The Battle of Agincourt, 1415
A 15th-century manuscript illumination of the Battle of Agincourt, from the St Alban's Chronicle attributed to Thomas Walsingham.
On 25 October 1415 — Saint Crispin's Day — a battered, disease-weakened English army under Henry V met a far larger French force near the village of Agincourt in northern France. Narrow, freshly ploughed ground turned to mud under the weight of French knights advancing on foot, and English and Welsh longbowmen, protected by rows of sharpened stakes, cut down men and horses before the two sides even closed. The lopsided victory devastated the French nobility and hardened Henry's claim to the French throne, and centuries later Shakespeare's "band of brothers" speech made the battle a byword for triumph against impossible odds. Read more in our article on the Battle of Agincourt.
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