by Teresa Cole
It may be that this rebuff piqued the king into deciding on an all-out assault on the town – or maybe seeing the condition of its inhabitants he had realised just how close to cracking it really was. Whatever the reason, almost as soon as his visitors had departed it was being loudly proclaimed through the camp that every man should be ready for a final assault the next day. Throughout the night a mighty bombardment was carried on and at dawn Henry’s assault began. Even before this, however, and probably unknown to de Gaucort, concentrating his attention on the Leure Gate, a group of burgesses had carried an offer of surrender to the Duke of Clarence on the other side of the town.
It took some hours before this could be communicated around the flooded area to the king, and, since it was then obvious de Gaucort could not carry on alone, negotiations began in earnest for a surrender. A truce was agreed to run until 1 p.m. on the following Sunday, 22 September. Safe conduct would be given to a delegation making one last plea for help to the Dauphin, failing which there would be an unconditional surrender. In the meantime the French would provide twenty-four hostages including d’Estouteville. All this was solemnly signed and sealed and sworn on the Eucharist under the supervision of the Bishop of Bangor, who reassured the vanquished, ‘We are good Christians and Harfleur is not Soissons,’ referring to the sack of that town by the Armagnacs the previous year.
The waiting was in vain. The Dauphin’s army was not yet ready, so the messenger reported, and thus at 1 p.m. on Sunday 22 September, Henry, enthroned and richly dressed, formally received the surrender of Harfleur from de Gaucort, dressed in a shirt and with a noose around his neck. ‘Most victorious Prince,’ he said, ‘I yield unto you with the town, my self and my company.’
Town, self and company – and what was the victorious prince to do with each? A few weeks before the answer would have been simple. Garrison the town, hold de Gaucort and company prisoner for ransom and move on to further conquest – Fécamp and Dieppe, perhaps, along the coast, and maybe Rouen or even Paris. Now things were not so straightforward.
It has been estimated that Henry had already lost some two thousand men from dysentery, among them many leaders of retinues including the Earl of Suffolk. Many more were sick. De Gaucort himself and many in his company were suffering the same illness. The loss of time was almost as serious as the loss of men. It would be October before any move could be made. The campaigning year was ending. As Henry very well knew from his Welsh endeavours, nothing could be achieved during the winter months.
On 23 September the king entered Harfleur for the first time. Barefoot like a penitent he walked through the ruins to what was left of the church of St Michael and offered thanks to God for his victory. Then, with characteristic decisiveness, he made his dispositions.
Church and clergy were to be untouched. All those citizens who would swear allegiance to him would be permitted to remain, though none could own houses or business property in the town. Those rich who would not swear would be held for ransom. The poor and sick, women and children, would be expelled with some money for the journey and all the possessions they could carry. An armed escort would take them some fourteen miles beyond the English lines, whereupon they would become the responsibility of the French. Harfleur would be repopulated by English merchants and tradespeople and become a second Calais. Thomas Beaufort, Earl of Dorset, was appointed warden and captain of Harfleur and the reprovisioning of the town began at once.
Though this might seem harsh to us, it was seen as unusually lenient at the time. Even more lenient was the treatment of de Gaucort and his fellows. By the rules of war their lives were forfeit to the king, hence the nooses round the necks of those surrendering. At the least they would be held for ransom and might expect months or years of confinement. Henry, however, had neither time nor men to spare to deal with a company of some 260 sick prisoners. Instead they were released on their own parole to present themselves to the king or to his lieutenant at Calais on 11 November. It says a lot for the chivalric ideas of the time that there was a firm expectation on both sides that they would do so.
Before de Gaucort could take himself to his sickbed, however, Henry had one more humiliating task for him. He was to take to the Dauphin Louis, now residing at Vernon, about halfway between Rouen and Paris, a personal challenge to settle the whole issue of Henry’s claim to France once and for all, through trial by battle. This was not, as some have suggested, a frivolous challenge to a joust. Trial by battle was a serious judicial procedure usually involving combat to the death. Common in Europe, it had been introduced to English law after the Norman Conquest and was frequently used to give ‘the judgement of God par excellence’ in cases where there was no decisive evidence. It was, in fact, the procedure chosen and then rescinded by Richard II to decide just such a situation between Henry’s father and Mowbray in 1398.
Henry’s proposal was that, to avoid ‘the death of men, the destruction of the countryside, the lamentation of women and children, and so many evils generally’, he would personally fight the Dauphin and the winner would be legitimate heir to Charles VI. Since Henry was a seasoned soldier of twenty-nine and the Dauphin an untried boy of eighteen, there seemed little likelihood that he would take up the challenge. However, in the eight days allowed for Louis’s response the king had time to plan for his next move.
