149; 168-171); italicizing words found in Holinshed's paraphrase of the speech attributed to the King by Halle (64).

answer to the

[Hol. iii. 552/1/56.] King Henrie aduisedlie answered: "Mine K. Henries "intent is to doo as it pleaseth God: I will not seeke your maister defiance. "at this time; but, if he or his seeke me, I will meet with them, "God willing. If anie of your nation attempt once to stop me in "my iournie now towards Calis, at their ieopardie be it; and yet "wish I not anie of you so vnaduised, as to be the occasion that "I die your tawnie ground with your red bloud."

When he had thus answered the herald, he gaue him a princelie reward,1 and licence to depart.

Act III. sc. vii.-Two of the French leaders named below-the Constable and Rambures-take part in the dialogue which may have been suggested to Shakspere by the closing words of my next excerpt.

leaders.]

[Hol. iii. 552/2/50.] The cheefe leaders of the French host [The French were these the constable of France, the marshall, the admerall,2 the lord Rambures, maister of the crosbowes, and other of the French nobilitie; which came and pitched downe their standards and banners in the countie of saint Paule, within the territorie of Agincourt,

...

They were lodged euen in the waie by the which the Englishmen must needs passe towards Calis; and all that night, after their comming thither, made great cheare, and were verie merie, pleasant, [The French and full of game.3

Midnight is past when a messenger enters and says (11. 135, 136): "My Lord high Constable, the English lye within fifteene hundred paces of your Tents." According to Holinshed, the French were

1 "There's for thy labour, Mountioy. . . . Thankes to your Highnesse" (11. 167, 176).

2 Marshal Boucicaut, and the Admiral Jacques de Châtillon.

3 The Constable says that the English will" fight like Deuils," if they have "great Meales of Beefe." Orleans observes: I, but these English are shrowdly out of Beefe." The Constable rejoins: "Then shall we finde to morrow, they haue only stomackes to eate, and none to fight."-ll. 161-166. Halle (66) makes the Constable encourage the French captains-when they were awaiting a signal to join battle-by laying down this maxim: "For you must vnderstand, yt kepe an Englishman one moneth from hys warme bed, fat befe, and stale drynke, and let him that season tast colde and suffre hunger, you then shall se his courage abated, hys bodye waxe leane and bare, and euer desirous to returne into hys own countrey." Cp. Famous Victories, xiii. 39; 1 Hen. VI., I. ii. 9; and Edward III., III. iii. pp. 43, 44.

were "full of game."]

[Distance

between the

[Hol. iii. 552/2/48.] incamped not past two hundred and fiftie

French and pases distant from the English.

English camps.]

[The campfires.]

[The French played dice for the English.]

Act IV. Chorus.-In describing the two camps as they appeared by night, the Chorus bids us observe how (11. 8, 9)

Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames
Each Battaile sees the others vmber'd face.

When the English encamped,

[Hol. iii. 552/2/47.] fiers were made to giue light on euerie side, as there likewise were in the French host, . . .

The confident and ouer-lustie French
Doe the low-rated English play at Dice;

The French,

18

[Hol. iii. 554/1/3.] as though they had beene sure of victorie, made great triumph; for the capteins had determined before how to diuide the spoile, and the soldiers the night before had plaid the Englishmen at dice.1

[The German camp.]

Inuesting lanke-leane Cheekes, and Warre-worne Coats,
Presenteth 2 them vnto the gazing Moone

So many horride Ghosts.

28

Steevens compared these lines with Tacitus's description (Ann. I. lxv.) of the night before a battle between the Romans and the Germans, in A.D. 15, when Arminius was endeavouring to prevent Caecina from reaching the Rhine. The different aspect of the hostile camps is thus portrayed in Grenewey's translation (ed. 1598, p. 26) of this passage:

The night was vnquiet for diuers respects: the barbarous enimie, in feasting and banketting, songs of ioie and hideous outcries, filled the valleies and woods, which redoubled the sounde [The Roman againe. The Romans had small fires, broken voices, laie neere the trenches, went from tent to tent; rather disquieted, and not able to sleepe, then watchfull.

camp.]

1 This is mentioned in the Gesta (49) as a report: "Et ut dicebatur tam securos se reputabant de nobis, quôd regem nostrum et nobiles suos nocte illâ sub jactu aleæ posuerunt." Rambures asks (III. vii. 93, 94): "Who will goe to Hazard with me for twentie Prisoners?"

2 27. Presenteth] Hanmer. Presented F.

Holinshed gives a somewhat brighter picture:

[Hol. iii. 552/2/63.] The Englishmen also for their parts were

of the

of good comfort, and nothing abashed of the matter; and yet they [Demeanour were both hungrie, wearie, sore trauelled, and vexed with manie English.] cold diseases. Howbeit, reconciling themselues with God by hoossell and shrift, requiring assistance at his hands that is the onelie giuer of victorie, they determined rather to die, than to yeeld, or flee.

Act IV. sc. i.-Henry and Gloucester enter, and are soon joined by Bedford and Sir Thomas Erpingham. In the third scene of this Act, Exeter, Westmoreland, and Salisbury take parts, and Warwick has a short speech (1. 20) in the eighth scene. Gloucester 1 and Exeter 2 were at Agincourt. Erpingham had the honour of beginning the battle.3 Bedford and Westmoreland were not at Agincourt. Westmoreland was a member of a council assigned to Bedford, who was appointed "Custos" of England during Henry's absence.5 The presence of Salisbury and Warwick at Agincourt is not, I believe, mentioned by any chronicler. I do not know an authority for the association of "Talbot "-doubtless the celebrated soldier of that name is meant— with those whom Henry speaks of (IV. iii. 51-55) as sharers in the fame of the coming battle.

