The likelihood would seem to be that, as originally envisaged in the earlier plans, the cavalry force was stationed somewhere towards the rear of the French lines. When the signal to attack was given, the company would divide along pre-allocated lines to ride round the infantry and launch itself on the archers on both English wings. And, as we have seen, it was the French expectation that this action would begin the battle.
One of the strengths of the English army was that everyone lived and fought within the company and under the leadership of the man who had raised the retinue. By the time it came to battle, they had bonded into tightly knit units, and there was a sense of esprit de corps that gave them a fighting edge. Every soldier knew his place within his own retinue and within the chain of command that led directly to the king himself.
The French had no such formal structure. Though there were groups who fought together as a unit, like the men of the royal household or the town militias, most of the petty nobility were both independent and independently minded. Even members of the same family did not necessarily fight side by side: Jean, sire de Longueval, for instance, fought in the main battle in the company of Robert, count of Marle, but his brother Alain in the vanguard, in the company of Jehan, sire de Waurin, the father of our chronicler.32 The situation was further complicated by the continuous stream of new reinforcements arriving even during the course of the battle, risking a chain of command so stretched that it might break under the pressure.
The elite cavalry squadron had commandeered somewhere in the region of a thousand men-at-arms “supplied by men [taken from] all the companies.”33 Inevitably, those chosen for such roles would be the more experienced and best-equipped men-at-arms, who were most likely to be the career soldiers of the petty nobility. The rearguard became the dumping ground—le Févre refers to “all the surplus soldiers” being placed there—which probably contributed to the lack of leadership, the confusion and the irresolution that afflicted this division of the French army during the course of the battle.34
Indeed, it seems that the French had such a “surplus of soldiers” that they actually sent some away before the battle began. The monk of St Denis reports a highly partisan story that the citizens of Paris had offered to send six thousand men, fully armed, to join the royal army, with the proviso that they should be placed in the front rank if it came to battle. (If such an offer was really made, it is unlikely that it came with a condition of this kind.) Nevertheless, it was rejected with disdain: “the help of mechanics and artisans must surely be of little value,” one Jean Beaumont is supposed to have said, “for we shall out-number the English three to one.”35 The monk used this dubious anecdote as an excuse for some pious reflections on the pride of the French nobility, who deemed it unworthy to accept the help of plebeians and had forgotten the lessons of Courtrai, Poitiers and Nicopolis. If the story is true, it is more likely that the rejection of the Parisian citizens was due to fear that they would simply march straight to the assistance of the duke of Burgundy, rather than against the English.
Nevertheless, there is other evidence to suggest that “plebeian forces” were indeed rejected or deserted before battle began. Four thousand of the best crossbowmen, according to the monk, who ought to have begun the assault on the English, could not be found at their post at the moment they were needed, having been sent away, they claimed, because the nobles said that they were not needed. One might be inclined to suspect this story too, except that the four thousand archers and fifteen hundred crossbowmen who were, according to Waurin, assigned to the vanguard were nowhere in evidence during the battle. Waurin’s own explanation for their absence echoes that of the monk: there was not room on the narrow battlefield between the woods of Azincourt and Tramecourt for anyone other than the men-at-arms, so the bowmen could not be used. Indeed, fifty crossbowmen, who left Tournai in response to the royal summons to assist Harfleur on 17 September, returned home on 18 November without having reached Harfleur or been at the battle of Agincourt.36
The heavy rains that had fallen almost the whole night through finally gave way to the chill and damp of a pale and watery dawn. It was the morning of 25 October 1415, a day celebrated in the Church calendar as the feast of Saints Crispin and Crispinian, the patron saints of shoemakers, saddlers and tanners. Though it is unlikely that anyone in the French army felt that this was an inauspicious day to commit to battle, with hindsight the chroniclers collectively shook their heads and groaned.
Legend had it that Crispin and Crispinian were two brothers from Rome who came to France as Christian missionaries at the turn of the third century and settled at Soissons. There they had plied their trade as shoemakers until they were martyred for their faith on the orders of Emperor Maximilian. As was so often the way with medieval stories of martyrdom, the brothers miraculously survived several gruesome attempts to put them to death: the torturer’s tools would not hurt them, the river Aisne would not drown them and the oil would not burn them. In the end, the executioner had to resort to the more prosaic but successful method of beheading them. The previous year, in May 1414, an Armagnac force had been responsible for the brutal sacking of their home town of Soissons and the execution of its highly regarded captain, Enguerrand de Bournonville, by Jean, duke of Bourbon, who was now one of the leaders of the vanguard at Agincourt.37 The cobbler-martyrs of Soissons were about to get their own revenge in spectacular style.
