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$Title{Battle Of Agincourt; English Conquest Of France}
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Title:       Battle Of Agincourt; English Conquest Of France
Author:      Gairdner, James

Battle Of Agincourt; English Conquest Of France

1415 - 1420

     King Henry V of England, son of Henry IV, was born in 1387, and two years
later was made prince of Wales.  In 1401-1408 he was engaged against the Welsh
rebels under Owen Glendower, and in 1410 became captain of Calais. His
youthful period is represented-probably with much exaggeration, to which
Shakespeare, in Henry IV, contributed-as full of wild and dissolute conduct,
but as king he was distinguished for his courage, ability, and enterprise

     Henry was crowned in 1413, about seventy-five years after the beginning
of the Hundred Years' War between England and France, which arose from the
claim of Edward III to the French throne.  For some years a feud had been
raging in France between the houses of Burgundy and Orleans, the rival parties
being known as Burgundians and Armagnacs.  Led by Simonet Caboche, a butcher,
adherents of the Armagnacs rose with great fury against the Burgundians.  This
was in the first year of Henry's reign, and to him and other rulers Charles VI
of France appealed in order to prevent them from aiding the outbreak, which
was soon quelled by the princes of the blood and the University of Paris,
Order in France was restored by the Duke of Orleans, and the Duke of Burgundy
withdrew to Flanders.  But war between the two factions was soon after
renewed, and both sides sought the alliance of England.

     In these contentions and appeals for his interference Henry saw an
opportunity for pressing his designs to recover what he claimed as the French
inheritance of his predecessors.  In 1414, as the heir of Isabella, mother of
his great-grandfather Edward, he formally demanded the crown of France.  The
French princes refused to consider his claim.  Henry modified his demands, but
after several months of negotiation, with no promise of success, he prepared
for renewal of the ancient war.

     The claim made by Edward III to the French crown had been questionable
enough.  That of Henry was certainly most unreasonable.  Edward had maintained
that though the Salic Law, which governed the succession in France, excluded
females from the throne, it did not exclude their male descendants.  On this
theory Edward himself was doubtless the true heir to the French monarchy.  But
even admitting the claims of Edward, his rights had certainly not descended to
Henry V, seeing that even in England neither he nor his father was true to the
throne by lineal right.  A war with France, however, was sure to be popular
with his subjects, and the weakness of that country from civil discord seemed
a favorable opportunity for urging the most extreme pretensions.

     To give a show of fairness and moderation the English ambassadors at
Paris lessened their demands more than once, and appeared willing for some
time to renew negotiations after their terms had been rejected.  But in the
end they still insisted on a claim which in point of equity was altogether
preposterous, and rejected a compromise which would have put Henry in
possession of the whole of Guienne and given him the hand of the French King's
daughter Catharine with a marriage portion of eight hundred thousand crowns.
Meanwhile Henry was making active preparations for war, and at the same time
carried on secret negotiations with the Duke of Burgundy, trusting to have him
for an ally in the invasion of France.

     At length, in the summer of 1415, the King had collected an army and was
ready to embark at Southampton.  But on the eve of his departure a conspiracy
was discovered, the object of which was to dethrone the King and set aside the
house of Lancaster.  The conspirators were Richard, Earl of Cambridge, Henry,
Lord Scrope of Masham, and a knight of North-umberland named Sir Thomas Grey.
The Earl of Cambridge was the King's cousin-german, and had been recently
raised to that dignity by Henry himself.  Lord Scrope was, to all appearance,
the King's most intimate friend and counsellor.  The design seems to have been
formed upon the model of similar projects in the preceding reign.  Richard II
was to be proclaimed once more, as if he had been still alive; but the real
intention was to procure the crown for Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, the
true heir of Richard, whom Henry IV had set aside.

