10 things you (probably) didn’t know about Henry V and the Battle of Agincourt

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He is one of England’s most popular kings, famed for leading England to victory over France at the Battle of Agincourt. Shakespeare also wrote a play about him. Yet surprisingly little is known about Henry V.

Now, in the 600th anniversary year of the famous battle, Teresa Cole explores the life and legacy of the medieval warrior king in her new book, Henry V: The Life of the Warrior King & the Battle of Agincourt 1415. Here, writing for History Extra, she reveals 10 lesser-known facts about Henry V…


10 things you (probably) didn’t know about Henry V and the Battle of Agincourt


Monday 6th April 2015
Teresa Cole
BBC History Magazine


Henry V
© Lebrecht Music and Arts Photo Library / Alamy


1) Nobody knows when he was born


Birthplace: Monmouth Castle, south east Wales


Henry V was born at Monmouth Castle, perched high above the River Monnow, but there is no record of his birth, and even the year is uncertain. Some say his birthday was 9 August 1387, but an alternative date is 16 September 1386. The latter comes from a horoscope drawn up for the king and apparently commissioned by him just before the Agincourt campaign.

However, the French astrologer who drew the horoscope was later accused in Paris of being an English spy, and it is possible the work was just an excuse for the man to come to England and meet with Henry. The king apparently showed no interest in the horoscope afterwards.

2) He was in Ireland with Richard II when his father seized the throne



Henry IV (above) seized the throne from his cousin, Richard II, in 1399


When his father, Henry Bolingbroke, seized the throne as Henry IV (above), the young Henry was in the custody of Bolingbroke's cousin King Richard II as a hostage for his father’s good behaviour. Had it been a few centuries earlier he could have expected, at the least, to be blinded if not put to death.

Richard, however, was made of different stuff. He had treated the boy well, spent time with him, took him with him on the expedition to Ireland, and even knighted him on the way. Even when he heard of the attack on his crown by Bolingbroke, he made no threats against him.

It seems that, in return, Henry saw Richard as something of a father figure. According to one account, when his own father – now secure in the Palace of Westminster – sent for him, Henry went instead to Richard in the Tower, and only at his insistence went on to his father. When Henry himself became king he had Richard’s body exhumed from its obscure grave and reburied in Westminster Abbey.

3) His first battle was nearly his last



The Battle of Shrewsbury, 1403


Henry’s first battle [before he was king] was not against the French, but the English. At Shrewsbury on 21 July 1403 the 16-year-old Henry, Prince of Wales, lined up alongside his father to face the forces of the rebel lord, Henry "Harry Hotspur" Percy from Northumberland

At Shrewsbury Henry led his forces well, and made a major contribution to the victory. In the course of the battle, however, he was shot in the face by an arrow that entered below his eye, missed both brain and spinal cord and stuck in the bone at the back of the skull. To remove the embedded arrowhead, special tongs had to be designed, made and carefully inserted nearly six inches into the wound to grip and extract the metal.

It took a further three weeks to cleanse and close up the hole – and all this in the days before anaesthetics.

4) He learnt his military tactics in Wales



Owain Glyndŵr, Prince of Wales, Lord of Glyndyfrdwy and of Cynllaith Owain, 1401 to c.1416


The tactics used by Henry V in his French wars were first tried out in Wales. At about the same time that he became Prince of Wales (aged 13), Owain Glyndŵr began a violent rebellion against the English. The king’s policy of attack and withdraw was unsuccessful, and Glyndŵr rapidly spread his influence from north Wales to almost the whole country.

When, however, in his late teens, Henry was given a freer hand, he changed tactics. Now he concentrated on taking strategic castles which were then garrisoned and held securely, cutting off supply routes and enabling further advances. Gradually Glyndŵr was forced back to two strongholds on the west coast – Aberystwyth and Harlech. Each was besieged and battered by traditional siege weapons, and, for what is thought to have been the first time in Britain, cannon were used.

Eventually Glyndŵr's supporters were starved into submission, and though Glyndŵr himself was never captured, the war was ended.

A few years after this, using the same tactics, Henry conquered first Normandy, and then a large part of northern France.

