maritime counties in a state of alarm. In the year 1406 they succeeded in landing an army estimated at 12,000 men, in Milford Haven, one of those spots where a French army may be landed in our own day unless we make adequate preparations, and organize our militia, coast fencibles, or other force. The Frenchmen of Henry IV.'s time, joining Glendower and his revolted Welshmen, committed a vast amount of mischief before they quitted the country, penetrating almost to the gates of Worcester, plundering the country, burning villages and towns, and perpetrating every abomination.

Henry V. might have started more modestly, but he began suddenly by demanding the crown of France as legitimate representative of Isabella, wife of Edward II., in whose right Edward III. had founded his pretensions. He was encouraged by the distracted, deplorable condition into which the French monarchy had now fallen. The king on the throne, Charles VI., was afflicted by insanity, was maudlin and idiotic when not mad, and was king only in name; two great factions, called the Armagnacs and Bourguignons, alternately governed the State, waging a most savage war against each other, and deluging the capital and the provinces with blood. There is not a crime in the long, dark catalogue of human sin and woe that was not committed in France at this period. The country was even more distracted now than it was at the period of the invasion and wars of Edward III. and the Black Prince. The great faction of the Bourguignons was thought to be ready to join Henry V. and his English army.

AZINCOURT.

A.D. 1415. October 25.

Ar last Henry embarked, and set sail from Southampton: his fleet, which consisted in part of ships he had hired, amounted to twelve or fourteen hundred sail of vessels, from twenty to three hundred tons burden; his army to six thousand five hundred horse, and about twenty-four thousand foot of all kinds.*

You stand upon the rivage, and behold
A city on the inconstant billows dancing;
For so appears this fleet majestical,

Holding due course to Harfleur. ... "†

He anchored in the mouth of the river Seine, three miles from Harfleur, on the 13th of August. On the following day he began to land his troops and stores, an operation which occupied three whole days. A proclamation was issued, forbidding, under pain of death, all excesses against the peaceful inhabitants; and it is noted by many contemporary historians, French as well as English, that Henry, with honourable perseverance, enforced the uniform good treatment of the people through whose districts he afterwards passed; and that, too, when suffering the most dreadful privations in his own army.

* Included in this number was a strong body of gunners, miners, masons, carpenters, saddlers, bowyers, smiths, and other artisans and, labourers.

Shakspeare. Henry V.

*

On the 17th he laid siege to Harfleur, a very strong fortress with a numerous garrison, situated on the left bank of the river. The conduct of the siege was according to the rules laid down by "Master Giles," the principal military authority of that period. The loss sustained by the besieging army was very great, not so much from the sword and the awkward artillery of those times, as from a frightful dysentery, brought on by the damp, unwholesome nature of the place. The men perished by hundreds, and many of the most eminent captains died of the disease. Seeing, however, no prospect of being relieved, and suffering from the same dysentery, the garrison capitulated, and the town was surrendered on the 22nd of September, after a siege of thirty-six days. Henry then shipped his sick and wounded for England, and remained a few days at Harfleur. + While here he sent a chivalrous challenge to the Dauphin, offering to decide the contest in personal combat. The Dauphin, who was fonder of fiddling than of fighting, returned no

answer.

With the insignificant force the English king now had, it seemed madness to undertake any great enterprise. The sea was open to him, but he scorned the notion of returning to England with no honour gained, save the capture of a single town; and it is exceedingly probable that had he so returned, he would have suffered a dangerous loss of popularity. It is said, however, that a council of war recommended that he should re-embark; but if this opinion were really entertained by the chiefs of the army, they seem to have given it up without demur. "No," said Henry; "we must first see, by God's help, a little more of this good land of France, which is all our own. Our mind is made up to endure every peril rather than they should be able to reproach us with being afraid of them. We will go, an' it please God, without harm or danger; but if they disturb our journey, why, then, we must fight them, and victory and glory will be ours."

* A beautiful manuscript copy of his work, De Regimine Principum, is preserved in the Harleian collection in the British Museum.

Monstrelet.-Walsingham.—Sir H. Nicolas's Hist. of Battle of Azincourt, &c. The last-named admirable work has been closely followed throughout the description of this battle.