Tuesday, 12 November 2019
Monday, 11 November 2019
Ian Fleming and Ann Fleming.
'Extraordinary'
letters between Ian Fleming and wife to be sold
More than
160 letters written over 20 years shine light on James Bond author’s life
Mark Brown
Arts correspondent
Mon 11 Nov
2019 20.01 GMTLast modified on Mon 11 Nov 2019 20.30 GMT
An
extraordinary stash of letters that shine a light on the tangled relationship
between the James Bond creator, Ian Fleming, and his wife, Ann, from their
intense and secret affair to the bitter end of their marriage, are to appear at
auction.
Sotheby’s
is selling more than 160 letters between the couple, written over 20 years.
Gabriel Heaton, a specialist in books and manuscripts at the auction house,
said the letters in their scope and scale provided what “must surely be an
unmatchable record of the life of the author as his fortunes changed”.
They also
provide insight into the rise of Bond. Heaton said it was no coincidence that
Fleming wrote his first Bond novel, Casino Royale, in the year of his marriage.
It was
“both as an outlet for his libido and imagination, and also in an attempt to
make money for a woman who was used to being unthinkingly rich”.
Ann
Fleming, née Charteris, was born into the aristocracy and married wealthy men.
Her first husband was Shane O’Neill, the 3rd Baron O’Neill. After his death in
military action in 1944, she married the newspaper magnate Esmond Harmsworth,
the 2nd Viscount Rothermere.
During both
marriages she and Fleming were lovers, an intense relationship that had
sado-masochistic elements. “I long for you even if you whip me because I love
being hurt by you and kissed afterwards,” Ann once wrote to Fleming.
In 1948 Ann
became pregnant with Fleming’s child, a girl who was a month premature and
lived only eight hours. The collection includes a number of sad and gentle
letters written by Fleming on Gleneagles stationery shortly after he played
golf with Rothermere, the cuckolded husband.
In one
letter he writes: “I have nothing to say to comfort you. After all this travail
and pain it is bitter. I can only send you my arms and my love and all my
prayers.”
Fleming had
numerous flings and affairs with other women and when the couple finally
married in 1952 that was never likely to stop.
Ann once
wrote to him: “You mention ‘bad old bachelor days’ – the only person you
stopped sleeping with when they ceased was me!”
A letter
from Fleming written on British Overseas Airways Corporation stationery reads:
“In the present twilight, we are hurting each other to an extent that makes
life hardly bearable.”
Heaton said
the letters were packed with stories of high society, travel, love of nature
and gossip.
“They are
quite something, it has been a real treat,” he said. “They are an extraordinary
read because Ian Fleming is pretty much incapable of writing a dull sentence.”
Fleming
wrote all of the Bond novels at GoldenEye, his house in Jamaica, a place visited
by many of Ann’s remarkable circle of friends. The artist Lucian Freud, for
example, and the Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell, with whom she had a long affair.
There were
also surprising visitors. “Truman Capote has come to stay,” Fleming writes.
“Can you imagine a more incongruous playmate for me. On the heels of a telegram
he came hustling and twittering along with his tiny face crushed under a
Russian Commissars’ uniform hat [...] he had just arrived from Moscow.”
The letters
consist of more than 500 typed and handwritten pages, at least three written on
endpapers torn from books. Two of the letters from Ann are written on the back
of a gin rummy card and a hospital temperature chart.
They will
be offered in Sotheby’s online literature sale between 3 and 10 December and
come with an estimate of £200,000-300,000.
It was
important to keep them together, said Heaton. “They are much more than the sum
of their parts, the correspondence as a whole is far more substantial and
interesting and revealing and exciting than simply an accumulation of
individual letters.”
Ann
Geraldine Mary Fleming (née Charteris, 19 June 1913 – 12 July 1981), previously
known as Lady O'Neill and Viscountess Rothermere, was a British socialite. She
married firstly Lord O'Neill, secondly Lord Rothermere, and finally the writer
Ian Fleming. She also had affairs with the Labour Party politicians Roy Jenkins
and Hugh Gaitskell.
Life
Fleming was
born to Frances Lucy Tennant (1887–1925) and Captain Guy Lawrence Charteris
(1886–1967) in Westminster, London on 19 June 1913. She was the eldest daughter
and her grandfather was Hugo Charteris, 11th Earl of Wemyss. She learnt to
value conversation and friendship from her grandmother, Mary Constance
Charteris, Countess of Wemyss,[1] who had her own hedonistic past, having been
one of The Souls.
She was
educated by governesses after an unsuccessful term at Cheltenham Ladies'
College. She had a good understanding of literature but her future was to be a
debutante and she quickly married Lord O'Neill who was both an aristocrat and a
financier in 1932. She had two children before beginning an affair with the
influential Esmond Cecil Harmsworth in 1936.
Harmsworth
was the heir to Lord Rothermere, who owned the Daily Mail. Her husband went to
war and Ann appeared with Harmsworth as well as having an affair with Ian
Fleming, then a stockbroker, who became an assistant to the Director of Naval
Intelligence. In 1940, Harmsworth became Lord Rothermere. Her husband was
killed in action in 1944 and she married Lord Rothermere in 1945.
The couple
entertained and their social circle included the painter Lucian Freud (who
painted her portrait), the choreographer Frederick Ashton and the artist
Francis Bacon. Meanwhile, Ian Fleming left the navy and became a journalist
with The Sunday Times. He had built Goldeneye on land in Jamaica and he had demanded
three-month vacations from his employer to enjoy his holiday home. The two
spent three months of every year together in Jamaica; her new husband thought
she was in Jamaica to visit Noël Coward.
In 1951 she
was divorced by Lord Rothermere, and the following year she married Fleming.
They had one child, Caspar. Ann was pregnant with her son when they married; he
was born on 12 August 1952. Anxiety over his forthcoming marriage is said to be
the reason that Ian Fleming wrote the first James Bond novel, Casino Royale.
