No king before, perhaps, Constantine II of Albad or Æðelstan of Wessex in the tenth century, shows any sign of attempting to conquer and unite – or even imagine – a nation entity like ‘England’ or ‘Wales’ or ‘Scotland’. Their desire was to force submission by any means necessary, in order that they might enjoy lordly rights over other kings and the

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Like Gildas, modern historians want to understand how a productive, ordered, taxed, administered and highly functional, populous society was apparently so rapidly laid low and, after many tribulations, in later centuries rebuilt in a new fashion. They look for clues in excavated remains, in Gildas’s testimony, in the earliest Anglo-Saxon, British a

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A few miles north of Greave’s Ash the indomitable twin-domed hillfort of Yeavering Bell looms imperiously over Glendale and the Milfield plain beyond. Here, an Iron Age fortress and summer camp were the focus of regional power and of a tribal cult. Yeavering’s chieftains seem to have retained their power and identity through the Roman centuries and

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Who, then, was in charge; and of what? Had Britannia seceded from the empire or been abandoned by it? Were the emerging lords of the fifth century descendants of ancient tribal families, now styled as magistrates or provincial officials? Were they arriviste entrepreneurs and industrialists; retired army officers, perhaps? Some, possibly, were Chris

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