This day is call’d the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say “To-morrow is Saint Crispian.”
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say “These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.”
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words—
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester—
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be rememberèd—
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
– William Shakespeare
Laurence Olivier delivered this speech as though he was reading somebody else’s laundry list.
Kenneth Branagh did a better job.
But the best delivery, even if only a fragment, was by 1LT Carwood Lipton, Co. E, 506 PIR, shortly before his death, in one of the prologues to “Band of Brothers”.
https://youtu.be/9DetpAIuHqQ?si=jyuiTaIolfRNiur3
llater,
llanas
I don’t want to be a wet squib, but the truth is it is complete bollocks.
I mean obviously King Henry said nothing of the sort, and it is just Shakespearian propaganda. But regardless of that what is this? A speech to convince a bunch of poor farmers conscripted into service to fight in some invasion of a foreign country for the sole purpose of expanding the territorial reach of the English monarchy? Band of brothers my arse. As the wounded left their dead and struggled back to their farms good Prince Harry did not give a shit. He just upped the taxes to pay for his next foreign misadventure. While good Prince Harry went back to London to be received in triumph, feted and festooned with glory, and praised as the instrument of God. And all for what? The goal was to put the English monarchy on the throne of France, yet, despite the fact that the whole leadership of the French nation was slaughtered at the battle the English monarchy never sat on the French throne. So, it was a fatuous reason to go to war and destroy the lives and property of so many people, and even, in spite of its fatuous nature, the goal was entirely unsuccessful.
And yet, despite this, Agincourt is the very symbol of English triumph, a very monument of English victory, the very essence of what it means to be English.
Sorry, I don’t buy it.
You know jackshit about the topic, Orr. The English army was not conscripted, it was made up of yeoman who were professional soldiers and contract volunteers.
Even factoring in that Shakespeare was writing plays and not history, even factoring in that in the long term things would go bad for England in the Hundred Years War….even still…. Agincourt was still a very impressive English military victory and well worth remembering in our folklore and national story.
So to adapt a line that Tony Soprano(rightly) said about Columbus: ‘In this house Henry V was a hero. End of story!’
Henry V won the battle and captured Paris – and, contrary to what some say above, his claim to the French throne was quite strong as “you can not claim down the female line” was invented to keep the English claimant, originally Edward III, out – no one had said “you can not claim down the female line” BEFORE that led to an English claimant to the French throne. However, the French pointed to the way that Henry V’s father Henry IV had become King – using Parliament (did Parliament really have any such legal power to do that?) to remove his close kin Richard II, and then how Richard II had rather conveniently died.
Edward III was the first Norman King to support English literature (in spite of all Norman Kings also being direct descendants of Alfred the Great – thanks to Henry the 1st’s marriage to an Anglo-Saxon Princess) and although fluent in French (contrary to what Shakespeare implies) Henry V was primarily an English speaker.
Henry V married the daughter of the existing King and they had a son (Henry VI) – but he then got ill and died, when his son was still a baby, so everything fell apart. Legally Henry VI was King of France – but he was too young to defend that claim, and when he grow up he had problems with mental illness (ironically these may have been inherited from his French mother – there was madness in that inbred family) and could not even hold the crown of England – Wars of the Roses (there was no way to peacefully remove a King – but the Yorkists, not unreasonably, claimed that a mentally ill King was unfit to rule – and that their hereditary claim to the throne was better than his anyway).
Such are the accidents of history.
By the way – serfdom had died out in England by this time and was very rare in France (the idea that serfs were liberated by the Revolution of 1789 is a myth – it was that strange man King Louis X who had ended slavery and serfdom in France, back in the Middle Ages).
The major difference between England and France in 1415 was that Roman Law (or rather the medieval version of it) had not been “received” in England (it never was) – with such things as Jury Trials, which had died out in France, actually getting stronger in England.
Those English farmers with their longbows (and their “bills” – the most common English infantry weapon was the Billhook – it is an adapted farm tool, and it is very effective) sat on juries and gave legal judgments – of guilty or not guilty.
That was not the case in France – where a government appointed judge made such decisions, and torture (yes torture) was, under the medieval version of Roman Law, considered acceptable to get a confession. Torture to get a confession was not abolished in France till Louis XVI abolished it – some years BEFORE 1789 (he also abolished the anti Jewish and anti Protestant laws – again years before the Revolution).
