488. Hundred Years' War: The Road to Agincourt (Part 2)
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Under pressure. I always love the story about Churchill when he became prime minister in 1914. It's all kicking off. The Germans are invading in the east. And he says that that night he went back home and he slept like a baby because the pressure that this was the culmination of everything he'd been planning for. And actually, he was at his best under enormous pressure. This is the moment that he lived for.

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Play with your fancies, and then behold upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing. Hear the shrill whistle, which doth order give to sounds confused. Behold the threaden sails, borne with invisible and creeping wind, draw the huge bottoms through the furrowed sea, breasting the lofty surge.

Oh, do but think you stand upon the rivage and behold a city on the inconstant billows dancing. For so appears this fleet majestical holding due course to Harfleur. Follow, follow. So that was the chorus in William Shakespeare's Henry V and describing the departure of the English fleet for the mouth of the river Seine.

And to recap from last time, Tom, Henry V, in his late 20s, this austere, deeply dedicated, serious, slightly terrifying warlord. I think very terrifying, let's be honest. Well, he's not terrifying if you're English. I think he is quite terrifying, even if you're English. I think he's inspiring. Well, we'll find out how and why he's terrifying if you're English later on. He has set off across the channel. His destination, Harfleur. And

nest of pirates who are state-sponsored pirates, I suppose it's fair to say. This is going to be his first target on the French mainland. His ambition is not just to capture Harfleur, but is to use Harfleur as the springboard for a wider campaign in France to capitalize on the chaos there and initially to annex the formerly English territory of Normandy. But Tom...

Like a man invading Russia, he has made a mistake, hasn't he? He's started too late in the year. Yeah. So it's already mid-August by the time they land at Hafler, which means that Henry, I mean, he needs to capture the town very, very quickly because otherwise, as you say...

it'll be too late. Autumn will be coming on. He needs to crack on. So he's in the mouth of the Seine, in this kind of great bay. And as we described at the end of the last episode, there's this rocky beach, there's a shallow cliff, there's a kind of plateau, and Halfler is three miles away. And Henry has chosen it because it is so unexpected. It is therefore unlikely to be guarded. But of course, he needs to be sure. And so he turns to a Holland, I'm

I'm very proud to say. Specifically, the 19-year-old John Holland, who is the son of the Duke of Exeter, who'd been a half-brother of Richard II and had been embroiled in the first great conspiracy against Henry IV back in Epiphany 1400. And he'd been executed. So poor John Holland hadn't been allowed to inherit his father's titles, but he's hoping to

to create a good impression on this campaign and maybe get them. And he does create a good impression. And I'm happy to say that he actually gets his titles the following year. So that's good to know. And so he goes back and says, yeah, all clear. And so the landings begin and you have these shallow kind of barges which have been brought over the channel and men and horses are loaded into them. And then they come crunching up onto the rocky beach. And the whole process takes three days and it's,

As anyone knows from later Normandy landings on D-Day, it's the landing that is always the most dangerous, particularly if you're being attacked. So the fact that the English are not attacked, this is a good start for the campaign. Because the French don't know that they're there? They've been taken by surprise? No, they don't. And it's too late to marshal the resources that would enable them to oppose the landing. So on the 17th of August, three days after the landing, Henry is ready to advance on Harfleur.

and he invests the city on the western side, which is the side nearest the landing point, and he's occupying the heights above the city. And on the evening of the following day, he wants to invest the heights that stand on the other side, so on the eastern side, and so he sends his brother, the Duke of Clarence, with a large part of the English army, to do that, so that they will then be on both sides of Harfleur. It's actually a tricky task.

because Hafler has this river, the Lesard, which flows through it. And

On the south side, it flows through kind of mud flats. And when the tide comes in, these mud flats and the Lazard itself kind of vanish beneath the waters and the waves reach all the way up to the walls of Harfleur. But on the north side, you know, you've got this river valley and the Lazard has flooded the river valley. So it's all very marshy and swampy. And so Clarence and his men, it takes them basically kind of, you know, they have to walk nine or 10 miles to avoid the floods.

and it's not until dawn on the 19th that Clarence's men appear on the crest of the far hills from Henry's side and the town is now effectively sealed off because you've got the tidal estuary on the other side you've got this river valley

There is no way anyone can approach it. The English completely control access. And this is very bad news for Havle because its defences aren't really very strong. It's an important city. So it's on the site of where La Havre is now. It's kind of been swallowed up by La Havre's industrial zone. And in the early 15th century, it covers about 20 hectares, population of around 1,000.

four and a half thousand, five thousand perhaps. And its walls stretch for two and a half miles. But these walls are about 70 years old. They haven't been repaired. The French haven't really thought that it's going to be attacked.

