All the battles wherein we have fought …
Coriolanus, Act 1, Scene 6
From kings to common soldiers and emperors to ordinary folk, the majority of Shakespearean deaths come at the end of a sharp weapon.1 Many of his plays are punctuated by wars and battles. Even his comedies contain the odd skirmish and swordfight.
Elizabethan audiences would have been delighted to relive past military victories and watch expert displays of swordsmanship. When plays weren’t being acted, theatres often hosted fencing displays, and many in the audience would have been extremely knowledgeable and able to watch over the proceedings with a near-professional eye. Shakespeare gave the public what it wanted. He included more swordfights than any of his contemporary playwrights, 22 in Henry VI Part I alone. He mocked the tradition of duelling in Twelfth Night and The Merry Wives of Windsor;2 showed street fights, like those in Romeo and Juliet; and represented full-scale wars in Henry IV, V, VI … in fact, most of the history plays and quite a few of the tragedies too.
Actors in Shakespeare’s era were expected to be multi-talented. Aside from acting, they were often skilled singers, dancers, acrobats and swordsmen. Several actors were noted for their particular skill at swordsmanship (Richard Tarlton, the most famous clown of the era, was also a Master of Fence). The first fencing school in England had opened in London in 1576, only a few years before Shakespeare’s arrival in the city. Many actors, and possibly Shakespeare too, trained at the fencing school run by an Italian named Rocco Bonetti in Blackfriars. The school, and the art of fencing, rapidly acquired upper-class patrons. Another Italian fencing master of the time was Vincentio Saviolo, a protégé of the Earl of Essex, who published one of the first fencing manuals in English.
Italians dominated the fencing schools in London and the Italian style was beginning to supersede the traditional English style of sword-fighting. Italian swordsmanship had a preoccupation with timing and certain defensive positions. The lunge was an important move in the Italian school but some English experts preferred a gathering step to bring the opponent within striking distance. In Romeo and Juliet, Romeo’s side fights in the English style, while Tybalt’s is using the new fancy Italian techniques, much to the disgust of Mercutio. Elizabethan audiences would have appreciated Mercutio’s snide remarks about Tybalt’s style of swordplay.
He fights as you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and proportion; rests me his minim rest, one, two, and the third in your bosom: the very butcher of a silk button, a duellist, a duellist; a gentleman of the very first house, of the first and second cause: ah, the immortal passado! the punto reverso! the hai!
The ‘passado’ and ‘punto reverso’ were genuine moves in the Italian style of rapier play, but the ‘hai’ is a Shakespearean invention.
Duels and street fights were easy to perform in a theatre. Even ‘ordeal by battle’, a judicial combat to determine both criminal cases and civil disputes, could be staged, as Shakespeare almost does in Richard II (Richard calls off the fight at the last minute, no doubt to the disappointment of the audience, prejudicing them against the King from the start). Recreating a full-scale battle onstage, on the other hand, was not so easy.
Several important battles feature in Shakespeare’s histories; they were the turning point in the lives of many English kings. Staging them was difficult but to leave them out would be ridiculous. Fireworks and other noisy special effects could depict the chaos of war; for example, ‘[Alarum as in battle. Enter, from opposite sides, coriolanus and aufidius]’.3 There was also the opportunity for rousing speeches. Up until the middle of the twentieth century schoolboys in England often learnt Henry V’s Saint Crispin’s Day speech by heart. Elizabethan and Jacobean audiences would loudly cheer the English and boo the French onstage, producing an incredible effect. Tense negotiations between leaders outside the walls of besieged towns and castles could be dramatically staged using the galleried area above the stage in place of the battlements.
But showing pitched battles onstage was simply not possible. Instead, playwrights often placed the main action offstage and events are reported back. Small skirmishes and one-on-one fighting between the main protagonists would suffice to entertain the crowd and summarise how the battle had progressed: ‘we shall much disgrace / With four or five most vile and ragged foils, / Right ill-disposed in brawl ridiculous, / The name of Agincourt’ (Henry V). The bloody aftermath of battle might be shown – an excellent excuse to strew the stage with blood and body bits. And to give an impression of the scale of battle, catalogues of the names of the dead could be read out.
* * *
Battles seem to be the markers by which we see the progress of history; they tend to be the focus point. But in reality, in the medieval period, battles were few and far between. For example, the period of the Wars of the Roses (between 1455 and 1487) is covered by four Shakespeare plays: the three parts of Henry VI and Richard III. Over this 32-year period the total amount of time spent on campaign was about one year, and the total amount of time spent actually fighting was 13 weeks at most.
Wars could be waged using other tactics than battles, and land could be gained by other means. Crops could be burned, towns laid waste and castles besieged. These are difficult to stage in a theatre, but the devastation could be described to the audience as it is in Edward III:
For so far off as I directed mine eyes,
I might perceive five cities all on fire,
Corn-fields and vineyards burning like an oven;
And, as the reeking vapour in the wind
Turn’d but aside, I likewise might discern
The poor inhabitants, escap’d the flame,
Fall numberless on the soldiers’ pikes.
Full-scale battles had their place but they were often seen as the decisive end point or culmination of a war. They were big, dramatic, loud and deadly, but they were usually over in a matter of a few hours and rarely lasted longer than a day. They were likely to be decisive and devastating. There was a lot to lose, and not just the lives of the men who fought; the right to govern vast regions and populations could be at stake.
