Agincourt (61 page)

13 Bouvier, p. 70 and n. 3; Monstrelet, iii, pp. 116, 118 n. 5.
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14 Le Févre, i, pp. 198-9, 248, 309, 323, 330; Monstrelet, iii, p. 128. It is possible that Guillaume was the father, rather than the brother, of Hector and Philippe de Saveuses. Neither Hector nor Philippe took any further part in the battle after the death of their brother and, immediately afterwards, they were among those personally summoned to join the army that the duke of Burgundy was preparing for his march on Paris. Both men took a leading role in John the Fearless’s attempts to seize the city and in its eventual capture in 1418.
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15 Le Févre, i, pp. 205-6, 42. At Montendre in Aquitaine in 1402, de Brabant had also taken part in a combat of seven Frenchmen against seven English, celebrated in three ballads by Christine de Pizan: Bouvier, pp. 9-10 and 9 nn. 1 and 2.
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16 Ibid., p. 21 and n. 3.
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17 Ibid., p. 124 and n. 3. Katherine, Pierre de Giac’s widow, was the daughter and heiress of Jean, sire de l’Île Bouchard, who was killed at Agincourt; her second husband, Hugues de Chalon, count of Tonnerre (Pierre de Giac was her third), was killed fighting against the English at the battle of Verneuil in 1424.
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18 Ferry de Mailly was a Burgundian and close associate of the de Saveuses brothers: le Févre, i, pp. 248, 271, 275-6, 297, 327; Monstrelet, iii, p. 128.
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19 But see below, p. 293.
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20 Bouvier, p. 70. The fact that so many of them did escape capture or death appears to contradict the monk’s claim that it was their men who turned tail and fled, abandoning their leaders to their fate:
St-Denys
, v, p. 560.
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21 Monstrelet, iii, p. 105; le Févre, i, pp. 250-1.
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22
GHQ
, pp. 86-7; W&W, ii, p. 159 n. 4. In Beamont,
Annals of the Lords of Warrington
, i, p. 244, he is called Roger Hart.
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23 Le Févre, i, p. 154.
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24 David Nicolle,
French Armies of the Hundred Years War
(Osprey, Oxford, 2000, repr. 2002), pp. 18, 21;
The Beauchamp Pageant
, p. 65.
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25
GHQ
, p. 89. The “iron furnace” is a biblical reference (Deuteronomy 4.20) to Egypt and the slavery of the Israelites there.
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26 Ibid., pp. 88-9; le Févre, i, p. 256.
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27
GHQ
, pp. 89, 91.
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28 Ibid., pp. 90-1. Suffocation in similar circumstances was the main cause of death among the Scots at the battle of Dupplin Moor (1332) against the English. As at Agincourt, the losses were almost entirely on one side and the dead “fell in a remarkable way in a great heap.” See Strickland and Hardy, pp. 184-5, 266.
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29 Le Févre, i, pp. 249-50. Jehan de Croy, a leading Burgundian and grand butler of France, and his sons, Jehan and Archembaut, were all killed at Agincourt: Bacquet, pp. 77-8.
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30
GHQ
, p. 98; Curry, p. 62;
St-Denys
, v, pp. 570, 572; Monstrelet, iii, pp. 119-20. Both the acts of striking off part of Henry’s crown and wounding the duke of Gloucester, as well as killing the duke of York, were later falsely attributed to Jean, duke of Alençon. One of Charles d’Orléans’ closest friends, the thirty-year-old Alençon had been created a duke on 1 January 1415, in recognition of his services against the duke of Burgundy. Like Orléans, he had been one of the most eager to fight the English, throwing caution to the winds and himself into the combat with such ardour that his men were not able to keep up with him and he was struck down. According to later legend, he was killed by Henry’s bodyguard as he was in the very act of surrendering himself to the king. By one of those terrible ironies so often created by the complexities of medieval intermarriage, he was distantly related to the king, his mother-in-law, Joan of Navarre, being Henry V’s stepmother. As W&W, ii, pp. 165-6, point out, Alençon’s own family chroniclers did not attribute such feats of valour to him, but French pride demanded the creation of a suitable hero.
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31 Beamont,
Annals of the Lords of Warrington
, p. 246; Gruel,
Chronique d’Arthur de Richemont
, p. 18; Waurin, i, pp. 217-18; le Févre, i, p. 260. A French knight, Jean Valentin, was wounded trying to come to the aid of Charles d’Orléans: Belleval,
Azincourt
, p. 335.