And so because the French haven't been anticipating an English attack, there aren't that many men. I mean, the garrisons may be by some estimates as low as 35, with a few crossbowmen who were there as well. And they haven't really stocked up on provisions. And to make things worse for the people of Harfleur, the Duke of Clarence, while he was marching around to take up his position on the opposite heights to Henry, had captured a wagon train with provisions and indeed some cannon.

So this is bad. Yeah. But there's an interesting, not paradox, is that I'm not sure what the word is, an irony or something. Henry has landed in a kingdom that he believes is his own. Yeah. So Half-Low is the first target and

And this is the first test, I suppose, because is he going to come as a rampaging king of England fighting his ancestral enemies? Or is he arriving as Le Bon Papa? Yeah. It's a reference from our French Revolution series to Louis XVI. Is he the benevolent French king returning to his own inheritance? Well, what's a promising sign for the people of Fafleur is that

When Henry lands, he does not unfurl his banner. And if he'd unfurled his banner, that would be a sign that, you know,

pile in, crack on, loot and pillage and do everything you want. He doesn't do that. And he issues various ordinances of war that there are to be no attacks on churches or priests or on women and no setting fire to crops, no incineration of buildings. To that extent, he is the King of France. He's looking after his subjects. And listeners may be tempted to view this with scepticism. But I think that

These ordinances of war, Henry is going to uphold them because you said he's not a particularly intimidating figure to the English. I think he is.

because he is going to punish infractions. So even before he'd set sail from England, a group of Lancastrian archermen had been coming south to join the expedition and they had passed through my native town of Salisbury where they behaved disgracefully and attacked the locals and killed four of them. And they were very, very severely punished. So that's an example of what will happen if Henry's troops do not obey these ordinances.

I think he's doing this both because he thinks it's his duty, you know, his God-ordained duty, but also because he genuinely has hopes of winning the French round. You know, we mentioned in the previous episode, Henry is kind of admired by people in France, but probably not by the people of our fleur. LAUGHTER

Right. Who find themselves surrounded by his cannon and his archers. They are not in a mood to accept the fact that he's actually the king of France and they should surrender to him. So they defy him. And that, of course, means that in Henry's opinion, they are now rebels against their Anonymous.

king. And that goes there fair game. They are fair game. And so the assault on Halfler is a bloody brutal battle isn't it? It really is yes and it's the first Norman

town to be pulverized by artillery. Of course, it won't be the last. And there's a French account which describes Henry's cannon as being of monstrous size spewing out great boulders amid clouds of thick smoke and a noise like the fires of hell. And so the once more unto the breach speech that Henry gives, you know, this famous that you delivered so beautifully in the previous episode, it's actually pretty accurate because it is all about using the cannon to blast holes in the walls and then English soldiers forcing their way through the breach.

But the problem for Henry is that all the rubble and the devastation means that there is raw material for the citizens of Harfleur to use to patch up every breach. So actually, the siege is going on longer than he'd hoped, and it's having to inflict more damage on Harfleur than Henry had hoped. Because, of course, what he wants is to make it into a kind of second Calais, an English stronghold. And if he's smashing the walls and pulverising all the buildings, then that's really bad. He's going to have to repair it.

And it also means that if he captures it and there are great holes in the wall, then the city will be very vulnerable to recapture. So all of this is bad news. And there is also further bad news for Henry, which is, as Anne Currie, the doyen of Agincourt historians, puts it, that Henry had too large an army for the purpose. And what she means by that is that they are forced to camp in quite massive

marshy and therefore pestilential areas. You know, this is flood plain. And so it's not a good place to be. And sickness starts to spread through the English camp.

And Thomas Walsingham, the monk at St. Albans, he talks about how there are fetid corpses of animals who've been drowned in the flooding, who are kind of floating down. And this is not a good sign, you know, if you're camped out. There are also reports that the English eat underripe grapes. Okay. Which is...

Not good for the bowels. Right. And shellfish. Yeah, you don't want to mess with the shellfish. Yeah, so people fall very ill. The Duke of Clarence among them, the Earl of Arundel, Henry's great friend, he falls sick. All this raises the issue that it's all very well to be great at fighting battles and to have loads of archers, but an assault on France requires you have to supply your army and keep it supplied and healthy. You do. A long way...

from your native land. So there is no supply chain, I guess, once you go inland into France. So that's going to be a problem for Henry further down the line, isn't it? It absolutely is. And of course, it's also difficult to replace men who you've lost a disease, which is by now starting to sweep the English camp.

And so the people of Harfleur managed to hold out for four weeks, which is much longer than Henry had been anticipating. And by mid-September, finally, it's clear that the end is clear. They've run out of food. They've had high casualties from Henry's artillery. And even those who were not being wounded by arrow fire or cannonballs are falling sick because disease is sweeping the city as well.

