Conscience of the King
A fictional memoir of Cerdic, founder of Wessex, in post-Roman Britain.
Conscience of the King (1951) is a historical novel by British author Alfred Duggan, presented as the fictional memoir of Cerdic Elesing, the founder of the Kingdom of Wessex. The narrative begins forty years after the events of Duggan's earlier novel The Little Emperors, which covered the final years of Roman Britain. Duggan later returned to Cerdic's lineage with The King of Athelney (1962), about his descendant Alfred the Great.
Quick Facts
- Author
- Alfred Duggan
- Published
- 1951
- Genre
- Historical fiction
Facts from the source article.
Plot
The novel follows Cerdic from his birth in 451 CE to just before his death in 534 CE. Britain is a patchwork of small kingdoms fighting each other and invaders like Danes, Irish, Picts, Jutes, Angles, and Saxons. Cerdic, also known by his Roman name Coroticus, is the youngest son of Eleutherus, king of the Regni—a region covering modern East and West Sussex. Raised Roman, his paternal grandfather was kin to a Germanic ruler given land in southern Britain around 370 CE for military service, so Cerdic fits into both worlds. The book is framed as his personal memoir, left in a ruined church so no one reads it for centuries, allowing total honesty. He loves only his son Cynric and kills anyone who blocks his path, including family. His brother and wife share this ruthlessness, but he respects honour and loyalty in figures like Ambrosius Aurelianus, making him complex. The first part shows Cerdic as a loyal but frustrated Romano-British noble. In his mid-20s, he murders his eldest brother Constans over loot and flees. Posing as a Saxon, he reaches Frisia in the modern Netherlands, becomes chief advisor to Saxon leader Aella, marries, and has Cynric. He convinces Aella to invade his father’s kingdom. After years, they storm the capital Anderida, slaughtering everyone, including his father and second brother Paul. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle dates this to 491 CE.
Relation to other works
Cerdic's desire for independence recurs throughout Duggan's work, as does the theme of one society replacing another—here Roman Britain, elsewhere the Roman Republic becoming an Empire, or the Byzantine Empire giving way to Crusaders. The novel contains clues suggesting reversion rather than mere decay: 'Regni' was the name of the pre-Roman British tribe in the same area, and 'Coroticus' is often interpreted as a variation of Caratacus, the British chief who opposed the Roman invasion of 43 CE. The Little Emperors ends with its Roman protagonist concluding most Britons had a better life without 'Roman civilisation,' a view supported by a 2014 study showing average lifespan increased in post-Roman Britain due to better diet. In Conscience of the King, Cerdic regrets the dirt and squalor of Saxon life but feels the freedom he gained more than compensates.
Historical background
The historical basis for Cerdic comes from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Historia Brittonum, and Geoffrey of Monmouth, each written long after his time and with clear editorial bias. The sheer number of mentions across these sources points to Cerdic being a real and significant figure, though almost nothing concrete is known about him. The same uncertainty applies to other characters in the book, such as Aella, Vortigern, Vortimer, Hengist, and Ambrosius. The old understanding of post-Roman Britain relied heavily on these few written records. The novel offers a much more layered view of the period, a perspective that later archaeology and fresh analysis of evidence have validated. This is impressive considering Duggan wrote in the late 1940s. A strong example is the handling of Arthur, or Artorios. He is a minor figure who never appears on stage, presented here from the Saxon viewpoint as a former Byzantine soldier leading a band of mercenary cataphractarii, or heavy cavalry, for the remaining Roman-British kingdoms. These troops have an outsized impact, but only as long as they have horses strong enough to carry an armoured rider; once those horses die out, the tactical edge vanishes. This interpretation later formed the basis for the 2004 film King Arthur, which promoted itself as grounded in the latest historical research.
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