Well that was unexpected

[flybye023]

I was watching Kenneth Branagh's Henry V tonight when my dad got home. He sat down to watch it with me which surprised me because he has a really hard time following movies for some reason. We often have to stop a show--doesn't matter what genre-- a few times and quickly explain the plot even though he's been there the whole time so I figured Shakespeare would cause some problems.

So we're watching it and he seems to be following it fairly well and I'm thinking "cool, my dad's watching Shakespear with me. " I'm expecting some questions about what's being said but his questions veered off into territory that I've never considered:

What was the battlefield layout of Agincourt?
Why did the English win?
Why did the French lose?
What advantages/disadvantages did each side have?
Who had superior weapons?

I'm just going, "uhh, uhh..... Wikipedia?"

So, perfectly reasonable and logical questions, I've just never looked at Henry V that way before.

[houdini]

I tend to look at things from a historical viewpoint first, and then read the poetry bit of it...too much training I think! I love Julius Cesaer, because that was my studied period, so it's fascinating to see what Shakespeare does with the characters and the historical record.

Agincourt's really interesting - English should have lost (tiny army, mostly unprotected archers, foreign territory). Goaded French knights into charging at them, English then hit them with a lot of arrows, French knights die. De Endz.

Basically comes down to the English longbow's range and power, against knights on horseback with big swords. If the knights had reached the English archers, archers would be very flattened and even more dead. But they never reached the archers...due to the arrows. And because the longbow takes so much time and training to be able to use properly, the French couldn't suddenly adopt it when they realised what it was doing to their knights.

It's actually a really fascinating period of history from a weaponry point of view, because you've got the longbow (peasant's weapon, yuck!) against the Wonderful Knights Who Think They Are The Bees Knees, and then the knights are even more cross because the longbow and crossbow get good enough to shoot them off their horses Agincourt is the ultimate lesson in how ignoring new technology can give you a very painful lesson.

[flybye023]

I know! I was reading on Wikipedia (because even though Dad wanted to know, he wouldn't look it up himself) and the other thing that worked in the English's favor is that the French basically handed the terrain advantage to them.

Then, they fought on a recently ploughed field with, I think, a small river in the middle. It had also rained so the English forces kept driving the heavily armored, dismounted French knights back into the mud and they just got bogged down and then, as you said, the archers just poured arrows on them.

Quite the thing.