“Cometh the Hour” by Annie Whitehead

Blame it on Petrarch.

The Italian scholar (1304-1374) is credited with coining the phrase “Dark Ages” to describe the period from the fall of the Roman Empire to the early Renaissance. The idea of “dark” (backward and violent) contrasted with the “light” of his own day. The term was especially popular during the so-called Enlightenment (roughly the 17^th-18^th century) which gave us both great learning and the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution. It’s at least arguable which era was actually the darkest (and none of them may hold a candle to the death, destruction, and violence of the 20^th century). 

Historians today generally avoid using the term “Dark Ages,” but it persists in popular culture. In Britain, the period includes the departure of the Romans (about 400 A.D.), the Anglo-Saxon invasions, the Viking invasions, and the Norman Conquest, to about the time of Chaucer (14^th century). Some of the most familiar icons of British and English history were created during this period, including the Tower of London, the monumental castles, and the great church buildings like Westminster Abbey and the numerous cathedrals. 

It’s this era that historical fiction author and historian Annie Whitehead has focused upon for her books. Her novel To Be a Queen is set in the 870-918 A.D. timer period. Her history of Mercia is about one of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that dominated England for a few hundred years. She writes with deep insight of the era and the people, making extensive use of both the original documents that exist and scholarly research. 

Based on that same kind of in-depth research, Cometh the Hour tells the story of four kingdoms in the seventh century A.D. – Mercia, Bernicia/Northumberland, Deira, and East Anglia. And while it is largely a story of kings and their struggles against each other and often their own siblings, it is also a story of the women, who often had to run kingdoms while their husbands were off fighting (and the husbands are often off fighting). The various kingdoms in this period (and there were more than these four) seemed to stay in almost constant warfare, with a few brief years of peace in between. 

England about 600 A.D.

The major characters in the story are all historical figures. Because the story and the interaction between the characters is complex, Whitehead includes a helpful royal genealogy for each of the four kingdoms and a list of the major characters. She’s telling four primary stories; how they merge, diverge, interweave, and sometimes abruptly end are what make the genealogies and character lists so helpful.

And what stories she tells! Princesses used as political pawns, revenge for the deaths of fathers and sons, double-dealing and treachery, and the occasionally real love story all make for an absorbing read. This is also the period during which Christianity was making major inroads among the various Anglo-Saxon tribes, and Whitehead tells that story, too. Favorite characters are Penda, king of Mercia, and his wife Derwenna. Penda resists Christianity to the very end, even though he doesn’t oppose his subjects hearing and accepting the message, but he behaves as more of a Christian king than most of his believing peers in the other kingdoms.

Of particular note are the battle scenes. This author knows how to write a vivid, realistic battle scene. She does it so well that you find yourself ducking to miss the swing of a sword or an ax. 

Annie Whitehead

Whitehead, a member of the Royal Historical Society and the Historical Writers Association. She has published three novels set in Mercia: To Be a Queen (2013); Alvar the Kingmaker (2016); and Cometh the Hour (2017). Her non-fiction work, Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom, was published in 2018. Her books have won a number of prizes and recognitions, and she is a frequent contributor to anthologies on English history and a lecturer. She blogs at Casting Light upon the Shadow and Time Traveler.

Cometh the Hour is fiction, yes, but it is fiction that provides a factually based understanding of what actually happened during this period of English history. By the story’s end, you’ll come out with a deeper understanding of the times and a deeper appreciation for just how well Whitehead told her story. These ages won’t remain dark while we still have such great storytellers.

Related: 

To Be a Queen by Annie Whitehead.

Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom by Annie Whitehead.

Top illustration: A stained glass window in Worcester Cathedral depicting the death of Penda at the Battle of Winwaed is 655 A.D., via Wikimedia Commons. Map of England in 600 also via Wikimedia Commons.

“To Be a Queen” by Annie Whitehead

Any writer of historical fiction will emphasize the importance of research – a lot of research. Once the research is done, assuming it’s ever really “done,” the temptation becomes trying to pack too much of the research into the story. Even in historical fiction, the story is paramount.

In To Be a Queen, the historical account of Aethelflaed or the “Lady of the Mercians,” author Annie Whitehead gets the balance of research and story exactly right. And what a story she tells!