Ann had a £100,000 divorce settlement and Fleming sought additional sources of
revenue to add to his salary from The Sunday Times. The book and its sequels
were immediate successes.
The
Flemings bought a house in London, where they entertained. They later rebuilt
Warneford Place at Sevenhampton, near Swindon, renaming it Sevenhampton Place
and moving there in 1963. Her husband was not keen on the socialising, but
their houses attracted Evelyn Waugh, Cyril Connolly and Peter Quennell, and she
had affairs with Hugh Gaitskell and Roy Jenkins.
Her son
Caspar died in London in October 1975 from an overdose of narcotics. Ann
Fleming died at Sevenhampton Place on 12 July 1981. Both were buried alongside
Ian at the church of St James in Sevenhampton.
Drugs, guns
and the torment of his only son: As James Bond author Ian Fleming's life is
dramatized, the TRUE story of his family proves just as fascinating
Bond author
Ian Fleming's son Caspar killed himself aged 23
Fleming
wrote Chitty, Chitty Bang Bang to his young son
Ian Fleming
died of a heart attack on Caspar's 12th birthday
One of
Caspar Fleming’s favourite places in all the world was Shane’s Castle, a ruin
steeped in legend on the shores of Lough Neagh in County Antrim.
The castle
and its 1,800-acre estate is the family seat of the illustrious O’Neill family;
Caspar — the only son of James Bond creator Ian Fleming — was, through his
mother, Lord O’Neill’s half-brother. During a visit in September 1975, Caspar
would venture out each day, searching for old arrowheads from battles fought
long ago.
To the
outside world, he seemed in high spirits. Yet, at that point, he had almost
certainly made the decision to kill himself. A week later, he returned to his
mother’s flat in Chelsea, wrote a short suicide note, took a massive quantity
of barbiturates and lay down to die. He passed away on October 2, 1975, aged
just 23.
Caspar
Fleming was a young man as brilliantly clever as he was tortured and, until
now, the full tale of his tragically short life has never been told.
The story
of his father Ian’s life is currently the focus of a new four-part TV drama,
Fleming. The plot of the Sky Atlantic show follows a familiar path: Fleming’s
glamorous life in London; the louche parties at GoldenEye, his Jamaican
retreat; his womanising and his predilection for being spanked by his lovers.
But
Caspar’s story is not so familiar to Bond aficionados. Ian Fleming’s name is
synonymous with 007, but few identify him with an equally famous story, Chitty
Chitty Bang Bang, about the car that could fly. That was the tale he wrote
especially for his son.
Any suicide
is unbearably sad, and Caspar’s left a deep wound within the Fleming family
that has never truly healed. Only now can the true story of what drove him to
commit such a desperate act be told.
Thursday, 7 November 2019
| The King | Netflix / VIDEO:The Real Story Behind Timothée Chalamet's Henry V
The King
review – Shakespeare reboot is Game-of-Thrones lite with touch of Python
Much of the
poetry and emotion has gone from this decaff version of the Henry plays,
letting down Timothée Chalamet’s decent lead performance
Peter
Bradshaw
@PeterBradshaw1
Fri 11 Oct
2019 09.00 BST
Shakespeare’s
Henriad franchise has been rebooted on strangely sentimental lines in this
movie from director and co-writer David Michôd, letting down the decent lead
performance from Timothée Chalamet as the titular monarch, Henry V. It isn’t a
showreel moment for Robert Pattinson playing the French Dauphin, who reminded
me of John Cleese in Monty Python and the Holy Grail: “I’m French! Why do you
think I have this outrrrrageous accent, you silly king?”
This film
replaces Shakespeare’s text with more comprehensible dialogue in the
Game-of-Thrones-lite style, neuters the story’s famous emotional betrayal and
even glibly suggests a throwaway conspiracy-theory explanation for the casus
belli between the English and French before Agincourt.
Among other
things, the sequence of plays – Henry IV Part 1, Henry IV Part 2, Henry V –
follows the 15th-century life of Henry, Prince of Wales, who is initially a
wastrel, a drinker and a gadabout known vulgarly as Hal in the taverns of
Eastcheap in the City of London, under the unwholesome influence of the
notorious bon vivant and petty chancer Sir John Falstaff. In the originals, Hal
embraces his destiny with the death of his father Henry IV, coldly rejects his
pathetic father figure Falstaff (“I know thee not old man,” he tells him) and
becomes the nation’s warrior king. In this movie, Henry V’s growing-up process
is wildly accelerated and he does not reject Falstaff – played by Joel Edgerton
– and even retains him as his trusted, bearded adviser on the field of battle,
a kind of Little John to his Robin Hood.
All
Falstaff’s fierce cynicism about honour and the absurdity of war has been
junked, although this Falstaff has now acquired qualms about warfare that are
centuries ahead of his time and strongly advises him against the war-criminal
execution of prisoners (the sort of grisly event that is nonetheless not
depicted on camera). There’s a new emphasis on one-on-one confrontation and
trial by combat with much Bressonian clanging and banging as armoured knights
whack each other. These and the battle sequences are plausibly filmed.
Sean Harris
has an interesting role as Henry’s attendant lord; there’s a great cameo from
Thibault de Montalembert (Matthias, from Netflix’s Call My Agent) playing the
careworn Charles VI of France, and Chalamet gives it his all as the
pudding-bowl-hairstyled young king. But so much of the poetry and the sense of
loss has gone from this decaffeinated version of the story.
• The King
is released in the UK and US on 11 October.
The Battle
of Agincourt was one of the English victories in the Hundred Years' War. It
took place on 25 October 1415 (Saint Crispin's Day) near Azincourt in northern
France. England's unexpected victory against a numerically superior French army
boosted English morale and prestige, crippled France, and started a new period
of English dominance in the war.