     At the same time the Earl of March himself seems hardly to have
countenanced the attempt; but the Earl of Cambridge, who had married his
sister, wished, doubtless, to secure the succession for his son Richard, as
the Earl of March had no children.  Evidently it was the impression of some
persons that the house of Lancaster was not even yet firmly seated upon the
throne.  Perhaps it was not even yet apparent that the young man who had so
recently been a gamesome reveller was capable of ruling with a firm hand a
king.

     But all doubt on this point was soon terminated.  The commissioners were
tried by a commission hastily issued, and were summarily condemned and put to
death.  The Earl of March, it is said, revealed the plot to the King, sat as
one of the judges of his two brother peers, and was taken into the King's
favor.  The Earl of Cambridge made a confession of his guilt.  Lord Scrope,
though he repudiated the imputation of disloyalty, admitted having had a
guilty knowledge of the plot, which he said it had been his purpose to defeat.
The one nobleman, in consideration of his royal blood, was simply beheaded;
the other was drawn and quartered.  We hear of no more attempts of the kind
during Henry's reign.

     With a fleet of one thousand five hundred sail Henry crossed the sea and
landed without opposition at Chef de Caux, near Harfleur, at the mouth of the
Seine.  The force that he brought with him was about thirty thousand men, and
he immediately employed it in laying siege to Harfleur.  The place was strong,
so far as walls and bulwarks could make it, but it was not well victualled,
and after a five-weeks' siege it was obliged to capitulate.  But the forces of
the besieged were thinned by disease as well as actual fighting.  Dysentery
had broken out in the camp, and, though it was only September, they suffered
bitterly from the coldness of the nights; so that, when the town had been won
and garrisoned, the force available for further operations amounted to less
than half the original strength of the invading army.

     Under the circumstances it was hopeless to expect to do much before the
winter set in, and many counselled the King to return to England.  But Henry
could not tolerate the idea of retreat or even of apparent inaction.  He sent
a challenge to the Dauphin, offering to refer their differences to single
combat; and when no notice was taken of this proposal, he determined to cut
his way, if possible, through the country to Calais, along with the remainder
of his forces.

     It was a difficult and hazardous march.  Hunger, dysentery, and fever had
already reduced the little band to less than nine thousand men, or, as good
authorities say, to little more than six thousand.  The country people were
unfriendly, their supplies were cut off on all sides, and the scanty stock of
provisions with which they set out was soon exhausted.  For want of bread,
many were driven to feed on nuts, while the enemy harassed them upon the way
and broke down the bridges in advance of them.  On one or two occasions,
having repulsed an attack from a garrison town, Henry demanded and obtained
from the governor a safe-conduct and a certain quantity of bread and wine,
under threat of setting fire to the place if refused.

     In this manner he and his army gradually approached the river Somme at
Blanche Tache, where there was a ford by which King Edward III had crossed
before the battle of Crecy.  But while yet some distance from it, they
received information from a prisoner that the ford was guarded by six thousand
fighting men, and, though the intelligence was untrue, it deterred him from
attempting the passage.  They accordingly turned to the right and went up the
river as far as Amiens, but were still unable to cross, till, after following
the course of the river about fifty miles farther, they fortunately came upon
an undefended ford and passed over before their enemies were aware

     Hitherto their progress had not been without adventures and skirmishes in
many places.  But the main army of the French only overtook them when they had
arrived within about forty-five miles of Calais.  On the night of October 24th
they were posted at the village of Maisoncelles, with an enemy before them
five or six times their number, who had resolved to stop their further
progress.  Both sides prepared for battle on the following morning.  The
English, besides being so much inferior in numbers, were wasted by disease and
famine, while their adversaries were fresh and vigorous, with a plentiful
commissariat.  But the latter were overconfident.  They spent the evening in
dice-playing and making wagers about the prisoners they should take; while the
English, on the contrary, confessed themselves and received the sacrament.

