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On this date in 1475, the Louis de Luxembourg, Count of Saint-Pol was beheaded. The French King Louis XI “had need of a head such as his” because of Louis de Luxembourg’s part in the pompously self-styled League of the Public Weal. The “public weal” in question comprised civil war on behalf of feudal prerogatives that had slipped from aristocratic hands during the Hundred Years’ War. They were led by the ruthless Duke of Burgundy Charles the Bold. Louis de Luxembourg’s allegiance with Charles the Bold netted him, during the League’s successes, the title of Constable of France and the...

KING HENRY VNow, herald, are the dead number'd? HeraldHere is the number of the slaughter'd French. KING HENRY VWhat prisoners of good sort are taken, uncle? EXETERCharles Duke of Orleans, nephew to the king;John Duke of Bourbon, and Lord Bouciqualt:Of other lords and barons, knights and squires,Full fifteen hundred, besides common men. KING HENRY VThis note doth tell me of ten thousand FrenchThat in the field lie slain: of princes, in this number,And nobles bearing banners, there lie deadOne hundred twenty six: added to these,Of knights, esquires, and gallant gentlemen,Eight thousand and four hundred; of the which,Five hundred were but...

SCENE III. The same. Before the gates.   The Governor and some Citizens on the walls; the English forces below. Enter KING HENRY and his trainKING HENRY VHow yet resolves the governor of the town?This is the latest parle we will admit;Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves;Or like to men proud of destructionDefy us to our worst: for, as I am a soldier,A name that in my thoughts becomes me best,If I begin the battery once again,I will not leave the half-achieved HarfleurTill in her ashes she lie buried.The gates of mercy shall be all shut up,And the flesh'd...

Mark Twain called her: "Easily and by far the most extraordinary person the human race has ever produced." G. K. Chesterton said of her: "She chose a path and went down it like a thunderbolt." St. Therese of Lisieux, writing in a poem acclaimed her: "By a prodigy unique in history, People then saw a trembling monarch Regain his crown and his glory By means of a child's weak arm." She was Saint Joan of Arc and all the superlatives that have been applied to her since her ignominious death at the stake on May 30, 1431 barely seem enough....

In the world of Henry V, the Battle of Agincourt is a source of bursting pride for the English, a wellspring of superiority over the French and proof of the soul of those from the Isle. In spite of the inspiring speeches, the battle has passed into history as one of the enduring examples of a well-positioned army besting a much larger force. Were it not for the story of the triumphant underdog, Agincourt would have fallen into international obscurity with much of the Hundred Years’ War, a simmering conflict for the French throne that spanned from 1337 to 1453....

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...

Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, when the English under King Henry V defeated the French on St. Crispin's Day (25 October) of that year. Henry (1387-1422) followed his father King Henry IV to the throne in 1413 and two years later announced his claim to the French throne and rekindled the Hundred Years War by invading Normandy. In a post-battle compromise, Henry later married Catherine of Valois and was named by France's Charles VI as his successor, but Henry's untimely death to illness in 1422 prevented him from assuming the French kingship. This is...

For the sake of our collective survival, the English-speaking world needs to annually trumpet common achievements, values, and goals. Fortunately, the calendar contains an excellent date. Even better, the holiday's credo has already been composed -- by the greatest content provider ever in any language. Tomorrow, October 25, was once known as the Feast Day of St. Crispin. On this day in 1415, Henry V and his underdog British, outmanned at least by a factor of four, defeated Charles VI of France at the Battle of Agincourt. These days, even though Vatican II has delisted the twin martyred brothers St....

...The blackest stain upon Edward's reputation is the sack of the French town of Limoges in September 1370... the Bishop of Limoges, Johan de Cross - a friend of Edward's and godfather to his son - betrayed the prince and defected to the French. He welcomed a garrison into part of the town, and held it against the English. According to the chronicler Jean Froissart, Edward was incensed at the news and stormed it... "It was a most melancholy business - for all ranks, ages and sexes cast themselves on their knees before the prince, begging for mercy; but he...