With so much to lose it seems incredible that any battles were actually fought. Leaders in this period of history often seemed to go out of their way to avoid major set-piece battles, and there was no shame in this. In King John there is a dispute over the English crown. The English say it belongs to John, the French say it belongs to Arthur. Both sides wish to avoid fighting and so they ask the people of Angiers to decide, but they refuse to name their king. Battle seems inevitable; however, a citizen of Angiers proposes a marriage alliance between France and England, and war is avoided. The Bastard, who had been hoping to profit from the battle, comments sarcastically that his king has been talked out of ‘a resolved and honourable war, / To a most base and vile-concluded peace.’
Sometimes, after a breakdown in negotiations, or when two sides had reached an impasse, battle became inevitable. In King John, a further falling-out between France and England cannot be overcome through negotiations and the two sides go to war. Pride, obstinacy and underhand tricks could also play a role in battles. For example, in Henry IV Part I Shakespeare depicts Henry IV suing for peace with Harry Hotspur, but the message is not delivered (see Chapter 4).
Despite the obvious drawbacks, there were also advantages. In a time when there was a strict chivalric code that dictated behaviour in all aspects of life, but particularly in time of war, one death-or-glory battle would garner extreme prestige for the victor, and a noble and honourable death for the loser. Recruiting, maintaining and feeding a large army, moreover, was ruinously expensive.4 One big battle could cut these ongoing expenses.
* * *
It is unlikely Shakespeare had any personal experience of large-scale battles to draw on when writing his plays, but there were plenty of former soldiers who had returned from wars abroad that he could have met and talked to on the streets of Stratford and London. His historical information came from written accounts such as the aforementioned Holinshed’s Chronicles, but also Edward Halle’s The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancaster and York and Samuel Daniel’s The Civil Wars between the Two Houses of Lancaster and York. Chroniclers wrote many volumes on war, often glorifying it in the process, by detailing individual acts of valour and describing inspiring events on the battlefield. But what they recorded was far from an impartial, accurate account of what actually occurred.
The battle itself would have been chaotic and potentially spread out over a large area. It would have been difficult to keep tabs on everything. Although nobles could be identified by their armour and banners, ordinary soldiers were not always provided with uniforms and would have been difficult to distinguish from the enemy. Added to that, many chroniclers of the time were not military men and may never have witnessed a full-scale battle to understand what they wrote about – they were rarely on the spot where the action was taking place. Henry V’s chronicler at Agincourt was his chaplain, and though he travelled with the army, he was not in the front line and had to make out what he could from the rear. He would also have been loyal to the King and willing to embellish and exaggerate to glorify his monarch. Stories of disease, hunger and dejection are not inspiring. Many contemporary accounts should be taken with a pinch of salt.
Shakespeare would also add his own twists to serve his dramatic interests. The playwright has Harry Hotspur killed by Prince Hal but modern historians doubt this happened. The Duke of Exeter fights at Agincourt when in fact he had been left behind at Harfleur. There are many more inaccuracies. And he wasn’t always consistent in his own historical manipulations either. In Henry VI Part II, Clifford is killed by Richard Plantagenet (the future Richard III), but in the opening lines of Henry VI Part III he was ‘by the swords of common soldiers slain’.
Shakespeare’s plays may be lacking in historical accuracy, but he is faithful to the broad sweep of events, although he struggled to portray the scale of war onstage. The compression and distortion of huge battles into small skirmishes and individual tales can be very effective in conveying what the war was about and what it might have meant to those involved. The civil war depicted in Henry VI Part III is brilliantly summed up in one scene: ‘[Enter a Son that has killed his father]’ and ‘[Enter a father that has killed his son, bringing in the body]’.
Individual experiences in war varied enormously. Up until the seventeenth century, kings were still expected to go into battle with their army. But their experience, alongside those of commanders and even knights, would have been nothing like that of the common foot soldier. Kings had better food, accommodation and armour to protect themselves from the worst.
Though kings and rulers could have sat out the action and directed events from a relatively safe distance, many didn’t, which was a considerable risk. Foot soldiers, archers, even knights could be sacrificed and their side still be victorious. But the capture or death of a king marked the end of the battle and defeat. For example, in 1214 William the Lion, King of Scotland, went into battle with his men but his horse was brought down. Trapped under the dead or dying animal he was completely vulnerable and had no choice but to surrender immediately.
The danger of losing a king, and therefore the war, was so great that Henry IV took extra precautions. As depicted in Henry IV Part I, he allegedly dressed several of his noblemen in clothes and armour identical to his own. In the play, the Earl of Douglas has vowed to kill Henry but, exasperated at having killed two fake kings, promises ‘I’ll murder all his wardrobe, piece by piece, / Until I meet the king.’ In the next scene he comes across ‘Another king! They grow like Hydra’s heads’. The plan works and King Henry survives the battle.
