48 Fun Facts About Battle of Agincourt

Five years after Agincourt, the Treaty of Troyes made Henry V what?

Heir of France, with the regency too, but Henry died in August 1422, seven weeks before the French king he was due to succeed, so he never took the throne himself.

The Battle of Agincourt was fought on the feast day of which saint?

Crispin and Crispinian were martyred shoemakers, the patron saints of cobblers; Shakespeare's Henry promises that their day will never again pass without his men being remembered.

Agincourt was a battle of which long conflict?

The Hundred Years' War outlasted its name, running on and off from 1337 to 1453; Agincourt came 78 years in, after half a century of English failure.

Which wood was preferred for the English longbows that won Agincourt?

Yew was in such demand for bows that English supplies ran short, and from 1472 the law made ships arriving in English ports carry bowstaves as part of their cargo.

What kept the French king, Charles VI, from leading his army at Agincourt?

He suffered from psychotic illness: Charles VI had been struck by bouts of madness since 1392 and at times believed he was made of glass, so his princes ran the kingdom and its army.

Which Constable of France commanded the French army at Agincourt and died there?

Charles d'Albret shared the command with Marshal Boucicaut, but the two professionals could not control the higher-ranking nobles around them, and the Constable was killed in the fighting.

Alongside the English, archers from which country fought for Henry V at Agincourt?

Wales sent a company of archers, even though Henry, born at Monmouth, had spent years of his youth commanding the war against Welsh rebels.

Which two earlier English victories over France are usually named alongside Agincourt?

Crécy and Poitiers set the pattern Agincourt repeated: English archers holding a defensive position and shooting down a much larger French army that came at them.

In Shakespeare's Henry V, what is the Chorus's 'wooden O'?

The theatre: a round wooden playhouse could not stage the armies of Agincourt, so the Chorus asks the audience to picture the horses and the thousands of men for themselves.

Fourteen years after Agincourt, Joan of Arc turned the war against England by lifting which siege?

The Siege of Orléans was the war's military turning point: its relief in May 1429 ended the run of English success that Agincourt had begun.

After his victory in 1415, Henry V named the Battle of Agincourt after what?

A nearby castle: Henry asked a French herald what the fortress in sight was called, and declared that battles should take the name of the nearest stronghold. The castle itself has since vanished.

The Gesta Henrici Quinti, an English eyewitness account of Agincourt, was probably written by whom?

A royal chaplain is the best guess, which is why it is nicknamed the chaplain's life; it was long credited to the monk Thomas Elmham until its modern editors rejected the idea.

Henry V claimed the French throne through which royal ancestor?

Edward III, Henry's great-grandfather, had been the first English king to claim France, through his mother Isabella, the sister of a French king who died without a son.

Before invading, Henry V demanded the unpaid ransom of which captured French king?

John II had been freed to raise his ransom, leaving hostages behind; when one of them, his own son, escaped, he went back to captivity in England of his own accord and died in London.

Which daughter of Charles VI did Henry V demand as his bride before invading France?

Catherine of Valois married Henry in 1420, was widowed two years later and went on to have children with a courtier, Owen Tudor; their grandson took the English throne as Henry VII, the first Tudor king.

Which French port did Henry V besiege after landing in August 1415?

Harfleur held out far longer than Henry had planned, and sickness in the siege camp cost him so many men that he dropped any wider campaign and turned for home.

Which English-held port was Henry V marching towards when the French blocked him at Agincourt?

Calais was where Henry meant to take ship for England after one costly siege, but the French army barred his road and his weakened force had to fight its way through.

Which river did the French defend in 1415, forcing Henry V far inland to find a crossing?

The Somme had its bridges broken and its fords guarded, so Henry had to march far upstream to get across, and the delay let the French army get ahead of him.

Which disease had weakened Henry V's army by the time it reached Agincourt?

Dysentery swept the English camp during the siege that opened the campaign and marched on with the survivors; seven years later it is thought to have killed Henry himself.

What lay on both sides of the Agincourt battlefield, stopping the French from surrounding Henry V's army?

Woods hemmed in the field, so the far larger French army had to attack head-on along a narrow front where its numbers counted for little.

Which leader of Henry V's vanguard was killed at Agincourt?

Edward, Duke of York is said to have been crushed to death in the press of bodies rather than cut down, the greatest name among the few English dead.

Which elderly knight commanded Henry V's archers at Agincourt?

Sir Thomas Erpingham, a knight 'grown grey with age', rode along the ranks urging the men on, then flung his baton into the air as the signal for battle.

What defence did Henry V's archers set up in front of them at Agincourt against cavalry?

Sharpened wooden stakes, one planted at an angle by each archer, were a trick the English had not used in their earlier victories, and the French horsemen could not ride through them.

In which church is Henry V, the victor of Agincourt, buried?

Westminster Abbey was being rebuilt in his reign: Henry gave money towards its new nave and, in his will, ordered the chantry chapel that still arches over his tomb.

Legend traces which rude British gesture to archers taunting the French at Agincourt?

