Peace is a treasure which one cannot praise too highly.
I hate war, it should never be prized;
For a long time it has prevented me, rightly or wrongly,
From seeing France which my heart must love.37
In another of his poems, “Complainte,” he looked back to the causes of the French defeat at Agincourt and regretted that France, which had once been a pattern to all other nations for honour, loyalty, courtesy and prowess, had sunk into pride, lethargy, lechery and injustice. He urged his countrymen to return to the virtues that had once inspired its great Christian heroes, Charlemagne, Roland, Oliver and St Louis, so that the saints would forgive them and once more rally to their cause.38
Charles d’Orléans’ poetry was part of an enormous literary response generated by the battle. The defeat was such a cataclysmic event that contemporaries often could not bear to refer to it by name. In fifteenth-century France “la malheureuse journée” (the unhappy or unfortunate day) was understood to mean Agincourt and needed no further explanation.
Alain Chartier’s long poem, Le Livre des Quatre Dames, for instance, was written within two years of the battle and in direct response to it, but never mentions it by name. Disguised as a courtly love lyric, the poem is in fact a thinly veiled attack upon those whom Chartier considered responsible for the defeat. In it he describes meeting four ladies, all weeping copiously, who ask him to judge which of them is the most unhappy. All of them have lost their lovers at Agincourt. The first lady’s was killed “on that accursed day,” the second’s was captured and now languishes in an English prison. The third lady claims that her fate is worse still: she waits in suspense, like a tower which has been mined but must fall in due course, for she does not know what has happened to her lover or whether he is dead or alive. Each one blames those who fled the field for the defeat and their personal loss. It is obvious that the fourth lady, whose lover survived, is the most unhappy. She bewails having given her heart to “a disgraced and cowardly fugitive, who stands condemned for dishonourable conduct”: in his selfish anxiety to preserve himself, he had abandoned his comrades to death and imprisonment. “He polished up his bascinet and put on his armour, only to run away,” she complains. “Alas! What a day!”39
Chartier was a Norman cleric and lifelong Armagnac who became secretary to the new dauphin, Charles, in 1417. Like Charles d’Orléans, he also wrote a number of works denouncing French knights for their moral failings and urging them to practise the ancient chivalric virtues so that victory against the English would one day be theirs:
One ought to consider more worthy of honour and praise the military commander who has the wisdom to know when, if necessary, to withdraw his army and keep it intact rather than risking its destruction through excessively rash contempt for danger, neglecting moderation and caution in the vain hope of acquiring a reputation for chivalric valour. I do not need to look for ancient examples from times past to prove what I am saying; something we have seen recently and in our own day serves as a better lesson. Let us remember in our hearts the case of the unhappy battle of Azincourt, for which we have paid dearly, and grieve still for our woeful misfortune. All the weight of that great disaster presses upon us and we cannot free ourselves from it, except by acting promptly, showing a wise perseverance and reining in our rash impatience with the safety of caution.40
In her Letter Concerning the Prison of Human Life, which she finished on 20 January 1417, Christine de Pizan also advised patience and fortitude, doling out measured words of comfort to Marie, duchess of Bourbon, whose son-in-law and cousins were killed at Agincourt, and whose husband, son and brother-in-law were all English prisoners. The French dead, she declared, were all God’s martyrs, “obedient unto death in order to sustain justice, along with the rights of the French crown and their sovereign lord.” After Henry launched his second campaign and the English advance through France appeared unstoppable, Christine’s resignation gave way to indignation and a nationalism that was all the more ardent for being the adopted identity of this Italian-born writer. Her growing hatred of the English culminated in her premature celebration of Joan of Arc’s successes. “And so, you English . . . You have been check-mated,” she crowed. “You thought you had already conquered France and that she must remain yours. Things have turned out otherwise, you treacherous lot!”41
In England, the delight that greeted the victory at Agincourt found expression in a host of political songs and popular ballads. Adam of Usk, for instance, introduced an eight-line Latin epigram into his chronicle with the words, “This is what one poet wrote in praise of the king.” Though obviously a scholarly production, the tone was unashamedly populist.
