Agincourt - Bernard Cornwell [185]
The bells rang. Te Deums were being sung in the city’s abbeys, churches, and cathedral. They gave thanks to God because England had sailed to Normandy and England had been harried into a corner of Picardy and there England had been faced with the almost certain death of its king and of his army.
But then the arrows flew.
Hook and Melisande took the westward road. They were going home.
Historical Note
The battle of Agincourt (Azincourt was and remains the French spelling) was one of the most remarkable events of medieval Europe, a battle whose reputation far outranked its importance. In the long history of Anglo-French rivalry only Hastings, Waterloo, Trafalgar, and Crécy share Agincourt’s renown. It is arguable that Poitiers was a more significant battle and an even more complete victory, or that Verneuil was just as astonishing a triumph, and it’s certain that Hastings, Blenheim, Victoria, Trafalgar, and Waterloo were more influential on the course of history, yet Agincourt still holds its extraordinary place in English legend. Something quite remarkable happened on 25 October 1415 (Agincourt was fought long before Christendom’s conversion to the new-style calendar, so the modern anniversary should be on 4 November). It was something so remarkable that its fame persists almost six hundred years later.
Agincourt’s fame could just be an accident, a quirk of history reinforced by Shakespeare’s genius, but the evidence suggests it really was a battle that sent a shock wave through Europe. For years afterward the French called 25 October 1415 la malheureuse journée (the unfortunate day). Even after they had expelled the English from France they remembered la malheureuse journée with sadness. It had been a disaster.
Yet it was so nearly a disaster for Henry V and his small, but well-equipped army. That army had sailed from Southampton Water with high hopes, the chief of which was the swift capture of Harfleur, which would be followed by a foray into the French heartland in hope, presumably, of bringing the French to battle. A victory in that battle would demonstrate, at least in the pious Henry’s mind, God’s support of his claim to the French throne, and might even propel him onto that throne. Such hopes were not vain when his army was intact, but the siege of Harfleur took much longer than expected and Henry’s army was almost ruined by dysentery.
The tale of the siege in the novel is, by and large, accurate, though I did take one great liberty, which was to sink a mineshaft opposite the Leure Gate. There was no such shaft, the ground would not allow it, and all the real mines were dug by the Duke of Clarence’s forces that were assailing the eastern side of Harfleur. The French counter-mines defeated those diggings, but I wanted to give a flavor, however inadequately, of the horrors men faced in fighting beneath the earth. The defense of Harfleur was magnificent, for which much of the praise must go to Raoul de Gaucourt, one of the garrison’s leaders. His defiance, and the long days of the siege, gave the French a chance to raise a much larger army than any they might have fielded against Henry if the siege had ended, say, in early September.
Harfleur did finally surrender and was spared the sack and the horrors that had followed the fall of Soissons in 1414. This was another event that shocked Europe, though in the case of Soissons it was the barbaric behavior of the French army toward its own citizens that provoked the shock. There is a rumor that English mercenaries took money to betray the city, which explains the actions of the fictional Sir Roger Pallaire, but in the context of the Agincourt campaign the significance of Soissons was its patron saints, Crispin and Crispinian, whose feast day was, indeed, 25 October. For many in Europe the events of Saint Crispin’s Day in 1415 demonstrated a heavenly revenge for the horrors of the sack of Soissons in 1414.
Common sense suggests that Henry should have abandoned any thoughts of further campaigning after Harfleur’s surrender.