Queen Of Four Kingdoms, The (19 page)

As for Henry V, what does she know of him? Only what her own agents have told her – that he is a fine-looking young man, tall, well built, intelligent and hungry for success. His father usurped the throne of England, and Henry needs to confirm – if only to himself – that he is a conqueror and worthy of the crown. She has heard tell that, as a teenager, some twelve years earlier, he proved himself an admirable soldier at the Battle of Shrewsbury, and that he has not stopped fighting since, even quelling the rebellious Welsh. He also succeeded in crushing an attempt by another claimant to his throne. When last at court, Yolande was shown a drawing of the English king and had to admit he looks quite a man – he has the face of a conqueror and, she hears, the spirit of one as well. It seems he possesses a natural gift of leadership and that his men will follow him anywhere – to hell and back, should he ask. This will be a dangerous foe, but the constable is able and each of their dukes has such numbers under their banners, brimming with confidence, that Yolande is persuaded to believe in an imminent mighty French victory.

For the past two years, as King of England, Henry V has let it be known that France will be the scene of his greatest victories. Yolande has always sensed that he is the most dangerous enemy they will encounter, the one they must defeat, and resolutely, for in his hunger for glory he will fight to the death to regain what he is convinced is England’s right – the throne of France.

M
any mothers, friends of theirs, have written to Yolande to tell how their sons – scions of France’s great families – have begged to be in the front ranks, craving battle honours in what will be France’s historic victory over this plaguing enemy, continually snapping at their heels like an aggressive little dog. ‘Our army is jubilant,’ writes her agent Carlo. ‘The soldiers are confident of a great victory, with odds on our side of more than five to one!’ She hears how the young gallants are parading in their finery, their armour more suitable for tournaments than war. This battle’s honours are considered a foregone conclusion; can they not afford a little glamour in the ranks? God willing, their hopes will be fulfilled, but so much confidence among the men gives her a sense of foreboding. She pushes it away until a message from her fast courier relays to her that the English army has found a place to cross the river Somme and is marching north in continual torrential rain to meet reinforcements from the coast.

On 24 October, Yolande receives news from Valentina’s former manservant Mario, who is with her son, Charles d’Orléans. He reports that the English troops, exhausted at the end of another day’s trudging through heavy mud, have found themselves on a rise near the semi-ruined chateau of Agincourt, and have gratefully bivouacked there.

All through the next day and a half Yolande waits impatiently for news of a glorious victory. None arrives, even though she knows Louis has posted several of their stewards within and on the edges of the army to report both to him and to her on the battle’s progress. She plays with the children, visits the dairy, and cuts flowers. Suddenly a courier gallops into the courtyard and almost collapses off his horse, holding out a package to her steward. Yolande snatches it from him, her fingers fumbling with the string, and sits down to savour the details of victory. Her eyes scan quickly down the salutations and preambles, until she reads:

‘After a week spent marching in mud and rain, heads down, following in the footsteps of the man in front, trudging up a miserable incline to arrive on top of a hill with a ruined castle, the English army finally found a place to rest. With the dawn, to their dismay, they saw below them in the valley, blocking their route, our huge French army stirring, their armour glistening in the early light.’

Did fear grip the English? she wonders. What a shock it must have been to awake and find themselves facing an unavoidable confrontation with a huge army of aggressive men – fit, rested and ready to fight for their homeland.

She seizes another agent’s account in the package and skips to the next part:

‘In the tradition of chivalric warfare, our cavalry, led by our senior knights, multicoloured plumes on helmets waving in the gentle wind, ducal banners fluttering, gathered in their ranks in full armour, waiting for the signal to charge, while sitting on their heavy warhorses. These, too, felt the excitement, and, despite their size and the weight of their own armour and that of the fully armoured riders, pranced skittishly in the early-morning chill. As the mist lifted, our troops could see the English archers massed in tight formation on the rise by the ruin of Agincourt, and how scant their numbers looked to our serried ranks.’

She can feel the tension. The English archers are famous, but surely they are too few for their number to have a significant effect?

