Agincourt (37 page)

Not surprisingly, the unnatural stillness of the English camp had an unnerving effect on both sides. The French began to suspect that their opponents were intending to slip away secretly during the night, so they lit fires and set heavily manned watches across the roads and fields to prevent them escaping. The English could not indulge in any camaraderie to keep up their spirits and, obliged to speak in whispers themselves, became acutely aware of the cheerful noises emanating from the French camp, in which there was no shortage of food or wine. Where their lines were closest, near Tramecourt, they could even see the faces of their foes in the firelight and hear their conversations. The chaplain, wandering through the army and administering what spiritual comfort he could, heard rumours that the French “thought themselves so sure of us that that night they cast dice for our king and his nobles.” The king himself gave short shrift to such ideas: no one in England would ever have to pay a penny towards his ransom, he declared, as he intended either to win the coming battle or die in the attempt.
¹⁰

Lodgings had been found for the king and some of his closest circle in the village of Maisoncelle, but before Henry retired for the night, he gave orders that all the French prisoners in the army, whatever their rank, were to be released. As at Harfleur, this was done to avoid having to commit some of his precious resources to their safekeeping and to maximise the number of men at his disposal. Again, too, the arrangement was conditional and sworn on oath. If he should win the next day’s battle, the prisoners were bound to give themselves up to him; if he should lose, then they could consider themselves released from their parole and entirely at liberty.
¹¹

There was little rest and less sleep for anyone in the English army that night. Only the fortunate few had a roof over their heads and most of the army were camped out in the open, lying on the ground and sheltering as best they could under hedges and in the orchards and gardens of Maisoncelle. The English had endured days on end of “filthy, wet and windy weather.” Now, throughout the long hours of darkness, it rained, not just incessantly, but in torrents.
¹²
Despite the dozens of watch fires burning round the edges of the camp, it was impossible to get warm or dry. The heavy woollen cloaks of even the wealthiest could not have been proof against such weather and must have become saturated as the night progressed.

Weapons and armour must also have suffered. Rust was one of the greatest problems that anyone wearing armour faced. In normal circumstances, it could be kept at bay if the armour were turned in a barrel of sand and regularly polished and oiled, though strenuous activity could still leave a knight’s face streaked with rust from his helmet.
¹³
On an enforced three-week route march, when armour had to be worn constantly, whatever the weather, it was inevitable that rusting would take place, seizing up the joints and blunting the edges of weapons. The archers, too, must have struggled to keep their bows, arrows and bow-strings dry, even though their very lives depended on it. In the numbing cold and wet of that night and early dawn, frozen hands and fingers would have fumbled with awkward laces and buckles, and struggled with recalcitrant and corroding pieces of metal. Armourers, fletchers and bowyers must have been as much in demand as priests, as the tattered remnants of the English army sought to prepare their bodies as well as their souls against the coming fight.

Although Henry had the advantage of a roof over his head, he did not waste the night in sleep. In order to make appropriate decisions, he needed to have the best possible information about the place where the battle would be fought. Around midnight, therefore, he sent a hand-picked group of knights (Sir John Cornewaille and his band, perhaps) to scout out the battlefield by moonlight. When they returned, their report enabled him to determine his final battle plan.
¹⁴
It was obvious that they were hopelessly outnumbered and that the French had many thousands more men-at-arms. Given this advantage, it was likely that they would attack first, for which he had to be prepared.

Though conventional military wisdom had it that the three divisions of Henry’s army should stand one behind the other in a solid block, this formation was really intended for an army primarily composed of heavy infantry. The English numbers were so small in any case that, had they adopted this arrangement, they would have presented such a narrow front to an infinitely more numerous enemy that they ran the risk of being surrounded and overwhelmed. The alternative was to draw up the three battalions side by side to present an elongated but shallow front. The layout of the battlefield lent itself to this option because both flanks of the army would be protected from attack by the woods and hedges around Maisoncelle and Tramecourt, which would obstruct a massed charge by cavalry or infantry.