After
several decades of relative peace, the English had renewed their war effort in
1415 amid the failure of negotiations with the French. In the ensuing campaign,
many soldiers died due to disease and the English numbers dwindled; they tried
to withdraw to English-held Calais but found their path blocked by a
considerably larger French army. Despite the disadvantage, the following battle
ended in an overwhelming tactical victory for the English.
King Henry
V of England led his troops into battle and participated in hand-to-hand
fighting. King Charles VI of France did not command the French army himself, as
he suffered from severe psychotic illnesses with moderate mental
incapacitation. Instead, the French were commanded by Constable Charles
d'Albret and various prominent French noblemen of the Armagnac party.
This battle
is notable for the use of the English longbow in very large numbers, with the
English and Welsh archers making up nearly 80 percent of Henry's army.
Agincourt
is one of England's most celebrated victories and was one of the most important
English triumphs in the Hundred Years' War, along with the Battle of Crécy
(1346) and Battle of Poitiers (1356). It forms the centrepiece of the play
Henry V by William Shakespeare.
Contemporary
accounts
The Battle
of Agincourt is well documented by at least seven contemporary accounts, three
from eyewitnesses. The approximate location of the battle has never been in
dispute and the place remains relatively unaltered after 600 years. Immediately
after the battle, Henry summoned the heralds of the two armies who had watched
the battle together with principal French herald Montjoie, and they settled on
the name of the battle as Azincourt after the nearest fortified place. Two of
the most frequently cited accounts come from Burgundian sources, one from Jean
Le Fèvre de Saint-Remy who was present at the battle, and the other from
Enguerrand de Monstrelet. The English eyewitness account comes from the
anonymous Gesta Henrici Quinti, believed to be written by a chaplain in the
King's household who would have been in the baggage train at the battle. A
recent re-appraisal of Henry's strategy of the Agincourt campaign incorporates
these three accounts and argues that war was seen as a legal due process for
solving the disagreement over claims to the French throne.
Campaign
Henry V
invaded France following the failure of negotiations with the French. He
claimed the title of King of France through his great-grandfather Edward III,
although in practice the English kings were generally prepared to renounce this
claim if the French would acknowledge the English claim on Aquitaine and other
French lands (the terms of the Treaty of Brétigny). He initially called a Great
Council in the spring of 1414 to discuss going to war with France, but the
lords insisted that he should negotiate further and moderate his claims. In the
following negotiations Henry said that he would give up his claim to the French
throne if the French would pay the 1.6 million crowns outstanding from the
ransom of John II (who had been captured at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356),
and concede English ownership of the lands of Normandy, Touraine, Anjou,
Brittany and Flanders, as well as Aquitaine. Henry would marry Catherine, the
young daughter of Charles VI, and receive a dowry of 2 million crowns. The
French responded with what they considered the generous terms of marriage with
Catherine, a dowry of 600,000 crowns, and an enlarged Aquitaine. By 1415,
negotiations had ground to a halt, with the English claiming that the French
had mocked their claims and ridiculed Henry himself. In December 1414, the
English parliament was persuaded to grant Henry a "double subsidy", a
tax at twice the traditional rate, to recover his inheritance from the French.
On 19 April 1415, Henry again asked the Great Council to sanction war with
France, and this time they agreed.
Henry's
army landed in northern France on 13 August 1415, carried by a fleet described
by Shakespeare as "a city on the inconstant billows dancing / For so
appears this fleet majestical". It was often reported to comprise 1,500
ships, but probably far smaller. Theodore Beck also suggests that among Henry's
army was "the king's physician and a little band of surgeons". Thomas
Morstede, Henry V's royal surgeon,[23] had previously been contracted by the
king to supply a team of surgeons and makers of surgical instruments to take
part in Agincourt campaign. The army of about 12,000, and up to 20,000 horses
besieged the port of Harfleur. The siege took longer than expected. The town
surrendered on 22 September, and the English army did not leave until 8
October. The campaign season was coming to an end, and the English army had
suffered many casualties through disease. Rather than retire directly to
England for the winter, with his costly expedition resulting in the capture of
only one town, Henry decided to march most of his army (roughly 9,000) through
Normandy to the port of Calais, the English stronghold in northern France, to demonstrate
by his presence in the territory at the head of an army that his right to rule
in the duchy was more than a mere abstract legal and historical claim. He also
intended the manoeuvre as a deliberate provocation to battle aimed at the
dauphin, who had failed to respond to Henry's personal challenge to combat at
Harfleur.
The French
had raised an army during the siege which assembled around Rouen. This was not
strictly a feudal army, but an army paid through a system similar to the
English. The French hoped to raise 9,000 troops, but the army was not ready in
time to relieve Harfleur. After Henry V marched to the north, the French moved
to block them along the River Somme. They were successful for a time, forcing
Henry to move south, away from Calais, to find a ford. The English finally
crossed the Somme south of Péronne, at Béthencourt and Voyennes and resumed
marching north. Without a river obstacle to defend, the French were hesitant to
force a battle. They shadowed Henry's army while calling a semonce des nobles,
calling on local nobles to join the army. By 24 October, both armies faced each
other for battle, but the French declined, hoping for the arrival of more
troops. The two armies spent the night of 24 October on open ground. The next
day the French initiated negotiations as a delaying tactic, but Henry ordered
his army to advance and to start a battle that, given the state of his army, he
would have preferred to avoid, or to fight defensively: that was how Crécy and
the other famous longbow victories had been won. The English had very little
food, had marched 260 miles (420 km) in two and a half weeks, were suffering
from sickness such as dysentery, and faced much larger numbers of well-equipped
French men-at-arms. The French army blocked Henry's way to the safety of
Calais, and delaying battle would only further weaken his tired army and allow
more French troops to arrive.
