Let there be sung Non nobis and Te Deum;
The dead with charity enclos’d in clay:
We’ll then to Calais; and to England then;
Where ne’er from France arriv’d more happy men.
Organ music; all kneel, and join in Song of Thanksgiving.
END OF ACT FOUR.
[ HISTORICAL NOTES TO ACT FOURTH.]
([A]) The English Camp at Agincourt.] The French were about a quarter of a mile from them at Agincourt and Ruisseauville, and both armies proceeded to light their fires, and to make the usual arrangements for a bivouack. The night was very rainy, and much inconvenience is said to have been experienced in each camp from wet and cold, accompanied, among the English, by hunger and fatigue. It was passed in a manner strictly consistent with their relative situations. The French, confident in their numbers, occupied the hours not appropriated to sleep in calculating upon their success; and in full security of a complete victory, played at dice with each other for the disposal of their prisoners, an archer being valued at a blank, and the more important persons in proportion; whilst the English were engaged in preparing their weapons, and in the most solemn acts of religion.***The Chronicler in the text states, that from the great stillness which prevailed throughout the English camp, the enemy imagined they were panic-struck, and intended to decamp. Monstrelet relates that the English “were much fatigued and oppressed by cold, hunger, and other annoyances; that they made their peace with God, by confessing their sins with tears, and numbers of them taking the sacrament; for, as it was related by some prisoners, they looked for certain death on the morrow.”