As soon as first light dawned, the French arrayed themselves in their companies and took up their allotted positions on the battlefield. “The number of them was really terrifying,” the chaplain observed, and the vanguard “with its forest of spears and the great number of helmets gleaming in between them and of cavalry on the flanks . . . was at a rough guess thirty times more than all our men put together.” (The chaplain’s thirty was probably a scribal error for three, which still made the French vanguard eighteen thousand strong. Though this, too, was an exaggeration, he was certainly right that the French van alone outnumbered the entire English army.) “Compared with our men,” he added gloomily, even the rearguard “were a multitude hardly to be counted.”38
Henry V had been up before dawn, calmly preparing his own soul before he organised his army to face their foes. Leaving off his helm, he had put on all his other armour, which, unlike his men’s rusting pieces, was “very bright,” and, over this, a splendid surcoat emblazoned with the combined arms of England and France. Thus arrayed for the battle that was to decide the fate of his claim to France, he had made his way to his makeshift chapel to hear lauds, the first service of the day, followed by the customary three masses with which he always began each day. Having given God his due, he then made ready for the field. He put on his royal helm, a bascinet bearing a rich crown of gold, which was studded with jewels like an imperial coronet and, even more provocatively, was adorned with fleur-de-lis in reference to Henry’s claim to the throne of France. With that curious mix of regality and humility that he had made peculiarly his own, he did not then mount a great dashing charger, but a small grey horse, which he rode quietly and without the use of spurs to the battlefield. There he rode hither and thither, without the customary use of trumpets to announce his presence, drawing his men together and deploying them as he saw fit.39
Every single Englishman, including the king himself, was to fight on foot. All their horses, the baggage, the pages of the knights and squires who were too young to fight, and those who were too sick to raise a weapon in their own defence, were sent behind the lines and committed to the safekeeping of one gentleman, commanding a company of ten men-at-arms and twenty archers.40 Everyone else who was capable of wielding a bow or a sword was deployed according to the battle plan that the king had devised. Unlike the French force, where there were said to be so many banners that some of them had to be taken down and put away because they were causing an obstruction, the English ones were few and could be easily identified. The king’s own bodyguard boasted the four banners that had flown on his flagship as he inva
ded France: his personal arms and those of St George, Edward the Confessor and the Trinity.41
Scattered among the thin line of men-at-arms could also be seen the banners of Henry’s brother Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, their uncle Edward, duke of York, the earls of March, Huntingdon, Oxford and Suffolk, and those of Sir Gilbert Umfraville, Sir John Roos and Sir John Cornewaille. The archers, now outnumbering their own men-at-arms by five to one, had taken up their positions on the wings and between the battles, hammering their stakes into the muddy ground with leaden mallets that were to prove almost as deadly weapons as their bows.42
As he had done on the previous afternoon when battle was expected, Henry rode up and down his lines, exhorting and encouraging his men to do their best. He did not shrink from addressing the disquiet that some of them must have felt about the justice of the cause in which they were offering their lives, because he knew that this was not simply a moral difficulty, but one that went to the heart of each man’s personal hope of eternal salvation. The laws of war stated that “if the quarrel is unjust, he that exposes himself in it condemns his soul; and if he dies in such a state, he will go the way of perdition.”43 Henry had come to France to recover his rightful inheritance, he reminded them, and his cause and quarrel were good and just. In that quarrel they could therefore fight with a clear conscience and in the certainty of salvation. Then he appealed directly to their sense of patriotism. They should remember that they had been born in the realm of England, where their fathers and mothers, wives and children, were living and waiting for them. For their sakes, they ought to do their best to return covered in glory and praise. The kings of England had inflicted many great defeats on the French in the past; today, every man should play his part in defending the king’s person and the honour of the crown of England. Finally, he told them that the French had boasted that they would cut off two fingers from the right hand of every English archer, so that none of them would ever draw a longbow again. This was a pardonable untruth. Henry’s men knew as well as he did that the French would simply kill anyone not wearing the coat of arms that identified the bearer as being of noble birth and therefore able to afford a ransom. The archers therefore faced certain death if they were defeated. The threat of being mutilated, however, and in a way which implicitly recognised the importance of the archer’s skill, was an insult not to be borne. The very idea was enough to inflame the righteous indignation of the troops, and Henry’s inspirational speech had the desired effect. A great cry went up from the ranks, “Sire, we pray to God that He may grant you long life and victory over our enemies!”44
There was now one last thing Henry had to do if he was to keep his own conscience clear and maintain his reputation for justice in the eyes of the world. He had to make one last effort to avoid battle. He therefore sent heralds to demand a parley and appointed several trusted envoys to meet the French representatives in the centre of the battlefield, in full view of the opposing forces. Though we do not know the names of the Englishmen involved, those of the French have been recorded and, apart from Guichard Dauphin, the grand-master of the king’s household, they were a distinctly provocative choice. Each one had a personal reason to seek vengeance against the English in battle. Colart d’Estouteville, sire de Torcy, for example, was brother to Jean, the defender of Harfleur, who was on parole as the king of England’s prisoner. Jean Malet, sire de Graville, also had a personal grudge against Henry V: he had lost lands round Harfleur worth five hundred livres due to the English invasion and occupation.
