On 25 October 1415 some 6,000 Frenchmen were killed by the much smaller English army at Agincourt as the Hundred Years' War raged on.

But that most famous of days in English history might not have happened if it was not for Kenilworth Castle.

In 1403 the life of the then Prince Henry (later Henry V) was saved at the castle after he was nearly killed by an arrow at the Battle of Shrewsbury.

Those longbowmen who championed Henry's army in 1415 were nearly his downfall 12 years previously, as he and his father (Henry IV) suppressed a rebellion.

In June 1403 Henry 'Hotspur' Percy and Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester rebelled against the King, looking to put Richard II back on the throne.

Hotspur marched to Shrewsbury where he hoped to capture the 16-year-old Prince Henry.

But the royal army beat him there and the two sides clashed on the afternoon of 21 July 1403.

It was the first time that two sets of English longbowmen had faced each other on home soil, and the result was devastating with 3,000 men fleeing immediately.

Both King and Prince continued to fight, and the young Henry was struck just below his right eye with an arrow that lodged into that back of his skull.

The shaft was ripped out so the prince could fight on.

But after the battle, with the rebellion surpressed, the Prince was taken to Kenilworth Castle for the bodkin point of the arrow to be removed.

After a number of surgeons tried to remove it royal surgeon John Bradmore, who had just been released from prison for counterfeiting money, was called.

Bradmore, who later wrote about the procedure, used a probe made of willow and wrapped in honey soaked linen to open the wound.

He then used a homemade clamp to pull the arrowhead out of the Prince's skull – all without anaesthetic.

The wound was then sterilised with wine and over the next 20 days the Prince had to use smaller and smaller probes to allow the wound the grow naturally.

Without the intervention of Bradmore in Kenilworth it is likely the wound would have turned septic, and Prince Henry would not have gone on to become one of the most famous kings in English history.