The battle lasted between three and four hours, yet it was probably as good as over in the very first minutes when the leading French battle struck home. The French men-at-arms were weary, half blinded, disordered, and mud-crippled. What seems to have happened is that their leading ranks went down quickly and so formed a barrier to the men behind who, in turn, were being pushed onto that barrier by the rearmost men. So the French stumbled into the English weapons and the English (with some Welsh and a few Gascons) had more freedom to fight and to kill. That first French battle had contained most of France’s high nobility, and so it went to the slaughter and the great names fell; the Duke of Alençon, the Duke of Bar, the Duke of Brabant, the Archbishop of Sens, the Constable of France, and at least eight counts. Others, like the Duke of Orleans, the Duke of Bourbon, and the Marshal of France, were captured. The English did not have it all their own way; the Duke of York was killed, as was the Earl of Suffolk (his father had died of dysentery at Harfleur), but English casualties seem to have been remarkably slight. Henry undoubtedly fought in the front rank of the English and all eighteen Frenchmen who had sworn an oath of brotherhood to kill him were killed instead. Henry’s brother Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, was badly wounded in the fight and it is said that Henry stood over him and fought off the Frenchmen trying to drag the injured duke away.
The second French battle went to reinforce the first, but by now the French were trying to fight across a barrier of dead and dying men, and they were also fighting the English archers who had abandoned their bows and were now wielding poleaxes, swords, and mallets. The advantage the English archers possessed was maneuverability; unencumbered by sixty pounds of mud-weighted armor they must have been lethal in their attacks. I cannot confirm that the British two-fingered salute began at Agincourt as a taunt to the defeated French, demonstrating that the archers still possessed their string fingers despite French threats to sever them, but it seems a likely tale.
Sometime after the advance of the second French battle a small force of horsemen, led by the Sire of Agincourt, attacked the English baggage. This event, and the apparent readiness of the remaining Frenchmen to attack, persuaded Henry to issue his order to kill the prisoners. That order appals us today, yet the contemporary chroniclers do not condemn it. By that stage there were around two thousand French prisoners close behind the English line that was half expecting an attack by another eight thousand, so far unengaged, Frenchmen. Those prisoners could well have swung the battle by assailing Henry’s rear, and so the order was given to the evident displeasure of many English men-at-arms (who were losing valuable ransoms). Henry sent a squire and two hundred archers to do the killing instead, though it was evidently stopped fairly quickly when it became apparent that the raid on the baggage did not presage an attack from the rear, and that the threat of the third French battle had evaporated. The French had taken enough, their survivors began to leave the battlefield, and Henry had won the extraordinary victory of Agincourt. Wild uncertainty surrounds the casualties, but undoubtedly the French suffered dreadful losses. An English eyewitness, a priest, recorded ninety-eight dead from the French nobility, around 1,500 French knights killed, and between four and five thousand men-at-arms. French losses were in the thousands, and might well have been as high as 5,000, while English losses were most likely as small as 200 (including one archer, Roger Hunt, killed by a gun). The battle was a slaughter that, like the sack of Soissons, shocked Christendom. It was an age inured to violence. Henry did burn and hang the Lollards in London, and he executed an archer for stealing the copper-gilt pyx during the march to Agincourt, but those events were commonplace. Soissons and Agincourt, uncannily linked by Saints Crispin and Crispinian, were thought extraordinary.
Except for Thomas Perrill, I took all the names of the archers at Agincourt from the muster rolls of Henry’s army, which still exist in the National Archives (readers wanting a more accessible source can find the names printed in Anne Curry’s appendices). There really was a Nicholas Hook at Agincourt, though he did not serve Sir John Cornewaille, who was indeed the tournament champion of Europe. His name is often spelled Cornwell, a slight embarrassment, as he is no relation.
The field of Agincourt is remarkably unchanged, though the flanking woods have shrunk somewhat and the small castle that gave the battle its name has long disappeared. There is a splendid little museum in the village, and a memorial and battle-map at nearby Maisoncelles, which was where the English baggage was raided (much of Henry’s lost treasure was later recovered). A calvary on the battlefield marks the supposed spot of one of the grave-pits where the French buried their dead. Harfleur has vanished, subsumed into the greater city of Le Havre, though traces of the medieval town do still exist. Petrochemical works now stretch where the English fleet landed.
