That talk, which begins at 6.30pm, will last for about an hour and then I will be selling signed copies of the first two book in the Mongol Knight series, Templar Traitor, and Templar Assassin. This is the blurb from the back of the first novel:

‘Do not lie to me, Templar, or it will be the last thing you do’

July 1241. Western Europe cowers in terror before the threat of a Mongol invasion. The swift cavalry columns of Genghis Khan have smashed the steel-clad warriors of Russia, Poland and Hungary and now Austria lies directly in their path.

At a skirmish outside the walls of Vienna, German knights capture a squad of Mongol scouts and are astonished to discover one of their number is an Englishman, a former Templar, who has been riding with these Devil’s horsemen for more than twenty years.

Interrogator Father Ivo of Narbonne is summoned to draw the truth from the prisoner before his impending trial, to find out why he abandoned his faith, his Brethren and his homeland to become a traitor to Christendom.

Based on a true story, this is the first novel in a new blockbuster trilogy from ‘master of the genre’ Angus Donald.

The tickets are free but you need to book your seat in advance as places are limited. I really hope to see you there. And if you bring along any copies of my other books – the Robin Hood novels, for example – I will be happy to sign them too.

If you can’t make the talk, you can buy copies of Templar Traitor and Templar Assassin from Amazon in paperback and eBook versions. They are also available as audio books

The post Free talk at Sittingbourne Library – The Englishman who fought for Genghis Khan appeared first on Angus Donald Books.

You may have become a little tired of me banging on about the two books I’ve published recently – Robin Hood and the Holy Grail, the final Outlaw Chronicles novel, and Templar Assassin, the second book in my Mongol Knight trilogy. But that is the strange thing about books: none appear for ages, and then three come along all at the same time. Wait! Do I mean books?

Anyway, Stamford Bridge 1066, will be out later this month, and you can purchase a copy in a couple of weeks. Alternatively, if you simply cannot wait to get stuck into all that gory short-story goodness, you could get yourself an ARC – advanced reader copy – on the condition that you provide a review. If you want that ARC, follow this link to StoryOrigin.

This is what the Stamford Bridge 1066 blurb says:

Thirteen writers. One battle. The same afternoon, told from both sides of the bridge.

Giles Kristian · Matthew Harffy · Angus Donald · Tim Hodkinson · Peter Gibbons · MJ Porter · Justin Hill · Theodore Brun · Eric Schumacher · Will Dowling · M. Thomas Kingsley · Mark Oxbrow · Åsli & Bakkejord

On 25 September 1066, a Norwegian army lay resting on both banks of the Derwent, seven miles from York. They had beaten one English army five days earlier and taken the city’s surrender, and the fighting was done. Most of them had left their mail at the ships.

They were not expecting Harold Godwinson.

The battle that followed ended the Viking age in England. Three weeks later it helped decide a second one, on a hill near Hastings, that everyone remembers instead.

A king who has spent his life outrunning the end of an age. A skald asked to praise a man he no longer believes in. A priest tends the wounded on the eve of a battle nobody knows is coming. A lone axeman on the bridge, and the Englishman in the water beneath him. Afterwards, a farmer walks the field looking for his son, and twenty years later an old earl sits in a Norman prison, still deciding what to tell his gaoler.

The man who holds the bridge in one story is watched from the water in another. Thirteen stories, one day.

Over 100,000 words of Viking historical fiction, published on the 960th anniversary of the battle.

I hope you will enjoy this collection of stories, in due course, and will tell all your friends about it. And if you want that StoryOrigin ARC, click on this link and follow the instructions.

The post Stamford Bridge 1066 – A Viking anthology appeared first on Angus Donald Books.

The series is based on an extraordinary true story about an Englishman who fought for Genghis Khan. He was captured outside Vienna, by the Duke of Austria, riding with a party of Mongol scouts, and this is recorded in the 13th-chronicles of Mathew Paris, a monk of St Albans. I had to invent much of the story, following the historical accounts of the Mongol campaigns, because what we actually know of Robert, the renegade Englishman, is pretty scant. But this unusual Englishman actually existed and it seems that he travelled across much of the medieval world in the ranks of the unstoppable Mongol army.

This is the blurb from the back of Templar Assassin:

Live by the sword, die by the dagger.

September 1241. Robert of Hadlow, Templar knight, is on trial for his life.

Twenty years ago, his accusers say, he turned his back on his Brethren to join the army of the most bloodthirsty warlord the world has ever known – Genghis Khan.

Robert claims he was on a secret mission to bring the Mongol hordes to the defence of the Holy Land to aid its beleaguered Christian knights. But will he be believed? Or will Robert be condemned to a traitor’s death – and bring the entire Templar Order to ruin?

From the endless grasslands of the Eurasian steppe to the burning sands of the Gobi and beyond, Robert recounts his extraordinary adventures with the Mongol army.

