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Series
Arrows of Albion follows Martin Kemp, an English archer and sometime mercenary, through the campaigns and border wars of the mid-fourteenth century. Beginning with Edward III’s invasion of France and the Battle of Crécy, the series moves through the siege of Calais, warfare in Brittany and Scotland, Gascon factional conflict and the Black Prince’s campaign culminating at Poitiers. Kemp’s changing loyalties expose the distance between chivalric ideals and the realities of siege, plunder, captivity and service in the Hundred Years’ War.
Reading order
Martin Kemp joins Edward III’s army in France to escape execution and is trained as a longbowman in a force advancing through Normandy. His first campaign strips away his expectations of honour as he encounters looting, siege warfare and the panic of battle. The march leads…
In 1347 Martin Kemp serves among the English troops maintaining the siege of Calais after the victory at Crécy. Disease, hunger and raids make the marsh-bound encampment as dangerous as open battle, while the French attempt to relieve the port and restore their damaged military reputation.…
Captured near Calais in 1351, Martin Kemp and his companions are imprisoned in a French stronghold where failed escape attempts are answered with execution. Sir Hugues de Beauconray offers Kemp a bargain: travel to Scotland with a Dominican friar and recover a manuscript, or watch ten…
Martin Kemp enters Brittany as the Breton War of Succession draws English and French interests into a prolonged civil conflict. Seeking employment and plunder, he joins the company of the ambitious freebooter Sir Ranulf FitzWaryn and rises within a band whose private objectives increasingly conflict with…
Martin Kemp returns to Scotland to collect a debt just as warfare breaks out along the border. French men-at-arms encourage resistance to England, while Kemp and Ieuan are compelled to escort a group of civilians through country contested by raiders, royal troops and local lords. Pursuit…
In the winter of 1356 Edward III invades Scotland in the campaign remembered as Burnt Candlemas. When an English fleet carrying supplies is scattered and a church is destroyed, Martin Kemp is blamed for the fire and placed in chains as the royal army begins a…
Martin Kemp reaches the Gascon frontier intending to regain command of the Company of the Dragon, the mercenary band he once led. The company now serves the Count of Targères, who has taken control of Cazoulat and uses accusations of heresy to divide the population and…
In September 1356 Martin Kemp rides with the Black Prince’s chevauchée across France. The English army burns and plunders as it seeks to join the Duke of Lancaster, but destroyed bridges across the Loire and the approach of a larger French force compel a retreat through…