Before first light, the Virgin and St George answered the prayers of the English with the news that a suitable crossing of the Somme had been found only three miles to the north-east of Nesle. It is unclear how this information came to Henry V. It is possible that the English scouts uncovered its existence on one of their forays but, given the timing, it was more probably one of the villagers who decided to reveal its whereabouts in the hope of saving his home and livelihood from the flames.16 Mounted patrols were immediately dispatched to test the passage and find out the depth of the water and the speed of the current. What they found was not ideal, but it was possible.
There were actually two crossings, both fords, less than two miles apart, at the neighbouring villages of Béthencourt-sur-Somme and Voyennes. They were approached by long, narrow causeways that the French, under instruction from the ubiquitous Boucicaut and d’Albret, had broken up in the middle “in such a way that it was scarcely possible, and then only with difficulty, to ride across the broken parts in single file.” At their deepest points, the waters of the fords came slightly higher than a horse’s belly, but a marsh a mile wide had to be negotiated before reaching the Somme. These disadvantages were outweighed by the fact that the crossings were unguarded. The men of St Quentin, who had been entrusted with the task, had been caught by surprise. What is more, there was no sign of the French army that had dogged their footsteps for so long. The gamble of the short-cut had paid off.17
Early on the morning of Saturday 19 October, under the watchful eye of Sir John Cornewaille and Sir Gilbert Umfraville, the archers of the vanguard began to make their way in single file and on foot across the broken causeways, holding their bows and quivers full of arrows aloft to keep them dry. After they had scrambled onto the opposite bank and taken up a position to protect the rest, Cornewaille, Umfraville and their standard-bearers went over, followed by the men-at-arms, also in single file and on foot. Only when they were all safely across were their horses sent over to join them.
While the vanguard was completing this difficult and dangerous manoeuvre, the rest of the English army was busy pulling down the nearest houses and taking away any ladders, doors and shutters they could find. Once a secure bridgehead had been established on the other side of the Somme, providing covering fire if required, they set to work repairing and rebuilding the gaps in the broken causeways with the wood they had found, together with bundles of sticks, straw and any other materials they could lay their hands on. By one o’clock in the afternoon, the causeways were passable by three men riding abreast, and the full-scale operation of crossing the Somme began. Although it was not ideal that the army should be divided and separated by a distance of almost two miles, it was imperative that the crossing be effected as quickly as possible. The king therefore ordered that the slower baggage should cross by one causeway, probably that at Béthencourt where the lie of the land was flatter, and his fighting men by the other.18
There was an obvious danger that so many men trying to use so narrow a causeway could result in chaos: they were tightly packed together, eager to get across and, if they came under fire from the enemy, might panic in the crush. Foreseeing these dangers, the king stationed himself on one side of the entrance to the ford and a couple of hand-picked men on the other to maintain discipline. His stern presence proved sufficient to quell any unruliness before it began and both the main body of the army and the rearguard reached the opposite bank of the Somme without loss or major incident. Nevertheless, it was after nightfall before the operation was complete and the last men and horses came safely ashore.19
It was impossible for such a huge logistical exercise to take place without attracting attention from the enemy. According to the chaplain, even before a hundred men had waded across the river, small groups of French cavalry began to emerge from the hamlets on the northern side. They sent their swifter outriders on ahead to assess the situation, while the rest made belated attempts to join together into an opposing force. Before they could do this effectively, they were attacked by the mounted patrols of the vanguard, adding to their confusion. By the time they had gathered in sufficient numbers to risk an approach, the English bridgehead was secure and men were pouring across the river to reinforce it. “For this reason,” the chaplain remarked with obvious satisfaction, “the French, taking up a position at a distance and having estimated our capacity to stand firm and their own incapacity to resist, abandoned the place and vanished from our sight.”20
