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jaceyBernard Cornwell: Azincourt
The battle of Agincourt told from the viewpoint of common English bowman, Nick Hook. Despite the battle being the main character, there is a story. Nick, very probably the bastard of the local landowner, Lord Slayton, is a troubled young man not above committing murder as the sworn enemy of the Perrill brothers, themselves the bastard sons of a jumped up priest, Sir Martin. Through a rolling set of circumstances he's serving as an archer at an execution of a group of Lollards – religious martyrs and is outlawed for striking a priest – the same Sir Martin – who was about to rape Sarah, a condemned prisoner.
Nick hires on as an archer in order to get out of England and ends up as the only English survivor of the sack of Soissons, from where he rescues Melisande, the bastard daughter of a French noble who has been placed in a convent to pray for her father. Believing he is guided by the voices of St Crispian and St Crispinian - the saints of Soissons, Hook avoids trouble and he and Melisande travel across the French countryside and eventually get to tell the tale of Soissons to King Henry. Hook signs on with the company of Sir John Cornewaille, tourney champion and seasoned veteran, whose rough and ready, but fair treatment of his men (and Melisande) earns him loyalty.
The story then follows Nick through what looks like Henry V's ill-fated campaign to claim the French throne via the siege of Harfleur where Henry wastes too many men (many killed by dysentery) and too much time before attempting to march to the English-held Calais with the survivors - barely half an army. Rightly wary of English bowmen who made mincemeat of them at the battle of Crecy, the French miss several opportunities to trounce the English, but finally come to a pitched battle on St Crispin's Day on a deeply muddy stretch of ploughed land at Azincourt where the English are hopelessly outnumbered 30,000 men at arms to 2,000 men at arms plus 4,000 unarmoured bowmen.
Yes Henry believes God is on his side, and Nick prays to his guiding saints, and so it is that despite the odds it's the bowmen who make a difference, at least while their arrows last. Usuing sharpened stakes to foil the charging French mounted knights they kill many of the first wave of heavily armoured Frenchmen by firing 15 arrows a minute. The fallen bodies creat obstacles for the next wave of slow moving and half-blinded (by their visors) men at arms, and the next, and the next and so the English men at arms prevail. When they run out of arrows the archers attack, barefoot and unarmoured, with poleaxes and blunt instruments, using speed and cooperation to defeat strength The facts are a matter of record, the French were thoroughly routed by the tiny force of English, but Cornwell's writing gets under the skin of the archers. You can taste the mud and the shit. Nick's personal story – his feud with the Perill brothers, his murder of the younger one, the unjust execution of his beloved brother, his marriage to Melisande, and the final confrontation with the rapacious Sir Martin – plays out against a background of well-researched living history.
The battle of Agincourt told from the viewpoint of common English bowman, Nick Hook. Despite the battle being the main character, there is a story. Nick, very probably the bastard of the local landowner, Lord Slayton, is a troubled young man not above committing murder as the sworn enemy of the Perrill brothers, themselves the bastard sons of a jumped up priest, Sir Martin. Through a rolling set of circumstances he's serving as an archer at an execution of a group of Lollards – religious martyrs and is outlawed for striking a priest – the same Sir Martin – who was about to rape Sarah, a condemned prisoner.
Nick hires on as an archer in order to get out of England and ends up as the only English survivor of the sack of Soissons, from where he rescues Melisande, the bastard daughter of a French noble who has been placed in a convent to pray for her father. Believing he is guided by the voices of St Crispian and St Crispinian - the saints of Soissons, Hook avoids trouble and he and Melisande travel across the French countryside and eventually get to tell the tale of Soissons to King Henry. Hook signs on with the company of Sir John Cornewaille, tourney champion and seasoned veteran, whose rough and ready, but fair treatment of his men (and Melisande) earns him loyalty.
The story then follows Nick through what looks like Henry V's ill-fated campaign to claim the French throne via the siege of Harfleur where Henry wastes too many men (many killed by dysentery) and too much time before attempting to march to the English-held Calais with the survivors - barely half an army. Rightly wary of English bowmen who made mincemeat of them at the battle of Crecy, the French miss several opportunities to trounce the English, but finally come to a pitched battle on St Crispin's Day on a deeply muddy stretch of ploughed land at Azincourt where the English are hopelessly outnumbered 30,000 men at arms to 2,000 men at arms plus 4,000 unarmoured bowmen.
Yes Henry believes God is on his side, and Nick prays to his guiding saints, and so it is that despite the odds it's the bowmen who make a difference, at least while their arrows last. Usuing sharpened stakes to foil the charging French mounted knights they kill many of the first wave of heavily armoured Frenchmen by firing 15 arrows a minute. The fallen bodies creat obstacles for the next wave of slow moving and half-blinded (by their visors) men at arms, and the next, and the next and so the English men at arms prevail. When they run out of arrows the archers attack, barefoot and unarmoured, with poleaxes and blunt instruments, using speed and cooperation to defeat strength The facts are a matter of record, the French were thoroughly routed by the tiny force of English, but Cornwell's writing gets under the skin of the archers. You can taste the mud and the shit. Nick's personal story – his feud with the Perill brothers, his murder of the younger one, the unjust execution of his beloved brother, his marriage to Melisande, and the final confrontation with the rapacious Sir Martin – plays out against a background of well-researched living history.
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Date: Jun. 1st, 2010 08:38 am (UTC)I think he appeals to the part of my brain that likes space opera...
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Date: Jun. 1st, 2010 12:18 pm (UTC)