Agincourt

When compared to the Saxon Tales books, this one feels a bit drier of a read. Probably because the MC, Nicholas Hook, is not as charming or sassy when compared to Uthred. Hook is an earnest individual who was born into a family feud now lasting 3 generations, and spends the entirety of the book following the orders of the gentry who grant him various graces along the way. Because he's a straight forward character who follows orders out of the need to survive, it leaves the author free to focus on sweeping Hook into the events involving King Henry V's claiming France as his rightful birth rite without too much resistance or independent thought from the MC, and dive deep into the battles of this time period. Mileage may vary on whether a reader likes this approach or not.

"Agincourt" is another lively but brutal lesson in English history, a primer in Medieval warfare and the campaigns and events that shaped what would eventually become the sprawling British Empire. As always, Cornwell spices his depiction of actual events with fictional characters - this time it's the 15th Century and the warrior king Henry V, told through the eyes of Nicholas Hook, an outlaw and archer in the King's army. The Hundred Year's War is coming to an end, chronicled here in the pious Henry's forays into France that would finally - if briefly - unite the two countries under English rule. Suffice to say, if we were taught history the way Bernard Cornwell writes it, we'd all be historians. While Cornwell is admittedly not a scholar, he borrows heavily from scholarly works documenting the period, transforming academic text into swashbuckling human drama of love, greed, corruption, revenge and battlefield horror of unfathomable butchery - "...men of burning metal, phantoms from the dreams of hell, death coming through the dark to Soissons." But mostly "Agincourt" is homage to the humble English long bowman, a tribute to the yew bow and ash shaft and the men who trained a lifetime to develop the strength to send a bodkin-tipped arrow through an enemy's plate armor. Like the Battle of Crecy earlier in the Hundred Year's War (well told in Cornwell's highly recommended "The Archer" - the first and best of the "Grail" series), the English archer proved decisive in delivering battlefield victories over much larger and better equipped French legions. Beyond the tactics and strategies and decisions good and bad, Cornwell is at his best when describing the lives and deaths and fears and bloodlust of the men where the lines of battle become "a mess of torn metal and leather and muscle and guts." Through the mayhem, the author gently educates in topics as varied as 15th century Catholicism and the Lollards to the significance of heraldry and chivalry, while finding time to weave in the inevitable love story between the well-drawn Nicholas Hook and the fair Melisande, a French maiden and part time nun he rescues from slaughter during the horrific French army's rape their own town of Soissons. In short, high drama and raucous history, an absolute must for the Cornwell fan and not a bad place to start for those who are not opposed to some well placed entertainment and carnage with their history.

This is one of Bernard Cornwell's best offerings. I will concede that I don't read his Sharpe series nor his Starbuck series (I just don't care for those periods of history), but I enjoy all his other works & this is among his best. Here is the tale of Azincourt (the word may have been anglicized to Agincourt, but the place is Azincourt), the story that Shakespeare popularized in Henry V. Cornwell sticks almost entirely to historical fact in this tale, with a few concessions made in the historical note. But this tale is a strong historical telling through the eyes of fictional characters. The maps included in this are much better than in some of Cornwell's previous offerings. Cornwell tells the tale of Nick Hook, a man with personal demons & enemies that are always near. Hook, due to a failed attempt at murder, is exiled & an archer in the English army. He uses the skill that he honed his entire life to use the English longbow with deadly accuracy. On his first journey to France, he saves a beautiful young woman during the vicious attack on Soissons & the two travel back to England. Defying punishment for returning, Nick is placed under a great Lord of England & meets the King. Traveling to France with Henry to claim what Henry believes is his rightful crown, Nick watches the historical battles & sieges that have now become legend. With the assistance of 2 saints who speak to Nick, he becomes a leader of archers & is on the front lines of the battle at Azincourt, one of the greatest military accomplishments in history. Cornwell's ability to develop characters through whom we see the story unfold is at its best here. Nick is a real person, a man with fears & hopes. His struggle amongst the muck and mire of the battlefield in Azincourt is told with overwhelming grit & gore; Cornwell pulls no punches in telling of the horrors of battle in the middle ages. For fans of Cornwell, homage is paid to archer Thomas of Hookton from Cornwell's Grail Quest Trilogy (The Archer's Tale, Vagabond & Heretic). I highly recommend that Trilogy, from the same period of time as this work, for those that enjoy this. I would also, in the spirit of this work, highly recommend Cornwell's Saxon Chronicles (The Last Kingdom, The Pale Horseman, Lords of the North & Sword Song, a series not yet complete & I eagerly await Vol. 5) & his Arthur Series. I suggest a quick read of the historical note at the end of the book BEFORE you read this as it will provide setting & circumstances which led to the battles. Cornwell notes 3 historical works about Azincourt & I plan to read each; they are 'Agincourt: A New History' by Anne Curry, 'The Face of Battle' by John Keegan & the work that Cornwell lauds, Agincourt by Juliet Barker. Enjoy!

