Battle of Agincourt
The Battle of Agincourt was an English victory in the Hundred Years' War. It took place on 25 October 1415 near Azincourt, in northern France. The unexpected victory of the vastly outnumbered English troops against the French army boosted English morale and prestige, crippled France, and started a new period of English dominance in the war. That advantage lasted for 14 years, until England was defeated by France in 1429 during the Siege of Orléans.
After several decades of relative peace, the English had resumed the war in 1415 amid the failure of negotiations with the French. In the ensuing campaign, many soldiers died from disease, and the English numbers dwindled; they tried to withdraw to English-held Calais but found their path blocked by a considerably larger French army. Despite their numerical disadvantage, the battle ended in an overwhelming victory for the English.
King Henry V of England led his troops into battle and participated in hand-to-hand fighting. King Charles VI of France did not command the French army as he suffered from psychotic illnesses and associated mental incapacity. The French were commanded by Constable Charles d'Albret and various prominent French noblemen of the Armagnac party. This battle is notable for the use of the English longbow in very large numbers, as English and Welsh archers comprised nearly 80 percent of Henry's army.
The Battle of Agincourt is one of England's most celebrated victories and was one of the most important English triumphs in the Hundred Years' War, along with the Battle of Crécy and the Battle of Poitiers. The battle continues to fascinate scholars and the general public, and forms the backdrop to notable works such as William Shakespeare's play Henry V, written in 1599.
Contemporary accounts
The Battle of Agincourt is well documented by at least seven contemporary accounts, three from eyewitnesses. The general location of the battle is not disputed and the site remains relatively unaltered after 600 years. A paucity of archaeological evidence, though, has led to a debate as to the exact location of the battlefield.Immediately after the battle, Henry summoned the heralds of the two armies who had watched the battle together with principal French herald Montjoie, and they settled on the name of the battle as Azincourt, after the nearest fortified place. Two of the most frequently cited accounts come from Burgundian sources, one from Jean Le Fèvre de Saint-Remy, who was present at the battle, and the other from Enguerrand de Monstrelet. The English eyewitness account comes from the anonymous author of the Gesta Henrici Quinti, believed to have been written by a chaplain in the King's household who would have been in the baggage train at the battle. A recent reappraisal of Henry's strategy of the Agincourt campaign incorporates these three accounts and argues that war was seen as a legal due process for solving the disagreement over claims to the French throne.
Background
invaded France following the failure of negotiations with the French. He claimed the title of King of France through his great-grandfather Edward III of England, although in practice the English kings were generally prepared to renounce this claim if the French would acknowledge the English claim on Aquitaine and other French lands. He initially called a Great Council in the spring of 1414 to discuss going to war with France, but the lords insisted that he should negotiate further and moderate his claims. In the ensuing negotiations Henry said that he would give up his claim to the French throne if the French would pay the 1.6 million crowns outstanding from the ransom of John II, and concede English ownership of the lands of Anjou, Brittany, Flanders, Normandy, and Touraine, as well as Aquitaine. Henry would marry Catherine, Charles VI's young daughter, and receive a dowry of 2 million crowns.The French responded with what they considered the generous terms of marriage with Catherine, a dowry of 600,000 crowns, and an enlarged Aquitaine. In December 1414, the English parliament was persuaded to grant Henry a "double subsidy", a tax at twice the traditional rate, to recover his inheritance from the French. By 1415, negotiations had ground to a halt, and the English felt that the French had mocked their claims and ridiculed Henry himself. On 19 April 1415, Henry again asked the Great Council to sanction war with France, and this time they agreed.
Henry's army landed in northern France on 13 August 1415, carried by a vast fleet. It was often reported to comprise 1,500 ships, but was probably far smaller. Theodore Beck also suggests that among Henry's army was "the king's physician and a little band of surgeons". Thomas Morstede, Henry V's royal surgeon, had previously been contracted by the king to supply a team of surgeons and makers of surgical instruments to take part in the Agincourt campaign. The army of about 12,000 men and up to 20,000 horses besieged the port of Harfleur. The siege took longer than expected. The town surrendered on 22 September, and the English army did not leave until 8 October. The campaign season was coming to an end, and the English army had suffered many casualties through disease. Rather than retire directly to England for the winter, after his costly expedition had captured only one town, Henry decided to march most of his army through Normandy to the port of Calais, the English stronghold in northern France, to demonstrate by his presence in the territory at the head of an army that his right to rule in the duchy was more than a mere abstract legal and historical claim. He also intended the manoeuvre as a deliberate provocation to battle aimed at the dauphin, who had failed to respond to Henry's personal challenge to combat at Harfleur.
During the siege, the French had raised an army which assembled around Rouen. This was not strictly a feudal army, but an army paid through a system similar to that of the English. The French hoped to raise 9,000 troops, but the army was not ready in time to relieve Harfleur.
