Battle of Agincourt
Part of the Hundred Years' War
The Battle of Agincourt, 15th century miniature
Date: 25 October (St. Crispin's Day) 1415 Location: Agincourt, France Result: Decisive English victory
Combatants
Kingdom of England	Kingdom of France
Commanders
Henry V of England	Charles d'Albret
Strength
5,900 troops: 900 men-at-arms 5,000 archers (Longbowmen)	36,000 troops: 11,200 mounted men-at-arms 18,000 dismounted men-at-arms 6,800 crossbowmen (few archers)
Casualties
100-250[1]	5,000 killed 1,000 captured[2]

Hundred Years' War
Sluys – Crécy – Calais – Poitiers – Auray – Agincourt – Rouen – Baugé – Meaux – Cravant – Verneuil – Orléans – Patay – Compiègne – Gerbevoy – Formigny – Castillon

The Battle of Agincourt was fought on 25 October 1415, (Saint Crispin's Day), in northern France as part of the Hundred Years' War during a rainy day. The combatants were the English army of King Henry V (traditionally thought to be highly outnumbered, though this is now disputed, see below), and that of Charles VI of France. The latter was not commanded by the incapacitated king himself, but by the Constable Charles d'Albret and various notable French noblemen of the Armagnac party. The battle is notable for the use of the English longbow, which helped the English compensate for their inferior numbers. The battle was also immortalised (and somewhat fictionalised) by William Shakespeare as the centrepiece of his play Henry V.

The campaign

Henry V invaded France for several reasons. He hoped that by fighting a popular foreign war, he would strengthen his position at home. He wanted to improve his finances by gaining revenue-producing lands. He also wanted to take nobles prisoner either for ransom or to extort money from the French king in exchange for their return. The latter was a version of "Danegeld", which English kings had successfully employed before. Evidence also suggests that several lords in the region of Normandy promised him their lands when they died, but the King of France confiscated their lands instead.

Henry's army landed in northern France on 13 August 1415, and besieged the port of Harfleur. The siege of Harfleur took longer than expected. The town surrendered on 22 September, and the English army did not leave until 8 October. The campaign season was coming to an end, and the English army had suffered many casualties through disease. Henry decided to move most of his army (roughly 9,000) to the port of Calais, the only English stronghold in northern France, where they could re-equip over the winter.

During the siege, the French had been able to call up a large feudal army which d'Albret deployed skillfully between Harfleur and Calais, mirroring the English manoeuvres along the river Somme, thus preventing them from reaching Calais without a major confrontation. The end result was that d'Albret managed to force Henry into fighting a battle that, given the state of his army, he would have preferred to avoid.

However, the catastrophic defeat that the French suffered at the Battle of Agincourt allowed Henry to fulfill all his objectives. He was recognised by the French in the Treaty of Troyes (1420) as the regent and heir to the French throne. This was cemented by his marriage to Catherine of Valois, the daughter of King Charles VI.

Henry V did not live to inherit the throne of France. In 1422, while securing his position against further French opposition, he died of dysentery at the age of 34, two months before the death of Charles VI. He was succeeded by his young son, Henry VI. During his reign, the English were expelled from all of France except Calais by French forces, inspired by Joan of Arc, under the new French king, Charles VII.

The battle

The battle was fought in the defile formed by the wood of Agincourt and that of Tramecourt. The army was positioned by d'Albret at the northern exit so as to bar the way to Calais. The night of 24 October was spent by the two armies on the ground, and the English had little shelter from the heavy rain.

Early on the 25th, Henry deployed his army (now only 900 men-at-arms and 5,000 archers because of disease, mainly dysentery). It is probable that the usual three "battles" were drawn up in line, each with its mounted knights and men-at-arms on the flanks and the dismounted men-at-arms in the centre. The English men-at-arms in plate and mail were placed shoulder to shoulder four deep. Meanwhile, the English archers were thrown forward in wedge-shaped salients with spikes placed in the ground to force a horse charge to veer off, almost exactly as in the Battle of Crécy. Many English archers were naked below the waist due to the continuing dysentery of the march, and the Englishmen's last meal was four days previous. Once in formation, the archers were not allowed to leave and had to relieve themselves where they stood.

