CHAPTER IV

The works of the Black Prince lived after him. Not that we must look for them immediately in England, where we now enter on forty years of intestine division and civil strife. We do indeed find that Richard the Second, on his invasion of Scotland in 1385, adopted for his army the organisation that had been taught by his father at Navarete; but we discover no trace of military progress. Far more instructive is it to look to the continent of Europe and watch the spread of English military ideas there. It has already been seen that the French, not daring to meet the English archers on horseback, adopted the English system of dismounting for action; and it is interesting to note that the same fashion spread to Germany and Italy, steadily tending to overthrow the supremacy of cavalry wrought by the feudal system, and to make a revolution in the art of war. Not one of the nations, however, seems to have grasped the pith of the English tactics, the combination of the offensive and defensive elements in the infantry. The French indeed, under King Charles the Sixth, strove to raise up archers, and with all too good success, for they became so efficient that they were esteemed a menace to the nobility, and were soon effectively discouraged out of existence. Perhaps the most striking example of the misapplication of the English system is the conduct of the Austrian commander at Sempach, who by dismounting his knights deliberately gave away every advantage to the Swiss, and thus helped forward that nation on the way to make its infantry the model[51] of Europe; a very significant matter in the history of the art of war.

But the truest disciples of the Black Prince were the English Free Companies, from whom there descended to England, and indeed to Europe, a legacy of a remarkable kind. These companies were military societies framed very much on the model of the ancient trade-guilds, and had as good a right to the name as they. A certain number of adventurers invested so much money in the creation of a trained body of fighting men, and took a higher or lower station of command therein, together with a larger or smaller share of the profits, according to the proportion of their venture. If any man wished to realise his capital he could sell out, provided that he could find a buyer; if any one partner seemed to the rest to be undesirable they would buy him out and take in another. Thus grew up what was known as the purchase-system. The abuse of their monopoly by these companies drove the sovereigns of Europe after a time to issue commissions to their subjects to raise companies for their own service only; but even so the commercial basis of the company remained unchanged, being only widened when the time came for the amalgamation of companies into regiments. These military adventurers taught the nations the new art of war, and the nations could not but follow their model.

The greatest leader of free companies was an Englishman, a pupil of the Black Prince but greater even than his master, John Hawkwood. It is true that he did his work for foreign nations and in a foreign land, but even so his name must not be omitted from a history of the British Army. The company which he commanded, English almost to a man, was the terror of Italy, and not only the most formidable in the field but the smartest to the eye, for its arms were burnished till they shone like silver. Hawkwood, though a mercenary, was celebrated as the only one who never broke faith, and as a general his reputation was[52] European. The action which he fought at Castagnaro, when, in spite of great inferiority in numbers, he deliberately laid his plans for a sudden counterstroke, after the manner of Poitiers, extorts the admiration even of modern generals. Still more remarkable is his once famous retreat in the face of an overwhelming force from the Adda to the Adige, and perhaps greatest of all was the closing scene of that retreat. For, as he lay encamped in the plains by the Adige, the enemy broke the dykes of the river and turned the whole flood of its waters upon his army. It was night, and the men were encamping, weary after a hard day's march, when the deluge came upon them. Everything conspired to create a panic, but Hawkwood's coolness and confidence were equal to the danger. He bade every horseman take up one of the foot-men behind his saddle, and then placing himself at their head he led them through ten miles of the trackless waste of water, never less than girth-deep, and brought them out by sheer sagacity, not indeed without loss but without heavy loss, to the dry bed of the river. This was in his last campaign, when he was past seventy years of age; and Florence, the state which he had long faithfully served, voted him a pension for life and a monument even during his lifetime. He was making arrangements to return to England when he died; and King Richard the Second begged the city of Florence that the bones of so famous a warrior might be returned to his native land. The request was gracefully granted by the citizens, but the last resting-place of Hawkwood is now unknown. His monument in the Cathedral at Florence records that he was the most skilful general of his age, a height of military fame that has been reached by one other Englishman only, John, Duke of Marlborough.
1385,
August 14.

