royalarchmason
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The Order of the Knights of St Crispin. They tanned you're hide.
On the morning of 25 October 1415, shortly before the Battle of Agincourt, Henry V made a brief speech to the English army under his command, emphasizing the justness of his claim to the French throne and harking back to the memory of previous defeats the English kings had inflicted on the French. According to Burgundian sources, he concluded the speech by telling the English longbowmen that the French had boasted that they would cut off two fingers from the right hand of every archer, so they could never draw a string again.
WESTMORELAND. O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!
KING. What's he that wishes so?
My cousin, Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say "To-morrow is Saint Crispian."
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say "These wounds I had on Crispin's day."
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words—
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester—
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
During the Napoleonic Wars, just prior to the Battle of the Nile, Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, then Rear Admiral of the Blue, referred to his captains as his "band of brothers".[2]
The phrase also appears in the 1789 song "Hail, Columbia", written for the inauguration of George Washington as the first President of the United States; and in the first line of the 1861 Confederate marching song The Bonnie Blue Flag.[2]
It was used for the title of the 1992 book on World War II by Stephen Ambrose, Band of Brothers, E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne: From Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest, that was subsequently adapted into the 2001 miniseries Band of Brothers. In the closing scene of the series, Carwood Lipton quotes from Shakespeare's speech.[2]
During World War II, Laurence Olivier delivered the speech during a radio programme to boost British morale and Winston Churchill found him so inspiring that he asked him to produce the Shakespeare play as a film. Olivier's adaptation appeared in 1944.[2] A 1989 adaptation was directed by Kenneth Branagh.
In the film Renaissance Man, Private Donnie Benitez renders the speech on being mockingly challenged by his drill instructor to recite Shakespeare.
According to the director and writer of the film Independence Day, President Whitmore's climactic speech was directly inspired by the St. Crispin's Day Speech
When the Battle of Balaclava was fought on the 25 October, the coincidence was noticed by contemporaries, who used Shakespeare's words to comment on the battle.[3] The contrast between the two battles, one a complete victory, the other indecisive and notorious for the disastrous Charge of the Light Brigade, has also been noted.[4] The Battle of Shangani (1893) in the First Matabele War was also fought on that date.[5]
Several battles of World War II were fought on St Crispin's day. In 1942, this day was the third day of the Second Battle of El Alamein, and, on the other side of the world, the Battle of Henderson Field was fought at Guadalcanal. Two years later, in 1944, the Battle of Leyte Gulf was being fought at Cape Engaño, Samar Island and in the Straits of Surigao; in the latter, the Japanese fleet was effectively destroyed.
Other battles have also been fought on the day, but were not associated with its symbolism at the time. In 1315, a century before Agincourt, Adam Banastre, Henry de Lea and William Bradshaw, led an attack on Liverpool Castle. An early battle of the U.S. Civil War, the Second Battle of Springfield, Missouri, was fought on October 25, 1861, and was a Union victory. Another forgotten battle in that war, the Battle of Marais des Cygnes, Kansas (Mine Creek), was fought on that day in 1864.
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