Setting
Battlefield
The precise
location of the battle is not known. It may be in the narrow strip of open land
formed between the woods of Tramecourt and Azincourt (close to the modern
village of Azincourt). However, the lack of archaeological evidence at this
traditional site has led to suggestions it was fought to the west of Azincourt.
In 2019, the historian Michael Livingston also made the case for a site west of
Azincourt, based on a review of sources and early maps.
English
deployment
The battle
of Agincourt
Early on
the 25th, Henry deployed his army (approximately 1,500 men-at-arms and 7,000
longbowmen) across a 750-yard (690 m) part of the defile. The army was
organised into three battles or divisions, with the right wing led by Edward,
Duke of York, the center led by the king himself, and the left wing under Baron
Thomas Camoys. The archers were commanded by Sir Thomas Erpingham, one of
Henry's most experienced household knights.[34] It is likely that the English
adopted their usual battle line of longbowmen on either flank, with men-at-arms
and knights in the centre. They might also have deployed some archers in the
centre of the line. The English men-at-arms in plate and mail were placed
shoulder to shoulder four deep. The English and Welsh archers on the flanks
drove pointed wooden stakes, or palings, into the ground at an angle to force
cavalry to veer off. This use of stakes could have been inspired by the Battle
of Nicopolis of 1396, where forces of the Ottoman Empire used the tactic
against French cavalry.[c]
The English
made their confessions before the battle, as was customary] Henry, worried
about the enemy launching surprise raids, and wanting his troops to remain
focused, ordered all his men to spend the night before the battle in silence, on
pain of having an ear cut off. He told his men that he would rather die in the
coming battle than be captured and ransomed.
Henry made
a speech emphasising the justness of his cause, and reminding his army of
previous great defeats the kings of England had inflicted on the French. The
Burgundian sources have him concluding the speech by telling his men that the
French had boasted that they would cut off two fingers from the right hand of
every archer, so that he could never draw a longbow again. Whether this was
true is open to question; as previously noted, death was the normal fate of any
soldier who could not be ransomed.
French
deployment
The French
force was not only larger than that of the English, but their noble men-at-arms
would have considered themselves superior to the large number of archers in the
English army, whom the French (based on their experience in recent memory of
using and facing archers) considered relatively insignificant. For example, the
chronicler Edmond de Dyntner stated that there were "ten French nobles
against one English", ignoring the archers completely.[38] Several French
accounts emphasise that the French leaders were so eager to defeat the English
(and win the ransoms of the English men-at-arms) that they insisted on being in
the first line; as one of the contemporary accounts put it: "All the lords
wanted to be in the vanguard, against the opinion of the constable and the
experienced knights."
The French
were arrayed in three lines or battles. The first line was led by Constable
d'Albret, Marshal Boucicault, and the Dukes of Orléans and Bourbon, with
attached cavalry wings under the Count of Vendôme and Sir Clignet de Brebant.
The second line was commanded by the Dukes of Bar and Alençon and the Count of
Nevers. The third line was under the Counts of Dammartin and Fauconberg.[ The
Burgundian chronicler Jean de Wavrin said there were 8,000 men-at-arms, 4,000
archers and 1,500 crossbowmen in the vanguard, with two wings of 600 and 800
mounted men-at-arms, and a main battle comprising "as many knights,
esquires and archers as in the vanguard", with the rearguard containing
"all of the rest of the men-at-arms". The Herald of Berry gave
figures of 4,800 men-at-arms in the first line, 3,000 men in the second line,
with two "wings" containing 600 mounted men-at-arms each, and a total
of "10,000 men-at-arms",[42] but does not mention a third line.
Wavrin
gives the total French army size as 50,000: "They had plenty of archers
and crossbowmen but nobody wanted to let them fire [sic]. The reason for this
was that the site was so narrow that there was only enough room for the
men-at-arms."A different source says that the French did not even deploy
4,000 of the best crossbowmen "on the pretext they had no need of their
help".[44]
Terrain
The field
of battle was arguably the most significant factor in deciding the outcome. The
recently ploughed land hemmed in by dense woodland favoured the English, both
because of its narrowness, and because of the thick mud through which the
French knights had to walk.
Accounts of
the battle describe the French engaging the English men-at-arms before being
rushed from the sides by the longbowmen as the mêlée developed. The English
account in the Gesta Henrici says: "For when some of them, killed when
battle was first joined, fall at the front, so great was the undisciplined
violence and pressure of the mass of men behind them that the living fell on
top of the dead, and others falling on top of the living were killed as
well."
Although
the French initially pushed the English back, they became so closely packed
that they were described as having trouble using their weapons properly. The
French monk of St. Denis says: "Their vanguard, composed of about 5,000
men, found itself at first so tightly packed that those who were in the third
rank could scarcely use their swords," and the Burgundian sources have a
similar passage.
Recent
heavy rain made the battle field very muddy, proving very tiring to walk
through in full plate armour. The French monk of St. Denis describes the French
troops as "marching through the middle of the mud where they sank up to
their knees. So they were already overcome with fatigue even before they
advanced against the enemy". The deep, soft mud particularly favoured the
English force because, once knocked to the ground, the heavily armoured French
knights had a hard time getting back up to fight in the mêlée. Barker states
that some knights, encumbered by their armour, actually drowned in their
helmets.
Fighting
Opening
moves
On the
morning of 25 October, the French were still waiting for additional troops to
arrive. The Duke of Brabant (about 2,000 men), the Duke of Anjou (about 600
men),[50] and the Duke of Brittany (6,000 men, according to Monstrelet), were
all marching to join the army.
For three
hours after sunrise there was no fighting. Military textbooks of the time
stated: "Everywhere and on all occasions that foot soldiers march against
their enemy face to face, those who march lose and those who remain standing
still and holding firm win."[52] On top of this, the French were expecting
thousands of men to join them if they waited. They were blocking Henry's
retreat, and were perfectly happy to wait for as long as it took. There had
even been a suggestion that the English would run away rather than give battle
when they saw that they would be fighting so many French princes.