A tale of love and loss, tragedy and high adventure, of silent killing and the slaughter of thousands. And what a man will do to survive, serve his cause and save his family.

The compelling second novel in Angus Donald’s blockbuster new series, inspired by a true story.

Templar Assassin is available now from Amazon, Waterstones and all good booksellers. The first book in the trilogy, Templar Traitor, is also available now in paperback, eBook and audio versions.

The post Templar Assassin is out now in paperback, eBook and audio versions appeared first on Angus Donald Books.

It is late summer of 1241 and Robert of Hadlow, an English Templar knight, is on trial for his life in Vienna Castle. He is accused of being a traitor to Christendom because he chose to side with the enemy of all God-fearing folk, the fiendish Tartars, as Europeans call the Mongol nation. 

These swift-riding horsemen erupted out of Asia a few years before and, in a series of whirlwind victories, defeated all their opponents in eastern Europe – the Russian dukedoms, the King of Hungary and the massed Polish knights – in battle after battle. Now this terrifying horde of seemingly inhuman, unstoppable, horse-warriors threatens all the kingdoms of Western Europe. 

Christendom is, quite frankly, quaking in its boots. 

Robert was captured riding with a company of Mongol scouts on the banks of the Danube and imprisoned by the Duke of Austria (see Templar Traitor) in his deepest dungeon. He is asked to give an account of his actions over the past twenty years to the ducal court, and this is how his story unfolds, as a series of flashbacks related by Robert in the dock. If the Englishman is found guilty, he will be summarily executed, and his guilt looks certain to the worthies of the Vienna court who stand in judgment over him.

Robert claims he was sent on a secret mission by his Templar masters twenty years ago to bring the Mongols west to join in the Fifth Crusade, which is was then raging in Egypt and the Holy Land. His goal was to recapture Jerusalem for Christ, with the help of a powerful Mongol army. But his story seems wildly implausible to the perplexed European lords trying him.  

If his mission was to bring the Mongols into the war against the Ayyubid sultanate in the Holy Land, the hated Saracen enemy of all good Christians, why has he not done so? Why did he spend so long making a lucrative trade treaty on behalf of a Venetian merchant? Why did he ignore his Templar vows of chastity and father a child with a Mongol beauty? Things look very black for Robert, and his situation is made worse by the presence of an enemy close at hand, who pretends to be his good friend and advisor. 

Robert tells the court how he sacked and burned the Genoese trading city of Soldaya in the Crimean peninsula with a Mongol force, destroyed the Russian princes on the Ukrainian steppe at the Kalka River, then rode thousands of miles east to take part in Genghis Khan’s brutal campaign against the Hexi Empire in China (map below). As Robert recounts his bloody adventures in the Mongol army, and his rise through their ranks, he reveals why he had to turn assassin to survive, serve his cause and save his family. 

I don’t want to give too much away here but I can promise you that Templar Assassin is a rip-roaring, full-blooded story of love and war, friendship and betrayal, politics and passion, which spans the globe from the endless grasslands of the Eurasian steppe to the burning sands of the Gobi desert and beyond. 

And while you can certainly read Templar Assassin as a standalone novel, it is probably a good idea first to read Templar Traitor (Book 1), which happens to be on sale just now as an eBook for only 99p. I hope you enjoy them both!

In other news . . .

I have just published my 12th and final Outlaw Chronicles novel. Robin Hood and the Holy Grail is now available from Amazon as an eBook and paperback. The audio book will hopefully be out soon. 

The post Templar Robert of Hadlow rides again appeared first on Angus Donald Books.

Chapter one
All the bells of Bordeaux rang out, as if in joyous greeting, as the long, red-and-black barge bumped gently against the wood of the dock. It was a Sunday, and while I knew full well that every church in that great city was merely summoning its parishioners to Holy Mass, it still felt as if, after a long period of suffering and hardship, we were being welcomed home by the glorious silvery peals from these many Houses of God.

 I leapt out of the prow of the barge with the mooring rope in my hand and, skidding slightly on the slimy wooden decking, I bent to a nearby stone bollard to secure the boat – a trading vessel that had plied the River Garonne between Bordeaux and Toulouse for more than twenty years. The man who had once owned this barge, a great, roaring, red-bearded fellow called Christophe d’Agen, was dead by my hand less than a week before. He had been stealing valuable spices from a cargo belonging to a merchant friend of my lord the Earl of Locksley, better known as the outlaw Robin Hood and, when I discovered Christophe’s larcenous scheme, he attacked me and I was obliged to dispatch him. 

We had appropriated Christophe’s vessel and made good our escape by sailing northwest along the Garonne from Toulouse to Bordeaux for six anxious days, to bring us to this quay in the duchy of Aquitaine. We were now in the territory of England’s King John, although that dismal monarch was far away in his own realm that Sunday morning in early September in the year of our Lord 1209. We had escaped all our enemies in the Languedoc and County of Toulouse and arrived safely, with a valuable cargo of stolen silver, and no sight or sound of any pursuers.

