Showing results for "bernard cornwell" in Small Town & Rural

The year is 1342. The English, led by Edward III, are laying waste to the French countryside. The army may be led by the King, but it is the archers, the common men, who are England's secret weapon. The French know them as Harlequins. Thomas of Hookton is one of these archers. But he is also on a personal mission: To avenge his father's death and retrieve a stolen relic.

An extraordinary and dramatic depiction of the legendary battle of Agincourt from the number one historical novelist Agincourt, fought on October 25th 1415, St Crispin's Day, is one of England’s 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 weapon developed by the English which enabled them to dominate the European battlefields....

When his village is sacked by French raiders, Thomas escapes from his father’s ambition to become a wild youth who delights in the opportunities which war offers - for fighting, for revenge and for friendship. But Thomas is hounded by his conscience. He has made a promise to God to retrieve a relic stolen in the raid from Hookton’s church. The search for the relic leads him into a world where lovers become enemies; enemies become friends; and always, somewhere beyond the horizon, a terrible enemy awaits him.