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1415

In 1415 an English army under Henry V defeated the French at the Battle of Agincourt in northern France. The battle was a central event in the last phase of the Hundred Years’ War between England and France.

Henry V won the Battle of Agincourt but it was Shakespeare who made his victory live forever. Shakespeare was not only the finest poet and dramatist Britain has ever produced, he was also a skilful propagandist. In Henry V he gives us an account of a brave and noble English king sacrificing everything to win – against all the odds – a monumental battle against a far greater power. Shakespeare’s play appeared in London right at the end of the sixteenth century, about ten years after England had repulsed the invasion by the Spanish Armada. Elizabeth I was nearing the end of her long, careful reign. Her little country had a new-found confidence and had begun to flex its muscles as it struck out to explore new territories abroad. Shakespeare provided it with the images to support its developing strengths. He was so good at it, and his ideas so enduring, that his play would be used for pretty much the same purposes nearly three hundred and fifty years after it was written. Laurence Olivier’s film was produced in 1944 as a morale booster for a Britain once again at war and the government provided some of the money to make it:

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he today that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition;

And gentlemen in England now a-bed

Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here …

In those six lines alone are contained some of the most famous phrases about men and battles in any piece of literature anywhere in the world. ‘We happy few’, ‘band of brothers’, ‘gentlemen in England now a-bed’ – these marvellous words have remained an inspiration for men and women in adversity since the day they were written. As far as the British are concerned they tell the story of Agincourt.

Henry V became King of England two years before Agincourt. His father, Henry Bolingbroke, had seized the throne from his cousin Richard II in 1399 and had then ruled as Henry IV. Richard was imprisoned in Pontefract Castle in Yorkshire where he died in 1400, some say murdered on the orders of the man who had taken his throne. Henry IV’s reign had been about as troublesome as any mediaeval monarch’s could be. His barons constantly jostled for power and he faced a rebellion from Henry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland, known to all lovers of Shakespeare as Harry Hotspur. The Welsh too were in revolt: their leader, Owain Glyndwr, declared himself the true Prince of Wales and led an army against the English King. In fighting off these uprisings Henry IV came to rely increasingly on his son. The young prince fought against Hotspur and Glyndwr and by the time his father died was already well blooded in the business of military leadership, as well as the management of political affairs. He put this experience into practice as soon as he ascended the throne.

Henry V had known Richard II well. Richard had banished Henry’s father from the kingdom and taken his inherited lands away from him – one of the main reasons why Bolingbroke had rebelled against him. Richard had no quarrel with Bolingbroke’s son and had befriended him while the young man’s father was in exile. When Henry V became king thirteen years after Richard had died at Pontefract, he ordered that Richard’s body be reburied at Westminster Abbey. His motives perhaps had as much as to do with a need to calm rebel spirits as to demonstrate an act of friendship – but they had the right effect. By honouring the memory of Richard, Henry V showed that he was rather more than just his father’s son. He also knew that gestures of this kind would not on their own be enough. He needed something else and in searching for it he looked towards France.

The concept of the nation state as we understand it today did not exist in the Middle Ages. Rulers owned and controlled lands through war and conquest. Their approach was to a certain extent as much tribal as it was national: they sought to capture territory in the name of their families and to pass it on to their successors. The Normans, the most successful of the conquering tribes of the medieval period, had added Britain to their tally in 1066 – and from this time on the Kings of England began to own lands on both sides of the Channel. When Henry II, one of the greatest of the medieval kings, died in 1189 the English monarchy owned territory throughout western France, but bit by bit his successors managed to lose a great deal of it. In 1327, another powerful English monarch, Edward III, came to the throne. He ruled for fifty years – and spent much of his reign trying to reassert England’s claim to France. He had considerable success, winning great battles at Crécy in 1346 and Poitiers in 1356. He was the king who started the Hundred Years’ War – a war that Henry V, his great grandson, decided he would continue. He declared himself King of France and began to prepare to recapture Normandy for the English crown.

Henry V was a warrior king. At the beginning of the fifteenth century it was customary, as it had been in the centuries before, for a king to lead his troops into battle. Henry supervised and managed all aspects of his expedition to France – guns, artillery, weaponry for breaching city walls, scaling ladders and food supplies. Most important of all, he also had to raise the army itself and find the men at arms whom he would lead into war. This was the most difficult part of the operation. All his noblemen were expected to take part – but Henry had to help foot the bill by raising loans on his royal jewellery. The final size of Henry’s army is not known for sure but it is believed that he eventually led 12,000 men across the Channel to France. They sailed in a fleet of 1,500 ships – not just soldiers, but horses, grooms, blacksmiths, tent makers and carpenters. The royal household went too, including the King’s minstrels. The whole panoply of medieval government set sail for war.