The French were arrayed in three great lines called "battles", with knights packed 40 men deep. Situated on each flank were the mounted men-at-arms (2,200 in total, half on each flank), most of whom were the 'cream' of France, including 12 princes of royal blood, while the centre contained dismounted men-at-arms and the rear was made up of 9,000 mounted men-at-arms. The French crossbowmen were, as usual, relegated to the rear of the knights and men-at-arms, much to d'Albret's disapproval. Altogether, there were roughly 36,000 Frenchmen compared to 5,900 Englishmen.

An important factor in the battle was the terrain, which was very muddy from the recent rain. This deep mud favored the English force because, once knocked to the ground, the heavily armored French knights would find it very difficult to stand back up, eliminating them as an effective fighting force. The mud was deep enough that more than one knight suffocated after being knocked into it. It also served to prevent the French artillery from taking part in the battle.

French accounts state that, prior to the battle, Henry V gave a speech reassuring his nobles that if the French prevailed, the English nobles would be spared – to be captured and ransomed instead. However, the common soldier would have no such luck and therefore he told them they had better fight for their lives.

For three hours after sunrise there was no fighting; then Henry, finding that the French would not advance, moved his army further into the defile. 400 yards from the French line, the archers dug in pointed wooden stakes called palings, at an angle, to ward off cavalry charges, and opened the engagement with a single flight of arrows. It should be noted that these palings were an innovation. At Crécy and Poitiers, two similar battles between the French and the English, the archers had not had them.

The French force was not an army, but a group of knights who had come together at the request of Charles VI. They were undisciplined and, ignoring the lessons of Crécy and Poitiers, were easily stung into action. The French mounted men-at-arms charged to destroy the archers, only to be decimated and then driven back in confusion. The constable himself headed the leading line of dismounted men-at-arms, but weighed down by their armour and sinking deep into the mud with every step, they struggled to reach and engage the English men-at-arms. Wallowing in the mud, they were easy targets for the English bowmen. Once the French reached the English line it became worse: the French were far too closely packed to even lift their weapons to attack the enemy. However, as casualties mounted and prisoners were taken, the French started to engage the line to good effect. The thin line of defenders was pushed back and Henry himself was almost beaten to the ground. But at this moment, the archers, using hatchets, swords and other weapons, penetrated the gaps among the now disordered French, who could not cope with their unarmoured assailants, and were slaughtered or taken prisoner. The second line of the French came on, only to be engulfed in the mêlée. Its leaders, like those of the first line, were killed or captured, and the commanders of the third line sought and found their death in the battle, while their men rode off to safety.

The only success for the French was a sally from Agincourt Castle behind the lines. Ysambart D'Agincourt seized the King's baggage. Thinking his rear was under attack and worried that the prisoners would rearm, Henry ordered the slaughter of the captives (who could easily have helped themselves to the weapons strewn about the field). The nobles and senior officers, still wanting to ransom the prisoners, refused the task and the job fell to the common soldiers. Henry's actions may have been savage, but if the captives had armed themselves, his army could have been caught between the remaining French forces and the prisoners.

In the morning, Henry returned to the battlefield and had any wounded Frenchman who had survived the night in the open killed. All the nobility had already been taken away and any commoners left on the field were too badly injured to survive without medical care.

Total English losses were put at thirteen men-at-arms (including Edward of Norwich, 2nd Duke of York, a grandson of Edward III) and about 100 of the foot soldiers. The French lost 5,000 soldiers. The constable, three dukes, five counts and 90 barons (see below) were among the wounded; 1000 more were taken prisoner, amongst them the Duke of Orléans (the famous poet Charles d'Orléans) and Jean Le Maingre, Marshal of France.

