Agincourt

by Juliet Barker

  20Curry, pp. 433-4. If the retinues of the dukes of Clarence and York had taken their allotted quota of horses in full, according to the terms of their indentures, Clarence would have set out with 1798, York with 646; they returned home with only 1225 and 282, respectively. York’s losses, at almost exactly half, were proportionately higher than Clarence’s, at just under a third. The earl of Oxford would bring home only half the horses reserved for his personal use, together with six horses to pull his carts; his thirty-nine men-at-arms still had sixty-nine horses between them but his eighty-four archers had only thirty-seven. The earl marshal, on the other hand, shipped home his full personal complement of twenty-four horses, all of which had survived siege, march and battle. (back to text)

  21Foedera, ix, pp. 314-15. Bardolf, perhaps mistakenly, believed that the “notable knight” (that is, the sire de Laurois) was acting under the authority of the sire de Laviéville. (back to text)

  22Bacquet, pp. 109-10; Monstrelet, iii, p. 78. (back to text)

  23St-Denys, v, p. 550; Bacquet, p. 101. (back to text)

  24Ibid., pp. 110-11; W&W, ii, pp. 110-11. (back to text)

  25Nicholas Wright, Knights and Peasants: The Hundred Years War in the French Countryside (Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 1998), pp. 57, 97. The underground city of Naours is now open to guided tourist visits: my description which follows is based on such a visit and the information provided on site. (back to text)

  26GHQ, pp. 60-1; Nicolas, p. 361; W&W, ii, p. 90 nn. 9-10. One of the archers was called Robert Roger; the other, together with the esquire, was from the retinue of the earl of Suffolk who had died at the siege of Harfleur: according to the exchequer accounts, this ambush took place on 8 October, confirming that this was the actual date that the march began. (back to text)

  27First English Life, p. 42. (back to text)

  28Chronicles of London, pp. 117, 304; Nicolas, p. 361; W&W, ii, pp. 91-2, 91 nn. 4-7, 92 n. 3. According to a plaque in the abbey church, Estold d’Estouteville was abbot of Fécamp 1390-1423 and was buried in the nave. (back to text)

  29Registres de la Jurade, p. 257. See above, pp. 213-4 and, for Bordiu, p. 180. (back to text)

  30GHQ, pp. 60-3. (back to text)

  31Le Févre, i, pp. 231-2; Monstrelet, iii, pp. 95-6; First English Life, pp. 43-4; GHQ, pp. 62-3. (back to text)

  32Ibid. (back to text)

  33See, for example, le Févre, i, p. 231; Thomas Basin, Histoire de Charles VII, ed. and trans. by Charles Samaran (Société d’Édition “les Belles Lettres,” Paris, 1933), i, p. 38. (back to text)

  34GHQ, p. 65. (back to text)

  35Vaughan, pp. 203-4. For the Cabochien revolt of 1413, see above, p. 56. (back to text)

  36Vaughan, p. 204. (back to text)

  37Ibid. (back to text)

  38See above, pp. 96-7. For the proposed Anglo-Burgundian alliance of 1414, see above, pp. 66-7. (back to text)

  39Vaughan, pp. 147, 199; W&W, ii, p. 394 and n. 4. The Armagnac duke of Bar, who was killed at Agincourt, also employed English mercenaries, and a hundred archers were still nominally in his pay more than three weeks after the battle: ibid., ii, p. 180 n. 1. (back to text)

  40W&W, i, p. 416; le Févre, i, p. 251; Waurin, i, p. 205; Foedera, ix, p. 304; W&W, ii, p. 106 n. 1. (back to text)

  41W&W, ii, p. 101; Bourgeois, pp. 62-4; Morosini, Chronique, i, p. 64. (back to text)

  42W&W, ii, p. 103; St-Denys, v, p. 546. Even if the duke had sent the aid he promised, it was already too late for Harfleur, which had surrendered two days before he replied to the dauphin. (back to text)

