Rosemary Sutcliff

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A British writer of Historical Fiction for children who published some fifty books between 1950 and 1997. Best known for her works set in Roman Britain, most famously The Eagle of the Ninth.

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Recurring themes and tropes typical of Rosemary Sutcliff's work include:

• Author Catchphrase
• Big Friendly Dog: Ubiquitous.
• Bittersweet Ending: Victory is fleeting, but Heroic Sacrifice is forever. They'll Earn Their Happy Ending at the least; at worst The Hero Dies.
• Bury Your Disabled: Constantly averted. Warrior Scarlet, A Circlet of Oak Leaves, Dawn Wind, The Shining Company, Sword Song, The Witch's Brat, The Queen Elizabeth Story, Lady in Waiting, The Eagle of the Ninth, The Capricorn Bracelet, Blood Feud, Simon, and Bonnie Dundee feature protagonists or prominent characters with physical disabilities.
  • This is Reality Subtext - Rosemary Sutcliff developed arthritis when she was very young and used a wheelchair for most of her life.
• Culture Clash: Individuals connecting across cultural barriers is Sutcliff's bread and butter.
• End of an Age: The decline and fall of the Roman Empire in Britain, with the Dark Ages in the role of After the End.
• Failure Is the Only Option: For the Celts against the Romans; the Britons against the Saxons; and the Saxons against the Normans. Versus history, basically.
• Heroes Love Dogs
• Heroic Sacrifice
  • Human Sacrifice: A common thematic and plot point in pagan settings (e.g. Warrior Scarlet, The Changeling, The Flowers of Adonis, The Mark of the Horse Lord, Dawn Wind), often as a form of Heroic Sacrifice (The Chief's Daughter) frequently associated with kingship ( Sun Horse, Moon Horse; The Mark of the Horse Lord; Frontier Wolf; Knight's Fee).
• Heterosexual Life Partners: If it's not the central relationship of the book, the protagonist probably has one in the background. The Eagle of the Ninth, Blood Feud, and Knight's Fee contain notable examples. Inevitably leads to:
  • Ho Yay: Deliberate in Sword At Sunset; presumably conscious in The Mark of the Horse Lord and other YA novels.
• Historical Domain Characters: Usually limited to cameos, but Lady in Waiting (Sir Walter Ralegh); The Rider of the White Horse (Sir Thomas Fairfax); Sword At Sunset (Artos); The Flowers of Adonis (Alcibiades); Song for a Dark Queen (Boudicca); Bonnie Dundee (John Graham of Claverhouse); and Blood and Sand (Thomas Keith) are based on the lives of real (or allegedly real) people
• History Marches On: Not all of her research has held up against later discoveries and interpretations - most notoriously, the Ninth Legion might or might not have been lost.
• Made a Slave: Happens with some regularity to her protagonists or their sidekicks, including in The Eagle of the Ninth, Outcast, The Mark of the Horse Lord, Blood Feud, The Shining Company, The Flowers of Adonis, Sun Horse, Moon Horse, The Lantern Bearers, and Dawn Wind.
• The Queen's Latin: Despite the lack of accents in text, Roman characters clearly speak British English... in contrast to British characters.
• Supporting Protagonists: Heterosexual Life Partnerships are often seen from the perspective of the less dynamic (and/or socially inferior) of the pair. Historical Domain Characters are almost invariably presented through a Supporting Protagonist.
• The Verse: Despite a dearth of direct sequels, Word of God has it that "it is all part of the same series, really", as borne out by consistent world-building and a few recurring details.
  • The Flavius family's signet ring, a dolphin on a flawed emerald, is passed down through The Eagle of the Ninth, The Silver Branch, Frontier Wolf, The Lantern Bearers, Sword At Sunset, Dawn Wind, Sword Song, and The Shield Ring.
  • A song called "The Girl I Kissed At Clusium" is referenced in The Eagle of the Ninth, A Circlet of Oak Leaves, and Eagle's Egg.
  • Randall in Knight's Fee handles an ax implied to have belonged to Drem, the Bronze Age protagonist of Warrior Scarlet.