The most controversial choice, however, was Jacques de Créquy, sire de Heilly, marshal of Guienne, the only Burgundian in this group of Armagnacs. It was not his political allegiance that made him so contentious but the fact that he was an English prisoner who had broken his parole. In the summer of 1413 the earl of Dorset, who was then Henry’s lieutenant in Aquitaine, had embarked on an aggressive campaign of reconquest over the northern borders of the duchy. As marshal of Guienne, de Heilly had been sent from Paris at the head of a small army “to fall upon the English and drive them out of the country.” Instead, he was ambushed, his men were slaughtered and he himself was one of those captured and sent back to England as the earl’s prisoner. When news of the fall of Harfleur reached him, he could no longer bear his enforced captivity and, with a group of other prisoners, succeeded in breaking out of Wisbech Castle, where he was being held, and escaped back to France.45
While de Heilly had indeed broken his chivalric oath, he had done it for patriotic reasons and he now used this opportunity to attempt to clear the slur on his reputation. “Noble Kinge, it hath often been shewed unto me, and also to others of our realme, that I should fly from you shamefully and otherwise then a knight shoulde doe,” he is alleged to have said to Henry, “which report I am here readie to prove untrue. And if there be any man of your host brave enough to reproach me with it, lett him prepare him to a single battaile. And I shall prove it upon him before thy Majestie, that wrongefullie that report hath been imagined and furnished of me.” This demand was given short shrift by the king, who had more important things on his mind than watching a single combat to redeem de Heilly’s honour. “No battaile shall be here foughten at this time for this cause,” he replied, sternly ordering de Heilly to return to his company and prepare for real battle. “And we trust in God,” he added, “that like as you havinge no regard to the order of honour of knighthood, escaped from us, so this day ye shall either be taken and brought to us againe, or else by the sworde you shall finish your life.”46
As Jean le Févre freely admitted, apart from the airing of de Heilly’s personal grievance, no one knew what the English and French negotiators discussed or what offers were made. The French chroniclers would later claim that Henry had realised that he was hopelessly outnumbered and could not win the battle, so he therefore offered to give back Harfleur (Calais, too, according to some sources), free all his prisoners and pay damages, if only he were to be allowed a free passage home with his men.47 This flies in the face of common sense. Henry would hardly have come so far only to give up more than he had gained, simply to escape with his life; his absolute and unshakeable belief in his cause would not have allowed him to do it. Le Févre’s own version is more plausible, even though he freely admits it was based on hearsay.
The French offered, as I have heard said, that if he would renounce his pretended title to the crown of France, and never take it up again, and return the town of Harfleur which he had recently captured, the king [Charles VI] would be content to allow him to keep Aquitaine and that which he held from the ancient conquest of Picardy [Calais]. The king of England, or his people, replied that, if the king of France would give up to him the duchy of Aquitaine and five named cities which belonged to, and ought to be part of, the duchy, together with the county of Ponthieu and Madam Catherine, the daughter of the king of France, in marriage . . . and 800,000 écus for her jewels and clothing, he would be content to renounce his title to the crown of France and return the town of Harfleur.48
Whatever offers were really made, and by whichever side, the negotiations were brief and were rejected by both parties. All the formalities required by the law of arms and the demands of justice had now been met. Only one recourse was left. There would indeed be a trial by battle, not one between de Heilly and his accuser, nor even one between Henry V and the dauphin, but one between the assembled might of the two greatest military nations in Europe. Their disputed claims were about to be put to the judgement of God.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“FELAS, LETS GO!”
And then there was stalemate. “Everywhere and on all occasions that foot soldiers march against their enemy face to face,” the military textbooks stated, “those who march lose and those who remain standing still and holding firm win.”1 So each side waited in vain for the other to make the first move. Neither did. As the minutes ticked by and turned into hours, it became a test of nerve and discipline. Who would crack first?
The contrast
between the appearance of the two armies could not have been starker. On one side stood row upon numberless row of motionless French men-at-arms, clad from head to foot in burnished armour, armed with swords and lances shortened for fighting on foot, and with brightly coloured pennons and banners waving over their heads. Behind them and on the wings were those crossbowmen and archers whose services had been retained, together with the guns, catapults and other engines of war which had been brought from nearby towns, all waiting to discharge their shots on the enemy. The only movement was at the rear of the army, where the restive horses were literally chafing at the bit in the cold and damp of the late autumn morning and had to be exercised by the mounted men-at-arms and their valets. Well fed, well armed, secure in their superior numbers, this was an army brimming with confidence and eager to crush the tantalisingly small force that had had the temerity to invade France and capture one of its finest towns.
On the other side were the English, an equally fearsome sight, but for different reasons. These were trapped and desperate men, who knew that only a miracle could save them from death, and were therefore determined to sell themselves dearly. For almost three weeks they had marched across hostile enemy territory, their supplies of food and drink dwindling away to nothing, unable to wash or shave, their armour tarnished and their surcoats and banners grimy and tattered by the constant exposure to the elements. Some, it was said, were even barefoot, having completely worn out their shoes during the trek. Stomachs and bowels, already churning with dysentery and starvation, were now turned to water by fear. Many of the archers were reduced to cutting off their soiled breeches and undergarments in an attempt to allow nature to take its course more easily—an option not available to the men-at-arms, encased in their padded steel plate armour. Grim though the sight of them must have been, the smell was probably worse.2
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