People of England, cease your work and pray,
For the glorious victory of Crispin’s day;
Despite their scorn for Englishmen’s renown,
The odious might of France came crashing down.42
This Latin epigram was one of many produced after the battle and comes from a long tradition of such work in chronicles. There is, however, a piece that stands out from the rest not only because it survives in an independent manuscript, complete with musical notation, but also because the verses were composed in English. The Agincourt carol was written in Henry V’s lifetime for three voices: the six verses were to be sung in unison by two voices, but the Latin chorus, “To God give thanks, O England, for the victory,” opened with a single voice, progressed to two-part harmony for the second phrase and was then repeated with variations by all three voices. Like the English verses sung at the London pageant, it managed to lavish praise on the king while attributing his success to God.
Deo gracias, anglia, redde pro victoria
Our king went forth to Normandy, with grace and might of chivalry;
There God for him wrought marv’lously,
Wherefore Englond may call and cry:
Deo gracias, Anglia, redde pro victoria.
Deo gracias, Anglia, redde pro victoria.
He set a siege, forsooth to say,
To Harflu town with royal array;
That town he won and made affray,
That France shall rue till Domesday:
Deo gracias.
Then went him forth our King comely;
In Agincourt field he fought manly;
Through grace of God most marvellously
He hath both field and victory:
Deo gracias.
There lordës, earlës and baron
Were slain and taken and that full soon,
And some were brought into London
With joy and bliss and great renown:
Deo gracias.
Almighty God he keep our king,
His people and all his well-willing,
And give them grace withouten ending;
Then may we call and safely sing:
Deo gracias anglia.43
The Agincourt carol was probably a production of either Henry’s own royal chapel or a religious house and has been preserved in ecclesiastical archives. Undoubtedly many popular ballads in English and French must also have been composed for the gratification of the Agincourt veterans of all ranks. The minstrels in the retinues of the great lords, many of whom had accompanied the English army to France, were expected to celebrate the deeds of their patrons and Agincourt was the ideal topic for courtly and chivalric gatherings. It was also a gift for the wandering minstrels who earned their living by going from one knightly household to another to perform. By their very nature such compositions were ephemeral: they were part of the oral tradition of ballad-making and were never written down. Though no examples have survived, their impact on the popular imagination cannot be ignored. They ensured that news of the king’s victory reached the more remote rural communities, encouraged a feeling of national pride and unity and were a powerful recruiting agent for Henry’s new campaign. Indeed, it might be argued that they preserved the place of Agincourt in the national consciousness for centuries to come.
&nbs
p; As the last vestiges of English power in France were slowly but inexorably eradicated, people looked back to the glory days of Agincourt with nostalgia. Ballads, chronicles and plays in English written for an increasingly literate bourgeoisie preserved the memory of the victory and served as a rallying cry for future wars in France. Just as the English chaplain wrote his Gesta Henrici Quinti in the build-up to Henry V’s second invasion of Normandy, so The First English Life of King Henry the Fifth was written in anticipation of the launch of Henry VIII’s war against France. As late as the 1940s, Winston Churchill, who was then prime minister, asked Laurence Olivier to make a film of Shakespeare’s Henry V (omitting the Cambridge plot, since it suggested there had been dissent) to prepare the nation psychologically for the D-Day landings in Normandy, which were to liberate Europe from Nazi occupation.44
It has often been claimed that Agincourt had little or no impact on the course of history: it did not result in lands changing hands or in dramatic political changes, and, longer term, the English obsession with their rights in France proved to be a costly and ultimately futile distraction from more important issues. By reigniting the war with France, Henry V committed his country to decades of warfare and heavy taxation to pay for it; he has even been blamed for sowing the seeds that would lead to England itself being torn apart by civil strife in the Wars of the Roses. While there is a kernel of truth in all these hoary chestnuts, they are by no means the whole story.
