Hundred Years' War: surgeons and craftsmen of surgical instruments being forced to go with the English army as part of the 1415 invasion of France. Gouache painting by A. Forestier, 1913.

A. Forestier · 1913

Lettering: Compulsory service! Surgeons forced to embark with the English army invading France; with the necessay workmen for the making and repairing of surgical instruments. ... A. Forestier 1913. Lettering continues: "There is still so much talk on occasion of the panel system brought into being by the insurance act, and still so much of 'compulsion' of doctors, that this illustration cannot fail to interest, as showing that medical men have not always been free agents! When, in 1415, King Henry V. invaded France at the head of his army, had with that force the surgeon Thomas Mortstede, who, after much arguement, had consented to follow his ruler into the field with a dozen members of the London Corporation of Surgeons. When the second expedition to France was undertaken, the Corporation could not even provide twelve men willing to join the troops. Then it was that the King authorised Mortstede to embark as many surgeons as were wanted, whether they were willing or no, and to press into the service also all the workmen necessary for the making and repairing of the surgical instruments."