The Battaile of Agincourt Part 17

Page 26, l. 14 [Stz. 53]. "_Pruce._" --Prussia.

Page 26, l. 23 [Stz. 54]. "_Flee-boats._" --Flyboats, Fr. _flibots_, which affords a more probable etymology than _freebooter_ for _flibustier_ and _filibuster_.

Page 27, ll. 17, 18 [Stz. 58]. "_From Holland, Zeland, and from Flanders wonne By weekely pay, threescore twelue Bottoms came._" --"It was one of the earliest measures to secure s.h.i.+pping from Holland" (Nicolas). The total number of s.h.i.+ps enumerated by Drayton as joining in the rendezvous at Southampton is one hundred and seventy-eight, the foreign hired vessels included. A contemporary authority quoted by Sir Harris Nicolas makes it three hundred and twenty, made up by contingents from the neighbouring havens to between twelve and fourteen hundred. According to the list published by Sir Harris Nicolas, the number of effective fighting men did not exceed ten thousand five hundred, though there were probably as many more attendants and camp-followers.

Page 27, l. 31 [Stz. 59]. "_The acclamation of the presse._" --Might be said in our time of any popular war, but in how different a sense!

Page 28, l. 1 [Stz. 60]. --This and the following stanza are quoted by Sir Harris Nicolas with just admiration. In fact, Drayton's description of the marshalling and departure of the expedition are the best part of his poem.

Page 29, ll. 4-6 [Stz. 64]. "_In Ensignes there, Some wore the Armes of their most ancient Towne, Others againe their owne Diuises beare._"

--The catalogue which follows is entirely in the spirit of Italian romantic poetry, and may be especially compared with that of Agramante's allies and their insignia in the "Orlando Innamorato." In many instances the device, as Drayton says, represents the escutcheon of some town within the county; in others he seems to have been indebted to his imagination, though endeavouring not unsuccessfully to adduce some reason for his choice.

Page 30, l. 11 [Stz. 68]. "_Brack._" --Brine.

Page 30, l. 20 [Stz. 69]. "_Lyam._" --A band or thong by which to lead a hound; hence _lyme-hound_.

Page 31, l. 3 [Stz. 71]. "_A Golden Fleece and Hereford doth weare._"

--Grammar requires this line to begin _And Hereford_. Awkward dislocations, however, are not infrequent in Drayton.

Page 31, l. 6. "_The s.h.i.+ere whose surface seems most brute._" --George Eliot, like Drayton a native of fertile Warwicks.h.i.+re, ent.i.tles the neighbouring county _Stonys.h.i.+re_.

Page 33, l. 17 [Stz. 80]. "_The Fleet then full,_" _etc._ --Compare this fine stanza, which might have been written by one who had never been on s.h.i.+pboard, with the still more poetical and at the same time intensely realistic one of Shakespeare ("Henry V.," act iii., prologue), which proves that he must have been at sea on some occasion:

"Play with your fancies, and in them behold Upon the hempen tackle s.h.i.+p-boys climbing; Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give To sounds confused; behold the threaden sails, Borne with the invisible and creeping wind, Draw the huge bottoms through the furrowed sea."

Page 34, ll. 9, 10 [Stz. 83]. "_Long Boates with Scouts are put to land before, Vpon light Naggs the Countrey to discry._" --"Before day-break the next morning, Wednesday the 14th of August, John Holland, Earl of Huntingdon, Sir Gilbert Umfreville, and Sir John Cornwall, were sent with a party of cavalry to reconnoitre Harfleur and its vicinity, with the view of selecting a proper situation for the encampment of the army"

(Sir Harris Nicolas).

Page 35, l. 1 [Stz. 86]. "_To the high'st earth whilst awfull Henry gets._" --_Whilst_ must here be taken as = _meanwhile_.

Page 35, l. 3. "_With sprightly words_" _etc._ --The confusion in this line is evidently due to the printer. Drayton must have written: "And thus with sprightly words," etc.

