Review: Seven Kings Must Die

As a teenager, I was enthralled by Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe series, so was intrigued when I became aware that a screen adaption of his Warlord Chronicles, now called The Last Kingdom, was being made in 2015. As a passionate amateur historian of the Early Medieval period, it was a relief to see a more grounded, realistic depiction of the Viking Age; as much as I enjoyed the first three seasons of Vikings, it makes no pretence at being historically accurate.

I finished the fifth and final season in 2022, and was intrigued to hear that the series would be rounded off with a feature-length film called Seven Kings Must Die. Knowing the history and literature of the period, I had an inkling that it would cover the Battle of Brunaburh, which was a colossal battle in 937AD. The film was produced by Netflix, and directed by Edward Bazalgette, who has some pedigree with medieval and historical fiction, having worked on Poldark, The Witcher and previous episodes of The Last Kingdom. The film was written by The Last Kingdom writer Martha Hillier, and Bernard Cornwell himself. The omens looked favourable. Accordingly, I watched Seven Kings with a friend and fellow medieval nerd with whom I had watched a great deal of The Last Kingdom.

My verdict overall is that it does not do its premise justice. I didn’t hate it by any means, but it has considerable problems. In this review, I will consider the positive aspects of the film, before offering up my thoughts on what didn’t work, and why, before considering the history behind it. This review will contain spoilers.

Positive Points

To start with the positives, the acting across the board was excellent. After five seasons, the cast all wear their roles like comfortable clothes, especially the two leads, Alexander Dreymoon as Uhtred and Harry Gilby as Athelstan. Mark Rowley’s Finan is always enjoyable in a supporting role. While I have problems with the writing, the acting cannot be criticised. Uhtred is a man who has matured throughout the series, and Dreymoon turns in a great performance as a warrior reaching the end of his maturity as a wise mentor, rather than the impetuous young firebrand he was under Alfred. The new characters, introduced in the film, are a mixed bag in terms of writing, but the casting was good.

The score by John Lund and the singer Eivor has always been an evocative selling point for the show, and it is no different with Seven Kings. Haunting, weird and beautiful, the blend of synth, orchestral and wordless chanting represents a world that is once foreign and known, a country we still inhabit, but a culture much distant from our own. This was a deliberate choice on the part of the showrunners, and it works.

There is some great attention to small details, such as Bible verses being numbered as they would have been at the time, before the chapter and verse system that we use today. I always have an eye for weapons and armour, and besides the baffling continuation of the rectangular shields for the Wessex army (to distinguish them visually), the fabric of battle feels impactful and dangerous. There is an earthy, realistic sense that these weapons hurt, and using them is exhausting. The choreography suits the mood, and the viewer is given a good sense of the terror and claustrophobia of a shield-wall battle.

The film also delivers some genuinely heartfelt character moments, and the conclusion, which I initially found indecisive, is suitable for a man who was always torn between two worlds. We are left unsure as to whether he chooses the Christian paradise, or the Norse Valhalla.

However, the film, while emotional and enjoyable in places, does not live up to its ambitions, for several reasons. I think the main problems are as follows.

The Serenity Snag

As a film, Seven Kings’ main problem is what I call the ‘Serenity Snag’, and many of its other problems stem from this issue. It is a common problem in films that round off TV shows, being that the producers try to fit the same amount and style of content into two hours that would normally be, in The Last Kingdom’s case, spread over six to eight hours of screen time. The result is that Seven Kings is chaotic, frenetic and disjointed, particularly in the second act. I mentioned Serenity, which felt rushed even when trying to tie up all the threads of just a single season of Firefly; Seven Kings is trying to resolve five seasons’ worth of events. Character deaths are abrupt, and neither the audience nor the characters have time to grieve them. Character and plot revelations happen at a ‘blink-and-you’ll-miss-it’ pace, which strips the dramatic moments of impact, leaving many revelations feeling hollow and somewhat at random. The story it tries to tell is far too complex for a film of its budget and length. The main threads are the unification of England, and Uhtred’s attempt to turn Athelstan from a path of destructive provocation to the enemies of England. However, the film also follows the forming of the enemy coalition, the loss of Uhtred’s sword, Athelstan’s religious crusade into Scotland, Athelstan’s own struggle with homosexuality and faith, the prophecy of Finan’s wife, the flight of the King’s mother with her son Eadweard, the instability of England following Edward the Elder’s death, the sack of Bebbanburg, Uhtred’s banishment and exile, and the preparations and events of the battle of Brunaburh. This would be a lot even for an episodic TV show, never mind a single film.