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32
GHQ
, pp. 90-3.
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33 Pizan,
BDAC
, pp. 169-70.
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34
GHQ
, pp. 91-3.
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35 Le Févre, i, p. 258.
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36 Seward,
Henry V as Warlord
, p. 80, suggests that there were perhaps as many as three thousand.
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37 Ghillebert de Lannoy,
Oeuvres de Ghillebert de Lannoy: Voyageur, Diplomate et Moraliste
, ed. by Ch. Potvin and J.-C. Houzeau (P. and J. Lefever, Louvain, 1878), pp. xii-xiv.
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38 Ibid., pp. 49-50.
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39 See, for example, W&W, ii, p. 172 and n. 11; Curry, p. 472.
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40 The Portuguese similarly executed their prisoners at the battle of Aljubarotta (1385) when threatened by a Castilian rally. See Strickland and Hardy, p. 254.
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41
St-Denys
, v, p. 564; Lannoy,
Oeuvres
, p. 50. Ghillebert de Lannoy’s claim that it was the duke of Brabant’s arrival which prompted the killing of the prisoners is supported by at least two other chroniclers from opposite sides of the French political divide, but others are equally adamant that there was a genuine rally behind the lines. The fact that this was attributed in some sources to the leadership of Clignet de Brabant suggests that this might be where the confusion arose, as it was cries of “Brabant! Brabant!” which first alerted the English to the new danger and this war-cry was equally applicable to the duke and Clignet. The chaplain (
GHQ
, p. 91) is in no doubt about what he saw and heard: “a shout went up that the enemy’s mounted rearguard (in incomparable number and still fresh) were re-establishing their position and line of battle in order to launch an attack on us, few and weary as we were.” See also Basin,
Histoire de Charles VII
, p. 45; “Le Livre des Trahisons de France envers la Maison de Bourgogne,” in
Chroniques Relatives à l’Histoire de la Belgique sous la Domination des Ducs de Bourgogne
, ed. by M. le baron Kervyn de Lettenhove (Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Bruxelles, 1870), ii, p. 129.
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42 Serge Boffa, “Antoine de Bourgogne et le Contingent Brabançon à la Bataille d’Azincourt (1415),”
Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire
, 72 (1994), pp. 259-62; Curry, pp. 172-3; Bacquet, pp. 93, 103.
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43 See, for example,
St-Denys
, v, p. 564; Pierre de Fenin,
Mémoires de Pierre Fenin
, ed. by Mlle Dupont (Société de l’Histoire de France, Paris, 1837), p. 64.
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44 Le Févre, i, p. 258. How the English archers obtained a new supply of arrows to carry out this bombardment is not explained, but it was standard practice to collect spent arrows from the battlefield during lulls in the fighting: see above, p. 379 n. 8.
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45 Monstrelet, iii, p. 109; Waurin, i, pp. 215-16; le Févre, i, p. 257; Fenin,
Mémoires
, pp. 64-5; Bacquet, pp. 93-4.
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46 See above, p. 262.
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47
GHQ
, p. 85;
Foedera
, ix, pp. 356-7.
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48 Ibid.; Bacquet, p. 94; Fenin,
Mémoires
, pp. 64-5; Monstrelet, iii, pp. 109-10.
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49 Curry, p. 72; le Févre, i, pp. 267-8.
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50 Monstrelet, iii, p. 111. W&W, ii, p. 178, misunderstand the reason for Montjoie’s presence, believing him to be an English prisoner.
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CHAPTER SIXTEEN: THE ROLL OF THE DEAD

1
St Albans
, p. 96;
GHQ
, pp. 95-7; Morosini,
Chronique
, ii, p. 85. Morosini actually lists twenty-seven dead barons, but his names are garbled and, in some cases, demonstrably wrong. The table in Curry, p. 12, should be treated with caution, as it does not distinguish between numbers of armigerous dead and overall figures that include commoners.
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2 Le Févre, i, p. 258. The same number is given by Waurin, i, p. 217, but the two chronicles are interdependent and heavily reliant on Monstrelet, iii, p. 110, who gives six hundred dead, which is still probably too high a total, but which suggests that their sixteen hundred is a manuscript misreading for his lower figure.
