1415: Henry V's Year of Glory (68 page)

Before dawn, wearing his armour, he attended his first Mass of the day, sung by the priests of the royal chapel. He heard two more Masses, then rose from his knees, and lifted his helmet and spurs. He ordered an esquire to take ten men-at-arms and twenty archers and to guard the horses and the baggage wagons, which would remain in Maisoncelle. They would also guard the high-status pages with the army and the sick who could not fight.
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Outside it was growing light. It was time for the army to move out.

Henry called for his horse – a small white one – and rode with his
councillors through the mud of the village towards the battlefield. The sodden remains of the overnight bonfires were around them. Captains were raising and ordering the men who had sheltered in tents and in barns, in the gardens and orchards. Henry instructed his trumpeters to remain quiet; he did not want the French to hear the English, nor to break the solemn air about the camp. Just as the English had passed the night in disciplined silence, so now they grouped together to face the French without a sound.
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Further up the field, about three-quarters of a mile away, the French were also deploying their men. Like the English, few of them had slept. Some of the English soldiers had heard them talking and shouting through the night, as they re-organised themselves in the rain. Many were soaked and tired. Some remarked that their horses had not neighed all night, as if sensing some calamity would befall them. But the lords, who were dry, were far more positive. They had succeeded in trapping the king of England. Tomorrow they would lead him and the dukes of York and Gloucester to Paris and Rouen as prisoners of the king of France.

In arranging their forces, the French seem largely to have ignored the royal plan drawn up at Rouen a few days earlier. That had stated that the duke of Bourbon, the marshal of France (Boucicaut) and Guichard Dauphin were to lead the vanguard, and the main battle was to be led by the duke of Orléans, with the dukes of Brittany and Alençon, and the constable (d’Albret). The third battle, the rearguard, was to be led by the duke of Bar and the counts of Nevers, Charolais, and Vaudémont. Thus the original plan was for three battles, plus the two wings (led by Tanneguy du Chastel and the count of Richemont) and the special cavalry (to be led by the seneschal of Hainault). The plan had to be adapted to a certain extent, as the duke of Brittany, the count of Charolais and Tanneguy du Chastel had not yet arrived; but also there were lords there who were ardent for glory, and they did not want to be in the rearguard. Those at the front, in the vanguard, would see all the best action – and capture all the most valuable prisoners. Whoever managed to seize the king of England would not only become famous but very wealthy. Consequently, many of those in the rearguard and main battle asked to be in the vanguard. Most of them got their way.

The result was that the French started arranging themselves in just
two proper battles: one huge vanguard of about 4,800–5,000 men-at-arms, and the main battle (as it was termed), consisting of about three thousand men-at-arms. Six hundred men-at-arms gathered on each wing, with their backs against the woods on each side. There may also have been men-at-arms in the rearguard; but if so, there were no more than six hundred of them.
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Some sources claim there were crossbowmen in the vanguard; but other chronicles indicate that the French lords’ eagerness to take prisoners meant that they placed their archers in the rearguard, just ahead of the infantry and pages, who were with the wagons and baggage. One source expressly notes that the four thousand crossbowmen who were originally intended to be at the front, to begin the battle, were ‘given permission to depart’ by the lords, as they would not be needed. Presumably they took up their position at the rear. The author of the
Gesta
notes that they shot from the back and wings of the French army, and their bolts did little damage.
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Not long after dawn, the French were ready. So many men were in the vanguard that the lines stretched right across the field and into the woods on both the Agincourt and Tramecourt sides. As a result, the six hundred men-at-arms on each wing had to stand forward of the vanguard, so they had enough room to charge without riding into the back of their fellow men. In order to make their lances more rigid, and easier to wield in a relatively confined space, they were told to cut the narrow end off the wooden lance and fix the steel head back on the sturdier shortened shaft. The lack of room may also have led to the decision to send the crossbowmen to the back of the army; they could not help but be charged down by the French knights if they were at the front. Besides, the French decided they would not need their crossbowmen to break up the English formation; they would do that with the heavy cavalry, as the Rouen plan had instructed.
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To what extent these decisions were those of the duke of Orléans, who was still a month short of his twenty-first birthday, is unclear. One has to presume that he listened to the advice of the experienced military men like Boucicaut and d’Albret, and weighed it up against the advice of the other royal dukes, Bourbon, Alençon and Bar. But this generalship by advisory committee was bound to lead to difficulties. It was probably the reason why so many men went into the vanguard. The young duke of Orléans no doubt thought that he should take a
lead position in the vanguard, and so positioned himself at the front, rather than in the main battle; this was after all an opportunity for him to demonstrate to the absent duke of Burgundy that he and the Amargnacs would uphold the honour of France. Having thus broken the plan set at Rouen, it was difficult to prevent the other important lords from taking their places in the vanguard too, if they so wished. This was a great mistake, for it resulted in the crossbowmen being crowded out and sent to the back of the army, where they proved ineffective. Such errors indicate that there was no real generalship in the French army – there was only politics.