Henry's men
were already very weary from hunger, illness and retreat. Apparently Henry
believed his fleeing army would perform better on the defensive, but had to
halt the retreat and somehow engage the French before a defensive battle was
possible. This entailed abandoning his
chosen position and pulling out, advancing, and then re-installing the long
sharpened wooden stakes pointed outwards toward the enemy, which helped protect
the longbowmen from cavalry charges. (The use of stakes was an innovation for
the English: during the Battle of Crécy, for example, the archers had been
instead protected by pits and other obstacles.
The
tightness of the terrain also seems to have restricted the planned deployment
of the French forces. The French had originally drawn up a battle plan that had
archers and crossbowmen in front of their men-at-arms, with a cavalry force at
the rear specifically designed to "fall upon the archers, and use their
force to break them,"[56] but in the event, the French archers and
crossbowmen were deployed behind and to the sides of the men-at-arms (where
they seem to have played almost no part, except possibly for an initial volley
of arrows at the start of the battle). The cavalry force, which could have
devastated the English line if it had attacked while they moved their stakes,
charged only after the initial volley of arrows from the English. It is unclear
whether the delay occurred because the French were hoping the English would
launch a frontal assault (and were surprised when the English instead started
shooting from their new defensive position), or whether the French mounted
knights instead did not react quickly enough to the English advance. French
chroniclers agree that when the mounted charge did come, it did not contain as
many men as it should have; Gilles le Bouvier states that some had wandered off
to warm themselves and others were walking or feeding their horses.
French
cavalry attack
The French
cavalry, despite being disorganised and not at full numbers, charged towards
the longbowmen, but it was a disaster, with the French knights unable to
outflank the longbowmen (because of the encroaching woodland) and unable to
charge through the forest of sharpened stakes that protected the archers. John
Keegan argues that the longbows' main influence on the battle at this point was
injuries to horses: armoured only on the head, many horses would have become
dangerously out of control when struck in the back or flank from the
high-elevation, long-range shots used as the charge started.[58] The mounted
charge and subsequent retreat churned up the already muddy terrain between the
French and the English. Juliet Barker quotes a contemporary account by a monk
of St. Denis who reports how the wounded and panicking horses galloped through
the advancing infantry, scattering them and trampling them down in their
headlong flight from the battlefield.[59]
Main French
assault
The plate
armour of the French men-at-arms allowed them to close the 1,000 yards or so to
the English lines while being under what the French monk of Saint Denis
described as "a terrifying hail of arrow shot". A complete coat of
plate was considered such good protection that shields were generally not
used,[60] although the Burgundian contemporary sources distinguish between
Frenchmen who used shields and those who did not, and Rogers has suggested that
the front elements of the French force used axes and shields. Modern historians
are divided on how effective the longbows would have been against plate armour
of the time. Modern test and contemporary accounts conclude that arrows could
not penetrate the better quality steel armour, which became available to
knights and men-at-arms of fairly modest means by the middle of the 14th
century, but could penetrate the poorer quality wrought iron armour[62] [63]
[64] [65][66]. Rogers suggested that the longbow could penetrate a wrought iron
breastplate at short range and penetrate the thinner armour on the limbs even
at 220 yards (200 m). He considered a knight in the best-quality steel armour
invulnerable to an arrow on the breastplate or top of the helmet, but
vulnerable to shots hitting the limbs, particularly at close range. In any
case, to protect themselves as much as possible from the arrows, the French had
to lower their visors and bend their helmeted heads to avoid being shot in the
face, as the eye- and air-holes in their helmets were among the weakest points
in the armour. This head-lowered position restricted their breathing and their
vision. Then they had to walk a few hundred yards (metres) through thick mud
and a press of comrades while wearing armour weighing 50–60 pounds (23–27 kg),
gathering sticky clay all the way. Increasingly, they had to walk around or
over fallen comrades.
The surviving
French men-at-arms reached the front of the English line and pushed it back,
with the longbowmen on the flanks continuing to shoot at point-blank range.
When the archers ran out of arrows, they dropped their bows and using hatchets,
swords and the mallets they had used to drive their stakes in, attacked the now
disordered, fatigued and wounded French men-at-arms massed in front of them.
The French could not cope with the thousands of lightly armoured longbowmen
assailants (who were much less hindered by the mud and weight of their armour)
combined with the English men-at-arms. The impact of thousands of arrows,
combined with the slog in heavy armour through the mud, the heat and difficulty
breathing in plate armour with the visor down[69], and the crush of their
numbers meant the French men-at-arms could "scarcely lift their
weapons" when they finally engaged the English line. The exhausted French
men-at-arms were unable to get up after being knocked to the ground by the
English. As the mêlée developed, the French second line also joined the attack,
but they too were swallowed up, with the narrow terrain meaning the extra
numbers could not be used effectively. Rogers suggested that the French at the
back of their deep formation would have been attempting to literally add their
weight to the advance, without realising that they were hindering the ability
of those at the front to manoeuvre and fight by pushing them into the English
formation of lancepoints. After the initial wave, the French would have had to
fight over and on the bodies of those who had fallen before them. In such a
"press" of thousands of men, Rogers suggested that many could have
suffocated in their armour, as was described by several sources, and which was
also known to have happened in other battles.
The French
men-at-arms were taken prisoner or killed in the thousands. The fighting lasted
about three hours, but eventually the leaders of the second line were killed or
captured, as those of the first line had been. The English Gesta Henrici
described three great heaps of the slain around the three main English
standards. According to contemporary English accounts, Henry fought hand to
hand. Upon hearing that his youngest brother Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester had
been wounded in the groin, Henry took his household guard and stood over his
brother, in the front rank of the fighting, until Humphrey could be dragged to
safety. The king received an axe blow to the head, which knocked off a piece of
the crown that formed part of his helmet.