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3 McFarlane,
Lancastrian Kings and Lollard Knights
, p. 67.
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4
ODNB
;
Foedera
, ix, p. 309.
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5 Ibid., ix, pp. 307-9; Marks and Williamson (eds),
Gothic Art for England 1400-1547
, p. 439 no. 327.
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6 Edward, duke of York,
The Master of Game by Edward, Second Duke of York
, ed. by W. A. and F. Baillie-Grohman (Chatto and Windus, London, 1909), p. 1. See ibid., pp. 2-3, for his quotation from Chaucer’s
The Twenty-Five Good Women
.
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7 Cummins,
The Hound and the Hawk
, Appx. iii, p. 266.
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8 Edward, duke of York,
The Master of Game
, pp. 8-9, 11-12.
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9 See, for instance, Seward,
Henry V as Warlord
, p. 79. W&W, ii, p. 187 n. 5, point out that the description of the duke as “a fatte man” originates with John Leland’s
Itinerary
, compiled in the 1530s and 1540s.
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10 Harriss, “The King and his Magnates,” in
HVPK
, p. 41.
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11 W&W, ii, p. 186 n. 5. He lost almost exactly half his horses too: see above, p. 410, n. 18.
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12 See below, p. 307.
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13 Wylie, “Notes on the Agincourt Roll,” p. 128. Thomas, Lord Camoys, for example, who led the English left wing, lost none of the twenty-six men-at-arms and fifty-five archers who accompanied him into battle. John Holland, the future earl of Huntingdon, lost only four archers (plus one who died afterwards at Calais) and one man-at-arms out of a combined company of eighty: ibid., pp. 128-9, 134.
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14 W&W, ii, p. 185 n. 3, 188 n. 4; Beamont,
Annals of the Lords of Warrington
, i, pp. 244-5;
Abstracts of Inquisitions Post Mortem
, p. 116; Wylie, “Notes on the Agincourt Roll,” p. 134 n. 1. Harington additionally lost from his personal retinue the archer Roger Hunt, who was killed by a gun in the battle: see above, p. 284. Another leader of a contingent of fifty Lancashire archers, Sir William Botiller, also died at Harfleur, leaving his men leaderless, but their fate is not recorded: see above, p. 204.
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15 The only other named man-at-arms killed at Agincourt, apart from those mentioned in the text, is Sir John Skidmore, who had indented to serve himself, with three men-at-arms and twelve archers: Usk, p. 126, is the only source to mention that he was killed in the battle. For his retinue, see MS E101/45/5, TNA; Nicolas, p. 384.
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16
ODNB
;
St Albans
, pp. 61, 67.
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17 W&W, ii, pp. 188-9, 188 n. 7, 189 n. 4, 218; Wylie, “Notes on the Agincourt Roll,” p. 135. Vaughan’s funeral effigy, wearing his Lancastrian SS collar, is in the chancel of Bredwardine church, near Hereford. Watkin Lloyd took only one mounted archer with him, which I take to be the meaning of Jeuan Ferour “cum equo cum Watkin Lloyd,” not that Lloyd was Ferour’s groom, one of the alternatives suggested by Hardy, “The Longbow,” p. 163.
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18 Bouchart,
Grandes Croniques de Bretaigne
, ii, p. 254.
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19 Ibid., iii, pp. 112-13, 113 n. 1, 119-20; le Févre, i, p. 265. W&W, ii, p. 182, add the count of Dammartin, but see below, p. 311.
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20 Monstrelet, iii, p. 118. The corruption of Monstrelet’s text makes it impossible to give a definitive figure, as family names are sometimes given with titles and sometimes without, making it difficult to identify them as one or two people.
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21 W&W, ii, p. 222, suggest this was a Burgundian institution, but see Barber,
The Knight and Chivalry
, pp. 137-8.
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22 W&W, ii, p. 222;
St-Denys
, v, p. 572; Bacquet, p. 105. His nephew, Charles de Montaigu, sire de Marcoussis, was also killed in the battle:
St Denys
, v, p. 572.
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23 See, for example, Monstrelet, iii, pp. 114-18, 117 nn. 3 and 7, 118 n. 5; le Févre, i, p. 267.
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24 Nicolas, p. 375.
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25 Monstrelet, iii, pp. 113-15, 117; Bacquet, pp. 76-81.
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