Kings could do a lot to mitigate the threats to their lives, but the ordinary soldier was not so fortunate. From the average foot soldier’s point of view there may seem to be few advantages in traipsing huge distances in miserable conditions with little food, low pay and a good chance of dying – ‘Would I were in an alehouse in London! I would give all my fame for a pot of ale and safety’ (Henry V). In Henry V, when the King wanders through the camp the night before battle, he hears the complaints of the ordinary soldiers who sacrifice everything for their lord and run the risk of leaving their families back home destitute. One of them imagines the dead soldiers at the day of judgement: ‘“We died at such a place;” some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left.’
But there could be great benefits in fighting battles too. Booty could be acquired – armour, weapons and valuables would be stolen from the dead. There was also money to be made from ransoming prisoners taken during the battle. The higher the rank of the prisoner, the more money could be extorted from their estate, family and friends for their safe return. Lower-ranking soldiers fortunate enough to capture a noble or knight on the battlefield could sell them to their lord and the lord would then be able to extort the ransom payment. Everybody won, except the captive.
* * *
Of all the wars and battles that took place over the 330-odd years spanned by Shakespeare’s histories, none has stayed in the collective English consciousness like the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. Shakespeare’s version of events has cast Henry V as the hero figure he is still seen as today. The reality, as might be expected, was not quite the same. The Bard depicted rousing speeches, incredible acts of bravery and the undiluted success of the underdog English over the superior forces of the French. However, Shakespeare did not shy away from writing about the horrors of war.
Henry V’s aim was to claim the French throne from its current occupant, Charles VI. Such an undertaking required vast numbers of troops and resources, which were slowly amassed over the year preceding the invasion. Henry landed with around 15,000 men, one of the largest armies to set foot in France since the days of Edward III nearly 70 years before. Roughly one-quarter were men-at-arms (heavily armoured and on horseback) and the remainder were mounted or foot archers.
Most of these fighting men were there to fight battles, but Henry’s first engagement was the siege at Harfleur. Outside the walls of the city Henry threatens the town’s governor that if he doesn’t surrender he won’t be able to restrain his troops:
If not, why, in a moment look to see
The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand
Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters;
Your fathers taken by the silver beards,
And their most reverend heads dash’d to the walls,
Your naked infants spitted upon pikes …
Threats of rape and the brutal murder of innocent citizens is not what you might expect from a heroic ruler. It gives a very different impression of Henry’s character and this speech is often cut or edited for performance. But history suggests that Henry was not given to mercy and his later military campaigns were particularly brutal.
Henry terrified the town of Harfleur with more than threats. Enormous guns fired projectiles relentlessly at the city walls day after day, and miners tunnelled under them until they were reduced to rubble. Whatever structures were still standing the English then set fire to. Collapsing masonry risked the lives of civilians as well as soldiers; the dangers were well described by Shakespeare in Henry VI Part I.
At the siege of Orléans in 1428 the Earl of Salisbury and Sir Thomas Gargrave were wounded in the face when a cannon ball struck an observation tower they were stationed in. Salisbury was injured when a fragment of masonry ‘carried away part of his face’, or as Shakespeare described it, ‘One of thy eyes and thy cheek’s side struck off!’ The face can sustain a surprising amount of injury. Wounds that look horrific will bleed profusely but unless the damage penetrates to the brain, or there is bleeding into the air passages, it is unlikely to be immediately fatal. In the play, both Salisbury and Gargrave are carried offstage still alive but are not expected to live for long. Delayed deaths can occur due to infection or complications arising from the initial wound such as thrombosis. This would appear to be the case for the unfortunate real-life Salisbury, who died 10 days after his injury. Gargrave survived only two days.
At Harfleur, those not directly involved in operating the guns and digging the mines, i.e. most of the troops, had little to do but sit around in camp among the dirt and debris that accumulated around them. By the time the French surrendered there was not much of the town left; but most of the damaging effects on Henry’s troops, and the town’s inhabitants, were due to dysentery rather than artillery or crumbling stonework (see Chapter 7).
It was hardly a great victory. One town, or what was left of it, had been won by the English after more than a month of effort. Henry didn’t think he could make further progress into France: ‘The winter coming on and sickness growing / Upon our soldiers, we will retire to Calais’ and started his army marching back towards English territory. But he had to get there ‘Through France himself’ and the French were looking to stop him. His army was in no fit state to engage the powerful French army, but they might not be able to avoid it. As Shakespeare put it, ‘We would not seek a battle, as we are; / Nor, as we are, we say we will not shun it’.
Seventeen days and 260 miles later the two armies met at Agincourt. The food the English had taken with them from Harfleur had long since run out and they had been forced to buy, beg and steal provisions along the way. By the time Henry’s army lined up to face the French at Agincourt their numbers were somewhere in the region of 8,000–9,000 men.
When they reached the battlefield on 24 October 1415 there was no opportunity to set up their tents. That night it rained heavily, soaking the ground and turning the ploughed field that was to be the site of battle into a quagmire. The English troops sat through the downpour in near-silence, under the threat that if they made a noise they would have their ears cut off. It is a far cry from the scene in the play where Henry goes among his troops, joking with them and offering words of inspiration and comfort to the dejected men.
The Battle of Agincourt took place on 25 October 1415, St Crispin’s Day. The English took up position in one line of battle; there simply weren’t enough men to do anything else. The vanguard formed the right wing and the rearguard the left, with archers arranged in wedges in between. They were situated on raised ground, a superb defensive position to occupy. The high vantage point also gave them an excellent view of the huge French army as it slowly gathered on the lower ground opposite them.
