The king who rallied his drenched troops to victory
Henry V was an inspiring military leader, but he had no mercy for the defeated, says John Hinton

29 January 2010

1415: Henry V's Year of Glory
Ian Mortimer
The Bodley Head £20

Shakespeare's Henry V, as famously played by Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh, is depicted as one of the greatest English heroes, lionised for his Catholic piety, his unflinching adherence to what he thought right and his victory over the French at Agincourt.

There have been dozens of books about King Henry but this latest, by the noted medieval historian Ian Mortimer, seeks to reappraise his reputation by looking at the events of 1415, the pivotal year of his reign.

Recording the events of King Henry's dramatic year on a day-by-day basis, Mortimer sets out to offer the most complete view of Henry we have seen. He tells the story against the background of struggles for power within the Catholic Church in Europe and official attempts to eradicate any deviant religious beliefs. And he explains why Henry tried to unify the kingdoms of England and France - and was prepared to burn people alive as heretics.

Henry clearly regarded taking a large bite out of northern France as his God-given right. But it was a huge risk. French resistance turned out to be extraordinary. And nobody could have anticipated the impact of the weather on events as the rain clouds rolled in.

On Saturday June 1 the jewels in the Tower of London were pawned by Richard Courtenay to raise funds for the coming war. Days later, a team of fletchers were commissioned to start crafting the arrows and bolts which could pierce heavy armour.

At the start of July, French envoys arrived at Wolvesey Castle to preach peace but were dismissed by Henry. Events now started to move apace; the keepers of passage at 15 key ports were ordered not to allow anyone to leave the country. And that same month Jan Hus was condemned as a heretic, unfrocked and then burned at the stake.

On August 7 a royal order was sent to all English sheriffs "on pain of grievous forfeiture" to order all men to watch towns and shores. And innkeepers were not to allow strangers stay for more than a night or a day without knowing their reasons.

The chronology fascinates, even though the reader already knows the outcome. We can follow the Battle of the Somme and D-Day minute by minute in words, stills, maps and moving pictures.

Here, Mortimer hauls us back almost 600 years when none of the communications apparatus we enjoy was even dreamed of. He has carried out his exhausting task very well. Yet, of course, there is some guesswork about a time when communication was through letters carried by mounted messengers. Orders could go astray or become overtaken by events. And, as Napoleon was to discover in Russia, an army marches on its stomach, especially important when battles were trials of physical endurance as they certainly were in Henry's time.

A tall man with a long, pale face and dark hair cropped in a distinctive bowl, Henry was a warrior and dedicated ruler who drove himself and all around him extremely hard. The frivolity, feasting, dancing and music associated with medieval life didn't seem to interest him. Nor did relationships with women or jousting, then the sport of nobles and kings.

He seems, as Mortimer points out, to have lacked the simpler qualities of "warmth and the understanding of human frailty that one looks for in all men - yeomen and paupers as well as kings". He was undermined by his pride and overwhelmed by his authority.

All this is revealed as the reader is cranked forward through Henry's glorious year. On Sunday August 11 the English fleet set sail.

The following Thursday, the Feast of the Assumption, thousands of English soldiers had landed and were swarming around Harfleur, pillaging and destroying villages en route. The people of Harfleur courageously refused to surrender after a relentless bombardment and, with no sign of French troops being assembled, they agreed a truce after Henry threatened death to all inhabitants, including women and children. At the end of August the French king proposed the heaviest taxes ever seen to finance an army to combat his enemies.

By Michelmas, at the end of September, Henry prayed, considered his options and, against all advice, took the risk of marching to Calais. His troops, their supplies low, began taking a route to Blangy where they could cross the Ternoise River. But that is exactly where a French army was heading; if they got there first things would look bleak.

Come October 15, the Feast of St Crispin and St Crispinian, and after the rain-drenched night - which, in fact, proved a blessing - Henry attended Mass three times then gathered his frightened troops, showed himself among them in his gleaming armour and mounted on his charger to raise their spirits. And then they waited to face the French army in silence.

Mortimer believes the ratio of French to English at Agincourt was actually 2:1 and here he claims a scoop, suggesting that the reason for over-estimates of French forces was that the French had many more pages who rode their masters' spare mounts, giving the impression of a larger cavalry force.

What happened next? We know that the mounted French knights were confident of sweeping the English aside and capturing their upstart king. Altogether 8,000 charged to be met by sheets of English arrows, aimed initially at the horses and then at the knights. Slaughter ensued as they piled up against each other in the muddy killing ground and Henry gave his foot soldiers the order to advance and make the day his own.

Henry must have thanked God. But we will always wonder about his decision to order the killing of 200 captured French knights. Mortimer suggests that it was a panicked reaction to a rally by the French cavalry. Yet he concludes that "the killing was an ungodly act". And Shakespeare omitted this episode altogether.

The author's view is that Henry, a deeply religious Catholic king, was flawed by impatience and an unflinching passion to succeed which could cruelly fling opponents aside. He certainly demonstrated that at Agincourt.