History of the British Army (Vol.1&2). J. W. Fortescue
could not move. The English simply took off the helmets of their prisoners, and, leaving them thus exposed, pressed on against the second line. This, however, was already shaken by the defeat of the vanguard; and though one leader who had arrived late in the field, the Duke of Brabant, set a gallant example, he was quickly cut down, and the defeat of the second line followed quickly on his fall. The third line still remained, but being mounted, contrary to orders, had no mind to stay and fight, but turned and fled, leaving some few of their leaders alone to redeem French honour by a hopeless struggle and a noble death.
This battle was hardly won when word was brought to Henry that his baggage, with all his treasure as well as all the horses, was in the hands of plunderers. The guard in fact had been unable to resist the temptation to join in the fight, and had left the baggage to take care of itself. The momentary confusion hereby caused gave some of the French time to rally, and Henry, not knowing how great the danger might be, ordered every man to kill his prisoners. The English hesitated, less possibly from humanity than from reluctance to lose good ransom, whereupon Henry told off two hundred archers for the duty, which was promptly carried out. He can hardly be blamed, for the fight had been won less by the slaughter than by the capture of the men-at-arms; and the risk of undertaking a new attack in front with some thousands of unwounded prisoners in rear, was serious. Be that as it may, the deed was done. Henry then advanced against the rallied French and quickly broke them up; and at four o'clock, the victory being at last complete, he left the field. The French loss in nobles alone numbered from five to eight thousand men killed, exclusive of common men. A thousand prisoners and a hundred and twenty banners were taken. The losses of the English are uncertain, but probably did not exceed a few hundreds, the most distinguished of the fallen being the Duke of York.
So ended the great fight which King Harry himself decreed to be called by the name of Agincourt.[29] It sums up in itself the leading features of Creçy, Poitiers, and Cocherel, in a word of all the finest actions of the Edwards. But it was, as fate ordained, but the afterglow of the glory of the Plantagenets, not the light of a sun new risen like a giant to run his course.
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1415.
1420.
To attempt to follow the later campaigns of Henry the Fifth in France would be alike tedious and unprofitable. To the last he stuck to the principles of the Black Prince, but his military talents ripened year after year, and while he lived France trembled under his sword. Finally, torn to pieces by the strife of Burgundian and Armagnac, France by the Treaty of Troyes surrendered her kingship into his hand. The contempt of the English for their enemy was such that the men once assaulted and captured a town without orders. But in the very next year came a reverse that boded ominously for the future. The Duke of Clarence was defeated at Beaugé, less by the French than by a body of Scottish auxiliaries, who had been sent to their assistance under the Earl of Buchan. Henry had hoped that the Scots would not fight against him, and ordered them henceforth to be treated as rebels, but it was to no purpose. The reader should take note of this fateful year 1421, for it marks the permanent entrance of the Scots into the service of France, a fact full of import for both countries. Moreover, he will in due time see a regiment, still called the Royal Scots, withdrawn from the French army to become the first of the English Line.
1422.
The return of King Henry to France after Beaugé soon re-established the ascendency of the English arms; and then, while still in the prime of life, he sickened even in the midst of his operations and died. He was but thirty-four years of age, a great administrator, a great captain, and above all a grand disciplinarian. Yet he was no brutal martinet; nay, when once he had cast his wild days behind him he never even swore. "Impossible," or "It must be done," was the most that he said. But "he was so feared by his princes and captains that none dared to disobey his orders, however nearly related to him, and the principal cause was that if any one transgressed his orders he punished him at once without favour or mercy."[30] He and the army that fought with him at Agincourt are the true precursors of Craufurd and the Light Division. His body, borne with mournful pomp from the castle of Vincennes, still rests among us in Westminster Abbey, and above it still hang his saddle, his shield blazoned with the lilies of France, and the helmet, deeply dinted by two sword-cuts, which he wore at Agincourt. Not for three centuries was another soldier to rise up in England of equal fame with the Black Prince, John Hawkwood, and King Harry the Fifth.
Authorities.—For the life of Hawkwood see Temple Leader's Sir John Hawkwood. For the campaign of Agincourt, Gesta Henrici Quinti and Monstrelet's Chronicles are the chief authorities, while Sir Harris Nicholas's Agincourt furnishes a quantity of supplementary information. Other authorities will be found enumerated in Köhler, who is always the best guide in respect of military operations.
CHAPTER V
It is now our sad duty to watch the military glory of the Plantagenets wane fainter and fainter, until it disappears, to be followed by a period of darkness until the light is slowly rekindled at the flame of foreign fires. The decline of our supremacy in arms was not at first rapid. John, Duke of Bedford, possessed a combination of military and administrative talent little less remarkable than that of his brother the late King, and as Regent of France he took up the reins of government and command with no unskilful hand. Everything turned upon the maintenance of existing factions in France. England working with Burgundy, the red cross of St. Andrew with the red cross of St. George, could preserve the English dominion; otherwise that dominion must inevitably fall. The French, after the lull created by Henry's death, gathered an army together of which the kernel was three thousand Scots, and marched into Burgundy to besiege Crevant. A body of four thousand picked English and Burgundians at once hastened after them, and although outnumbered, and compelled, by the advance of a second French army in their rear, to fight their battle and win it at whatever cost, they defeated the enemy completely and cut the Scots to pieces almost to a man. All was still done as King Harry had done it. English tactics were forced, on pain of death, upon English and Burgundians[31] alike, and discipline was most strictly preserved. It was not a promising beginning for the French, but Scotland was ready to furnish more men, and France not less ready to receive them; and so the extraordinary struggle of French against French, and English against Scots was renewed once more.
1424.
Early in 1424 ten thousand Scottish men-at-arms, under Archibald, Earl of Douglas, arrived at Rochelle, and were welcomed with eagerness by the French. Douglas was created Duke of Touraine, and all went merrily until on the 17th of August French and English, with their allies, met under the walls of Verneuil. The French and Scots numbered close on twenty thousand men, the English twelve thousand, of whom eight thousand were archers. Contrary to the hitherto accepted practice, the French formed their army into a single huge central battalion of dismounted men, with cavalry on each wing, the mounted men being designed to fall upon the English flanks and rear. Bedford, who commanded the English, imitated the enemy in forming only a single battalion, but dismounted the whole of his force, covering his front and flanks with archers, who as at Agincourt carried stakes as a defence against the attack of horse. His baggage he parked in rear, the horses being tied collar to tail that they might be the less easily driven off; and he appointed as baggage-guard no fewer than ten thousand archers.
For the whole morning the two armies stood opposite to each other in order of battle, each waiting for the other to attack; but at last, at three in the afternoon, the French advanced and were received by the English with a mighty shout. The French cavalry on the wings charged, broke through the archers, and sweeping round the English rear fell upon the baggage. They were greeted by the guard with a shower of arrows, but contrived none the less to carry off some quantity of spoil, with which they galloped away, feeling sure that the day was won.[32] But meanwhile the two battalions of dismounted men-at-arms, those on the French side being exclusively Scots, had closed and were fighting desperately. For a moment the English were beaten back by superior numbers; but Salisbury, John Talbot, and other tried leaders were with them, and they soon recovered themselves. The archers