Some scenes, such as Uhtred’s confrontation with Athelstan in his throne room or the loss of Finan’s family, though well-acted and beautifully scored, felt shallow and had little impact owing to the hurried pace. The rush to move the plot forward also means that historical accuracy is neglected. For example, Athelstan is often depicted on his own or with only one other person, which was not the case at that time. A Medieval king, particularly in times of war, would have had a retinue of advisors, officials, priests, scribes and nobles constantly coming and going to enact the business of state, to say nothing of a household guard sworn to their service. In earlier seasons of The Last Kingdom, Alfred nearly always had his bodyguard and court officials with him, but these authentic features have been stripped away in the film.

This also damages the relationship of the two main characters, Uhtred and Athelstan. There are about twenty other named characters in the film, all of whom vie for screen time and dilute Uhtred and Athelstan’s relationship. The growing rift between them, which is clearly meant to be the focal point of the narrative, is instead explained by a few throwaway lines. The death of James Northcote’s Aldhelm could have been a powerful element of a film focused solely on Athelstan’s redemption, but it was rushed, and there was no sense of mourning over the unjust and cruel death of a beloved character. Emotionally, it felt like cheating, as if the showrunners wanted to kill a character for a quick emotional punch, but didn’t have the courage or time to harm one of our main protagonists.

James Northcote as Aldhelm, image property of Netflix

Villains & Foes

The film also lacks a well-developed antagonist. There are some mentions of Anlaf’s Wolf Warriors, but besides the appearance of a wolf’s head outside Bebbanburg, they are indistinguishable from other Viking raiders. There is a village sacking that has become expected of Early Medieval media, but it feels perfunctory, lazy, and cruel, as if the showrunners are using the fate of peaceful farming folk as a way of drumming up quick hatred for a villain. Apart from this single action, there is little to mark the villains out as antagonists. They cruelly kill many of the folk of Bebbanburg, but there is no great act of justice or vengeance for this, no particularly cruel or vicious raider who is then slain by Finan in revenge.

Ingilmundr, Athelstan’s lover, is the closest the film has to a direct antagonist, and there is some effort to frame him as a dark mirror to Uhtred. However, this is not explored in any depth, and he comes across as a shallow character. The revelation of his true motivation is done quickly with a few lines of dialogue, and there is no explanation for how he obtained such a high position of influence in such a short time.

The most emotionally impactful deed is the execution of Aldhelm, which is done by Athelstan, not an antagonist. The large array of enemies arrayed against Athelstan and Uhtred also handicaps any chance of making one of them distinct. Each season of The Last Kingdom normally had a villain, or sometimes two, that were well-developed, and formed the backbone of the threat, but in Seven Kings, the enemy are a heterogenous mass of Vikings and Scots that are seeking to disrupt Athelstan’s England. However, given Athelstan’s actions, the king of Scotland at least is justified, as he is responding to an incursion into his kingdom. In more skilled hands, Constantin could have been an anti-hero, or a villain with an understandable viewpoint, but Seven Kings delivers a disappointing finale for this interesting character.

‘Fast Travel’

The film visits many locations, but we are not given a sense of who these people are. Visually, there is nothing to distinguish the Vikings of Dublin from the Norsemen of Orkney or Shetland. Wales, Strathclyde and Scotland are, apart from an accent or two, indistinguishable. We visit a hall on the Isle of Man, and a gathering of kings on the Shetland Isles, but they could easily have been Northumbria without the on-screen title cards to tell us otherwise.