Therefore, my heart was light and my mood merry, as I helped the other members of our company climb out of the tethered barge and on to the damp wooden planks of the quay. 

“I mean to drink a prodigious quantity of wine this night,” said someone behind me. “And I strongly urge you to join me, Alan. We deserve a decent drink after all our efforts this year.” 

I turned to see Robin’s huge, red-faced lieutenant, Little John, grinning at me. The marks of two black eyes, not quite faded, made shadows under his bright blue eyes. I returned his grin for, although it had been I who gave him those twin bruises, it had merely been part of a rough jest between us, and we were fast friends once more.

“I’ll gladly join you, John,” I said. “And I know just the place for a good carouse . . .”

“Hey, Christophe,” called another voice from the quay. “I want a word. Where’re you hiding?”

I turned again and saw an older man, white haired and with one leg, dressed in raggedy seaman’s clothes, hopping across the quay towards the barge on a wooden crutch.

“Christophe!” this fellow called again. “Come out, man. You owe me a shilling for the favour I did you last . . .” He stopped hobbling two yards away and gaped in surprise as the rest of Robin’s crew, including my lord, clambered out on to the quay.

Two members of our dozen-strong company were carrying a heavy strong-box marked with the arms of the Count of Toulouse, and several others were toting bedding, clothes, baggage and assorted weaponry. But they looked exactly what they were: a company of coterels – so called because of the little sleeveless mail coats they wore – a band of hard-fighting, hard-drinking routiers. Mercenaries. Men regarded by most people from the Pennines to the Pyrenees as the very scum of the earth.

“That is Christophe d’Agen’s barge, is it not?” said the one-legged man. “It must be – I’d recognise that ugly, battered old wash-tub in any port in Christendom. So where is her captain, eh? Where’s my friend Christophe d’Agen? And who the Devil are all you people?”

People say curiosity killed the cat. That may well be so because this fellow’s curiosity was, in that moment, seriously endangering his life.

Little John took a long stride forward and seized the one-legged man with a huge hand by the neck, lifting the fellow effortlessly, and holding him up in the air. The poor man’s Y-shaped wooden crutch clattered noisily on the planks of the quay, 

“Listen carefully,” Little John said to the desperately wriggling fellow in his grasp. “This is not Christophe’s barge. This is our barge. Do you comprehend me?”

I took a step toward the pair of them. “John,” I said, “there’s no need for . . .”

Then Robin was there, too, at Little John’s side, looking up intently at the slowly choking man, his one leg kicking madly a good eight inches above the decking.

Little John turned to look at his lord. “Shall I snap his scrawny neck?” he said.

“I don’t think so, John.” Robin flicked a finger at the group of onlookers who had gathered on the quay to watch the commotion. “Set him down, if you will.”

The giant warrior released the one-legged man who immediately tumbled to a limp, gasping heap on the slimy planks. The old man looked furiously up at Little John, rubbing hard at his squeezed neck. 

Little John stared back at him, but Robin said soothingly: “You will have to excuse my large friend here. But he cannot abide folk inquiring into our personal affairs, I’m sure you understand.”

The one-legged old man did not look as if he understood at all. He groped around on the planks of the quay until he had found his crutch. Then he gathered it under him and slowly levered himself upright on to his feet. Or, rather, to his foot.

“Who are you people,” he said again, his face twisted in rage. “Why do you travel in Christophe’s barge? And where is Christophe d’Agen?”

To be honest, I admired the crippled man’s courage. He was faced with a dozen armed strangers, one of whom had just casually half-strangled him, yet he didn’t flinch from repeating his original questions, which were, in truth, accusations.

“Christophe is in Toulouse,” said Robin. That, at least, was true. I had left him lying in a pool of his own blood outside his warehouse. But I could see this old busybody might prove a problem for us in Bordeaux.

“I leased this barge from him for one month, said Robin. “To transport all my men here.”

“I’ve known Christophe for twenty years. He would never allow another man to sail off in his best barge. It would be like lending out his wife, God rest her soul.”

“I offered him two livres for the barge for a month. He agreed.”

The old cripple looked impressed. Two livres was a vast sum. 

“Still,” he grumbled, “it is not like Christophe to give up his . . .”

“What is your name?” interrupted Robin.

“I am called Roget of Jonzac.”

“Then you are the very man I am looking for,” said Robin. “Christophe asked me to give you this. He said he owed you money for some favour you did for him.”

My lord reached into his belt and pulled out a slim leather purse. He shook it gently and the pleasant musical sound of clinking silver coins could clearly be heard.

The one-legged man stretched out a hand for the purse, but Robin pulled it back, just out of his reach. “How do I know you are the Roget that Christophe mentioned?” he said.

“I am Roget – I have just told you that. Christophe promised me a shilling for information about a merchant who needed river transport.”

