Henry V: The Background, Strategies, Tactics and Battlefield Experiences of the Greatest Commanders of History Paperback Read Online Free Page B

expedition to Gascony led by Prince Henry's younger brother, Thomas of
    Lancaster (now created Duke of Clarence and named the king's lieutenant in
    Aquitaine) in August. However, this military effort proved short lived as the
    Burgundians and the Armagnacs patched up their differences, leaving Thomas
    with no allies in France and instead conducted a wide-ranging chevauchee from
    Normandy down to Bordeaux, returning after the death of Henry IV.
    Despite the king's recovery in November 1411, his health was still weak
    and by autumn 1412 he was obviously terminally ill. Prince and king were
    reconciled and, following the death of Henry IV on 20 March 1413, Prince
    Henry ascended to the throne as Henry V, and could now carry out his plans
    for France.
    T H E H O U R O F D E S T I N Y
    Henry V, like his father and their Plantagenet predecessors, sought to resolve
    the English position in France. In particular, he sought the consolidation
    of the English possession of the Duchy of Aquitaine in full sovereignty
    - something that both the Armagnac and Burgundian factions had been
    willing to offer in their negotiations with the English. Open conflict had
    broken out again between the two factions in 1413 and so both were anxious
    to gain the support of the new English king, sending ambassadors to sound
    him out. Henry V was also diplomatically busy, dispatching a high-level
    delegation to Charles VI in August 1414 claiming his right to the throne of
    France, the restitution of the Angevin territories in northern and
    south-western France and the king's daughter, Katherine of Valois, in
    marriage along with an enormous dowry of two million crowns. The French,
    unsurprisingly, rejected this but negotiations continued and a further English
    embassy was in Paris in February 1415. During the same period Henry had
    negotiated an agreement with the Duke of Burgundy that he would not
    interfere in any attempt by Henry to take the crown of France, though Duke

    The 1415 campaign
    John the Fearless later came to terms with the French king rendering this
    agreement null and void. This second embassy ended with the same result
    as the first; although both sides had modified their positions somewhat they
    were still too far apart - and there remains some doubt that Henry had any
    intention of it succeeding in any event as it appears that he had decided to
    undertake an invasion of France by this point.
    Preparations and departure
    In fact preparations for an invasion had been under way from the very early
    days of Henry's reign. In May 1413 Henry had forbidden the sale of bows

    and other weapons to both the Scots and other enemies, while at the same
    time appointing a fletcher as keeper of the king's arrows in the Tower of
    London who began to both make and acquire arrows. In September 1414
    he also ordered the construction and acquisition of a substantial number
    of siege engines and guns, while at the same time banning the export of
    gunpowder from the country.
    He also started assembling the major fleet that would be required to ship
    his army across to France. The king himself possessed a number of ships,
    including his 'great ships' - among them his flagship the Trinite Roy ale - and
    was busy building more, but the amount of shipping required dwarfed
    that available and extra shipping was sought from the Low Countries in
    early 1415. Henry eventually resorted to seizing all ships - both English and
    foreign - in English ports in April 1415, and in the end some 1,500 ships
    were assembled to carry Henry's forces over to France.
    These forces now assembled on the French coast ready for the invasion.
    Henry V's army for the Agincourt campaign was brought together by the
    indenture system that had replaced the feudal system of raising troops that
    was common earlier in the medieval period. Essentially, Henry entered into
    contracts with individual captains who would agree to serve on campaign
    along with a specified number of men - their