As the scouts had also discovered, the heavy rain that had created such miserable conditions for the men camping out overnight had created an unexpected opportunity. The fields where the battle was to take place had been newly ploughed and sown with winter cereals. The soil was not the fine, light loam of the vineyards of France, but the thick, heavy clay of the Somme, with its extraordinary capacity to retain water. Even before it became trampled and churned up by the feet of countless men and horses, it was already turning into a mud-bath. As Henry was quick to appreciate, this would slow down any attack by cavalry or infantry, creating easier targets for his archers. Unlike the men-at-arms, whether mounted or on foot, who had to cross the battlefield to fight at close quarters, the archers would be able to begin their deadly hail of arrows long before they themselves were in range of the lances, swords and axes of the men-at-arms.

Much ink and bile has been spilt in the argument as to how exactly Henry disposed his archers for the battle. The chaplain (who knew his Vegetius and was not a complete military novice) was quite clear on the point: “in view of his want of numbers, he drew up only a single line of battle, placing his vanguard . . . as a wing on the right and the rearguard . . . as a wing on the left; and he positioned ‘wedges’ of his archers in between each ‘battle’ and had them drive in their stakes in front of them, as previously arranged in case of a cavalry charge.” Whatever the shape of the “wedges”—and the Latin word used by the chaplain in its classical form did literally mean a wedge—the chaplain is clear that archers were placed between the three battalions of men-at-arms. However, in his account of the course of the battle, he is equally clear that there were also archers positioned on the wings, describing how “the French cavalry posted on the flanks made charges against those of our archers who were on both sides of our army” and then “rode through between the archers and the woodlands.”
¹⁵

This confusion is not entirely cleared up by the evidence of the second eyewitness in the English ranks, the equally well-informed herald Jean le Févre, who simply states of the king that “he only made one battle, and all the men-at-arms were in the middle of his battle, and all the banners were very close to each other. On both sides of the men-at-arms were the archers . . .”
¹⁶
Le Févre’s seems to be the more logical version. The chaplain’s five thousand archers, if divided into only two groups and placed between the three divisions of men-at-arms, would have left the infantry separated from each other by a considerable distance, a major weakness when each infantry division can only have been three hundred men strong. Le Févre’s account is also borne out, as we shall see, by the battle plans drawn up by the French, which aimed to destroy the English archers on the wings.
¹⁷

Though our two eyewitnesses differ over where the archers were placed, they both agree that all three battles or divisions were placed side by side in a single line. It is a measure of how short of men-at-arms Henry was that he could not even afford to keep a reserve, as was standard practice. In doing this, he was taking a major risk. The archers would not be able to keep the advancing French back forever and at some point it would become necessary for the infantry to hold the line without the support of a reserve. The choice of leader for each battle was therefore a matter of critical importance, especially as the king intended to fight in person and therefore could not observe the course of battle and direct his troops from a vantage point, as Edward III had done at Crécy. There was never any question but that the king himself would be in overall charge and that he would continue to command the main battle, which would hold the centre of the field, but the leadership of both the vanguard and the rearguard would be changed. Sir John Cornewaille and Sir Gilbert Umfraville, who had led the van throughout the march from Harfleur, were now replaced by Edward, duke of York. According to at least one sixteenth-century source, the duke had begged the king for this honour on bended knee, but his age, military experience and rank, and the fact that he was the most senior member of the Order of the Garter present, were all more powerful arguments in his favour. The command of the rearguard, which the duke now relinquished, was given to Thomas, Lord Camoys, another veteran soldier, who had fought in Henry IV’s wars against the Scots, Welsh and French.
¹⁸

The decisions regarding the deployment of troops in the French army were not made so easily. The task should naturally have fallen to the king or his captain-general, but neither Charles VI nor the dauphin was there. In the absence also of the dukes of Berry, Burgundy, Brittany and Anjou, there was no senior prince of the blood royal to whom command naturally fell. Only Charles d’Orléans could lay claim to any right of precedence, but he was just twenty years old and had no experience of full-scale battle. By rights, the decision should have devolved from the king to his officers, but neither Constable d’Albret nor Marshal Boucicaut had been given any additional delegated powers that would enable him to overrule the princes and assume uncontested control. What is more, both men had served professionally under Charles d’Orléans’ father, Louis, making it more difficult for them to assert their authority over his son.