And so on the 15th of September, they send a message to Clarence in his camp asking for a three-week truce. And Clarence says, no, but you can have three days. And on the 18th of September, the garrison agrees that it will surrender in four days' time. So on the 22nd of September at one o'clock in the afternoon, if no French relief force has come and Henry accepts this and no relief comes. And so they,

At one o'clock on the 22nd of September, all the captains and the leading citizens of Harfleur walk out in sombre procession and they walk to Henry V, who is in his tent, and he keeps them waiting on their knees for a long time before he will even look at them.

And the mayor of the city has the keys of the town and he hands them over to the king. And the city has now surrendered apart from a tiny group of holdouts who continue to hold out in the tower for a few more days. And the king says he will not, as he feels entitled to, completely annihilate them.

But his terms are pretty brutal. The garrison are to be treated as prisoners of war. The old and infirm are expelled and the women and children are given the option of either staying or kind of leaving the town, probably heading for Rouen.

And Henry isn't being cruel here. He's essentially giving them the chance to get out of a place that is a hellhole, basically. It's been a scene of war. There's disease and everything. So he gives them money if they want to go. So this is the end of September. It's gone on much longer than he thought. Autumn is coming in after winter. He's lost already some of his men have been lost, presumably killed in the siege or to disease.

Halfler is a definite victory for England. I mean, it's a feather in his cap. It is. So the French at this point, you know, they've suffered this great humiliation, I guess, of Henry landing on their coast. I think it is seen as a humiliation across France. Right. Yes. And what are they going to do about it? Well, it's not just that it's been lost, but that no attempt was made to relieve it.

And so, of course, in situations like this, you always have the blame game. And the guy who is chiefly blamed for it is our friend, the Duke of Alençon, who listeners may remember from the previous episode. He's the bruiser, the boar-like figure who is always a man for charging in. So it might be thought it's surprising that he didn't lead the attack. I think it's just that he didn't have enough resources available to him. And the attack came as a surprise. So he's dismissed as the commander-in-chief in Normandy.

And he is replaced by the most famous soldier, maybe not just in France, but in the whole of Christendom. And this is Marshal Boussico, who we last met holding the lists at St. Angliver, the most famous tournament in late 14th century history, where he had fought with the future Henry IV and with Hotspur.

And he's had a tremendous career. So he fought at the great Christian defeat at Nicopolis in 1396 against the Turks, where he'd performed very, very creditably and ended up being ransomed. He then helped the Roman emperor, the Byzantine emperor, Emmanuel II, against the Turkish siege of Constantinople. He'd come back to France. He'd founded a chivalric order dedicated to the ideals of courtly love. He's basically a complete legend.

Right, okay. He's the absolute model of what a French knight would want to be. The French, I think even more than the English...

are obsessed by Arthurian romance. Loads of French knights, I mean, unlike the English, are named after Arthurian. So you get loads of people who are called Lancelot or Percival or Galahadda or whatever, whereas the English all tend to be called William or Edward or whatever. Yeah, or worse, Thomas. I mean, that's a tremendous name. You can't argue with that. So the fact that Boussico is coming in, this great hero, this paladin of France,

This is a sign that the French are taking the invasion seriously. So also is the fact that in the last week of August, a royal proclamation had been issued proclaiming a general summons across the whole of France, calling people to throw the English back into the sea. And the Dauphin...

despite being a late riser. You said he was too fat. Yeah, he's a bit podgy. He's come to Normandy to serve as the Captain General. I mean, basically, he's a figurehead because he's inexperienced. Unlike Henry, when he was a teenager, he hasn't been off fighting. He's been lounging around in bed ogling girls. But he's come, so that's credit to him. He's actually in quite poor health as well, so he's not an ideal figure. But it's good for morale to have the Dauphin there, of course. Yeah.

The real commander, the guy who is in charge overall, so who Boussico answers to and who is the power behind the Dauphin's throne, is another professional soldier like Boussico. So a guy who has devoted his whole life to the art of warfare. And he is the constable of France, the kind of the leading military figure. And this is a man called Charles d'Aubray.

And he has been fighting the English for a very, very long time. So he's old enough to have fought against them under Bertrand de Guesclin, who was the French military leader who essentially had thrown the English out of France back in the latter days of Edward III. He's basically on the Armagnac side. So he'd been dismissed as constable by John the Fearless when John the Fearless was in power. And then when John was chased out of Paris, Charles d'Abray had been

given back his office as a constable. So Boussico and Dalbray are both very competent soldiers. They don't want to just rush in. They want to concentrate as large a force of manpower as they can possibly get. They hope to relieve Harfleur by mid-September, but it's in mid-September that Harfleur falls. And so now they have a massive force that

But if Henry decides to skedaddle back to England, they can then move on Harfleur and hopefully recapture it because the walls are all pockmarked. And for Henry, this is a huge problem. Right. Because all he has to show for all this money, all this manpower, all this effort is a kind of devastated single French port. Okay. So he's got this port. He's lost his mental disease.

Two of the big wigs in his expedition, so Clarence and Arundel, they actually have to go home because they are invalided out. Yeah, and Arundel dies a few days after landing in England. The clock is ticking towards the end of 1415. He's obviously not going to take Normandy by the end of the year. So he could go home.