“You might be an imposter, trying to steal the real Roget’s coin.”

“But I am not. I swear it. Ask any of these people here. I am Roget One-Leg, also called Roget of Jonzac.

“Hmm. Then I suppose that we must trust each other’s word,” said Robin. “I am willing to pay Christophe’s debt to you but, in return, you must also respect our desire for privacy. I want no gossiping about our affairs. Will you promise me that?”

“Yes, indeed, no gossip from me. I swear by Our Lady,” said Roget.

Robin handed over the purse and the one-legged old man tucked it away, turned quickly and began to hobble away across the quay. 

Robin glanced at me, and I grinned at him. “Neatly done, my lord.” 

“I might have bought a few days’ grace,” he said, “but that one will be filling the taverns with his story by nightfall. We must move swiftly.”

End of extract.

Robin Hood and the Holy Grail can be purchased from Amazon in either paperback or eBook formats. The audio book is coming soon!

The post Robin Hood and the Holy Grail: Chapter One – read a free extract appeared first on Angus Donald Books.

I never imagined, nearly twenty years ago when as a journalist on the staff of The Times I began writing Outlaw, the first novel in the Outlaw Chronicles series, that I would find myself in 2026 publishing the 12^th and final book in this much-loved series – Robin Hood and the Holy Grail. Particularly since I killed off both Robin Hood and Alan Dale, in 2016, with The Death of Robin Hood. 

I thought I was done with the Sherwood boys then and, to be honest, after writing eight novels about them in eight years, I was a bit tired of that motley outlaw crew – fed up with Alan Dale’s noble dim-wittedness, and Robin’s cruelty and cultivated air of mystery. I was even sick of Little John’s silly blasphemous jokes – by God’s tangled testicles I was. So I parted terms amicably with Little, Brown, the publisher of the eight original novels, and moved on to other writing projects. 

As a diligent author, I keep in touch with my readers, and quite often ask them what they would like me to write next, and to my surprise I kept getting requests for more Robin Hood and Alan Dale stories. It did no good for me to explain to my fans that The Death of Robin Hood had done exactly what it said on the tin. 

I wrote the Holcroft Blood trilogy, set in the 17th century, and while I thought it was some of my best work, hardly anybody bought the books. I’m still not sure why. And when I did another poll of my readers, they were still asking for more Outlaw Chronicles. 

Then Covid-19 came along. I had the first book in a Viking series with Canelo, my new publisher (The Last Berserker) but everything was put on hold while all the hospitals filled up and we were all locked down in our homes. And since I had almost no money coming in – self-employed writers got a big fat zero in the way of help from the government during that furlong bonanza – I decided to write Robin Hood and the Caliph’s Gold, which I self-published in 2020. To my surprise, it worked. People seemed to enjoy this new tale, which fitted chronologically in between Holy Warrior and King’s Man. I made some badly needed money. I also found that I rather enjoyed revisiting the Sherwood lads and chronicling their further bloody adventures. So I wrote and self-published another one that same Covid-stricken year, Robin Hood and the Castle of Bones. 

Then, the epidemic passed, and my life was taken over again by mainstream publishing – five Fire Born Viking books were brought out in four years by Canelo, and I began a new project for that publisher about an Englishman who fought for Genghis Khan – Templar Traitor. (You might like to know that Book 2 in that series, Templar Assassin, comes out later this month.) 

However, while I had mild bouts of Covid a couple of times, I had been more seriously infected by the self-publishing bug. It was relatively straightforward and I was in total control of the publishing process. The quality of the editing and covers is not as high, and you get no help in marketing the books, but I could write a novel in about four months and have in people’s hands in five.

So, here we are. Robin Hood and the Holy Grail will be the 24th novel of mine to be released into the world since Outlaw in 2009, and the fifth that I have self-published, which I think is not a bad score for eighteen years as a full-time professional author. And while I am still going to be bringing out traditionally published books – Templar Sacrifice, Book 3 of the Mongol Knight trilogy, will be out next summer – I’m pretty sure that also going to self-publish more novels towards the end of next year and beyond.

If you enjoy my stories, get in touch and tell me what you’d like to read next. I’m considering writing a Greek series set in 5th-century Athens (after the success of The Odyssey, Ancient Greece is in vogue) and I have an idea for a London-based Victorian crime series about a charming con man who swindles aristocrats. Just don’t ask me to write any more Outlaw Chronicles. Robin and Alan have definitely had their last hurrah.

The post Farewell to Robin Hood and Alan Dale appeared first on Angus Donald Books.

There will be no more adventures for Robin, Earl of Locksley and his loyal lieutenant Sir Alan Dale, no more colourful swearwords from Little John, no more cunning tricks, no more white-knuckle escapes, no more bloody battles against impossible odds, no more sadistic French lords to put down and Alan getting the wrong end of the stick because, well, I think 12 novels is more than enough for any historical series. I’ve enjoyed my time with the boisterous Sherwood crew, but now it’s time to move on.