‘Our leaders knew the enemy had almost no cavalry, and only their archers were left in any number. Confidence swelled in our warriors’ breasts, and then came one trumpet call after another to attack and charge up the slope towards the hated English! There was some confusion, as it was the royal dukes’ trumpeters who blew “Charge”, whereas the constable’s trumpeter did not. Only he seemed to consider what the heavy rain of the past week would have done to the ground.

‘The large, cultivated rising plain between our troops and the enemy, despite the covering of grass, had softened beneath to the consistency of butter. Our heavy horses, carrying knights in full armour, soon felt the strain and became mired in the ground, their hooves turning the grass into plough, and unable to charge up the hill towards the enemy. Seeing disaster unfolding before him, the Constable, Jean d’Albret, official commander of all the French forces, tried to recall the dukes’ cavalries, but was unable to countermand the orders of their royal leaders, eager for battle.’

Her hands begin to tremble as she continues to read, a dreadful foreboding growing inside her. Where was her husband during the battle? Is he recovered? Did he take part after all? She has heard nothing from the king’s camp, and the courier she sent there has not returned.

There is another account in the package – it is from Hubert, her faithful Carlo’s brother, who somehow managed with great courage to slip behind the English lines. She skips through what she already knows, and then reads:

‘When the English King Henry saw the sinking spirits of his soldiers at the sight of the massed French army, he made a rousing speech, urging them to fight for him and their country on that St Crispin’s Day. With his rhetoric, their dashing young king managed to put courage back into the hearts of his soldiers, wasted with dysentery.’

Yolande trembles.
I knew that ambitious young usurper king was dangerous
.
Why were our men so confident?
Palms sweating, she reads on:

‘The English longbowmen, famous for their ability to fire up to ten arrows a minute, began to target our riders and horses. So accurate were they in their marksmanship, their arrows pierced visors and passed through the softer parts of our knights’ armour. They even pinned riders to their saddles through their thighs. These longbowmen are an elite force, the best chosen from every village in their country, where their training begins from the age of seven. Their arrows are well crafted from oak and ash, their sharp metal heads cast with side barbs, making them impossible to pull out.’

Yolande can feel herself beginning to panic, her stomach churning, but she must continue:

‘Our horses, weighed down with their own armour and that of our knights, struggled, plunged and stuck in the heavy going. Some of our knights dismounted, only to flail about in the mud, a foot deep, unable to make headway in any direction.’

Her breath is coming in a mixture of gasps and sobs. She pictures the flower of the French nobility, many of them relations and friends, riding out in front of their troops, certain of taking part in a glorious victory and carrying back its spoils. She feels desperate – but she cannot stop herself reading.

‘When our knights fell from or with their horses, their vision hampered by their visors, the mud impeded their movement. Seeing this, the English soldiers took off their shoes and ran down the slope, slipping nimbly in and out of the deep mire in bare feet, their tunics marked for recognition with a large red cross of St George front and back. Wielding daggers and short swords, they stabbed our helpless knights up and under the plates of armour covering their hearts. Those that the daggers missed were dispatched by the ferocious English pike men.’

Yolande sits as if turned to stone, tears pouring down her cheeks, her stomach in knots, unaware of anyone or anything around her, seeing in her mind’s eye the carnage at Agincourt.

‘Where is my Louis?’ she hears herself cry. ‘Where are you, my love?’ She realizes she is shouting and feels the strong arm of Juana around her shoulders, pulling her up from where she has dropped to the ground and taking her indoors.

‘My dearest madame, what can be the matter? Let me help you. Why, of course, you must have had a shock; come, rest on me, I will carry you if I must. Come, come, to your room and your bed, we will bring the papers . . .’ but Juana does not understand what has happened.

‘The era of the glorious knight is over,’ Yolande keeps repeating. ‘Chivalry is dead. Where is Louis?
Where is my Louis?
’ – and all the while Juana is making soothing noises and leading her to her room. She undresses her, lays her on her bed, covering her and brushing her hair.

‘Tell me, dearest lady, what has caused this upset?’ she says softly.

