6 5

c Hap.XV. from the Conquest, to the Death of Mary I.

CHAP. XV.

Nay al Expeditions and Transactions of the English, with several otherEvents, during the Reign of King Henry V.

1413. |s Tjr E N R T V. surnamed of Mon-I—if mouth, the Place of his Birth,Jl succeded his Father, in 1413.and was crowned on the ninth ofApril. At the very Beginning of hisReign, he bent his Thoughts upon theRevival of the lawful Pretensions of hisAncestors to the Crown of France. He*414. resolved in the Year 1414. (a) upon an]j u Expedition to that Kingdom, and, to

^°nstrelet C ^ at ®' nc ^> having, with great DiligenceRising;,. ' got together a prodigious Fleet, confist-0il 1T s- F otes °f fifteen, some say sixteen Hundredia pin. Sail of Ships, Hulks, and other Vessels,many of which he had caused to be hi-red in Holland and Zeeland, he embark-ed with his Army at Southampton , onthe eighteenth or nineteenth of August.1415. this Interval of Time having beenspent partly in Treaties and Truces, andpartly in Domestick Occurrences. TheKing was accompanied by a great Num-ber of his Nobles, and an Army of fiftyThousand Men, among whom were sixThousand Men at Arms, and twenty orfour and twenty Thousand Archers.-^ rom thence he set Sail to Caudebeck,according to Burchett, but according topf^erfui Rapin to Havre de Grace in Normandy,^ y an ^ and, landing his Forces there, laid^alifngjj Siege to Harfleur, which, after aboutfive Weeks gallant Defence, surrender-/J^hrfleur ec s and several French Lords, who wereen dered. in the Place, were taken Prisoners. ThisSiege, as short as it was, together withthe Flux, which ravaged among theTroops, had reduced the English Army,to almost a fourth Part. This probablyinduced Henry, instead of pursuing hisConquest, to cross Picardy, in Order togain Calais-, after having expelled agreat Number of the Inhabitants of Har-fleur, and placed an Evglijh Colony in7 % e their Room.

In this Fatigue it was thatAbvrvfought^§incoy rt glorious Battle of Agincourt ,and ob-tained a Victory hardly to be paralelledin History, a Victory that will stand an

everlasting Honour to the Englisto Na- 14.1a.tion.

In this Battle, which was fought the Walsingh.five and twentieth of Oslober, the French Echard.had seven Princes killed, and five were ^.^Fevretaken Prisoners; (Echard fays a Hun- Mezerai.dred Princes killed.) They lost ten MonstreietThousand Men on the Spot, amongwhich (says Father Daniel)e\stnt Thou-sand were Gentlemen, and fourteenThousand were madePrifoners, of whomsixteen Hundred were Men of Quality.

A false Alarm of the Enemy’s rallyingafter theVictory obliged Henry, howeverto order all these Prisoners to be slain,excepting a few of the most eminent.

King Henry’s Army consisted of butnine Thousand Men, in a Condition tofight, and the Enemy’s (according to ourHistorians ) a Hundred and fifty Thou-sand. The French themselves allow theywere four, five or six Times the Num-ber of ours. The Difference is likewiseto be considered between an Army fresh,and healthy, abounding with Provisionsand a Handful of Men, sick, half star-ved, and in Want of every Thing, in-somuch that they were forced to fightnaked from the Waste downwards. TheLoss, on the Side of the Englist), was in-considerable, at most not above fourHundred Men, tho’ Mazerai and Mon-streiet make them amount to sixteen orseventeen Hundred. . The King return-ed to Fmgland in November, with hisprincipal Prisoners, after a dangerousPassage, some of his Ships having beenfunk in a Storm.

The French took the Loss of Har- S4.16.fleur so to Heart, and were so enraged ^hard**at the frequent Inroads the English made Waifmgh,into all the Country of Caux, and theDamages caused by their Vessels on theCoast of Normandy, that they were re-solved to endeavour the Recovery of itthe next Campaign, with all their

Might.

In

(a) F- Daniel says, under the Year 1413?that since the Truce had been expired, the Eng~

lip had possessed themselves of Rochet, pillagedsrepori, and made an Attempt upon Diep.