List of Works

Historical fiction

In chronological order of setting (approximate):

• Shifting Sands: Orkney, 2000-1000 BCE. A twelve-year-old girl is promised to the tyrannical chief of her prehistoric village, who proposes to sacrifice the boy she prefers to the gods who protect the great sand dune on which the village sits.
• Warrior Scarlet: Britain, 900 BCE. Drem must pass a warrior initiation ceremony with an atrophied right arm, or be cast out of his tribe to live among the people they conquered.
• The Flowers of Adonis: Greece, 415-404 BCE. The rise and fall (and rise and fall and rise and fall) of Alkibiades, the notorious Athenian politician - and of Athens - through the eyes of his companions as he sets out on the Sicilian Expedition, reignites the Peloponnesian War, seduces the queen of Sparta, escapes to the Persians, is welcomed back with open arms by the Athenians, and then loses it all again.
  • Historical Domain Character: Alkibiades; Antiochus; Timandra (loosely); Timea; Agis; Endius; Pharnobazus; Socrates; many others.
  • Supporting Protagonist: At least eleven, including one from beyond the grave: the Citizen, the Soldier, the Seaman, the Dead, the Priest, the Queen, the King, the Spartan, the Rower, the Whore, the Satrap.
  • Protagonist-Centered Morality: Sympathetic character = forgives Alkibiades anything.
• The Truce of the Games / A Crown of Wild Olive: Greece, 414 BCE. Amyntas, a young Athenian runner, befriends his Spartan competitor during an Olympiad in the middle of the Peloponnesian War.
• The Changeling: Prehistoric Argyll. Tethra, a changeling child adopted by the chief of the Epidi, is driven out to rejoin the Little Dark People. When his father is mortally wounded, he must choose between his two tribes.
  • Moses in the Bulrushes: Complete with Orphan's Plot Trinket, in order to escape Human Sacrifice. He is Happily Adopted by a Mama Bear and Papa Wolf.
  • Of the People: Other Epidi contest that Tethra is not. In the end, he decides he is not Of The Little Dark People.
  • Upbringing Makes the Hero: Tethra chooses the culture that raised him over his blood relations.
• The Chief's Daughter: Bronze Age Wales. Nessan frees a prisoner intended for Human Sacrifice and volunteers to take his place.
  • The Chief's Daughter: Averted; the protagonist is the chief's daughter. And she's ten.
• Sun Horse, Moon Horse: 100 BCE. Lubrin Dhu, the Iceni chief's Black Sheep artist son, finds himself the spokesman of his clan when they are conquered by the Atribates. He ransoms his Slave Race with the design and construction of a great boundary marker and his own Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Historical Domain Character: The Iceni's building project is the famous prehistoric chalk drawing the White Horse of Uffington.
  • Solar and Lunar: The Iceni worship a moon goddess and the Atribates a sun god; the White Horse secretly symbolises both.
  • Matriarchy: The patriarchal Atribates assume Lubrin is the chief of the matrilineal Iceni; the rightful leaders are his sister Teleri and her husband Dara.
  • Heterosexual Life Partners: Lubrin and Dara.
  • Human Sacrifice: The White Horse must be dedicated with a death, and a chieftain must die for the good of his people.
• Song For a Dark Queen: 20s-61 CE. Boudicca, young queen of the Iceni, eventually makes her peace with her bitterly-resented requirement of a male chieftain and a political marriage to Prasutagus, prince of the Parisi. But when the Roman authorities threaten to confiscate her entire kingdom, she leads the British tribes in a bloody uprising.
  • Historical Domain Character: Boudicca, Prasutagus, their daughters; Caratacus; Agricola and other Roman officials and officers
  • Anti-Hero
  • Supporting Protagonist: The Ishmael is a bard with an avuncular relationship to Boudicca.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: In return for Roman insults, Boudicca reduced Camulodunum, Verulamium and Londinium to smoking ruins before Suetonius delivered a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