Attack on
the English baggage train
1915
depiction of Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt : The King wears on this
surcoat the Royal Arms of England, quartered with the Fleur de Lys of France as
a symbol of his claim to the throne of France.
The only
French success was an attack on the lightly protected English baggage train,
with Ysembart d'Azincourt (leading a small number of men-at-arms and varlets
plus about 600 peasants) seizing some of Henry's personal treasures, including
a crown. Whether this was part of a deliberate French plan or an act of local
brigandage is unclear from the sources. Certainly, d'Azincourt was a local
knight but he might have been chosen to lead the attack because of his local
knowledge and the lack of availability of a more senior soldier. In some
accounts the attack happened towards the end of the battle, and led the English
to think they were being attacked from the rear. Barker, following the Gesta
Henrici, believed to have been written by an English chaplain who was actually
in the baggage train, concluded that the attack happened at the start of the
battle.
Henry
executes the prisoners
Regardless
of when the baggage assault happened, at some point after the initial English
victory, Henry became alarmed that the French were regrouping for another
attack. The Gesta Henrici places this after the English had overcome the
onslaught of the French men-at-arms and the weary English troops were eyeing
the French rearguard ("in incomparable number and still fresh"). Le
Fèvre and Wavrin similarly say that it was signs of the French rearguard
regrouping and "marching forward in battle order" which made the
English think they were still in danger. A slaughter of the French prisoners
ensued. It seems it was purely a decision of Henry, since the English knights
found it contrary to chivalry, and contrary to their interests to kill valuable
hostages for whom it was commonplace to ask ransom. Henry threatened to hang
whoever did not obey his orders.
In any
event, Henry ordered the slaughter of what were perhaps several thousand French
prisoners, sparing only the highest ranked (presumably those most likely to
fetch a large ransom under the chivalric system of warfare). According to most
chroniclers, Henry's fear was that the prisoners (who, in an unusual turn of
events, actually outnumbered their captors) would realize their advantage in
numbers, rearm themselves with the weapons strewn about the field and overwhelm
the exhausted English forces. Contemporary chroniclers did not criticise him
for it.[76] In his study of the battle John Keegan argued that the main aim was
not to actually kill the French knights but rather to terrorise them into
submission and quell any possibility they might resume the fight, which would
probably have caused the uncommitted French reserve forces to join the fray, as
well. Such an event would have posed a risk to the still-outnumbered English
and could have easily turned a stunning victory into a mutually destructive defeat,
as the English forces were now largely intermingled with the French and would
have suffered grievously from the arrows of their own longbowmen had they
needed to resume shooting. Keegan also speculated that due to the relatively
low number of archers actually involved in killing the French knights (roughly
200 by his estimate), together with the refusal of the English knights to
assist in a duty they saw as distastefully unchivalrous, and combined with the
sheer difficulty of killing such a large number of prisoners in such a short
space of time, the actual number of French prisoners put to death may not have
been substantial before the French reserves fled the field and Henry rescinded
the order.
Aftermath
The lack of
reliable sources makes it impossible to give a precise figure for the French
and English casualties (dead, wounded, taken prisoner). The French sources all
give 4,000–10,000 French dead, with up to 1,600 English dead. The lowest ratio
in these French sources has the French losing six times more men than the
English. It has been possible to name at least 500 individuals from the French
army killed in the battle and over 300 prisoners.
English
claims range from 1,500 to 11,000 for the French dead, with English dead put at
no more than 100. Barker identifies from the available records "at
least" 112 Englishmen killed in the fighting, including Edward of Norwich,
2nd Duke of York, a grandson of Edward III. One widely used estimate puts the
English casualties at around 450, a significant number in an army of about
8,500, but far fewer than the thousands the French lost, nearly all of whom
were killed or captured. Using the lowest French estimate of their own dead of
4,000 would imply a ratio of nearly 9 to 1 in favour of the English, or over 10
to 1 if the prisoners are included. Modern historians Anne Curry and Jonathan
Sumption estimate the total French deaths at about 6,000.
The French
suffered heavily. Three dukes, at least eight counts, a viscount, and an
archbishop died, along with numerous other nobles. Of the great royal office
holders, France lost her Constable, Admiral, Master of the Crossbowmen and
prévôt of the marshals.[82] The baillis of nine major northern towns were
killed, often along with their sons, relatives and supporters. In the words of
Juliet Barker, the battle "cut a great swath through the natural leaders
of French society in Artois, Ponthieu, Normandy, Picardy." Estimates of
the number of prisoners vary between 700 and 2,200, amongst them the Duke of
Orléans (the famous poet Charles d'Orléans) and Jean Le Maingre (known as
Boucicault), Marshal of France.
Although
the victory had been militarily decisive, its impact was complex. It did not
lead to further English conquests immediately as Henry's priority was to return
to England, which he did on 16 November, to be received in triumph in London on
the 23rd. Henry returned a conquering hero, seen as blessed by God in the eyes
of his subjects and European powers outside France. It established the
legitimacy of the Lancastrian monarchy and the future campaigns of Henry to
pursue his "rights and privileges" in France. Other benefits to the
English were longer term. Very quickly after the battle, the fragile truce
between the Armagnac and Burgundian factions broke down. The brunt of the
battle had fallen on the Armagnacs and it was they who suffered the majority of
senior casualties and carried the blame for the defeat. The Burgundians seized
on the opportunity and within 10 days of the battle had mustered their armies
and marched on Paris.This lack of unity in France allowed Henry eighteen months
to prepare militarily and politically for a renewed campaign. When that
campaign took place, it was made easier by the damage done to the political and
military structures of Normandy by the battle.