This advisory-committee form of generalship led to other problems. For example: when exactly should the fight begin? Although the count of Richemont had arrived with his Breton troops, his brother the duke of Brittany had not. Everyone expected that Brittany would arrive shortly, not knowing that he had no intention of turning up. In the meantime his absence raised the question of whether the French should attack straightaway or wait. The same question had been discussed the previous day, when the two sides had first faced each other. The duke of Bourbon and other courtiers were then all for attacking immediately. The experienced military men – most notably the constable and the marshal – were more wary and inclined to wait for the rest of the army.
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This was wise counsel, for the seigneur de Longny was still eighteen miles away, with the six hundred men-at-arms of the duke of Anjou. As for the duke of Brabant, he was still at Lens, thirty miles away. To be exact, at prime (about seven o’clock) he was attending Mass. At the moment he took Holy Communion, one Robert Daule hurried into the chapel to tell him that the battle with the English would take place before midday. Immediately, the duke told his companions to mark their clothes with the white cross, and set out to fight.
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Another failing which arose from the lack of generalship was the choice of battleground. The French might have succeeded in cutting off the English advance to Calais but in doing so they had placed themselves in a narrow confined space between two woods, and with ground sloping away on either side. Moreover, they were encamped in a ploughed field that had turned into a quagmire as a result of the recent heavy rain – and conditions were going to get worse, with thousands of horses churning up the mud. The ground between the
two armies was no firmer, and dangerous for galloping horses. Orléans did not have the experience to order a change of location, and no one else had the authority to suggest they move. No doubt some lords said that it would be dishonourable to back away in order to find better ground, especially when they had six times as many men-at-arms as the English. Those aware of the danger might have found it difficult to suggest a better place to do battle. But the experienced military men could suggest nothing but waiting. The English were dispirited and hungry, and they relied on
being
attacked – responding to a French advance. The French could continue to starve them in the field. They had time on their side.

As Henry rode out of Maisoncelle on his small white horse and looked across the fields towards the French lines, he saw the undulations of the terrain, and realised how the ground fell away in the trees on either side. There was scope there for arranging an ambush to distract the charging French cavalry. His scouts would have informed him how soft the ground was, and how slippery; but now he would have seen the churned-up mud for himself. He also would have seen the lines of the French vanguard forming up ahead of him, ‘their spears like a forest’, and the wings of mounted cavalry extending towards him.
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The task facing him must have seemed daunting.

The English army began to form up in the same three battles as they had marched from Harfleur. The vanguard under the duke of York took the right-hand side of the field, the Tramecourt side. Henry himself would lead the main battle, which formed up in the centre. On the left-hand side of the field, the Agincourt side, the rearguard formed up, under the command of the old but experienced Sir Thomas, Lord Camoys. The archers hammered their sharpened wooden stakes into the ground before them, and presumably resharpened the points, hoping thereby to prevent a direct onslaught of the French cavalry.
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On their flanks were thorn bushes and hedges, and directly in front of them was a small depression in the ground, meaning that anyone riding against them would have a short but decidedly uphill struggle at the end, before hitting the sharpened stakes. This position was defensible, and the best to withstand a French charge.

As the hour approached prime the last arrangements were made to bring the army into a state of readiness. The archers were ordered to replace their bowstrings. On the right flank Henry sent an esquire
with two hundred archers to skirt around the bushes and hedges and to hide in the woods on the Tramecourt side. On the left flank he sent a group of men-at-arms to conceal themselves in the woods on the Agincourt side.
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Those archers in the centre battle were placed to the sides of it, in two ‘wedge’ or triangular formations, close to the archers on the wings. This served to create a tapering corridor through which any French troops would have to charge directly to reach Henry; they would not be able to sweep across the field towards him, or come at the main battle from an angle, due to the stakes as well as the archers themselves. This was important, as Henry knew that the prime objective of the French was to capture or kill him. He had experienced a similar situation when fighting at Shrewsbury in 1403; on that occasion Henry’s father had employed the tactic of having two men-at-arms clothed in royal armour, so that the enemy could not tell which man was actually the king. Guillaume Gruel’s chronicle of the life of the count of Richemont asserts that Henry V employed this same tactic at Agincourt; this was probably an unfounded assertion, based on a later, malicious attempt to detract from Henry’s military reputation.
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Nevertheless, the idea it embodies – that the person of the king was all-important to the outcome of the battle – was undoubtedly true. Hence at the centre of the main battle was a concentrated mass of men-at-arms around the king. Here also were placed Henry’s five banners – representing the Trinity, the Virgin, St George, St Edward the Confessor and of course the royal arms of England – and the banners of the lords whose retinues were present.

There are many speeches recorded for Henry at this point. One chronicle, the
Brut
, has him asking what time it was; on being told that it was prime, he stated that it was a good time to be about to fight a battle on behalf of England, for many people in England would be at prayer at that hour. Several other chronicles echo this. One has Sir Walter Hungerford’s line about wishing for more men, together with Henry’s Maccabean response, attributing the outcome to God alone. Thomas Elmham’s chronicle has the king recalling the victories of Edward III and his eldest son, the Black Prince, which had been won with fewer men. Thomas Walsingham gave Henry patriotic lines culled from the Roman poet, Lucan. All the English writers, writing long after the event, felt obliged to give Henry suitably patriotic, stirring words – proving him an inspiring leader – even though any precise
recollection so long after such a tumultuous event would have been impossible, even for those who had been present. Having said this, it is worth noting that le Fèvre, who was present in the English army, noted that Henry went along the battle line making many speeches, not just one. According to him, Henry told the archers how they could fight secure in the knowledge that the war was a just one, and that the throne of France was his rightful inheritance, and that they had all been born in England where their mothers, fathers, wives and children now were at that very moment, and that ‘the French had boasted that if any English archers were captured, they would cut off the three fingers of their right hand so that neither man nor horse would ever again be killed by their arrows’.
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While le Fèvre’s account of Henry’s speech has a ring of truth, and has a claim to authenticity, it is difficult to know what to make of the speeches attributed to him by the other French writers. For example, Juvénal des Ursins’ version of Henry’s speech has him outlining his claim to the throne of France and that it had fallen to him to make good that claim by conquest.