PREVIEW： Chronicles #50 ｜ Sharpe's Eagle with Beau & Samson Part 1
Episode Stats
Harmful content
Misogyny
2
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Toxicity
17
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Hate speech
6
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Summary
Bo and Samson discuss Bernard Cornwell's first novel, Sharp's Eagle, and the events leading up to it, including the Battle of Talavera and the story behind the name of the novel, and why it's so damn good.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome back to Chronicles and well sir upon reaching the 50th episode of Chronicles
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I decided it best to cover Sharpe's eagle that's my style sir and here with me today is Bo and
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Samson. And we're basically just going to have just a hugely good time talking all about Sharp.
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I mean, it's not more complicated than that. We're just going to have a damn good conversation
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talking about Sharp's Eagle, the first novel that great writer, historical fiction writer,
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Bernard Cornwell wrote back in 1981. And then since then, of course, has gone on to led to ITV's
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He's very proud of his hardback, ladies and gentlemen.
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He feels the need to model it in high definition.
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We're going to talk about Sharp's Eagle and the actual first novel as well.
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And, yeah, like I say, just have a bloody good conversation about Sharp
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I'm here for the real battle of Talavera and everything.
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Because on my channel, History Bro, check that out,
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Sharpe's Fortress, Sharpe's Trafalgar, I think.
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in terms of chronologically through Sharpe's life,
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But as you say, it's the first one Cornwall wrote.
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but it's really remarkable how much of the lore is already there.
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It's interesting to just come to that exact point, that when you read the preface,
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I don't know if it's in probably the preface of all of Sharp's Eagle,
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but he talks about the fact that he really wanted to write.
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He was obviously fascinated by the Peninsula War ever since he was a young boy,
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and the Napoleonic War more broadly, because he was a huge Hornblower fan growing up.
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But at the same time, he was obviously, he was like,
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Where's the one that gets to tell the tale of Talavera and Baderhoff?
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which I believe ends up being sort of like the backdrop of Sharp's Company.
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Yeah, but he was like, I've never written a novel before,
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I just need a few practices, and so this is what he put sharp
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into 1809, Battle of Talavera, and if I've got the history of it right,
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the British, the first main thrust into Spain to try and not,
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with Wellington's army, to try and dislodge Joseph Bonaparte.
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I mean, before the retreat to Corona in the middle of Spain.
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But still, I suppose, after defeating the French in Portugal.
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So the political world is a real ding-dong back and forth, basically, is what it is.
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It's not the first time English troops are in Spain, but still, okay.
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Because that's the thing that I love the real history, right?
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But he's, and I quote him a lot from my monarchy stuff, but he's real magnum opus.
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is on the Peninsular War, and that's the best stuff.
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On Epochs, where I did a nine-part series on Napoleon,
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two or even three of those episodes are just on the Peninsular War,
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If you're only doing nine parts on all of Napoleon,
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It just suggests that I'm fascinated by the Peninsular War.
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like unbelievably unbelievably good for first level and anyway um it is odd though well not
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odd he could do whatever he wanted of course but in hindsight it looks kind of weird that um he
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started it there of all places why why are there i mean he's probably explained it in an interview
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but i've i've not seen it but yeah why there of all places because of course he goes back to like
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the retreat to corona and he goes back and he does the battle of like um of amiro i don't know
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there's a book about Ronica, I don't know. But anyway, to start it sort of just before
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the Battle of Talavera, why are there? I don't know. But it works, it's fine, isn't it?
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There's no problem with that. Perhaps Cornwall was particularly fascinated by Talavera, I
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Well, in the forward or preface, he specifically states he wants to start with the Battle of
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Yeah, I'm not going to, I'm intentionally not pronouncing the Spanish or the Portuguese correctly.
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But yeah, he wanted to start with that specific battle because it interested him in particular.
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And said, I'm not worthy of starting with that.
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So I don't think it was specifically Talavera that interested him.
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It was just an event that happened before Badajoz.
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But to write a novel like this where, if anyone doesn't know,
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like the last third, the second half, the last quarter anyway,
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And there's quite a few subplots in it, aren't there?
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A lot like when we first read Patrick O'Brien's Master and Commander.
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There's a lot of just little moments in it as well
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that can get lost and you think oh no that happened and that happened because it's actually
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very action-packed oh yeah novel it's much faster paced than the tv show yeah i thought yeah because
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i've watched sharpe's eagle the sean beam tv thing yeah like three or four maybe five times
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and re-watched it at weekend just gone for like the yeah the fourth or fifth time and
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only read this a couple of months ago for the first
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It feels like a lot has been sliced away and chopped around
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because a lot of the stuff in the later episodes
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relies on various other things that have been chopped and changed around.
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And I think that the book is a far better medium for the story.
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of Sharpe's Eagle, but the book still caps it off.
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One of the things I suppose we'll end up saying
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is just that because of the limitations of budget and TV, though,
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When Cornwell, when we get to the final battle,
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the scope with which he describes it with is genuinely impressive.