5) Legend has it his claim to France resulted from a Templar’s curse



Philippe IV of France


In 1307, Philippe IV of France seized the property of the wealthy Order of Knights Templar, and tortured and put to death its members. The story is told that, as the last Grand Master died, he laid a curse on Philippe and his descendants, saying the king would die within a year. Eight months later Philippe died in a hunting accident.

Two years after that his son, Louis X died, aged 26, after a strenuous game of tennis. His son, John I, born five months later, lived only five days, and in the next 12 years the last direct male descendants of Philippe also died.

Those closest in line to the empty throne were Jeanne, daughter of Louis and Jeanne of Navarre, and Edward III of England, whose mother was Philippe’s daughter. Navarre and England, however, were equally unacceptable, and Philippe de Valois, a cousin of the last king [Charles IV], was crowned instead. Edward challenged this starting the so-called Hundred Years’ War, and it was his claim that was later revived by Henry V.


The battle of Agincourt. © 19th era / Alamy


6) Dick Whittington contributed to Henry’s wars


Dick Whittington was Lord Mayor of London four times: in 1397; 1397-98; 1406-1407; and 1419-1420. He is also the real-life inspiration for the English folk tale Dick Whittington and His Cat

A large slice of the money needed to pay for the French campaigns was raised by loans rather than taxes. In May 1415 Henry sent letters appealing for money to individuals, and to towns. Typically a town would decide on the amount of the loan, and then every citizen would be assessed to contribute even a few pennies to the sum agreed.

Royal jewels, plate and regalia were handed out as security for repayment. Not only did this raise a large amount of money, but it meant almost everyone had an interest in the outcome of the French wars.

One individual in London who lent money to Henry was Sir Richard Whittington, a rich cloth merchant who was indeed the same Dick Whittington as in the children’s story. He was lord mayor of London three times.

7) ‘The Dauphin’ was three different people



Charles VII of France

With the French king subject to fits of madness, his son the dauphin plays a prominent role in the accounts of Henry’s campaigns. The impression is often given that ‘the dauphin’, who, if Shakespeare is to be believed, insulted Henry with a gift of tennis balls [a sign of mockery], was the same ‘dauphin’ who would later be crowned Charles VII by Joan of Arc at Rheims cathedral.

In fact there were three different dauphins over this period. The first was Louis of tennis ball fame, who, though kept away from the battle of Agincourt, died soon after, possibly of dysentery or pneumonia. Louis was followed by his brother John, who was the son-in-law of the Burgundian leader, John the Fearless.

This dauphin died suddenly in April 1417, some said by poison, and he was succeeded by his last remaining brother, Charles, who after the death of Henry V, and with a great deal of help from his mother-in-law, Yolande of Aragon, finally became Charles VII in 1429.

8 ) A French commander told Henry how to win at Agincourt



This year marks the 600th anniversary of England's famous defeat of France at Agincourt

The French plan at Agincourt was to use massed cavalry to charge down the English archers. Henry V learnt of this from a French prisoner some days before the battle, and immediately took steps to counter it: every archer was to drive a sharpened stake into the ground in front of him on the battlefield to stop a charging horse.

The plan worked very well but was probably not Henry’s own plan. The French commander, Marshal Boucicaut, had earlier fought against the Turks at the battle of Nicopolis, and had seen a cavalry charge halted by a similar mass of sharpened stakes. He had written an account of this and it is possible that either Henry himself, or perhaps one of his commanders, Edward Duke of York, had read it and remembered the effectiveness of the tactic.

9) A number of those who died at Agincourt were suffocated




There are no reliable figures for the size of the French army at Agincourt, but they numbered many thousands, and in their eagerness to get at the English most of the leading figures were crammed into the front ranks.

When the action was triggered by a flight of arrows from the English side, the French charged forward in accordance with their battle plan. Funnelled into a narrower part of the field where Henry had taken up his position, the French were crammed together, and though many did not reach the English ranks, many more did. As these were cut down, those pressing behind climbed over them, and anyone who slipped or fell in the muddy ground had little chance of getting up again.

As the battle progressed the pile of bodies rose higher, and any who were wounded or simply knocked over were crushed beneath the weight of those coming behind. Very few were found alive when the heaps of bodies were at last unpicked after the battle.

