A King Who Wanted France
Henry V became king in March 1413, in his mid-twenties. His father had spent a reign defending a throne taken by force, and Henry started by trying to heal old wounds: he reburied Richard II with honor and restored the heirs of families who had rebelled. A united realm was useful for what he wanted next, a renewed war with France, one more chapter in what later became known as the Hundred Years War.
Henry revived the English claim to French lands. His argument rested partly on the ancient claim of Edward III and partly on the idea that France owed England territory under the old agreements. France was in a weak state: King Charles VI suffered from bouts of mental illness, and powerful factions, mainly the Burgundians and the Armagnacs, fought for control. Henry’s envoys negotiated, made demands, and in 1415 the king decided on an invasion.
Harfleur and the March
In August 1415 Henry crossed to Normandy with a large army and besieged the port of Harfleur. The town held out for about five weeks, and the English paid heavily. Dysentery spread through the camp, and many men died or were sent home sick. By the time Harfleur surrendered in late September, the campaigning season was nearly over.
Rather than go home by sea, Henry led his remaining men toward English-held Calais, a march of about 120 miles by a route along the coast. It was a risky decision, perhaps meant as a show of confidence. The French blocked the way, and the English found river crossings broken or guarded. They were forced inland, hungry and tired, before the French army caught them in the fields near the village of Agincourt.
The Battle
The fight took place on 25 October 1415, the feast of Saints Crispin and Crispinian. The English had many archers, perhaps most of the army, and a smaller force of men-at-arms. The French had more mounted nobles and men-at-arms. The precise numbers are uncertain. Chroniclers gave very large French figures and very small English ones, but modern historians generally think the English were outnumbered, often by a factor of several, and many suggest English forces in the range of several thousand men, with the French much larger. Nobody can say exactly.
The ground helped the English. The field was narrow, bounded by woods, and recent rain had left it deep in mud. Archers drove stakes into the ground to protect themselves, and their volleys disrupted the French cavalry. The French men-at-arms who followed on foot struggled in heavy armor through the mud and crowded together in the narrow space. Many were killed or captured. Henry ordered the killing of prisoners at one point, apparently when he feared a renewed attack; historians still debate how and why this happened. The scale of the French losses, especially among the nobility, was severe.
The victory is described in more detail in the separate account of the Battle of Agincourt, but its importance here is political. It strengthened Henry’s position at home, helped him raise money from Parliament, and weakened France’s leading families.
Conquering Normandy
Agincourt did not by itself win the war. Henry returned in 1417 with a plan for conquest and occupation. Town by town and castle by castle, his armies took Normandy, including the sieges of Caen and Rouen. Rouen, besieged through the winter of 1418-19, surrendered after famine afflicted the city. Henry ruled the area as an occupier, issuing land grants to English followers and trying to keep the local people from fighting back.
The French crisis then took a dramatic turn. In 1419 the Burgundian leader John the Fearless was killed at a meeting with the dauphin’s supporters at Montereau. His son, Philip the Good, then looked for an alliance with England. This was the opening Henry needed.
The Treaty of Troyes
In May 1420 the treaty of Troyes was agreed. Under its terms Henry was to marry Charles VI’s daughter, Catherine of Valois, and he would be recognized as Charles’s heir and as regent of France in the meantime. The dauphin, Charles’s own son, was passed over. They married in June 1420.
The treaty was a diplomatic triumph on paper, but it rested on English military strength and Burgundian support. Many in France rejected it, and the dauphin’s supporters kept fighting from south of the Loire. Henry spent most of his remaining time on campaign.
Death and Legacy
In 1421 Henry’s son was born, the future Henry VI. In the summer of 1422, while on campaign, Henry fell ill, and he died at Vincennes on 31 August. The cause was probably dysentery, which had also troubled him at Harfleur, but sources do not allow certainty. He was about thirty-five. Charles VI died a few weeks later, so the infant Henry VI was proclaimed king of both England and France.
Henry V’s contemporaries regarded him as a model king: disciplined, pious, concerned with justice and military order. Later writers, including Shakespeare, turned him into a heroic figure. Modern historians are more careful, noting the heavy costs of his wars and the fact that his conquests left an infant king and a divided France. The war that followed, with Joan of Arc and the French recovery, undid much of what he had won. Taken together, his reign shows how quickly a military reputation could be built, and how hard it was to turn into lasting power.