Caedwalla; Or, the Saxons in the Isle of Wight: A Tale

by Frank Cowper

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1888 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XXIII. "THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER." AFEW days after the decisive battle near Chillerton Down, Edric, who had been sitting with Malachi and the invalids, went out to get some fresh air. He wandered up the hill behind the homestead to a freshly-raised mound on the hill side, looking away towards the Sussex shore, and commanding views of the far distant Andreadesweald. Here Athelhune had been buried, with his arms and battleaxe, like a free Saxon eorldoman, with his face towards the East, looking to the woods and the land where he had fought so well for his friend and king, Caedwalla, in the time of his adversity. Edric sat down on the newly-laid turf, and gazed towards Selsea. As he sat he fell into a deep reverie. He thought over all that had passed since that awful night when Arwald surprised their home, and he and Wulfstan and Biggun had had to fly over the water, they knew not where. He thought of the fearful slaughter that had since taken place; the dreadful suffering of the poor people, driven from their homes; the death in battle, in cold blood, and in misery of so many human beings. He saw how poverty, hunger, wretchedness, fell upon every one by the perpetual destruction going on. Caedwalla was nearly dead; Ceolwulf was prostrate; Wulfstan was only just showing signs of recovery; brother Malachi had received a desperate wound; Athelhune and Osborn were dead; and Wulf the Atheling might be dead, too, for all he knew; while his father, lfhere, as well as himself, would bear their wounds to their graves with them. And yet they and their party were victorious. They had won all the glory, all the land, all the wealth; and this was what their noblest, most cherished ideas pointed to. Could anything be more complete?...

94 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1897

Reviews

[Troy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was written in the late Victorian age and is very much a product of it's time and so the 3 star rating is as a result of giving some allowance for this. It is also a book which was written with "young people" (I assume teenagers) in mind.

I haven't yet managed to find ANY other work of historical fiction based upon the story of King Cædwalla of Wessex and Sussex. This really is a shame as the bare bones of the story as we know it from sources such as Bede and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle are intriguing to say the least.

The story concentrates around two other characters, Ædric and Wulfstan, who are the teenage sons of the Earldorman Ælfhere from the Wihtea (the Isle of Wight). Cædwalla and St Wilfrid appear as other characters who these two protagonists interact with rather than as the central characters.

The style of writing seems very strange in contrast to the modern historical fiction novel. The narrative is naturally written in a very Victorian style of writing, but it openly discusses the unfolding story in relation to how life was different to what was the norm in Victorian England. The dialogue is stranger still as the characters are speaking in what could only be called "ye olde Englishe" as if they were from the time of Shakespeare rather than the 7th century!

Perhaps because of the intended audience when the book was written, the characters are quite two dimensional and the dialogue as such seems forced. The narrative reveals the way that Victorians saw the Anglo-Saxons as savage barbarians and the period between the end of the Roman occupation and 1066 as a "Dark Age". Today very few authors would be so careless as to dismiss the rich culture of the Anglo-Saxon world in such a way, but here the Saxons are portrayed as primitives who needed to be taught how to farm and fish let alone read and write! Th e author also goes off on long rambling passages of narrative and dialogue which pontificate about the glories of christianity rather than the traditional pagan religions still common in Sussex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight in the 7th century. This all seems a bit preachy to me and I didn't like this at all. Particularly I found the repeated suggestion at the end of the book that the people of the Isle of Wight were peacefully converted to Christianity and were glad of it to be disturbing in the extreme. The reality was that the people were forced to convert at the blade of the sword.

Despite all of this, I did still enjoy the book. It's a good story and it moves along at a good pace. Hopefully a 21st century writer will soon pick up the story of Cædwalla and give us a more modern interpretation of his fascinating life.