1415: The Battle of Agincourt

On the 25^th of October 1415, St Crispin’s day, Henry V fought valiantly against the French in what became one of the most significant battles of the One Hundred Years War and of his reign. But if we are to believe this narrative, we are ignoring all the facts. The truth is that Henry’s army was sick and tired. Most of them were hungry as well, and the capitulation of the town of Harfleur (who had no choice but to give in to Henry’s demands) did little to motivate them. The sources vary, but all of them agree that the French outnumbered them, and it was going to be one hell of a fight –and as some of them viewed it, a massacre.

“The French army was disposed, according to the regular medieval way, in three “Battles” or divisions, one behind the other … The first, or “vaward” consisted of about 13,500 men; of these 8,000 were men-at-arms, and 5,500 were archers, who stood behind the men-at-arms … Ring Henry, also, after prayers had been held and mass celebrated, drew up his army in three “battles” or divisions, not, however, like the French, one behind the other, but each division in line with the other, so as completely to fill up the space between the two woods.” (R. B. Mowat)

Henry had risked everything for this enterprise, yet even he couldn’t break his rules of engagement. Besides citing his claim to the French throne, he had also cited the bible which said that unless provoked, he wouldn’t attack. Until now, he had manipulated the situation to make it seem as if he was the injured party; hence his reluctance to attack. But as it became evident that the French were not going to attack, he decided to draw first blood.

Ian Mortimer points out that one of the reasons why the French lost the battle was because they had cornered the English, preventing them from reaching Calais, but “in doing so they had placed themselves in a narrow confined space between two woods, and with ground sloping away on either side.” Furthermore, “they were encamped in a ploughed field that had turned into a quagmire as a result of the recent heavy rain –and conditions were going to get worse.” 

And they did get worse. Henry V relied on his bowmen as his great-grandfather, Edward III, had done, and the French, believing they wouldn’t be as vital, pushed their crossbowmen to the back. Approximately, Henry’s army consisted of a thousand knights, esquires, and other fighting men, excluding the archers, on each division. Archers numbered 5,000. And the latter, besides the muddy terrain, did the most damage to the French army.
When their king gave the order to attack, they put a piece of earth on their mouths and charged towards the French. Although the French were prepared to take them on, their position made it difficult to fight, and the shower of arrows on their cavalry overwhelmed them. And the speed in which they fired was thanks to their light armor which made it easier for them to move their arms.

“The French commanders could only look on with dismay and mounting consternation as the riders on the wings rode chaotically back into the vanguard. Even those who had not lost their horses, and how had clung on, had great difficulty controlling their steeds as they careered in panic away from the arrows … There was only one option left open: to sound the trumpets commanding a full onslaught of all the troops. And to overwhelm the English through sheer force of numbers.” (Mortimer)

Nonetheless, the odds as it’s been described, were not in their favor. And despite their bravery, some of the commanding officers, realizing what the outcome would be, had to yell at their men to retreat.

The fighting lasted about three hours. Among the English casualties were the Duke of York and the Earl of Suffolk. The French suffered more casualties, along with many being captured. The author of the Gesta wrote that never had the Englishmen “fallen upon their enemies more boldly or fearlessly, or with a better will.” One might be wondering what was Henry doing the entire time, and the answer was that he was fighting “as a famished lion for his prey”. Before the battle began, he said some words of encouragement to his men. Shakespeare would later immortalize this battle by having Henry delivering a glorious speech in which everyone cheers, and is convinced by Henry’s mighty words that the battle will be won. Shakespeare like most historical fiction authors today was writing from hindsight. In real life, the people fighting that day didn’t know what the outcome would be. The French were confident in their numbers, but the confidence was shattered as soon as arrows rained down on them, and the fierce hand-to-hand combat broke down. As for the English, famished and tired, they were unsure whether they would win, but the terrain, the number of bowmen (and their armor), helped them. And no doubt, seeing their King fight with the same ferocity, and charging at the enemy when his younger brother Humphrey was stricken, helped too.

But there is a darker aspect -one that is often forgotten or dismissed entirely: The Slaughter that came afterwards. After hearing that what remained of his enemy forces, intended to launch a second attack, Henry ordered that the prisoners be killed.

