<p>The hugely acclaimed, best-selling life of Hawkwood, one of the outstanding figures of English and European history.<br><br><br>John Hawkwood was an Essex man who became the greatest mercenary in an age when soldiers of fortune flourished - an age that also witnessed the first stirrings of the Renaissance. When England made a peace treaty with the French in 1360, during a pause in the Hundred Years War, John Hawkwood, instead of going home, tr...