Those who can not defend their freedom, with weapons, lose their freedom – and their property and lives.
There was a 1980s book collecting parodies, pastiches and mash ups of literary works titled How to Become Incredibly Well-Read in One Evening which transformed Henry the Fifth into a succession of editorials in the style of The Sun. I recall the concluding line: “Now we shall find out whether the fairy tale is really true – can a kiss from handsome Hal turn a Frog into a true princess?”.
Everyone there before the battle expected the English to be slaughtered. It’s not a rah rah speech, it’s a farewell from one who expects to die to those he expects to join him.
Rylance has it best.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOouofFFrZE
@Martin
Agincourt was still a very impressive English military victory and well worth remembering in our folklore and national story.
It is a curious way of assessing things. The purpose of any battle is to achieve some political end. The battle is not an intrinsic good, on the contrary, at best it is a necessary evil. But this battle did not achieve its political end, so a fairer assessment would be that it was not a necessary evil, but a futile evil.
So to adapt a line that Tony Soprano(rightly) said about Columbus: ‘In this house Henry V was a hero. End of story!’
But why? Just because the propaganda (then and now) sets him up as a hero, doesn’t mean a rational analysis would agree. And, FWIW, Columbus was a monster.
I just think that history and societal memory is far to ready to celebrate these terrible things. War is necessary sometimes — though far less frequently that politicians would have us believe — but it is horrendous, and hardly something worth celebrating. In all the pretty speeches and glorious triumphs we seem to forget the dead and maimed, the families destroyed, the property ruined, the economic devastation. Perhaps necessarily so. Perhaps we need to put these pretty patinas on the history because the truth is so utterly horrible.
I’m no pacifist, for sure there are times to get out your guns, and there are some causes worth dying for. But when the cost is hidden under the pretty polished speeches and glorious celebrations, it becomes way to easy to send our kids to die in some filthy trench in some foreign shithole.
And insofar as war is justified, surely it is to secure the peace. But what are the consequences of Agincourt? If I remember my history correctly, riding on his success Henry goes fights another campaign, dies of dysentery, and leaves a baby on the throne, a baby who, as an adult, turns out to be an idiot, which leads to the civil war called the War of the Roses. A brutal, long conflict of murderous consequences. Including for example, the Battle of Towton which killed something like 2% of the male adults in England on one afternoon, on one blood meadow.
These battles that are so celebrated never seem to have any good consequences. England was at war with itself, a meaningless dynastic struggle, largely due to the consequences of Agincourt until some Welsh interloper managed to beat Richard to death at Bosworth and usurp the throne to the Tudors.
Some wars are worth fighting, this one was not one of them.
Henry V very nearly did win – ie v nearly did unite the crowns of England and France. But he got sick and croaked at the height of his powers. Had he not died, he would have had Europe at his feet. Who knows what would have happened if he had lived another 20 years, and left an heir in his twenties and not in his crib.
Here is a fine article about the Welsh archers and their tremendous skills.
Henry V very nearly did win – ie v nearly did unite the crowns of England and France. But he got sick and croaked at the height of his powers. Had he not died, he would have had Europe at his feet. Who knows what would have happened if he had lived another 20 years, and left an heir in his twenties and not in his crib.
OK, so let’s imagine the English knew how to dig a toilet and he had survived. Maybe you are right and he would have ascended to the French throne. But what then? No doubt history would have been quite different (would we have had an EU rather earlier? 😉) but would it have been better? For sure if you were a Plantagenet it would have been awesome. But I think for everyone else, not so much.
If you think of a truly just war like the Second World War you can say for sure that, for example, the French people were truly liberated and the immense cost in blood an treasure may well have been worth it. Or the Falklands War where the people of those islands were saved from a tyrannical fate and it was made clear again in world order that you can’t just take what you want by force, something that was reinforced also by the last actual strategic military victory of the US military a decade later in Kuwait.
But these medieval wars were mostly just politicians arguing over who was in charge, and the bulk of the people derived nothing but taxes, death, destruction, disease and injury from them.
I was a kid during the Falklands war and I remember the ships returning and the whole country rejoicing and celebrating the heroes. And that was certainly right and proper, and Thatcher was both right and brave to do what she did. Moreover, the skill, professionalism and equipment of the British military were something to truly make you proud to be British.