Gower calls out "Captaine Fluellen !" (1. 64), and, being reproved by the Welshman, promises to "speake lower" (1. 82). On the previous day (October 24), Henry, after crossing the Ternoise, beheld the French approaching. Expecting an attack, he disposed his troops for battle. Subsequently the English continued their march until they reached a village in which they encamped.7

kept

[Hol. iii. 552/2/41.] Order was taken by commandement from [The English the king, after the armie was first set in battell arraie, that no noise silence.] or clamor should be made in the host; so that, in marching foorth

to this village, euerie man kept himselfe quiet:

The hour of battle is drawing near when Henry prays (11. 309-312):
Not to day, O Lord,

O not to day, thinke not vpon the fault
My Father made in compassing the Crowne!
I Richards body haue interred new ; .

Soon after ascending the throne, Henry

1 Gesta, 58, 59. Mons., iii. 341.

...

2 Mons., iii. 341.

3 The English attacked; "before whome there went an old knight, sir Thomas Erpingham (a man of great experience in the warre) with a warder in his hand "(Hol. iii. 554/1/53).

Rymer, ix. 223.

6 Gesta, 46. Elmham, 57.

5 Rymer, ix. 305.

7 Gesta, 46-48. Elmham, 57-59.

[Richard's body removed from

Langley to Westminster.]

[A weekly mass and alms.]

[A yearly almsgiving.]

[Hol. iii. 543/2/58.] caused the bodie of [p. 544] king Richard to be remooued with all funerall dignitie conuenient for his estate, from Langlie to Westminster; where he was honorablie interred with queene Anne his first wife, in a solemne toome erected and set vp at the charges of this king.

Henry also pleads (11. 315-319):

Fiue hundred poore I haue in yeerely pay,

Who twice a day their wither'd hands hold vp
Toward Heauen, to pardon blood; and I haue built

Two Chauntries, where the sad and solemne Priests
Sing still for Richards Soule.

Fabyan records (577) Henry's provision that there should be, on
Richard's behalf,

one day in the weke a Solempne Dirige, and vpon the morowe a Masse of Requiem by note; after which Masse endyd, to be gyuen wekely vnto pore people. xi. s. viii. d. in pens: & vpon ye day of his Anniuersary, after ye sayd masse of Requiem is songe, to be yerely Destrybuted for his soule. xx. li. in .d.

Henry founded three houses of religion,

[Fab., 589.] for asmoche as he knewe well that his Fader had laboured the meanes to depose the noble Prynce Richarde the Seconde, and after was consentyng to his deth; for which offence his said Fader had sent to Rome, of that great Cryme to be assayled, and was by ye Pope enioyned, that lyke as he had beraft enjoined by hym of his naturall and bodely lyfe for euer in this world, that so, by contynuel prayer and Suffragies of the Churche, he shuld cause

[Henry IV.

the Pope to have con

tinual

prayer made

for Richard's soul.]

his Soule to lyue perpetuelly in the Celestyall worlde.

Act IV. sc. ii.-"The Sunne is high" (1. 63) when the Constable exclaims (11. 60-62):

I stay but for my Guard. On! To the field! 2

I will the Banner from a Trumpet take,

And vse it for my haste.

Henry is said to have received a message from the French leaders, inviting him to fix his ransom (see p. 191 below).

[Hol. iii. 554/1/23.] When the messenger was come backe to the French host, the men of warre put on their helmets, and

1 One of the houses was dissolved by Henry V.-Fab., 589.

2 I... Guard: on To... take,] F1.

caused their trumpets to blow to the battell. They thought them-
selues so sure of victorie, that diuerse of the noble men made such
hast towards the battell, that they left manie of their seruants and
men of warre behind them, and some of them would not once staie
for their standards: as, amongst other, the duke of Brabant, when
his standard was not come, caused a baner to be taken from a
trumpet and fastened to a speare; the which he commanded to be
borne before him in steed of his standard.

Act IV. sc. iii.-The English leaders converse before each goes to
his charge. Speaking of the French, Westmoreland says (1. 3):
Of fighting men they haue full threescore thousand.
This was Halle's1 computation, according to whom they had

The

trumpet

banner used

for a standard.]

[Hol. iii. 552/2/56.] in their armie (as some write) to the The number number of threescore thousand horssemen, besides footmen, wagoners, and other.

Exeter remarks (1. 4) :

There's fiue to one; besides they all are fresh.

Shakspere made large allowance for losses on the march, and invalided soldiers. After crossing the Somme, Henry

[Hol. iii. 552/1/15.] determined to make haste towards Calis, and not to seeke for battell, except he were thereto constreined; bicause that his armie by sicknesse was sore diminished: in so much that he had but onelie two thousand horssemen, and thirteene thousand archers, bilmen, and of all sorts of other footmen.

When the King enters, Westmoreland cries (11. 16-18):
O that we now had here

But one ten thousand of those men in England,
That doe no worke to day!

Henry expresses another view of the matter (11. 20, 21):

If we are markt to dye, we are enow

To doe our Countrey losse; . .

These words comprise all that Shakspere took from a speech

1 Though in the sidenote Hol. refers to "Enguerant" (Monstrelet) as an authority for 60,000, this estimate is really derived from Halle (65). But Mons.-whom, to judge from the context, Halle followed-says (iii. 335) that "les François fussent bien cent cinquante mille chevaucheurs."

of the French me three score thousand.

Enguerant,

The kings 15000.

armie but of