Kings And Queens Of Early Britain 1st Edition Geoffrey Ashe by Geoffrey Ashe 9781613733738, 9781009308366, 1613733739, 100930836X instant download after payment.

In Kings and Queens of Early Britain, Geoffrey Ashe skillfully weaves all the different accounts—legends, literature, historical documents—into one continuous narrative that recreates in intriguing detail all the rulers and events, real or mythical, that are part of the rich tapestry of early history in Britain. The result is a fascinating and very readable account starting with the legendary "founding of Britain"—reputedly by Brutus the Trojan somewhere around 1100 B.C —and ending with Alfred, the greatest of the Saxon kings, in A.D. 871.

During Britain's chaotic beginnings, ruling power shifted frequently. Amid the chaos, many remarkable individuals emerged as leaders: Boadicea, the warrior-queen of the Iceni tribe, who led the opposition against invading Romans and won, for a brief time, political freedom for the native Britons; the Jute brother-chiefs, Hengist and Horsa, who invaded Eastern England which was at the time controlled by Vortigern (the same monarch who legend says sought first the blood, then the wisdom of the young Merlin); and Offa, "the King of the English," who built a massive dyke dividing Wales and England—parts of which remain standing today.

General readers as well as students of English literature will enjoy this book, which explains many people and places mentioned in writers from Shakespeare to T.S. Eliot: for instance, who was Cymbeline? Was there a real "King Lear"? Is there any relationship between early Welsh legends and the Holy Grail stories in Tennyson's Idylls of the King or Eliot's The Waste Land?