10) Henry V died of dysentery and is buried in Westminster Abbey




Sieges were dangerous places for both those inside and out: insanitary conditions and a shortage of fresh water frequently led to outbreaks of dysentery among the besieged and the besiegers, and it is likely that Henry contracted his final illness at the siege of Meaux – though it took some time to weaken him and claim his life.

His body was brought back to England for burial, and after considerable ceremony he was laid to rest behind the altar in Westminster Abbey, close to his hero Edward the Confessor, and within yards of the tomb of Richard II. A magnificent chapel was erected around him, and a life-sized effigy placed on the tomb with a head of solid silver.

Sadly the silver was stolen in the 16th century, and the later Tudor building dwarfs his resting place. Thousands of tourists pass the spot without realising he is there, and all that can be seen of the effigy is the soles of its feet.



In the latter years of the fourteenth century a child was born, so unimportant that even his exact date of birth is unknown. Yet before his twenty-seventh birthday the turn of fortune's wheel had brought him the crown of England. The kingdom he inherited as Henry V was deeply divided after the seizure of the throne by his father, the first Lancastrian king. Within a short time, however, by sheer force of personality and will, Henry had mended the rifts, pardoned and released prisoners, and united the whole country behind his claim not just to be King of England, but also King of France. One staggering victory against all the odds on the field of Agincourt brought him lasting fame, and took him within touching distance of succeeding in his claim. Henry V looks at the life and legacy of a king whose heroic achievements and tragic early death may truly be said to have changed the course of British history.

To find out more about Teresa Cole’s Henry V: The Life of the Warrior King & the Battle of Agincourt 1415 (Amberley Publishing, 2015) click here.


10 things you (probably) didn’t know about King Henry V and the battle of Agincourt | History Extra
 
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Blackleaf

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Was it Henry V who made Rapunzel his queen?

No. Henry V's queen was Catherine of Valois. She married Henry in 1420 and was his wife until his death on 31st August 1422. She was the daughter of King Charles VI of France and gave birth to Henry's heir, the future Henry VI (who, along with Edward IV, is the only person to have been English monarch twice). After Henry died she eventually had a sexual relationship with the Welshman Sir Owen Tudor, a relationship which bore them a son, Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond. In turn, Edmund Tudor and Lady Margaret Beaufort bore Henry Tudor, who defeated King Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 to become King Henry VII, the first Tudor monarch and the father of King Henry VIII.

Not only that, but Catherine's older sister Isabella was queen of England from 1396 until 1399 as the child bride of Henry V's cousin, once removed: Richard II.
 

Blackleaf

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11.) Henry V ordered the massacre of surrendered French Knights and Soldiers.

War crime? Battle of Agincourt was our finest hour, says author Bernard Cornwell



By Bernard Cornwerll
27 October 2008
Daily Mail

Legend says the Battle of Agincourt was won by stalwart English archers. It was not. In the end it was won by men using lead-weighted hammers, poleaxes, mauls and falcon-beaks, the ghastly paraphernalia of medieval hand-to-hand fighting. It was fought on a field knee-deep in mud and it was more of a massacre than a battle.

Laurence Olivier's film of Shakespeare's Henry V shows French knights charging on horseback, but very few men were mounted at Agincourt.

The French came on foot and the battle was reduced to men hitting other armoured men with hammers, maces and axes.


Crowning glory: Kenneth Branagh in his film version of Shakespeare's Henry V dramatising the 15th-century Battle of Agincourt

A sword would not penetrate armour and did not have the weight to knock a man off his feet, but a poleaxe (a long-handled axe or hammer, topped with a fearsome spike) would fell him fast, and then it was easy to raise the victim's visor and slide a knife through an eye. That was how hundreds of men died; their last sight on earth a dagger's point.

It is not a tale of chivalry, but rather of armoured men hacking at each other to break limbs and crush skulls. At the battle's height, when Henry V expected an attack on his rear that never materialised, he ordered the newly captured French prisoners to be killed. They were murdered.

