Battle of Agincourt
On 25 October 1415, a tired and heavily outnumbered English army under Henry V defeated a much larger French force near the village of Azincourt in northern France. The victory, won largely by English and Welsh longbowmen against armored French knights, became one of the most celebrated battles of the Hundred Years' War. It gave Henry a dramatic military triumph and strengthened his hand in the struggle for the French crown.
The Hundred Years' War was a long dynastic conflict between the English and French royal houses, rooted in English claims to French territory and the French throne. Henry V, who came to power in 1413, revived those claims and landed in Normandy in August 1415. His army besieged the port of Harfleur, which fell in September, but the siege was costly. Disease and casualties thinned his ranks, and he decided to march toward English-held Calais rather than continue deeper into France. French forces, led by nobles including Charles d'Albret, the Constable of France, blocked his route.
The two armies met on a narrow stretch of open ground between woods, softened by recent rain and plowed fields. Estimates of numbers vary widely, and medieval chroniclers tend to exaggerate, but most historians agree the French had several times as many men, perhaps outnumbering the English by three or four to one. The English were mostly archers, with a smaller body of men-at-arms. Archers planted sharpened stakes in front of their positions and loosed volleys as the French advanced.
The French attack, with mounted knights followed by dismounted men-at-arms, struggled in the churned mud and the confined space. Arrows did not necessarily pierce the best plate armor, but they caused confusion, forced the French to lower their heads, and wounded horses, which in turn disrupted the formations. Exhausted by the slog, the French men-at-arms reached the English line in disorder and were fought off, and the archers, lightly equipped, joined the melee with axes, mallets, and swords. Henry also ordered the killing of many prisoners at one point, apparently fearing a renewed French attack. Historians still debate the scale and exact motives of this episode. French losses were severe, especially among the nobility, while English losses were comparatively light.
Agincourt did not end the war, but it opened the way for further English gains. Henry returned to France in later campaigns, conquered Normandy, and in 1420 secured the Treaty of Troyes, which recognized him as heir to the French throne. He died in 1422, however, and the English position later unraveled. The battle endured in memory largely through English chronicles, and above all through Shakespeare's Henry V, which fixed its image as a triumph of courage against the odds.