We can perhaps think of the Hundred Years War as a conflict that was bounded by a number of factors which inhibited both England and France from securing the victor they might desire, until, that is, French by a slow process of attrition, eased the now enfeebled English out of everywhere but Calais by 1453-4. Even then the English were back again in 1475, 1492, 1513, 1545, and, even after the fall of Calais in 1558, tried yet again in 1562. The Hundred Years War had no concluding peace treaty - the nearest thing to that was perhaps the Treaty of Amiens of 1802 when King George III agreed to no longer style himself King of France and removed the French quartering from his coat of arms.
If then this protracted conflict was not a single war but more an existential reality for both realms, which neither could win, intervening ambitious peace treaties such as Paris in 1259, Brétigny in 1360, Troyes in 1421 or even Cateau Cambresis in 1559, let alone extended truces and pledges of peace and amity, failed to bring what they seemingly offered.
It is as if the two principals, let alone their allies, could never achieve victory due to their own limitations, or the constraints of the times in which the events took place. Thus the great English mid-fourteenth century naval victories of Sluys in 1340 and Winchelsea/ Les Espagnoles sur Mer in 1350, and the land victories of Crecy in 1346 and, even more catastrophic for the French, Poitiers with the capture of King Jean II in 1356, were not the knock out blow they may have seemed in the immediate aftermath. In the following years the French offered huge swathes of land to the English, but failures to ratify in full, or the French insistence on retaining ultimate sovereignty over the territories involved meant no lasting peace was negotiated.
Neither England or France could have seemingly achieve that degree of advantage to dictate a lasting solution. Despite the difference in size and resources between France and England, the centralised and cohesive nature of the latter’s administration made it an extremely formidable opponent, Whilst the more diverse and fragmented nature of France made it prone to factional conflicts. There was therefore something of a stalemate, interrupted by campaigns that aimed to resolve the conflict, but which could never achieve it.
In this context Agincourt stands out as being different, along with the English victory at Verneuil a decade later, but that was a consequence of Agincourt. King Henry V’s victory on this day in 1415 was so crushing that it looked like the long desired or feared knock-out blow. Not only was the French army crushed, its leaders killed or captured, but the results seemingly crushed French political action and initiative. Circumstances at the court of the French king and the deaths of two successDauphins as the internecine feuds between the French princes resumed whilst King Henry sailed home to England, transformed for the moment into a major European ruler. Two years later he was back and began the systematic conquest of Normandy, the richest duchy within the Royal domain. Allied with Burgundy after the murder on the bridge at Monterau of Duke Jean the Fearless in 1419, by the summer of 1420 the English king could achieve the Treaty of Troyes which made him heir and regent of the kingdom of France. He spent much of the last year or so of his life fighting those who opposed it. Had he lived two months longer he would have succeeded King Charles VI as the French monarch.
Whether King Henry V could have subdued the realm he was promised is, of course, unknowable, but the likelihood of a decisive English victory was never closer. This had come about because of the victory won by the then largely unknown English king and his depleted army at Agincourt.
As a victory it very rapidly entered the national consciousness in England, partially through deliberate government messaging and propaganda, and also one can assume because it naturally resonated with the populace. When Shakespeare wrote about it almost two centuries later his audience knew the story, what they wanted was the emotion and exultation of St Crispin’s Day - and for another such victory over the old enemy they would have to wait for Blenheim in 1704.
Agincourt and the events of the reign of King Henry V did not deliver final victory in the Hundred Years War for the English, but it must have seemed close. For the French the catastrophic humiliation may have served to
embolden them under King Charles VII to find the way to gradually reclaim their country, but it was no easy task. The rigidities of resources and the nature of political life and military campaigning imposed constraints it was almost impossible to overcome. What had happened at Agincourt made that impossibility look possible.
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