Uhtred’s men are outnumbered by invading Scots led by Constantin intent on making Bebbanburg for their own. His son-in-law, the pagan warlord Sigtryggr, ruler of Jorvik and in turn Northumbria, asks for help against invading West Saxons who seem intent on breaking the truce recently drawn up with the ruler of Mercia Æthelflæd – King Edward of Wessex’s sister. The book begins with another failed attempt by Uhtred to lay siege to Bebbanburg. He has a small army and many enemies, but Uhtred is not the supreme warlord of Britain for nothing. If Uhtred is to succeed in recapturing Bebbanburg he must both defeat Æthelhelm’s forces and drive the Scots away before he can attack the formidable fortress by the sea. But his plans are shattered when the Scots surge down and lay claim to the north of England, as the West Saxons, under Uhtred’s old enemy, Æthelhelm, invade Northumbria from the south. Under the cover of this fragile calm, Uhtred must begin his campaign that will end with the assault on Bebbanburg, the great fortress that is rightly his and was stolen from him in childhood. A precarious truce exists between Æthelflæd's Mercia and Northumbria, now ruled by Uhtred of Bebbanburg's son-in-law, Sigtryggr.

After their bloody defeat of Danish-held East Anglia, the West Saxons stand victorious while the Mercians have taken back their land on the border of Northumbria, the last kingdom of Britain still ruled by the pagan northmen. The television series differs from the novel series in many ways, much as Last Kingdom occasionally plays fast and loose with the Uhtred storyline, but became a smash hit and remains popular today: a Facebook group named “Sharpe’s Rifles” has nearly 10,000 participants.Ĭornwell came back to write more books in the series partially because of the television show in turn, the television show created two new miniseries focusing on Sharpe’s adventures in India (chronologically set earlier in the past, although by that point it was a bit of a stretch for Sean Bean to play a younger protagonist).Britain is at an uneasy peace. Sean Bean was cast in the titular role, and so impressed Cornwell that the writer devoted a later story, Sharpe’s Battle, to Bean, while further saying that he changed his image of Sharpe to match Bean’s character and personality. In 1993, the BBC launched the Sharpe television program, a fourteen-episode series (expanded in 2003 to sixteen episodes) that brought Sharpe and his 95th Rifles to vivid life. Many Sharpe fans know the hero from the BBC television series first and the novel series second. Sharpe’s backstory extends as far back as his time in India, fighting on behalf of the British East India Company as they expanded the empire deeper and deeper into Asia.

The saxon stories in order