It is so often assumed that the French rushed unthinkingly into battle that it comes as something of a surprise to learn that a detailed strategy had been worked out in advance. As soon as a decision to fight had been taken by the royal council at Rouen, a battle plan had been drafted, based on the traditional three divisions. The van was to be commanded by the duke of Bourbon, Marshal Boucicaut and Guichard Dauphin, who was the grand-master of the king’s household; the main battle by Constable d’Albret and the dukes of Orléans, Alençon and Brittany; and the rearguard by the duke of Bar and the counts of Nevers, Charolais and Vaudémont. The two wings were to be commanded by Arthur, count of Richemont, and Tanneguy du Chastel,
prévôt
of Paris. Additionally, a hand-picked body of elite cavalry riding heavily armoured horses, whose specific task was to break the English archers by charging them down, was to be led by Clignet de Brabant, who was one of the two admirals of France, and the chivalrous youth Jehan Werchin, seneschal of Hainault. As Juvénal des Ursins, the French chronicler who reported this arrangement, remarked with justified bitterness, “nothing came of all this organisation.”
¹⁹

A revised French plan
²⁰
seems to have been drawn up a few days before Agincourt, probably at the time when the dukes of Orléans and Bourbon and Charles d’Albret sent Henry V their challenge to battle, since it was designed for the much smaller force that was stalking the English along the banks of the Somme. The new plan envisaged only two battles, a vanguard led by Boucicaut and d’Albret and, behind it, the main body of the army, commanded by Jean, duke of Alençon, and Charles d’Artois, count of Eu. Instead of having a rearguard, there were to be two smaller wings on either side of the main battle, that on the right commanded by Arthur, count of Richemont, as in the original plan, and that on the left by Louis de Bourbon, count of Vendôme, brother of the duke of Bourbon. Each of these divisions was to be entirely composed of men-at-arms fighting on foot. All the “
gens de traict
,” the miscellaneous bowmen, including both archers and crossbowmen, were to be placed in two companies, one in front of each of the two wings. Additionally, to the rear of the army, there were to be two cavalry forces. The first, composed of a thousand men-at-arms and half their valets, mounted on their masters’ best horses, was to be led by David, sire de Rambures,
²¹
and its specific task was to make a flanking attack to “fall upon the archers, and use their force to break them.” The second, commanded by Louis de Bourdon,
²²
was made up of only two hundred men-at-arms and the other half of the valets mounted on their masters’ less good horses. It was to go behind the English forces and attack the baggage train, the object being to seize the horses of the dismounted men-at-arms to prevent either a rally or flight in the event of defeat.

As soon as de Rambures ordered his cavalry to attack the English archers, the French bowmen were to begin their volleys, the infantry divisions to march on the enemy, and de Bourdon to launch his raid on the English rear. The aim was to deliver a combined assault so devastating that the English would be overwhelmed and unable to recover. The plan even took into account the changing conditions of the battlefield, allowing the vanguard and main battle to combine into a single division if the English did not divide their own forces, and giving the cavalry units considerable freedom in the way they carried out their tasks so that they could seize any opportunities that arose on the day.
²³

Having given such thought to tactics, it is inconceivable that the French did not give equal time and energy to preparing a strategy for the actual combat that they knew would take place the next day. Some further revision was necessary—as it always is on battle’s eve—and they did try to take into account the conditions of the site and the fact that the size of their army had increased by possibly as much as a factor of ten. Unlike the English army, where contemporary administrative records support the chroniclers’ assessment of its size as being in the region of six thousand fighting men, no such evidence exists for the French. It is therefore impossible to give even an estimated number with any certainty.
²⁴
The commonest figure given by English chroniclers writing during Henry V’s lifetime is 60,000, but rising as high as 150,000 in some sources. The French, with an equally pardonable desire to tweak the figures to their own advantage, give anything between 8000 and 50,000.
²⁵
The three eyewitnesses also vary wildly in their estimates. The English chaplain states that “by their own reckoning” the French numbered 60,000, though he does not give his authority. Jean le Févre de St Remy, the Burgundian herald in the English army, suggests 50,000 and Jehan Waurin, a Burgundian in the French army, 36,000, based on his assertion that the French were six times more numerous than the English. Waurin’s figure seems the most likely, if only because he gives it substance by listing the number of men assigned to each position: 8000 men-at-arms, 4000 archers and 1500 crossbowmen in the vanguard, a similar number in the main battle, two wings of 600 and 800 mounted men-at-arms and “the residue of the host” in the rearguard.
²⁶