Henry V arrowhead removal

in the year 1403 one of the most extraordinary innovations in royal battlefield surgery began here at Shrewsbury sixteen-year-old Prince Henry the son of King Henry the fourth and heir to the throne was leading the left flank of his father's army against the rebel force going into battle risked his life his father's Lancastrian dynasty and the stability of the entire kingdom but Prince Henry's heroic example here almost created a national crisis as the troops he commanded advanced up the gentle slope to where the battlefield church now stands they came under attack from the notorious Cheshire longbowman their lethal weapons were the machine guns of their day almost immediately the heir to the throne was right in the middle of a storm of arrows it was the Crown's worst nightmare Prince Henry was struck by an arrow in the face despite his appalling wound the courageous prince fought on until victory was theirs by the end of the day the battle had been won Hotspur the enemy leader lay dead but the future of the country remained unsure Prince Henry was still in mortal danger just like the fatal wound of Richard the Lionheart the wooden shaft of the arrow was pulled out but the arrowhead was still wedged in his skull after the battle Prince Henry was taken to a safe haven what happened next is one of the most remarkable medical stories of late medieval times at first Henry's Royal surgeons had little idea of what to do resorting to potions and charms then there arrived one of the finest surgeons of the age john bradmore Henry the son and heir of the illustrious King had been struck in the face with an arrow beside the nose on the left side and the head of the said arrow after the arrow shaft was extracted remained in the backbone of the skull six inches deep Brad Moore's description is that the arrow passed deep into the prints and wedged against the bone of the skull Prince Henry was very lucky indeed if the arrow had gone into the cranial cavity and had damaged his brain or if it had crossed the midline damaging the spinal cord and the major blood vessels around the base of the skull then his death would have been inevitable and almost instantaneous Henry might also have been saved by another piece of good fortune at the time of the Battle of Shrewsbury more and more people were wearing plate armor on the battlefield and a function of plate armor is to create reflective surfaces the arrowhead embedded in Henry's skull was a bodkin a type of era specifically designed to defeat plate armor but it can only do so if the angle of strike gets it at 90 degrees for the most part it would be glancing off and I think that that is probably what happened to the arrow that went into Prince Henry because something must have slowed it down an arrow of this type if it had to come head-on into him there at full power would probably have come out of the skull the other side Henry would probably have his visor up so he could breathe so he could command deliver orders be seemed to be there in the midst of the battle arrows coming specifically into that area would be glancing off and I think it was one of those hours a freak accident the blast off straight into his face although he escaped incident death by a matter of millimeters bradmore his surgeon knew that if the arrowhead wasn't removed quickly and cleanly the wound would become infected just like Henry's ancestor richard the lionheart the arrow has entered his face here and it would have passed through these very thin plates of bone that formed the facial skeleton and come to rest against the more solid bone of the base of the skull now Brad Moore has the difficult task of trying to remove this he can't use the more conventional medieval approach towards arrow removal which is to actually push it straight through and out the other side Brad Moore was faced with the task of exploring the wound and grasping the end of this bodkin and withdrawing it conscious of the fact that there were a lot of vital structures within very close proximity to the bodkin to save the princes life bradmore set about designing a special metal tool this remarkable document written by Brad nor himself describes exactly what he made historian TIG Lang has brought it to archaeological ironworker Hector coal using traditional iron working techniques Hector is going to attempt to remake the tool now this is Latin so you'll have to translate this for me because I don't understand the Latin this was written by the surgeon John bradmore who actually removed the arrow from the princess skull and this is his description blow by blow yes of the wound as he found it and what he does in order to reach the arrowhead and extract the arrowhead he says after other surgeons had failed to do so the first thing he does is actually to open up the wound again yes around whether you shaft of the arrow had gone to ensure the wound didn't close up and to help him find the arrowhead bradmore made small probes which he called tents first I made tents of the pith of old elder dry dwell and wrapped well in clean linen cloth these tents were dipped in rose honey and afterwards I made larger and longer tents and this continued always enlarging the aforesaid tents until I had the width and depth of the wound as I wished and then he says when in my imagination I had reached the arrow head which I think some lovely touch it shows how difficult it was in the days before x-ray then he says I made new tongs small and concave to the size of an arrow I think of tolls like these yeah now you see to me there was a tongues yes and I think what he's thinking is yes this is why I think he lays such stress on them being smooth because yes something like that done a wound those two ends going to jag in the flesh you've got all this business around here of the screw obviously he doesn't want to aggravate the wound as he passes these things down I know they've got to be very narrow very smooth with Henry's life ebbing away Brad Moore was in a race against time to design and forge this revolutionary instrument Smith's in the castle would have been absolutely fascinated because it's totally out of the rather the sort of thing that they would be doing shoeing horses making nails Hector is using 15th century techniques to make something as close as possible to Brad Moore's original invention back in 1403 Brad mill had no time to test it before inserting it into the skull of the prince any mistake now wouldn't only kill the future king but would also be a catastrophe for the nation six hundred years ago to save the life of Henry Prince of Wales a revolutionary instrument was forged to pull an arrow from his skull Hector Cole and Teague Lang are about to test an exact replica here's the tall that's wonderful it just looks as if it's been picked off the page doesn't it yes yes this is the piece that passed down through those rough smooth as that turns then this poked out so that it will open up onto the socket the tip of the arrowhead is lodged in the bone and of course Brad moles working blind but he is passing this down through the path of the wound I can feel it entering the shaft and I assume this is what he's doing is working by feel he begins to turn the screw and he would have felt the point at which this has gripped the arrowhead I can feel there's it's firmer half their problems to get the arrowhead out of the bone the other half is that all the time he's passing it up all through that wound yes it can't let go of this pod Clarke or indeed have it wobbling about I put the tongs inside the wood in the same manner that the arrow had first entered then I also put the screw in the middle and at length the tongs entered the cavity of the Arrowhead and then moving it to and fro little by little I extracted the arrowhead oh no no there is no wasn't servants of the Prince were standing by and all gave thanks to God

Channel: WillieWillieHarrySte

Views: 2,242,909

Rating: 4.8921461 out of 5

Keywords: Henry, V, arrowhead, removal

Id: C8Nef1siUus

Length: 9min 29sec (569 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 13 2010

Reddit Comments

[u/cybertronic-devil]

Thats what the mark on Timothee Chalamet's face was in The King.

[u/fisherblurst]

Fascinating

[u/bolanrox]

Arrowed

[u/Mr_Abe_Froman]

That John Bradmore was a real hero.

[u/innocent_0]

same tbh

[u/PeteRaw]

At least it wasn't to the knee.

[u/02K30C1]

He went hunting with Dick Cheney

[u/kid_sleepy]

Now that’s a right of passage...