Dear Mr Cornwell Firstly I’d like to compliment you on your extremely readable and yet well-researched and detailed novels. I’m an ex-pat like yourself living in Florida. I am a fan of historical fiction amongst many other genres but I first met Sharpe on ITV and consequently I’ve bought and read every Sharpe novel, followed by The Grail Quest, some of the stand alones and now I’m onto the Arthur books and consequently the real purpose of this email. You use the term Edling for a Crown Prince, and as you can see my name is Edlington, and there is a village near my home town of Doncaster of the same name. I hoped you might inform me of the source of your usage as I’ve been unable to find a meaning for this apart from it has a Germanic origin. It seems Aerling is usually a term of Crown Prince in Old English. Please enlighten me as I’d love to know the root of my name. Thank you in advance, and thank you for the hours of entertainment you’ve provided me as I have often used your novels to guide me to interesting historical research. I confess George McDonald Fraser does/did (alas) too. Sincerely Steve Edlington