Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/542

528 host, and to be equally distributed amongst them according to the terms of their service. These terms themselves were extraordinary, for the feudal system was so far worn out that Henry was obliged to make contracts with different lords and gentlemen, who engaged to serve him a year from the first day of muster. The wages paid on this occasion were:—to a duke, 13s. 4d. per day; to an earl, 6s. 8d.; a baron, or banneret, 4s.; a knight, 2s.; an esquire. 1s.; and an archer, 6d. If we estimate these sums at their present value, that is, fifteen times increased, we shall see how infinitely better paid were the common soldiers of Henry V. than those of Victoria I. The pay of a duke would be £10 a day; of an earl, £5; a baron, £3; a knight, 30s; au esquire, 15s.; and of an archer, 7s. 6d. Dukes, earls, and commanders in general take good care of themselves now-a-days; but the common soldiers would be astonished at receiving 7s. 6d. per day.

Besides this the men were to receive the ransom money of all prisoners that they made, and two-thirds of the booty. This undoubtedly arose from the fact being now clearly demonstrated that the archers were the real strength of the army, and the source of all the English victories.

But notwithstanding the lavish terms on which the army had been engaged, the siege of Harfleur was dearly purchased by it. The weather was extremely hot, and the place, lying low on the banks of the Seine, was at that season extremely unhealthy. A dysentery, partly from those causes, and partly from the incautious eating of unripe fruit, and the putrid exhalations from the offal of animals killed for the camp, broke out, and raged amongst the soldiers far more mortally than the awkward artillery of that age. About 2,000 of the troops had perished, besides great numbers who were disabled by sickness. Several officers of rank died, and when Henry had shipped off his sick for England, including the Duke of Clarence, the Earls of Marche, Arundel, Marshall, and many other great officers, his army was reduced to about one-half of its original number.

A council of war, which Henry had called before shipping off his invalids, had come to the decision of returning wholly to England, and making preparations for the next year; but to this Henry would not listen for a moment. To embark altogether, he said, would look like fear, and convert their conquest into a flight. He was resolved, he added, to march to Calais, and dare every peril, rather than the French should say that he was afraid of them. France was his own, he contended, and he would see a little more of it before quitting it. He trusted in God that they should take their way without harm or danger, but if compelled to fight, glory and victory would be theirs, as it had boon always that of his ancestors in that country. He declared his route to be Normandy, Picardy, and Artois to Calais.

Having taken this resolution, nothing could turn him from it, though he had only 900 lances and 5,000 archers, barely 6,000 men in all; while a French army of 100,000 men was already on foot to intercept his march. Before setting out he repaired the fortifications of Harfleur, and placed it under the command of his uncle, the Earl of Dorset, as governor, and Sir John Fastolf, as lieutenant-governor, with a garrison of 2,000 men, which were independent of the 6,000 men he intended to take with him. He invited over many English families to settle in Harfleur, and make it a second Calais, granting them the houses and premises of the former inhabitants.

Having made these arrangements, on the 8th of October he set forward on his most daring march. He disposed his little host in three divisions, attended by two detachments, which served as van and rear guards on the march, ready to be converted in the field into wings for protecting his flanks. Never was a more hardy enterprise undertaken. It might, according to all ordinary principles, be termed fool-hardy. But all the victorious expeditious of the Edwards I. and III. had been of the same character, and, had they failed, would have been recorded in history as unexampled instances of rashness and folly: so much depends on the result, rather than the antecedents of an action.

At every step the little army of England was watched by overwhelming forces. The Constable of France, Count D'Albret, lay directly in their way in Picardy with 14,000 men-at-arms and 40,000 foot, and laid waste the whole country before them. At Rouen the king and dauphin lay with another large army, and fresh troops were hastening from all quarters towards his line of march. The French host mustered in his track already upwards of 100,000; some writers say 140,000 men. Henry had to traverse a long tract of country infested with these exasperated enemies. His troops were in want of provisions, lodgings, guides, which their enemy took care to deprive them of They had, in fact, to march through a desert, defended by strong towns, intersected by deep rivers, and were exposed every moment to have their scouts, foragers, and stragglers cut off, while the foe took care to avoid a general engagement.

The army was sometimes whole days without food. The wretched people were themselves starving, from the devastations purposely made by their own countrymen, and sickness began to decimate the British troops from their excessive fatigues and want of necessary food. At the passage of the river Bresle, the garrison of Eu made a furious sortie, and fell upon the rear of the army with loud shouts and amazing impetuosity, but, spite of the exhausted condition of the soldiers, they received the attack with coolness, slew the French commander, and drove back the garrison to its fortress.

In four days, that is, on the 12th of October, Henry had arrived at the ford of Blanche-taque, where his grandfather, Edward III. had passed the Somme. He had intended to do the same, but the French, taught by their former failure, had taken care to make this ford impassable by driving strong stakes into the bottom, and D'Albret appeared on the right bank with a numerous force. Disappointed in this expectation, he retreated to the little town of Airennes, where Edward III. had slept two nights before the battle of Creçy. He then advanced up the river, searching for a ford or bridge, as Edward had sought down it. He avoided Abbeville, where D'Albret lay with his main army, and marched to Bailleul, where he slept on the 13th.

Still advancing upwards, he found every bridge broken, every ford secured, and D'Albret and his forces marching along the right bank in exact time with him, ready to repel any attempt at crossing the river.

Seeing this, many of his soldiers, already enervated