Medieval suits of armour were so exhausting to wear that they could have affected the outcomes of famous battles, a study suggests. Scientists monitored volunteers fitted with 15th Century replica armour as they walked and ran on treadmills. They found that the subjects used high levels of energy, bore immense weight on their legs and suffered from restricted breathing. The research is published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The effect of the heavy armour was so great, that the researchers believe it may have have had an impact on the Battle of Agincourt. "It is a huge...

MAISONCELLE, France — The heavy clay-laced mud behind the cattle pen on Antoine Renault’s farm looks as treacherous as it must have been nearly 600 years ago, when King Henry V rode from a spot near here to lead a sodden and exhausted English Army against a French force that was said to outnumber his by as much as five to one. snip...They devastated a force of heavily armored French nobles who had gotten bogged down in the region’s sucking mud, riddled by thousands of arrows from English longbowmen and outmaneuvered by common soldiers with much lighter gear. It would...

The Day Of the Battle It rained for most of the night turning the ground sodden with ankle deep mud in some places. Both armies rose before dawn and assembled for battle, the English numbering 5000 archers and 900 men-at-arms and the French between 20-30,000. The rules of chivalry dictate that the field of battle should favor neither side but the French freely took up a position that was disadvantageous to them. They assembled perhaps 1000 yards apart, separated by a recently ploughed field. A slight dip between them ensured that the armies were in full view of each other....

The heavy clay-laced mud behind the cattle pen on Antoine Renault’s farm looks as treacherous as it must have been nearly 600 years ago, when King Henry V rode from a spot near here to lead a sodden and exhausted English Army against a French force that was said to outnumber his by as much as five to one. No one can ever take away the shocking victory by Henry and his “band of brothers,” as Shakespeare would famously call them, on St. Crispin’s Day, Oct. 25, 1415. They devastated a force of heavily armored French nobles who had gotten...

The scale of Henry V’s triumph at Agincourt, which has been feted as one of the greatest victories in British military history, has been exaggerated for almost six centuries, a new book is to reveal. The English and Welsh were still outnumbered, according to Anne Curry, professor of medieval history at Southampton University — but only by a factor of three to two. For the last 50 years historians have believed the odds were at least four to one. Curry is the first academic to untangle the true scale of Henry’s victory in 1415 by sifting through original enrolment records...

The future King Henry V was hit by an arrow to the face at the Battle of Shrewsbury -- how did he survive? This was the topic of a paper given by Michael Livingston at the 48th International Congress on Medieval Studies. Livingston, an Associate Professor at The Citadel, explains what happened in one of the most remarkable cases of battlefield surgery from the Middle Ages -- the arrow wound suffered by the future Henry V at the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403. Prince Henry was only 16 years old when he marched with his father's forces to Shrewsbury in...

During the Hundred Years' War, England had a centralized, state-controlled organization for manufacturing arrows in bulk. These were then issued as required to the soldiers on campaign. In June 1413, for example, Henry V appointed Nicholas Mynot to be “keeper of the king's arrows,” based in the Tower of London. Mynot was responsible for making arrows, but the royal fletchers alone could not supply the total need, so additional orders were placed with outside suppliers. In August 1413, for example, London-based fletcher Stephen Seler was paid for 12,000 arrows. We have some total figures available. In 1418, Henry V's government...

Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt (wiki) in 1415, when the English under King Henry V defeated the French on St. Crispin's Day (25 October) of that year. Henry (1387-1422) followed his father King Henry IV to the throne in 1413 and two years later announced his claim to the French throne and rekindled the Hundred Years War by invading Normandy. This is also the anniversary of the "the charge of the Light Brigade" (wiki) at the Battle of Balaclava on 25 October 1854. Although of relatively little importance in the larger context of the Crimean War,...