The English spent a cheerful night lodging in and around the hamlets of Athies and Monchy-Lagache, their spirits raised by the boldness and efficiency with which they had so unexpectedly accomplished the river crossing. “We thought it a matter of great rejoicing on our part,” the chaplain wrote, “that we had shortened our march by, as many reckoned, about an eight days’ journey. And we were of the firm hope that the enemy army, the army which was said to be waiting for us at the head of the river, would be disinclined to follow after us to do battle.”21
These hopes were dealt a blow the following morning, Sunday 20 October, when three heralds arrived in the camp with a message from the dukes of Orléans and Bourbon and Constable d’Albret. Though the French cavalry had failed to prevent the English crossing the Somme, they had evidently succeeded in getting information through to their masters very quickly. The letters that the heralds now delivered to Henry were couched in the courtly terms of a jousting challenge. Orléans, Bourbon and d’Albret well knew, they said, that ever since he had left his own realm, his desire had been to have a battle against the French. And so, they, being three princes born of the blood royal of France, were ready to relieve him and fulfil his desire and perform that which he sought; and, if he would care to name a place and a date where he would wish to fight them, they would be happy to meet him there; representatives of each side would choose and notify [the actual site] so that it did not offer any physical advantage to one or the other party, provided that this had the approval of the king, their sovereign lord.22
To modern eyes it seems strange, absurd even, for an invaded nation to give away the critically important military advantages of choosing their own time and place to give battle, especially to a vulnerable enemy that had been forced far from its path and was short of men and supplies. But like Henry V’s challenge to the dauphin, this was an honoured chivalric custom of the time. Similarly, the fact that the terminology was interchangeable with that of a challenge to perform a joust or feat of arms—even to the point of referring to Henry’s “désir” to do battle and the French princes’ wish to relieve him of it—did not mean that this was a game or insincere posturing. The Frenchmen were quite serious.
More interesting than the challenge itself is the fact that it was issued in the names of the dukes of Orléans and Bourbon and the constable of France. All three men enjoyed eminent chivalric reputations. Charles d’Orléans, who had defied the royal command to send his troops but remain at home himself, was now twenty years old, a jouster of note, as well as a talented writer of courtly love poems. Jean, duke of Bourbon, was thirty-four or thirty-five, and, like d’Orléans, had acquired considerable military experience in the recent wars: only a few months previously, he had demonstrated his devotion to knightly ideals by founding the Order of the Fer du Prisonnier, of which Raoul de Gaucourt was a member.23 Charles d’Albret, at forty-six, was the oldest of the challengers. As discussed earlier, by virtue of his office as constable of France he was a veteran military commander, but in his younger days he had also been an ardent jouster and in 1400 he was one of the founding members of Boucicaut’s Order of the White Lady on the Green Shield.24
That men of this calibre should have issued a challenge to battle is not surprising, but the responsibility for doing so should actually have belonged to the dauphin, who was not only a higher representative of the French royal house but also the king’s formally constituted captain-general. The fact that the three men issued the challenge in his place might almost be seen as a public reproach t
o the dauphin, not only for failing to do so himself, but also for his craven dereliction of chivalric duty in not responding to Henry’s personal challenge to individual combat. That duty his commanders had now taken upon themselves, in order to uphold the honour of France.
Henry’s response to the challenge was everything that the dauphin’s was not. He did not keep the heralds waiting but received them “ceremoniously and honourably,” reading their letters “with great joy” and rewarding them with generous gifts. Although he did not entrust them with a reply, he did send two of his own heralds to the French princes to tell them that “since leaving the town of Harfleur, he had striven and was striving daily to reach his realm of England, and not hiding himself away in walled towns or fortresses. So, if the three princes of France wished to fight him, it was not necessary to pick a day nor a place; for every day they could find him in the open fields without any difficulty.”25 It was a lesson in the art of the courteous and bold response which the dauphin had singularly failed to learn.