The French army certainly outnumbered the English but by how much is debated. ‘Of fighting men they have full threescore thousand [60,000]’ is a wild exaggeration on Shakespeare’s part. Certainly there were a greater proportion of men-at-arms on the French side and they would have made an impressive and daunting sight in their armour. From their distant vantage point, the English may have also mistaken the huge numbers of serving men bringing up spare horses from the rear for fighting men. The English might have had the impression that the French army numbered up to 24,000, while the French might have thought they were fighting, at most, 11,000 English (including non-combatants they had mistaken for fighting men). The English were certainly outnumbered, but not by 5:1 as claimed in Henry V. There were probably closer to two French fighting men to every Englishman.
Seeing a relatively small number of armoured men on the English side, and underestimating the danger of the archers, the French felt assured that victory was theirs. They spent the eve of battle laughing and making bets on how many English they would capture. Shakespeare shows the French bored with waiting and keen to get on with what they were certain would be an easy victory:
Lewis the Dauphin : Will it never be day? I will trot to-morrow a mile, and my way shall be paved with English faces.
Constable of France : I will not say so, for fear I should be faced out of my way: but I would it were morning; for I would fain be about the ears of the English.
Rambures : Who will go to hazard with me for twenty prisoners?
The mood was very different on the other side of the battlefield. To buoy up his men King Henry rode up and down along the front line giving encouraging speeches. This was an important part of the sovereign’s role in war. Even Elizabeth I, not expected to ride into battle personally, still encouraged her troops with stirring words before they embarked for war.5 These speeches were a gift for the playwright.
Shakespeare’s St Crispin’s Day speech is inspiring stuff but not a verbatim record of what was actually said. Even if Henry had uttered the most impassioned speech, few of his men would have been able to hear a word. But it wasn’t just about what was said. Seeing the King in his shining armour would have been an encouraging sight – ‘that every wretch, pining and pale before, / Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks’. It was also an attempt to lure the French into battle when they saw their glittering prize within their sights.
Once the speeches are concluded and the French herald, who had again come to try and negotiate peace, is dismissed, Henry gives command of the vanguard to the Duke of York and the battle is under way. In reality there were several hours of waiting as the two sides faced off but no one moved. The English were still in a very good defensive position, which they were reluctant to leave, and the French realised they were better off staying put. The French knew that the longer they waited, the more debilitated the English would become and the stronger their army grew as more troops arrived to swell their numbers. Eventually Henry took the unprecedented decision to leave his defensive position and advance on the French. It seemed the only option open to them was to do or die.
* * *
The archers at Agincourt were asked to advance towards the enemy until they were within striking range, around 200 yards. There they would have stopped and stood, wearing almost no protective gear, to fire arrows towards heavily armoured men on horseback charging towards them. Half a tonne of mounted armoured knight could cover the distance in less than 20 seconds. In that time each of the archers could fire maybe three or four arrows to try to bring down the horse or its rider. Being hit by horse and rider going at full gallop would cause injuries that would be described today as ‘severe blunt trauma’ – the kind of thing you would see in collisions between cars and pedestrians. Death in these cases is caused by internal bleeding as internal organs and major blood vessels are ruptured.
But the troops followed their orders. A huge shout went up across the English lines. Everyone, including knights weighted down in heavy armour, even the 60-year-old Sir Thomas Erpingham, dismounted and ran towards the enemy alongside King Henry himself. The bravery of these men was incredible.
Henry’s plan was a brilliant one. The sudden attack took the French by surprise. There was no time to form up into well-ordered, efficient battle lines. They were disorganised and the boggy terrain slowed their advance. Horses slipped and got stuck in the mud. Heavily armoured French men-at-arms were terrifying on horseback, but relatively ineffective in battle once they had been brought down from their saddles.
Battles in this era followed a general pattern of cavalry charge, followed by melee (close combat) and finally the rout (retreat of one side, who were then chased down by the victors). They were undoubtedly chaotic.6 The noise would have been phenomenal. It would have been impossible to shout instructions across the battlefield so trumpets were used to give orders. Banners were held aloft as points for troops to rally around.
In the first stage long-distance weapons were used. Large cannons were effective at sieges but difficult to drag across miles of territory to battlefields. At later battles in the fifteenth century rudimentary hand guns were available, but they could be as dangerous to the operator as the target. At Agincourt bows and arrows predominated. The French had short bows that were less powerful, and crossbows that could be deadly but were slow to fire. The English had thousands of powerful longbows and practised archers on their side – the effects of which were devastating.
A steel-tipped arrow, properly fired from a longbow from 30 metres, could pierce armour. At the siege of Abergavenny in 1182, one knight was pinned to his horse by an arrow that had travelled through the flap of his mail shirt, his mail breeches, his thigh and the wooden saddle, and embedded itself in the flank of his horse.
The longbow was almost two metres high (six foot), and required somewhere in the range of 45-80kg, or 100-175lb, to draw the string. It was tailored to the man who would use it. Too light and the bow could be broken by a strong man; too stiff and heavy, and a weaker man would not be able to use it effectively. It required more than strong arms to manipulate a longbow. Standing sideways, the right arm would pull the string back and the left arm would push the bow forward, so the shoulders and back all contributed to the effort. But to be an effective archer required practice and this had been part of English culture since the time of Edward III, enforced by laws passed in Richard II’s reign. Generation after generation of archers had practised and honed their skills over a lifetime and passed on their knowledge to others.