‘Juana . . . Juana . . . the battle . . . it has been a slaughter . . . and we have lost!’ Yolande cries. And:
I do not know where Louis is
, she repeats over and over to herself, until the draught Juana gives her sends her into a deep sleep.

When Yolande wakes, she insists on hearing more. Juana must bring all the papers to her. When she has read and absorbed them, the truth overwhelms her in all its brutal reality.

A young equerry of Louis’, Pierre de Brézé, who was sent by him to observe the battle, has written to her:

‘Madame, I was instructed by Duke Louis to watch the battle from the edge of the field at Agincourt and report to him. I have done so, and now he has asked me to relay to you all the details, although it pains me to do so. King Henry V, fighting in the midst of his troops, saw that he had more prisoners than he could afford soldiers to guard them. To avoid the French escaping and re-arming, he issued the chilling order: “no prisoners”. And none was left alive.’

She chokes as she reads on:

‘The two brothers of the Duke of Burgundy; madame, your close relations the Duke of Bar and his brother; the Duke of Brabant; the Duke d’Alençon; the Count of Nevers; even the constable, Jean d’Albret – all are dead, along with so many others of your friends and relatives. Five thousand eight hundred French have been buried in mass graves; those waiting in the reserves and away from the action were captured at the end of the battle and have been taken for ransom. Among the captured, a prince of the blood, our king’s nephew and yours, the young Duke Charles d’Orléans. He was in the forefront of the attack, and was found in his heavy armour, stuck in the mud, pinned down by the bodies that had fallen on top of him. Fifteen hundred prisoners from the rearguard are being transferred to English jails.

‘Madame, I can imagine what a shock this information must be to you, but I have my instructions. The horror of this battle is unbelievable, not only the numbers slain, but the shame to France’s honour and the price there will be to pay. My lord, your husband Duke Louis was too unwell to sit his horse and is safe with the king in Rouen.’

Tiphane comes into her room to relieve Juana, and Yolande finds herself crying helplessly in her generous embrace. She can hardly take it in. War has always been dangerous, but honour and chivalry have been natural considerations for both victors and losers. With this battle at Agincourt, it seems that they have been swept aside for ever. The shorter firing power of the French crossbows was no match for the English arrows fired from their longbows. The enemy’s boast before the battle that the density of their many arrows would blot out the sun and turn the bright day into night were easily dismissed by the French. Heavily armed horses and men became useless against nimble barefooted soldiers in the thick, deep mud, stabbing with their short swords into the hearts of the scions of France’s great houses. So much has changed . . . The honour has fallen out of the world as it was known before this terrible battle.

And Louis, my darling love?
A courier comes at last with his letter. She thanks God he is alive. He writes how he remained in Rouen with the king, the dauphin and dear, ailing Jean of Berry, all waiting for news of a triumphant victory. ‘The couriers who raced to us were almost incoherent with their reports of the terrible defeat and the massive slaughter.’ His letter detailing all this horror is so blotched with his own tears that much of it had to be rewritten. Carlo is with him, and adds that, numb with the shock of the disastrous outcome, her husband has embarked on the Seine for Paris, accompanying the defeated king and the stunned dauphin. ‘To make it more tragic, Charles, our king, for once is sane and understands perfectly what has happened. All we can do is sail for Paris to seek the advice of the elders in
parlement.
’

A
s Yolande reads the lists of the friends and relations who have fallen, her first reaction is relief that Louis at least is safe. Then slowly the overwhelming horror of the implication of this English victory begins to sink in. England has
won
France. This was the decisive battle. What will be the price? Apart from the nobles, who else from among their own people, from their households, staff, and workers on their estates, is among the dead? Who has been taken prisoner?

Yolande has never known such a feeling of dread – as if she has been struck a mighty blow to her stomach and cannot breathe. Somehow she composes herself and calls for her son Louis, for Marie, for Prince Charles and Jean Dunois, to tell them all she knows. The young prince weeps with them at the fate of many of their relatives, friends and countrymen, and at the spectre of the future. None of them will ever forget this day. The country is ruined, their cousins are killed or taken prisoner, and Henry V of England is the conqueror of France.