On this day: October 25th, 1415 – Agincourt: the battle immortalised by Shakespeare

Conflict inspires great literature as Tolstoy, himself a soldier, demonstrates in War and Peace, a human epic on a grand scale which draws on the Napoleonic wars. Tolstoy’s approach is both panoramic and philosophical. Prince Andrei lies dying on the battle field at Austerlitz and ponders the futility of war. Before that Milton looked to what could be considered the defining confrontation of all time as the good angels and the bad compete for supremacy in Paradise Lost and a poetic masterwork was born. Centuries earlier a poet, or a group of poets, known as Homer had shaped The Iliad, describing how the gods had laughed heartily as mere mortals killed each other, sending vast armies to appease a man’s slighted honour over an errant wife.

Yet it was no less an artist than Shakespeare who was to look to an episode which took place during the 100 Years War – an ongoing period of hostilities between England and France lasting from 1337 until 1453 – to not only make art but to set history’s stamp on an event that was certainly important, although just one of several battles in a lengthy sequence.

Many significant battles have been fought and forgotten – the Battle of Agincourt did not even force the French to negotiate. Yet it remains the most famous single medieval battle. Its relevance to British morale is incalculable, a testament to national valour, a legacy. Its source though is overwhelmingly literary. Why? Because the enduring image of Agincourt, those famous, defiant words –“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers” – are Shakespeare’s. Through his words a battle which took place on this day, October 25th, St Crispin’s Feast, in northern France 600 years ago, on what had been a Friday morning, is remembered with pride by the English, and with some irritation perhaps by the French, who underestimated exactly how difficult it is to move over mud when wearing heavy armour.

Hours before the battle the flat open field, no larger than a few football pitches, had seemed green and level, a good surface for an engagement involving men and horses. It was actually far wetter underfoot than it looked – there had been a week of rain. Thoughts turn to Napoleon facing the Russian winter, as would in turn Hitler’s forces more than a century later. The French had arrived at Agincourt with many dashing knights on horseback; the English were largely on foot. By then Henry’s men had had to look to their mounts for food.

Historian Anne Curry, an adviser to the Centre Historique Médiéval at Azincourt, has through her research noted the continuously thin line between history and Shakespeare in relation to this particular battle: "The separation of truth and fiction proves difficult. Some believe that what Shakespeare has Henry say at the battle is actually what he said. This idea had affected our written culture for over 250 years. The earliest use I have found of Shakespearean wording about the historical Henry V is in the London Evening Post of July 25th, 1757, which includes four quotations from the play to illustrate elements from the campaign." So Shakespeare's text was seen as historical evidence.

How much history did Shakespeare know? One can but wonder as to how much the poet playwright appeared to know about everything that ever happened or didn’t, as well as his extraordinary grasp of human behaviour and emotions such as love, hate, hubris, ambition and remorse – but it is certain that he would have referred to Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (1577, 1587) as a prime source for his Henry V, as he had for his other history plays.

Shakespeare was a genius; he was also a magpie when it came to collecting facts and making inspired, dramatic use of them. As an artist, neither an historian nor witness, he could pick and choose among the facts: he was none too concerned about the size of armies, although he does have Henry refer to his 5,000 men. Shakespeare also left out the real-life Henry’s order to kill all the prisoners, an action some military historians continue to refer to as a war crime.

There is no doubt that the real-life Henry would have addressed his flagging troops. They were exhausted, hungry and generally weakened by having besieged the port of Harfleur; the taking of which had required far more effort than expected. More English soldiers had died from dysentery than of wounds incurred in combat. Henry had been ready to withdraw for the season; winter was coming in and the campaign would resume again, as it did – the war went on until 1453. The king, no more than his men, had been reluctant to fight at Agincourt; he too was weary. Yet he orchestrated a victory that on paper seems unlikely. Figures vary; the French had superior numbers, an estimated 20,000 or possibly even more, compared to the English force of about 5,000. The field as mentioned, a commonplace sight today, was flanked by woodland.