And he doesn't go home, does he? Because he thinks that would be humiliating. That's not enough of a return. What does he do now? That's the question. Well, the first thing he does is challenge the Dauphin to a duel, which...

Unsurprisingly, the Dauphin's not very keen. So a description of the Dauphin at this time from someone who was in his train, the Dauphin was fat in his body, heavy and slow, and not at all agile. So I think if that's your level of training, you wouldn't want to go head-to-head with Henry. The Dauphin is not dual body ready. He is not dual body ready, no. So when the option for having a duel is thrown back in his teeth, Henry decides that what he will do instead...

rather than sail back to England, is he will march from Huffler across northern France to the other port that England holds, which is Calais, and he will then sail back to England from Calais. And what's the point of this march? It has several advantages. So the first is it spares him the embarrassment of leaving for England early.

By going across France, he's making a public proclamation of the fact that there is nowhere within his kingdom that he cannot visit. He has the right to go where he wishes. It means that he can leave his fleet at Harfleur to keep the garrison there supplied with building materials and with more men and with food. So that's important because he cannot afford to lose Harfleur.

And of course, it also means on that score that if he's marching across France, then the likelihood is that this vast French force, which is gathering, will go for him rather than for Haveler. Well, that's the key thing, isn't it? So he's a kind of decoy. He's drawing the French army away from his one captured city, his one prize. Yeah.

And, you know, maybe he'll get to Calais and be able to spend the winter in Calais. Is that what he's thinking? No, he will sail back. When he gets to Calais, he'll sail back and he'll be able to give a good talk. I've captured Harfleur. I've marched through France. They couldn't stop me. It's great. But my hunch is, and we have no way of knowing this, but my hunch is also that Henry suspects that he will get a battle. And I think that he alone, maybe in the entire expedition, wants this.

And he wants it, I think, because he thinks he will win this battle for all the reasons that we looked at in the previous episode. But also, I think, because as the Christian king that he is, he wants to put it to the test. He wants to reassure himself that God is on his side, that he is entitled to the throne of France. He knows that God is on his side. God's an instrument.

Well, I think that that is why he's prepared to take this enormous risk, because it is a huge risk. There is this vast army accumulating. He knows that if he's cornered and defeated, disaster will follow. I mean, he'll either be killed or maybe, you know, from England's point of view, even worse, captured, because that would then bleed England dry.

or maybe alternatively precipitate a coup against the absent Henry, the collapse of the Lancastrian regime. So the stakes are now even higher than they were when he was setting sail from England earlier in the year. And that's why a large majority of his council, when he summons them and says this is his plan, they urge him not to do it. And Clarence, his brother, I mean, is very, very insistent.

He's sick. He's about to leave home. He's obviously not in a good mood. He doesn't feel that the expedition is going well, but he's very, very blunt. He warns Henry to consider the great and infinite multitude of their enemies, which then were assembled to prevent and hinder the king's passage by land, whereof by their spies they had knowledge. So they know what is brewing.

But Henry decides, no, I'm going to risk it. And so on the 8th of October, which I think not coincidentally is the feast day of the patron saint of France, Saint-Denis,

He leaves Huffler for Calais. There is debate about how many men he has with him, and we'll come to this in due course, but probably about 6,000 men. Not a massive army by any means. Of whom about 5,000 are archers. So he's only got 1,000 men at arms. Yeah. You know, to face a French army, that's not many.

And off he sets. And effectively, the ball is now in the court of the French. The ball is in the French court, Tom. That tennis ball analogy again. What is going to happen? Will the French return serve with a vengeance? Find out after the break. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Some of the best decisions we make in our lives happen under ZipRecruiter.

Under pressure. I always love the story about Churchill when he became prime minister in 1914. It's all kicking off. The Germans are invading in the east. And he says that that night he went back home and he slept like a baby because the pressure that this was the culmination of everything he'd been planning for. And actually, he was at his best under enormous pressure. This is the moment that he lived for.

Dominic, lots of our listeners might have to cope with the pressure that comes from hiring. There is a smart, simple solution, ZipRecruiter. You can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com slash history. So employers, relax.

Again, that's ziprecruiter.com slash history. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire.

Freshly made ravioli or hand-pulled ramen noodles? When you dine with Chase Sapphire Reserve, either will be amazing because it's the choice between a front row seat at the chef's table while getting a live demo of how to make ravioli or dining family style as you hear the story behind your ramen broth. This weekend, it's ravioli.

Next weekend, ramen. Find the detail that moves you with immersive dining experiences from Sapphire Reserve. Chase, make more of what's yours. Learn more at chase.com slash sapphirereserve. Cards issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank and a member FDIC. Subject to credit approval.