Yet another action must be briefly noticed to show the value set on English military skill. During the invasion of Portugal by the King of Castile, in 1385, the Portuguese were joined by a party of about five[53] hundred English adventurers, whose leaders appear to have directed most of the operations. It was under their guidance that the decisive battle of Aljubarotta, of which the Portuguese are still proud, was finally fought; and it is worthy of remark that, finding no advantageous position to hand, they deliberately constructed by means of abattis an imitation of the position of Poitiers, making it unassailable from the front except through a narrow strait, which was purposely left open and lined with archers. Marvellous to relate, the Spaniards and the French, who were fighting with them, rushed straight into the trap, and were of course utterly overthrown; whereupon, in due accordance with precedent, the Portuguese made their counter-attack and won a complete victory.[27] All this was due, as Froissart says, to the counsel of the English; and indeed, little though we may be conscious of it, it is doubtful whether even after Waterloo the prestige of English soldiers was greater than at the end of the fourteenth century.

But while the English military doctrines were thus spreading themselves over Europe, fresh innovations, which were destined to render them obsolete, were already making rapid progress. Artillery in the hands of the Germans was tending more and more to lose its cumbrous character and to take new form in mobile and practicable weapons. The heavy bombards, which could be neither elevated nor traversed, had before the close of the fourteenth century given place to lighter guns of smaller bore fixed on to the end of a shaft of wood and supported on a fork or hook, whence they derived their name of Hakenbüchse, a word soon corrupted by the English into hackbut, hagbush, and finally harquebus. A later improvement had fitted guns with a stock like that of the cross-bow, which could be brought up to the shoulder, thus more readily aligning the barrel to the eye. The step from this to the hand-gun, which could be served out as the individual weapon of a single man,[54] was but a short one and was soon to be taken. But as the traditions of Wellington and the Peninsula were to be tried once more at Alma and Inkerman before they finally perished, so the system of the two great Edwards was to be revived forty years after Navarrete at Agincourt.
1415.

It is unnecessary to dwell on the pretensions which were put forward to excuse the wanton aggression of Henry the Fifth against France. Ambitious, like Frederick the Great, of military glory he made his will the true ground for his action, counting on the spirit of a people that was never strongly averse from a French war. The military devices introduced by the Edwards, the commissions of array,[28] and the system of indentures, were still in good working order, while the discipline of the Black Prince, like his order of battle, was stereotyped in a written code of Ordinances of War. All the old machinery was therefore to hand; and perhaps the most noteworthy change that had come over the English military world was the doubling of the archers' wages from threepence to sixpence a day. Parliament voted the King a large sum of money, which however proved to be insufficient, for, significantly enough, not a contractor would furnish his contingent of men without security for the repayment of his expenses. The crown jewels were pledged in all directions, ships were hired in Holland and in England, seamen were impressed, artisans of every trade, from the miner to the farrier, were engaged, and on the 7th of August 1415 the army embarked at Southampton and the adjacent ports, and sailed for the Seine. The whole fleet numbered some fourteen hundred vessels, and the army is reckoned at thirty thousand men, men-at-arms with their attendants, and archers both mounted and afoot, all distinguished by the red cross of St. George. Further, there was a great train of the newest and best artillery, great guns called by pet names such as the[55] London and the King's Daughter, the whole under the charge of four German gunmasters.

On the second day out the fleet anchored before Harfleur. A day was taken up by the disembarkation, which was unhindered by the French; and by the 19th of August the town was fully invested. Then came a month of siege, wherein the art that was dying blended strangely with that which was just coming to birth; wooden towers and quaint engines that might have been employed by the Romans plying side by side with sap and mine and countermine and the latest patterns of German artillery. The French made a most gallant defence, and dysentery breaking out in the English camp swept off thousands of the besiegers; but at length the heavy guns prevailed. The garrison begged for terms, praying that the King would make his gunners to cease, "for the fire was to them intolerable." On the 22nd of September the capitulation was agreed on, and Harfleur received an English garrison. It was the first town that the English had reduced by the fire of cannon.

But Henry was not yet satisfied. Two-thirds of his force had melted away, dead or invalided, but he had no intention of re-embarking at Harfleur. He devoted a fortnight to the repair of the defences of the captured town, and then collecting provisions for eight days he marched northward for Calais with an army, or, as we should now call it, a flying column, of nine thousand men.

