The longbow was an amazing weapon, taking about ten years (and a tremendous amount of strength) to master. The French are the superior force, and have many knights, but the battleground (and conditions) favors the archers, and the English (shockingly) defeat the French soundly. After the victory, they make to escape back to England, but are stopped by the French at Azincourt. The English captured the city, albeit after a month-long siege, and after many fall victim to a dysentery outbreak. It begins a few years before the battle, and follows Hook (and the English army) as they make their way across the channel into France, also covering the battle of Harfleur (which immediately preceded Azincourt). The story is told from the perspective of Nicholas Hook, a fictional archer in Henry V's army. Led by Henry V, the English made extensive use of the longbow, and Cornwell covers not only the battle, but also this interesting technology in-depth.

Fought in 1415 (during the Hundred Years War), Azincourt was a major victory for the numerically inferior English over the French. I'm currently slogging through a few long (but good) historical works, and in this 'lull,' thought I'd post some reviews from books I've read in the recent past.Īzincourt is a work of historical fiction, covering the battle of the same name (it's also been called Agincourt). Since this blog is only six months old, it means there are lots of books I've read on my list that haven't been reviewed here. Actually, I've been cheating a bit, and counting any British book I've read in the last 3-4 years, before I officially started my quest. Lively historical characters abound on all sides but in Bernard Cornwell's hands the fictional characters, horsemen, archers, nobles, peasants are authentic and vivid, and the hour by hour view of the battle is dramatic and gripping.As previously posted, I've been working through my British reading list for over a year now.

This was a weapon developed in this form only by the English - parishes were forced to train boys from as young as eight daily - and enabled them to dominate the European battlefields for the rest of the century. He has long wanted to write a book about a single battle, the events that lead up to it, the actual days in the battle and the aftermath from multiple viewpoints.Īgincourt, fought on October 25th 1415, on St Crispin's Day, is one of the best known battles, in part through the brilliant depiction of it in Shakespeare's Henry V, in part because it was a brilliant and unexpected English victory and in part because it was the first battle won by the use of the longbow. A unique novel, looking at one the greatest battles, a battle that was a turning point in history, from many points of view, by a master storyteller.īernard Cornwell has been thinking about this subject for years.

Azincourt novel