Agincourt Henry V, the Man at Arms & the Archer

Henry V, King of England and claimant to the throne of France looked out across the field of Agincourt, the site of a remarkable victory, but there were few scenes of glory that met his eyes. Heaps of the dead and dying, the cream of French chivalry, were piled high. The stench of death permeated the air, rising above the muddy carnage and assaulting the senses. In contrast there were few English dead, the most notable of them Edward of Langley, the Duke of York and one of the most powerful men in the land, but the losses suffered by Henry’s forces were small in comparison.

This was not a victory for Henry’s knights but first and foremost for his humble archers; men like William Thomas and John de Lathom from Cheshire or the Welshman Howel ap John. It was to them the glory, if any, truly belonged. They would be able to live off this day for the rest of their lives. For others though, the rewards were greater and more immediate; those who held captive the greatest of the French nobles could make a fortune – in this respect, one squire by the name of William Wolf had just hit the jackpot.

Agincourt would define the reputation of Henry V for the next six centuries, yet controversy was never far away. In the heat of battle, a massacre of French prisoners took place that shocked contemporaries to the core. More recently, historians have questioned whether the numerical disparity was quite as great as the chroniclers of the day suggested. Despite it all, Agincourt remains one of the great set-piece battles of the Middle Ages and a triumph that great names in English history such as Churchill can use as an inspiration down to our own times. This is the story of one remarkable day that was unparalleled in English history through the eyes of the king, a remarkable archer and the squire.

W. B. Bartlett has worked across the globe in almost twenty countries and has spent time in over fifty. He is the author of many history books for Amberley on the Titanic, The Mongols, Agincourt and Dam Busters. He lives in Bournemouth.