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The Hundred Years' War with France
Agincourt; Part 1

Agincourt; Part 1

Henry IV died, and left his schemes to his more ambitious son Henry V. He was more startlingly successful than Edward III at his best. He became the acknowledged heir to the French Crown. Had he lived he would have been crowned King of France in Paris, as his infant son Henry VI actually was. But if Henry V's success was greater than Edward Ill's, his task was easier. He did not conquer France; but with the aid of one half of France he mastered the other half. How important the attitude of Burgundy was to the English cause is revealed by the fact that each change in the course of affairs corresponds with either a tightening or loosening of the Anglo-Burgundian alliance.

Henry IV had leant to the Armagnac side. At the end of his reign, however, son and father had not been on good terms; and the son, while enlarging his father's policy, chose to reverse his methods. The Armagnacs offered him the hand of Katherine, daughter to the French king, and as dowry the lost province of Aquitaine with 600,000 crowns in gold; but this offer, tempting as it was, did not satisfy Henry V's ambition. He wished to be King of France. Accordingly he boldly claimed all that Henry II had held, western France from the Somme to the Pyrenees; and when that was refused, he revived Edward Ill's title to the Crown. That this could only mean war did not in the least deter Henry, for war was what he wanted. He had a touch of narrow-minded fanaticism in his character, and seems to have looked on himself as destined by heaven to restore order to France; the war was to his mind a kind of crusade. Yet he was an unusually practical crusader, for, besides being a competent soldier, he had a sharp eye for his own advantage.

War then flamed out again in 1415. Both Commons and clergy gave Henry liberal grants of money. With some ten thousand men he landed in Normandy and besieged Harfleur. After a siege of five weeks he took it, but at the cost of about a third of his force. It was but a scanty triumph, since no attempt had been made to relieve the town; at this rate it would be long ere France was conquered. With no very clear object, save perhaps an imitation of Edward Ill's policy, Henry set off on a march from Harfleur along the coast to Calais.

Here, in the first period of the war, had the French taken advantage of their chances, he ought to have been beaten. The parties of Burgundy and Orleans had patched up a sort of peace, and, though the Burgundians gave only a lukewarm support, an army was gathering under the Constable D'Albret large enough to crush Henry if it could catch him. Henry was marching as fast as he could, keeping close to the coast; he had even mounted his archers, but the October of 1415 was wet, the roads heavy, and Henry had trouble in crossing the Somme. He had to go a long way up it before he could find a way across, every step taking him farther from Calais. This delay enabled the Constable to cross first, to get between the English and Calais, and to bar Henry's path at Agincourt with 30,000 men.

Agincourt; Part 1

Chronology