7 Major Characters In The Last Kingdom Who Aren't Even Real

Our hero, the Saxon born but Danish raised Uhtred is a fictional creation. While there was an ealdorman of Bebbanburg (modern day Bamburgh Castle) called Uhtred the Bold, he lived more than a hundred years later than the events of Alfred's reign of Wessex. This real Uhtred the Bold can count a few famous descendants, namely Oliver Cromwell and Bernard Cornwell, the author whose books brought us this TV show in the first place.

Several events from Uhtred the Bold's life were fictionalised and applied to our fictional hero, specifically the siege of Bebbanburg by the Scots. Throughout the course of this series, we see a young boy called Osbert be raised in Northumbria, then lose his older brother and be re-christened as Uhtred. He then follows his father (also called Uhtred, also fictional) into battle against Ragnar the Fearless.

The boy sees his father killed in battle, then he is taken by Ragnar as a house slave, since the Dane is impressed with the boy's spirit. Ragnar eventually adopts Uhtred as his own son. After he is grown and raised in the ways of a Danish warrior, Uhtred witnesses his adoptive father murdered in flames. He has to cast himself out from everything he has known and finds his options limited.

He would journey south and find Wessex, where he would become the favoured warrior of King Alfred the Great. From there, his destiny would be etched across England itself. For as he reminds us frequently, Destiny Is All.