Henry V’s leadership was an undoubted contribution to the unlikely victory. He went on fighting in France and eventually forced the French to yield to his demands that he was the rightful king, and it was agreed that he would be crowned on the death of the mad King Charles, but Henry was to die first. His son was crowned King of France instead, but the French would recover to expel the English from their territory. Marshal Boucicault, a great soldier, was to die in English captivity, while Charles, Duke of Orleans, was to spend twenty-five years as a prisoner, not being released until 1440. He wrote much poetry during those years and Juliet Barker, in Agincourt, translates a verse he wrote during his time in England, a verse that can bring an end to this story of a battle long ago:
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.
About the Author
BERNARD CORNWELL is the author of the acclaimed and bestselling Saxon Tales, as well as the Richard Sharpe novels, among many others. He lives with his wife on Cape Cod.
www.bernardcornwell.net
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
BOOKS BY BERNARD CORNWELL
The Saxon Tales
THE LAST KINGDOM
THE PALE HORSEMAN
THE LORDS OF THE NORTH
SWORD SONG
The Sharpe Novels (in chronological order)
SHARPE’S TIGER
Richard Sharpe and the Siege of Seringapatam, 1799
SHARPE’S TRIUMPH
Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Assaye, September 1803
SHARPE’S FORTRESS
Richard Sharpe and the Siege of Gawilghur, December 1803
SHARPE’S TRAFALGAR
Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805
SHARPE’S PREY
Richard Sharpe and the Expedition to Copenhagen, 1807
SHARPE’S RIFLES
Richard Sharpe and the French Invasion of Galicia, January 1809
SHARPE’S HAVOC
Richard Sharpe and the Campaign in Northern Portugal, Spring 1809
SHARPE’S EAGLE
Richard Sharpe and the Talavera Campaign, July 1809
SHARPE’S GOLD
Richard Sharpe and the Destruction of Almeida, August 1810
SHARPE’S ESCAPE
Richard Sharpe and the Bussaco Campaign, 1810
SHARPE’S FURY
Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Barrosa, March 1811
SHARPE’S BATTLE
Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Fuentes de Onoro, May 1811
SHARPE’S COMPANY
Richard Sharpe and the Siege of Badajoz, January to April 1812
SHARPE’S SWORD
Richard Sharpe and the Salamanca Campaign, June and July 1812
SHARPE’S ENEMY
Richard Sharpe and the Defense of Portugal, Christmas 1812
SHARPE’S HONOUR
Richard Sharpe and the Vitoria Campaign, February to June 1813
SHARPE’S REGIMENT
>
Richard Sharpe and the Invasion of France, June to November 1813
SHARPE’S SIEGE
Richard Sharpe and the Winter Campaign, 1814
SHARPE’S REVENGE
Richard Sharpe and the Peace of 1814
SHARPE’S WATERLOO
Richard Sharpe and the Waterloo Campaign, 15 June to 18 June 1815
SHARPE’S DEVIL
Richard Sharpe and the Emperor, 1820–1821
The Grail Quest Series
THE ARCHER’S TALE
VAGABOND
HERETIC
The Nathaniel Starbuck Chronicles
REBEL
COPPERHEAD
BATTLE FLAG
THE BLOODY GROUND
The Warlord Chronicles
THE WINTER KING
ENEMY OF GOD
EXCALIBUR
The Sailing Thrillers
STORMCHILD
SCOUNDREL
WILDTRACK
CRACKDOWN
Other Novels
STONEHENGE
GALLOWS THIEF
A CROWNING MERCY
THE FALLEN ANGELS
REDCOAT
Credits
Jacket Photographs: Foreground Image: Colin Anderson/Jupiterimages
Background Image: Kingdom of Heaven © 2005 Twentieth Century Fox. All Rights Reserved.
Jacket Design by Jarrod Taylor
Maps copyright © 2008 by John Gilkes
Copyright
AGINCOURT. Copyright © 2009 by Bernard Cornwell. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub © Edition DECEMBER 2008 ISBN: 9780061754395
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Contents
Map
Prologue
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Part Two
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Part Three
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Part Four
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Epiologue
Historical Note
About the Author
Other Books by Bernard Cornwell
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Agincourt Page 43
