10 15 200 Clarence, in steel so bright, Scarce such another. Warwick in blood did wade, Oxford the foe invade, Still as they ran up ; Upon Saint Crispin's day Oh, when shall Englishmen, Or England breed again Bills: weapons of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, consisting of long staffs to which were attached broad, two-edged blades, with short pikes at back and top. Mor'ris pikes: Moorish pikes. Thomas Hey'wood -1650 ?): an English actor and dramatic poet. Poitiers (pwä ti a') and Crécy (cres'si): King Henry encourages his soldiers by reminding them of these two great battles in which King Edward III. and his son, the Black Prince, won signal victories over the French. Our grandsire great: Edward III. Edward, Duke of York: killed in this battle. Sir Thomas Er'ping ham: an English leader who gave signal for attack. Spanish yew: the best bows were made ew wood from Spain. Bil'bões: swords, named from Bilin Spain. Thomas, Duke of Clarence: the brother of King ry V. He is called a maiden knight because he had lately ved the honor of knighthood and had not yet distinguished self by warlike achievements. Oxford, Suffolk, Beau'(bō), Willough by: English noblemen who fought in the battle gincourt. Dough'ti ly: bravely. les Michelet (1798-1874): An eminent French historian. wrote several historical works for schools, which led to his g appointed professor of history at the Sorbonne. He disuished himself as an adversary of the Jesuits and Roman His principal works are a "History of the French olution" and a "History of France," brilliant in style and of ingenious generalizations. his account of the battle of Agincourt is from the "History rance." not seem that they were used; probably no more room could be found for them than for the bowmen. On the other side stood the English army. Its outer seeming was poor enough. The archers had no armor, often no 5 shoes; they had wretched headpieces of boiled leather, or even of osier, guarded by a crosspiece of iron; the axes and hatchets hung at their belts gave them the look of carpenters. Many of these good workmen had loosed their belts to work the more easily, first to bend the bow, 10 then to wield the ax, when time came for leaving behind them the line of sharpened stakes which protected their front and for hewing at the motionless masses which stood before them. For strange, incredible as it may seem, it is certain that 15 the French army could not move, either to fight or fly. In the after struggle the rear guard alone made its escape. At the critical moment indeed of the battle, when old Thomas of Erpingham, after putting the English army in array, threw up his staff in the air, and cried, "Now 20 strike!" while the English replied with a shout of ten thousand men, the French army, to their great surprise, remained immovable. Horses and horsemen all seemed enchanted or dead in their armor. In reality these great war horses, under the weight of their heavy riders and 25 of their huge caparisons of iron, had sunk deeply in the thick clay on which they stood; they were so firmly fixed that it was with difficulty that they disengaged themselves in an attempt to advance. But their advance was only step by step. The field was a mere swamp of tenacious 30 mud. "The field was soft and cut up by the horses; it was almost impossible to draw one's feet out of the ground, so soft was it. Besides this," goes on the French historian, "the French were so loaded with harness that they could not go forward. In the first place, they were burdened with steel coats of mail long enough to reach below the knees and very heavy, and below this mail they had har- 5 ness on their legs, and above it harness of weight and helmets atop of all. Then they were so crowded together that none could lift their arms to strike the enemy, save those who were in the front rank." Another historian on the English side tells us that the French were arrayed 10 thirty-two men deep, while the English stood but four men deep. This enormous depth of the French column. was useless, for almost all who composed it were knights and horsemen, and the bulk of them were so far from being able to act that they never even saw what was going 15 on in the front; while among the English every man had his share in the action. Of the fifty thousand Frenchmen in fact but two or three thousand had the power actively to engage with the eleven thousand Englishmen; or at least might have had the power, had the horses freed 20 themselves from the mire. To rouse these sluggish masses to action the English archers discharged thousands of arrows right at their faces. The iron-clad horsemen bowed their heads, or the arrows would have pierced the visors of their helmets. 25 Then on either flank of the army, from Tramecourt and from Agincourt, two French squadrons, by dint of hard spurring, got clumsily into motion, and came on headed by two famous men-at-arms, Messire Cliquet de Brabant and Messire Guillaume de Sausure. But the first squad-30 ron, which came from Tramecourt, was suddenly riddled |