Shakespeare's Kings (65 page)

Shakespeare's text - as opposed to most modern productions of the play - giving no indication that he even remembers him. The incident may be fictitious, but it accurately illustrates not only the King's mood but his extraordinary change of character since his accession. Accurate too, as far as it goes, is his answer to Montjoy's challenge. He does not

- as the historical Henry did - sue for peace; indeed he even injects one or two gratuitous insults. At the same time he makes no secret of the condition of his army:

My people are with sickness much enfeebled,

My numbers lessened, and those few
I
have

Almost no better than so many French . . .

My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk,

My army but a weak and sickly guard.

Yet, God before, tell him we will come on,

Though France himself and such another neighbour

Stand in our way.

By now, as the last scene of Act III makes clear, the French can hardly wait for the battle to begin.

Act IV forms the climax of the play. Its first scene, in which the King makes his round of the English camp on the ni
ght before the battle, is
— for its poetry, for the opportunity it gives to a great actor, and for the extraordinary atmosphere that Shakespeare manages to evoke - perhaps one of the best-known that he ever wrote. There is no historical evidence that Henry did any such thing; nor, on the other hand, is it in any way unlikely. All great generals - and though Henry's strategy was occasionally at fault there can be
little
doubt of his greatness - show a care for their men, and his immense popularity with his troops proves that he could have been no exception to the rule. Something must have occurred during those long, sodden hours before the dawn to infuse into the exhausted army the spirit to turn almost certain defeat into victory; and 'a little touch of Harry in the night' is surely the most probable explanation. The three soldiers - John Bates, Alexander Court and Michael Williams — are Shakespeare's creations; 'old' Sir Thomas Erpingham, however, is a historical figure; at the time of Agincourt he was fifty-eight. It is he who, at the end of the scene, leaves the King alone on the stage to speak his final prayer before the coming conflict:

O God of
Battle
s, steel my soldiers' hearts

and
this
immediately
leads
us
back
to
that
moral
burden
that
the
House of
Lancaster
could
never
entirely
shake
off
-
the
guilt
that
Henry
will always
feel
for
his
father's
usurpation
of
the
throne.

'The
sun
doth
gild
our
armour;
up,
my
lords!'
With
this
magical line,
and
more
vainglorious
speeches
from
the
French
side,
the
dramatic representation
of
the
battle
effectively
begins.
The
scene
then
changes to
the
English
camp,
and
leads
to
the
great
St
Crispin's
Day
speech
that, sixty
years
ago,
every
English
schoolboy
had
sooner
or
later
to
learn
by heart:
the
King's
indignant
retort
to
the
Earl
of
Westmorland's
surely comprehensible
wish
that

we now had here

But one ten thousand of those men in England

That do no work today!

There
is
good
historical
evidence
for
this
incident,
which
is
included by
Holinshed
—
who
does
not,
however,
specify
the
figure
and
who makes
no
mention
of
Westmorland
by
name.
Interestingly
enough,
the story
is
also
told
by
Henry's
unknown
chaplain,
in
whose
Gesta Henrici Quinti
the
retort
is
made
not
to
Westmorland
but
to
Sir
Walter Hungerford,
who
had
wished
for
'another
ten
thousand
of
the
best English
archers'.
Whether
the
chaplain's
account
was
known
to
Shakespeare
we
shall
never
know:
if
it
was
not,
the
choice
of
the
figure
ten thousand
could
easily
have
been
coincidental;
if
it
was,
the
transfer
of the
speech
to
an
existing
character
in
the
play
would
surely
have
been legitimate
in
the
circumstances.
Certainly
from
Holinshed
is
the
second appearance
of
Montjoy,
giving
the
King
his
last
chance
of
paying
a ransom
to
deliver
himself
and
his
army
from
almost
certain
destruction; but
the
herald
receives
-
predictably
-
the
same
response
as
before.

In
his
introduction
to
Act
IV
the
Chorus
has
given
us
warning
of how

we shall much disgrace

With four or five most vile and ragged foils

Right ill-disposed in brawl ridiculous

The name of Agincourt.

The action of the battle is in fact compressed into three short scenes, of which the second already presents the French lords as fully conscious of their defeat and the third - of a mere thirty-eight lines - is almost entirely given over to the deaths of the only two English noblemen to have fallen, the Duke of York and the Earl of Suffolk. (The affecting story of their deaths as told by Exeter is plainly fabricated: Exeter was not even present at Agincourt - despite Holinshed's affirmation to the contrary - and York's death, as we have seen, was probably due to heart failure.) Just before the end of the scene, however, the mood changes: the King gives his terrible order to kill all the French prisoners. In his antepenultimate line he makes his reason clear: the noise of a distant alarum has persuaded him that 'the French have reinforced their scattered men'.

Strangely enough, however, at the beginning of scene vii only a few lines further on, Captain Gower attributes the decision to the King's anger on hearing of a French raid on the English tents, which ended in a massacre of the boy servants who had been left in charge of them; and when Henry enters again with the words

I was not angry since I came to France

Until this instant

he seems to confirm Gower's view. If we go back to Holinshed we find a still more confused account; and Shakespeare evidently shares the confusion. But for him, unlike Holinshed, there is an additional important consideration: he must at all costs keep the sympathy of his audience for the King. Gower and Fluellen are obviously speaking for the entire army when they express their disgust at the French atrocity - which, as Fluellen points out, is 'expressly against the law of arms' -and their support of Henry's order.

By contrast, the beginning of the following scene with Montjoy the herald is taken almost word for word from Holinshed: first the request to bury the French dead, then the King's demand for confirmation that the day is indeed his - which Montjoy immediately gives - and finally the naming of the battle after the neighbouring castle of Agincourt. The scene continues with Shakespeare's invented characters and the incident of the exchanged gloves; history reappears only towards the end of scene viii, with the English herald bringing Henry the list of the
principal
casualties
on
both
sides.
All
these
are
taken
dire
ctly
from Holinshed,
as
is
the
thanksgiving
to
God
with
which
the
act
ends:

Let there be sung
Non nobis
and
Te Deum,

The dead with charity enclosed in clay,

And then to Calais, and to England then,

Where ne'er from France arrived more happy men.

The
story
of
the
King's
triumphant
return
to
London
is
given
to
the Chorus,
in
the
introduction
to
Act
V.
We
are
told
not
only
of
the cheering
crowds,
'Whose
shouts
and
claps
outvoice
the
deep-mouthed sea',
but
also
of
Henry's
refusal
to
allow
'His
bruised
helmet
and
his bended
sword'
to
be
borne
before
him
through
the
city.
¹
The
other function
of
the
Chorus
at
this
point
is
to
bridge
the
five
years
between Agincourt
and
the
Treaty
of
Troyes
in
May
1420.
For
Shakespeare
it was
essential
that
the
great
Battle
should
form
the
climax
of
his
play; there
was
no
space
for
the
King's
second
expedition,
for
the
taking
of Caen
and
Rouen
or
for
the
murder
of
the
Duke
of
Burgundy.
We must
therefore
omit