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Also, most high and powerful prince, and my most honored and gracious lord, of the news of these parts, may it please your lordship to know that by the arrival of divers good friends repairing to this town and marches, as well from France as from Flanders, it is generally reported to me that without doubt the king, our lord, will be fought by his adversaries within fifteen days from this time at the latest.

And it is said that the Duke of Lorraine, amongst others, has already assembled 50,000 men, and that when they all meet, there will not be less than 100,000 or more.

So that was William Bardolph, the lieutenant governor of Calais, and he was writing to Henry V's brother, the Duke of Bedford, who listeners may remember was left behind to run England. And he is writing to him on the 7th of October, the day before Henry V sets out from Harfleur on this very risky march all the way to

to Calais. And Tom, obviously these numbers, like basically all numbers before about 1700, are kind of made up, massively exaggerated. But what that letter captures is this sense that Henry is taking a hell of a gamble because the French will undoubtedly have a much bigger force. There are all these reports coming in of French troops assembling and

What is he thinking? What's he playing at? Right. So Henry's objective, as we said in the first half, his aim is to march from Hafleur to Calais. And there's a priest in Henry's train. We've already quoted him and he provides a kind of an eyewitness account of this expedition.

And he says in his account that the direct route from Harfleur to Calais is about 100 miles. But Henry knows better. He knows that it's 150 miles. He's expecting that this will take eight days to cover.

And this should be doable. So Henry is leaving the sick behind. He's not taking them with him. Because there's only about 6,000 men, they can use all their horses. So essentially they'll be riding rather than walking. And because Henry is not planning to lay siege to any castles or towns, there's no need to bring the cannon.

There is, however, of course, a need to bring large quantities of arrows. Because Henry, as a young man at the Battle of Shrewsbury, had fought against Hotspur and Hotspur's archers had run out of arrows and that had doomed him. So Henry, having brought all these archers, does not want to be in a situation where, you know, the firepower runs out. And are they taking food with them?

I mean, this is key, right? They think it'll take eight days. Do they have eight days worth of food to take with them? They do. So this is the assumption. It will take eight days and so they take eight days worth of food. And again, because...

traditionally English armies going through France had, you know, they'd done what were called chevauchee, great plundering sweeps through the French countryside. Henry is making his march as someone who thinks he is the king of France. And so he is not prepared to allow that. And so this is why he is taking food with him. He doesn't want his men going out and plundering and,

raping or whatever. But if anything goes wrong, he doesn't have more than eight days food, does he? No, he doesn't. He doesn't. And so this then focuses the challenge for the French. The French have the problem that it's Henry who's setting out. And so to begin with, he has the initiative. The French can't know where Henry is going to be going, but they do know that if Henry is to reach Calais, he's going to have to cross the River Somme,

which is quite a broad river, quite hard for a large expedition to cross. An army trying to cross a river is always incredibly vulnerable. The French strategy is to essentially block any of the obvious crossing points

and force Henry either to advance under attack across the river or to go inland to try and find a forwarding place, which then means, of course, that it will take him much longer than he'd been planning to. And also he will be going further and further away from Calais. So this is their plan. And their immediate target is a place called Blanchetac.

which is a ford, it's just a few miles down from where the Somme meets the Channel. And it was so named after the white stones that marked it, so Blanche-Tac. And this is where Edward III had crossed the Somme on his expedition, which then culminated in the Battle of Crecy. So, you know, it has a kind of resonant role in the history of the wars of the French and the English. And it's very useful because people can cross 12 men abreast there. It would be a quick crossing.

And so the French assume that this is where Henry will try and make his crossing. And Dalbray, the constable who'd been in Rouen with the Dauphin, he marches at top speed to this ford with 6,000 men and they fortify the far bank and block the passage with stakes. And

And meanwhile, other contingents, they're fanning out down the length of the Somme and they're demolishing bridges, smashing up causeways, trying to make it very, very difficult for Henry to cross the river. So that will push him south. Like if he can't cross, he will have to turn to his right and march south.

up the river Somme, south into the heart of France, try and find a crossing place. And of course he will run out of food and they'll be able to surround and kill him. Exactly. And it is a massive problem for Henry because absolutely Blanchetac, this Ford near the sea is exactly where he is hoping to cross. And he approaches it and they capture a prisoner. And this prisoner says, you know, your majesty, uh,

far side is fortified. It's got stakes, it's got Dalbray, it's got 6,000 men. You don't want to cross it. And Henry isn't 100% certain that he believes this. So he continues to interview the prisoner and at the end of the interview he's been convinced. He thinks, yes, the prisoner is telling the truth. And so he halts the

the march, he summons his magnates and they have a council of war and they debate for a couple of hours.

And then they decide we can't risk it. You know, we'll be slaughtered if they really are there. We've got no choice but to start marching up river. There's no question at that point of turning back to our floor. No, it's an interesting one. They don't. Because I think it would be too great a humiliation. So now instead of doing that, they take this mad gamble really of saying we're going to turn inland into the heart of France. Well, I think that's the measure of both Henry's

determination not to be humiliated on the stage of France and indeed of Christendom.

