Revisionist historians are at the top of the list of things that frosts The Pink Flamingo’s cookies, even more so than Democrats.
The Pink Flamingo owes King Hal and St. Crispin an apology. I forgot. St. Crispin’s Day is October 25. I blew it.
I always try to remember St. Crispin’s Day because I had an Clements ancestor (I share with Sam, Mannen, Jep, and Wes Hardin) who was knighted that day, by Henry, for saving his life!
The usual Henry Haters are at it again. Anne Curry, who has made a career out of damning Henry V, says the French did not have all that many troops, and the lopsided battle was all a lie.
Fortunately, cooler heads prevail.
“…nd if that hasn’t got you lot choking on your beef and oyster pie of Merry Olde England, it turns out that the lone authority coming to the defence of Shakespeare’s Band of Brothers is an American – one professor Clifford Rogers of the US Military Academy at West Point.
He estimates Hal’s men at 6,000 troops, “consisting of 1,000 men-at-arms in heavy steel armour and 5,000 longbowmen”.
The French, meanwhile, were packing 10,000 troops, each with “an attendant servant who would also fight, along with 4,000 crossbowmen and other troops”. Total: 24,000.
The opposing forces do agree on one point, though: that the French were defeated by Henry’s “superior positional sense”, which obliged their heavily-armoured nobles to attack across a narrow, muddy field where they got bogged down and slaughtered by the longbowmen (all 11 of them, against 430,000 knights, according to new El Reg research)…”
What’s he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark’d to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call’d the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian.’
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispian’s day.’
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
(IV, iii)
![[Valid RSS]](valid-rss-rogers.png "Validate my RSS feed")