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just all the different troop movements and who's going where and everything
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You can tell he can rotate the Battle of Talavera in his mind like the apple.
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even if Sharp and Sharp's company are not real.
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He has done his utmost to make a story that could theoretically fit into reality.
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Yeah, I mean, I would love, obviously, to make it clear,
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which is well the main one which is really obvious as soon as you watch it is that the
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budget wasn't big enough to have loads of extras yeah because the back of talavera is no small
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affair it's not one of those giant napoleonic ones it's hundreds of thousands of sides
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well is it something like 45 to 55 000 a side something yeah that's that's no small affair no
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but they've got like 30 extras a side something like that in the tv show and it's like this is
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supposed to be the back of talavera and it's a little field in the middle of crimea and it's
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yeah doesn't really look like yeah talavera like at most they've got most they've got 50 extras
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aside haven't they something like that but anyway anyway anyway so let's get ahead of us no let's
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begin by just talking about so exactly they've had the um the flight from corona um before all
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of this is of course happened that the british have been on the back foot of course all of
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Napoleon's marshals are obviously about Spain and we just we're originally greeted with this
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fanfare of the British troops marching through Portuguese town and obviously everyone's very
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much cheering and caught the way that Cornwell just sets up very concisely where you are in the
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war and what's going on and like who's got the upper hand it's all done really really clean and
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then you're immediately just brought into uh the life of Richard Sharp now obviously despite
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Sean Bean's iconic Yorkshire voice and I truly can't imagine uh anyone else for the part at this
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rate and honestly neither could Cornwall by the end who obviously after writing about 10 uh 10
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Sharp novels ended up I think sort of like trying to integrate the version of Bean's version of
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Sharp into the novels because he whenever he was writing Sharp he heard Bean's voice he saw
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Bean's physicality and so it was an incredible way that those two became one in the same but for now
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he was so Sharp is born in London as the son of a prostitute and an unknown father has no idea who
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his father is um conwell uh commented one time that he thought to be mischievous that he might
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make sharp's father french but he decided against it and decided it would have just been too silly
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um but sharp is uh obviously coming from that background someone who has of course come
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from the ranks yeah and you know obviously there are previous novels describing his life as a
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private, climbing, all the way to where he is now as Lieutenant Sharp. But Sharp is a man who
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is desperately, he's ambitious, he wants promotion, and he's very resentful of the
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upper-class aristocrats because of the privilege that they have. But I suppose one thing to say
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about Sharp is that that resentment is, it's very much a resentment based on envy. It's not an
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actually oh we shouldn't have these things and this is all terrible and people get to go fox
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hunting and they get to drink a carrot at the table and talk about you know things in polite
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society it's not that sharp actually hates these things it's just that he feels inept and he feels
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like an outsider whenever he's brought into them and there's this uh sort of like inner fight this
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sort of like working class grit within his character that is kind of like i'll show them
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And when I do it, it'll be purely based on merit,
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not because someone's bought a colonel ship or whatever it may be.
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All of the officers around him are people who've bought their way in
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or who have been grown up in absolute privilege
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They've handed the officership, handed the captaincy.
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multiple times he's just basically completely overridden and gone no no your battlefield
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honors mean nothing compared to this guy who spent however many thousand pounds um give or take
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for adjusted for inflation um for that role or for that uh um commission commission you can buy a
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commission yeah um well it's not just the first few books it's all the books yes that's hard baked
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into uh sharp at all levels uh you've mentioned quite a few things there so to begin with
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Yeah, he's always described as, from London, tall and dark, black-haired or dark.
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He's actually blonde, not particularly tall, and an older.
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But yeah, I mean, I know Bernard Cornwall said in interviews and things
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And after a while, after those came out, he just started writing it more for that.
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worth picking up on is that I'm pretty sure I've seen Cornwall say this or if not I've imagined it
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either way it seems to be true that what he loves first and foremost is Wellington
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even though the the story is about Richard Chubb and the chosen men of the 95th of whatever
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really it's a vehicle to talk about Wellington because you know even the first stories are
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wellington in india um so um when you look at it that way because there's some novels there's a few
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of the sharp novels where wellington's not in it at all somewhere he's in it loads more than this
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one and he's in this one a bit isn't he not all that much but a bit yeah um like every now and
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again you see napoleon or cornwall actually does a a scene with napoleon but usually napoleon's
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not in them at all well i mean it's the peninsula one after after sir john moore's retreat to
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It's just, I'm just going to contrive the thing.
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He's like, how can I get Sharp to be at this other interesting thing,
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even though I've already written a story that happens at the same time as this?
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I've seen some people say, how can Sharp be at that particular battle or engagement
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when in an earlier book, you've already said he's over there,
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His quote to the saying is, these are my books.
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It doesn't have to completely make perfect sense.
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asked Bernard Cornwall on like a forum or something.
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As amazing as his first novel is how he deals with exposition
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because that's difficult to do a little bit of exposition
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which isn't clunky and doesn't take you out of the story.