The film must cover so much ground, in a literal sense, that travel feels compressed. Characters travel from Winchester to the North of England (a journey of 360 miles on Medieval roads) or from Bebbanburg to the Shetland Islands, (a sea journey of 300 miles in open ships), in the blink of an eye, and there is no feel for the political geography, or where characters are in relation to one another. Athelstan is depicted leading a raiding army into Scotland, a journey of 400 miles from Winchester, to say nothing of the relatively slow speed an army can move at compared to a single rider. Even from Bebbanburg to the battle site at Brunaburh is about 200 miles, and yet characters and armies traverse these huge distances without any sense of time having passed. It contrasts badly with the TV show, which used cultural differences, the passing of seasons, and other events to mark the passing of time, but the condensed timeframe of the film destroys any sense of place or distance.

The gathering of kings, image property of Netflix

Christianity & Culture

Christianity, or rather its depiction, is another problem for the film, and this hampers the series as well. Bernard Cornwell makes no secret of his hostility to Christianity, but to write a convincing portrayal of Medieval England, the way Christianity was understood and practised in the tenth century must be accepted for what it was, not what authors or writers want it to be. Seven Kings repeats the old and tired cliché of Christians as either hypocrites tortured by their own weakness, or duplicitous manipulators using faith to control others. As soon as a pious character appears on screen, you can nearly always expect one or both of those cliches to become apparent before too long. It is one feature of the show that consistently jarred me out of enjoying it. With a few notable exceptions, Christianity is viewed exclusively as a force of political coercion or manipulation, bringing neither fulfilment nor purpose as a believed and lived faith.

The Early Medieval world was a highly religious one. Whether the faith of Christianity, or the Norse pantheon, or spirits, everyone believed that life was controlled and influenced by powers other than our own. Atheism, as we understand it, did not exist. They were not a scientific or secular culture, and did not understand the world in that way. Their cosmology, meaning the way they understood the origins and purpose of the world, was radically different from our own.

It is frustrating that writers of Medieval fiction are so seldom able or willing to accept that the characters they portray people had a genuine, devout faith that inspired their thoughts and actions. In an age of cynical secularism, there is tendency to project all our hangups and biases backwards onto the tenth century. But proper historical understanding should be predicated on understanding their world as they understood it. For Seven Kings, religious settings and characters feel like cardboard scenery at best, or at worst, avatars representing the grievances of the writers. The critical praise for the film has focused largely on its depiction of sexual politics and multiculturalism, but that is precisely the problem. Seven Kings is meant to be a depiction of England in the tenth century, not the 21^st. To praise Seven Kings for its exploration of contemporary talking points shows a lack of independent thought and historical judgement on the part of film critics.

Probably the most egregious result of this lack of understanding is Athelstan’s struggle with homosexuality. With all its ham-fisted references to Christian doctrine, it felt like (yet another) finger-wagging lecture about the evils of homophobia, rather than a sincere attempt to explore the life of a historical figure. Cornwell’s justifications for portraying the character as a gay are far from convincing; he bases his depiction upon the fact that Athelstan never married, and that he was reported to be ornate and ostentatious in his dress and decoration. I will address the former point below, but as for the latter; the Anglo-Saxons were noted for the gaudiness and colour of their dress and bearing. Even under the sobering effect of Christianity, they were renown for wearing jewellery and colourful clothes, and for sporting elaborate facial hair. Given this understanding, Cornwell’s justifications seem tenuous at best.

Much of this becomes apparent in the writing. The show had always managed to keep the writing reasonably consistent, and avoid the tedious moralising that plagues so many other Medieval shows. However, the film’s rushed pace makes the script feel functional and mechanical, with little of the interpersonal colour that was a delight in the earlier episodes.

An Anglo-Saxon cross, recovered as part of the Staffordshire Hoard

Comparison with Sharpe

I think an interesting comparison would be with the TV film Sharpe’s Waterloo, which is a similar idea; the culmination of one of Cornwell’s book series, depicting a single battle in a two-hour film. Uhtred and Sharpe are the classic Cornwell protagonist; they are both men adrift between two worlds; one is a Saxon raised as a Viking, the other a common soldier raised to the ranks of commissioned officers. They are both skilled warriors and natural leaders who often come into conflict with established authority figures.