As the confident French moved into position the real-life Henry did not have recourse to Shakespeare’s thrilling script; that was to come much later, in 1599. It has often been speculated that the dramatist may have turned his thoughts to Henry V’s finest hour while he was attending the funeral of poet Edmund Spenser. The service was held in Westminster Abbey on January 13th, 1599. Shakespeare’s thoughts could easily have drifted during the sermon to a potential new play as he gazed at the tomb of Henry V and reflected on the Elizabethan wars of the day – which also involved Ireland.

But wind back the clock a further 184 years, away from Shakespeare at Spenser’s funeral, and think of the real King Henry in 1415, no longer the reckless Prince Hal, but by then a proven leader of men, with tired forces ready to collapse and about to be asked for another big effort. He would have cajoled and encouraged his men, though with not quite the level of eloquence achieved by the character created in his image.

Imagine being faced with possible extermination and just as you are standing hungry, beaten and scared of dying, a voice rings out, declaiming with words written by literature’s finest writer:

…..If we are mark’d to die, we are enow

To do our country loss; and if to live,

The fewer men, the greater share of honour……

That he hath no stomach to this fight,

Let him depart; his passport shall be made,

And crowns for convoy put into his purse;

We would not die in that man’s company

That fears his fellowship to die with us.

This day is call’d the feast of Crispian.

He that shall live this day, and see old age,

Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours

And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian.’

Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,

And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispian’s Day’.

Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,

But he’ll remember, with advantages,

What feats he did that day……..

And gentlemen in England now a-bed

Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here…..”

King Harry’s words, as he would have uttered them in 1415 in a field in France, inspired his men: Shakespeare’s version has, as have so many of his speeches, become fixed in the popular imagination since first encountered as schoolchildren learning them. His words live. In 1915, during the second year of the first World War, the entire St Crispian Day speech from Henry V was printed in the London Times to mark the 500th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt. Today a century later, this 600th anniversary will be widely noted and discussed, an event suspended between history and literature.

The facts are well documented:

Henry V was in trouble; tired out, having decided to conquer what remained of France in French hands for England, his men had been seriously depleted through dysentery. The French were blocking his way out of France. So confident were the French of their superior numbers, correct, and superior skill, incorrect, that they had brought along a cage, designed for the purpose of containing the English king and, if he was taken alive, of parading him to jeering crowds. Henry, in turn, had probably also warned his men of the French intention of cutting off the fingers of any English longbow men captured – be they living or dead.

On the other hand, Henry’s ragged army was composed of trained, professional soldiers. They were campaign-weary but sufficiently resourceful to remove their boots and shoes, and strip off their armour, in order to move more freely over the mud while the French floundered. That said, a large proportion of those leading the French forces were aristocrats expecting some fun – and a victory. Their king was insane, back home and not about to make any stirring speeches. Most of all, though, Henry had his longbow men, capable of firing between 10 and 12 arrows a minute, each with a range of 250 yards and deadly against the slower to load French crossbow.

Ingenuity and a co-ordinated if far smaller army, took the day; Shakespeare’s glorious rhetoric consolidated it.

Interestingly, Curry notes that Shakespeare’s Henry V was not performed in French until as recently as 1999. It is not that surprising as the French are portrayed as idiots. Still it seems a small price to pay for having so underestimated the seriousness of a battle, however ragged the opposition may appear. Shakespeare’s play is as English as is the music of Elgar.

Whatever about the rights and wrongs, the pragmatic killing of the prisoners, the inevitable mixture of glory and savagery; stupidity and futility, the involvement of God – who apparently was credited with playing a role – and of course the stalwart contribution of the English and Welsh archers mastering the longbow, a physically demanding weapon which required strength as well as accuracy, the battle of Agincourt, with no small thanks to William Shakespeare, remains a celebration of the day that cohesive resolve defeated complacency.

Eileen Battersby is literary correspondent