Dear Mr. Cornwell,

Good  morning.  Fortunately my reason for writing includes none of the proscribed subjects – it is simply to thank you for re-invigorating my fondness for history and primary sources.  I’m a recovering U.S. Naval officer by trade, and I found in my naval travels that my interest and education in history served me well both personally and professionally.  Even in my post Navy employment, I had my love of history rekindled as I followed COL Frederick Burnaby around what’s now Uzbekistan in a later incarnation of The Great Game and in Eastern Europe where I tumbled to the realization that the Bulgarians had been on the wrong side of pretty much every conflict they undertook since they were the Thracians….

But those opportunities were generally overtaken by the press of business.  So when I picked up your Warlord Chronicles I was delighted to be presented with an historically plausible backdrop for one of my favorite characters, who I knew from boyhood reading of T.H.White and Mallory, but only in their mid/late medieval context.  I found myself working my way back through your books to learn where the stories and sometimes unfamiliar characters originated.  This led me to a selection of relatively recent books advocating for an historical Arthur, although like you I’m unconvinced by some of the intellectual leaps required to settle on a fellow called Owain about whom nothing is known but his name and perhaps his address, or by the notion that Arthur might be a title, etc..

Nonetheless, I quickly saw that these historians all came to their conclusions by different readings of the same material (the selection being somewhat limited), which I could replicate to some degree, so I’ve now read through the translated Mabinogian (which made my lips hurt trying to get my head wrapped around the Welsh pronunciations), as well as a good bit of Nennius and Gildas (these are a tough slog for casual reading), and even some related material that does nothing to illuminate the historicity of Arthur, but does fill in some interesting background.  The result of which is a hugely satisfying better understanding of what, when I was in elementary and even high school, was known as the Dark Ages, and particularly post-Roman Britain.  None of which would likely have been undertaken but for the curiosity that arose in reading (and re-reading) your Arthur books.

I should mention that I came to them by way of your Last Kingdom series, which I read in as real time to their publication as I could manage.  I’m now embarking on working back through the chronology – War Lord hooked me on the  Battle of Brunanburh, thence to Michael Livingstone’s book, etc…

So to finish making a short story long, I wanted to thank you for the inspiration to get back to doing what I enjoy – this journey started over 50 years ago with Thomas Costain and C.S. Forester, through Patrick O’Brian and now you in my pantheon of really gripping historical novelists whose books I will pick up without question.  If what you wrote didn’t happen, it should have.

For which many thanks.

Sincerely,

Kevin Baxter