Battle of Agincourt

The Battle of Agincourt was fought on 25 October 1415, Saint Crispin's Day, near the village of Azincourt in northern France. A tired and outnumbered English army under King Henry V defeated a much larger French force, killing a large part of the French nobility. The victory revived the English cause in the Hundred Years' War and opened the way to the conquest of Normandy.

Henry V of England revived his great-grandfather Edward III's claim to the French throne. In practice he was ready to trade it for large territories, including Normandy and an enlarged Aquitaine, a vast payment and marriage to Catherine, daughter of the French king Charles VI. The French offered much less. France was weakened by the mental illness of Charles VI and by a bitter feud between two noble factions, the Armagnacs and the Burgundians. When talks collapsed, Henry's council agreed to war in April 1415.

Henry landed in Normandy on 13 August 1415 with roughly 12,000 men and besieged the port of Harfleur. The town held out until 22 September, and dysentery spread through the English camp. Rather than sail home with a single conquest, Henry marched the remaining army, perhaps 9,000 men or fewer, north-east towards the English-held port of Calais. The French shadowed him, blocked the crossings of the Somme and finally placed their army across his route near Azincourt.

The size of the two armies is disputed. Eyewitness-based estimates give the English about 6,000 men, most of them archers, against a French army several times larger, while some historians working from pay records argue for closer numbers, perhaps 12,000 to 15,000 French against 8,000 to 9,000 English. Either way the French were clearly stronger, especially in armoured men-at-arms.

The ground favoured the defender. The battlefield was a narrow strip of freshly ploughed land between two woods, soaked by heavy rain. Henry advanced his line, and his archers drove sharpened stakes into the ground in front of them. The French cavalry charges failed under the arrows, and the dismounted men-at-arms who followed struggled forward through deep mud, crowded together so tightly that many could hardly use their weapons. The English archers, lightly equipped, joined the hand-to-hand fighting. Late in the battle, fearing a renewed attack, Henry ordered most of the French prisoners to be killed; how many died is unknown.

French losses were very heavy, perhaps around 6,000 dead, among them the constable Charles d'Albret, three dukes and many counts and royal officers. Between about 700 and 2,200 were taken prisoner, including the Duke of Orléans. English losses were far smaller, though estimates range from about a hundred to several hundred; the Duke of York was among the dead.

Henry returned to a triumphant welcome in London in November 1415. The defeat deepened the civil conflict in France, and Henry used it to conquer Normandy from 1417. The Treaty of Troyes in 1420 made him heir to the French throne and husband of Catherine, but he died in 1422, before Charles VI. English power in France peaked in the following years before French recovery, inspired by Joan of Arc, began at Orléans in 1429. The battle became a national legend in England, above all through William Shakespeare's play Henry V.

Our 1400 map shows the Kingdom of France shortly before the campaign, and the 1492 map shows the Kingdom of England after almost all its French lands had been lost.