On the morning of October 25, 1415—Saint Crispin’s Day—Henry’s weary and hungry army found itself facing a vastly larger French host, estimates of which range from 12,000 to as many as 30,000. The French, comprising heavily armored knights and men-at-arms, were confident of victory. They saw the underfed English force, reduced by disease and long marches to perhaps 6,000 or fewer, as an easy target.

Yet the terrain and tactics would prove decisive. The English took position on a narrow strip of land flanked by woods. Recent ploughing and autumn rains had turned the field into thick mud, which would severely hamper heavily armored troops.

Henry arrayed his men in a traditional formation: dismounted men-at-arms in the center, flanked by thousands of longbowmen protected by pointed wooden stakes driven into the ground. When the French cavalry and infantry advanced, they were funneled into a congested killing zone. The English longbowmen, with their rapid volleys of arrows, inflicted devastating casualties.

As the French pressed forward, their own numbers worked against them, causing congestion and chaos. Many knights slipped and fell in the mud, only to be trampled by comrades. English men-at-arms then waded in with swords and mallets to dispatch the disoriented foe. By midday, the French army had been routed, suffering catastrophic losses, including many high-ranking nobles.

English casualties were remarkably light—perhaps only a few hundred. French losses may have exceeded 6,000, including the cream of their aristocracy. It was a shocking blow to France, and a triumph that would echo across Europe.

Michael Wood’s approach: Peering behind the legend

Michael Wood is not primarily a military historian; rather, he is a storyteller fascinated by how ordinary people experienced grand events. In documentaries like “In Search of Shakespeare,” “In Search of the Dark Ages,” and “Story of England,” Wood often returns to the interplay of myth, memory, and historical reality.

Agincourt is a perfect case study for such an approach. In interviews and writings, Wood has explored how the battle was swiftly woven into an English mythos of divine favor and chivalric heroism. Chroniclers like Thomas Walsingham presented it as evidence of God’s support for England. Later, Shakespeare’s Henry V immortalized it with stirring speeches about “we few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”

But as Wood reminds us, the actual experience would have been muddy, brutal, and horrific. The battlefield was a charnel house where suffocating armored men drowned in mud or were slaughtered helpless on the ground. Moreover, Henry’s controversial decision to execute hundreds of French prisoners—likely to prevent a renewed assault—underscores that medieval warfare was governed as much by ruthless pragmatism as by any code of honor.

Wood also emphasizes the broader context: how the triumph was celebrated back home not just with pageants but as divine vindication of English kingship. This myth helped sustain the Plantagenet claims in France for decades—even though, ultimately, England would lose nearly all its continental possessions by 1453. shutdown123