It’s been an incredibly wild ride that has occupied a surprisingly large part of my life. I stared thinking and planning the first book Outlaw, and what I thought might one day stretch to be a trilogy, in 2003 or thereabouts, when I was working on the Body&Soul desk at The Times. I asked one of the work experience people to get me a reading list for Robin Hood books and she came back with a list of something like sixty titles for me to read. And I so began to read and research what became the Outlaw Chronicles.

I got my first book deal for two Robin Hood novels in 2008, with a pretty hefty advance, and almost immediately quit my job on the newspaper to launch a full-time career as a historical novelist. And, although it has been a bumpy road at times, I have never regretted that decision. Outlaw came out in 2009 and was an immediate success, and seven more novels followed, all published by Little, Brown. After eight books, I had had enough, and I killed off both my heroes in The Death of Robin Hood, in 2016.

I genuinely thought that was it, although I had left some chronological holes in the story, that I thought I might one day come back to fill. But, such was the demand for more Robin and Alan stories that in 2020, I published Robin Hood and the Caliph’s Gold, the first self-published Outlaw Chronicles story. That was followed by Robin Hood and the Castle of Bones the same year (it was Covid time and I’d nothing else to do but write) and five years later by Robin Hood and the Heretic Prince, which came out last year.

Robin Hood and the Holy Grail follows on directly from Heretic Prince and it set in the same part of the world. This is the blurb from the back of the book:

“You are not worthy of the Grail,” said the knight. “Do you even believe in its holy power, Locksley? Do you even believe in Jesus Christ, in God Almighty? No wonder you fight so hard for the cause of these heretics.”

September 1209. After a botched robbery in Sherwood, Robert, Earl of Locksley, better known as the outlaw Robin Hood, and his lieutenant Sir Alan Dale, have fled King John’s wrath to seek shelter in the Languedoc. 

Swept up in the brutal Albigensian Crusade, Robin and his brave men must battle the Army of God, a fanatical invading force blessed by Pope Innocent and led by wily Simon de Montfort, which is determined to root out all heresy in this warm, tolerant southern land with fire and the sword.

However, Robin is also on a vital mission. He cannot go home to his family in England until he has in his possession a great treasure, perhaps the most precious object in the world – the Cup of Christ, the holy vessel that once held the Saviour’s blood as he suffered on the cross at Calvary.

And so farewell and adieu to the Outlaw Chronicles, which have been a major part of my life for nearly a quarter of a century. I really hope you enjoy the last outing of the lads in Robin Hood and the Holy Grail when it comes out in a couple of weeks time. And please feel free to tell me what you think. It will be available from Amazon in paperback, eBook and (I hope) audio versions.

In other news . . .

I have another novel coming out next month: Templar Assassin, which is the second book in the Mongol Knight trilogy based on the true story of the 13th-century Englishman who fought for Genghis Khan. From 7am on Tuesday 21 July to midnight on Friday July 24, if you go to the Waterstones website you can pre-order a copy of Templar Assassin for 25% off when you use the code SUMMER26 at the checkout.

The post Robin Hood and the Holy Grail to finish off the series appeared first on Angus Donald Books.

We’ve all seen them on TV, in the newspapers and on social media: burly men, grim faced, marching in their ranks, hundreds strong, in sober suits, prim white gloves, bowler hats and bright V-shaped sashes; fifes tootling; drums rattling, batons twirling and huge patriotic banners waving overhead.

I remember as a teenager in my parents’ house in Kent seeing the Orangemen on the Nine O’clock News and thinking, what is that about?

Then I read some history, got a better grip on politics and began to understand what these men – few women were visible – were all about, and to disapprove, as the young unthinkingly tend to do when confronted with alien customs. They were marching to celebrate the Protestant victory at the Battle of the Boyne, the struggle in July 1690 between William of Orange and James II on the bank of a slow running, peat-brown river in Ireland (below) a few miles west of Drogheda, for mastery of the British Isles.

I didn’t think about it much for another forty years. The impression that remained was, roughly, this: Battle of the Boyne – Protestant English army triumphs over Catholic Irish; terrible slaughter by the riverbank that wrecked the hopes of the Stuart dynasty for all time in one decisive day.

It was only when I began to research the historical background to Blood’s Campaign, the third book in my trilogy about the brilliant but unusual artillery officer Holcroft Blood (a distant relative of mine) that I realised almost everything I had assumed about the battle was wrong.

It wasn’t just the English against the Irish: King William’s army (about 36,000 strong) had many English regiments, of course, but also units recruited from Ulster and large numbers of Dutch troops, including his famous Blue Guards, perhaps the best troops in Europe at the time. He also had Danish, German and Huguenot contingents.

King James’s army (roughly 24,000 men) contained about 7,000 Frenchmen. And there were Catholics and Protestants on both sides.

