Dear Bernard Cornwell I attended your talk at Ely cathedral the other night which was extremely enjoyable- and thank you for signing your new book. Someone in the audience asked if you thought it was worse to have fought on the Somme in 1916 than at Agincourt. I remembered the following day that John Keegan in his book ‘The Face of Battle’ addressed that very issue. In fact he compared what it was like to fight at Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme. I was wondering whether you used John Keegan’s book in writing ‘Azincourt’? If so (and if it is not giving away any of the plot)did your archers place their stakes like a fence in front of them, or as John Keegan’s argues, in a sort of loose hedge or thicket amongst them? I know that some paintings show all the archers placed behind a ‘stake fence’ but I favour John Keegan’s proposition; otherwise how would the archers maintain their freedom of movement to get amongst the French? Thanks again for a great evening. John Izzard