“The order was met by his own men with incredulity rather than horror since it entailed the loss of so many valuable captives, and the threat of hanging was used as an incentive for any soldier inclined to disobey.” (Matusiak)

Over a century after the event, the Tudor chronicler Edward Hall made the event more gruesome, adding that the great majority were stabbed, their skulls bashed “with poleaxes” or “slain with mallets.” While this can be interpreted as dramatic license, the truth is not less horrifying. Regardless of Henry’s fears, his actions were cruel, and a perfect reminder that just as Henry V could claim to be the purveyor of divine justice, he could also be an angel of vengeance.

Those that weren’t executed were because of their ranks and lineage (including the Duke of Orleans), Henry told them: “Look at my men. They never mounted on women, nor robbed men or the Church” while another account has him saying that the reason the French lost was because they “had committed sacrilege in robbing and violating churches … taken by force all kinds of people … they had robbed the whole population and destroyed them without cause.”

This victory validated Henry’s ambition, and it also pushed him to the limits, to keep proving to his nations that his enterprise was well justified and blessed by God. And 600 years after the battle, Agincourt continues to capture the imagination of many history buffs, but beneath the romantic myths spawned by the nationalist sentiment that the one hundred years war helped spawn, and that the play-writers and other fiction authors gave it, lies a more interesting (and complex) story.

Sources:

• Henry V by R.B. Mowat
• Henry V: The Warrior King of 1415 by Ian Mortimer
• Henry V by John Matusiak
• The One Hundred Years War by Desmond Seward

May the 4th: The Twilight of the House of Lancaster

Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, only son of King Henry VI of House Lancaster and his Queen, Marguerite of Anjou.

On May the 4^th 1471, Edward Prince of Wales, otherwise known as Edward of Westminster for his place of birth, lost his life at the Battle of Tewkesbury. The prince was only seventeen years old, months short of being eighteen. He was the last hope of the Lancastrians. After the Earl of Warwick Richard Neville had been slain at the battle of Barnet the previous month, the Prince and his mother decided not to make any more haste and keep with the plan, and attack the Yorkists. Some historians like Skidmore believe that the death of Richard Neville might have been a blessing in disguise since it eliminated a potential rival, if they ever came to a complete win. However, others are not so sure of this. Jones, Higginbotham, Lisle, among many others view that Warwick’s death was truly the end-game for the Lancasters. The battle of Barnet destroyed whatever chance they had left. Marguerite of Anjou was never one to give up and continued to march forward unto the battlefield. With her, besides her son, was her daughter-in-law, Anne Neville. Anne Neville was the youngest daughter of Richard Neville, and the news of her father’s death when she touched English shore, must have been devastating. Yet, true to her position of Princess Consort of Wales, she kept moving and joined her husband and her mother-in-law in their fight, to completely restore the Lancastrian dynasty to its rightful place. Henry VI had already been captured and sent back to the Tower. London was back in Yorkist control but Marguerite remained optimistic. Weeks after they landed, they made their way to Exeter then to Bristol and the Severn Valley where Edward IV “prepared for a second round of battle, sending out orders to fifteen counties”. He wanted to stop them at all costs from crossing the river Severn but come the end of April he realized they were journeying to Bristol where they were joined by a larger army and supplied with more weapons.

Although Edward had the upper hand, one mistake (he knew) could’ve cost him everything. So it became a race against time, for the Yorkist King to encounter them when he was still strong before they reunited with others (such as Jasper Tudors who was far off and was looking forward to joining with them).

Edward of Westminster in the “White Queen” (2013)

The Lancastrian army then reached Tewkesbury on 3 May. The next day they faced the Yorkist troops. The Prince of Wales along with the Duke of Somerset, Edmund Beaufort were the principal commanders. Marguerite and Anne Neville were likely hiding as Licence points out in her biography on Anne Neville; probably in Coventry with other Lancastrian wives waiting for news of the outcome.