Over the weekend, during a conference at the Medieval History Museum in Agincourt, French academics met to declare that English soldiers acted like 'war criminals' during the battle, setting fire to prisoners and killing French noblemen who had surrendered. The French 'were met with barbarism by the English', said the museum's director Christophe Gilliot (would those sore losers have called French soldiers 'war criminals' had the roles been reversed?)

The French pronouncement smacks of bias, but what is certain is that Agincourt was filthy, horrible and merciless. Yet it is still celebrated as a golden moment in England's history.

Why do we remember it? Why has this battle galvanised English hearts over the centuries? These are questions I came to ask as I researched my new novel Azincourt - spelled as it is in France - and discovered just what an extraordinary event it was.

Part of the legend about the archers is certainly true. Most of the English army were archers and their arrows caused huge damage, although they never delivered the knock-out blow it is claimed.

Henry V was also an inspirational leader. He fought in the front rank and part of his crown was knocked off. Eighteen Frenchmen had taken an oath to kill him and all of them died at Henry's feet, slaughtered by the King or by his bodyguard. And, despite recent claims to the contrary, it seems the English were horribly outnumbered.

In the cold, wet dawn of October 25, 1415, no one could have expected Henry's army to survive the day. He had about 6,000 men, more than 5,000 of them archers, while the French numbered at least 30,000 and were so confident that, before the battle was joined, they sent away some newly arrived reinforcements. By dusk on that Saint Crispin's Day, Henry's small army had entered legend.

But the English should never have been at Agincourt, which lies 25 miles south of Calais. England was in the thick of the 100 Years' War with France, and Henry had invaded Normandy in the hope of making a quick conquest of Harfleur, a strategic port. Yet the town's stubborn defence delayed him and by the siege's end his army had been struck by dysentery.

Sick men were dying and the campaign season was ending as winter drew in. Sensible advice suggested that Henry cut his losses and sail back to England. But he had borrowed huge amounts of money to invade France and all he had to show for it was one gun-battered port. Going home looked suspiciously like defeat.

He instead marched north to Calais with probably nothing more in mind than cocking a snook at the French who, though they had gathered an army, had done nothing to relieve the brave defenders of Harfleur.


The Battle of Agincourt, as depicted in the Channel 4 show The World's Worst Century

Henry wanted to humiliate the French by flaunting his banners, yet I doubt he truly wanted to face that large French army with his own depleted numbers.

The French had been supine all summer, but now, suddenly, they woke and moved to block Henry's path. Henry tried to go round them. A march meant to last eight days stretched to 16. The English exhausted their food, they were ill with dysentery and soaked from the continual autumn rains.

They were driven far inland in search of a place to cross the River Somme and then trudged north, only to discover the French army waiting for them on a muddy field between the woods of Azincourt and Tramecourt. The English were trapped.

The French were barring the English road home, so Henry had to fight. He hoped the French would attack him and he ordered his archers to protect themselves from knights on horseback by making a thicket of sharpened stakes to impale the stallions' chests.

But the French remained motionless, so Henry was forced to advance on them. Did he really say 'Let's go, fellows!' as one contemporary claimed? It seems so, yet whatever his words, the English plucked up their stakes and waded through the mud to get close to the French line.

And the French, even though they must have seen that the English were in disarray, did nothing. They let Henry's men come to within extreme bowshot distance where, once again, the stakes were hammered into the ground and the battle line was reformed on a newly ploughed field that had been soaked by constant rain. If I had to suggest one cause for the French defeat, it would be mud.

The two sides were now little more than a couple of hundred paces apart. The English, astonishingly, had been given time to reposition themselves, and now the archers began the battle by shooting a volley of arrows.

At least 5,000 of them, most converging from the flanks, slashed into the French, and it seems that the shock of that first arrow strike prompted the French to attack.

A handful of Frenchmen advanced on horseback, trying to get among the archers, but mud, stakes and arrows easily defeated those knights. Some of the horses, maddened by pain, galloped back through the French men-at-arms, tearing their ranks into chaos.

Some 8,000 Frenchmen were now advancing on foot. No one knows how long it took them to cover the 200 or more paces which separated them from Henry's men-at-arms, but it was not a quick approach.

They were wading through mud made treacherous by deeply ploughed furrows and churned to quagmire by horses' hooves. And they were being struck by arrows so that they were forced to close their helmets' visors.