But there were a lot of Welsh guardsmen whose names have long been forgotten that were hidden away, and paid the price for the rest of their lives, or at least the lucky ones did. So all the fine celebrations are good and deserved, but it is too easy to forget the cost. And if you forget the cost, especially if it is not you that is paying it, it is all to easy to get us embroiled in some other murderous conflict, inflated by politicians cries of patriotism and dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori. As long at it is someone else’s kid doing the “mori” I suppose.
Fraser Orr – I outlined what the consequences of the battle were. Read my comment above.
It won the war – Henry IV took Paris, he married the daughter of the existing French King and they had a son, but then Henry got ill and died – and, over time, things fell apart (with the help of the famous Joan of Arc). Such are the accidents of history.
Perhaps more importantly the battle showed that ordinary free men could, with long bows and billhooks (and other hand weapons – such as long thin daggers to get into the joints of enemy armour), could take on and defeat professional and heavily armored warriors – who greatly outnumbered them.
There is nothing particularly high tech about a longbow (the idea goes back thousands of years) – it is not some fancy recurve bow (a man of ordinary strength can use a recurve bow – to use a full power longbow effectively a man has to have great physical strength and to train himself to use it). And there is nothing special about a billhook – it is adapted farm tool.
What mattered was the free men who wielded such weapons – who won (and had won previous battles under Edward III) even when greatly outnumbered by professional warriors.
Think about that – free farmers defeating professional warriors who greatly outnumbered them.
It is important for the English as the defeat of Hapsburg armies is for the Swiss.
What really matters is nothing to do with King Harry. It is to do with a tremendous piece of oratory penned by William Shakespeare. That is the real winner here. It is our language, our culture, our identity, it is us.
To those that deny that…
Bid them achieve me and then sell my bones!
And yes, the Ken Brannagh version is excellent. I agree entirely with llamas about that dreadful old ham Larry.
@Paul Marks
Think about that – free farmers defeating professional warriors who greatly outnumbered them.
That’s not what happened at all. You seem to be implying that these “free farmers” just grabbed a pick axe and headed over the France, or grabbed grandpappy’s bow from over the fire place, and jumped on Henry’s ship. But that isn’t what happened at all. Those farmers were trained from birth with a bow. The law was such that archery was the only sport allowed. They were supplied from massive English armories. They were peasants for sure, but very well trained peasants.
And another myth is that the mighty English longbows won the day. For sure they were a significant factor but the main causes of the loss at Agincourt were Henry’s choice of a narrow, boggy field that heavily handicapped the cavalry and prevented them from encircling the archers, and the utterly incompetent French leadership arising from massive cockiness, compounded by the fact that the incompetent dauphin hadn’t even arrived by the start of the battle, and so the battle was governed by a bunch of competing Dukes trying to one up each other and gain advantage. Again, which isn’t to say that the English archers weren’t devastating to those French men at arms trapped in the muddy fields, but it is much more complicated than the standard tale of the English archers mowing down the French and giving them the two fingers vicky sign afterward.
Nonetheless, none of that really matters as I explained in my comment here.
Why am I bothering to bang on about this at great length? I mean it was six hundred years ago. Because this glorification of warfare is extremely dangerous and toxic. By only looking at these victories, by celebrating with Shakespeare, and hearing Branagh’s soliloquy, we feel the rising pride of patriotism in our breast, and it makes it more acceptable to do these things. Things that were ultimately vanity projects for the Plantagenets. Where is Shakespeare’s beautiful prose describing the bloodied corpses, the men crying out for their mommies in pain, the dismembered, the men begging for death, the blood soaked fields? Whether English or French it is a scene of carnage and surely any decent person has to ask what good for humanity came out of it all.
And so as we celebrate this band of brothers, we happy few, surely we should remember with equal or more alacrity those same brothers beaten and dismembered, we not so happy few begging for the mercy of death, and the children of those “in England now-abed” grateful that their father is still alive to continue to scrape out the bare living they had.
So, I think this sort of celebration of war is very dangerous and can dilute our reluctance to get embroiled in the next pointless political adventure.
Fraser,
You view the 100 Years War as uneccesary and wrong as it was fought to supprt the English King’s right to hold his property in France free of French overlordship. You support the Second World War and the Falklands War as being just as they defended free people from tyranny. People hold different views in different ages. My father served in the Royal Navy during World War Two and I assume a previous ancestor, if he didn’t actually fight at Agincourt, sailed the invasion force or built the boats or provided the prostitutes to keep the lads happy. What was a just War earlier than the Second World War?