  43Monstrelet, iii, p. 90. (back to text)

  44W&W, ii, pp. 52-3, 52 n. 11, 53 n. 1; Monstrelet, iii, p. 90. (back to text)

  45Ibid., iii, pp. 90-3. This letter, which is given as an example, was addressed to Philippe d’Auxy, bailli of Amiens, who, together with his son and his two brothers, was killed at Agincourt: ibid., iii, p. 113. (back to text)

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: CROSSING THE SOMME

  1Bacquet, p. 110. (back to text)

  2Le Févre, i, pp. 232-3; GHQ, p. 64-5; Waurin, i, p. 189, says that the story of the Gascon prisoner which follows was told him by le Févre, “who had been present throughout this campaign.” (back to text)

  3Ibid.; le Févre, i, p. 232. The coast as far as Cap Gris-Nez is clearly visible from the road between St Valery-en-Caux and Veules-les-Roses and from the long stretch between Eu and Ault. (back to text)

  4Ibid.; GHQ, pp. 64-7; W&W, ii, p. 112; Cagny, Chroniques, pp. 97-8. (back to text)

  5GHQ, p. 67; Monstrelet, iii, p. 96. (back to text)

  6GHQ, p. 67. Despite having put patriotism before party, Vaudémont was killed at Agincourt. (back to text)

  7Ibid., pp. 68-9; Bouvier, pp. 69-70, 69 n. 5. (back to text)

  8GHQ, pp. 68-9; le Févre, i, p. 234. (back to text)

  9Ibid. (back to text)

  10W&W, ii, pp. 115-16; Nicolas, pp. 351, 374; GHQ, pp. 68-9; Monstrelet, iii, pp. 96-7. It is unlikely that Bourchier was involved in this skirmish as he had been assigned to the garrison of Harfleur: see above, pp. 236-7. (back to text)

  11GHQ, pp. 68-71. The chaplain attributes the idea to the king, which seems most probable, but later English sources attribute it to the duke of York: see First English Life, p. 55; Brut, ii, pp. 378, 554-5. (back to text)

  12Rogers, “The Age of the Hundred Years War,” in Keen, MW, pp. 137-42; Matthew Bennett, “The Development of Battle Tactics in the Hundred Years War,” in Curry and Hughes, pp. 15-16; Lalande, Jean II le Meingre, dit Boucicaut (1366-1421), pp. 58-72. (back to text)

  13W&W, ii, p. 116. Henry’s decision to cut across to Nesle must have been taken after his arrival at Corbie, as it would have been quicker and easier to have gone there straight from Boves. (back to text)

  14GHQ, p. 69. (back to text)

  15St Albans, p. 93; GHQ, pp. 70-1; le Févre, i, p. 234. (back to text)

  16Henry did not burn the villages but this does not prove that the location of the fords was betrayed to him by a local inhabitant; once he had found the crossings, his priority was to secure them and get his men across safely. He would have had neither the time nor the manpower to carry out his threat. (back to text)

  17GHQ, pp. 71-3. (back to text)

  18Ibid.; le Févre, i, p. 235; Waurin, i, pp. 193-4; Vegetius warned that armies were often caught in a trap at river crossings as a result of delays caused by the baggage-train: Pizan, BDAC, p. 38 n. 49. At Voyennes, the land rises steeply up the northern bank to a small plateau which would have been the obvious place for the vanguard to set up their bridgehead overlooking the crossing: at Béthencourt, the land on either side does not rise above the level of the river, suggesting that this would have been an easier route for the baggage carts. The Canal de la Somme, running alongside the river, has drained the marshes and reduced the flow in the river itself. Even so, the river is still wide, deep and fast-flowing, particularly at Béthencourt, with pools and submerged trees on either bank indicating the extent of the original marshes and giving an idea of how difficult it must have been to effect the crossings. (back to text)

