The English, on their part, passed a night of serious reflection. They had made a long march under great difficulties and privations. Many of them were wasted by sickness, worn down by fatigue and scanty and unwholesome fare. They were in the presence of an immense force. But they were descendants of the heroes of Creçy, which lay not far off, and they had the utmost confidence in the bravery of their leader. They spent the early part of the night in making their wills, and in devotion. The king visited every quarter of his little camp, and sent out, as soon as the moon gave light enough, officers to arrange the plan of the battle on the next day, and ordered bands of music to play through the whole night.
At break of day Henry summoned the men to attend matins and mass, and then leading them into the field, arranged them in his usual manner, in three divisions and two wings; but in such close array that the whole appeared but as one body. The archers, who were his grand strength, he posted in advance of the men-at-arms, four in file, in the form of a wedge. Besides their bows and arrows, the archers were now armed each with a battle-axe and a sword. The fatal field of Bannockburn, where the archers were rendered useless by their want of side arms, when Bruce rode his cavalry amongst them, seems to have taught the English this precaution. Every man, too, bore on his shoulder the stout stake, which Henry had ordered them to provide themselves with, pointed at each end, and tipped with iron. These they planted obliquely before them, as chevaux de frise, and thus presented a formidable rampart to the French cavalry.
The French had drawn up their host in a manner similar to that of Henry, but instead of their files being four, they were thirty-nine deep. The Constable himself commanded the first division; the Dukes of Bar and Alençon the second. But in their eagerness to come at the English, they had crowded their troops into a narrow field between two woods, where they had no room to deploy, or even to use their weapons freely, and the ground was so slippery with the rain, that their horses could with difficulty keep on their legs; while the English archers, who were immediately opposed to them, were not only on foot, but many of them barefooted, and, disencumbered of their clothes, were ready to make their way alertly over the soft ground.
Both the French and English commanders had ordered their men to seat themselves on the ground with their weapons before them, and thus they continued to face each other without action for some time. The Constable, most probably to gain time for the arrival of the expected reinforcements, still lay quiet, and Henry took the opportunity to distribute refreshments of food and wine through his ranks. He also seized the opportunity to send off secretly two detachments, one to lie in ambush in a woody meadow at Tramecourt, on their left flank, and the other to set fire to some houses in their rear as soon as they were engaged, to throw them into alarm.
Scarcely had the king executed this manœuvre, when he was surprised by a deputation of three French knights from D'Albret, the commander. They came to offer him a free passage to Calais, if he would agree to surrender Harfleur, and renounce his pretensions to the throne of France. Henry disdained to enter into any negotiations except on the very same terms that he had dictated before he left England; and, penetrating the real object of these overtures, that of gaining time, he impatiently dismissed the matter. But the envoys were not to be so readily despatched. One of them, the Sire de Helly, who had been a prisoner in England, and was accused of breaking his parole, introduced that matter, and offered to meet in single combat, between the two armies, any man who should dare to asperse his honour.
"Sir Knight," said Henry, curtly, "this is no time for single combats. Go, tell your countrymen to prepare for battle, and doubt not that, for the violation of your word, you shall a second time forfeit your liberty if not your life."
"Sir," replied De Helly, insolently, determined to prolong the parley, "I will receive no orders from you. Charles is our sovereign. Him we will obey, and for him we will fight against you whenever we think proper."
"Away, then," said Henry, "and take care that we are not before you." And instantly stepping forward he cried, "Banners, advance!"
With that Sir Thomas Erpingham, a brave old warrior, threw his warder into the air, exclaiming, "Now strike!" and the English moved on in gallant style till they came within bowshot of the French lines. Then every man kneeling down kissed the ground, a custom which they had learned from the Flemish, who at the great battle of Courtray, where they defeated the French cavalry with such brilliancy, had thus each taken up a particle of earth in his mouth, while the priest in front elevated the Host. It was a sign of consecration to the great duty of the day; and having done this homage to the God of battles, they rose up with a tremendous shout, struck each man his pointed stake into the ground before him, and stepping in front of these stakes, sent a flight of arrows at their foes, and again retired behind them.
The Constable, who well knew the terrible effect of the English archers on the French troops, had prepared a scheme similar to that of Bruce at Bannockburn to break their line, and throw them into confusion. He had few or no archers, for the French at that period adhered to the feudal notion that knights and gentlemen only must handle arms. The dreadful defeats of Creçy and Poitiers had not cured them of the foolish idea that arms must not be trusted to plebeian hands. He therefore had trained a body of 1,200 men-at-arms under Messire Clignet, of Brabant, who were to make a desperate charge on the archers, and break up their ranks. They came on with fierce cries of "Mountjoye! St. Denis!" but the slipperiness of the ground, and the fierce flight of arrows which struck through their visors and their armour, threw them at once into confusion. Their horses reeled and stumbled against each other in the muddy clay, and to avoid the iron hail of arrows they turned their heads aside, and thus knew not how to guide their steeds. Of the whole 1,200 not more than seven score ever reached the spiked barricade of the archers, from which the few remaining horses recoiled; and the whole troop in a few minutes lay dead or wounded on the ground. Only three horses are said to have penetrated within the line of stakes, and there they fell perforated with wounds. Meantime, hundreds of wounded steeds were dashing to and fro, and continually returning upon the French lines, stung to madness by their pain. All became confusion and disorder in the first division. The men-at-arms were so wedged together that they could not extricate themselves from the throng to advance or retreat. While the bravest strove to rush on the enemy, the timid endeavoured to fall back on the next division, and the most awful chaos arose.