Killing and Clemency.

Five Hundred and ninety one years ago today An English army won one of it's most famous victories over the French at the battle of Agincourt (1415). The battle is remarkable for the very high number of prisoners that the English took - possibly they may have outnumbered the victors by a factor of ten to one.

Notoriously, the great majority of these prisoners were put to death on the orders of the English commander King Henry V. Nominally , this was caused by a late (but feeble) French attack on the English rear that resulted in the plunder of the English baggage train. Henry was reportedly panicked into thinking that he was being encircled. Furthermore there was probably an element of personal affront in that at least one of his crowns was stolen.

Viewed from both a purely moral standpoint and also through the lens of the prevailing climate of Chivalry towards one's high-standing peers , the killing of unarmed prisoners is indefensible. What's more Henry certainly had a hand in further questionable behaviour - he oversaw a massacre at the taking of Caen in 1417 and during the seige of Rouen he refused food to women and children expelled from the city and trapped between the seige-lines and the city walls. He also reportedly hung prisoners after such seiges.



The deployments during the battle : ( from http://www.geocities.com/beckster05/Agincourt/AgBattle.html )