  19GHQ, pp. 72-3; le Févre, i, p. 235. (back to text)

  20GHQ, p. 73. (back to text)

  21Ibid., p. 75. (back to text)

  22Le Févre, i, p. 236. (back to text)

  23See above, p. 179. (back to text)

  24Lalande, Jean II le Meingre, dit Boucicaut (1366-1421), p. 94. (back to text)

  25Le Févre, i, pp. 236-7. GHQ, p. 74 n. 4, following W&W, ii, p. 125, identifies two of the heralds as Jacques, sire de Heilly and Jean, sire de Graville, but this is a confusion with their different embassy to Henry V on the morning of 25 October (see below, pp. 272-4ff). Le Févre and GHQ identify the three messengers of 20 October as “officiers d’armes” and “haraldos” respectively; de Heilly and de Graville were both laymen. Curry, Agincourt: A New History, pp. 158-9, 161, 170-1, 248-9, argues that Henry V agreed to do battle at Aubig
ny on 24 October 1415 then reneged on his promise, but this story appears only in Bouvier, pp. 66-7, a devoted servant of Charles VII, who was writing forty years after the event. It is improbable that Henry V, who was punctilious in his observance of the law of arms, would have commited such a flagrant breach of protocol, or that such a breach would have passed unnoticed by his contemporaries. (back to text)

  26GHQ, pp. 74-5; le Févre, i, p. 237. (back to text)

  27GHQ, pp. 74-7, esp. p. 77; W&W, ii, p. 127 n. 2. (back to text)

  28There is an unbearable poignancy in following this route today: the front line in 1916 lay between Péronne, Albert and Miraumont, and there are cemeteries and memorials to the British, Australian, Canadian and New Zealand dead seemingly by every ridge, village and roadside. (back to text)

  29Le Févre, i, pp. 240-1. The reason for Henry’s refusal to retrace his steps is completely misunderstood in W&W, ii, p. 128 (which wrongly places Henry at Blangy for the night of 23 October) and also in Curry, Agincourt: A New History, p. 166. (back to text)

  30Le Févre, i, p. 242; GHQ, p. 77. (back to text)

  31Vaughan, pp. 207-8, who nevertheless believes that the duke did intend to join the campaign against the English. For the duke’s itinerary between 1 September and 24 October (when he was at Fleury-sur-Ouche), see W&W, ii, p. 106 n. 2. (back to text)

  32For the justification for this claim, see above, pp. 188, 229-30. (back to text)

  33Gilles de Roye, “Chronique, avec les Additions d’Adrien de But,” Chroniques Relatives à l’Histoire de la Belgique sous la Domination des Ducs de Bourgogne, ed. by Kervyn de Lettenhove (Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et de Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, 1870), i, p. 168; le Févre, i, pp. 238-40; Waurin, i, pp. 197-8. (back to text)

  34Foedera, ix, pp. 297, 309; W&W, ii, p. 122 n. 9. (back to text)

  35Cagny, Chroniques, pp. 101-2. (back to text)

  36Waurin, i, p. 197; Bouvier, p. 67. (back to text)

  37Nicolas de Baye, Journal de Nicolas de Baye, ed. by Alexandre Tuetey (Société de l’Histoire de France, Paris, 1888), ii, pp. 231-2; St-Denys, v, pp. 586-8. (back to text)

  38Pizan, BDAC, pp. 21-2. (back to text)

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: THE EVE OF BATTLE

  1GHQ, p. 79; Curry, p. 69; le Févre, i, p. 242; MS C1/68/213, TNA. (back to text)

  2GHQ, p. 79. (back to text)

  3Even the venerable W&W, ii, pp. 131-2, 207-10, while drawing attention to the more fanciful descriptions of previous historians, believed that the site was unchanged. Modern military historians and television documentaries frequently make the same mistake, as does the entertaining but far too Shakespeare-reliant Centre Historique Médiévale at Azincourt. (back to text)

