Agincourt 1415: Mud, Stakes and Henry V's Order to Kill the Prisoners

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Henry V invaded France in 1415 after failed talks in which he claimed the French crown and demanded a ransom, a royal marriage, and wide lands. The siege of Harfleur dragged on and dysentery ravaged his roughly 12,000 men. Instead of sailing home, he marched about 9,000 survivors some 260 miles toward Calais, a deliberate provocation of the Dauphin. The French blocked him on October 25, 1415, in a freshly plowed field between the woods of Tramecourt and Agincourt, then waited three hours for reinforcements under the dukes of Brabant, Anjou, and Brittany. Estimates of the odds range from 12,000 French against 9,000 English to 24,000 against 6,000 if the armed servants known as gros valets are counted.

Henry moved first, advancing to about 300 yards and replanting sharpened stakes in front of his archers, nearly 80 percent of his army. Volleys provoked a disorganized French cavalry charge that churned the clay and trampled its own infantry. French men-at-arms in 50 to 60 pounds of plate, visors down against the arrows, packed so tightly in the funnel that many could not raise their swords, and some, including the Constable of France, drowned in the mud. When the baggage train was raided and the French rearguard seemed to re-form, Henry ordered the prisoners killed. His knights refused over chivalry and ransom money, so archers carried it out until the threat passed.

• Henry stood over his wounded brother Humphrey and took an axe blow that chipped the crown on his helmet.
• Archers who ran out of arrows took up mallets, hatchets, and swords against the exhausted men-at-arms.
• English losses ran from about 100 to a few hundred, against roughly 6,000 French dead.
• The French dead included three dukes, nine counts, the Constable, the Admiral of France, and the master of crossbowmen.
• Seven years later Henry died of dysentery at 35 during another siege in France, leaving a nine-month-old heir, Henry VI.