Queen's BAN on real fur
Queen's BAN
on real fur: Her Majesty now only buys faux pieces for her personal wardrobe
(but will continue to don ermine-trimmed robes and crowns on state occasions)
Queen will
not buy new outfits containing real fur but may still wear fur clothes
The
93-year-old was pictured wearing fur coat on Christmas day in 2015
She is the
first member of the royal family to publicly shun fur
Palace
would not confirm any plans to use faux fur in robes or crowns
By LUKE
ANDREWS FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED:
15:02 GMT, 5 November 2019 | UPDATED: 20:57 GMT, 5 November 2019
The Queen
no longer uses fur in her outfits, having switched to fake fur this year, her
senior dresser has revealed.
Angela
Kelly, the head of state's personal adviser and confidante, made the disclosure
in her book about her close relationship with the monarch, The Other Side Of
The Coin.
She wrote:
'If Her Majesty is due to attend an engagement in particularly cold weather,
from 2019 onwards fake fur will be used to make sure she stays warm.'
Buckingham
Palace today confirmed the move to FEMAIL, saying: 'As new outfits are designed
for the Queen, any fur used will be fake.'
The palace
'would not speculate' on whether any fur coats already owned by the Queen could
still be worn, or if the change will extend to the monarch's historic robe of
state, which consists of an ermine and velvet cape, and is worn at the State
Opening of Parliament.
The move is
believed to make the Queen the first member of the royal family to publicly
shun real fur.
The Queen
will not be buying more clothes containing real fur, the palace has said. She
is pictured here wearing a brown fur coat when she attended church in Norfolk
in 2015 on Christmas day, and wearing a fur coat in 1963
The Queen's
move may not apply to real furs that are used in state robes and official
gowns. Here the Queen is pictured wearing a white fur, believed to be fake, at
the state opening of parliament in 2009
The United
Kingdom was the first country in the world to outlaw fur farming on ethical
grounds in 2000.
Her Majesty
was pictured wearing a brown fur coat to attend a Christmas Day service at St
Mary Magdalene Church in Sandringham in 2015, and in a fox-fur-lined coat and
fox-fur hat as she attended the same church on Christmas day in 2010.
PETA, which
has campaigned for fur sales to be banned, said its staff were ‘raising a glass
of gin and Dubonnet’ to the Queen’s compassionate decision.
‘This new
policy is a sign of the times, as 95 per cent of the British public would also
refuse to wear real fur,' they said.
The Queen
wearing a brown fur coat in Winnipeg, in Canada, in 2002 during celebrations of
her Royal Golden Jubilee
Her majesty
was also pictured sporting the same coat when she visited Green Park
underground station in 1969 +7
‘In 2019,
no one can justify subjecting animals to the agony of being caged for life or
caught in steel traps, electrocuted, and skinned for toxic fur items – so it's
a disgrace that soldiers in the Queen's Guard are still parading around with
the fur of bears gunned down in Canada on their caps.
‘We
respectfully urge Her Majesty to complete the policy by ordering that the fur
be replaced by the humane, luxurious faux bearskin that PETA has helped develop
alongside faux-furrier Ecopel and designer Stella McCartney.’
Animal
rights activists at Animal Aid said that the move was 'positive' but called on
the Queen to extend the policy to ceremonial garments.
'With
growing awareness about the terrible cruelty caused by fur production, it is
certainly positive to hear that the Queen will no longer be using real fur in
her new outfits,' they said in a statement.
'It is
abhorrent that to this day, animals are still condemned to appalling suffering
for the sake of fashion, and we are encouraged that the Queen is taking steps
to avoid contributing to this.
'We hope
that this policy will also extend to ceremonial garments such as robes.'
The Humane
Society, which runs the #FurFreeBritain, also said in a statement that it was
'thrilled' Her Majesty had gone fur free.
'Queen
Elizabeth's decision to "go faux" is the perfect reflection of the
mood of the British public, the vast majority of whom detest cruel fur and want
nothing to do with it.
'Our Head
of State going fur free sends a powerful message that fur is firmly out of
fashion and does not belong with Brand Britain.'
The royals
have often been criticised for their use of fur over the years.
In 2013,
the Queen was urged by animal rights charity Peta to get 'with these more
enlightened times'.
She has
worn fur at numerous engagements over the decades, and was often seen in a
brown fur coat she first debuted in 1961, and which she has sometimes worn when
arriving for Christmas Day church services.
Have other
royals worn real fur?
Camilla,
Duchess of Cornwall
Camilla was
photographed wearing a brown hat made of real fur in 2010.
The Duchess
donned the 'ostentatious' garment for a Christmas Day service at St Mary
Magdalene church in Sandringham.
In 2017, it
was reported that the Duchess had switched to fake fur following the barrage of
criticism she received for sporting the Russian-style hat.
She was
rumoured to have purchased six bespoke faux fur-trimmed hats from upmarket firm
Lock & Co - and was seen proudly wearing one during Christmas that year.
Since, she
is said to have sworn off real fur and to have purchased six fake-fur-trimmed
hats such as this one, that she is shown wearing while leaving the same church
in 2016 +7
The Duchess
was roundly berated after she wore the real fur hat in 2010 for a Christmas day
church service at St Mary Magdalene in Sandringham, and is now said to have
sworn off real fur for good
Kate
Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge
Kate has
been pictured wearing fur hats made from alpacas who have died of natural
causes.
The Duchess
was seen in a chestnut brown £225 Sumac hat by Lacorine, made in Peru under the
fairtrade label by local artisans, when she visited Oslo last year.
Kate in
black alpaca fur hat that same week when she visited Nobel Museum in Stockholm
Kate
pictured wearing a chestnut brown alpaca fur £225 Sumac hat by Lacorine, made
in Peru, as she visits Oslo last year and Kate in black alpaca fur hat
that same week when she visited Nobel Museum in Stockholm
The Duke
and Duchess of Cambridge wearing otter fur scarfs on the day they were given
them while visiting a tribe in Canada in 2016 +7
The royal
was also seen wearing a black alpaca fur hat earlier that same week when she
visited the Nobel Museum in Stockholm.