Moreover, the Boyne wasn’t a decisive military encounter. In fact, and I discovered this, foolishly, after I had begun writing the novel, it wasn’t even a particularly important battle, in the wider scheme of things.

Compared to the massive conflicts in mainland Europe between Louis XIV, the despotic Sun King, and, well, everyone else – the Dutch, the Austrians, the English, the Spanish, the Holy Roman Empire, the Duchy of Savoy, etc (known as the Nine Years’ War or the War of the League of Augsburg), the Boyne was a relatively unimportant sideshow.

A few days before the fight on the Boyne, the French enjoyed a crushing naval victory over the Anglo-Dutch fleet off Beachy Head. On the same day as the Irish battle, in the Spanish Netherlands (now Belgium), at the Battle of Fleurus, the Duc de Luxembourg thrashed Prince Waldeck’s allied force. To give an idea of the scale of the two land battles, at Fleurus, there were 17,000 casualties; at the Boyne only a total of about 2,250 men were killed or wounded.

That is not to say that the Battle of the Boyne was not an appalling bloodbath for those unfortunate enough to have taken part in it.

The Jacobites, commanded personally by James Stuart, were occupying positions along the south bank of the river, concentrated around a hamlet called Oldbridge, three miles west of Drogheda and about thirty miles north of the Irish capital. James had declared that “the Boyne is the walls of Dublin” but the Stuart King was concerned that the William would manoeuvre around his left flank and come behind him, cutting off his line of retreat. He gave orders on the eve of battle that the baggage should be packed up and ready to make a speedy departure the next day, if necessary.

The next morning, just before dawn, Williamite troops were in sight on the ridge above the northern bank of the Boyne. And James saw the dust of thousands of enemy troops heading to the west along the road. The Stuart King, believing this to be a much larger force than it truly was, gave orders for a large part of his own army, including some of his finest (French) troops to head west to stop the Williamites getting behind him.

This was a grave error. In fact, William had only initially sent 7,000 men to the west, although he later sent more. By trying to counter it, James fatally weakened his own centre at the hamlet of Oldbridge.

At nine o’clock, the English artillery (on William’s right flank, just above the ford over the Boyne at Oldbridge) opened up; my distant cousin Captain Holcroft Blood commanding some of the big guns. The barrage lasted for an hour and destroyed Oldbridge and, while the dazed and battered Irish defenders were still coming to their senses, William sent in his elite Blue Guards to capture the ruins.

The Dutch Blue Guards marched across the ford in the Boyne in a slow, tramping column, into the furious musket fire of the surviving Irishmen. The Dutch casualties at the ford were horrendous, but the Blue Guard kept on advancing, magnificently disciplined, and eventually they took Oldbridge after an hour or so of brutal hand-to-hand fighting.

Further east, other contingents of William’s army, Englishmen, Danes and Huguenots, were also crossing the shallow river. And despite a courageous defence all along the line, and notable gallantry by the Jacobite cavalry, who attacked the oncoming Williamite hordes again and again, the Irish were overwhelmed everywhere and forced to pull back.

Over in the west of the battlefield, at a place called Roughgrange, the two sides found themselves separated by a deep, impassable ravine – and French troops stared at English redcoats without firing a single shot.

When James, at Roughgrange, heard that William’s men had crossed the Boyne in many places, he gave the order to retreat to Dublin. At a narrow bridge over the River Nanny at Duleek, about five miles south of Oldbridge, which soon became a dangerous bottleneck, the French infantry rearguard formed up and bravely fended off the English cavalry long enough for the bulk of James’s beaten army to escape to the south.

The Battle of the Boyne was over. But thanks to the escape of the majority of James’s army, the Irish were able to fight on for another fifteen months, during which several major battles were fought. At last, the defiant Irish rebels finally surrendered and signed the Treaty of Limerick in October 1691. Many of the troops were allowed to leave Ireland and go into exile in France, an episode known to history as the Flight of the Wild Geese.

The war in Ireland was not ended at the Boyne, as I had assumed, not by a long chalk, but it was certainly over for James Stuart. He fled back to the protection of Louis XIV in the days immediately after the battle – earning himself the derisive Gaelic nickname of Séamus an Chaca among the troops he deserted, which means “James the Shit”.

James II never again attempted to win the thrones of the Three Kingdoms by force of arms. But the Stuart cause was not dead: his son, James, the Old Pretender, made another attempt in 1715, and his grandson Bonnie Prince Charlie, too, brought rebellion to Britain in 1745.

So the bloody fight at the River Boyne was not at all the battle I had thought it was all those years ago. But it was, nonetheless, a fascinating and moving slice of history to get to grips with as a novelist, and I hope I have done justice to the sacrifice of so many brave men – on both sides – in Blood’s Campaign.

And I cannot argue that it was not a significant battle. For all those doughty Orangemen marching in the summer months, it is a powerful symbol of their identity, pride, culture and history. And we disdain these cherished cultural symbols at our peril.