It is useful to speculate, for instance, on what might have happened had Henry lost the battle of Agincourt, as everyone but the king himself expected him to do. If the French cavalry had succeeded in riding down and destroying his archers, then his tiny force of men-at-arms would not have been able to withstand the weight and numbers of the French advance on foot. The English army would have been swiftly overwhelmed and annihilated. Henry and his brother Humphrey, together with the cream of the English aristocracy and gentry, would have been killed or captured. In either case, the consequences for his own country would have been catastrophic. Henry had only been king for two years, and the remarkable changes he had wrought in that time could not have been sustained without him. Clarence would have become king and he had neither the tact nor the ability to unite and lead a country in the way his brother had done. He also lacked a legitimate son and heir, which would have again exposed the Lancastrian dynasty to other and better claims to the throne. The machinery of government at national and local levels would have descended into chaos without the great office holders of state and the members of Parliament, sheriffs and justices of the peace, whose sons would have been too young to take their place. The security of the realm would have been greatly endangered since the military resources of the kingdom had already been stretched to their furthest limits to provide the army for the Agincourt campaign. Backed by the victorious French, the Scots and Welsh rebels would undoubtedly have taken advantage of the situation to invade, plunder and even take control of the border regions.
Many estates, both great and small, would have been thrown into administration because their heirs were underage, with all the opportunities that provided for the unscrupulous and ambitious to line their own pockets at the expense of the future stability and economic success of the property and those dependent on it. The necessity of finding ransoms for those captured would also have been a heavy financial burden on the entire country, since a lord’s ransom would ultimately have had to be paid by taxes on his tenants. Had Henry himself been taken prisoner, the ransom demanded would have been as ruinous as that demanded by Edward III for Jean II of France after his capture at the battle of Poitiers in 1356. And would Clarence, seeing an opportunity to seize power, have dragged his feet in collecting the money, just as Prince John had done when his brother, Richard the Lionheart, was captured on his return from crusade? Defeat at Agincourt would certainly have caused political, economic and social disaster in England—it might even have precipitated the country into civil war.
Henry’s victory laid the foundations for the resurrection of an English empire in France. The conquest of Normandy in 1417-19 could not have been achieved so rapidly had not so many French officers of the crown, including local baillis and castellans, as well as a whole swath of the military profession, from princes to militiamen, been killed at Agincourt. Henry’s successes in the field were arguably less important than the dauphin’s assassination of John the Fearless in 1419 in bringing about the Anglo-Burgundian alliance that eventually forced Charles VI to disinherit his own son, marry his daughter to the English king and accept his new son-in-law as his heir. Nevertheless, Agincourt played a vital role in establishing that Henry had a moral right to the throne of France. God had approved his demand for the restoration of his just rights and inheritances in spectacular fashion. He had won the trial by battle.
Perhaps more importantly, Henry had proved beyond all doubt that he was also the true king of England. God had chosen to bless him with victory at Agincourt despite the fact that he was the son of a usurper. There could have been no more effective demonstration to the world that the sins of the father would not be held against this son. Henry V clearly enjoyed divine approval. And with God on his side, who could stand against him?
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In writing this book I have incurred many debts. First and foremost, I am grateful to Alan Samson, who suggested the subject and commissioned this book on behalf of Little, Brown. I am equally indebted to Andrew Lownie, my agent, who reminded Alan that despite being better known as a nineteenth-century literary biographer, I am also a historian of medieval chivalry. It has been a joy to have a legitimate excuse to re-immerse myself in the world of Henry V.
It would be impossible to acknowledge each and every one of the hundreds of scholars whose detailed studies of different aspects of the period underpinned the writing of this book: the extent of my debt will be obvious from my notes. On the other hand, it would also be impossible to write about Agincourt without acknowledging the work of two scholars whose names have become synonymous with the subject. James Hamilton Wylie (1844-1914) was the epitome of a Victorian antiquarian: an indefatigable (and sometimes undiscriminating) collector of historical minutiae, he had an unrivalled knowledge of the unpublished manuscripts of the Public Record Office. His great work, The Reign of Henry the Fifth (Cambridge University Press, 1914-29), the third volume of which was compiled from his notes after his death by William Templeton Waugh, is an indispensable source for the historian of Agincourt, though it is for his footnotes, rather than his chaotic text, that the book is valuable.