  4GHQ, pp. 74, 79. The “very little valley,” which is no more than a long depression in the ground, can still be seen running parallel to the D104; the “certain wood” to the left of the English line is the woodland round Tramecourt. At this point the two armies were at right angles to their final positions. (back to text)

  5Waurin, i, p. 211, claims that the space between the woods was so narrow that only the French men-at-arms could be deployed; there was not room for the bowmen. (back to text)

  6Le Févre, i, p. 242, says that d’Albret did not arrive until later that evening, suggesting that Boucicaut alone was in charge at this stage. Waurin, who was in the French army, does not mention d’Albret’s arrival, late or otherwise. (back to text)

  7Bacquet, p. 102; Pizan, BDAC, p. 22. (back to text)

  8Ibid., pp. 55, 53-4. (back to text)

  9Monstrelet, iii, p. 102; W&W, ii, p. 130 n. 3. (back to text)

  10GHQ, p. 81; le Févre, i, p. 243; Brut, ii, pp. 377-8; Elmham, “Liber Metricus,” p. 121. (back to text)

  11Le Févre, i, p. 243. W&W, ii, p. 141 and n. 1 wrongly translate this to mean that the prisoners should return to the king “with their masters” rather than “and to their masters,” that is, to those who had captured them. (back to text)

  12Bacquet, p. 93; Waurin, i, p. 244. (back to text)

  13See, for example, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, trans. with an introduction by Helen M. Mustard and Charles E. Passage (Vintage Books, New York, 1961), pp. 94, 125, 139, 166 and 127. (back to text)

  14Curry, p. 69. (back to text)

  15GHQ, pp. 83, 87. For the long-running dispute about where the archers were placed, see W&W, ii, pp. 148-50; Bradbury, The Medieval Archer, pp. 129-30; Matthew Bennett, “The Battle,” in Curry, Agincourt 1415, pp. 24-32; Strickland and Hardy, pp. 306-10. (back to text)

  16Le Févre, i, pp. 244-5; Waurin, i, p. 203. (back to text)

  17See below, pp. 261-2, 266-7. (back to text)

  18Brut, ii, p. 378; GHQ, pp. 82-3 and 82 nn. 3 and 4. Waurin, ii, p. 199, following Monstrelet, iii, p. 100, puts the duke in charge of the vanguard as early as 22 October, but le Févre, i, p. 241, who relates the same incident and was in the English army, does not make that mistake. The choice of Camoys is puzzling as he was not yet a Garter knight and his military career had been undistinguished: see ODNB. (back to text)

  19Bacquet, p. 104. (back to text)

  20C. Philpotts, “The French Plan of Battle During the Agincourt Campaign,” English Historical Review, xcix (1984), pp. 59-66; Allmand (ed), Society at War, pp. 194-5. This document detailing in writing not only the deployment of the French army but also the tactics to be adopted is one of only two medieval battle plans to have survived. The other extant plan was drawn up by John the Fearless on 17 September 1417 as he was approaching Armagnac-held Paris; it is given in full in Vaughan, pp. 148-50. (back to text)

  21Despite being master of the crossbowmen of France, de Rambures did not personally lead them into battle. In 1411 his predecessor in the post had been forced to concede to Marshal Boucicaut the right to muster and review archers and cannoneers, and to have jurisdiction over them (Strickland and Hardy, p. 330). At Agincourt de Rambures fought in the vanguard with the other royal officers (see above, p. 265). (back to text)

  22Louis de Bourdon’s name is variously given as Bourbon, Boisredon and Bosredon in the different sources. He is not to be confused with Louis de Bourbon, count of Vendôme. (back to text)

  23Bradbury, The Medieval Archer, p. 124. (back to text)