Kate and
Prince William were slammed by animal rights activists in 2016 when they were
shown wearing otter fur scarves they had been given while visiting the First
Nations Haida Community during an official tour of Canada.
The scarves
were given by the tribe as a sign of welcome and respect.
The Duchess
has also been criticised for wearing fake fur hats when they have been
identified as real fur.
The International
Fur Trade Federation accused her of wearing an animal fur bobble hat when she
was pictured in the garment in London in 2012.
However,
Buckingham Palace quickly corrected them, and revealed the hat was, in fact,
fake fur.
Meghan
Markle, Duchess of Sussex
Meghan
Markle and Prince Harry in London in October this year as they attend the
WellChild Awards
The Duchess
was said to be strongly opposed to wearing in real fur in 2018 by her close
friend Gina Nelthorpe-Cowne, who works in talent management, reports the
Independent.
The
52-year-old, who worked as the royal's commercial agent for two years, revealed
Meghan has a strict no-fur policy.
She is also
said to love vegan leather, according to Good Housekeeping.
During an
interview with the publication, she said: 'Personally, I love cropped pants in
vegan leather, a great fitted blazer and a button-down [shirt].'
In 1962,
she wore a leopard-skin coat to a Sandown Park race meeting.
In 2006,
Kate Middleton, before she married the Duke of Cambridge, was accused of being
out of touch after being seen in what appeared to be a mink hat at the
Cheltenham races.
The Duchess
of Cornwall was criticised for wearing a rabbit fur stole during a tour of
Canada in 2009.
On the same
trip, she also wore a fawn-coloured calf-length cape lined with grey fur.
The fur in
the garment had belonged to her grandmother and was re-fashioned for the
occasion
Wednesday, 6 November 2019
Paul Walker: The Walker Slater founder and designer .
Paul
Walker: Designing 21st Century tweed
Tony
McGuire
1:36 pm
February 27, 2017
In a secret
green space off of Edinburgh’s Grassmarket, Paul Walker’s studio is packed with
tweeds of every imaginable pattern, colour and texture.
The Walker
Slater founder and designer thinks the hand-loomed textile can become as
diverse a fabric as the Italian denim.
“Tweed is
almost becoming the denim of Scotland. The Italian’s do denim very well and
Scots do tweed very well,” he says.
Traditional
Harris tweed lends colours from the countryside – mossy greens, ocean blues and
rugged mountainous browns are on every rail in Walker Slater’s two Edinburgh
stores.
Aesthetics
to the side for a moment, Paul remarks how tweed is equally functional and
beautiful.
“It’s warm,
it’s water repellant and it’s carelessly elegant,” he says.
Paul and
business partner Frances Slater – a textile designer from Edinburgh – came
together to “produce a melange of textiles, a partnership that you know now to
be Walker Slater.
Originally
working from the Highlands, he helped focus their efforts into tweed.
He recalls:
“There was a realisation we had a great resource on our doorstep that wasn’t
being utilised.
“I remember
going down to the Borders and seeing some of the old Gardener’s fabrics –
Gardeners was a mill at the time – and thinking ‘Whoa! These are fantastic’.
“We started
making jacketing and it all moved forward from there.”
Borders
tweed is generally much lighter a fabric than its Harris counterpart, and the
pliable fabric led Paul and Frances to create their first three-piece suit.
Their range
of clothing for men and women showcases the versatility of tweed, breathing new
life and contemporary relevance into the cloth traditionally associated with
country estates and hunting parties.
Milan,
Rome, London, Paris and New York designers are all embracing Scottish tweed.
Between 2009 and 2012, Scottish tweed output shot up from 450,000 meters to one
million meters. Much of this global interest can be linked back to Scotland,
designers like Walker Slater and the tweed industry’s own drive to stay
relevant.
“The mills
on Harris and in the Borders have done well getting the message out to the big
players [in fashion] with a product they can buy into,” he says, adding “they
buy in to a bit of Scotland with it.”
Walker
Slater has enjoyed a boost from several high-profile collaborations with the
Ryder Cup, Scottish Football and the Scottish Rugby Union teams, tailoring
unique wardrobes for our national sides with homespun cloth.
Paul
repeatedly exalts tweed’s rich colours and textures, but he also draws
attention to some of its lesser-known charms: “There are things about tweed
that you maybe wouldn’t expect.
“As a
fabric and as a way of life it has a tremendous heritage. It’s protected by an
act of parliament and specific to a sometimes-forgotten region of Scotland.
Having been up there, you realise how important it is to the local economy and
how it fits in to the way of life there.”
“Sometimes
we’ve been notified a delivery might be late due to the good weather allowing
Peat cutting to take place. The weavers go outside and cut their Peat for the
next winter, so it has this human touch to it.”
Walker
Slater designs set out to challenge the traditional tweed ensemble to keep the
fabric relevant with modern fashion trends.
Of all his experimenting with the cloth, the lavish three-piece suit
holds a special place in their history and development.
“We tried a
lot of things – the development through from the really heavy tweeds where it
didn’t work, right through to the Borders tweed using fine mixes of wool,
cashmere and cotton, developing something that was very wearable in the daytime
and for evening wear.”
“We keep to
trends that help tweed maintain relevance with shapes and fits that fit in with
our ethos which is ‘careless elegance’.
“Careless
elegance is something which is really important, not a contrived look – you can
pull it together, you can mix it up. and that’s where it becomes a bit rock and
roll as well.”
Walker
Slater Menswear and Womenswear stores can be found on Victoria Street,
Edinburgh.
Edinburgh
store: 20 Victoria Street, Edinburgh EH1 2HG / 01312 209750
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