As a result of the visit by the French heralds, Henry had to anticipate that he might be forced to a battle as early as the next day. His men had been travelling in battledress—suits of armour for the men-at-arms and padded jerkins and kettle hats for the archers—ever since they left Harfleur. He now gave orders that all those entitled to wear coats of arms should put them on before they left their lodgings the next day, this being a symbol to a potential opponent that they were armed, ready to fight and would not retreat. As he had done at Harfleur, he also made it his own task to go round the army, inspecting their preparations, praising where he found things in good order and offering encouragement to those who needed it.26
On Monday 21 October, the English army set out from Athies and Monchy-Lagache, fully expecting at any moment to find the armed might of France blocking the way to Calais. Tension was high, especially as their route took them uncomfortably close to Péronne. The town was heavily fortified and enclosed within a deep narrow moat and massive red-brick walls; at its centre lay a formidable castle with huge round stone towers, built by Philip Auguste at the end of the twelfth century, punctuating its ancient red-brick curtain walls. It was here that Boucicaut and d’Albret had stationed themselves after following the English from Abbeville.
There was a nervous moment when, as the English skirted the town’s walls at a safe distance to their left, a party of French cavalry made a sudden sortie, perhaps in the hope of acting as a decoy to draw them within range of their artillery. Such was the discipline imposed on the English army that they did not respond to this temptation, and a small force of their own mounted men was able to put the French to flight, though not without loss: a man-at-arms from the earl of Suffolk’s retinue was captured.
A mile beyond Péronne Henry’s troops came across a sight that struck dread into their hearts. The muddy roads were heavily rutted and churned up, indicating that many thousands of Frenchmen had passed that way before them. The message was clear: Constable d’Albret and Marshal Boucicaut had not remained walled up in Péronne but had gone ahead to choose the site for battle. The poor timorous chaplain was quite overcome by this sight. “And the rest of us in the army (for I will say nothing of those in command), fearing battle to be imminent, raised our hearts and eyes to heaven, crying out, with voices expressing our inmost thoughts, that God would have pity on us and, of His ineffable goodness, turn away from us the violence of the French.”27
For three whole days the English continued their march towards Calais, striking out in a north-westerly direction28 to compensate for the long detour they had been forced to make to cross the Somme. Throughout that time, they never caught a glimpse of the enemy. Despite their lack of food and drink, the increasingly hilly terrain and the unrelenting rain and bitter winds that now made every step an effort, they plodded doggedly onwards, crossing the river Ancre at Miraumont on Tuesday 22 October, turning northwards at Beauquesne, bypassing the town of Doullens the next day (no doubt sending the country people scurrying into the sanctuary of the underground city of nearby Naours as they did so) and crossing the river Grouches beneath the walls of the count of St Pol’s great castle at Lucheux. That night they camped out in several hamlets between Bonnières and Frévent, the latter having been taken by the vanguard, in preparation for crossing the river Canche the following morning. The king, however, accidentally rode past the village selected by his scouts for his own lodgings. Even though he was within a bowshot of the place, he refused to turn back. He was wearing his coat of arms and to retreat, even for such an innocuous reason, would be to dishonour them.29
On the next day, Thursday 24 October, after the English had made their way west of the town of St Pol, and were descending the steep valley down to the next river crossing at Blangy, the scouts and mounted patrols brought news to the king that he, probably alone of all his men, had been longing to hear. A French army, many thousands strong, was only three miles away on the other side of the river. A battle was now inevitable, and if the English were not to be caught at a disadvantage, it was imperative that they should cross the river Ternoise as quickly as possible. Six knights from the vanguard were sent ahead to find out whether the ford at Blangy was guarded, and when they reported that it was not, Henry gave orders to proceed with all possible haste.
