In Shakespeare’s Henry V, the battle at Agincourt ended with suspiciously low dead count for the English – “five and twenty”, as compared with the ten thousands suffered by the French. That seems a bit outreaching for a face-to-face combat.
Was that a reasonable outcome, or was Shakespeare taking some dramatic license here?
(In hindsight, the Elizabethans thought the same way we do about the French army.)
I don’t have the play in front of me, but I seem to remember the “five and twenty” referred only to the nobility who were killed, and that a second number identified the number of commoner dead.
But anyway, yes, both numbers together were far too low, although it was still a very lopsided battle. English deaths numbered in the hundreds while French deaths were in the thousands.
Not so. Here’s the relevant quote – Henry reads the list of English casualties:
“Edward the Duke of York, the Earl of Suffolk,
Sir Richard Ketly, Davy Gam, esquire;
None else of name, and of all other men
But five and twenty.” (4.8.107-110, emphasis obviously mine)
Earlier in the scene he talks of “ten thousand French / That in the field lie slain,” but that’s all inclusive:
“So that in these ten thousand they have lost,
There are but sixteen hundred mercenaries.
The rest are princes, barons, lords, knights, squires,
And gentlemen of blood and quality.” (4.8.90-93)
The actual casualty figures were closer to seven thousand French and at the very most sixteen hundred English, though probably much less (according to Norwich in Shakespeare’s Kings – the closest I had to a reference book; he says that some estimates give English casualties as only about four hundred).
(As a side note, Shakespeare presents the death of York, the highest-ranking Englishman killed in the battle, as a poignant, heroic moment, although one that happens offstage. Historically, it was considerably less poetic: he seems to have drowned in the mud.)
Good guess, but nope – Henry states that the dead include
BTW, I am inclined to think that it is Henry, not Shakespeare, who is taking dramatic license, and the audience is meant to question what he says here. A final body count of 29 conflicts not only with the actual historic record, but with what we’ve already seen in the play. Among other things, we know the French have slaughtered all the boys accompanying the army. Henry’s count may be pure propaganda, or it could be correct if it includes only combat deaths in the strictest sense, but viewers of the play would already be keenly aware that these deaths form only a small part of the human costs of war. (Of the small group of tavern characters we’ve been following throughout the cycle of plays, none is actually killed in combat – but all the same, four go off to war and only one returns alive.)
Of course, I’m an old cynic where Henry is concerned, can you tell? 
Oh damn, Katisha would beat me to the relevant passage while I’m busy criticizing Henry. I have got to get out of that habit.
bows 
You could do what I do and only criticize Henry when previous posters have been praising him! Of course, then when people criticize him I feel compelled, once again, to argue the contrary. I don’t think I’ll ever figure this play out, which is one reason I like it so much.
(Of course, if Henry is being played by Kenneth Branagh all bets are off. Mmmmm…Branagh… ;))
That said…perhaps we’re not so much meant to question what Henry says as remember what he doesn’t say (and then, of course, the rest of your point applies perfectly well). And that “None else of name” is so telling, especially juxtaposed with “For he today that sheds his blood with me / Shall be my brother”…
My apologies for mis-remembering the play.
I don’t own the book Eyewitness to History, but I know it contains an account of the battle by Jehan de Wavrin, a French night who fought at Agincourt.
His figures may be more accurate than Shakespeare’s (or Shakespeare’s depiction of Henry’s), if someone wants to go find the book.
Crap! I don’t have the book, but my mom does – if I’d known that, I’d have purloined it while I was at my parents’ house (it’s buried in the basement somewhere, and anyway I don’t think she’d mind). Figures or no figures, I imagine that’s a fascinating read…
…and of course I meant “…a French knight…”
The English had lots of longbowmen. This allowed them to shower the French with many armor-piercing arrows while the over-armored French slogged through the muck and mire towards the English line.
A Google search suggests a range of figures from 200 to 1,000 English dead, but the consensus seems to settle at between 200 and 500. Figures for the French dead vary between 8,000 and 11,000, but this also includes around 1,500 prisoners who were executed (not a particularly chivalrous act) as Henry didn’t have enough men to guard them.
I think that phrase “none else of name” refers to the fact that the dead men were not noblemen and held no titles. Think of it as “none else of Name.” I don’t think he meant that the peasants were revolting, or anything!
You come to bury Henry, not to praise him?
Crusoe: What I read happened is that the local peasants saw the poorly guarded supply train and decided to help themselves.
Henry believed it to be an attack from the rear, and ordered the prisoners slain to prevent their escape. He actually had to withdraw archers from the battle to get his men to comply (not for humanitarian reasons, noble prisoners could command great ransom). By the time they figured out what had actually happened, most of the prisoners were dead.
I always snicker when Henry says something about “even play of battle.” There was very little man-to-man fighting at Agincourt, it was mostly waves of charging cavalry being shot to bits by longbowmen.
I happen to have the book Eyewitness to History right here. Let’s see… he records that only about sixteen hundred of the English were killed.
Nitpick; they weren’t “over-armored”. Armor is a good thing to have in a medieval battle. The problem was that they were too tightly packed together, attempting a cavalry charge uphill on a muddy field in the face of disciplined longbow volleys. With a good commanding general, the French would have either starved out the English, or attacked them on more suitable terrain, and killed or driven the invaders away. Sadly, it was not to be.
I know what it means! There’s still something faintly unsettling about it…
Evil Death – Heh. Only half the time.