![]() Henty ( At Agincourt, 1897) and Bernard Cornwell ( Azincourt, 2008) reinforce these notions, though historians such as Desmond Seward have been critical of Henry, particularly his execution of prisoners. William Shakespeare’s eponymous 1599 play about Henry V, and later movies based upon it, immortalize the king and popularize such bromides as “God is on England’s side” and “one Englishman is worth 10 Frenchmen.” Novels by G.A. Troop numbers are debatable, though the emerging consensus has 5,000–6,000 well led English (“we happy few”) defeating 12,000–20,000 poorly deployed French. ![]() ![]() What we know of Agincourt comes from 26 unreliable chronicles-10 written in England and 16 in France, and only four of which were written within a decade of the battle. ![]() For the French however, Azincourt (as they call it) is just one among many military disasters they have endured in their long history. ![]() The 1415 Battle of Agincourt is among the most celebrated of English victories-highlighted by the drama of two kingdoms’ fates and the heroics of Henry V, whose untimely death in 1422 made him, in the words of author Stephen Cooper, the “James Dean of his age.” It was perhaps the last great victory of the longbow, supplanted over the next century by the Swiss pike and handgun of the German Landsknecht. Book Review: Agincourt, by Stephen Cooper CloseĪgincourt: Myth & Reality, 1415–2015, by Stephen Cooper, Praetorian Press, an imprint of Pen & Sword Books, Barnsley, U.K., 2014, $32.95 ![]()
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