Page 35, l. 9 [Stz. 87]. "_He first of all proclaim'd._"

--"A proclamation was issued forbidding under pain of death a repet.i.tion of some excesses which had been committed, and commanding that henceforth the houses should not be set on fire, or the churches or other sacred places violated, and that the persons of women and priests should be held sacred" (Sir Harris Nicolas). Holinshed adds, "or to any suche as should be founde withoute weapon or armor, and not ready to make resistance."

Page 36, l. 30 [Stz. 93]. "_Shee so instructed is by Natures Lawes._"

--A characteristic instance of this excellent poet's frequent and unaccountable lapses into bathos.

Page 38, l. 7 [Stz. 98]. "_Whose Mynes to the besieg'd more mischiefe doe._" --Holinshed, however, admits that the French "with their countermining somewhat disappointed the Englishmen, and came to fight with them hand to hand within the mynes, so that they went no further forward with that worke."

Page 41, l. 30 [Stz. 113]. "_But on his bare feete to the Church he came._" --"He dismounted at the gate, took off his shoes and stockings, and proceeded barefoot to the church of St. Martin, where he gave solemn thanks to G.o.d for his success" (Sir Harris Nicolas, quoting the French chroniclers), Holinshed mentions Henry's repairing to the church to offer thanks, but omits the picturesque circ.u.mstance of his going thither barefoot, and pa.s.ses over his entrance into the town in the briefest possible manner. It is an interesting proof of Shakespeare's dependence upon the chronicler to find him equally ignoring any solemn entry or prolonged sojourn:

"To-night in Harfleur will we be your guest, To-morrow for the march are we addrest."

In fact, as Drayton tells us, he remained eight days in Harfleur, awaiting the Dauphin's reply to his challenge, which Holinshed does not mention. Shakespeare, Drayton, and Holinshed alike pa.s.s over the exceedingly picturesque circ.u.mstance of the expulsion of the women and children under escort of the English troops. Drayton only says: "Out of the Ports all Vagrants he doth driue."

Page 42, ll. 7, 8 [Stz. 114]. "_He frankly off'reth in a single fight, With the young Daulphine to decide his right._" --Sir Harris Nicolas remarks: "Of the personal valour which that letter displays on the part of Henry but little can be said, for the challenger was about twenty-seven years of age, and in the full vigour of manhood, whilst his adversary, of whose prowess or bodily strength there is not the slightest evidence, and who died in the December following, had not attained his twentieth year."

Page 43, ll. 15, 16 [Stz. 119]. "_A Ford was found to set his Army ore Which neuer had discouered beene before._" --This cannot be, for the anonymous priest to whose narrative as an eyewitness of the campaign we are so deeply indebted, says, "The approach was by two long but narrow causeways, which the French had before warily broken through the middle"

(Nicolas, p. 233).

Page 44, l. 1 [Stz. 122]. "_Therfore they both in solemne Counsaile satt._" --This council was held on October 20th, five days before Agincourt. "The opinions of the different members," says Sir Harris Nicolas, "are very minutely given by Des Ursins."

Page 44, l. 2. "_Britaine._" --Brittany. The Duke of Brittany, in fact, did not arrive in time to take part in the battle.

Page 44, l. 17 [Stz. 124]. "_A Route of tatter'd Rascalls starued so._"

--Holinshed's description of the condition of the English army is most graphic: "The English men were brought into great misery in this journey, their victuall was in maner spent, and nowe coulde they get none: for their enemies had destroied all the corne before they came: reste could they none take, for their enemies were ever at hande to give them alarmes: dayly it rained, and nightly it freesed: of fewell there was great scarsitie, but of fluxes greate plenty: money they hadde enoughe, but of wares to bestowe it uppon for their reliefe or comforte, hadde they little or none. And yet in this great necessitye the poore people of the countrey were not spoiled, nor any thyng taken of them wythout payment, neyther was any outrage or offence done by the Englishemenne of warre, except one, whiche was, that a folish souldiour stale a pixe out of a churche." Shakespeare's use of this incident is well known.

Page 46, l. 28 [Stz. 133]. "_Spirits._" --Must here be p.r.o.nounced as a monosyllable, as at p. 67, l. 18.

Page 48, l. 6 [Stz. 138]. "_Till their foule noyse doth all the ayre infest._" --Drayton probably stands alone among English poets in disliking the music of the rookery.