Blood’s Campaign is available from Amazon in eBook, hardback, paperback and audio versions.

The post The Battle of the Boyne – a few thoughts and observations appeared first on Angus Donald Books.

If you are unfamiliar with the storyline, The Last Berserker is about two young Scandinavian people who desperately want to become berserkers, those frenzied Viking warriors who were the battlefield elite in 8th-century Northern Europe. In order to do this, they go to a holy place to see if they are suitable for training as berserkers. The Fire Born series (of five books – all available in audio, paperback and eBook versions) is set amid the long, brutal wars between the pagan Saxons and the Christian Franks.

This is the blurb from the back of the first book.

771AD. Bjarki Bloodhand and Tor Hildarsdottir are journeying south into Saxony. Their destination is the Irminsul, the One Tree that links the Nine Worlds of the Middle-Realm. In this most sacred place, they hope to learn how to summon their animal spirits so they can enter the ranks of the legendary berserkir: the elite frenzied fighters of the North.

Karolus, newly crowned King of the Franks, has a thorn in his side: the warlike Saxon tribes on his northern borders who shun the teachings of the Church, blasphemously continuing to worship their pagan gods.

The West’s greatest warlord vows to stamp out his neighbours’ superstitions and bring the light of the True Faith to the Northmen – at the point of his sword. It will fall to Bjarki, Tor and the folk of Saxony to resist him in a struggle for the fate of all Europe.

Praise for The Last Berserker

‘Donald has taken the legendary berserkers, those frothing-at-the-mouth shield-biters, and made them human, which once again proves that Donald is a writer not only at the top of his game, but of the game … It is a wonderful, rich and violent brew. I welcome Angus Donald to the shield wall of Viking fiction like a thirsty man welcomes a mead-brother to the feast … A tale worthy of the skalds’ Giles Kristian, author of the Raven series

‘With The Last Berserker, Donald has given us the first cut of some serious Dark Age beef. By turns heart-racing, intriguing, and touching, this is not a book for the faint-hearted I can’t wait for more’ Theodore Brun, author of A Burning Sea

‘The Last Berserker strikes with the thundering power of Thor’s hammer… rich with the earthy depth, historical detail, intrigue, violence and adventure that we expect from Donald. But it is Bjarki and Tor that make The Last Berserker stand out… Donald’s masterful creations will live on in the imagination long after the final page’ Matthew Harffy, author of the Bernicia Chronicles

”Loved this tale of a berserker facing up against the tidal wave of Charlemagne’s expansion. Great characters, brilliantly paced and explosive, gritty battle-scenes. Highly recommended’ John Gwynne, author of Malice

And it gets even better. The other four books in the Fire Born series – The Saxon Wolf, The Loki Sword, King of the North and Blood of the Bear – are also on sale for £1.99. So, if you want some exciting, battle-heavy Viking reading this summer, then click on the links and fill your boots!

The post Bargain alert: The Last Berserker is only £1.99 (for now) appeared first on Angus Donald Books.

A couple of years ago I completed the final novel in my five-novel Fire Born series. It is a bloody Viking saga of bears, berserkers and battle, and I genuinely loved writing it. I drew heavily for the novels on my own experience as a young anthropological researcher in Indonesia in the 1980s – more about that in another post – during which on several occasions I watched people, under the influence of religion and music, become apparently “possessed” by the spirits of wild animals and legendary heroes. 

I used these 20th-century anthropological insights to inform my writing about 8th-century berserkers, who also believed that were inhabited in battle by the spirits of bears, wolves (see pic below) or wild boar. This kind of  possession, Viking berserkers believed, gave them superhuman strength, speed and agility and immunity to pain from their wounds. And the certainty of a glorious afterlife feasting with heroes in Valhalla when the battle was over.

After this blood-soaked series was concluded – and it’s not for the faint of heart – I began to wonder, well, what the hell it was actually all about. I often find, and maybe all creatives do, that a submerged part of my mind, a part that I am not wholly in control of, is in the driving seat when it comes to my characters and their actions. Sure, I plan out a story and research the history but the themes and moods and underlying psychology of the novel all spring from my sub-conscious. And I think that the Fire Born series, which began with The Last Berserker, in 2021, is actually about madness.

There are SPOILERS ahead, so if you haven’t read any of the Fire Born books yet beware. But, if you don’t mind that, then this is my take on the main themes and underlying meaning of the series.

The Last Berserker

Bjarki Bloodhand and Tor Hildarsdottir, two young warriors from Scandinavia, both desperately want to become berserkers. These frenzied fighters (who really existed, by the way) are the elite warriors of their late 8th-century North European world, the Special Forces of their day. In order to become a berserker (or Fire Born as I call them), you have to go through a series of harsh tests and ordeals, but most importantly you have to invite the spirit of a wild animal (a bear, wolf or boar) called a gandr to possess you.

