Just finished the Flame Bearer. Great stuff as always. And very pleased to see that the anachronistic modern Scotland-England border has been removed from the map. Just been reading the hugely-informative 1873 book by James Murray. 'The dialect of the southern counties of Scotland' and read that the Scottish kings didn't refer to either Galloway of Lothian as geographically or legally part of Scotland until 1249 (a footnote on page 3). The book can be read on-line. It's chock full of historical surprises about Northern Britain.
Steve Ainsworth
Thank you! You’re right (or Murray is!) about the frontier! It’s all horribly complicated which is why I try to simplify it in the books. The era of Uhtred is really an era when all three kingdoms (Scotland, Wales and England) were emerging and all three had distinct regions which still, to an extent, exist (like Northumbria). The Scottish story is complex – much of the lowlands had been speaking Welsh! It’s a tangle and, for fiction, best smoothed out!