Hi, Bernard.

Over the years I have been an avid reader of almost all your books. It all started with a given book of one of the Sharpe’s series. I especially enjoyed your books that had characters of the “Long Bowmen”. This has led me on a crusade to form some study of the Bow. It seems incredible that the big war bows had a pull of 130lb plus. Now I have a question that you may have heard of the answer to. It refers to the “Bodkin arrow”. It was said that it could pierce plate armour, But to do this it had to hit directly square, otherwise it would glance off. In 2011 I was on holiday in Northern Ireland & visited Carrickfergus castle in Belfast. On display there is a collection of some long bow equipment containing Bodkin Arrows. I entered into a discussion with the curator there & we talked about the arrows. I mentioned about them having to hit square to penetrate, otherwise glancing off. He said that they overcame this problem by putting a small ball of wax on the tip & this evidently solved the problem. Have you ever heard of this in your researches?

I would like to thank you sincerely for many hours of fascinating reading & a great deal of history lessons. I have just finished the final book in the Uhtred  of Bebbanburg, “War Lord”. I hope Netflix make it the final to the :Last Kingdom Series”

Kind Regards,

Dave Green.