The Beastly Battles Of Old England

Throughout history the English have been a warlike lot. Often we fight among ourselves - there have been a good few civil wars - and when we were not slaughtering each other we practiced on our neighbours the Scots the Irish the French . . . When that got too easy we set off around the world to find other people to fight. This was usually done with a hubris that invited some ludicrous pratfall.

In THE BEASTLY BATTLES OF OLD ENGLAND Nigel Cawthorne takes us on a darkly humorous journey through some of our ill-advised military actions. From the war over a severed ear to a general seeking out his rival's mistresses to even the score it is a miscellany of insufferable arrogance reckless gallantry stunning stupidity massive misjudgements and general beastliness.