• The Capricorn Bracelet: Six short stories of a Romano-British family, linked by an heirloom military decoration, from the Boudiccan Rebellion to the end of the Roman occupation.
• Eagle's Egg: 80-83 CE. Quintus, a standard-bearer, can't marry Cordaella without a promotion to Centurion, but it will take Agricola's three-year Caledonian campaign, a mutiny, and the battle of Mons Graupius to get it.
  • Historical Domain Character: Agricola and Calgacus.
• The Bridge Builders
• The Eagle of the Ninth: circa 129-131 CE. Marcus and Esca search Caledonia for the eagle standard of the lost Ninth Legion.
• Outcast: 150s CE. Beric, a Roman Foundling, is cast out of his adoptive British tribe and enslaved in Rome.
  • History Marches On: The Rhee Wall is no longer believed to be of Roman date.
  • Galley Slave: With the protagonist in the Scary Black Man role, relatively speaking.
• The Mark of the Horse Lord: 180s CE. Phaedrus, a freed gladiator, plays the role of lost heir to the patriarchal Dalriads in their war of succession against the matriarchal Caledones.
  • Becoming the Mask: The "mark" of the title: Heroic Sacrifice.
  • God Save Us From the Queen: Phaedrus's rival Liathan is a Black Widow My Beloved Smother infanticidal leader of a Scary Amoral Religion.
  • Going Native: Phaedrus, a half-Greek born slave, takes to British tribal kingship Like a Fish Takes to Water.
  • Even the Guys Want Him: Conory, the Agent Peacock of the Dalriadain.
• A Circlet of Oak Leaves: 2nd or 3rd century CE. Aracos, a medical orderly, turns a battle against British tribesmen while disguised as a standard bearer.
• The Silver Branch: 290s CE. Justin and Flavian stumble upon a conspiracy to assassinate the emperor Carausius and join La Résistance against the Saxon-allied usurper of Britain.
  • Just Before the End: Saxon invasions and the breakup of of the Roman empire are first evoked here.
• Frontier Wolf: 340s CE. Alexios, a disgraced centurion, is Reassigned to Antarctica to command the irregular Frontier Scouts in a precarious border outpost.
  • Going Native: With the Frontier Wolves, not with the local Votadini. Invoked in the ritual touching of the marker stone.
  • Chased by Angry Natives: Across lowland Scotland in the final act.
• The Lantern Bearers: 5th century CE. Aquila deserts from the departing legions and devotes his life to holding off the Saxons from Roman Britain.
  • End of an Age: Opens with the final departure of Roman forces from Britain.
• Sword At Sunset: 5th century CE. Artos unites post-Roman Britain against the Saxons.
  • After the End
  • Demythtification
• Dawn Wind: 6th century CE. Owain, a Briton, becomes a Saxon thrall and is drawn into the affairs of a Saxon family.
  • End of an Age: Opens on the defeat of Kyndylan and British resistance to the Saxon conquest.
  • After the End: Britons turn on each other; Owain and Regina forage to survive in the abandoned city of Viroconium.
  • Dawn of an Era: The alliance of Saxons and Britons and the arrival of St. Augustine "the Dawn Wind" of Canterbury.
• The Shining Company: 600 CE. Prosper, a Welsh shieldbearer, recounts the mustering and destruction of the Gododdin host against the Saxons of Catraeth.
  • After the End: Artos's unification of Britain is contrasted to Prosper's decentralized era.
• Sword Song: 8th century CE. Bjarni Sigurdson, a Norwegian Viking, is exiled from his British settlement for killing the man who kicked his dog and sells his sword as a mercenary, embroiling himself in the feuds of Viking earls from Dublin to the Orkneys.
  • Historical Domain Character: Aude the Deep-Minded, Thorstein the Red, others
• Blood Feud: 985-990 CE. Jestyn, an English Christian, joins his Viking blood brother on a pagan feud that takes them to the Byzantine Empire.
  • Historical Domain Character: Khan Vladimir of Kiev, Basil II
• The Shield Ring: 1090s-1100s CE. Frytha and Bjorn defend the last hidden Norse stronghold against the Normans.
  • Just Before the End: Of Norse independence in the face of the Norman conquest.
