.” 

“Fah!” Cei swarmed to his feet, toppling his stool backwards. “Reason? It is already reasonable that he still has his head after rebelling against us; it is already reasonable that those who follow him are alive, not dangling at the end of ropes!” 

Quietly, Arthur finished the mending of the strap, fixed it back to the bridle. “So I have Icel executed? And then one day, one day very soon, these Anglian settlers will find for themselves another proud young princeling to follow and we will then need to fight them.” He stood, hung the bridle on a nail jutting from the tent pole, faced his cousin and second-in-command with outspread hands. “I have shadow-chased this Anglian leader from the Treanta river to the coast, from the Fosse Way down to the forests. If I grant a legitimate holding of land then Icel is beholden to me. And whenever a new cub decides he wants more than a ploughed field to crow over, he will first have to square that wanting with Icel, not with me.” 

Pouting, Cei answered, “Too much is being given to these damn Saex. The Council of Britain do not like it.” His thoughts added, Neither do I. 

Arthur grinned, irritatingly friendly, knowing full well those unspoken thoughts. “Ah, but then I am King; a king is expected to do things that are not liked.” His grin broadened. “A prerequisite of the position. The ability to annoy.” 

Cei grunted. “Oh aye, you have a talent for rubbing people the wrong way. Always have done, even as a child.” 

Arthur laughed to hide the bitter memory of his unpleasant childhood. He poured wine for himself and Cei, handed the goblet to his cousin. “I intend to squeeze everything I can from Icel. Gold, leather, grain. Hostages. He will find submission hard.” 

Righting the stool, Cei seated himself again. “What if he does not agree to your demands, eh? He might not.” 

Arthur sat also, pushing his booted feet nearer the fluctuating warmth of the brazier. Two nights until Samhain, the night the dead walked. He would rather be tucked within the warmth of Gwenhwyfar’s bed at Lindum by then. Icel was a proud man, would welcome death; even the threat of the living death of blinding and male mutilation would not daunt him. There would have to be something more, some promise of what Arthur would do if the Anglian did not offer total submission. The Pendragon had once made such a thing clear to Hengest, and then not so long since, to Winta of the Humbrenses. 

“Your people and your family shall pay for defeat. The men will lose their hands and eyes, the women and children will be taken into slavery, used as whores. Until natural death releases them, they will face great misery and suffering. Your settlements will be burnt, and your cattle slaughtered. Not you. You will be taken to a fortress far away. You will be guarded, but you will have light and warmth and the best food; a comfortable bed, even a woman to share that bed. On fine days you will be allowed to ride and hunt, you will be treated as an honoured guest with no privilege spared, save that of your freedom to leave. And while you live in this luxury, you will think of your wife and your children. Of their distress and pain.” 

Winta had seen the sense in not trying his luck against this British lord who meant every word he said, for Winta was not full of greed and wanting as Hengest had been, and was older and wiser than the young coxcomb Icel. He valued too highly all that could be lost were victory not to come his way, and so had not even tried for the winning of it. By joining with the Pendragon his reward had proved great and welcome. Winta was already a wealthy man, and by uniting with the British, trade that was already flourishing would increase - double, treble. Soon he would be able to extend his held land, amicably, with Arthur’s consent and permission, for Winta was wily enough to realise that there was more than one way to obtain a title of King.