Waterloo has its faults, but it works better as a film than Seven Kings for two main reasons. The first is that the Sharpe productions were already a sequence of feature-length films that could be watched independently of the others. The events of a Sharpe film were usually built around a battle or large strategic objective, with Sharpe and his men having to achieve a vital task to ensure the victory of Wellington’s forces. Waterloo, although with a bigger budget, was essentially the same pattern. This meant that the producers were already well-practiced at the story format they were using. Seven Kings however, is trying to go from a season to a film, with all the concomitant issues mentioned above.

The second reason is that Sharpe’s Waterloo does not really concern itself with any plot other than the events of the battle itself. The subplot about his wife’s lover reaches its conclusion, but there are very few subplots to clutter up the narrative. Seven Kings on the other hand, is weighed down by extraneous subplots which obscure rather than enhance the drama of Brunaburh. The loss of Bebbanburg and his sword are two examples; they felt unnecessary, because Uhtred had already earnt Bebbanburg in five seasons of drama. Uhtred’s exile was not only rushed to a conclusion, but felt like a shallower version of his journey from Ealdorman to slave and back again in the second season. This purposeless recycling of previous plot arcs was a frustrating feature of the film.

Sharpe at Waterloo, image property of ITV

Brunaburh

This brings us to the depiction of the battle itself. It is meant to be the culmination of five seasons of drama, the vindication of Alfred’s dream of a united England, and a conclusion for Uhtred, who the viewer has followed for his entire life. What we get is about fifteen minutes of a battle that is impressive in scale compared to the first or second seasons of the show, but feels anticlimactic as a depiction of the event it is trying to portray. The score is good, but it makes the experience feel hollow, as the scope of the music feels out of proportion to the events on screen.

This was particularly true of Uhtred’s death. While death in battle is a fitting end for Alfred’s greatest warrior, it was undercut by a rushed battle, and his injury was not meaningful; he is injured by an unknown spearman. He isn’t trying to achieve anything at that point; he is not killed saving Athelstan or Finan, or slaying a powerful enemy in a duel. He just gets knocked down in the confusion of melee. This was incredibly unsatisfying, and a very strange choice for the director.

On a technical level, the colour palette further confused the depiction. It is filmed in a depressing grim and grey-brown style, and while medieval battlefields were undoubtedly muddy and blood-soaked, Seven Kings falls into the greyscale trap which is ubiquitous in medieval drama. This makes differentiating between factions very difficult. Shields, armour and banners are all visually similar, and in the close press of men that the film depicts, there is very little sense of who is who. This builds on the problem I identified earlier, where the Nordic factions have nothing to distinguish them from one another.

Warriors at Brunaburh, image property of Netflix

History Corner

To bring this review to a close, I will say a word about the historical events depicted on screen, as people often ask how faithful to history The Last Kingdom is. The earlier seasons were much closer to historical truth, but as the series progressed, it played increasingly fast and loose with history. It would be broadly accurate to say that the first season is close to an interpreted documentary, the third season is historical fiction, and Seven Kings is mostly invention. I will give a brief precis of the history, to allow for a comparison.

Athelstan took the throne after the death of his father Edward of Wessex. He was proclaimed king in Mercia, while his younger half-brother Elfweard was proclaimed King in Wessex. This arrangement ended abruptly only three weeks after it was set in place, and Athelstan was proclaimed king of Wessex, Mercia and East Anglia. The midlands of England had been recently reconquered by his father Edward, and his aunt Athelflaed, the Lady of Mercia.

Athelstan inherited a nation that was growing in influence, learning and wealth, and only Northumbria, the kingdom in the north of England centred around York, remained outside his influence. During his reign he secured the submission of the king of York and its Anglo-Scandinavian population. His remained unmarried, which historians think may have been an arrangement with his Witan (the ruling council of an Anglo-Saxon king). This would ensure that he would not produce any heirs to confuse the succession, allowing the crown to pass smoothly to his half-brothers and their heirs. This was what historically transpired. Accordingly, the young Athelstan created a kind of bachelor court, which became famous throughout Europe for its learning and culture, and several of the leading theologians and scholars of the day came to England.

