How Realistic Is ‘The Last Kingdom’ Actually? | Bamburgh Castle

Foreigner, if you have ever enjoyed the Netflix series The Last Kingdom, you will know all about Utrid de Bebeber, but did you know that Bebember is a real place and still exists today? We simply call it Bambra Bambra Castle and did you know that utrid? She was also real or at least Anutrid was real and her story is as fascinating, complex and action-packed as that of Bebenberg's Utrid. I'm Matt Lewis, a medieval historian and today I'm on the rugged Northumberland coast to see if I can. Discover the real story behind the Last Kingdom and you can see how such a dramatic location could inspire a fictional series.

Author Bernard Cornwell, who wrote the books on which the show is based, was inspired by Bambra and a real nobleman who ruled here in the early 11th century. As we move towards Bambra Castle here across the dunes from the seashore, it is not difficult to understand why people have selected this place as a fortification for millennia. It is built on an outcrop of volcanic rock, meaning it is solid, Bambra cannot be undermined. Castle, but also has control and dominion of the sea around the land to the other side. If you control Bambra, you control this region in Anglo-Saxon times.

What was here was a wooden Burr. A Burr is a walled fortification, a walled town that local communities could turn to when they needed protection from things like Viking raids, but looking at Bambra Castle today on this craggy outcrop it's easy to understand why the Northumbrian kings Anglo-Saxons chose it as their capital, only a few scenes of the

last

kingdom

were filmed. Here, the November setting in the series was built from scratch in Hungary, but was largely based on what this place might have been like in early Saxon times. Abroad, the first account of what is called a

castle

at this location

actually

dates back to the mid-6th century. century when the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes King Ida of Northumbria, who ruled this entire region, building what he calls a

castle

at this location.

Ida's grandson, King Ethel Frith of Northumbria, would grant this land to his wife, Queen Bebber, and it became Bieber's Burr, which is the root of what we know today foreign bambura nothing remains of the fortification Saxon, but we have fines from the period, including the intricate golden bambra beast and a welded sword with a rare pattern that reinforces the importance of this site to the rulers of Northumbria as it is to Utrid. In the series, such swords were a status symbol for past Saxon warriors from one generation to the next, but overall the lack of material and written evidence from the Anglo-Saxon period makes it challenging to study and understand Saxon rule in England. during a time that some still refer to as the Middle Ages and

last

ed over half a millennium, so let's begin by unraveling the stories of the real and fictional Utrid, starting with when they were around.

The fictional Drinking Utrid exists during the reign of King Alfred the Great and fights to regain the lordship he believes has been stolen from him here in Bambra. This is a replica of the Throne of the ancient Northumbrian kings who were already gone by that time. So Bambra was within a

kingdom

known as the Danes. law under Viking control and beyond the reach of the kings of England the true lords of Northumbria then were the Vikings in the early 11th century England looked very different from the divided mosaic of kingdoms that existed during the reign of Alfred the Great, but However, It was a turbulent time and power continued to swing between the Saxons, the Danes and even the Scots, nowhere more so than here in Northumbria.

The records we have about Utrid the Bold tell us that in 995 he participated in clearing the space that allowed the reconstruction of the great cathedral of Durham, in gratitude, he was allowed to marry the daughter of the bishop of Durham, which made him rich and in a good position when he returned here to drink, his father, the elder Walthyoff, was still in control, but when in 1006 Malcolm II the king of Scots made a raid on the border into Northumberland. Wolfyoff was too old to react, he left the bowl to raise an army and fight the Scottish invaders when he was successful, just like in the series, his king was grateful, but that king was not Alfred the Great, but rather It was Ethel Red who was unprepared in gratitude.

Ethel Red supplanted old man Wolfie with her son. His son's putrid loyalties over the next few years would prove divided between his Saxon king and the Viking invaders as they are in the series, but for now massacred, the Bold was Lord of Bebenber in 1013 Swain forkbeard, king of Denmark , invaded England against overwhelming odds Utrid was among those who submitted to the Danish king at Christmas Swain was in London being recognized as king of England while Ethel read the Unreading was driven into exile on February 2, 1014, although after less than two months, when King Swain died and Ethel Red returned, Utrid seamlessly transferred his allegiance to the former king for a time, at least in 1016, after a decade as a councilor of Bebenber.

Utrid was in Cheshire fighting with Edmund Ironside, the famous warrior son of Ethel Red, who was unprepared in his absence. The Danish Cnut invaded Yorkshire. Utrid, not knowing what to do, thought that he couldn't come back here to sleep, lie down and try to defend himself. and then swore allegiance to Knut changing sides once more, he headed from Cheshire to Yorkshire to offer his oath of allegiance to Knut as the new king of England, but when he approached Knut's position he was ambushed and he and 40 of his The men were murdered by a man named Thurbrand.

This was reportedly done on instructions from Canute himself. He perhaps feared that a powerful Saxon noble might return behind the walls of Bebenber and defend it indefinitely. Someone he would have to eradicate later. Knute would do it. He became Danish king of England, Utrid would never return to his birth. The murder of utreads led to a bloody feud that lasted for generations. Eldrid, Utridge's son, avenged his father by killing Ferbrand. Hold Red was, in turn, killed by Thurbrand's son Carl. authyoff II Earl of Northumbria waited patiently until the 1070s to take revenge on his grandfather eldrid althiov ordered the murder of most of Carl's children and grandchildren he pronounced the bold man's legacy it was long and bloody today nothing remains of the bebenber he pronounced the bold would recognize built- in wood with the Norman conquest came stone and the 11th century keep is the only remaining section of the original castle.

Over the following centuries, more medieval walls would be added to Bambra's already considerable defenses, but advances in military technology also threatened Bambra. This would be the first castle in England to fall due to an artillery bombardment, it was felled during a siege in 1464 and was never recovered for centuries, so although today there is nothing left of the bebenber that Utrid would have recognised, the castle Bambra remains one of Britain's most iconic fortresses, but there is still much more to discover about the real Saxon drinker. Archaeologists have found an early medieval cemetery just 300 meters south of the castle containing more than a hundred skeletons excavated between 1998 and 2007.

They found many of the men, women and children were buried with artifacts from high status Bamburgh Castle the ancient Bebenber continues to shed links with its Anglo-Saxon past from a forge located on the other side of the castle to an ancient Anglo-Saxon cemetery in the middle of these sand dunes known as the Bowl Hole. Archaeologists believe it was the site of the tombs of the Royal House of Northumbria. Would the real Utrid of Bebenberg have known this cemetery? Could he have walked among the tombs of ancient Northumbrian kings? Is there a chance that the real Utrid of Bebenber is buried somewhere?

In the middle of these dunes, welcome to history. Visit the YouTube channel. I hope you enjoyed that video and if you want to see more videos where we try to bring the story to life, don't forget to subscribe and hit that notification. Bell, greetings, guys. See you soon