History matters because it gives us more than roots; it gives us perspective. It shows us the choices that shaped us, and the choices still open to us. There is a trend these days to reshape history to suit a modern narrative, but such versions rarely hold up under scrutiny. The past deserves honesty, not convenience, and with this in mind I chose to portray Queen Cartimandua of Brigantia in full light. She had a dark side. The Iron Age was a time when heads were offered to the gods without a second thought; life was not valued in the way we hope it is today. To understand her world, we must accept its brutality as well as its brilliance.
If Cartimandua had been anything gentler, she'd have eaten candyfloss and rescued every soul she crossed paths with, but the Iron Age forged harder women than that. The Brigantes were just that, a tribe of brigands in spirit, fierce, unruly, and loyal only to their own. They were not a people shaped for gentleness, and neither was their queen.
One reader told me that Cartimandua's ambiguity made it hard for him to know whether he could invest in her. That uncertainty mirrors the way history has treated her, always questioning, rarely granting her the same latitude given to her male counterparts. Yet in a world where strength was the only true currency, Cartimandua navigated her path with a fierce, deliberate clarity.
If I had written the sweeter side of Cartimandua, then I believe her fighting edge would have been diminished in this dog-eat-dog Iron Age. She was ruthless, arrogant and known to be promiscuous. She was wise, canny and a peacemaker. These are the two sides of the Queen of Brigantia. She is an enigma. Sanitising Cartimandua would have distorted both her world and her power.
Softening history has the same effect on us all. Terrible atrocities were committed in the world where Cartimandua lived. Can we learn from the truth of the past? Certainly, but closing our eyes to the facts will never help us see a different future.
The Iron Age wasn't just brutal; it was also pragmatic. When survival was at stake, old rivalries dissolved and tribes acted with a kind of instinctive unity. The autonomous tribes, when faced with a greater danger, set aside their differences and joined together against a common enemy. Can we learn from this approach? Unity is stronger than individuality. Iron Age tribal communities lived by patterns that served the whole, each person playing a part in the survival of their people. Their belief systems reinforced this pattern, each individual recognising the living bond between themselves and the land they walked upon.
When Cartimandua allowed the Romans to have influence over her people, a door was opened that could never fully be closed. The spiritual pattern that had bound her tribe for generations began to shift beneath her feet. It could be said that when moral and ethical identity slips, the pattern of life itself starts to unravel. Such was the demise of Brigantia.
How can historical knowledge guide us now and in the future? In the same way Brigantia's world was upended by Roman otherness, knowledge opens a door that cannot be closed. Once the door is opened, once the eyes see into another space, the mind cannot return to blindness.
Delving into the Iron Age and the Roman conquest of Britain, I realised how much of that world had been beyond my sight. But once my mind grasped the brutality, cruelty, and desperation of the era, I sensed the reflection of our own vulnerabilities. There, as if looking through an open door, was a quiet reminder that no society is as secure as it believes.
The Romans preserved their version of events, but the voices of the indigenous peoples drift through history like fragments of smoke. What did they feel as the Roman armies killed, raped, and enslaved their families and communities? How did they imagine their future when everything they knew was being torn apart?
Can we dare to imagine the human cost behind the Roman accounts, which speak only of victories and never of the lives shattered to achieve them? Scholars often stand with the Roman version of events, but fiction can illuminate the emotions and stories of those history left in shadow. With The Cartimandua Trilogy, I hope to cast some of that light into the historical Iron Age darkness, allowing us to learn from the past, and with hope, guide us toward a more thoughtful future.
History belongs to all of us. Let us take the facts, warts and all, and use that knowledge to make a better future.