However, powerful kingdoms always attracted rivals in the Early Medieval era. Athelstan had carried out a punitive expedition into Scotland and secured the submission of its king. Constantin married his daughter to Anlaf, the Viking King of Dublin who had a claim to the throne of Northumbria, and together they assembled a vast coalition of northern kings and earls to attack Athelstan’s kingdom. The Viking kingdoms had suffered thirty years of defeat and retreat at the hands of Wessex, and must have keen for revenge. Their coalition was vast, and this enormous force landed on English soil. Athelstan mustered the combined armies of England, and met them there for battle, at a place called Brunaburh, in the year 937AD, ten years into his reign. Historians and archaeologists have been unable to pinpoint the precise site of the battle, but the Wirral seems the most likely, as it sits between two important river estuaries, and would a natural landing point for the Irish part of the enemy host. These estuaries had also been entry points into Northern England for Viking armies before.

To combat this threat, Athelstan could call on huge reserves of manpower, more than any of his famous ancestors. His grandfather Alfred had mustered the fyrds of Wessex and Kent, his father Edward likewise, and his aunt Athelflaed could call upon the armies of Mercia, but Athelstan could muster the combined armies of Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia and those Northumbrians loyal to the crown. Moreover, these were not the green farm-boys with ill-fitting helmets and farm tools we so often see depicted on screen. Their fathers had fought with Alfred at Ethandun and re-taken London, and these soldiers were veterans of three decades of successful English campaigns against the Vikings. They would have been well-equipped, well-trained, battle-hardened and tactically flexible. They knew how to fight, and they knew how to win. Moreover, it is my supposition that they would have had an equivalent mindset to Wellington’s veterans in the invasion of France, or Nelson’s captains at Trafalgar; they were used to winning. Moreover, Athelstan seems to have been an inspiring leader. He was s true heir of Alfred; devout, bold, intelligent and single-minded. He knew what he wanted, and perhaps more importantly, he knew how to achieve it.

And he did achieve it. The sources record Brunaburh as a colossally vicious conflict. It is called the Great War, and although the size of the competing armies is unknown, the scale of the losses and estimates of the manpower available to each side make it probable that they numbered in the tens of thousands. Athelstan’s own brother was killed, a grievous loss to him, but in return the heirs of five kings on the Viking side were killed, along with seven of Anlaf’s earls. These losses are recorded in an epic poem, which paints a gory picture of a battlefield carpeted with thousands of dead by nightfall. It was a disastrous defeat, and marked the destruction of the enemy coalition. It cemented Athelstan as the epitome of the warrior-king, and made him a leading light on the stage of European politics. By the end of his reign, just as his grandfather had been ‘the Great,’ so he was named ‘the Glorious.’

My Solution

Having given my criticisms of the film, I spent some time trying to work out a better format. I would offer the following as an alternative, that I believe would result in a simpler, deeper story and a much more fitting conclusion to Uhtred’s saga.

It would been beneficial for the writers to have made the battle and the immediate preparations of both sides the focus of the plot. A prologue or voiceover could be used to establish the introduction to the situation, and the focus concentrated on a handful of protagonists and antagonists.

This micro-focus on the events of a few days suits a film, and using considerably fewer locations and characters would free up the budget to make Brunaburh a truly spectacular showpiece. As an end to Uhtred’s journey, he would not die peacefully in Bebbanburg, but in saving Athelstan’s life, a fitting end for the warrior who was instrumental in realising Alfred’s vision of England. This format would allow Finan and Sihtric to showcase their wit and skills as Uhtred’s trusted lieutenants, and if Aldhelm was to die, then giving him death in battle, perhaps fatally wounded while rallying Mercian soldiers, would be a fitting end for Athelflaed’s most loyal soldier, not the rushed and cruel end he receives.

This would not have allowed the exploration of so many character moments, but I think it would be a marked improvement. The drama is generated naturally by the antagonists, Constatin of Scotland and Anlaf of Dublin, and the director missed an opportunity to make the Wolf Warriors into a memorable threat. The Athelstan/Ingilmundr plotline would be much more organic by making Ingilmundr a prestigious Ealdorman working against Uhtred, presenting the enemy within, contrasting with the external threat of Anlaf and his Wolf Warriors.

The film was not a disaster by any means, and had some fine points, but overall, Seven Kings Must Die represents a waste of potential; it is a haphazard story that staggers into a slightly underwhelming finale.