• Knight's Fee: 1090s-1106 CE. Randall, a half-Saxon dog-boy, is raised as a squire by the Norman lords of a feudal manor.
  • Dawn of an Era: Of a shared English nationality united against further invasions.
• The Witch's Brat: 12th century CE. Lovel, an orphan with a crooked back and foot, becomes an infirmarian monk and helps found St. Bartholomew's hospital.
  • Historical Domain Character: Rahere
• Brother Dusty-Feet: 16th century CE. A runaway headed for Oxford joins a troupe of travelling entertainers.
• The Armourer's House: 1634 CE. Tamsyn Caunter, who desperately wishes she could be a merchant venturer, must instead go to live with her uncle in London. She settles into the colourful life of the household and city while sharing the secret of their mutual seafaring ambition with her quiet cousin Piers.
  • Slice of Life
  • Description Porn
  • Historical Domain Character: Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn make a cameo appearance.
  • Show Within a Show: Most of one chapter is an in-story telling of Tam Lin.
• The Queen Elizabeth Story: 16th century CE. Perdita Pettle, who can see "Pharisees", is granted her wish to see the Queen's Grace in a year and a day. The year passes through the adventures of Elizabethan country childhood.
  • Historical Domain Character: Elizabeth I.
  • Slice of Life
  • Description Porn
  • Show Within a Show: Two chapters are given over to in-story recountings of "Sir Gawain and the Loathly Lady" and "The Children of Lir".
• Lady In Waiting: 1566-1618 CE.
  • Historical Domain Character: Elizabeth Throckmorton, Sir Walter Ralegh, their family; Elizabeth I; Sir Robert Cecil; Henry Stuart; many others
• Simon: October 1640 - April 1650. Simon Carey and his Heterosexual Life Partner Amias Hannaford join the English Civil War - as cornet of Parliamentary Horse and ensign of Royalist Foot. Simon's estrangement from Amias, and his corporal Zeal-for-the-Lord Relf's desertion in a vendetta against a treacherous friend, are finally tested in the battle of Torrington.
  • Historical Domain Character: Sir Thomas Fairfax, Col. Ireton, Maj. Disbrow, Sir Philip "Daddy" Skippon, Oliver Cromwell, Dr. David Morrison, Chaplain Joshua Sprigg, and other Parliamentarian officers and pastors; Royalist commanders
  • Heterosexual Life Partner: Simon and Amias are twice likened to David and Jonathan and are symbolised by a brace of sabres.
  • Contrived Coincidence: Much of the plot depends on improbable reunions and Infallible Babble, though admittedly it all takes place in Devon.
• The Rider of the White Horse: 17th century CE.
  • Historical Domain Character: Anne Fairfax, Sir Thomas Fairfax
• Bonnie Dundee: 1680s Scotland. Hugh Herriot becomes galloper to Claverhouse, leader of government forces against the Scottish Covenanters. When William of Orange takes the English throne, Claverhouse's men become rebels in turn.
  • Historical Domain Character: John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee; other lords and officers.
• Flame-Coloured Taffeta: 18th century. Damaris and Peter shelter a wounded Jacobite smuggler.
  • Hero of Another Story: The events of the novel are an episode in passing among Tom Wildgoose's adventures.
• Blood and Sand: 19th century (Napoleonic Wars) Ottoman empire.
  • Historical Domain Character: Thomas Keith, Tussun Bey

Myths and legends:

• Black Ships Before Troy: The Trojan War.
• The Wanderings of Odysseus: The Odyssey.
• The Hound of Ulster: the exploits of Cuchulainn.
• The High Deeds of Finn Mac Cool
• Beowulf: Dragonslayer
• Tristan and Iseult
• The Sword and the Circle: King Arthur
• The Light Beyond the Forest: King Arthur
• The Road to Camlann: King Arthur
• The Chronicles of Robin Hood

Picture books

• A Saxon Settler
• The Roundabout Horse
• A Little Dog Like You
• Little Hound Found
• The Minstrel and the Dragon Pup
• Chess-dream in a Garden

Non-fiction

• Blue Remembered Hills: Autobiography of her life up to the beginning of her writing career.
• Rudyard Kipling: A monograph on Kipling's works for children.
• Heroes and History