     Heavy rain fell during the night, from which both armies suffered; but
Henry availed himself of a brief period of moon light to have the ground
thoroughly surveyed.  His position was an admirable one.  His forces occupied
a narrow field hemmed in on either side by hedges and thickets, so that they
could only be attacked in front, and were in no fear of being surrounded.
Early on the following morning Henry arose and heard mass; but the two armies
stood facing each other for some hours, each waiting for the other to begin.
The English archers were drawn up in front in form of a wedge, and each man
was provided with a stake shod with iron at both ends, which being fixed into
the ground before him, the whole line formed a kind of hedge bristling with
sharp points, to defend them from being ridden down by the enemy's cavalry.

     At length, however, Henry gave orders to commence the attack, and the
archers advanced, leaving their stakes behind them fixed in the ground.  The
French cavalry on either side endeavored to close them in, but were soon
obliged to retire before the thick showers of arrows poured in upon them,
which destroyed four-fifths of their numbers.  Their horses then became
unmanageable, being plagued with a multitude of wounds, and the whole army was
thrown into confusion.  Never was a more brilliant victory won against more
overwhelming odds.

     One sad piece of cruelty alone tarnished the glory of that day's action,
but it seems to have been dictated by fear as a means of self-preservation.
After the enemy had been completely routed in front, and a multitude of
prisoners taken, the King, hearing that some detachments had got round to his
rear, and were endeavoring to plunder his baggage, gave orders to the whole
army to put their prisoners to death.  The order was executed in the most
relentless fashion.  One or two distinguished prisoners afterward were taken
from under heaps of slain, among whom were the dukes of Orleans and Bourbon.
Altogether, the slaughter of the French was enormous.  There is a general
agreement that it was upward of ten thousand men, and among them were the
flower of French nobility.  That of the English was disproportionately small.
Their own writers reckon it not more than one hundred altogether, some
absurdly stating it as low as twenty or thirty, while the French authorities
estimate it variously from three hundred to one thousand six hundred.

     Henry called his victory the battle of Agincourt, from the name of a
neighboring castle.  The army proceeded in excellent order to Calais, where
they were triumphantly received, and after resting there awhile recrossed to
England.  The news of such a splendid victory caused them to be welcomed with
an enthusiasm that knew no bounds.  At Dover the people rushed into the sea to
meet the conquerors, and carried the King in their arms in triumph from his
vessel to the shore.  From thence to London his progress was like one
continued triumphal procession, and the capital itself received him with every
demonstration of joy.

     The progress of the English arms in France did not, for a long time,
induce the rival factions in that country to suspend the civil war among
themselves.  But at length some feeble efforts were made toward a
reconciliation.  The Council of Constance having healed the divisions in the
Church by the election of Martin V as pope in place of the three rival popes
deposed, the new Pontiff despatched two cardinals to France to aid in this
important object.  By their mediation a treaty was concluded between the
Queen, the Duke of Burgundy, and the Dauphin; but it was no sooner published
than the Count of Armagnac and his partisans made a vehement protest against
it and accused of treason all who had promoted it.

     On this, Paris rose in anger, took part with the Burgundians, fell upon
all the leading Armagnacs, put them in prison, and destroyed their houses. The
Dauphin was only saved by one of Armagnac's principal adherents, Tannequi du
Chatel, who carried him to the Bastille.  The Bastille, however, was a few
days after stormed by the populace, and Du Chatel was forced to withdraw his
charge to Melun.  The Armagnac party, except those in prison, were entirely
driven out of Paris.  But even this did not satisfy the rage of the multitude.
Riots continued from to day to day, and, a report being spread that the King
was willing to ransom the captives, the people broke open the prisons and
massacred every one of the prisoners.  The Count of Armagnac, his chancellor,
and several bishops and officers of state were the principal victims; but no
one, man or woman, was spared.  State prisoners, criminals, and debtors, even
women great with child, perished in this indiscriminate slaughter.