  24Despite this absence of evidence, Curry asserts that the French army was only c.12,000 strong (as against c.9000 English), a figure she is unable to substantiate. While contemporaries vary wildly in their estimates of numbers, all agree that the French greatly outnumbered the English and that this was a contributory factor in their defeat. Although they also agree that French casualties were very high, not one of them goes so far as to suggest that half of all the French forces at the battle were killed, which follows inevitably from Curry’s figures since she accepts that the dead numbered c.6000. Such a proportion of fatalities is unrealistic in a medieval battle. See Curry, Agincourt: A New History, pp. 187, 192, 233, 248. (back to text)

  25Bacquet, pp. 101, 104. Juvénal des Ursins, a dedicated Armagnac, even went so far as to suggest that there were 8000 Frenchmen in the vanguard and main battle, but claimed that they were defeated by an English army 20,000-22,000 strong! There is a useful table giving the various chroniclers’ estimates of numbers in both armies and of the dead on each side in Curry, p. 12, but it should be used with caution, as some of the figures (for example, those given for Morosini) are not accurate and others do not distinguish between the numbers of English who invaded and those present at the battle. (back to text)

  26GHQ, p. 94; le Févre, i, p. 247; Waurin, i, pp. 206-7. Waurin’s actual numbers add up to 28,400 but a rearguard of 7600 seems appropriate, given the size of the other battles. (back to text)

  27Bradbury, The Medieval Archer, pp. 127-8; le Févre, i, pp. 247-8; Monstrelet, iii, pp. 103-4. (back to text)

  28St-Denys, v, p. 558; Monstrelet, iii, pp. 103-4; Bouvier, p. 69; Bacquet, pp. 103-4. Fenin, Mémoires, p. 64. (back to text)

 
29Waurin, i, p. 206; le Févre, i, p. 248; St-Denys, v, p. 562; Bouvier, pp. 68-9. Monstrelet, iii, pp. 103-4, is alone in attributing the leadership of this wing to Guichard Dauphin but his text is obviously corrupt and unreliable at this point: Waurin and le Févre both correct this to Vendôme. (back to text)

  30Bouvier, pp. 68-9; St-Denys, v, p. 560. (back to text)

  31St-Denys, v, p. 560; Monstrelet, iii, p. 104; le Févre, i, pp. 85, 102, 105, 248, 288; Waurin, i, pp. 206, 213. (back to text)

  32Bacquet, pp. 112-13. This account of Agincourt, in a court case of 1460, makes it clear that Bouvier, p. 69, is right in saying that the count of Marle and his company were in the main battle, not in the rearguard as in Monstrelet, iii, p. 104, Waurin, i, p. 206 and le Févre, i, p. 248. (back to text)

  33GHQ, p. 81; Fenin, Mémoires, p. 64; Allmand (ed), Society at War, p. 195. (back to text)

  34Le Févre, i, p. 248, using the phrase “tout le surplus des gens de guerre.” Gens de guerre is a general term, meaning all soldiers; it is different from gens d’armes or hommes d’armes, which specifically refers to men-at-arms. (back to text)

  35St-Denys, v, p. 548. (back to text)

  36Ibid., v, pp. 558-60; Waurin, i, p. 206; W&W, ii, p. 53. The decision was not without precedent. Jean II had similarly dismissed most of the “poorly equipped and ill-disciplined foot-soldiers raised by the arrière ban” before the battle of Poitiers (1356) on the grounds that their presence at Crécy (1346) had hampered the more professional troops and contributed to the defeat. See Strickland and Hardy, p. 234. (back to text)

  37See above, pp. 59-60. (back to text)

  38GHQ, pp. 81-3. (back to text)

  39Ibid., pp. 82-3; le Févre, i, p. 244. (back to text)

  40It was customary practice to draw the wagons into a circle behind the lines, forming an enclosure with a single entrance that could be more easily protected from enemy attack. The horses of all of the dismounted men and the non-combatants sheltered within this laager. See Strickland and Hardy, p. 225. (back to text)