Meanwhile the French, disorganised though they were by the insanity of their king, Charles the Sixth, began to bestir themselves, and collecting an army of sixty thousand men, fourteen thousand of them men-at-arms and several thousand archers and cross-bowmen, determined to hold the line of the Somme and bar Henry's passage of the river. Henry's idea, dictated like the whole of his campaign by the precedent of Edward the Third, had been to cross the Somme by the ford of Blanche Tache. He now learned that the[56] passage was defended by the French in force. He wheeled at once to the right, and following the left bank of the river upward, tried in vain to find a crossing-place. Every bridge was broken down and every ford beset. It was plain that he was more effectually entrapped even than his predecessor Edward.
October.

The eight days' supply of provisions was now consumed, and the position of the English became most critical. Retreat Henry would not, force the passage of the Somme he could not. He decided to follow the river upward to its head-waters, and on reaching Nesle learned from a countryman of a ford, the access to which lay across a morass. Two causeways that provided a footing over it had been broken down by the French, but these were quickly repaired with wood and faggots and straw till they were broad enough to admit three horsemen abreast. Henry himself was indefatigable in the work. He took personal charge of one end of the passages, and appointed special officers to attend to the other. The baggage was carried over along one causeway, and the men by the second. Thus the passage both of morass and river was accomplished between eight in the morning and an hour before dusk of an October day. The French, who were lying in force at Peronne, now for some unexplained reason retreated towards the north-west, but sent, according to custom, a challenge to Henry to fix time and place for battle. "I am marching straight to Calais through open country," he replied. "You will have no difficulty in finding me." And he continued his advance.

At Peronne the English struck the line of the French march and looked for an immediate engagement. The force moved in order of battle, every man armed and ready for action, while the archers by Henry's order carried a stake, eleven feet long and pointed at both ends, to make them defence against cavalry. To their surprise no enemy appeared; and Henry was presently able to disperse his force along a wider front, with the advantage[57] alike of obtaining easier supply of victuals and surer information of the enemy. The English were much distressed by want of bread: other provisions were abundant, but grain was absolutely undiscoverable. Nevertheless discipline was most strictly enforced, and the order of the columns, as the speed of the march can avouch, was quite admirable. Robbery of churches or peasants, the slightest irregularity on the march or in the camp, the presence of women in the camp, all offences alike were visited with the severest punishment. One man, whom Shakespeare has immortalised as Bardolph, was detected in the theft of a pyx: he was paraded through the army as a criminal and hanged. Even French writers admit that the English dealt more mercifully with them than their own countrymen. The King himself avoided anything that might seem to indicate the slightest discouragement. One night he missed the camping-ground assigned to his division and took up that of the vanguard. "God forbid that in full armour I should turn back," he said; and pushing the vanguard further forward, he halted for the night where he stood.

On the 24th of October, Henry, who was lying at Frevent on the river Canopes, was informed by his scouts that the French were moving forward from St. Pol and must inevitably get ahead of him. He pushed on to Blangy, crossed the river Ternoise there, and advancing to Maisoncelle drew up his army in battle order before it. The whole French army was before him at Ruisseauville, but as dusk fell without an attack he withdrew for the night to Maisoncelle, and conscious of his desperate situation opened negotiations with the French, offering to restore Harfleur and make good all injuries if he might be permitted to evacuate France in peace. His overtures were rejected and he was warned to fight on the morrow. On the same evening the French moved down to a narrow plateau between the villages of Tramecourt and Agincourt, and there, cramped into a space far too narrow for sixty thousand[58] men, they halted till the morrow within less than a mile of the English position.

The night was spent in very different fashion in the two camps. The French, doubtless much inconvenienced by the straitness of their quarters, were shouting everywhere for comrades and servants as noisily as a mob of sheep; while some, forgetting the lesson of Poitiers, gambled for the ransom of the prisoners that they were to take in the morrow's battle. Huge fires were kept burning round their banners, for the rain was incessant, and the English could see everything that passed among them. They too began shouting like the French till sternly checked by the King; and then the English camp fell silent, and the men, forbidden to forget their situation in the din of their own voices, sat down to face it in all its stern reality. They could be excused if they felt some misgiving. They had covered over three hundred miles in a continuous march of seventeen days, often in hourly expectation of a fight; for four days they had not tasted bread; and now, after a few short hours more of waiting in the ceaseless pattering rain, they were to meet a host outnumbering them by five to one. Arms and bowstrings were overhauled and repaired; and the priests had little rest from the numbers that came to them for shrift. But in the discipline of that silence lay the promise of success.
October 25.

