Henry V: The Background, Strategies, Tactics and Battlefield Experiences of the Greatest Commanders of History Paperback (14 page)

for much longer. However,

a full assault was ordered on 4 September. Henry again split his forces, with

Henry offered generous

a portion under the Duke of Clarence on the far side of the town, with

terms and the demoralized

Henry and his men on the near side. The fighting was fierce as the defenders

garrison surrendered.

sought to deny the English their walls, as described in the
The First English

(Author's collection)

Life of Henry V:

The Englishmen raysed there ladders

to the walls, and assayled to skale

them wth all the diligence they

coulde; but many of them were

foorwth cast backwards into the ditch,

and there laders wth them. Then on all

parts the Englishmen assended the

walls and foorthwth fought right

manly, and laboured right sore to gett

the Towne; and they of the Towne

eneuored them as busily, and not wth

lesse laboure, by shott and castinge of

stones, by sheddinge of skaldinge

water and boylinge pich and oyle

40

upon the Englishmen to resist theire

enterprise; but allwaies, as one ladder

was ouerthrowne and cast from the

walls, many other more ardently were

sett upp in his place.

However, the Duke of Clarence had

more luck and managed to force his

way into the town:

In an other place farr from the Kinge

was the noble Duke of Clarence, wch

also wth greate vigor assaulted the

Towne on his part: whose strength the

Frenchmen, neither by the helpe of

there highe walls, there deepe ditches, by castinge of stones, by shott, by helpe

The imposing walls of

of there whot water, boylinge pitch or oyle, nor by no manner of strength or

the Ducal Castle, Caen.

pollicie might resist them, but that they were so sore oppressed by the Duke and

Apart from the immense

of his people, wch in maruelous multitude and incredible audacitie and

chateau, Caen boasted

manhoode scaled the walls: and they were constrained to forsake the walls

walls studded with

and to flye into the Towne.

32 towers and

12 fortified gates.

What followed was a brutal sack of the town, with only the churches being (Author's collection)

spared. The sack of Caen may well have been a calculated act of brutality to cow

the other Norman towns into submission, and it certainly had this effect as

Henry rapidly struck to the south, taking the towns of Exmes, Sees, Argentan

Following the fall of

Caen, Henry pressed

southwards to the

southern borders

of Normandy,

capturing towns

en route including

Sees. Shown here is

the chapter house

of the cathedral that

dominates the town.

(Author's collection)

41

and Alengon in a 15-day campaign,

which in turn led to a further meeting

and truce with the Duke of Brittany.

Henry turned north again and,

carrying on his campaigning

throughout the winter, besieged the

town and fortress of Falaise, while at

the same time dispatching his brother

Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, to

subdue the Cotentin Peninsula and

capture the port of Cherbourg.

By the spring of 1418 Henry had

largely completed the conquest of

lower Normandy and was free to turn

to Rouen, the most important target of

his campaigns and the ancient capital

of Normandy.

Having captured the vital crossing

point of the Somme at Pont de I'Arche

on 20 July 1418, Rouen was effectively

surrounded by the English forces

on 30 July, with fortified camps

established opposite the entrances to

the city, linked to each other with

trenches, while the whole of Rouen

was surrounded by a deep ditch

studded with stakes. This time Henry's

artillery was not sufficient to batter

The towers of the

the walls to pieces so an assault could be made; Rouen would have to be

Eglise Saint-Etienne,

starved into submission.

the abbey church of the

By October food was starting to run short in the city, leading to desperate

Abbaye-aux-Hommes

measures. The author of the
The First English Life of Henry V
describes the scene:

constructed by William

the Conqueror in Caen.

Thus this prudent Prince, more streightlie oppressinge the Cittie them tofore,

In 1417 the abbey lay

made sufficient defences on all parts to saue his hoast from all perrills of sodaine

outside the city walls and

inuasions; by means whereof the Cittie inualished hunger, in so much that in

was to provide a handy

default of other meattes they were constrained first to devide amongst them

gun platform for Henry's

there horses, and also there dogs, and then there catts, ratts and myse, and

assaulting forces.

generally all thinges that might be gotten; and of that vile sustenance the

(Author's collection)

people coulde not haue enoughe but that when all these and al other things

that were comestible were consumed and eaten, then the plague of famine

entered the Cittie.

As the famine took hold the defenders took the decision to expel all those

not directly involved in the defence - the sick and infirm, elderly, women

and children. However, Henry was unwilling to let these non-combatants

42

through his siege lines and, apart from a charitable gesture on Christmas

Day, they were left to starve to death, trapped between the walls of Rouen

and the English lines. The position in the city was now becoming desperate

and there was still no French relief force in sight. On 13 January the city

agreed to surrender on the 19th if no relief force was in sight and, on the

19th, the keys were duly handed over, and Henry entered the town on

the 20th with all due pomp and ceremony. Much as with the fall of Caen,

the loss of Rouen caused the collapse of the French position in upper

Normandy, before an event took place in September that would transform

the nature of the campaign.

Throughout the Agincourt campaign the Burgundian and Armagnac

factions had been unable to settle their differences in the face of the external

threat posed by the English, and the renewed English campaign of 1417-19

proved to be no different. In fact John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, took Henry's ultimate

advantage of the chaos caused by the English invasion to launch an attack on destination in his push Armagnac possessions in the Seine region in spring 1418 and, on 29 May, southwards from Caen

Burgundian forces captured Paris, massacring Armagnac supporters and gaining was the town of Alengon, control of the royal family with the exception of the Dauphin who managed which put up no resistance to escape. This now placed the Duke of Burgundy at the head of the French to his forces despite being Government and in opposition to the English invasion, and Burgundian troops well prepared for a siege.

were present at the defence of Pont de I'Arche in July 1418. Following the (Author's collection)

fall of Rouen negotiations took place

between the Duke, Queen Isabeau, Princess

Katherine and Henry V between Mantes

and Pontoise (Charles VI was too unwell to

attend). These negotiations broke down

and the Burgundians signed the Treaty of

Pouilly with the Armagnacs, ending their

war and uniting them against the English.

In response Henry took the town of

Pontoise, just 27km (17 miles) from Paris,

which forced the French royal family and

the Duke of Burgundy to move to the town