     Almost the whole of Normandy was by this time in possession of the
English; but Rouen, the capital of the duchy, still held out.  It was a large
city, strongly fortified, but Henry closed it in on every side until was
reduced to capitulate by hunger.  At the beginning of the siege the
authorities took measures to expel the destitute class of the inhabitants, and
several thousands of poor people were thus thrown into the hands of the
besiegers, who endeavored to drive them back into the town.  But the gates
being absolutely shut against them, they remained between the walls and the
trenches, pitifully crying for help and perishing for want of food and
shelter, until, on Christmas Day, when the siege had continued nearly five
months, Henry ordered food to be distributed to them "in the honor of Christ's
nativity."

     Those within the town, meanwhile, were reduced to no less extremities.
Enormous prices were given for bread and even for the bodies of dogs, cats,
and rats.  The garrison at length were induced to offer terms, but Henry for
some time insisted on their surrendering at discretion.  Hearing, however,
that a desperate project was entertained of undermining the wall and suddenly
rushing out upon the besiegers, he consented to grant them conditions, and the
city capitulated on January 19th.  The few places that remained unconquered in
Normandy then opened their gates to Henry; others in Maine and the Isle of
France did the same, and the English troops entered Picardy on a further
career of conquest.

     Both the rival factions were now seriously anxious to stop the progress
of the English, either by coming at once to terms with Henry or by uniting
together against him; and each in turn first tried the former course.  The
Dauphin offered to treat with the King of England; but Henry demanding the
whole of those large possessions in the north and south of France which had
been secured to Edward III by the treaty of Bretigni, he felt that it was
impossible to prolong the negotiation.  The Duke of Burgundy then arranged a
personal interview at Meulan between Henry on the one side and himself and the
French Queen on behalf of Charles, at which terms of peace were to be
adjusted.  The Queen brought with her the princess Catharine, her daughter,
whose hand Henry himself had formerly demanded as one of the conditions on
which he would have consented to forbear from invading France.  It was now
hoped that if he would take her in marriage he would moderate his other
demands.  But Henry, for his part, was altogether unyielding.  He insisted on
the terms of the treaty of Bretigni, and on keeping his own conquests besides,
with Anjou, Maine, Touraine, and the sovereignty over Brittany.

     Demands so exorbitant the Duke of Burgundy did not dare to accept, and as
a last resource he and the Dauphin agreed to be reconciled and to unite in
defence of their country against the enemy.  They held a personal interview,
embraced each other, and signed a treaty by which they promised each to love
the other as a brother, and to offer a joint resistance to the invaders.  A
further meeting was arranged to take place about seven weeks later to complete
matters and to consider their future policy.  France was delighted at the
prospect of internal harmony and the hope of deliverance from her enemies.
But at the second interview an event occurred which marred all her prospects
once more.  The meeting had been appointed to take place at Montereau, where
the river Yonne falls into the Seine.

     The Duke, remembering doubtless how he had perfidiously murdered the Duke
of Orleans, allowed the day originally appointed to pass by, and came to the
place at last after considerable misgivings, which appear to have been
overcome by the exhortations of treacherous friends.

     When he arrived he found a place railed in with barriers for the meeting.
He nevertheless advanced, accompanied by ten attendants, and, being told that
the Dauphin waited for him, he came within the barriers, which were
immediately closed behind him.  The Dauphin was accompanied by one or two
gentlemen, among whom was his devoted servant, Tannegui du Chatel, who had
saved him from the Parisian massacre.  This Tannegui had been formerly a
servant of Louis, Duke of Orleans, whose murder he had been eagerly seeking on
opportunity to revenge; and as the Duke of Burgundy knelt before the Dauphin,
he struck him a violent blow on the head with a battleaxe.  The attack was
immediately followed up by two or three others, who, before the Duke was able
to draw his sword, had closed in around him and despatched him with a
multitude of wounds.