At dawn of the next morning Henry was astir, fully armed but bare-headed, riding a gray pony. Presently he led the army out of Maisoncelle to a newly-sown field, which was the position of his choice, and drew it up for battle. Every man was dismounted, and horses and baggage were parked in the rear under the protection of a small guard. But the numbers of his army were so weak that the favourite formation of the Black Prince could not be followed. The vanguard under the Duke of York became the right, the battle under the King the centre, and the rearguard under Lord Camoys the left of a single line, which even then was ranked but four men deep. It was a first example of English line[59] against French column. Henry made the men a short speech, recalling to them the deeds of their fathers, and then the whole host kneeled down, thrice kissed the ground, and rose upright again into its ranks.

Meanwhile not a sign of attack came from the French. Their order of battle had been determined many days before, but it was ill adapted to so narrow a position. It was evident that only the vanguard could possibly come into action, and such was the indiscipline that every man of rank wished to command it. Finally the whole of the magnates were placed in the vanguard, and its strength was made up to about seven thousand men-at-arms, every one of them dismounted. On each flank was a wing of twelve hundred more dismounted men, and on their flanks again two small bodies of cavalry, three hundred on the right, and eight hundred on the left, which were designed to gallop down upon the archers. This was the first French line. The second was also made up of about eight thousand dismounted men-at-arms; while the remainder, who were ordered to dismount but would not, composed the third line. The whole stood on ploughed ground, soaked by the rain of the previous night and poached deep by the trampling of innumerable feet.

The French took advantage of the delay to give their men breakfast, an example which Henry immediately followed. Then seeing that the enemy remained motionless he prepared to attack. A gray old warrior, Sir Walter Erpingham, galloped forward with two aides-de-camp to make the necessary changes of formation. The archers were deployed in front and flanks, and when all was ready old Sir Walter tossed his baton into the air and sang out "Now strike." Then galloping back to the King's battalion he dismounted and took his place in the ranks. The King, already dismounted, gave the word "Forward banner," and the English answered with a mighty cry, the forerunner of that "stern and appalling shout" which four centuries later was to strike hesitation into so fine a soldier even as Soult. Then[60] the whole line advanced in close array, with frequent halts, for the ground was deep, and the archers in their leathern jackets and hose, ragged, hatless, and shoeless after two months of hard work, could easily wear down the men-at-arms in their heavy mail. Artillery in such a sea of mud could not be brought into position on either side, and the German gunners took no part in the fight. The French on their side stood firm and closed up their ranks. They were so heavily weighted with their armour, always heavier than that of the English, that they could hardly move, and their front was so much crowded that they could not use their archers; so they broke off their lances as at Poitiers to the length of five feet, and stood in dense array, thirty-one ranks against the English four.

Arrived within range the archers struck their stakes slantwise into the ground, and drew bow. The French vanguard then shook itself up and advanced slowly, while the cavalry on their flanks moved forward against the archers. The division of three hundred lances on the right made but a poor attack; little more than half of them really came on, and even these their horses, maddened as at Cre?y by the pain of the arrows, soon carried in headlong confusion to the rear. The stronger division on the left charged home, and the leader and one or two others actually reached the line of stakes; but the stakes had no firm hold in the mud; the horses tripped over them and fell, and not one rider ever rose again. The remainder had as usual been carried back by their wounded horses upon their comrades in rear, and thence with them upon the wings of dismounted men-at-arms in which they tore terrible gaps. The centre of the French vanguard fared little better. Dazzled by the eastern sun that shone full in their eyes, and bending their heads before the sleet of arrows, they lost all idea of their direction, and became so clubbed together that they could not use their weapons. By sheer weight they forced back the English men-at-arms a lance's length, and for a time they fought hard.[61] King Henry was twice struck heavily on the helmet, one blow lopping a branch from the crown that encircled it. But meanwhile the archers had noted the gaps torn by the horses in the wings of the French fighting line. They dropped their bows, and with whatever weapon—axe, hammer, or sword—that hung at their girdle, they fell, light and active, upon the helpless, hampered men-at-arms and made fearful havoc of them. The French centre, exposed by the defeat of the wings to attack on both flanks, gave way before the King's battalion, and their first line was utterly defeated. There was no question of flight among the French men-at-arms, for the unhappy men could not move. The English simply took off the helmets of their prisoners, and, leaving them thus exposed, pressed on against the second line. This, however, was already shaken by the defeat of the vanguard; and though one leader who had arrived late in the field, the Duke of Brabant, set a gallant example, he was quickly cut down, and the defeat of the second line followed quickly on his fall. The third line still remained, but being mounted, contrary to orders, had no mind to stay and fight, but turned and fled, leaving some few of their leaders alone to redeem French honour by a hopeless struggle and a noble death.

