Taking a medieval castle in a single day was extremely rare, requiring us to get creative ;)

Wikipedia page of Gilbert : Gilbert Motier de La Fayette — Wikipédia

This is a crazy story. I read about it the other day and can't stop talking about it.

The year is 1403. Sixteen-year-old Prince Hal, heir to the throne and the future King Henry V of England, gets shot in the face with a bodkin-tipped arrow fired from a longbow. Someone pulls the shaft out, but the point remains lodged six inches deep in bone and soft tissue. This is already a one-in-a-million non-lethal shot.

Prince Hal is evacuated 50 miles from the battlefield to Kenilworth Castle. Five days pass, with various medical practitioners offering potions and ointments, but none are able to extract the arrowhead.

Finally, the skilled surgeon John Bradmore arrives and takes control of the situation. He has to dilate the swollen, clotted wound first, and then he uses something like a screw-in wine bottle opener to grab hold of the arrowhead and carefully wiggle it out. He cleans the wound with white wine and stuffs it with something like a linen tampon soaked in an ointment made of honey, turpentine, flour, and bread crumbs. For twenty days, he changes the ointment-soaked tampons and replaces them with smaller and smaller ones, allowing the wound to heal from the inside out.

There is no anesthesia, antibiotics, or sterile procedure. Prince Hal survives the ordeal, recovers, and eventually becomes king (later dying of illness at the age of 35). John Bradmore receives a fat annuity from the Crown until he dies in 1412.