Page 49, l. 15 [Stz. 143]. "_Quoyts, Lots, and Dice for Englishmen to cast._" --"The captaines had determined before howe to devide the spoile, and the souldiours the night before had plaid the englishemen at dice" (Holinshed).

Page 50, l. 9 [Stz. 147]. "_And cast to make a Chariot for the King._"

--This circ.u.mstance also is mentioned by Holinshed, and is authenticated by the anonymous priest.

Page 50, ll. 31, 32 [Stz. 149]. "_Some pointing Stakes to stick into the ground, To guard the Bow-men._" --Henry had ordered the archers to provide themselves with stakes even before the pa.s.sage of the Somme.

Page 51, l. 25 [Stz. 153]. "_King Richards wrongs, to minde, Lord doe not call._" --Drayton evidently follows Shakespeare, but remains a long way behind:

"Not to-day, O Lord, O, not to-day, think not upon the fault My father made in compa.s.sing the crown!

I Richard's body have interred new: And on it have bestowed more contrite tears Than from it issued forced drops of blood: Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay, Who twice a day their withered hands hold up Toward heaven, to pardon blood; and I have built Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests Sing still for Richard's soul. More will I do; Though all that I can do is nothing worth, Since that my penitence comes after all, Imploring pardon."

_Henry V._, act iv., sc. 1.

Shakespeare's infinite superiority in moral delicacy, not merely to his imitator, but to all poets except the very best, is forcibly shown by his causing Henry to abstain from all attempts to excuse his father and himself at the expense of Richard, so natural in the mouth of an ordinary person, so unbecoming a hero.

Page 52, ll. 6, 7 [Stz. 154]. "_When as that Angell to whom G.o.d a.s.sign'd The guiding of the English._" --This fine pa.s.sage may very probably have been in Dryden's mind when he planned the machinery of his unwritten epic, and in Addison's when he penned the famous simile of the Angel in his poem on Blenheim.

Page 52, ll. 29, 30 [Stz. 157]. "_Foorth that braue King couragious Henry goes, An hower before that it was fully light._" --No personal reconnoissance on Henry's part is mentioned by the historians, although Sir Harris Nicolas says, on the authority of Elmham: "About the middle of the night, before the moon set, Henry sent persons to examine the ground, by whose report he was better able to draw up his forces on the next day." As the English were the a.s.sailants, the precaution of posting the archers behind the quickset hedge would have proved unnecessary.

Page 55, l. 27 [Stz. 169]. "_His coruetting Courser._" --"A little grey horse." He wore no spurs, probably to show his men that he entertained no thought of flight.

Page 56, l. 20 [Stz. 172]. "_To know what he would for his Ransome pay._" --This is mentioned by Holinshed, but cannot be true, for all contemporary authorities agree that the French sent envoys to Henry on the morning of the battle offering him a free pa.s.sage to Calais upon condition of surrendering Harfleur. This would seem to indicate that the leaders did not fully share the confidence of their troops.

Page 57, ll. 3, 4 [Stz. 174]. "_And strongly fixe the Diadem of France, Which to this day vnsteady doth remaine._" --No Frenchman could have said this on such an occasion. Drayton would make for any port when in stress of rhyme.

Page 57, l. 16 [Stz. 175]. "_Thus to his Souldiers comfortably spake._"

--Drayton's version of his speech in the main agrees with Holinshed's.

Shakespeare, usually so close a follower of Holinshed, subst.i.tutes an oration entirely of his own composition. The beautiful lines--

"For he this day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile This day shall gentle his condition"--

appear to be derived from the same source as the exaggerated statement of Archbishop Des Ursins, that on another occasion Henry promised that his plebeian soldiers should be enn.o.bled and invested with collars of SS. This cannot be taken directly from Des Ursins, whose history of the reign of Charles VI., though written in the fifteenth century, was not published until 1614.

Page 58, ll. 9, 10 [Stz. 179]. "_When hearing one wish all the valiant men At home in England, with them present were._" --According to the anonymous monk, who may be fully relied upon, the speaker was Sir Walter Hungerford. Shakespeare puts the sentiment into the mouth of the Earl of Westmorland.