@NickM – the first mrs llamas’ grandpa was at prep school with Olivier, and always referred to him as ‘that sidey shit Olivier’. Apparently, he had a strong opinion of himself even then.
llater,
llamas
@Alan Scott
What was a just War earlier than the Second World War?
As a Scottish lad myself, drowning here in all this English pride, I feel the best example is Robert Bruce’s Scottish War of Independence and the Battle of Bannockburn?
😉
would we have had an EU rather earlier? 😉
Fraser, the western Roman empire, the Holy Roman Empire, the Concert of Europe, the EEC, the EU, and others too. Is the project not clear enough, Sir?
llamas,
We’ve all had oblique brushes with fame… You showed me yours so it’s only fair to reciprocate.
In 1998 I had an online friendship with a South African. She was very nice. It didn’t get very far, alas. She was in England as a skivvy on a “Working Holiday” visa. She invited me to London for a party. She lived in the basement of a very large place in Limehouse. Now her Lord, literally, was away for the weekend at his country estate. So… When the cat’s away… Anyway, she invited some chums and we had a beer and bong party during which I utterly failed to get off with T but, yes, I did get stoned at David Owen’s gaff.
Having been initially a little miffed by Fraser Orr’s comments, I’m now much more sympathetic (but still not in total agreement).
War is terrible and the damage done is appalling. However, it’s going to happen. The more we (uncritically) embrace peace, the more others will see us as week. The Falkland’s war is a good example. If the UK had sent out stronger signals earlier, it’s quite possible Galtieri would have thought better of his adventurism.
Turning to the glorification point-I think it’s necessary for two reasons:
1. See above. But you need soldiers to enlist.
2. Glorification, with some emphasis on moral superiority, encourages better behaviour in war.
@Clovis, FWIW I think those are two valuable points. As I said earlier “Perhaps we need to put these pretty patinas on the history because the truth is so utterly horrible.”
And I do agree that the men who went to those terrible places and did amazingly brave things deserve the recognition that they are due. My complaint is with the politicians that spend the lives and bravery of these young men so very cheaply, for so little benefit. It is very easy to be brave with someone else’s life.
“What do you think the bowmen and their knight bosses talked about between each other on their way home? Dead knights with arrows in them, that’s what.”
@Fraser Orr
Too right!
With a daughter in the army, I think this most days.
Ha! My daughter just left the Navy.
It does encourage a certain clarity of the mind concerning international relations, doesn’t it?
My guess is that, had the crowns of England and France been unified, England stood to lose more than France; because the monarchy would have taken up residence in Paris and ruled England from France. (Just look at the Normans and Hanoverians, and briefly Knud den Store and Willem iii van Oranje).
England and France were, and are, divided by geography and language. They should not be subject to the same government.
— There are other issues, however, on which i strongly disagree with Fraser, if i understand him correctly.
For one thing, that Columbus was a monster is just woke propaganda. And i am not even much of a fan of Columbus!
A broader point:
What is worth celebrating is victory, or even defeat and death, against fearful odds.
For the ashes of our Fathers, and the temples of our Gods.
See also Conan’s prayer to Crom.
@Snorri Godhi
For one thing, that Columbus was a monster is just woke propaganda. And i am not even much of a fan of Columbus!
He enslaved an island of people and worked them to death, and stole everything of value he could find. It was to that point that he almost ended the whole Taino people. Enslavement, genocide and robbery: that’s pretty bad to me. I’m no woke person but that doesn’t mean I can’t reassess the often jingoistic view of these early people from American history.
Washington was a remarkable man and an amazing President, but it doesn’t change the shocking reality that he owned hundreds of slaves. Stating that is not woke, it is reality.
What is worth celebrating is victory, or even defeat and death, against fearful odds.
Victory is only worth celebrating if it is a victory that makes the cost worthwhile. Henry V’s victory achieved effectively nothing, not even for the King never mind the people who fought or the people of England. And in the St Crispin’s day speech he is not celebrating victory he is celebrating that he is going to fight a battle — an entirely unjust battle.
For sure we can recognize the heroism and bravery of the fighters as I said above, but to celebrate “Good Prince Harry” in this situation is just vile.