And also his, you know, his inner confidence. This is such Alexander the Great behaviour, I think. As of course, in Shakespeare's play, the Welsh captain Flewellyn, likewise, compares Henry V to Alexander. That's the Welsh blood speaking to you, Tom. Yeah, absolutely. So as you say, this is very, very bad for morale because, you know, Henry's men, they know that they haven't got much food. They're now having to march inland away from Calais.

And they can't be sure that they're going to find a crossing point. So this is all very, very alarming. And what's even more unsettling for them as they start to get a bit peckish is that Henry continues to uphold the ordinances of war. He is still not going to allow them to plunder and to loot and to strip the cottages and the villages of his French subjects of their food.

And to impose this, he instructs that only certain officers can have dealings with the French. So in other words, there's going to be a clear chain of communication that he could control. He's not having people just fanning out. And as a marker of his absolute determination to uphold these rules, when one of his soldiers steals a silver fitting from a church, this guy is publicly hanged.

And in Shakespeare's play, this is a character called Bardolph, who was one of Henry V's drinking companions. One of Falstaff's cronies. When he was Prince Hal. Yeah, he was Falstaff's servant. And in the Kenneth Branagh film, he's played by Richard Bryars, who is the hero of The Good Life, who I think you wrote about, didn't you? I have written about The Good Life. Though for me, Richard Bryars' best role was in Ever Decreasing Circles, Tom. You were not wrong. You were not wrong.

So anyway, so poor Richard Briars gets hanged. And this is all about upholding discipline. Henry also insists that every English soldier should wear the cross of St. George so that they can be identified. And discipline is very, very strict. And

Dominic, I'm proud, proud to say that even the French acknowledge this. I saw this. This brought tears to my eyes, actually. It's wonderful. So a French chronicler says, Henry always observed proper and honourable practices. And there's another French chronicler who contrasts the behaviour of the English, who are notorious in France for the brutality of their chevauchée.

But they say that this time, no, they behaved very well. And it's the French who behave badly as they're kind of charging across Normandy to try and block off all these crossing points on the Somme. And they did nothing, according to this chronicler, save robbing and pillaging towns, monasteries and abbeys and violating women. Plus ça change, Tom. I mean, that basically set the tone for the next 600 years, didn't it? I think the most ringing endorsement of the behaviour of the English on this march

is given by Anne Currie, who it's fair to say is not team Henry V, but even she acknowledges that the overall impression is that the English were better disciplined. That's coming from a herald. It's coming from a herald, so she'd know. Yeah. Yes. So I think all English listeners can feel very proud of that. So hooray for Henry. But of course, none of this helps them cross the Somme and none of this helps them stay well fed. And so as they march through

along the line of the Somme. They're getting more and more depressed. And what adds to their sense of depression is the realisation that they're being shadowed on the other side of the river. So at this point, they can see the French. They have a sense of them. Well, they either see them or they, you know, Henry has spies who are bringing in news. And these spies report that these French armies are being led by Dabre and by Boussicault, who are the two greatest soldiers in France. So, you know, they clearly mean business.

And so we have a brilliant account of how it felt for them that comes from this chaplain in Henry's train.

And he writes, at the time, we thought of nothing else but this, that after the eight days assigned for the march had expired and our provisions had run out, the enemy craftily hasting on ahead and laying waste the countryside in advance would impose on us, hungry as we should be, a really dire need of food. And at the head of the river, if God did not provide otherwise, would with their great and countless host and the engines of war and devices available to them overwhelm us so very few as we were and made faint by great weariness.

and weak from lack of food. So, you know, not a cheery state of play and it comes to seem worse and worse the deeper and deeper into France they go. So three days go by, four days, five days since their failure to ford the Somme at Blanchetac.

And then finally, at dawn on the 19th of October, at last, the English get the news that they've been waiting for. There's not one Ford ahead, there are two. And it's unclear how they're discovered, but it's likely that Henry gets told about them by a kind of local who wants the English off his lands. These Fords are going to be perilous to cross because they have to be approached through a marsh. And obviously for an army to go through a marsh, that's very vulnerable territory.

And the causeways have been smashed up. So Boussica had been there earlier and his men had kind of smashed them up. But it was still possible with difficulty and in a single file, but the opposite bank is not guarded.

So if the luck of the English holds, if no French forces come while they're engaged in this operation to cross the Somme, they will be able to get across. Why is it not guarded? Because the French think they've smashed the causeways and therefore... Because the Somme is so long, there are so many potential crossing points. Okay. You know, they're scattered.