A decision was taken that the sick, of whom there were many, should be immediately evacuated back to England. A muster of men was held with the leader of each retinue providing a list of those no longer fit to serve. Many of these records survive, listing nearly two thousand men, so the estimate at the time that five thousand were sent home may not be much of an exaggeration. Add to this the two thousand already dead, and the shrunken nature of the great army that had left England some six weeks earlier stands revealed. As a rough average something between a quarter and a third had been lost from each company. Of the eight earls who had sailed with them, one was already dead and three others – Arundel, Mowbray and March – were seriously ill. This reduction in the numbers of fighting men was going to severely limit the king’s options for the immediate future.
Of the choices available to him the original plan for further sieges and conquest was already out of the question. It was too late in the season to have any chance of success. At the other extreme, to withdraw to England for the winter and regroup was equally unpalatable. To launch such an invasion and then abandon it, with money spent, lives lost and only one town to show for it, would involve an unthinkable loss of face for the king. There had been precious little profit so far. ‘Our town of Harfleur’ had been spared looting, and though some would be rewarded with property in and around the town, a few ransoms were otherwise all the pickings of a very thin campaign.
A grand chevauchée to Bordeaux in the south, with plenty of plunder along the way, was another possibility, but Bordeaux was some 350 miles away with great swathes of enemy territory, including the Orleanist heartlands, in between. There was another, nearer, English territory at hand, with historical precedents of glory for those who marched that way. Henry would have been very well aware of the exploits of his great-grandfather Edward III at Crécy, and the appointment with his prisoners at Calais suggests he had already made up his mind as to where he was going.
At a council meeting on 5 October the majority were for going home. Clarence pointed out the unknown numbers they might have to face on the road to Calais and argued strongly against the decision. This unusual timidity on the part of Henry’s normally belligerent brother might be explained by the fact that his name next appeared on the lists of the sick to be evacuated home. On the other hand, since he then turned up in Calais rather than England it may be that his illness was political rather than medical.
Despite this opposition, Henry’s desire to see ‘his’ lands of Normandy and Ponthieu carried the day and orders were immediately given to prepare for departure. Harfleur must be left secure and Dorset was allocated three hundred men at arms and nine hundred archers
for this purpose, together with a number of cannon and gunners. In addition an English fleet was directed to patrol the coastline and estuary.
This garrison left the king with a force of only some nine hundred men and five thousand archers. He declared he was trusting in God and the justice of his cause to see them through, but clearly he was making some assumptions which, in the event, would prove to be overly optimistic.
So far opposition had been minimal. As far as he knew d’Albret and Boucicaut were in Rouen with a few thousand men, while the Dauphin was still attempting to assemble his disunited forces even further away in Vernon. Calais was a good eight days’ march away. Before the French could stir themselves he would be well on the way, with possible reinforcements coming to meet him from that English territory. He was still talking to John of Burgundy and expected no opposition there. To complete the march at all would enhance his prestige. If in doing so he provoked a battle with the reduced French forces he was confident his better trained, better disciplined men would win the day.
On 8 October they left Harfleur travelling in the traditional three divisions or battles. Sir John Cornwaille and Sir Gilbert Umphraville, two seasoned campaigners, led the vanguard. The king himself rode with the main body along with some of his younger lords, his brother Humphrey of Gloucester and Sir John Holland, while again the rearguard was commanded by the experienced Edward, Duke of York, and Richard de Vere, Earl of Oxford (much younger cousin of the favourite of Richard II). All were carrying only eight days’ rations, probably all were mounted and all unnecessary gear was left behind at Harfleur.
Almost certainly, though accounts seem to vary on this point, they would have been travelling in at least part of their armour. They were likely to be subject to sudden attack along the way, and to fit correctly all the separate pieces of harness took at least one, and usually two, assistants and something like twenty minutes or more in time. There would be problems in travelling in this way. It would certainly be less comfortable, and armour was always likely to rust in the rain, leading to seized joints and lack of mobility. On the other hand this had to be balanced against increased security. At least the backplate and breastplate would have been worn, and maybe protection for arms and legs as well, though the very heavy great helm would probably only be donned when necessary.
They would have to cover nearly twenty miles a day, and, with the usual (though restricted) baggage carts, servants, clergy and so on following behind, there would be no time for delays or diversions. Discipline was tight. There would be no looting, no women, no destruction. Henry was the King of France, intending to impress his subjects not turn them against him. Food might be commandeered but everything else must be paid for. Indeed, he treated the French citizenry considerably better than did the French army itself, something that was commented on in even the more hostile chronicles.
To begin with Henry’s assumptions seemed to be working well. Travelling close to the coast they met with nothing more than a few skirmishes in the first few days. However it seems that the king’s plans were known about even before he set off. By 6 October it was known in Boulogne that the English were coming and defences on towns and bridges all along the way were strengthened. Again it may be that the appointment with the prisoners gave the game away. De Gaucort would be sure to pass this on to the French commanders in Rouen, and, while the French army was now at last gathering massively in that place, it is certain that d’Albret and Marshal Boucicaut were at Abbeville on the Somme on 11 October with an advance guard.
