The glory of this victory was marred by a deplorable incident. News was brought to Henry that the enemy were attacking his rear, and had already captured a large part of his baggage. The battle was not yet over, but it was already clear which way it was going: “during the heat of the combat, when the English had gained the upper hand and made several prisoners,” are the words which Monstrelet uses to describe the time. But victory, though in sight, was not yet gained. Henry knew that the forces of the enemy still outnumbered his own. Even yet, were they to know that any part of his line had been broken, they might rally and change the fortune of the day. Were such an effort to be made, the prisoners, of whom a considerable number had already been taken, would be a formidable danger. At the best they would require a guard of fighting men, which he could not spare; they might even take part in the attack. The safety of the army seemed to require decisive and instant action, and accordingly Henry issued orders that the prisoners were to be killed. It may well have been a necessity, but it was a necessity of the most deplorable kind. Yet we must not suppose that the opinion of those days regarded the act as it would be regarded by ourselves. “It was a most lamentable thing,” writes a Norman gentleman who was with the English army, and who was probably an eye-witness of the scene, “for all these noblemen of France were there killed and cut to pieces, heads and faces; it was a fearful sight to see.” The natural human horror at so bloody a spectacle comes out in the last words; but what seemed so lamentable a thing to the Sieur de St. Remy was that so many noblemen of France should be thus slaughtered. For prisoners, it must be remembered, were not taken out of mercy. The ransoms that they would pay were the points in the great war-game which nobles and knights were playing. No man, we may be sure, ever encumbered himself with a prisoner from whom nothing could be expected. The penniless common soldier was slaughtered without mercy. It perfectly agrees with this that the knights to whom the King issued his command flatly refused to obey it, and that he had to send a squire with three hundred archers to execute it. The money-interest of the knights in the lives of the prisoners was too powerful for the sense of discipline, seldom very strong in a feudal army, and even for the instinct of self-preservation. To kill their prisoners would be to lose their only hope of repaying themselves for the vast outlay of their equipment. Doubtless it was against the strong class-feeling of the day that a gentleman should be so put to death; this would be against the rules of the game. But it is certain that considerations of finance more than of humanity dictated this refusal to execute the King’s orders.
As a matter of fact, the horrible deed was not, after all, a military necessity. The news that was brought to Henry had been grossly exaggerated. The attack on the rear of the army was really nothing but an attempt to plunder. A few men-at-arms and about six hundred peasants, led by one Isambart, a resident in the village of Agincourt, whose local knowledge probably suggested the attempt, fell upon the baggage of the English army and succeeded in rifling a large part of it. A long list of the jewels which were lost on that occasion is preserved among the public records. Walsingham tells us that the English crown was captured, and being sent, as we may suppose, to Paris, caused great delight, as it seemed to augur the capture of the King himself. Monstrelet mentions, as part of the spoil, a sword, ornamented with diamonds, that was also part of the royal property: with this precious offering Isambart of Agincourt vainly endeavoured to appease the wrath of the Duke of Burgundy, who, justly regarding him as responsible for the massacre of the prisoners, had him thrown into prison.
Henry now rode round the field of battle, accompanied by his kinsmen and the great nobles attached to his person. He called to him the French herald, Montjoye, king-at-arms, and other heralds, French and English. “It is not we,” he said, “who have made this great slaughter, but the omnipotent God, and, as we believe, as a punishment for the sins of the French.” He then asked Montjoye, “To whom does this victory belong—to me, or to the King of France?” “To you, sire,” was Montjoye’s answer. Then looking round him, he saw the turrets of a castle rising out of the wooded hollow in which lay the village of Agincourt. “What castle is that?” he asked. He was told that it was the castle of Agincourt. “Well, then,” said he, “since all battles should bear the name of the fortress nearest to the spot where they were fought, this battle shall from henceforth bear the ever durable name of Agincourt.”
The French loss was enormous. Monstrelet gives a long list of the chief princes and nobles who fell on that fatal field. It contains, doubtless, some errors; but it has the look of having been prepared after careful inquiry. Hence we are disposed to trust his estimate, which, including princes, knights, and men-at-arms of every degree, he puts at ten thousand. The loss at Crecy, if we may trust Froissart, who, however, was not there writing of his own knowledge, had indeed been much greater, for more than thirty thousand men had been then left dead on the field. But of these not more than twelve hundred were nobles and knights, whereas at Agincourt, out of the ten thousand only sixteen hundred are said to have been “of low degree.” One hundred and six-score banners are also said to have been taken.
Besides the Duke d’Alençon, whose death has been described above, there fell two brothers of the Duke of Burgundy, Charles d’Albret, Constable of France, the Admiral of France, and the Master of the King’s Household. Three hundred others of the slain were persons of sufficient importance to make Monstrelet give their names and titles. The number of knights and gentlemen taken prisoners was fifteen hundred. Among them were Charles, Duke of Orleans, and the Duke of Bourbon, both princes of the blood-royal. Henry, it will be seen, attached much importance to their capture.
Monstrelet puts the English loss at sixteen hundred. The principal persons among the dead were the Duke of York, who is said to have been crushed to death in the throng, and Michael de la Pole, the young Earl of Suffolk. Walsingham’s estimate is improbable. Besides York and Suffolk he says that only one squire (David Gam by name), four men-at-arms, and twenty-eight common soldiers fell. It seems impossible that several hours of severe fighting between two armies, fairly matched in armour and equipment, should not have resulted in greater loss to the conquerors. His estimate of the French loss is also much smaller than Monstrelet’s: “Of great lords,” he writes, “there fell to the number of nearly one hundred, and of soldiers and men-at-arms four thousand and sixty-nine.” He also reduces the number of prisoners to seven hundred; and on this point he would very probably have better means of information than Monstrelet.
The English army remained on the field of battle till it was quite clear that nothing more was to be feared from the enemy, and then they returned to the village of Maisoncelles, their quarters on the previous night. The next morning they again visited the scene of their victory. All the French they found there alive were put to death or made prisoners—a significant comment on what has been said above as to the slaughter of the prisoners. To kill the wounded is now considered an atrocity which no civilised enemy would commit. In the fifteenth century it was evidently the usual alternative when the wounded person was not likely to turn out a profitable prisoner. The chronicler mentions it as a matter of course, without so much as a hint of blame.
Nothing more conclusively shows the absolute collapse of the French Government than the neglect of the field of battle. For nearly a week the dead were left uncared for. The most valuable parts of the spoil had been carried off by the English. “The greater part of the armour,” writes Monstrelet, “was untouched on the dead bodies, but it did not long remain thus, for it was very soon stripped off, and even the shirts and all other parts of their dress were carried off by the peasants of the neighbouring villages. The bodies were left exposed, as naked as when they were born.” The remains of the great nobles were indeed carried away—some to be buried in the Church of the Friars Minor in the neighbouring town of Hesdin; others were taken to their own homes in various parts of France. At last the compassion of the Count of Charolois, eldest son of the Duke of Burgundy, was moved by the deplorable spectacle. By his orders the bodies still left on the field, to the number of five thousand eight hundred, were interred in three trenches twelve feet wide, dug within a measured square of twenty-five yards, which was surrounded by a thorn hedge strong enough to keep out wolves and wild dogs. The enclosure still remains, a small wooded clump among the rich corn-fields of the upland of Agincourt. Within it stands a pillar erected some few years ago by the lord of the neighbouring manor, the Marquis of Tramecourt, himself a descendant of one who fought at the battle, and had the good fortune to escape with both life and liberty.