So it's absolutely a moment of excruciating danger. And Henry knows this, but he also knows he has no choice. So what happens is he orders some of his archers in the vanguard to go first and they get their bows, they get their quivers, they hold them up over their heads. They don't want their bow strings to get wet and they cross. And then they take up a position on the far bank to protect those who are going to be following them.

the men-at-arms follow, and then the horses of the vanguard. So to be clear, of course, most men have not been travelling on horseback. They've been just trudging. Yeah, most people have been riding on horseback. Oh, sorry. They have been. Yeah, there have been enough horses for them to be doing that. Right. So the horses are important because it expedites their speed. So once the vanguard is across, you've got the archers, you've got the men-at-arms,

They are then in a position to hold off an attacking force. And while they've been crossing, everybody else has been kind of smashing up local settlements, taking the rubble, using it to build up the causeway so that it can then be crossed. And by one o'clock in the afternoon, so it's taken them the whole morning, the causeways can be negotiated by three men marching abreast.

And the full scale operation happens. And Henry risks dividing up his army. So the body of men cross one of the causeways, the luggage train with all the arrows and supplies and everything crosses the other. And Henry,

They make it across, even though while they're doing it, a squad of French horsemen do ride up and observe them, but they realise that they haven't got enough men to attack Henry's force. And so it is an amazing feat to pull this off. Incredible. And English morale surges correspondingly.

And the chaplain is so excited about it that he thinks the way to Calais is now open and that the news that the English have made it across, in despite of all the French, this will be so demoralising for the French, their morale will plummet. And in the words of the chaplain, they will be disinclined to follow after us to do battle. But unfortunately for him and for the rest of the English, the opposite is actually the case. Because once the English have crossed the Somme,

this vast French army, they know that it's no longer their business to kind of fan out along the length of the river. They need to concentrate and block the path to Calais and engage the English in battle and hopefully wipe them out. Because in a way, although the English are across, they've basically walked into, it's not really a trap, but they've walked into the killing ground. The French army is huge, it's there, and the English now are tired.

Yeah, they're hungry. Yeah, hungry. They're famished. They're wet. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, it's like a kind of, imagine a 10-day walking holiday in the Lake District where you're completely lost. It just rains all the time. You haven't got any food. And then you've got to fight at the end. And then you've got to fight the French. Yeah. So here's the thing. The constable is there. The guy, Alain Sandebrouzo, is there.

Boussico. The paladin. Yeah, he's there. What about the Dauphin? Because you said the Dauphin was, dare I say, too fat to fight. The Dauphin, so there's this great council of war where all these various magnates are in attendance. It's held on the 19th of October, which of course is the same day that the English are crossing the Somme. And it's agreed that if the English do manage to get across, then they will give battle.

And as many men as possible will be summoned. So they shouldn't rush into fighting the English immediately that they cross the river. They should try and get as many people as possible to make the odds absolutely overwhelming, but that they should definitely fight. Now, what will be the role of the Dauphin or even more, you know, the king? Because ideally you want someone from the royal family to lead this expedition.

It's decided that the king obviously is in no state. He's made of glass. Be mad to put him in a battle. You don't want him shattering. The Dauphin, as you say, is a bit podgy, but that's not actually the reason I think why he doesn't go. It's because there are very vivid memories of Poitiers where the king got captured and that bled France dry. They don't want to risk any prospect of the king or the Dauphin being captured and then having to be ransomed. But

But there's also a more immediate and vivid reason, which is that the vast proportion of people in this Council of War are from the Armagnac faction.

And so they are worried about John the Fearless because Henry is about to advance into Burgundian territory and they don't trust the Duke of Burgundy necessarily to be on their side. And so the Dauphin will stay behind and he will be in command of troops that will essentially serve as a screen between Paris and the forces of the Duke of Burgundy as he's raising men.

The people in this council of war are wondering, is it to attack the English or is it to attack Paris? So the Burgundians have raised an army, but they haven't joined with the Armenecs. And they're just sort of waiting. Are they waiting to see who wins? So the shadow of the civil war between the Dukes of Orléans and Burgundy continues to be a massive problem for the French, even with Henry on their doorstep.

So because the king and the dauphin are not going to be present with this army, it's important to have a member of the royal family. And so the Duke of Orléans goes. He's been preparing for his 21st birthday party. Wow. So he's due to be 21 on the 26th of October. So he's obviously been kind of hanging around, getting ready, you know, hiring the disco and all that kind of thing. And then he gets to someone and says, no, you've got to come. So he comes galloping up.

But of course his arrival means that there's no way the Duke of Burgundy is going to join them. And actually neither the Duke nor the Duke of Lorraine, who was mentioned by the Lieutenant of Calais, the reading that you gave at the beginning of this half, and it's feared that he'll be coming with vast forces. He doesn't arrive either because he's an ally of the Duke of Burgundy and nor does the Duke of Burgundy's son, the future Philip the Good, he doesn't arrive either. And

This will become a cause of great shame to both John the Fearless and to Philip the Good, the fact that they weren't at Agincourt. John the Fearless subsequently will explain this by saying that he had been forbidden by the king and by the royal council to come. It may be plausible, and it's certainly the case that his two brothers, the Duke of Brabant and the Count of Nevers,

do ride to battle. And lots of his kind of liegemen, his bannermen from Piketty, which is the region that Enra will be marching through, they do go as well. So it's not like there are no one from the Burgundian side present at Agincourt. But I think that John the Fearless is deliberately sitting it out.

