I
Of all the kings that England ever had Henry V was perhaps the
greatest favorite among the people. They liked him because he was
handsome and brave and, above all, because he conquered France.
In his youth, Prince Hal, as the people called him, had a number
of merry companions who sometimes got themselves into trouble by
their pranks. Once one of them was arrested and brought before
the chief justice of the kingdom.
Prince Hal was not pleased because sentence was given against his
companion and he drew his sword, threatening the judge. Upon this
the judge bravely ordered the prince to be arrested and put into
prison.
Prince Hal submitted to his punishment with good grace and his
father is reported to have said, "Happy is the monarch who has so
just a judge, and a son so willing to obey the law."
One of Prince Hal's companions was a fat old knight named Sir John
Falstaff. Once Falstaff was boasting that he and three men had
beaten and almost killed two men in buckram suits who had attacked
and tried to rob them. The prince led him on and gave him a chance
to brag as much as he wanted to, until finally Falstaff swore that
there were at least a hundred robbers and that he himself fought
with fifty. Then Prince Hal told their companions that only two
men had attacked Falstaff and his friends, and that he and another
man who was present were those two. And he said that Falstaff,
instead of fighting, had run as fast as his legs could carry him.
There was real goodness as well as merriment in Prince Hal. And
so the people found; for when he became king on the death of his
father he told his wild companions that the days of his wildness
were over; and he advised them to lead better lives in future.
As Henry V, Prince Hal made himself famous in English history by
his war with France.
Normandy, you remember, had belonged to Henry's ancestor, William
the Conqueror. It had been taken from King John of England by the
French king, Philip Augustus, in 1203.
Soon after his coronation Henry sent a demand to the French king
that Normandy should be restored, and he made the claim which his
great-grandfather, Edward III, had made that he was by right the
king of France.
[Illustration: KING HENRY V REJECTS HIS EARLY COMPANIONS]
Of course, the king of France would not acknowledge this. Henry
therefore raised an army of thirty thousand men and invaded France.
Before he began to attack the French he gave strict orders to his
men that they were to harm no one who was not a soldier and to
take nothing from the houses or farms of any persons who were not
fighting.
Sickness broke out among Henry's troops after they landed, so that
their number was reduced to about fifteen thousand. Fifty or sixty
thousand Frenchmen were encamped on the field of Agincourt
(_äzh-an-koor'_) to oppose this little army.
The odds were greatly against Henry. The night before the battle
one of his officers said he wished that the many thousand brave
soldiers who were quietly sleeping in their beds in England were
with the king.
"I would not have a single man more," said Henry. "If God give
us victory, it will be plain we owe it to His grace. If not, the
fewer we are the less loss for England."
[Illustration: CHARGE OF THE FRENCH AT THE BATTLE OF AGINCOURT]
The men drew courage from their king. The English archers poured
arrows into the ranks of their opponents; and although the French
fought bravely, they were completely routed. Eleven thousand Frenchmen
fell. Among the slain were more than a hundred of the nobles of
the land.