A single arrow might be able to kill a single man, but it was thousands of archers unleashing arrows in successive volleys that could terrify an army. At Agincourt maybe 1,000 arrows rained down on the French every second. Even if archers were placed too far away for their arrows to kill, shower after shower of arrows could blind their opponents, wound their horses and throw the enemy into chaos. The invention of the longbow, such a simple weapon but a huge technological advance, changed the nature of battles and the course of European history. Shakespeare makes no mention of the contribution of the archers in Henry V. It was perhaps such an obviously well-known weapon and tactic that he didn’t feel he needed to.
At Agincourt, the French were hemmed in by the hail of arrows. The battle quickly descended into melee, fought with hand weapons such as swords and axes. There was nowhere to move as more French troops pressed forward from the rear. The French fighters were so closely packed that there wasn’t even room to swing their weapons. As each new line of soldiers came face to face with the English, they were ruthlessly cut to pieces until their bodies piled up in heaps over two metres (six feet) high. The ranks that followed had to climb over their dead and dying comrades to try to reach the English front line.
Crushing injuries would have been common. Severely broken rib cages can stop the chest cavity being able to expand and draw in air. Broken ribs or arrows and blades can puncture the lungs. Life-threatening problems can occur when air enters into the area between the lung and the chest wall; this is known as a collapsed lung, or pneumothorax. The air pushes on the outside of the lung, causing it to collapse, and there will be sharp pain and shortness of breath. If the build-up of pressure against the lung is sufficient, blood pressure will drop and the victim goes into shock, leading to death.
Alternatively a ‘sucking wound’ may form where air is drawn into the lungs through a hole in the chest. The damage is often severe and the injury is complicated by blood loss. If ruptured vessels bleed into the lungs, the blood can displace air as the lungs fill with liquid. Just the pain from these injuries can be great enough to restrict movement.
But some bodies were found on the battlefield, buried under piles of bodies, dead but without a mark on them – they had suffocated. A simple lack of oxygen under the pile of corpses may have been enough to kill many. The crush from the growing pile of both men and horses may have meant some simply couldn’t expand their chest from the weight.
Most men, however, would have died from wounds inflicted by swords and axes. Heavy weapons with sharp points and edges were the order of the day and had changed little over the few centuries preceding Agincourt. Swords were the dominant weapon on the battlefield, with battle-axes, maces and war-hammers taking a lesser role.
Rapiers and daggers were light weapons reserved for personal protection on the civilian streets. Swords used in battle were heavier but varied considerably from huge two-handed weapons to short cavalry blades. Shorter swords had a central rib to give strength and a sharp point making them suitable for thrusting and finding out weak points in plate armour. The larger two-handed sword, sometimes known as the old English ‘long sword’, was a favourite of Henry VIII in his athletic youth. It was a formidable weapon designed to be used against the heavy armour of the Middle Ages. When Henry VIII wanted to include the long sword in tournaments, he was dissuaded by the French King Francis I on the grounds that there were no gauntlets strong enough to save the hands from the powerful strokes of the sword.7
The damage that could be done by a heavy sword was incredible – ‘all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle’ (Henry V). Macbeth during a battle ‘unseam’d’ his opponent ‘from the nave to the chaps’. But, on the whole, surprisingly little has been reported about the details of wounds and injuries sustained in battle. Chroniclers were obviously more interested in the bigger picture, the victories or defeats, rather than the bloody details. Shakespeare has dozens of characters ‘slain’ but the details of exactly how are few and far between. In Henry V the King inspires his men by talking of the wounds they will receive: ‘he will strip his sleeve and show his scars, […] he’ll remember with advantages / What feats he did that day.’ Battle scars are seen as a source of pride and bravery, and the more the better, as in Coriolanus: ‘He had, before this last expedition, twenty-five wounds upon him.’ But there are no detailed descriptions of their appearance or how they were inflicted.
Some evidence can be collected from archaeological excavations of battlefields, but this is usually confined to wounds that penetrated to the bones. With heavy cutting weapons there is a characteristic lesion in the bones, with one smooth and one rough edge to the wound. The initial impact slices cleanly through the bone on one edge, but the rebound or removal of the weapon is at a slightly different angle, either deliberately or accidentally, which leaves a rough edge.
An injury that leaves its mark on bone is a serious one, but what is surprising is how much damage the body can sustain and still survive. In 1346 King David II of Scotland was struck in the face by an arrow at the Battle of Neville’s Cross and it took two barber-surgeons to extract it, but he survived.
More incredible is how long a wounded soldier can remain pain-free and continue with their considerable physical activities. Henry V, at the Battle of Shrewsbury (when he was still Prince of Wales), was struck by an arrow below his right eye. The arrow penetrated six inches. As depicted by Shakespeare in Henry IV Part I, Henry had to be persuaded by his father to leave the battlefield for treatment: ‘withdraw thyself; thou bleed’st too much.’
