The Last English King by Julian Rathbone

This novel starts with Edward the Confessor and shows how Harold proves his worthiness to be king, shows how he became king and ends with the Battle of Hastings and Harold's death. Told through the remembrances of one of Harold's bodyguards who we meet four years after the Battle of Hastings. What was England like before William the Conqueror came? Were the people really such simpletons and their leaders barbaric until William brought the refinement of the Normans across the channel?Rathbone uses research, creative license, and a bit of humor, to tell the story of the rise and demise of the last true English King, Harold II. Where are the lines between fact, interpretation, and re-creation? Did the French really stop for a two-hour lunch during the Battle of Hastings? Read more Peppered with discussions on philosophy, dentistry, democracy, devils, alcohol, illusions, and hygiene, The Last English King raises issues, both daring and delightful, that question the nature of history itself. And we meet William of Normandy, a psychotic thug with interesting plans for the 'racial sanitation' of the Euroskeptics across the water. We meet the warring nobles of Mercia and Wessex Harold and his unruly clan Canute's descendants with their delusions of grandeur predatory men, pushy women, subdued Scots, and wily Welsh. We see Edward, confessing far more than he ever did in the history books. Weaving fiction around fact, Julian Rathbone brings to vibrant, exciting, and often amusing life the shadowy figures and events that preceded the Norman Conquest. It is he who persuades Walt, little by little, to tell his extraordinary story.Īnd so begins a roller-coaster ride into an era of enduring fascination.

Wandering through Asia Minor, headed vaguely for the Holy Land, he meets Quint, a renegade monk with a healthy line of skepticism and a hearty appetite for knowledge. Three years later, Walt, King Harold's only surviving bodyguard, is still emotionally and physically scarred by the loss of his king and his country. The course of English history was altered forever. At the Battle of Hastings of October 14, he was outflanked, quickly defeated, and killed by William's superior troops. King Harold of England, weakened by a ferocious Viking invasion from the north, could muster little defense. On September 27, 1066, Duke William of Normandy sailed for England with hundreds of ships and over 8,000 men.

The Last English King by Julian Rathbone