Free Henry V as Warlord by Desmond Seward

becalmed French merchantmen were at its mercy. It was manned by forty sailors, ten men-at-arms and ten archers. By 1415 the king possessed ten of these versatile craft. They and his big sailing ships ensured that his invasion was untroubled by enemy warships. 9
    For all his confidence in his ‘right’, Henry was far from sure that he would return from his adventure, that God would give judgement in his favour. He had a will drafted, in which he trusts that he will be received into Abraham’s bosom through the prayers of the Virgin, the saints and his special patron, John of Bridlington. It contains directions for his burial in Westminster Abbey and many bequests – though interestingly Clarence is left nothing. He signed it at Winchester on 24 July, writing on it in English; ‘This is my last will, subscribed with my own hand, R.H. Jesu Mercy and Gramercy Ladie Marle help.’
    The armada to recover the king’s ‘right’ set sail on the fine and sunny afternoon of Sunday 11 August. Henry had been on board the Trinity Royal since the day before, but the fleet was delayed by three ships catching fire and burning down to the water line – which was widely regarded as a sinister omen. However, the chaplain who wrote the Gesta and was on board with the king remembers that, ‘As we were leaving the coast of the Isle of Wight behind, swans were seen swimming about among the fleet, and they were spoken of as a happy augury’. 10 No one except Henry and his principal commanders knew the armada’s destination save that it was somewhere in France – some of his troops may well have thought they were bound for Guyenne. His security was almost modern in its thoroughness.
    Henry V had never had any intention of securing his inheritance across the Channel by peaceful means. He had employed diplomacy purely to discredit French sincerity in the eyes of the world. Whatever the cost, he wanted war – a war which would justify the House of Lancaster’s deposition of Richard II and disinheritance of the Earl of March. If his ‘right’ in France should be confirmed by God giving him the victory in battle, such a victory would simultaneously establish his right to the throne of England beyond all dispute. As the Gesta makes clear, he was hastening ‘to seek a ruling from the supreme judge’.

VII
    ‘ That Dreadful Day of Agincourt ’
    ‘ Starkly the left arm hold with the bow
    Draw with the right, and smite and overthrow ’
    A fifteenth-century translation
of Vegetius’s De Re Militari
    ‘Agincourt is … a school outing to the Old Vic, Shakespeare is fun, son-et-lumière, blank verse, Laurence Olivier in battle armour; it is an episode to quicken the interest of any schoolboy ever bored by a history lesson, a set-piece demonstration of English moral superiority and a cherished ingredient of a fading national myth. It is also a story of slaughter-yard behaviour and of outright atrocity.’
    John Keegan, The Face of Battle
    O n 6 October Henry V marched out from Harfleur. Calais was 160 miles away and he expected to reach it in eight days’ time. He had approximately 900 men-at-arms and 5,000 archers, grouped in three ‘battles’ with skirmishers on the wings. The king and the Duke of Gloucester led the main army, Sir John Cornwall the advance guard, and the Duke of York and the Earl of Oxford the rearguard. Henry was plainly anxious to make all speed possible, travelling without artillery or baggage wagons, his troops bringing only what they could carry on pack-horses – mostly the men-at-arms ‘harness’ and provisions for the eight days. He intended to march north to the River Somme, then south-east along its bank until he reached the ford of Blanche-Taque and then go straight on to Calais. To ensure a safe crossing he had sent orders for a force from Calais to seize the ford. (It had been used by his great-grandfather Edward II in 1346 on his way to Crécy.) No doubt he hoped for a minor engagement en route from