122
NOTES AND QUERIES,
s. in. FEB. is, 1905.
patriotism. But the chroniclers, although
their accounts of the numbers engaged vary
considerably, are in practical agreement
regarding the great slaughter of the French
by the invaders in this amazing battle.
Agincourt proved even more deadly to France
than Poitiers: the whole English loss did not
amount to a hundred men ; while the French
lost, in dead and prisoners, ten thousand
men the flower of their army. Monstrelet
puts the total of the French forces at one
hundred and fifty thousand six times the
numbers of the English. But Henry's army
cannot have contained twenty-five or even
twenty thousand men. He had lost one-fifth
of his invading army before Harfleur, in
which he left five hundred men-at-arms and
a thousand archers as a garrison. The
remainder, according to his chaplain Elmham,
consisted only of five thousand archers and
scarcely nine hundred men-at-arms ; but
Monstrelet estimates the former at fifteen
thousand, the latter at two thousand.
Prof. C. W. C. Oman, in his account of the battle, shows that Henry's line was composed on the old plan that had been seen at Crecy : "Right, centre, and left each consisted of a small body of men-at-arms, flanked by two bodies of archers, drawn up in the triangular harrow-shape, and protected by a line of stakes. The French, on the other hand, repeated the mistakes of Poitiers. Dismount- ing almost the whole of their men-at-arms, they formed them into three solid lines, one behind the other, on a front no broader than that of the English army. On the wings, indeed, were small squadrons of mounted men under picked leaders, who were ordered to ride on ahead of the main body, and clear away, if possible, the English archers from before their comrades' advance. The ineffec- tive charges of these squadrons began the battle. Man and horse went down before the English shafts, or ever they got near the stakes of the bowmen. The main battle, weighed down by the heavy armour of the period, and tired out before they reached the enemy's lines, also fell an easy prey to Henry's archers. Stuck fast in the mud and riddled with arrows, the nobility of France were hewn down, while the archers " beat upon their armour with mallets as though they were hammering upon anvils," and rolled them one over another until the dead lay three deep. For when the English arrows had given out, Henry bade his whole army charge, and it was the onset of the archers with axe, mallet, and sword that settled the day. "That unarmoured men should have prevailed over mailed men under the odds
of six to one, and on plain open ground, is-
one of the marvels of history. While the
victory was yet unachieved, news was
brought to Henry that the enemy waa
attacking his rear, and had, indeed, already
captured a large part of his baggage. He
accordingly issued orders that the prisoners-
were to be killed. He knew that the French
forces still outnumbered his own, and that,
were they to rally, the prisoners, of whom a
considerable number had already been taken,
would constitute a formidable danger. The
knights to whom the king issued his com-
mand flatly refused to obey, and a squire
with three hundred archers had to be sent to
execute it. Prisoners, we must remember,
were noblemen and gentlemen, and the large
ransoms paid by them would in ordinary
cases fall to the share of their captors.
Unfortunately the sequel proved that this
horrible deed was not a military necessity.
The news brought to the king had been
grossly exaggerated (see the play, IV. iv. and
vii.). The attack on the rear of his army was-
nothing but an attempt to plunder. One
Isambart of Agincourt, at the head of a few
men-at-arms and some six hundred peasants,
fell upon the English baggage and rifled a
large part of it. Many jewels were lost.
Monstrelet mentions a sword, ornamented
with diamonds, which was part of the royal
property. Walsingham tells us the English
crown was captured. What crown was this ? :
Henry IV., we know, at his coronation wore
a crown known as St. Edward's, which was
arched over instead of being open as hereto-
fore. The head of the same monarch's
monumental effigy at Canterbury is sur-
mounted by a lovely open crown. The
arched crown is shown in the sculpture of
the coronation of Henry V. on the arch of
his chantry chapel at Westminster, although
in his portrait at Queens College, Oxford,
he wears a circlet similar to that used by his
father's predecessors.
In the eleventh volume of The Ancestor Mr. A. E. Maiden, under the title ' An Official Account of the Battle of Agincourt,' prints- with an explanation a MS.'contained in Leger- Book A of the city of Salisbury. This ac- ount, after reciting the fact that King Henry rossed the sea with a great army, mentions the siege of Harfleur. It continues, " On ris march he was opposed by a great French army of about a nundred thousand men, while he himself had not with him more than ten thousand." The list of the French slain "in the field of Argencott on Friday,. Deing the feast of Saints Crispin and Cris- pianus, th> 25th of October, 141&," then,