Structures within the brain can secrete endorphins in response to stress. Along with adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), a hormone that activates the adrenal glands, endorphins interact with receptors of certain nerve cells. The result is to change normal sensory awareness, so the pain threshold is raised and emotional responses are altered. This is an innate physiological response to protect mammals from danger and pain. It enables the body to continue to function even in life-threatening events. Individuals may be able to carry out normal activities, even to an astonishing degree, in spite of severe injury, only collapsing when the physical damage and loss of blood means the body can no longer function.
In Henry IV Part I Hotspur describes how, fresh from the battlefield, ‘when the fight was done, / When I was dry with rage and extreme toil, / Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,’ he had a conversation with another nobleman until the adrenaline rush abated and ‘I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold,’ loses his patience with the other man.
Cutting injuries from swords and axes, as well as puncture wounds from arrows, were obviously very serious. The size and site of the injury were crucial in terms of chances of survival. Wounds to the neck are the most dangerous. Cuts to the back of the neck that damage or sever the spinal cord result in the loss of nerve signals to the rest of the body. The lungs no longer receive instructions to breathe and the heartbeat is no longer regulated – death is rapid.
The neck also contains major blood vessels with relatively little natural protection, and would have been difficult to protect further with armour without considerable loss of movement. Severing major blood vessels is also a relatively quick way to kill your enemy in battle.
Cuts to the throat also run the risk of air embolism if the jugular vein is cut, though this is rare. Lord Clifford, wounded to death on the battlefield in Henry VI Part III, refers to the mischief produced by the contact of air with the wounded surfaces: ‘The air hath got into my deadly wounds, / And much effuse of blood doth make me faint.’ If he was referring to air embolism it shows remarkable medical insight on Shakespeare’s part. If enough air enters the vein it can travel to the right side of the heart where it effectively forms an air-lock. Blood can no longer be pumped through the heart and death is almost immediate. Perhaps instead Shakespeare was referring to infection from the air, which was commonly believed to be the source of contagion. But Clifford seems to expect death to arrive almost immediately, not the relatively lingering, drawn-out affair of infection and sepsis (see later in this chapter).
The more likely outcome of a severe wounding was bleeding to death. Rapid loss of a third to half of total blood volume is fatal. If, for example, the human body loses 5 per cent of its blood volume per minute, that leads to death in six minutes.
When there is insufficient blood within the circulatory system to deliver oxygen to the tissues of the body, the resulting condition is referred to as ‘shock’. After the first few pints have been lost there will be heavy rapid breathing as the body tries to compensate for the lack of oxygen normally being transported around the body by the blood. The heart speeds up for the same reason. But eventually internal adjustments are not enough. The heart needs a minimum blood pressure to be able to keep pumping. As the heart itself isn’t receiving enough oxygenated blood to perform normally, the heart slows until it eventually stops.
Depending on the injury, the whole process can last a few short breaths or several hours. If a vessel the size of the carotid artery has been severed, this entire sequence can take less than a minute. The speed of death from puncture wounds, whether from arrows or from swords, depends on where the injury occurs and which organs and blood vessels are damaged. The same is true whether the injury was received on the battlefield or on the streets of Verona during a fight between the Montagues and Capulets.
Many of Shakespeare’s characters, wounded in a fight, call for surgeons. These surgeons might be able to stem the loss of blood by applying tourniquets – Cassio is saved when a shirt is used to bind a severe leg wound in Othello – or using hot metal to cauterise wounds. Basic stitches could also be used to close up cuts. But sometimes the bleeding is too much. In Romeo and Juliet Mercutio knows from the severity of his wound that the surgeon cannot help: ‘No, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but ’tis enough, ’twill serve: ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man.’
On the battlefield, metal armour would have offered a great deal of protection against a weapon’s point. Padded jerkins worn by foot soldiers would have been less effective. Even skin can offer some resistance. But once the skin is penetrated, there is little or no resistance from internal organs. The knife’s momentum will push it through tissue until it is stopped by bone or the hilt of the weapon bumping against the body.
Armour could be fantastically effective in protecting its wearer, but there were still vulnerable points. Over the centuries it became more elaborate; in Henry V the French lords brag about the quality and beauty of their armour: ‘Tut! I have the best armour of the world.’ But in reality it had progressed little from the idea of covering as much of the body as possible in heavy metal plates. Joints that allowed even limited movement were also weak points that could be attacked by swords and other cutting instruments. The head was protected by a helmet but that would have hampered communication. The face was covered with a visor, but there was a balance between protection and visibility.
Blows to the head, even if it is protected by a helmet, can be dangerous. There would not be much in the way of cushioning inside a Middle Ages helmet, and the skull itself is essentially a rigid container. The contents of the skull can be deformed by sudden accelerations from blows, causing ruptures of blood vessels that increase pressure on the contents of the skull (see Chapter 5). Bruising to the brain itself causes inflammation at the site of the injury. If the swelling is severe enough then the brain tissue can be compressed to an extent that damage or haemorrhage occurs.
In summary, ‘there are few die well that die in battle’ (Henry V).
* * *
Modern film productions of Shakespeare’s plays can reproduce impressive battle scenes. Laurence Olivier, resplendent in glittering armour, facing the French running at full gallop towards him, banners flowing in the breeze, is an iconic moment in cinema history, but the Bard could not hope to achieve such things onstage. The text skips over the main fighting and proceeds directly from Henry’s orders to ‘move away’ to the latter stages of the battle, after the melee.
