The year is 1352 and Edward 111 is desperate to recruit more archers for his army. In France he fights to recover those lands he claims belong to the English Crown. Against him are superior French forces and the bubonic plague raging back home. For him are a brave set of field commanders, the implementation of superior tactics and the most devastating weapon available to him on the battlefield, the English Long Bow. The Hundred Years War is synonymous with this weapon, but who were the Archers. At Mauron in 1352 one of the Kings’ most accomplished Field Commanders was Sir William Bentley who defeated a French Army more than twice its size. How? Enter Devon farmer and Cowherder of Alphington, 2 metres high and one wide. An archer of extraordinary quality, who in the space of six months will go from herding his cows to receiving a pair of golden spurs from his King.. This is his story.

The year is 1356 and The One Hundred Years War is in full flow. Edward lll of England is determined to defeat King John of France and to claim back those lands he believes belong to the English Crown. He commands his forces in the north, Henry of Lancaster commands in the centre and Edward’s eldest son Edward, the Prince of Wales commands in the south. This son of twenty six years brings together some of the most notable commanders of the age, men like Warwick, Somerset, Sussex, Salisbury and the Gascon Lord, Captal de Buch. Crecy had been fought and won by the power of the English Longbow and The Prince demands the same; he seeks out the finest Master Bowman in England Sir Edwin of Alphington, knighted by Edward lll himself for his valour at the Battle of Mauron. Our hero receives the call from the man history would always refer to as The Black Prince, and this is his story.

Sir Edwin of Alphington, having paid his last respects at the tomb of The Black Prince in Canterbury, returns home to Exeter. Soon news would arrive announcing the death of his King Edward III. The year is 1377 and the war with France is no longer going well. The French King Charles V orders his newly appointed Constable Bertrand Duguesclin to raise an army and bring Gascony back into his realm. His target is to be Bordeaux, the onetime seat of the court of The Black Prince where he ruled as Viceroy of Aquitaine. Blockaded at sea by Admiral Vienne and threatened from the land by the forces of Duguesclin, Gascony seems doomed. French forces are within twenty miles of Bordeaux but there is neither army nor leader to stop him. The first French soldiers in living memory now rolled forward overrunning castles, small towns, farms and villages. Faded memories were searched as a saviour was sought. Finally, a name was remembered and the cry went out, ‘send for Sir Edwin of Alphington.’