The Somme was the greatest of the many rivers that Henry had to cross on the way to Calais and he had counted on using the old Roman ford near the mouth of the river at Blanche Taque, which his great-grandfather had used before him. Just in time, however, a prisoner taken by Cornwailles’s vanguard revealed that the French were there ahead of him. The ford had been spiked with sharpened stakes and on the far shore d’Albret and Boucicaut waited with a force six thousand strong. Nor would there be reinforcements from Calais, those who had set out having been killed or captured by local forces.
There was little to discuss for the council meeting now convened by Henry. They were two days’ march from Calais. Though they had received some bread and wine on the way their rations were more than half gone. Now, with no other option, they would have to turn away upriver to look for another hopefully unguarded crossing, maybe as far as the head of the river itself, some sixty miles away, moving further from their goal with every step.
At Pont Remy they not only found both bridge and causeway smashed but a belligerent French force on the opposite bank. Since this was led by the father and brothers of de Gaucort it is perhaps as well there was no way across, but from now on they were well aware that their progress was shadowed all the way by their enemies, and the chances of finding anywhere to cross unchallenged were slim indeed.
There was some little respite at a place called Boves, beyond the city of Amiens, which they had carefully avoided. Here, though local forces had marched to join the French army, and the captain of the castle proved friendly, supplying them not only with much-needed bread and wine but also billets in the village.
If this raised their spirits the next day they were rapidly lowered again. A more serious skirmish at Corbie and the capture of some rather talkative prisoners seems to have led Henry to a change of tactics. It was from these men, apparently, that the king first learnt of the size of the army now being assembled across the river at the town of Peronne. After a slow response to the initial call to arms the shameful loss of Harfleur had galvanised the French nobility. With the exception of John the Fearless, who still prevaricated, all had now come forward to fight for king and country. The oriflamme, that sacred banner of France, had been brought from its resting place at St Denis, and the wiser counsels of d’Albret and Boucicaut had been overruled by hot-blooded nobles who demanded nothing less than vengeance. They would neutralise the English archers by riding them down, and then use their overwhelming manpower to put an end to this upstart Henry and his shrunken army.
The king’s response was twofold. First every archer was instructed to provide himself with a six-foot stake sharpened at each end, which could be driven into the ground in front of him to deter a charging horse. Secondly the whole army moved away from the river.
In a time before detailed maps Henry must have had some knowledge of the local geography. At Corbie the River Somme begins a big loop, and by cutting straight across this the intention was both to lose those shadowing his movements from the far bank and to get ahead of them. Only in this way could he hope to find an unguarded way across. Now, however, with not even the river as a guide, the morale of his men seems to have sunk to its lowest.
On 17 October we have the only record of a soldier breaking the king’s rules against looting. Entering a church he stole a pyx, a small receptacle containing the consecrated host. The response was immediate. He was hanged in front of the whole army as an example to all. It may be this story that later led French writers to conclude that Henry ruled his army through fear and the threat of harsh punishments for any who disobeyed him, though this seems to have been very much an exception rather than a rule.
The following day they reached Nesle, once again close to the Somme, and for the first time when food was demanded from the hamlets thereabouts there was open defiance from the populace. We are told they hung red cloths from their walls (possibly a reference to the red oriflamme banner) and Henry threatened he would burn them to the ground. It might have been this threat that finally produced the information he needed, that within a few miles, there were not one but two fords by which the king and his army might cross the river (and leave the villagers in peace!)
Some have suggested that Henry had known about this all along but if so he seems to have kept the knowledge to himself. Either way, the army had been praying for a miracle and here, apparently, they had found one. Although the causeways had been broken up neither ford was guarded. At last they had outr
un their pursuers.
At first light on Saturday 19 October the army began to cross the Somme – first a group of archers, then Cornwaille and Umphraville and their banners and then the men-at-arms of the vanguard. Only when a secure position had been established on the far side could the rest begin to move. In the meantime they had torn down doors, window shutters, sticks, stones and straw to mend, as best they could, the causeways approaching these crossings. The repairs must have been rough and ready in the extreme but eventually it was possible to proceed. To avoid unnecessary delays the king decreed one ford would be used by the army and the other by the baggage train, and to ensure discipline he stationed himself by the entrance to the river where the soldiery would cross.
With three men riding abreast it took all the rest of the day to get the whole force safely to the other side. There was one alarm when a party of French cavalry appeared, and though these were quickly driven off by Cornwaille and his men, it meant the whereabouts of the English would rapidly be reported to d’Albret.
Soon after nightfall the army was safely encamped around the hamlet of Athies a few miles downstream from the crossing point. They were still there the following morning when three heralds rode into camp, sent by the Duke of Orleans, the Duke of Bourbon and Constable d’Albret. Their message was simple and couched in most chivalrous terms. Aware that Henry had been seeking a battle ever since he left Harfleur, they would now be happy to meet him and fulfil that desire at a time and place of his choosing.
8
AGINCOURT