This battle was hardly won when word was brought to Henry that his baggage, with all his treasure as well as all the horses, was in the hands of plunderers. The guard in fact had been unable to resist the temptation to join in the fight, and had left the baggage to take care of itself. The momentary confusion hereby caused gave some of the French time to rally, and Henry, not knowing how great the danger might be, ordered every man to kill his prisoners. The English hesitated, less possibly from humanity than from reluctance to lose good ransom, whereupon Henry told off two hundred archers for the duty, which was promptly carried out. He can hardly be blamed, for the fight had been won less by the slaughter than by the capture of the men-at-arms;[62] and the risk of undertaking a new attack in front with some thousands of unwounded prisoners in rear, was serious. Be that as it may, the deed was done. Henry then advanced against the rallied French and quickly broke them up; and at four o'clock, the victory being at last complete, he left the field. The French loss in nobles alone numbered from five to eight thousand men killed, exclusive of common men. A thousand prisoners and a hundred and twenty banners were taken. The losses of the English are uncertain, but probably did not exceed a few hundreds, the most distinguished of the fallen being the Duke of York.

So ended the great fight which King Harry himself decreed to be called by the name of Agincourt.[29] It sums up in itself the leading features of Cre?y, Poitiers, and Cocherel, in a word of all the finest actions of the Edwards. But it was, as fate ordained, but the afterglow of the glory of the Plantagenets, not the light of a sun new risen like a giant to run his course.

To face page 62
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1415.
1420.

To attempt to follow the later campaigns of Henry the Fifth in France would be alike tedious and unprofitable. To the last he stuck to the principles of the Black Prince, but his military talents ripened year after year, and while he lived France trembled under his sword. Finally, torn to pieces by the strife of Burgundian and Armagnac, France by the Treaty of Troyes surrendered her kingship into his hand. The contempt of the English for their enemy was such that the men once assaulted and captured a town without orders. But in the very next year came a reverse that boded ominously for the future. The Duke of Clarence was defeated at Beaugé, less by the French than by a body of Scottish auxiliaries, who had been sent to their assistance under the Earl of Buchan. Henry had hoped that the Scots would not fight against him, and ordered them henceforth to be treated as rebels, but it was to no purpose. The reader should take note of this fateful[63] year 1421, for it marks the permanent entrance of the Scots into the service of France, a fact full of import for both countries. Moreover, he will in due time see a regiment, still called the Royal Scots, withdrawn from the French army to become the first of the English Line.
1422.

The return of King Henry to France after Beaugé soon re-established the ascendency of the English arms; and then, while still in the prime of life, he sickened even in the midst of his operations and died. He was but thirty-four years of age, a great administrator, a great captain, and above all a grand disciplinarian. Yet he was no brutal martinet; nay, when once he had cast his wild days behind him he never even swore. "Impossible," or "It must be done," was the most that he said. But "he was so feared by his princes and captains that none dared to disobey his orders, however nearly related to him, and the principal cause was that if any one transgressed his orders he punished him at once without favour or mercy."[30] He and the army that fought with him at Agincourt are the true precursors of Craufurd and the Light Division. His body, borne with mournful pomp from the castle of Vincennes, still rests among us in Westminster Abbey, and above it still hang his saddle, his shield blazoned with the lilies of France, and the helmet, deeply dinted by two sword-cuts, which he wore at Agincourt. Not for three centuries was another soldier to rise up in England of equal fame with the Black Prince, John Hawkwood, and King Harry the Fifth.

Authorities.—For the life of Hawkwood see Temple Leader's Sir John Hawkwood. For the campaign of Agincourt, Gesta Henrici Quinti and Monstrelet's Chronicles are the chief authorities, while Sir Harris Nicholas's Agincourt furnishes a quantity of supplementary information. Other authorities will be found enumerated in K?hler, who is always the best guide in respect of military operations.