     The effect of this crime was what might have been anticipated.  Nothing
could have been more favorable to the aggressive designs of Henry, or more
ruinous to the party of the Dauphin, with whose complicity it had been to
evidently committed.  Philip, the son and heir of the murdered Duke of
Burgundy, at once sought means to revenge his father's death.  The people of
Paris became more than ever enraged against the Armagnacs, and entered into
negotiations with the King of England.  The new Duke Philip and Queen Isabel
did the same, the latter being no less eager than the former for the
punishment of her own son.  Within less than three months they made up their
minds to waive every scruple as to the acceptance of Henry's most exorbitant
demands.  He was to have the princess Catharine in marriage, and, the Dauphin
being disinherited, to succeed to the crown of France on her father's death.
He was also to be regent during King Charles' life; and all who held honors or
offices of any kind in France were at once to swear allegiance to him as their
future sovereign.  Henry, for his part, was to use his utmost power to reduce
to obedience those towns and places within the realm which adhered to the
Dauphin or the Armagnacs.

     A treaty on this basis was at length concluded at Troyes in Champagne on
May 21, 1420, and on Trinity Sunday, June 2d, Henry was married to the
princess Catharine.  Shortly afterward the treaty was formally registered by
the states of the realm at Paris, when the Dauphin was condemned and attainted
as guilty of the murder of the Duke of Burgundy and declared incapable of
succeeding to the crown.  But the state of affairs left Henry no time for
honeymoon festivities.  On the Tuesday after his wedding he again put himself
at the head of his army, and marched with Philip of Burgundy to lay siege to
Sens, which in a few days capitulated.  Montereau and Melu were next besieged
in succession, and each, after some resistance, was compelled to surrender.
The latter siege lasted nearly four months, and during its continuance Henry
fought a single combat with the governor in the mines, each combatant having
his vizor down and being unknown to the other.  The governor's name was
Barbason, and he was one of those accused of complicity in the murder of the
Duke of Orleans; but in consequence of this incident, Henry saved him from the
capital punishment which he would otherwise have incurred on his capture.

     Toward the end of the year Henry entered Paris in triumph with the French
King and the Duke of Burgundy.  He there kept Christmas, and shortly afterward
removed with his Queen into Normandy on his return into England. He held a
parliament at Rouen to confirm his authority in the duchy, after which he
passed through Picardy and Calais, and, crossing the sea, came by Dover and
Canterbury to London.  By his own subjects, and especially in the capital, he
and his bride were received with profuse demonstrations of joy. The Queen was
crowned at Westminster with great magnificence, and afterward Henry went a
progress with her through the country, making pilgrimages to several of the
more famous shrines in England.

     But while he was thus employed, a great calamity befell the English power
in France, which, when the news arrived in England, made it apparent that the
King's presence was again much needed across the Channel.  His brother, the
Duke of Clarence, whom he had left as his lieutenant, was defeated and slain
at Beauge in Anjou by an army of French and Scots, a number of English
noblemen being also slain or taken prisoners.  This was the first important
advantage the Dauphin had gained, and the credit of the victory was mainly due
to his Scotch allies.  For the Duke of Albany, who was regent of Scotland,
though it is commonly supposed that he was unwilling to give needless offence
to England lest Henry should terminate his power by setting the Scotch King at
liberty, had been compelled by the general sympathy of the Scots with France
to send a force under his son of the Earl of Buchan to serve against the
English.  The service which they did in that battle was so great that the Earl
of Buchan was created, by the Dauphin, constable of France.

     Again Henry crossed the sea with a new army, having borrowed large sums
for the expenses of the expedition.  Before he left England he made a private
treaty with his prisoner King James of Scotland, promising to let him return
to his country after the campaign in France on certain specified conditions,
among which it was agreed that he should take the command of a body of troops
in aid of the English.  James had accompanied him in his last campaign, and
Henry had endeavored to make use of his authority to forbid the Scots in
France from taking part in the war, but they had refused to acknowledge
themselves bound to a king who was a captive.