As the Battle of Agincourt progressed the French attack weakened. There was enough of a respite for the English to begin searching the piles of bodies for French survivors trapped under the heaps of dead and wounded. Shakespeare shows Pistol, severely hampered by a language barrier, trying to negotiate a ransom from a French soldier he has captured. If he doesn’t receive enough money he promises to ‘fetch thy rim out at thy throat / In drops of crimson blood.’ The scene might be played for comic effect but it portrays the grim reality of how a captive might expect to be treated. Any men of importance were taken prisoner; the common soldier, who would bring little or no money from ransom, had his throat cut.
At Agincourt the prisoners were taken from the battlefield to houses in the small village of Maisoncelle, where they were guarded. Then something happened that caught Henry by surprise. In Shakespeare’s version of events, he sees that ‘The French have reinforced their scatter’d men’ and he immediately orders all the French prisoners to be killed.
Many theories have been offered as to what made Henry take such drastic steps. It might have been an attack at the rear of his army, where the prisoners were being held and could be released to retaliate against the English. It might have been the sight of the French unfurling the Oriflamme, the red war-banner that signified that no quarter would be given. Whatever it was, Henry must have seen the threat as very real and very dangerous. There can be no other explanation as to why he would suddenly order the wholesale slaughter of unarmed men.
Shakespeare justifies Henry’s actions by showing the aftermath of a French attack on the English baggage train.
’Tis certain there’s not a boy left alive; and the cowardly rascals that ran from the battle ha’ done this slaughter: besides, they have burned and carried away all that was in the king’s tent; wherefore the king, most worthily, hath caused every soldier to cut his prisoner’s throat. O, ’tis a gallant king!
Whatever the real reason, it is an astonishing thing to have done. This may have been a time long before war crimes and UN treaties, but there were still accepted rules of engagement and codes of chivalry and honour that armies and their leaders were expected to follow. Henry’s actions to kill unarmed, Christian prisoners went against every code of morality and accepted behaviour of the time. Even his own men seemed reluctant to carry out his orders and he had to reissue them under threat of execution to any who disobeyed him. Many would have been reluctant to carry out the orders on moral grounds. Others may have cared more about their financial loss from ransoms.
In the end a group of Henry’s soldiers were ordered to go from prisoner to prisoner cutting throats or stabbing them. Perhaps owing to lack of time, some prisoners were left in the houses where they were being held and the buildings were torched (for the agonies of burning to death see Chapter 4). It was a shocking event even at the time, though no contemporary French chronicler criticised Henry’s actions.
The orders were carried out, but whatever threat Henry thought he was under failed to materialise. The French were thoroughly defeated. In the play, the line immediately after Henry’s repeated order to kill all the prisoners, a French herald arrives with the news that Henry has won the day and asks leave ‘That we may wander o’er this bloody field / To look our dead, and then to bury them’.
* * *
Determining the number that actually died in battle is difficult. Chroniclers at the time were keen to exaggerate the losses on the enemy’s side while simultaneously lowering the number of casualties on their own, all for the glorification of the victor. Attempts were made to ‘sort our nobles from our common men’ (Henry V) but the bodies in their blood-soaked, mud-covered and mangled state could not always be recognised; ‘So do our vulgar drench their peasant limbs / In blood of princes’. Looters might already have stolen anything worth taking, including armour, weapons and clothes, that might have helped identify individuals. It would be difficult even to sort the bodies into those of the enemy and those of their fellow countrymen.
Names of notable and important men were recorded but the identities of common archers and foot soldiers who perished would not have been noted down, merely counted. It would have been a gruesome task picking your way across a battlefield in search of potential survivors and making a tally of the dead. If the blood and gore wasn’t enough there were further horrors to be seen in the immediate aftermath of battle, with arms and legs frozen in awkward poses as rigor mortis set in.
Perhaps Shakespeare is describing a ‘cadaveric spasm’ when he has the character Montjoy describe the dead ‘fetlock deep in gore and with wild rage / Yerk out their armed heels at their dead masters’. This is a rare and virtually instantaneous form of rigor mortis that develops at the time of death. It was said to be particularly common on the battlefield among soldiers slain in combat. Rigor mortis usually begins to appear a few hours after death, but the exertion of battle could mean people quickly used up any reserves of ATP in their muscles and rigor mortis would set in much sooner. The body would be held rigid in the position in which it fell at the time of death.
The death toll at Agincourt was high even by the standards of the day. One estimate of the French losses was indicated by the five grave-pits that were dug, each containing 1,200 ordinary soldiers. In total the French lost 12,000–13,000 people including three dukes, five counts, more than 90 barons and almost 2,000 knights – higher even than Shakespeare’s total. Much of the French nobility was obliterated in one afternoon.
The number of English dead was much lower, though not as low as the 25 claimed in Shakespeare’s version of events. In total probably less than 1,000 English lost their lives at Agincourt, still a remarkably small number given the odds stacked against them. Among the English dead was Edward of Norwich, Duke of York, the highest-ranking English casualty. According to Shakespeare, York died defending the Earl of Suffolk (who also died), but owing to the chaos of battle it is not clear if he is correct. One account said that the 42-year-old duke rushed forward to protect King Henry when he came under attack. He saved the King’s life but lost his own. Other accounts say he was suffocated in the press of men. It has also been suggested his large size, poor health and heavy armour, combined with the physical demands of battle, proved fatal.
