England under Henry V won the Battle of Agincourt on 25 October 14151, when a hungry, badly outnumbered English army destroyed the French chivalry on a muddy field in northern France. It became famous as the day massed longbowmen humbled the armoured knight, and as one of the most lopsided upsets of the Hundred Years War.
On a muddy field in northern France, a hungry, outnumbered English army fought the flower of French chivalry, and destroyed it. Agincourt is remembered as the day the longbow humbled the armoured knight, and as one of the most lopsided upsets in the history of war.
The battle from both sides
Two perspectivesHenry V's small, sick and hungry army was trying to reach Calais when the French blocked its path at Agincourt. Henry chose a narrow field between two woods that funnelled the enemy and drew up his men-at-arms with massed longbowmen on the flanks behind sharpened stakes. Rain had turned the ploughed ground to deep mud. When the French advanced on foot and horse, the arrow storm and the mire broke their charge, and the packed, floundering attackers were cut down or captured in huge numbers. The astonishing victory revived English fortunes in the war and became a lasting symbol of English defiance against the odds.
The French came to Agincourt confident of crushing Henry's exhausted little army with their far greater numbers and the flower of French chivalry. But the narrow, muddy field between the woods gave their numbers no room, and their own crossbowmen and guns were pushed aside. Advancing on foot in heavy armour across the mire, under a hail of English arrows, the knights arrived exhausted and jammed together, unable to fight or flee. Thousands died and many great lords were killed or taken, a catastrophe for the French nobility. The defeat deepened France's divisions and let England dominate the next phase of the Hundred Years' War.
A march to disaster
King Henry V of England had landed in France and taken the port of Harfleur, but at a heavy price2: a long siege and an outbreak of dysentery that hollowed out his army. Rather than sail home, he marched for the English-held town of Calais.3 A far larger French army moved to cut him off, and near the village of Agincourt, on 25 October, it finally did.
The field between the woods
The ground favoured the desperate. Henry drew up his men on a narrow, newly ploughed field, boxed in by thick woods on both sides1. That funnel meant the French could not use their greater numbers to outflank him. Overnight rain had turned the freshly turned earth to deep, clinging2 mud.
The arrow storm
The heart of Henry's army was thousands of longbowmen, who planted sharpened stakes to break any charge2 and then loosed volley after volley into the packed French ranks. Under that iron rain the French men-at-arms advanced on foot, heads down, into the narrowing field.
The mud
The mud did the rest. Weighed down by heavy plate, funnelled together tighter and tighter, the first French line staggered forward exhausted and was cut down where it stumbled. Fresh ranks pushing from behind only piled into the crush. Lightly armoured English archers dropped their bows, took up mallets and knives, and waded in among the trapped knights.4
The reckoning
French losses were catastrophic, thousands dead including a great swathe of the nobility5, while English dead numbered only in the hundreds. At one tense moment, fearing a fresh attack on his rear, Henry ordered the killing of French prisoners, a decision debated ever since.2 By evening the field belonged to England.
Legend
Agincourt made Henry's reputation and, for a time, his claim to the French throne, sealed in the Treaty of Troyes. More lasting was the myth: the outnumbered band of brothers, the humble bowman felling the proud knight, a story Shakespeare would carve into English memory nearly two centuries later.2
