Brilliant as was the victory which Henry had won at Agincourt, it had, it may be said, no immediate results. The English king was not in a position to follow it up. His loss on the field of battle had, as we have seen, been considerable—amounting to nearly a sixth of his army, if we are to accept the smaller estimate of his numbers, to a twelfth, if we take the larger. Nor is it likely that the sickness which had already so terribly diminished his force had altogether ceased. We are indeed expressly told that the soldiers were “sorely fatigued by their efforts in the battle, and greatly troubled by famine and other wants.” But, indeed, so sagacious and far-seeing a general could never have contemplated any other result. He had, in truth, got all that he could have hoped for. He had done what he had said he would do. He had marched from his town of Harfleur to his town of Calais, and all the hosts which the King of France had gathered to bar his way had been scattered before him. This chivalrous, even rash, undertaking had been accomplished, and accomplished with a success so splendid that it had seemed to be the very wisest thing that he could have done. He had not, it is true,89 achieved anything more towards the actual conquest of French territory than had been achieved on the day when Harfleur surrendered, but in prestige and in all that prestige can effect he had gained immensely. The glories of Crecy and Poictiers, dimmed by sixty years of feebleness and dissension, had been revived. Englishmen had again found that they could conquer even against desperate odds; and they had learnt that they had a captain at their head who was at least the equal in skill and courage of the greatest of those who had gone before him. Though the close of the day of Agincourt did not leave the conqueror in possession of one foot more of French soil than he had owned at its beginning, it brought him sensibly nearer to the end of his ambition, the crown of France. Any attempt to seize it at once would have been sheer madness. If he had ventured on a march to Paris, even the broken and dispirited remnant of the French army would have been sufficient to crush his feeble force. His policy was to wait, to gather fresh strength for a renewed effort. Meanwhile the profound discouragement that could not but be the result of a defeat so disastrous, suffered in circumstances so discreditable, would sink into the minds of his adversaries. Other causes, too, would be at work, the force of which he was shrewd enough to foresee. Dissension and jealousy were rife among the governing classes of France. Neither of the great feudatories of the French crown had been present at the battle of Agincourt. Two brothers of the Duke of Burgundy were there and fell in the conflict, but the Duke himself was absent, and absent, it would seem, of set purpose. The Duke of Britanny would have been90 present, says Monstrelet, if the battle had been delayed till the Saturday. But his tardy movements, in view of the ample notice which he must have received, are suspicious. As for the governed, there was a general feeling among them that they could not suffer more from the rule of the English than they were suffering already from their own princes and lords.

Henry’s course, then, after the victory was plain. Before everything acknowledgment must be made to God. Accordingly a service of solemn thanksgiving was performed by the clergy on the field. The Psalm In Exitu Israel (“When Israel came out of Egypt”) was chanted, and when the singers came to the words “Not unto us, not unto us,” every man knelt on the ground: the Te Deum followed. Then the army resumed its interrupted march to Calais, which was about forty miles distant. At Calais a council of war was held, and the resolution to return to England unanimously taken. A few days were allowed for refreshment, and about the middle of November the army embarked. The passage of the Channel was effected without loss; but though the wind was favourable, the sea was, as usual, rough, and the French prisoners, the chief of whom were carried in the King’s ship, declared that their sufferings were not less than those which they had endured on the disastrous day of Agincourt. They regarded with nothing less than astonishment the cheerful unconcern of Henry.

When the fleet reached Dover the people gave it a triumphant reception. Many of the citizens waded out to the royal ship, anxious to carry their King to shore. The streets were crowded with persons, religious as well as lay, who had gathered to do him honour. After91 some days spent at Dover, Henry proceeded to London. There, of course, a still more magnificent reception awaited him. The mayor and aldermen, with a vast throng of citizens, came out to meet him, and the scene in the city recalled the splendours of a Roman triumph. Banners inscribed with the achievements of the conqueror’s predecessors were displayed at the gates and in the streets, as if to show that his victories were to be ranked with theirs. The conduits ran with wine. Platforms were erected and hung with splendid draping, on which boys, habited like angels, sang the praises of the King. The people were especially anxious for a sight of the helmet still bearing the dint of that mighty stroke with which Alen?on had almost changed the fortune of the day; but Henry’s modesty would not allow it or the rest of his armour to be exhibited. The same enthusiastic welcome was given to him in other places which he visited in the course of the next few weeks.

Among these festivities those who had fallen were not forgotten. On December 1st a solemn service, attended by a multitude of great ecclesiastics from all parts of the kingdom, was held in memory of the Duke of York and others, French as well as English, who had fallen at Agincourt. The King’s uncle, the Earl of Dorset, came over from Harfleur, of which place he had been made governor, to attend it. The news that he brought from France was so far satisfactory that he could report another victory over the French; but it was clear that, if the enemy already ventured to show himself so near to the English possessions, the work of conquest had yet to be done.

92 For this work preparations on the largest scale had to be made. After keeping his Christmas at Lambeth, the King issued writs for a new Parliament. This met at Westminster on March 16th, and was exhorted by the Lord Chancellor (Bishop of Winchester) to assist the King in the completion of an enterprise which had been already so well begun. Accordingly the Commons voted, with the assent of the Lords and spiritual Peers, that the subsidies granted in the previous year should be collected sooner than had been before ordered, made a grant of equal amount for the year to come, and, in addition, gave the King tonnage and poundage for the safeguard of the sea, and settled on him for life the duties on wool and leather.

Henry’s attitude to his Parliaments remained, so far as we can judge, judicious and firm. It would be a mistake to suppose that the petitions which they presented to the sovereign always or even commonly represented a popular demand. They were oligarchical assemblies, and the interests which they asserted were often the interests of a class. The Crown might often be compelled to asser............