Dear Mr Cornwell,

On 5 Oct 2020, you received a message from a guy called Jim asking about the speeded up loading process for a Brown Bess. It just so happens that a group of Australian re-enactors, who dress as the 95th, did just that…loaded and fired 6 rounds in 2 minutes by biting off the bullet end of a cartridge and spitting the ball down the barrel; then tapped the butt before firing. They fired at a target 18 feet long and 8 feet high, I believe, at 100 yds and the accuracy was acceptable, i.e. all the shot passed through the target. The video is on YouTube if you care to look. It’s very interesting and they seem to be very serious about accuracy in depicting the period.

I have just finished the last, Last Kingdom book. Like all your readers, I just loved it and just sorry it has come to an end. Like a lot of people who are interested in history and read historical fiction or watch historical film, I can be a real pedant. After all, who led the Pedants’ Revolt? Which Tyler of course. However, I don’t let the age thing worry me about Uhtred, after all, wasn’t Lord Stanley, commander of the English army at Flodden in his seventies? The last point I wanted to make is that it seems Brunnanburh was fought on the Wirral. I read the piece at the end of the last book, which provides more proof of this. I started reading ladybird books on history back in the 1960s and know of the battle because of the book on Kings and Queens, Book 1. Why I am pleased that it seems conclusive that the Wirral was the site of the battle, is that I come from Blacon. Blacon is just outside Chester. I have always been thrilled by the part my home town played in the history of my country, England. Reading your books, although fiction, has put more ‘flesh on the bones’. Having been born and brought up so close to the place where England began is immensely pleasing to me. Thank you for your books.

Best wishes

Philip