Hello Mr. Cornwell,

When you were writing Steapa and Leofric, how old do you envision them being? Uhtred describes them as being older then him, but at the time, he’s only 2 years old. When I was 20, everyone seemed like an old man to me.

On a related note, as a historian, how different do you think England as it exists today would be if the Danes hadn’t invaded and conquered every English kingdom other then Wessex? Do you think unification at some point would have ocurred, or would we still be looking at many small countries within the Island itself? I know that a little over 1100 years has passed, and lots of things could have happened otherwise, but just wondered your thoughts on this.

Luke