After Henry V marched to the north, the French moved to block them along the River Somme. They were successful for a time, forcing Henry to move south, away from Calais, to find a ford. The English finally crossed the Somme south of Péronne, at Béthencourt and Voyennes and resumed marching north.
Without a river obstacle to defend, the French were hesitant to force a battle. They shadowed Henry's army while calling a semonce des nobles, calling on local nobles to join the army. By 24 October, both armies faced each other for battle, but the French declined, hoping for the arrival of more troops. The two armies spent the night of 24 October on open ground. The next day the French initiated negotiations as a delaying tactic, but Henry ordered his army to advance and to start a battle that, given the state of his army, he would have preferred to avoid, or to fight defensively: that was how Crécy and the other famous longbow victories had been won. The English had very little food, had marched in two and a half weeks, were suffering from sickness such as dysentery, and were greatly outnumbered by well-equipped French men-at-arms. The French army blocked Henry's way to the safety of Calais, and delaying battle would only further weaken his tired army and allow more French troops to arrive.
Setting
Battlefield
The precise location of the battle is not known. It may be in the narrow strip of open land formed between the woods of Tramecourt and Azincourt. The lack of archaeological evidence at this traditional site has led to suggestions that it was fought to the west of Azincourt. In 2019, the historian Michael Livingston also made the case for a site west of Azincourt, based on a review of sources and early maps.English deployment
Early on the 25th, Henry deployed his army across a part of the defile. The army was divided into three groups: the right wing led by Edward, Duke of York, the centre led by the king himself, and the left wing under the old and experienced Baron Thomas Camoys. The archers were commanded by Sir Thomas Erpingham, another elderly veteran. It is likely that the English adopted their usual battle line of longbowmen on either flank, with men-at-arms and knights in the centre. They might also have deployed some archers in the centre of the line. The English men-at-arms in plate and mail were placed shoulder to shoulder four deep. The English and Welsh archers on the flanks drove pointed wooden stakes, or palings, into the ground at an angle to force cavalry to veer off. This use of stakes could have been inspired by the Battle of Nicopolis of 1396, where forces of the Ottoman Empire used the tactic against French cavalry.The English made their confessions before the battle, as was customary. Henry, worried about the enemy launching surprise raids, and wanting his troops to remain focused, ordered all his men to spend the night before the battle in silence, on pain of having an ear cut off. He told his men that he would rather die in the coming battle than be captured and ransomed.
Henry made a speech emphasising the justness of his cause, and reminding his army of previous great defeats the kings of England had inflicted on the French. The Burgundian sources have him concluding the speech by telling his men that the French had boasted that they would cut off two fingers from the right hand of every archer, so that he could never draw a longbow again. Whether this was true is open to question and continues to be debated to this day; however, it seems likely that death was the normal fate of any soldier who could not be ransomed.
French deployment
The French army had 10,000 men-at-arms plus some 4,000–5,000 miscellaneous footmen including archers, crossbowmen and shield-bearers, totalling 14,000–15,000 men. Probably each man-at-arms would be accompanied by a gros valet, an armed servant, adding up to another 10,000 potential fighting men, though some historians omit them from the number of combatants.The French were organised into two main groups, a vanguard up front and a main battle behind, both composed principally of men-at-arms fighting on foot and flanked by more of the same in each wing. There was a special, elite cavalry force whose purpose was to break the formation of the English archers and thus clear the way for the infantry to advance. A second, smaller mounted force was to attack the rear of the English army, along with its baggage and servants. Many lords and gentlemen demanded and received position in the front lines, where they would have a higher chance of acquiring glory and valuable ransoms; this resulted in the bulk of the men-at-arms being massed in the front lines and the other troops, for which there was no remaining space, being placed behind. Although it had been planned for the archers and crossbowmen to be placed with the infantry wings, they were now regarded as unnecessary and placed behind them instead. On account of the lack of space, the French drew up a third battle, the rearguard, which was on horseback and mainly comprised the valets mounted on the horses belonging to the men fighting on foot ahead.
The French vanguard numbered 4,800 men-at-arms and the main battle 3,000. Both lines were arrayed in tight, dense formations of about 16 ranks each, and were positioned a bowshot length from each other. Albret, Boucicaut, and almost all the leading noblemen were assigned stations in the vanguard. The dukes of Alençon and Bar led the main battle. A further 600 dismounted men-at-arms stood in each wing, the left under the Count of Vendôme and the right under the Count of Richemont. To disperse the enemy archers, a cavalry force of 800–1,200 picked men-at-arms, led by Clignet de Bréban and Louis de Bosredon, was distributed evenly between both flanks of the vanguard. Some 200 mounted men-at-arms would attack the English rear. The French apparently had no clear plan for deploying the rest of the army. The rearguard, leaderless, would serve as a "dumping ground" for the surplus troops.