Dear Mr Cornwell, firstly I would like to say that I enjoyed your Sharpe series and Grail quest trilogy tremendously. The way you describe battles scenes, war strategies, combined with the feel of the book that makes it possible to imagine the history in such amazing detail, has simply blown me away. I have also read the Arthur books and a few of the Alfred series too, but with a lesser opinion than the others. I am a Christian, I believe in God and the word in the bible. And before you roll your eyes and think; “Not another bible basher come to say how unfair it is that Christians are put in a slightly less than favourable light in my books.” I would like to say that the events and characters your books are probably the most believable in any historical novel I have ever read. I know the church did what they did and it was evil and immoral. I am not trying to dispute the fact that Christianity in general (not just the Catholic Church) has a violent history. That said, the impression I get from your Saxon series is that; God, priests, bishops and monks did much more harm than good in Alfred’s time. I would say this is not true. As a history student I have learnt that major advances in education, law and general morality in England is down to (mostly) the early church. The impression I got from the first few Alfred books is that England would have been much better off worshiping pagan Gods. Christians (except Alfred and one or two others) seem to be either directly apposing Uhtred or else in the way e.g. Asser and Sansum. The evils of these characters are more or less balanced by the good Christians. I would just like to say that there was much good done by the church too, and I don’t think these books show it all that clearly e.g. Heavy focus on the evil acts that were done. While this probably happened I would also have liked to have seen some of the church’s good works being done. Just a thought. I deeply apologise if this point is covered in the later Uhtred books, I have not read all of them yet. If so I am sorry for the rant.. One last thing. I was wondering if you would or were considering writing a novel about Joan of Arc. I admire her tremendously, and I think a book by you about her would be hit. I know from previous posts you think she was probably delusional and that you have more than a small amount of English patriotic pride. Therefore a French heroine defeating English armies may be stinging to that pride. I am a patriot to Britain too, but I still think a historical figure as impressive as she, deserves a first class story telling by a brilliant historical novelist. Even if you decide otherwise I will still be a huge fan of yours. I loved these books otherwise from he point made above. God bless you sir. Thomas Rowlands P.S. Sorry about the punctuation in my letter, how in the blazes did I pass English.