Having crossed the river, the English had to negotiate the steep hillside facing them. This, too, they achieved without significant incident, but as they emerged over the crest of the hill and onto the plateau before them, the view was dreadful: massed ranks of the French army, marching in battle order with pennons flying, were streaming out of the valley to their right and taking up their position “like a countless swarm of locusts” in a broad field half a mile in front of them. The road to Calais was blocked. “Their numbers,” the chaplain noted grimly, “[were] so great as not to be even comparable with ours.” This was not just the relatively small group that had shadowed their footsteps from Abbeville along the banks of the Somme. That army had now been joined by the belatedly mobilised force of the general call to arms, the fruit of the seed that had been growing for so many weeks at Rouen.30
Yet it was not quite the full military might of France. Although many of his subjects had eventually responded to Charles VI’s summons, John the Fearless was still several hundred miles away in Burgundy, as he had been since at least the beginning of September. His imminent arrival in Flanders had long been expected. His son Philippe, count of Charolais, had written to the Flemish town of Lille on 10 October, for instance, stating categorically that “my father has recently informed me of his departure with all his power to advance against the English in the service of the king.” Whether the count knew it or not, this was simply untrue. The letter was merely a sop thrown to the unfortunate inhabitants of Lille (who stood in the way of the English march from Harfleur to Calais), in an attempt to persuade them that their duke had not altogether abandoned them to their fate. Two days later, John the Fearless sent an embassy to Charles VI, again announcing his mobilisation and impending arrival. Instead, he simply remained in Burgundy, in the company of Henry V’s secret envoy, Philip Morgan, waiting to see what would happen and hoping to seize his chance to march on Paris.31 Burgundian chroniclers, especially those writing during the literary golden age of Philippe’s reign, had the unenviable task of explaining away the absence of both father and son from Agincourt. Most got round the charges of treachery by declaring that John the Fearless had been “forbidden to come,”32 while his nineteen-year-old son, “who desired with all his heart to be present, in person, at the battle,” had had to be physically restrained from joining the French army. His father had ordered that he was not to go, they said, and charged three knights, the sires de Chanteville, de Roubaix and de Laviéville, with the responsibility of ensuring that he did not. “I have heard it said of the comte de Charrollois,” le Févre reported, “that even when he reached the age of sixty-seven, he still regretted that he had not had the good fortune to be at the battl
e, whether he had died or lived.”33 It was certainly a useful gloss to put on an otherwise inexcusably shameful dereliction of duty.
While Philip Morgan, the English secret envoy, ensured that the duke of Burgundy kept to the terms of his non-interference agreement with Henry V, others were playing a similar role with the duke of Brittany. On 28 July, shortly before he sailed for France, Henry had appointed Master John Hovyngham and Simon Flete to conduct “secret business” with the duke, and truces between England and Brittany were proclaimed during the first week of the siege of Harfleur. On 23 August Hovyngham and Flete left London for Brittany and, like Morgan, did not return until December.34 The coincidence of these two missions to Henry’s only French allies during his invasion of their realm is too striking to be ignored. Though Hovyngham and Flete were ultimately successful in trying to persuade the duke of Brittany to remain neutral, they had the more difficult task because he had less to gain than John the Fearless. (His ambitions were limited to increasing the independence of his duchy, rather than controlling the crown of France.)35
Two other French dukes were also absent from the battle: Jean, duke of Berry, and Louis, duke of Anjou, both of whom remained at Rouen and did not advance with the rest of the French army to Amiens. The duke of Berry was seventy-five and his advanced age was sufficient to excuse him an active role in the fighting, but as the uncle of Charles VI, his seniority gave him unusual authority among his warring nephews and great-nephews and would surely have been useful in the councils on the field of battle. Louis d’Anjou had no such excuse, though no one seems to have blamed him in the same way that they later did the dukes of Burgundy and Brittany. Perhaps that was because Berry and Anjou were intended to remain at Rouen as a form of rearguard. They had a small force with them and their presence might have been sufficient to prevent the English retreating, if confronted by the larger army further north. The more likely reason appears to be that they were there simply to protect Charles VI and the dauphin. The royal council that met at Rouen and decided to give battle to the English had also determined that neither the king nor his eldest son was to be there. The duke of Berry, remembering the fate of his father, Jean II, who had been captured by the English at the battle of Poitiers in 1356 and spent many years in prison in England, had argued strongly against giving battle at all. He was, according to his own herald, furious with the dukes of Orléans and Bourbon and Charles d’Albret for issuing their challenge to Henry V and refused to allow the king to leave Rouen. “He said it would be better to lose the battle only, rather than both king and battle.”36
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