Aethelflaed (ca. 870 to 918A.D.) was the daughter of Alfred the Great, King of the English based in Wessex. The most significant fact of this entire period was the repeated invasions by and battles with the Vikings. The Viking threat framed Aethelflaed’s life, as it did the lives of her father, her brother Edward, her husband Aethelred, and the entire people of the British Isles.

Aethelred, lord of the Mercians, becomes allied with Alfred to fight the Vikings. They’re successful, and to cement the alliance between Wessex and Mercia, Alfred gives his daughter Aethelflaed in marriage to Aethelred. Whitehead creates a love interest for Aethelflaed, one closer to her age, but the young girl knows what her royal duty is. Her considerably older husband is aware of her love for another man, but wisely bides his time. 

In the story, Aethelflaed eventually comes to love her husband deeply and earns the respect of the Mercian people, to the degree that they accept her as their ruler when Aethelred is struck down by illness and later dies. She holds the distinction of being the only woman ever to ruled an Anglo-Saxon kingdom.

The heart of the story is in its details – the accounts of day-to-day activities (royal women worked, often just like non-royal women), the love stories Whitehead builds, Aethelflaed’s many miscarriages, and the personalities of the characters themselves, including the heroines, heroes, and villains. What makes this historical novel even more interesting is that what is known of the Mercians is what was written down by their enemies and allies; no first-hand, Mercian accounts of their rulers and history exist. 

Annie Whitehead

Whitehead, a member of the Royal Historical Society and the Historical Writers Association. She has published three novels set in Mercia: To Be a Queen (2013); Alvar the Kingmaker (2016); and Cometh the Hour (2017). She has also published the non-fiction work Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom (2018). Her books have won a number of prizes and recognitions, and she is a frequent contributor to anthologies on English history and a lecturer. She blogs at Casting Light upon the Shadow and Time Traveler.

To Be a Queen is a rousing story, well researched and expertly told, of a woman who served and ruled in a perilous time. 

Related:

My review of Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom by Annie Whitehead.

Angle-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War.

1066: What Fates Impose – a novel by G.K. Holloway.

Glass Island – a novel by Gareth Griffith.

Top illustration: a 13th century representation of Aethelflaed, found in The Cartulary and Customs of Abingdom Abbey (1220 A.D.). 

“Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom” by Annie Whitehead

It was the “kingdom of the midlands” in central England. At its peak, its territory included Birmingham and London. It faced internal discord, war with adjacent kingdoms, and Viking invasions. But it became part of the heart of the country we know as England today.

Mercia also a kingdom whose history was written largely by its enemies (and victims) or by the historians of areas that survived the Vikings; at least, that’s the history that’s come down to is. It lasted roughly from the 7^thto the 10^thcentury A.D., before becoming an earldom subservient to other kingdoms and then absorbed into the Norman Conquest after 1066. It was one of the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms carved from Britain after the migrations of the Angles and Saxons.

In Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom, historian and author Annie Whitehead tells it story. But to do that, she has to examine what is known from historical records like the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, lives of saints, and other sources, and tease out what is known and not known, what is implied and what can be inferred, what is left unsaid or is hinted. She speculates with a keen researcher’s and historian’s eye, but she always makes it clear what can be known and what must be guessed. And she includes extensive documentation and footnotes.

Whitehead begins her story with Penda, the so-called “pagan king,” who ruled Mercia from about 626 to 655. Penda seems to have at war with his neighbors more often than not and may have been closer to what we think of as a warlord. She looks at how Mercia came to be created, Penda’s sons and heirs, Offa the Great (ruled 757-796), some of the forgotten kings, and then the last kings, before Mercia came under the control of others. Mercia was fading as “England” was forming.

Annie Whitehead

Whitehead, a member of the Royal Historical Society and the Historical Writers Association. She has published three novels set in Mercia: To Be a Queen (2013); Alvar the Kingmaker (2016); and Cometh the Hour (2017). Her books have won a number of prizes and recognitions, and she is a frequent contributor to anthologies on English history and a lecturer. She blogs at Casting Light upon the Shadow and Time Traveler.

Interest in Anglo-Saxon history is enjoying a resurgence, and Mercia fills a gap, in that no previously published single book told the complete story. And the subject of the medieval kingdom is as fascinating as watching how Whitehead undertakes what can only be called informed and intense detective work to tell that chapter of English history.

Top illustration: King Offa of Mercia (reigned 757-796), from Matthew Paris’ tract.