The notion that a knight in full armour was a helpless tin can, winched onto his horse by a crane, is among the most durable things ever invented about the Middle Ages — and Jean le Maingre, called Boucicaut, is why it is impossible to sustain. His biography was written in his own lifetime, and it lists his training. He could leap onto a horse's back fully armed without touching a stirrup, and jump from standing onto the shoulders of a tall man already mounted. He could turn a somersault in his armour wearing everything but his helmet, and dance in a coat of mail. He climbed plaster walls with nothing but his hands and feet, and went up the underside of a scaling ladder hand over hand while in mail. And he would train for hours at a time with a battle-axe or a hammer, deliberately, to harden his body to fighting in harness. Armour was heavy. It was worn by men who prepared like that.

Which is why the axe in this figure's hand is the right detail to have sculpted: it is the exact implement his biographer names. Tradition of London give him full plate under a white surcoat with the red eagle of his house, the same eagle on the shield. The rest of the life keeps pace with the training — knighted at sixteen on the eve of Roosebeke, campaigning in Prussia at eighteen, two years wandering the Balkans and the Holy Land writing poetry, Marshal of France on Christmas Day 1391 at twenty-five, a prisoner of Sultan Bayezid after Nicopolis in 1396 and spared execution only because John the Fearless begged for his friend's life, then governor of Genoa. He commanded the French vanguard at Agincourt beside Charles d'Albret, Constable of France, who died there; Boucicaut was taken alive, like Charles Duke of Orleans, and like him never came home — he died in Yorkshire six years on. Put Sir Thomas Erpingham KG opposite, since it was Erpingham's baton that started the battle that ended both their careers.

Model: k40 / Tradition of London / 54mm (1/32) scale / 1 piece set

All hand painted Toy Soldier sets packed in the Classic Tradition Red Boxes. All Toy Soldiers cast in quality white metal, and individually hand painted in gloss enamels.

Please allow 2-3 weeks delivery.