Free Agincourt by Juliet Barker

Baye,
Journal de Nicolas de Baye
, ed. by Alexandre Tuetey (Société de l’Histoire de France, Paris, 1888), ii, pp. 231-2;
St-Denys
, v, pp. 586-8. (back to text)
    38Pizan,
BDAC
, pp. 21-2. (back to text)
    CHAPTER FOURTEEN: THE EVE OF BATTLE
    1
GHQ
, p. 79; Curry, p. 69; le Févre, i, p. 242; MS C1/68/213, TNA. (back to text)
    2
GHQ
, p. 79. (back to text)
    3Even the venerable W&W, ii, pp. 131-2, 207-10, while drawing attention to the more fanciful descriptions of previous historians, believed that the site was unchanged. Modern military historians and television documentaries frequently make the same mistake, as does the entertaining but far too Shakespeare-reliant Centre Historique Médiévale at Azincourt. (back to text)
    4
GHQ
, pp. 74, 79. The “very little valley,” which is no more than a long depression in the ground, can still be seen running parallel to the D104; the “certain wood” to the left of the English line is the woodland round Tramecourt. At this point the two armies were at right angles to their final positions. (back to text)
    5Waurin, i, p. 211, claims that the space between the woods was so narrow that only the French men-at-arms could be deployed; there was not room for the bowmen. (back to text)
    6Le Févre, i, p. 242, says that d’Albret did not arrive until later that evening, suggesting that Boucicaut alone was in charge at this stage. Waurin, who was in the French army, does not mention d’Albret’s arrival, late or otherwise. (back to text)
    7Bacquet, p. 102; Pizan,
BDAC
, p. 22. (back to text)
    8Ibid., pp. 55, 53-4. (back to text)
    9Monstrelet, iii, p. 102; W&W, ii, p. 130 n. 3. (back to text)
    10
GHQ
, p. 81; le Févre, i, p. 243;
Brut
, ii, pp. 377-8; Elmham, “Liber Metricus,” p. 121. (back to text)
    11Le Févre, i, p. 243. W&W, ii, p. 141 and n. 1 wrongly translate this to mean that the prisoners should return to the king “with their masters” rather than “and to their masters,” that is, to those who had captured them. (back to text)
    12Bacquet, p. 93; Waurin, i, p. 244. (back to text)
    13See, for example, Wolfram von Eschenbach,
Parzival
, trans. with an introduction by Helen M. Mustard and Charles E. Passage (Vintage Books, New York, 1961), pp. 94, 125, 139, 166 and 127. (back to text)
    14Curry, p. 69. (back to text)
    15
GHQ
, pp. 83, 87. For the long-running dispute about where the archers were placed, see W&W, ii, pp. 148-50; Bradbury,
The Medieval Archer
, pp. 129-30; Matthew Bennett, “The Battle,” in Curry,
Agincourt 1415
, pp. 24-32; Strickland and Hardy, pp. 306-10. (back to text)
    16Le Févre, i, pp. 244-5; Waurin, i, p. 203. (back to text)
    17See below, pp. 261-2, 266-7. (back to text)
    18
Brut
, ii, p. 378;
GHQ
, pp. 82-3 and 82 nn. 3 and 4. Waurin, ii, p. 199, following Monstrelet, iii, p. 100, puts the duke in charge of the vanguard as early as 22 October, but le Févre, i, p. 241, who relates the same incident and was in the English army, does not make that mistake. The choice of Camoys is puzzling as he was not yet a Garter knight and his military career had been undistinguished: see
ODNB
. (back to text)
    19Bacquet, p. 104. (back to text)
    20C. Philpotts, “The French Plan of Battle During the Agincourt Campaign,”
English Historical Review
, xcix (1984), pp. 59-66; Allmand (ed),
Society at War
, pp. 194-5. This document detailing in writing not only the deployment of the French army but also the tactics to be adopted is one of only two medieval battle plans to have survived. The other extant plan was drawn up by John the Fearless on 17 September 1417 as he was approaching Armagnac-held Paris; it is given in full in Vaughan, pp. 148-50. (back to text)
    21Despite being master of the crossbowmen of France, de Rambures did not personally lead them into battle. In 1411 his predecessor in the post had been forced to concede to Marshal Boucicaut the right to muster and review archers and cannoneers, and to have jurisdiction over them (Strickland and Hardy,