The following day on Saturday May the 4^th, Edward IV “donned his armor and divided his army into three divisions under the same leadership that had prevailed at Barnet -himself, Hastings and the brilliant young Gloucester, who was not given command of the vanguard.” Jones writes. The Lancastrias “were arrayed under Prince Edward” who was assisted by Lord Wenlock, Sir John Lagstrother (the prior of St. John) and of course his second in command Edmund Duke of Somerset, followed by John Courtenay the Earl of Devon. Edward IV began his assault with “a hail of arrows and gunshot” which was returned by the enemy. The Lancastrias had chosen a “strong defensive position” Skidmore notes “encamped on high ground to the south of Tewkesbury.” The battle raged on, “Somerset had chosen to command the right flank, placing the elderly veteran Lord Wenlock in charge of the center of the army.” Edward did not waste any time and told his brother leading the left flank to advance, the Lancastrians did their best to repel the wave of arrows flown at them, but they were soon overwhelmed.

“Outnumbered, Somerset’s forces force was slowly being driven back up the slope. It was at this point that Edward performed a masterstroke, ordering his 200 men-at-arms waiting hidden in the woods to launch a surprise attack into the side of Somerset’s beleaguered troops. The Duke’s men scattered, ‘dismayed and abashed’; some fled along the lanes, some into the park and down to the meadow by the river running alongside the abbey, but most would suffer the same fate of being cut down and killed as they ran. Somerset, however, refused to give up, making his way back to the Lancastrian center whose troops had stood motionless at Lord Wenlock’s order. Riding up to the aged nobleman, Somerset was in no mood for excuses; according to a latter account, in a fury, he raged at Wenlock, and before he had a chance to respond, Somerset seized his battle axe and beat his brains out, though a more contemporary chronicle suggests that this dramatic confrontation never took place, with Wenlock being captured and executed after the battle.” (Skidmore)

As everyone scrambled and ran to safety, Somerset took refuge in the Abbey with a few. The Prince was not so lucky.

“Exactly how Anne’s husband met his death is unclear. Literary and dramatic sources have presented a range of possibilities, implicating various Yorkists in differing degrees. Of the contemporary chroniclers recording the scene without being present, Commynes agrees with the Croyland and Benet chronicles, which clearly state that he fell on the field of battle, while the Arrival observes, ‘And there was slain in the field Prince Edward, which cried for succor to his brother-in-law, the Duke of Clarence.’ Even having sworn allegiance to him less than a year before, Clarenece clearly did not feel sufficiently moved to show the prince pity, stating in a letter to Henry Vernon that the Prince was ‘slain in plain battle’, differentiating his death from the ‘execution’ of Somerset also described in the correspondence. Warkworth agrees that the prince ‘was taken fleeing townwards, and slain in the field’, perhaps heading back for the safety of the abbey, or ‘poor religious place’ where his wife and mother waited. Tudor Historian Andre Bernanrd writing in 1501, also stated that the prince was slain in combat, even though, at the time, it would have been in his interests to slur the reputation of the Yorkist brothers. The alternative story of Edward’s murder began to gain credence soon after his death. Weeks after the battle, Bettini wrote to the Duke of Milan that the Yorkists had ‘not only routed the prince but taken and slain him, together with all the leading men with him’.” (Licence)

According to various accounts, he was executed by Edward IV, others say that he was killed by Richard III himself. Not surprisingly during the Tudor period the blame was lain on Richard’s feet. Even if this is true, as Licence argues in her biography of both of these men’s only wife, Anne Neville; he would not have risked doing something of that magnitude without his eldest brother and King, Edward IV’s approval. Edward IV wanted the entire Lancastrian line wiped, therefore he was not going to shrink away from executing him or giving the order to someone else if he was indeed brought before him.

Anne Neville played by Faye Marsay in the “White Queen” (2013).

The battle was a huge and decisive win, Jones notes for Edward because he had “at last gained a glorious victory” and two days after he had slain Edward Prince of Wales, he dragged Edmund Duke of Somerset, Sir John Langstrother, Sir Hugh Courtenay and other Lancastrians who had sought sanctuary inside the Abbey, to behead them. The following day on the 8^th, he left Tewkesbury to track the Queen and her daughter-in-law, Anne Neville who was now a widow and like the Queen, at the mercy of the Yorkist King. Not long after, Henry VI also died under mysterious circumstances. No one believed the official story that he had died of melancholy.

Sources:

• The Rise of the Tudors: The Family that Changes English History by Chris Skidmore
• The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses and the Rise of the Tudors by Dan Jones
• Anne Neville: Richard III’s Tragic Queen by Amy Licence
• The Prince who did not become King: Edward of Lancaster (1453-1471) by Susan Higginbotham