Extract from Campaign 9: Agincourt 1415 by Matthew Bennett
Once in position the archers began to shoot at the enemy. Just imagine for a moment that you are an archer in the English army. You are famished, cold and wet and suffering from diarrhoea or worse from the effects of your diet of unclean water and nuts and berries. You expect to die in the forthcoming battle. For the men-at-arms there will be ransoms and often cosy captivity at the hands of men of their own class, related by birth or known to them personally. As a despised and feared footman, all you can expect is to be slaughtered by men so well-armoured as to be almost invulnerable or, if captured, to be mutilated so that you may not ply your craft again. The King has just reminded you that you can expect to lose three fingers from your right hand. However rousing his speech, you are most fortified by despair. At first it seems impossible that the French can be beaten. Then as you advance it becomes apparent that they have been careless – that they do not know what they are doing!
The English archery seems to have stirred the French to action. First their crossbowmen loosed off a hasty volley, then fell back for fear of the English arrows. Then their two wings of cavalry launched a charge across the intervening ground.
Once in position the archers began to shoot at the enemy. Just imagine for a moment that you are an archer in the English army. You are famished, cold and wet and suffering from diarrhoea or worse from the effects of your diet of unclean water and nuts and berries. You expect to die in the forthcoming battle. For the men-at-arms there will be ransoms and often cosy captivity at the hands of men of their own class, related by birth or known to them personally. As a despised and feared footman, all you can expect is to be slaughtered by men so well-armoured as to be almost invulnerable or, if captured, to be mutilated so that you may not ply your craft again. The King has just reminded you that you can expect to lose three fingers from your right hand. However rousing his speech, you are most fortified by despair. At first it seems impossible that the French can be beaten. Then as you advance it becomes apparent that they have been careless – that they do not know what they are doing!
English Crossbowmen, Archers and Infantrymen
Illustration taken from Men-at-Arms 85: Armies of Agincourt by Christopher Rothero
[...]
It is doubtful whether the French cavalry could have got up much speed over recently ploughed, rain-soaked ground. Just how slippery the surface was can be gathered from St Rèmy’s account of William of Saveuse’s charge. He is described as a valiant knight who encouraged his men to through their mounts upon the archers’ stakes. The ground was so soft that the stakes fell down, enabling the force to withdraw with the loss of only three men. But clearly not all the stakes fell down or the French would have broken through and ridden down the archers. The sort of thicket hedge that has been described nullified the impetus of an already laboured charge. Having performed their duty, the horsemen duly made off. What of the three men who died? They shared the fate of their leader, William de Saveuse, whose horse collided with a stake that held firm. As a result he was propelled over his mount’s head to lie stunned and helpless at the feet of the English archers, by whom he was swiftly dispatched. The loss of their dashing commander must have taken the heart out of the French. The English bowmen began to shoot at their now-retreating enemy, maddening the horses with arrow wounds. A similar drama was acted out on the other side of the battlefield.
The arrow storm forced every man to keep his head down for fear that a shaft might penetrate the eye slits in his helmet. Furthermore the English stood with the low, winter sun behind them – another unnerving and disorientating factor. As the range shortened, there can be no doubt that the English bodkin arrows, designed for the job, began to go through even plate armour protection. When the French arrived at the English line, after three hundred yards of blind, muscle-wrenching foot-slogging, there can have been no impetus left. Perhaps they did push the English back a few yards, represented poetically as a ‘lance’s length’. But many of the French must have been stupefied with exhaustion. And they were so crowded together that even if they had the strength to lift their weapons there was no space in which to aim a blow.
So the seemingly impossible happened. The small English force began to drive the French in front of it, killing, beating down and taking prisoner all who opposed them. Some chronicles speak of piles of dead as high as a man. While there were doubtless many bodies strewn around, some dead, some unconscious, some merely trapped, such a thing is a physical impossibility; but it captures the feeling of a massacre. The first French division was no forced back on to the second. But this strengthening of the French line seems to have had no effect. It merely produced the same results as before. On all sides French men-at-arms, including the most nobly-born amongst them, were giving themselves up. This was a risky business in the heat of battle. Too many Frenchmen seem to have seen the mêlée as a sort of joust between gentlemen, in which it was possible to hand over one’s glove as a symbol of surrender when a duel had been concluded with honour on both sides. The Duke of Alençon lost his life in this way, as doubtless did many others. We are told that after sparring with Henry but finding himself worsted he attempted to give himself up. As he did so, he was struck down by a battle-crazed Englishman, and so died.