In more recent times, Dr Anne Curry has been equally industrious. She has pioneered a renaissance in Agincourt studies and made the subject more accessible, especially for those unable to read medieval Latin, French or manuscript hand. The Battle of Agincourt: Sources and Interpretations (Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 2000) is a sine qua non for anyone interested in Agincourt and it was the starting point for my own research. Her latest work, Agincourt: A New History (Tempus, Stroud, 2005), was published as this book was going to press and therefore too late for me to utilise its wealth of detail in my own account. Although, for the most part, our conclusions are broadly similar, I remain unconvinced by her argument that the French did not greatly outnumber the English at the battle. Surviving administrative records on both sides, but especially the French, are simply too incomplete to support her assertion that nine thousand English were pitted against an army only twelve thousand strong. And if the differential really was as low as three to four then this makes a nonsense of the course of the battle as described by eyewitnesses and contemporaries.
I could not have undertaken the task of writing this book without having had access to the Brotherton Library at the University of Leeds, which has one of the finest collections of historical texts in the country, and I am grateful to the authorities of the university for granting me permission to read there. Dr Marcus Ackroyd has, once again, incurred my gratitude for his cheerful, prompt and efficient
assistance in locating more obscure texts and, on occasion, translating some of the French quotations that defeated me. Regrettably, I cannot blame him for any errors that remain. Manuscript material has played a smaller part than I would wish in a book of this kind, but it is nevertheless an important one, and I would like to thank the staff and governing bodies of The National Archives, the British Library, the Bodleian Library, the Gloucester Record Office and Norfolk Record Office for access to their archives and for permission to quote from them.
I am also indebted to many individuals who patiently and courteously shared their specialist knowledge with me, answering questions and making observations that have all had a formative influence on this book: chief among them are my son, Edward Barker, an undergraduate studying history at the University of St Andrews; Ian Chance of Wingfield College; Mr Mick Crumplin, MB, FRCS (Eng), FRCS (Ed), FINS, FHS; Professor Shaun Gregory of the University of Bradford; Dr Maurice Keen of Balliol College, Oxford; David McNeill, Assistant Map Curator of the Royal Geographical Society; Jonathan Riley and his family; Dr Ingrid Roscoe; and, finally, those officers, acting and retired, of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment, the Prince of Wales’s Own Regiment of Yorkshire, the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry and others, with whom I have conversed informally on the subject while writing this book. His Honour Judge Shaun Spencer kindly lent me his personal copy of The Master of Game, by Edward, Second Duke of York; Richard Dobson drew my attention to Henry V’s injury at the battle of Shrewsbury; Michael Gandy obtained copies of manuscript material on my behalf from The National Archives. Tim Whiting and Geoff Shandler of Little, Brown have been attentive and helpful editors.
My husband, son and daughter have, as usual, suffered most from my obsession with my subject. I would like to thank them (again) for their forbearance and encouragement, and apologise to them unreservedly (again) for making them spend their summer “holiday” of 2004 following in Henry V’s footsteps through France on the Agincourt campaign. Although I perhaps ought to dedicate this book to them (again), there is another person to whom I owe a hitherto unacknowledged debt of gratitude. As an undergraduate at Oxford, I was fortunate enough to be taught by Maurice Keen, of Balliol College, whose quite exceptional abilities as a historian are matched only by his talents as a teacher. He not only inspired my own abiding love of the medieval period, and chivalry in particular, but also guided me through my doctorate on English tournaments and set me on the path to becoming a published author. For all these reasons, I can think of no one more appropriate to whom I should dedicate this book.
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