King Edward III founded the Order of the Garter at the dawn of an age of astounding English military exploits on the European continent. He and his successors were served by nobles and commoners with a clear vision of an England that could face down any foe, across a boggy field or on the other side of the negotiating table. Many were rewarded with money, lands and titles, only a very few with a strip of blue cloth embroidered with an obscure inscription - ‘Honi soi qui mal y pense’. This book tells the story of the lives and times of some of those early Knights, men whose names are mentioned in connection with great events in English history, but then fade from view, like ghostly horsemen on a misty battlefield. Men like Sir Hugh Courtenay, who fought at Crecy, was a renowned jouster, but died before he was 23; like Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, who in 1513, in his seventieth year, triumphed over the Scots at Flodden. In telling of the lives of ten of the Garter Knights, the book tells not only of well-known battles such as Crecy and Poitiers, but also of lesser known engagements such as Najera, Homildon Hill, Shrewsbury, Verneuil, the Siege of Orleans and Castillon.