[33] Henry V. Act iv. Scene 3. Shakespeare has introduced the incidents told by the English authors with much accuracy, but has gone quite wrong as to the persons concerned. The wish was expressed by Sir W. Hungerford, not by the earl of Westmoreland, who was in England. Henry's chaplain makes the king's words more pious, if less poetical; and the piety was certainly in keeping with his character.
[34] Comparatively recent plantations slightly obscure the ground, making minute accuracy impossible: but the general character of the field, and its main details, are quite clearly to be seen.
[35] The numbers of Henry's original force can be closely computed from original documents; and there exists also part of a list of the gentlemen present at Agincourt, with the numbers of their contingents. Estimating from the latter, the total number of combatants was far below 10,000.
[36] Boulevard is the technical name for a kind of earthwork used in the early days of cannon. It was a sort of terrace, protected by a parapet, on which cannon could be planted as an outer defence to a fortress, and might be of any shape. The technical name for the small forts which the English gradually erected round Orleans is bastide.
[37] The formation of a fortified post by means of the camp-waggons was a fundamental part of the tactics of John Zisca, the long successful leader of the Bohemian insurrection a few years earlier. The lager which is a feature now well known of African warfare, is the same thing in principle.
[38] This is of course not the first instance of a siege approximating to the modern type. The siege of Harfleur already mentioned was in fact more like a modern siege than that of Orleans.
[39] Sir Edward Creasy goes so far as to place the relief of Orleans among the fifteen Decisive Battles of the World.
[40] The Beauforts had been duly legitimated by Parliament, but Henry IV., in confirming this to his half-brothers, had inserted words in his charter which barred their succession to the throne. The strict legality of the latter act can hardly be maintained: but it is plain that no one dreamed of preferring the Beauforts to the house of York.
[41] In Chapter II. I abstained from giving the numbers at Hastings, because there seem to me to be no adequate materials for forming a trustworthy estimate: but it is scarcely possible that the armies which fought at Hastings can have been within many thousands of the total given by chroniclers for Towton.
[42] It is possible that the numbers are exaggerated, but there is no reason for thinking so except the smallness of the battle-field; and if so the exaggeration was on both sides alike, for it is certain that the Lancastrian numbers preponderated. The Yorkist force is given at 49,000 by the authorities who put the Lancastrians at 60,000, both totals being given before any fighting had taken place. What losses had been incurred at Ferrybridge we are not told, and we can only guess at the strength of the Yorkist rearguard: but the numbers with which the battle began cannot have been very far from seven to four.