Spirit possession is a phenomenon which is recognised in the Bible and is still practised today in many parts of the world – from Christian Baptists meetings in the Deep South to Hindu temple dancers in South East Asia. 

It is, in my view, a kind of socially sanctioned madness. Spirit possession does something to the human mind, something not fully understood, that alters the perceptions of the possessed. The possessed often behave oddly, sometimes seeming to harm themselves without feeling pain – being bitten by snakes, for example, or walking on red-hot coals. In rural Malaysia today, there is a phenomenon called running “amok” in which a villager goes completely tonto and starts killing all the people around him. The only thing to do is to band together and kill the person who has run amok. Malays say that the amok-sufferer is possessed by the spirit of a tiger. 

Anyway, Bjarki manages to become a berserker in Book 1. Tor, his half-sister, to her initial regret, does not. Thus begins Bjarki’s long descent into blood-soaked madness, painfully witnessed by his beloved half-sister Tor.

The Saxon Wolf

Bjarki soon realises that being a berserker, with all the enormous destructive power that it grants him on the battlefield, is not wholly desirable. He cannot control what he does in his berserk state (in which he has enhanced strength and ferocity). A berserker, in the lore of my novels, sometimes goes completely crazy and kills everyone round him, even the people he loves. Bjarki very nearly kills Tor and does actually kill his girlfriend at the end of The Saxon Wolf. He feels horribly ashamed of his actions, even though it is not his fault. He was not in control of his actions when the gandr takes control of his body.

The Loki Sword

Bjarki seeks to rid himself of his gandr (in this case, the spirit of a mother bear) at the beginning of The Loki Sword. He sees the possessing she-bear as evil, and she is certainly  bloodthirsty, and he seems to manage this Dark Ages exorcism successfully. He has an antagonistic relationship with the gandr, which is resolved in the end of the book when the gandr helps Bjarki survive a battle and Bjarki returns the favour and saves the mother bear’s real-life cub from a huntsman’s trap. 

The she-bear and Bjarki now get on well – but Bjarki is spending more and more time in the Spirit Realm meeting the bear gandr and talking with her. He is slowly going mad. This is not revealed in the book but there is no Spirit Realm, in reality, and no bear gandr. It’s all happening in Bjarki’s head.

King of the North

Bjarki seems to be getting better. The gandr is quiet most of the time, and when Bjarki does unleash her, during a rescue of a Saxon princess, it is a well controlled release. The real bear cub has grown up now and is a tame but dangerous companion of Tor’s. Bjarki is still having conversations in his head with the she-bear. However, when the bear cub is killed in battle, the she-bear asks Bjarki to save him by allowing his spirt to enter him as a gandr. At the end of King of the North, Bjarki is possessed by two spirits.

Blood of the Bear

In the last book in the series, Bjarki’s slide into madness is accelerated by a “magical” attack. One of his enemies uses seithr (sorcery) to send him mad and, over the course of the book, he becomes ever more mentally ill and disassociated from the real world. 

Bjarki still continues to play his role as an elite, highly respected Viking warrior, but in the final battle, when he goes berserk for the last time in one great glorious bloodletting, he finally succumbs to his growing madness and is slain.

I realise now that the Fire Born series is a tragedy. Maybe it’s not quite King Lear, but it’s the tragic story of an ordinary man who strives to achieve greatness and by achieving it dooms himself to madness and death. 

My daughter Emma asked me at dinner the other day, why my books are always so sad. And to be honest I couldn’t find a good answer. Maybe because sad stories are more moving, more dramatic. Maybe it is just because life is tragedy. All lives, even the most glorious and successful, end in death. And Bjarki’s life was indeed glorious – and he was happy for a time, too. He pursued his dream and achieved it, which is something.

The other theme which emerged for me as I was writing the Fire Born series is that there is great power in madness. The “madman” principle in geopolitics has been widely written about – when a world leader is viewed as unstable, capable of anything, other statesmen treat him warily, and this gives him an advantage. There is also the schoolyard power of the mentally ill. Begby, the terrifying character from the movie and novel Trainspotting, is a total “bampot” in the Scots argot – a madman. Everyone is frightened of him because of his wildly unpredictable violent behaviour.

Madness gives you power over others. But it is only a short-lived power. In the end, like the villagers in Malaysia, the sane must all band together and kill the madman. And berserkers, too, while they must have been magnificent and utterly terrifying in warfare, rarely survived the battle.

The Last Berserker (Fire Born 1), along with the other four books in the Fire Born series, is available as an eBook, paperback and audio book from Amazon and other retailers. (And it’s not all doom, gloom and gore – there are funny, and even happy bits, too.) And if you enjoy the series, please leave a short review on Amazon or elsewhere.

The post Reflections on the Fire Born series: you don’t have to be mad to berserk here, but it helps appeared first on Angus Donald Books.