With a loud shout the English bowmen advance twenty paces, and firmly plant their stakes to form a formidable palisade. On come the heavy-armed cavalry of the enemy in dense masses, thirty deep. The archers step forward a few yards, and slowly and steadily begin to shoot. Not an arrow is wasted; every shaft flies home. To stand still on the French side is to be shot down like a dog; to turn back is impossible with the huge press of soldiery behind. So, as the death-hail falls, the French men-at-arms spur their heavy chargers through the mire of the freshly-ploughed field. The deadly arrows never cease to fall, and down go horse and man until they lie in ghastly heaps two spears high. The French army is a helpless, heaving mass.
“Now’s the day and now’s the hour” for the English archers. They sling their bows on their backs, they leap forward, and throwing themselves on the struggling heaps ply sword and mace, axe and bill, with almost superhuman strength. The living fall on the dead, the dead on the living, and the English climb the horrible, writhing mounds and hew and hack at the high-born French knights. King Harry is in the thickest press. Certain French knights swear to take or slay the English king. They hew their way to him; a shrewd blow slices the crown from his helmet, but it is the last blow ever struck by that arm.
The first line is swept to earth, the second line has fallen like wheat before the reaper’s sickle, and now the third line advances. Taken in flank by the archers, it turns and flees. In three hours the battle is over. Eleven thousand Frenchmen lie dead upon the field, prince and peasant “in one red burial blent.” Agincourt is won, and the English archer has gained a renown that shall not dim its lustre while the name of Britain endures.
Once more King Harry is in France, and again none may stand against him. Rouen, after horrible sufferings, has surrendered; the French princes are busy murdering one another; the young King of Burgundy throws in his lot with the English, and the kingdom is at Henry’s feet. So a treaty is made: Henry is to marry the fair Katherine, daughter of the poor, witless King of France; he is to rule in his father-in-law’s name, and succeed him at his death. So Henry begins his wooing, and right merrily it goes despite his bad French and Katherine’s broken English. On Trinity Sunday in the year 1420 he leads the princess to the high altar of the church at Troyes, and they are married. Then the hero of Agincourt and his bride enter Paris amidst the approving shouts of the populace, many of whom wear the red cross, the badge of England. But a third campaign is necessary before the French and their Scottish allies are beaten and all north France up to the Loire owns Henry’s sway.
And now, in the midst of his splendour, his health fails, and the doctors are mystified at his malady. As he sinks day by day, he learns that a son has been born to him at Windsor. At once an old prophecy flashes into his mind——
“I, Henry, born at Monmouth,
Shall small time reign and much get;
But Henry of Windsor shall long reign and lose all.
But as God wills, so be it.”
His last hour has come. He busies himself with prayer, and the priests sing psalms over him. When they reach the second verse of the 147th Psalm he cries, “Good Lord, Thou knowest that my mind was to build up the walls of Jerusalem.” He speaks no more. His life is done; his comet-like career is over. So he dies, leaving his infant son to reap the bitter harvest that he has sown.