[Page 52, ll. 6, 7.] “When as that Angell to whom God assign’d The guiding of the English.”—This fine passage may very probably have been in Dryden’s mind when he planned the machinery of his unwritten epic, and in Addison’s when he penned the famous simile of the Angel in his poem on Blenheim.
[Page 52, ll. 29, 30.] “Foorth that braue King couragious Henry goes, An hower before that it was fully light.”—No personal reconnoissance on Henry’s part is mentioned by the historians, although Sir Harris Nicolas says, on the authority of Elmham: “About the middle of the night, before the moon set, Henry sent persons to examine the ground, by whose report he was better able to draw up his forces on the next day.” As the English were the assailants, the precaution of posting the archers behind the quickset hedge would have proved unnecessary.
[Page 55, l. 27.] “His coruetting Courser.”—“A little grey horse.” He wore no spurs, probably to show his men that he entertained no thought of flight.
[Page 56, l. 20.] “To know what he would for his Ransome pay.”—This is mentioned by Holinshed, but cannot be true, for all contemporary authorities agree that the French sent envoys to Henry on the morning of the battle offering him a free passage to Calais upon condition of surrendering Harfleur. This would seem to indicate that the leaders did not fully share the confidence of their troops.
[Page 57, ll. 3, 4.] “And strongly fixe the Diadem of France, Which to this day vnsteady doth remaine.”—No Frenchman could have said this on such an occasion. Drayton would make for any port when in stress of rhyme.
[Page 57, l. 16.] “Thus to his Souldiers comfortably spake.”—Drayton’s version of his speech in the main agrees with Holinshed’s. Shakespeare, usually so close a follower of Holinshed, substitutes an oration entirely of his own composition. The beautiful lines—
“For he this day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile
This day shall gentle his condition”—
appear to be derived from the same source as the exaggerated statement of Archbishop Des Ursins, that on another occasion Henry promised that his plebeian soldiers should be ennobled and invested with collars of SS. This cannot be taken directly from Des Ursins, whose history of the reign of Charles VI., though written in the fifteenth century, was not published until 1614.