     By this agreement, however, Henry obtained real assistance and
cooperation from his prisoner, whom he employed, in concert with the Duke of
Gloucester, in the siege of Dreux, which very soon surrendered.  He himself
meanwhile marched toward the Loire to meet the Dauphin, and took Beaugency;
then, returning northward, first reduced Villeneuve on the Yonne, and
afterward laid siege to Meaux on the Marne.  The latter place held out for
seven months, and while Henry lay before it he received intelligence that his
Queen had borne him a son at Windsor, who was christened Henry.

     The city of Meaux surrendered on May 10, 1422.  The Governor, a man who
had been guilty of great cruelties, was beheaded, and his head and body were
suspended from a tree on which he himself had caused a number of people to be
hanged as adherents of the Duke of Burgundy.  Henry was now master of the
greater part of the North of France, and his Queen came over from England to
join him, with reenforcements under his brother the Duke of Bedford.  But he
was not permitted to rest; for the Dauphin, having taken from his ally the
Duke of Burgundy the town of La Charte on the Loire, proceeded to lay siege to
Cosne, and, Philip having applied to Henry for assistance, he sent forward the
Duke of Bedford with his army, intending shortly to follow himself.  This
demonstration was sufficient.  The Dauphin felt that he was too weak to
contend with the united English and Burgundian forces, and he withdrew from
the siege.

     Henry, however, was disabled from joining the army by a severe attack of
dysentery; and though he had at first hoped that he might be carried in a
litter to head-quarters, he soon found that his illness was far too serious to
permit him to carry out his intention.  He was accordingly conveyed back to
Vincennes, near Paris, where he grew so rapidly worse that it was evident his
end was near.  In a few brief words to those about him he declared his will
touching the government of England and France after his death, until his
infant son should be of age.  The regency of France he committed to the Duke
of Bedford, in case it should be declined by the Duke of Burgundy.  That of
England he gave to his other brother, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester.  To his
two uncles, Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, and Thomas Beaufort, Duke of
Exeter, he intrusted the guardianship of his child.  He besought all parties
to maintain the alliance with Burgundy, and never to release the Duke of
Orleans and the other prisoners of Agincourt during his son's minority. Having
given these instructions he expired, on the last day of August, 1422.

     His death was bewailed both in England and France with no ordinary
regret.  The great achievements of his reign made him naturally a popular
hero; nor was the regard felt for his memory diminished when, under the feeble
reign of his son, all that he had gained was irrecoverably lost again, so that
nothing remained of all his conquests except the story of how they had been
won.  Those past glories, indeed, must have seemed all the brighter when
contrasted with a present which knew but disaster abroad and civil dissension
at home.  The early death of Henry also contributed to the popular estimate of
his greatness.  It was seen that in a very few years he had subdued a large
part of the territory of France.  It was not seen that in the nature of things
this advantage could not be maintained, and that even the greatest military
talents would not have succeeded in preserving the English conquests.

     Nor can it be said that Henry's success, extraordinary as it was, was
altogether owing to his own abilities.  That he exhibited great qualities as a
general cannot be denied; but these would have availed him little if the rival
factions in France had not been far more bitterly opposed to each other than
to him.  Indeed, it is difficult after all to justify, even as a matter of
policy, his interference in French affairs, except as a means of diverting
public attention from the fact that he inherited from his father but an
indifferent title even to the throne of England.  And though success attended
his efforts beyond all expectation, he most wilfully endangered the safety not
only of himself, but of his gallant army, when he determined to march with
reduced forces through the enemy's country from Harfleur to Calais.  It was a
rashness nothing less than culpable, but in his own interests rashness was
good policy.  Unless he could succeed in desperate enterprises against
tremendous odds and so make himself a military hero and a favorite of the
multitude, his throne was insecure.  He succeeded; but it was only by staking
everything upon the venture - his own safety and that of his army, which, if
the French had exercised but a little more discretion, would inevitably have
been cut to pieces or made prisoners to a man.