Because obviously if the Armagnacs get wiped out, you know, if maybe the Duke of Orleans will be killed in battle, you know, this would all be great for him. And he would then be in pole position to capitalize on it. So I think that that's why he's not present.

And of course, for a council of war that is dominated by the Armagnacs, I mean, this isn't bad news. They don't want him turning up because they don't want to share the glory of the victory and they don't want the risk of him, I mean, he might be in negotiations with Henry. And they have enough men, right? How many men do they have by this point?

We will come to this in the next episode when we look at the actual battle, because it is a topic of more debate now than it has been for several centuries. Okay. But they definitely have more than Henry V. They definitely have more, and specifically...

And spoiler alert, I think they have substantially more. But it is more of a live debate than it has been for a while, as I say. So we'll talk about that. But yeah, they have a large force. And so therefore, they are pretty confident of victory. They have more than sufficient numbers to do the job. And so the day after this Council of War, the 20th of October, they send a herald to ride to Henry.

and to formally issue him with a challenge to battle. So this is kind of very Arthurian. This is chivalry and all that kind of thing. And Henry, like the chivalrous knight that he is, he receives this herald very graciously, and he sends a herald of his own back to the French. And the message that this herald delivers, it is not necessary to pick a day nor a place, for every day they could find him in the open fields without any difficulty."

In other words, you know, if you want it, come and get it. You know where I am. And so from this point on, he orders all his men to wear the coats of arms on their circuits if they're entitled to do this. And this is a signal to the French that they are ready to fight. They are ready for combat.

But in the meanwhile, they continue their march towards Calais. The road is now direct. There are no real kind of impediments. And they do it expecting the French to attack them at any moment. They are becoming increasingly nervous. The surge of morale that had followed the crossing of the Somme is starting to subside. And then their mood of anxiety is absolutely heightened by the

a time where they're going along the road and suddenly they see ahead of them that the road has been completely churned up.

they can see that a massive force has gone ahead of them. And they realise that this must be the French forces under Dalbray and Boussico, the two great leaders of the French force, who are looking for a suitable place to offer battle. And so that at some point in the next day, maybe the day after that, they're going to find the French army drawn across the road to Calais is going to be impassable.

But for three days after that, they continue marching northwards. The conditions are completely grim. There's icy rain everywhere.

disgusting winds. Their food supplies now are really, really low. They're all feeling really, really hungry. And the terrain is becoming increasingly kind of hilly. They're having to go up and down, up and down. And a lot of them are ill, aren't they, at this point? They have colds or dysentery or whatever, don't they? No, I don't think they're too ill. It's not like Harfleur. I mean, of course, you know, some are, but no, I think they're...

They're despondent and wet and miserable and hungry, but they're still kind of just about in a fit state to fight a battle. But their hope is actually, you know, as the days pass and they still don't run into the French, maybe they'll do it. So by the 24th of October, they're only about 40 miles from Calais. I mean, they can almost feel that they're there.

And on the 24th of October, early morning, the English are descending into a river valley and ahead of them is a river called the Ternoise. It's not a massive river, but you know, but you don't want to be caught crossing it. So they're coming down towards the river when Henry's scouts come galloping up and they say, Your Majesty,

alarming news. There are large numbers of French gathering in the road about three miles beyond the river. And it looks like, you know, this is what we've been waiting for. They are massing there and they are ready to offer battle. And for Henry, this is alarming news because he's got to get across this river. You know, the Ford may be held against him, even if it isn't, if the French attack him while he's crossing this river, you know, that would be not ideal. So he turns to his men and he says, onwards, we've got to make full steam ahead.

So they hurry down towards the river, huge relief. They find that the Ford is not held against them. They cross the river at top speed and then they march up the hill again towards the crest of the next ridge. And they reached the crest of the hill and at the top of the hill, they gaze at the vista that they see before them. And the sight is a terrifying one.

and I quote, "about half a mile away, the grim looking ranks of the French." And these ranks are being added to all the time. As they stand there on the ridge, the English can see ever more squadrons of French marching in, riding in, swelling the numbers of the army that is blocking the road to Calais. And Henry asks his spies,

These two villages ahead of us, I can see that the French are kind of massing there around them. What are the names of these villages? And he is told, well, one of them is called Risseville and the other, Your Majesty, the name of this village, it is Agincourt. Well, if you want to hear what happens next right away, then you can join the Rest Is History Club at therestishistory.com.

But either way, we will be back with the Battle of Agincourt. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. One for sorrow, two for joy, three for girl, four for a boy.

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