The bodies of both the Duke of York and the Earl of Suffolk received special treatment. They were recovered from the battlefield and boiled down to the bones in a huge cauldron brought from England specifically for that purpose. Their bones were gathered together and returned for burial in England. Such consideration was not given to any of the other dead. Even though the number of casualties had been low on the English side, Henry did not feel he had time to remain at Agincourt to bury the dead. Contrary to his promises in the play to bury ‘The dead with charity enclosed in clay’, in reality the bodies of the ordinary English soldiers were collected up and placed in barns and houses, which were then burned. This may not be as callous as it appears. Henry was keen to get his troops back to England and the threat of further disease and infection from the rotting corpses on an already debilitated army could have been devastating. Henry may simply have been saving time and taking wise precautions against further contagion.
* * *
Apart from the obvious immediate deaths during battle, many men would have died later when wounds became infected and no medicines were available that could kill the bacteria that multiplied in their bodies. The source of infection could be almost anything: the weapons that caused the wounds; the clothing that was dragged inwards into the body; the victim’s own skin; or the unsanitary conditions the soldiers lived in. Military surgeons, unaware of germ theory, would not have scrubbed their hands or instruments. Attempts to remove arrows and other fragments from wounds would have introduced even more bacteria.
In the past, the sign of pus oozing from a wound was seen as a sign, not of infection, but that the corruption was being drawn out of the body. Consequently wounds were left open, or ‘tented’ with material, flax or lint, stuffed into the gap to drain the pus, a practice Shakespeare was well aware of – ‘Well might they fester ’gainst ingratitude, / And tent themselves with death’ (Coriolanus).
Infection causes the body to rapidly produce white blood cells to combat the multiplying bacteria. If the body can contain the infection and its own immune response eliminates the invading bacteria, all may be well. Serious infection, lack of antibiotics and a body already debilitated by the injuries sustained in battle can mean it is less able to fend off the attack from bacteria and other microbes.
Sepsis is the body’s response to massive bacterial infection. It follows a predictable pattern. First, there is fever, as the localised increases in body temperature that try to combat bacteria multiplying spread over the whole body. The pulse rate increases and there can be breathing difficulties. An inability to swallow and clear the throat means saliva and other mucus collects in the throat, leading to the gurgling crackle referred to as the ‘death rattle’; this is when soldiers in the Middle Ages, or any time before antibiotics and other surgical interventions were available, were likely to die.
If the victim doesn’t choke to death, there is worse to come. The blood can start to pool in parts of the body, meaning it is no longer any use in circulating oxygen. Blood clots form and fluid begins to build up around the lungs. Similar processes soon occur around the liver and kidneys. The decreased blood flow to the kidneys prevents proper filtering and results in poor urinary output. This gradually worsens to uremia – the build-up of poisonous products in the blood.
The microbes are also secreting toxic substances and the body’s response to these toxins often causes more damage. Chemicals released to counteract them damage cells, including the blood cells, blood vessels and organs. Damage to the blood and vessels means less oxygen is being brought to the tissues, which also become less capable of extracting the oxygen. The result is septic shock. Vital organs fail one after the other.
* * *
Shakespeare wrote of Henry V’s triumphant return to England, but he didn’t mention those that died along the way. And Agincourt was not quite the decisive victory Henry might have hoped for, or that Shakespeare depicted on the stage. In 1417 Henry was back in France with another army to continue his campaign to gain lands. In the remaining five years of his life he would spend only five months in England.
The Treaty of Troyes, signed in 1420, promised Henry would inherit the French crown upon the death of Charles VI. But Henry never was King of France, dying in 1422 in miserable conditions while still fighting the French. Charles outlived Henry by less than two months. And although Henry V’s infant son Henry VI was crowned King of France (the only English monarch of both countries), his French territories had been lost by the time he reached his majority. The troubled reign of Henry V’s only child was the subject of Shakespeare’s next three history plays.
Notes
1 For a full list see the Appendix.
2 Duelling was briefly fashionable among the English gentry, though it never enjoyed the popularity it did in France.
3 The stage direction ‘alarum’, an archaic term for ‘alarm’, occurs over 70 times in Shakespeare’s works.
4 Unlike in the play, Henry IV’s campaign was not easily funded by the Church. Henry not only had to pawn the crown jewels, but he also sold any spare possessions from the royal households that would fetch a reasonable price.
5 A notable exception to this rule appears in the Henry VI plays: Queen Margaret, wife of King Henry, leads the army when her husband is incapacitated, as she did in real life. Her success in battle came as a great surprise to the opposition as well as the men on her own side. In Henry VI Part I, Joan of Arc is shown leading the French army with astonishing success. It was such an incongruous sight that the English believed she must be a witch rather than simply a capable woman.
6 Most deaths occurred in the rout rather than the main battle, often from drowning as men tried to flee across rivers.
7 Alfred Hutton, writing about swordplay in the nineteenth century, advised that actors using long swords in plays should stick very rigidly to choreographed ‘sets’ rather than ‘loose’ play as the weapons were so dangerous.