Fellsman
12-16-2011, 06:22 AM
Agincourt
Being King can be a bugger of a job, what with all these accursed battles and so forth - especially against those damned Frenchies.
I remember the date quite well, it was St Crispin's Day in 1415. I had got seriously brassed off with that Charles VI - he was the French King at the time, and a right royal pain, I can tell you.
To be honest, those snooty Frenchies had been a pain in the derriere for years, and the truth is yon Charlie just pushed me too far, he wanted Normandy, Flanders and Brittany - I mean, give me a break, if he'd wanted, say, Bradford, Basingstoke and Brighton, he could have those spots gift wrapped!
To cut to the chase, me and the Duke of York both thought it was time to sort things out once and for all. "Let's get over yonder Yorky", I said to him - This needs sorting now. "How many men shall we take Sire?" Asked the Duke. "About a dozen" I said. "But Sire, there's about 15,000 of them Frenchies across yonder" said Yorky. OK" I said to him - "better make that two dozen then, just to be on the safe side".
Well, I'll tell you what happened next: It would be about mid-October time, so me, the Duke, Tommy Erpingham and one or two more o' the lads that are handy with a longbow - well, we usually get down to the 'Dog and Duck' on a Saturday night for a few bevvies, the upshot was this particular night, we decided to get ourselves across to Northern France pronto, 'cos we wanted to be home in time for Christmas.
Hey, it was chaos, there were no cross channel ferries in those days - so we hitched a ride across on a couple of Royal Navy boats. We hadn't booked up for the trip, but being King, I pulled rank - being King can be handy at times.
I nearly forgot to mention - Charlie boy, yer know, Charles VI wasn't the full ticket, I think a dose of pox had addled his brains - well, he would never heed warnings about STD's and unprotected sex, so he only had himself to blame!
Well, we had a few skirmishes on the way to Agincourt. But by we got there, one or two of our lads were a bit battle weary, so, I thought I better make an inspirational speech to keep their peckers up before getting to grips with the bloody Frenchies.
Mind hey, even if I say so myself, my speech was an absolute corker - 'We few, we happy few, we band of Brothers' and 'Gentlemen of England now abed' and all that flannel, but hey! It went down a treat - and we went on to knock seven bells out of them Frenchies, we had them running in all directions - bloody French never were any good when it came to fighting.
I wouldn't be surprised if some day, some well known writer pens a play about it, 'cos I can tell you, me and the lads spent many a night down at the 'Dog and Duck' when we got back home reminiscing about it. Oh! My, you should have been there, you really should.
That's it for now. Good wishes to all my loyal subjects.
Henry V
Being King can be a bugger of a job, what with all these accursed battles and so forth - especially against those damned Frenchies.
I remember the date quite well, it was St Crispin's Day in 1415. I had got seriously brassed off with that Charles VI - he was the French King at the time, and a right royal pain, I can tell you.
To be honest, those snooty Frenchies had been a pain in the derriere for years, and the truth is yon Charlie just pushed me too far, he wanted Normandy, Flanders and Brittany - I mean, give me a break, if he'd wanted, say, Bradford, Basingstoke and Brighton, he could have those spots gift wrapped!
To cut to the chase, me and the Duke of York both thought it was time to sort things out once and for all. "Let's get over yonder Yorky", I said to him - This needs sorting now. "How many men shall we take Sire?" Asked the Duke. "About a dozen" I said. "But Sire, there's about 15,000 of them Frenchies across yonder" said Yorky. OK" I said to him - "better make that two dozen then, just to be on the safe side".
Well, I'll tell you what happened next: It would be about mid-October time, so me, the Duke, Tommy Erpingham and one or two more o' the lads that are handy with a longbow - well, we usually get down to the 'Dog and Duck' on a Saturday night for a few bevvies, the upshot was this particular night, we decided to get ourselves across to Northern France pronto, 'cos we wanted to be home in time for Christmas.
Hey, it was chaos, there were no cross channel ferries in those days - so we hitched a ride across on a couple of Royal Navy boats. We hadn't booked up for the trip, but being King, I pulled rank - being King can be handy at times.
I nearly forgot to mention - Charlie boy, yer know, Charles VI wasn't the full ticket, I think a dose of pox had addled his brains - well, he would never heed warnings about STD's and unprotected sex, so he only had himself to blame!
Well, we had a few skirmishes on the way to Agincourt. But by we got there, one or two of our lads were a bit battle weary, so, I thought I better make an inspirational speech to keep their peckers up before getting to grips with the bloody Frenchies.
Mind hey, even if I say so myself, my speech was an absolute corker - 'We few, we happy few, we band of Brothers' and 'Gentlemen of England now abed' and all that flannel, but hey! It went down a treat - and we went on to knock seven bells out of them Frenchies, we had them running in all directions - bloody French never were any good when it came to fighting.
I wouldn't be surprised if some day, some well known writer pens a play about it, 'cos I can tell you, me and the lads spent many a night down at the 'Dog and Duck' when we got back home reminiscing about it. Oh! My, you should have been there, you really should.
That's it for now. Good wishes to all my loyal subjects.
Henry V