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Especially for someone who they may not know the history behind it
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Like me, when I first read this, I expected to be bombarded
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it by a complete barrage of historical terms um like giant paragraphs about historical troop
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movements all of that i got none of that yeah the everything was explained in a really simple to
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understand but really interesting way which made me want to learn more but it also didn't treat me
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like an idiot for not knowing it so but that thing of like starting a novel because the first page of
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a novel is absolutely critical to make people want to read it on like unbelievably critical
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to introduce characters, start a novel off, start a book off,
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the introduction of the characters isn't clunky.
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everyone would be making, writing, and selling novels, wouldn't they?
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yeah uh but obviously obviously case without saying cornwall's like a master true master of
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it where you never think uh like even for a second you think oh okay i've got it boring
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come on get on with it not not a touch of that no or as you say like really difficult like
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terminology that you're supposed to understand and you don't know and you have to go off and
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find out what you really meant by that or yeah starting in the middle of the peninsula war well
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third of the way through it or whatever yeah and that you're not like wait i really need to know
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why that is or what how how did we get here whatever that magic touch is to make the reader
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just go okay i'm just on board i'm just on board with these characters now and what's happening
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now yeah i need to know what happens next yeah whatever that is bernicol was just the master
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yeah he's just the master sharps eagle specifically is great because the entire first paragraph of
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chapter one not the forward or preface yeah it's basically him going oh those portuguese they love
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the british the british are so cool can you see how cool the british are the portuguese
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love them that's essentially yes still true to this day i've heard yeah well our alliance goes
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back to what the 12th century or something yeah it's like 1350 something okay yeah um but yeah
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nonetheless um that that thing of um how you make someone in in the middle of sharp's career
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in the middle of a war, in the middle of a troop movement.
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And so Sharp is already at the beginning of the novel.
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He's got maggots at his leg and he's being nursed back.
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Yeah, he's in the middle of, he's just been wounded.
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They just say a French officer did this to them.
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Yeah, but he's being nursed by the ever-dependable,
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There's a part in it, isn't there, where it says
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they were as close to friends as it is possible
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You know, it does bear in mind that difference of rank
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means there has to be a little bit of distance and formality there however in you know in a
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private conversation with one another just as a confidant they're absolutely um you know inseparable
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from one another and this is what you constantly see when and one of the things to pull up about
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what you were saying samson about is that when you've got all of these british officers there
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as well because that's the thing as well so many of them it's always the british officers who would
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getting in the way right they're always incompetent sharp is always the one having to like save the
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day and bring it but really this isn't this isn't actually based on sort of any sort of like
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subliminal like class conscious subversion from cornwell it's really just like the mechanics
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of how a story has to function because originally before he'd written the novels
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um cornwell had said well obviously the french should have been the bad guys but i found as
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writing the story that it's very hard to just constantly bring sharp into contact with those
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characters he spends most of the story surrounded by other british officers and so it's that's where
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the conflict has got to be it's got to be with the people that he's constantly um surrounding
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himself with but i think it's this thing that it goes to show you as well the fact that sharp's
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not just the one who talks the talk he walks the walk because harper and hagman and all of his
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chosen men are so loyal to him you know and you see why they're so loyal to him uh very very
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quickly within just this one single novel um and so his character comes across very very pragmatic
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very strong uh with um his own firm they're not gentlemen's morals but he does have very strong
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morals of his own yeah one thing i'll say about sharp uh if you read enough of the novels you get
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it is that he's he's a violent murderer yeah right yeah you see that in this one hornblower
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is a good boy yes he's a hornblower gentleman yeah oh absolutely yeah and he does everything
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nearly everything by the book and he's a nice pleasant person um and um he's master and
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commander oh jack albury yeah jack albury and his friend oh stephen again they're good honorable
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nice decent officer men um richard sharp will drag you into a dark and dally and cut your throat
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and not give and not care like he's a killer yeah he is an absolute killer yeah and uh
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unapologetically so harper as well yeah harper as well but then there's that that magic of making
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someone that is really sort of morally kind of a baddie but you're just one he's 100 the hero and
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you 100 uh root for him of course you do yeah the fact that he's a badass only adds to how much you
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love him yeah of course but he's not nice he's not nice at all so i mean that's one thing one
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of the other quick things one of the main things that he came up from the ranks he came from
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nothing and and how rare it is for an enlisted man to ever get a commission of any type and even
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if you do you'll never you'll never be have been born a gentleman you just won't have done no and
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then the various class things again a lot of the novels i wouldn't say formulaic that's unfair
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but a lot of the novels are similar in the broadest sense of the uh sharp gets in trouble
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for being such a badass essentially right and the officer class look down their nose at him
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and wins everything and wins the day and he's the best.
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and set it at the different battles of the peninsula, basically.
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his own offices are the things that stand away.
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Often the French in sharp novels are sympathetic.
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but often they're actually noble and worthy opponents and stuff.
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This is particularly prominent in one of the early battle scenes
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the French are honourable in their post-battle communication.
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They treat each other like human beings in comparison to this book's major villains.
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