The V-sign supposedly showed that the archers still had their bow fingers. A chronicler does have Henry warn that captured archers would lose fingers, but nothing written at the time mentions the gesture.

What did a 2005 pay-record study say about Agincourt's armies?

Close in size, argued the historian Anne Curry, with only about 12,000 French on the field, where chroniclers had Henry outnumbered several times over; other historians still dispute her count.

Why was the Duke of Brabant killed at Agincourt rather than ransomed?

His rank went unrecognised: he had ridden in late and fought in borrowed armour, so the archers who brought him down had no idea he was a duke worth a fortune in ransom, and brother to the Duke of Burgundy.

What weather before Agincourt left the ploughed battlefield so deadly for armoured French knights?

Heavy rain in the night turned the newly ploughed clay to deep mud; knights in full plate reached the English line already exhausted, and those knocked down could hardly get up again.

Why was the French cavalry charge at Agincourt undermanned?

Riders wandered off during the long morning wait, some to warm themselves or see to their horses, so only a fraction of the picked force rode at the archers.

How did Henry V break the long morning stand-off at Agincourt?

Henry advanced to provoke the French because waiting only helped them: his army was hungry and sick, and they were content to block his road. Moving into bowshot goaded them into attacking.

At Agincourt, wounded French cavalry horses bolted into what?

Their own infantry: maddened by arrow wounds, the horses turned and bolted back through the French foot coming up behind them, scattering and trampling the men in their path.

What did Henry V's archers use at Agincourt when the fighting came to close quarters?

Hatchets, swords and mallets: lightly dressed and quick on the churned ground, the archers closed in on knights too exhausted to lift their own weapons.

At Agincourt, Henry V stood guard over which wounded younger brother until he could be dragged clear?

Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester survived his wound and became a great collector of books; the library he gave to Oxford is still remembered in the Bodleian's oldest reading room, Duke Humfrey's.

What of Henry V's lost a piece to an axe blow at Agincourt?

The crown on his helmet was gold, and Henry wore it into the thick of the fight: he stood on foot in the front rank, close enough for a French axe to reach him.

The only French success at Agincourt was a raid by local men on what?

The English baggage train sat almost unguarded behind the lines, and a local lord with some 600 peasants plundered it, carrying off royal jewels and a diamond-studded sword.

Why did Henry V order most French prisoners at Agincourt killed?

He feared they would rearm: the prisoners outnumbered their guards, weapons lay all over the field, and a fresh French force seemed to be forming up to attack again.

Who refused Henry V's order to kill the prisoners at Agincourt, leaving archers to do it?

The English knights balked, whether from chivalry or for the ransoms they stood to lose, so Henry sent a squire with a company of archers to carry out the order.

Which duke reportedly struck Henry V at Agincourt before dying?

The Duke of Alençon, in the traditional account, struck down the king's brother and landed a blow on Henry himself, then called out his surrender too late and was killed before Henry could save him.

The Duke of Orléans, captured at Agincourt, wrote from the Tower of London the oldest surviving what?

Valentine: his poem to his wife is the earliest known to survive. The duke, a nephew of the French king, went on writing verse through 25 years as a prisoner in England.

A 1914 newspaper story in which ghostly Agincourt archers save British troops grew into which wartime legend?

The Angels of Mons began as fiction: Arthur Machen's story 'The Bowmen' was passed around as a true report, and before long soldiers were said to have seen heavenly protectors over the battlefield.

Which French faction bore the brunt of the defeat at Agincourt, and the blame for it?

The Armagnacs had supplied most of the army and lost their leaders with it, while the Duke of Burgundy kept his troops away; less than three years later his men took Paris.

According to a legend Shakespeare made famous, what insulting gift did the French send Henry V before he invaded?

Tennis balls, meaning that Henry was fitter for games than for war; he is said to have answered that he would send back 'London balls', cannonballs, to knock down French houses.

Which French court writer answered Agincourt with a letter consoling the bereaved?

Christine de Pizan, widowed young, had taken up writing to support her children; her Letter on the Prison of Human Life offered comfort to women who had lost family in the battle.

In Shakespeare's Henry V, what does the king call his outnumbered soldiers just before Agincourt?

Band of brothers has been borrowed ever since: Nelson used it of his captains, and it became the title of a book and television series about American paratroopers.

In Shakespeare's Henry V, to whom does the king give all the credit for the victory at Agincourt?

God alone, says Henry on hearing how few English have died: 'O God, thy arm was here', and he proclaims death for any soldier who boasts of the victory as his own.

Who directed and starred in the 1944 film of Henry V, made as wartime propaganda?

Laurence Olivier made it as a morale-raiser, part-funded by the British government, and to keep its hero spotless he cut the darker side of Henry that Shakespeare had written.

Who directed and starred in the grittier 1989 film of Henry V?

Kenneth Branagh made the battle long and realistic where the wartime film had kept it heroic and stylised, and was nominated for Oscars as both director and lead actor.

Who played Henry V in the 2019 film The King?

Timothée Chalamet's Henry faces a sneering Dauphin, played by Robert Pattinson, at Agincourt; the real Dauphin was never there, staying at Rouen with his father and dying within two months.