Agincourt was published by Batsford in 1964, early in Hibbert’s career. The book covers the campaign of October 1415: Henry V’s invasion of Normandy, the unexpectedly long siege of Harfleur (which cost time, lives, and provisions the English could not afford), the desperate march toward Calais through hostile territory with a sick and starving army, and the battle itself — fought on October 25, the feast of Saints Crispin and Crispinian — in which approximately 6,000 English soldiers, most of them longbowmen, defeated a French force of perhaps 25,000.
Hibbert reconstructs the battle from contemporary accounts — French and English chronicles, letters, administrative records — and pays particular attention to the physical experience of the combat: the mud (it had been raining for days, and the plowed field between the armies was a quagmire), the terror of the French cavalry charge, the devastating effect of the longbow volleys, and the chaotic hand-to-hand fighting that followed. Henry’s controversial decision to execute French prisoners — taken when a French counterattack threatened his rear and he could not spare soldiers to guard them — is examined without sentimentality.
The book’s final chapters trace how the battle was transformed from a military event into a national myth: Shakespeare’s Henry V, of course, but also the Victorian cult of Agincourt as proof of English moral superiority, and the ongoing historiographical debate about the numbers, the tactics, and the meaning of the victory.
Collecting Agincourt
First edition (Batsford, London, 1964): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $30–$80
- Very good/very good: $10–$30