Anyone with half an interest in English history is probably familiar with the broad story of the English victory over a vastly more numerous French army at the Battle of Agincourt, but what Bernard Cornwall's latest novel offers is an up close and detailed version of events from the perspectives of those involved. Shakespeare's well known play necessarily focuses on the English King Henry, but Cornwall's strength has lain for years in allowing a version of history from the multiple perspectives of the many people involved. Here the primary point of view is that of an English archer, and how appropriate is that? But Cornwall's strength has always been his ability to write of battles, of conflicts between men with real sense of the action, whether it's in the Sharpe novels or others. Here is no different. The violence of the times and the battle itself is presented to the reader in gut-wrenching detail. If this isn't what it was like, I'd be surprised. But Cornwall's strength has also been in creating characters with motives and heart that draws the reader in. Nick Hook is a great character, a man driven by revenge and hate, but also possessed of warmth and love for those close to him. And he can shoot an arrow over 200 yards and still find his mark. The arrogance of those with power, the fear of those without, all is captured in a truly great yarn. Read this book.

Outstanding read in the same vein as the Grail series. It follows an archer through the trials and tribulations leading up to and culminating in the Battle of Agincourt. The original Band of Brothers in all their gore and glory. Highly recommended.

Here's the situation. You're a peasant, and as we used to say back home, you're so broke you can't pay attention. You're in the middle of a medieval battlefield, filled with rough characters and sharp weapons, with nothing to cover your own precious hide but the clothes on your back. You have one superb weapon --- the English longbow --- but not much in the way of arrows. You also have a long, sharp stick, assuming you haven't burned it for firewood already. On the other side of the line of battle, there is a nobleman, a feudal lord who owns, more or less, the labor of hundreds of people just like you. He's on a horse, wearing a suit of armor that incorporates all of the best technology of the day and worth more than your entire village can produce in 10 years. You've shot your last arrow, and the guy with the armor is coming to crush your skull. A plan would seem to be in order. This is what you do, if you're lucky enough and strong enough to pull it off. You plant yourself right in front of the galloping, charging horse (nobody said this was going to be easy), stab it with your sharpened stick, and hope that the animal is hurt enough and scared enough to knock its rider clean off. While the knight is still on his back, trapped under the weight of his armor, you find the one weak spot in the armor --- his visor. And then you draw your long hunting knife and stab the no-good wretch right in the eye. Score one for the home team. That's the reality of medieval warfare. It's savage, messy, and a million miles away from something as comparatively cold and dispassionate as pushing the button that unleashes hundreds of pounds of high explosives from a Predator drone over a terrorist camp. And if you want to bring back that world in fiction, it's not enough to reproduce the strategies of battle and the blood and slaughter that follows in its wake. You have to know the ground --- the sticky French mud that bogged down a huge army, making it vulnerable to barefoot English archers. You have to know the technology --- how the English craftsmen took a piece of yew wood and shaped it into a weapon that changed history. You have to know the dynastic politics that animate the strategy, the engineering of the castles and the religious beliefs that led men into battle. In other words, it's the kind of thing that Bernard Cornwell has been doing for years --- and nobody does it better. If you're not familiar with Cornwell's work, you can start with his bestselling novels about the Viking era in England, which follow a ferocious war leader into the shield walls of Alfred the Great. Or you can check out the monumental Richard Sharpe series, which chronicles a Napoleonic War hero from the torture pits of an Indian warlord all the way to a personal confrontation with the Corsican corporal in exile on the lonely island of St. Helena. Both of these series (as well as other Cornwell novels set in the Civil War or the American Revolution) betray a comprehensive knowled