They could see little through the tiny eye- slits, their breathing was stifled and still the arrows came. The conventional verdict suggests that the French were cut down by those arrow storms, but the chief effect of the arrows was to delay and, by forcing them to close their visors, half-blind the attackers.

The French knew about English and Welsh archers. The longbow could shoot an arrow more than 200 paces with an accuracy that was unmatched till the rifled gun barrel was invented.

At Agincourt some barbed broadhead arrows (which were designed to cause maximum damage and could fell cavalry) would have been shot at those few horses that attacked the English line. But most were bodkins, long and slender arrowheads without barbs that were made to pierce armour.

A good archer could easily shoot 15 arrows a minute, so 5,000 archers could loose 75,000 arrows in one minute; more than 1,000 a second.

Why did the French not deploy their own longbowmen? Because to shoot a longbow demanded great strength (they were at least three times as powerful as a modern competition bow) and considerable skill. It took years for a man to develop the muscles and technique, and for reasons that have never been understood, such men emerged in Britain, but not on the Continent.

So as the first French line advanced it was being struck repeatedly by arrows, and even if a bodkin did not penetrate plate armour its strike was sufficient to knock a man backwards.

If the advance took four minutes (and I suspect it took longer), then about 300,000 arrows would have been shot at the 8,000 men.


A page entitled 'Agincourt' from John Lennon's illustrated schoolbook, 'Anthology', created when he was 12

Even if the English were short of arrows and cut their shooting rate to one-third, then they would still have driven 100,000 arrows against the struggling 8,000, and if the legend is correct, then not one of those Frenchmen should have survived.

Yet they did survive, and most of them reached the English line and started fighting with shortened lances, poleaxes and war-hammers.

The fight became a struggle of hacking and thrusting, slaughter in the mud.

But if so many arrows had been shot, how did the French survive to reach the English and start that murderous brawl? The answer probably lies in the eternal arms race.

Armour technology had advanced and the French plate armour was mostly good enough to resist the English arrow-heads. And how good were those heads?

Arrow-making was an industrial-scale activity in England, yet few men understood what happened when iron was hardened into steel and many of the English arrows crumpled on contact with the enemy's armour. So the many reached the few, but the many were exhausted by mud, some were wounded and the English, enjoying the luxury of raised visors, cut them down.

What seems to have happened was that the front rank of the French, exhausted by slogging through the mud, battered and wounded by arrows, disorganised by panicked horses and by stumbling over wounded men, became easy victims for the English men-at-arms.

There would have been the ghastly sound of hammers crushing helmets, the screams of men falling, and suddenly the leading French rank being chopped down and its fallen men becoming an obstacle to those behind who, being thrust forward by the rearmost ranks, tripped on the newly fallen bodies and so became victims themselves. One witness claimed that the pile of dead and dying was as tall as a man, an obvious exaggeration, but undoubtedly the first French casualties made a rampart to protect the English men-at-arms.

The French had attacked the centre of the English line where the King, the nobles and the gentry stood. Their aim had been to take prisoners and so become rich from ransoms, but now that centre was a killing ground and, to escape it, the French widened their attack to assault the archers who had probably exhausted their arrows.

Yet the archers had been equipped with poleaxes and other handweapons, and they fought back.


A painting of Henry V, who is described by Bernard Cornwell as an 'inspirational leader'

The bowmen wore little armour, and in the glutinous mud they were far more mobile than their plate-armoured opponents.

Any man capable of hauling a warbow's string was hugely strong and a battle-axe in his hands would be a ghastly weapon. So the archers joined the hand-to-hand fight and the tired French were killed in their hundreds.

The second French line, another 8,000 men on foot, tried to support their beleaguered colleagues, but they too were cut down and the rest of the French melted away. The extraordinary, awful battle was over. The field was now groaning with horribly wounded men; men lying in piles, men suffocating in mud, dead men, blood-drenched men.

Perhaps as many as 5,000 French died that day, while English losses were in the hundreds, maybe not even as many as 200. The few had gained their extraordinary triumph.