The third division, looking on with horror at the defeat of the first two, made no move. Some indeed, being mounted, rode off in flight. Some of the luckier men-at-arms among the first two battles were also helped to their horses by their retainers and so escaped. But all the leaders of the French were killed or fell into English hands.
The battle itself had been very brief. It may have only taken half-an-hour, although some accounts give two – three hours (which probably included some of the preliminaries). It was now early afternoon on a short, late October day. The English were looking to gather their prisoners and tot-up the lucrative ransoms they had made, as well as tending to their wounds and catching their breath. The battle was apparently over, the French utterly defeated and in flight. But something happened to cause Henry to order an action that quite offended against the conventions of warfare: the slaughter of a large part of those taken prisoner. In fact, two things happened.
Extract from Command 8: Henry V by Marcus Cowper.
It is doubtful whether the French cavalry could have got up much speed over recently ploughed, rain-soaked ground. Just how slippery the surface was can be gathered from St Rèmy’s account of William of Saveuse’s charge. He is described as a valiant knight who encouraged his men to through their mounts upon the archers’ stakes. The ground was so soft that the stakes fell down, enabling the force to withdraw with the loss of only three men. But clearly not all the stakes fell down or the French would have broken through and ridden down the archers. The sort of thicket hedge that has been described nullified the impetus of an already laboured charge. Having performed their duty, the horsemen duly made off. What of the three men who died? They shared the fate of their leader, William de Saveuse, whose horse collided with a stake that held firm. As a result he was propelled over his mount’s head to lie stunned and helpless at the feet of the English archers, by whom he was swiftly dispatched. The loss of their dashing commander must have taken the heart out of the French. The English bowmen began to shoot at their now-retreating enemy, maddening the horses with arrow wounds. A similar drama was acted out on the other side of the battlefield.
The arrow storm forced every man to keep his head down for fear that a shaft might penetrate the eye slits in his helmet. Furthermore the English stood with the low, winter sun behind them – another unnerving and disorientating factor. As the range shortened, there can be no doubt that the English bodkin arrows, designed for the job, began to go through even plate armour protection. When the French arrived at the English line, after three hundred yards of blind, muscle-wrenching foot-slogging, there can have been no impetus left. Perhaps they did push the English back a few yards, represented poetically as a ‘lance’s length’. But many of the French must have been stupefied with exhaustion. And they were so crowded together that even if they had the strength to lift their weapons there was no space in which to aim a blow.
The Marshal of France, Constable of France and Duke of Orleans
Illustration taken from Men-at-Arms 85: Armies of Agincourt by Christopher Rothero
The fighting was nevertheless intense. The English did suffer casualties, the most notable of whom was the Duke of York. He probably was not suffocation under a mound of bodies as is usually claimed, but had his helmet beaten in so that it smashed his skull. The same fate nearly befell the King. All the eighteen squires who had supposedly sworn to fell Henry were killed, but somebody (perhaps one of them or possibly the Duke of Alençon) struck him a blow on the helmet which lopped a fleuret off the gold crown and left it heavily dented. Henry was certainly in the thick of the action. He stood over the badly wounded Early of Oxford and prevented him from being killed by the French. The battle between the men-at-arms seems to have been very close fought. Surprisingly, perhaps, the most effective intervention in the outcome of the fighting seems to have been provided by the lightly-equipped archers. All accounts describe them as throwing down their bows and engaging in the fray. They were equipped with swords, including the chopping falchion, axes and heavy mallets (used for hammering in the stakes and now for beading down the enemy). Their nimbleness, being so lightly clad upon the heavy ground, made them more than a match for the exhausted and bemused men-at-arms who opposed them – men, furthermore, who despised the low-born archers but now fell easy prey to them.So the seemingly impossible happened. The small English force began to drive the French in front of it, killing, beating down and taking prisoner all who opposed them. Some chronicles speak of piles of dead as high as a man. While there were doubtless many bodies strewn around, some dead, some unconscious, some merely trapped, such a thing is a physical impossibility; but it captures the feeling of a massacre. The first French division was no forced back on to the second. But this strengthening of the French line seems to have had no effect. It merely produced the same results as before. On all sides French men-at-arms, including the most nobly-born amongst them, were giving themselves up. This was a risky business in the heat of battle. Too many Frenchmen seem to have seen the mêlée as a sort of joust between gentlemen, in which it was possible to hand over one’s glove as a symbol of surrender when a duel had been concluded with honour on both sides. The Duke of Alençon lost his life in this way, as doubtless did many others. We are told that after sparring with Henry but finding himself worsted he attempted to give himself up. As he did so, he was struck down by a battle-crazed Englishman, and so died.
