Agincourt (59 page)

13 Monstrelet, iii, p. 103.
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14 Cheney (ed),
Handbook of Dates for Students of English History
, p. 9; Harvey,
Living and Dying in England 1100-1540: the Medieval Experience
, pp. 154-5.
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15 Ibid., pp. 155-6; Cheney (ed),
Handbook of Dates for Students of English History
, p. 9; Geddes, “Iron,” in Blair and Ramsay (eds),
English Medieval Industries: Craftsmen, Techniques, Products
, pp. 178-9.
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16
GHQ
, p. 61; Cheney (ed),
Handbook of Dates for Students of English History
, p. 80.
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17 W&W, ii, pp. 88ff. prefer the alternative dating, starting on 6 October, but for confirmation of 8 October, see below, n. 26.
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18 W&W, ii, pp. 88-9. The fact that the English army was able to take the Montivilliers road indicates that the floods in the Lézarde valley had now disappeared completely: Henry must have breached his own dam and opened the sluices in Harfleur because he needed to re-establish the water supply on taking the town.
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19 Beamont,
Annals of the Lords of Warrington
, p. 245. Curry, pp. 430-1, argues convincingly that reassignment to new retinues explains the difference in personnel that sometimes occurs between muster rolls and retinue lists. This is a more credible explanation than that the retinues were brought up to full strength by the recruitment of new men, as she suggests in Curry,
Agincourt: A New History
, pp. 130-1.
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20 Curry, 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.
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21
Foedera
, 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.
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22 Bacquet, pp. 109-10; Monstrelet, iii, p. 78.
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23
St-Denys
, v, p. 550; Bacquet, p. 101.
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24 Ibid., pp. 110-11; W&W, ii, pp. 110-11.
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25 Nicholas 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.
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26
GHQ
, 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.
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27
First English Life
, p. 42.
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28
Chronicles 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.
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29
Registres de la Jurade
, p. 257. See above, pp. 213-4 and, for Bordiu, p. 180.
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30
GHQ
, pp. 60-3.
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31 Le Févre, i, pp. 231-2; Monstrelet, iii, pp. 95-6;
First English Life
, pp. 43-4;
GHQ
, pp. 62-3.
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32 Ibid.
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33 See, 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.
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34
GHQ
, p. 65.
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35 Vaughan, pp. 203-4. For the Cabochien revolt of 1413, see above, p. 56.
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36 Vaughan, p. 204.
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37 Ibid.
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38 See above, pp. 96-7. For the proposed Anglo-Burgundian alliance of 1414, see above, pp. 66-7.
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39 Vaughan, 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.
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40 W&W, i, p. 416; le Févre, i, p. 251; Waurin, i, p. 205;
Foedera
, ix, p. 304; W&W, ii, p. 106 n. 1.
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41 W&W, ii, p. 101;
Bourgeois
, pp. 62-4; Morosini,
Chronique
, i, p. 64.
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42 W&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.
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43 Monstrelet, iii, p. 90.
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44 W&W, ii, pp. 52-3, 52 n. 11, 53 n. 1; Monstrelet, iii, p. 90.
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45 Ibid., 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.
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CHAPTER THIRTEEN: CROSSING THE SOMME

1 Bacquet, p. 110.
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2 Le 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.”
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3 Ibid.; 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.
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4 Ibid.;
GHQ
, pp. 64-7; W&W, ii, p. 112; Cagny,
Chroniques
, pp. 97-8.
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5
GHQ
, p. 67; Monstrelet, iii, p. 96.
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6
GHQ
, p. 67. Despite having put patriotism before party, Vaudémont was killed at Agincourt.
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7 Ibid., pp. 68-9; Bouvier, pp. 69-70, 69 n. 5.
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8
GHQ
, pp. 68-9; le Févre, i, p. 234.
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9 Ibid.
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10 W&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.
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11
GHQ
, 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.
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12 Rogers, “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.
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13 W&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.
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14
GHQ
, p. 69.
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15
St Albans
, p. 93;
GHQ
, pp. 70-1; le Févre, i, p. 234.
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16 Henry 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.
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17
GHQ
, pp. 71-3.
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18 Ibid.; 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.
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19
GHQ
, pp. 72-3; le Févre, i, p. 235.
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20
GHQ
, p. 73.
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21 Ibid., p. 75.
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22 Le Févre, i, p. 236.
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23 See above, p. 179.
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24 Lalande,
Jean II le Meingre, dit Boucicaut (1366-1421)
, p. 94.
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25 Le 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 Aubigny 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.
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26
GHQ
, pp. 74-5; le Févre, i, p. 237.
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27
GHQ
, pp. 74-7, esp. p. 77; W&W, ii, p. 127 n. 2.
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28 There 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.
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29 Le 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.
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30 Le Févre, i, p. 242;
GHQ
, p. 77.
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31 Vaughan, 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.
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32 For the justification for this claim, see above, pp. 188, 229-30.
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33 Gilles 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.
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34
Foedera
, ix, pp. 297, 309; W&W, ii, p. 122 n. 9.
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35 Cagny,
Chroniques
, pp. 101-2.
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36 Waurin, i, p. 197; Bouvier, p. 67.
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37 Nicolas 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.
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38 Pizan,
BDAC
, pp. 21-2.
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CHAPTER FOURTEEN: THE EVE OF BATTLE

1
GHQ
, p. 79; Curry, p. 69; le Févre, i, p. 242; MS C1/68/213, TNA.
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