There were other victories, like Poitiers in 1356, that were more decisive, and it is arguable that Agincourt achieved very little; it would take another five years of warfare before Henry won the concessions he wanted from the French and even then his premature death proved those gains worthless.

Shakespeare's heart-stirring Henry V helped ensure the battle's place in English folklore, but Shakespeare was playing to an audience that already knew the tale and wanted to hear it again.

Agincourt was well-known long before Shakespeare made it immortal, yet even so there were those other great triumphs like Poitiers and Crecy, so why Agincourt?

It must have started with the stories told by survivors. They had expected annihilation and gained victory. It might even be true that the archers, when the battle was over, taunted the French by holding up the two string-fingers that the enemy had threatened to slice off every captured bowman - the V- sign that is common parlance today.

The men in Henry's army must have believed they had been part of a miracle. The few had destroyed the many, and most of those few were archers.

They were not lords and knights and gentry, but butchers, bakers and candlestick-makers from the shires. They were the ordinary men of England and Wales. They had met the awesome power of France in hand-to-hand fighting and they had won.

The battle is part of the binding of England, the emergence of the common man as a vital part of the nation, and those common men returned to England with their tales, their plunder and their pride.

The stories were told in taverns over and over, how a few hungry, trapped men had gained an amazing victory. The story is still told because it has such power. It is a tale of the common man achieving greatness. It is an English tale for the ages, an inspiration and - far from being ashamed of so-called 'war crimes' - we can be proud of it.


 
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Blackleaf

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I guess you knew about it! LMAO


Henry V is an English hero. Bloody Froggy got everything he deserved.

The French are just sore losers (although you'd think they'd be used to losing on the battlefield by now).
 

Blackleaf

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:lol::lol::lol:.........Blacknuts; you're un****ingbelievable.


Thank God I'm here to put things right, that's what I say. I don't like to see nonsense being spouted, especially against national heroes and good men.

The Frogs had it coming to them and got what they deserved. Now it's time you actually read about the Battle of Agincourt instead of siding with the bad guys.
 
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Nuggler

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"It is not a tale of chivalry, but rather of armoured men hacking at each other to break limbs and crush skulls. At the battle's height, when Henry V expected an attack on his rear that never materialised, he ordered the newly captured French prisoners to be killed. They were murdered."

Some pissed off because no one would do his rear................pity.;-)

Thank God I'm here to put things right, that's what I say. I don't like to see nonsense being spouted, especially against national heroes and good men.



Excellent fellow: Carry on Blackie. Give the bloody froggies what for.....................:roll:

A taste of English steel
Fart in their general direction.
Loose the puppies of war.
an all that.
 

Blackleaf

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"It is not a tale of chivalry, but rather of armoured men hacking at each other to break limbs and crush skulls. At the battle's height, when Henry V expected an attack on his rear that never materialised, he ordered the newly captured French prisoners to be killed. They were murdered."

Some pissed off because no one would do his rear................pity.;-)

Thank God I'm here to put things right, that's what I say. I don't like to see nonsense being spouted, especially against national heroes and good men.



Excellent fellow: Carry on Blackie. Give the bloody froggies what for.....................:roll:

A taste of English steel
Fart in their general direction.
Loose the puppies of war.
an all that.

Here we are. A great expert on Henry V's French campaigns.

The French had it coming to them and I have no sympathy. Henry V will remain a national hero. Your ignorant comments on here won't change anything.
 

EagleSmack

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Here we are. A great expert on Henry V's French campaigns.

The French had it coming to them and I have no sympathy. Henry V will remain a national hero. Your ignorant comments on here won't change anything.

What were the English doing in France BEFORE they massacred surrendered French Knights and Soldiers?
 

Blackleaf

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What were the English doing in France BEFORE they massacred surrendered French Knights and Soldiers?

Trying to give Henry V what was rightfully his: the French crown.

The Frogs, of course, once conquered much of Europe under Old Boney, so they're pretty adept and conquering their neighbours themselves. Even more so.
 

Blackleaf

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:lol:...........Sound the retreat Eagle. It's a lost cause.

It's obvious that neither of you know nothing about Henry V's campaigns and yet you're quick to condemn him over things he was entirely justified in doing.
 

Blackleaf

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Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'