Notable casualties

• Antoine of Burgundy, Duke of Brabant and Limburg (b. 1384)
• Philip of Burgundy, Count of Nevers and Rethel (b. 1389)
• Charles I d'Albret, Count of Dreux, the Constable of France
• John II, Count of Bethune (b. 1359)
• John I, Duke of Alençon (b. 1385)
• Frederick of Lorraine, Count of Vaudemont (b. 1371)
• Robert, Count of Marles and Soissons
• Edward III, Duke of Bar (the Duchy of Bar lost its independence as a consequence of his death)
• John VI, Count of Roucy
• Edward of Norwich, 2nd Duke of York (b. 1373)

Sir Peers Legh

When Sir Peers Legh was wounded, his Mastiff stood over him and protected him for many hours through the battle. Although Legh later died, the Mastiff returned to Legh's home and was the forefather of the Lyme Hall Mastiffs. Five centuries later, this pedigree figured prominently in founding the modern English Mastiff breed.

Modern re-assessment of Agincourt

Were the English as outnumbered as traditionally thought?

Until recently, Agincourt has been feted as one of the greatest victories in English military history, but in Agincourt, A New History (2005), Anne Curry makes the claim that the scale of the English triumph at Agincourt was overstated for almost six centuries.

According to her research, the French still outnumbered the English and Welsh, but only by a factor of three to two (12,000 Frenchmen against 8,000 Englishmen and Welshmen). According to Curry, the Battle of Agincourt was a "myth constructed around Henry to build up his reputation as a king". The legend of the English as underdogs at Agincourt was definitely given credence in popular English culture with William Shakespeare's Henry V in 1599. In the speech before the battle, Shakespeare puts in the mouth of Henry V the famous words "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers".

However, it will be years before other historians will have been able to go over her data and decide whether her theory is correct. Some early reviewers of the book have been enthusiastic, but it remains to be seen whether her thesis will stand up to scrutiny after it has been subjected to the critique of a wider scholarly audience.

A later book by Juliet Barker, Agincourt: The King, the Campaign, the Battle, claims 6,000 English and Welsh fought against 36,000 French, with the odds being six to one, from a French heraldic source. The same test of wider scholarly scrutiny is also yet to be applied.

The Battle of Agincourt as an English patriotic myth

The Battle of Agincourt, although almost six centuries old, is still well remembered in England. Along with the Battle of Trafalgar and the Battle of Waterloo, it often comes back as a French-bashing theme in the English tabloid press.

Popular myths

It has long been told that the famous "two-fingers salute" and/or "V sign" derives from the gestures of English archers, fighting at Agincourt. The myth claims that the French cut off two fingers on the right hand of captured archers and that the gesture was a sign of defiance by those who were not mutilated.

This may have some basis in fact - Jean Froissart (circa 1337-circa 1404) was a historian as the author of The Chronicle, a primary document that is essential to an understanding of Europe in the fourteenth century and to the twists and turns taken by the Hundred Years' War. The story of the English waving their fingers at the French is told in the first person account by Froissart, however the description is not of an incident at the Battle of Agincourt, but rather at the siege of a castle in another incident during the Hundred Years War. Also, Froissart is known to have died before the Battle of Agincourt. If it was used at Agincourt, it was not invented there.

Bibliography

• Barker, Juliet (2005). Agincourt: The King, the Campaign, the Battle Pub: Little, Brown. ISBN 0316726486 (UK). ISBN 0316015032 (US: Agincourt : Henry V and the Battle That Made England (2006)).
• Curry, Anne (2005). Agincourt: A New History. Pub: Tempus UK. ISBN 0752428284
• "Battle of Agincourt" in Military Heritage, October 2005, Volume 7, No. 2, pp. 36 to 43). ISSN 1524-8666.
• Dupuy, Trevor N. (1993). Harper Encyclopedia of Military History. Pub: New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0062700561
• Keegan, John (1976). The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme. Pub: Viking Adult. ISBN 0140048979 (Penguin Classics Reprint)

Notes

1. ^ Trevor Dupuy, Harper Encyclopedia of Military History. p. 450. However, "..it is likely that casualties were substantially greater than this."
2. ^ Trevor Dupuy p. 450