I am just now watching Last Kingdom, based on your Uhtred novels and there is something really bothering me. If I recall your novel properly, and I’m sure I do, Saxons fought in a shield wall — linking shields, and either waiting for the enemy to come to them or moving forward more or less as a unit to make contact. What then ensued was a stabbing battle, over, under, between shields in hopes of wearing the enemy down. In the Netflix version, no such thing happens! Have you seen it? They have the Danes forming a shield wall, two shields high, and a third shield over the heads of the first rank such as the Roman’s Tortoise maneuver. Another history enthusiast and I had a spirited discussion over this, and because he is a Norse re-enactor, claims the Vikings (Norse, Danes, call them what you will) learned this from the Romans, and (probably) took it into battle against the Saxons. Yet in your books, your research stated the Norse didn’t fight in fixed ranks such as the Saxons did, but preferred to be more fluid and fought more or less individually so as to more easily adjust to changes in the battle. Who’s right?!

Al Lowe