The third division, looking on with horror at the defeat of the first two, made no move. Some indeed, being mounted, rode off in flight. Some of the luckier men-at-arms among the first two battles were also helped to their horses by their retainers and so escaped. But all the leaders of the French were killed or fell into English hands.
The battle itself had been very brief. It may have only taken half-an-hour, although some accounts give two – three hours (which probably included some of the preliminaries). It was now early afternoon on a short, late October day. The English were looking to gather their prisoners and tot-up the lucrative ransoms they had made, as well as tending to their wounds and catching their breath. The battle was apparently over, the French utterly defeated and in flight. But something happened to cause Henry to order an action that quite offended against the conventions of warfare: the slaughter of a large part of those taken prisoner. In fact, two things happened.
Lord Camoys, King Henry V and Lord Bardolph
Illustration taken from Men-at-Arms 85: Armies of Agincourt by Christopher Rothero
The first was the report brought to Henry that his camp was being attacked. Exactly when or how this was carried out is far from clear. The conventional story accepted by chroniclers after the battle was that the local lord, Isembart d’Agincourt, assisted by Robinet de Bournoville, Riflart de Clmasse and several other men-at-arms, leading 600 peasants, of their own volition launched a raid on the camp. Certainly several precious items, a crown, some silver and a precious sword were looted from the camp.
[...]
The second action that spurred the massacre was the attempted counter-attack by a remnant of the third division. Amid all the confusion, several lords, named as the Counts of Marle and Fauquembergh and the Lords of Louvroy and Chin, managed to gather together six hundred men-at-arms. With them they made a mounted charge, which, according to Monstrelet, ended as disastrously as all the others.
[...]
The English, although victorious, were very vulnerable. They had by no means secured all their prisoners or accepted their surrender. There were still more than enough heavily armed Frenchmen at liberty to overwhelm the English should they recover their morale. So Henry gave the order to kill the prisoners. Only the most prominent were to be spared, such as the Duke of Orleans and Bourbon. But, as we have seen, high birth was no guarantee at such a moment. The knights and men-at-arms considered it an ignoble act and beneath their dignity to engage in killing defenceless men, so the task was carried out by a squire commanding two hundred archers. Even compared to the mayhem of battle it must have been a grim sight. How were the French killed? St Rèmy, who witnessed the massacre, describes them as ‘cut in pieces, heads and faces’. Indeed that was the only place where a knight in full armour was truly vulnerable. Only if they removed a man’s helmet or lifted his visor could he be killed easily. Those who resisted even this would have been stabbed through the eye-slit in their bascinet. Such cold-blooded killing appalled contemporaries, not so much for how it was done, although that did batter, but for whom it was done to. The men killed were noblemen and gentlemen, not the low-born who were expected to die in a battle. The men who wrote the accounts came from these upper classes, and such brutal realities clashed with the image of war as a gentlemanly pursuit, which they generally promulgated. But they did not blame Henry for carrying out this brutal necessity, but rather those leaders who so alarmed him as to bring the situation about.Extract from Command 8: Henry V by Marcus Cowper.
Artwork by Graham Turner
The Battle of Agincourt
This scene depicts the critical point of the battle. The French men-at-arms have crossed the field and are embroiled with the English line, while the English archers are beginning to engage from the flank in an assault that contributed a great deal to the eventual English victory. In the centre is Henry himself, with his crown on top of his unvisored great basinet. To his left is Sir Thomas Erpingham, who gave the order for the archers to fire their first volley, and some way to his right is Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. Behind Henry fly the banners associated with Agincourt (from left to right): Henry’s personal standard, the cross of St George, the Holy Trinity, and the standards of Edward the Confessor and St Edmund. Advancing towards Henry is Jean, Sire de Croy, who, along with his retinue, made a pact to kill Henry and supposedly hacked off part of his crown. On the ground in the centre is a French knight struggling with an English archer, who is trying to stab him through his open visor, while to the right another French knight has felt the full force of one of the heavy mallets wielded by the lightly armoured archers.
For further reading on the battle of Agincourt take a look at Campaign 9: Agincourt 1415, Men-at-Arms 85: Armies of Agincourt, Command 8: Henry V and Weapon 30: The Longbow.
No comments:
Post a Comment