pedition, what it may, (let it be founded in fact, or in the
imagination of the writer,) it bears that testimony to Henry's
character,[95] which the whole current of authentic documents tends
fully to establish. He was brave, and he was merciful.

[Footnote 95: Should it occur to any one, that if
in this case we allow the poet to have weight when
he speaks of what reflects honour on Henry's name,
we ought to assign the same credit to Shakspeare;
when he tells us of madcap frolics and precocious
dissipation, it must be remembered, that on testing
the accuracy of Shakspeare by an appeal to history,
we established a striking discrepancy between them;
and that Shakspeare lived more than a century after
the death of Henry; whereas we are led to regard
this song of Agincourt as contemporary with the
events which it celebrates; and its eulogy
harmonizes in perfect accordance with what history
might lead us to expect.]

"Go! call up Cheshire and Lancashire, (p. 123)
And Derby hills,[96] which are so free;
But neither married man, nor widow's son,--
No widow's curse shall go with me."

[Footnote 96: Query, Are these counties especially
mentioned as being more peculiarly Henry's own? He
was Duke of Lancaster, and Earl of Chester and
Derby.]

Of the numbers who went with Henry to France various accounts are
delivered down, and different calculations have been made. The song of
Agincourt raises the sum of the "right good company" to "thirty
thousand stout men and three:" and probably this total, embracing
servants and attendants of every kind, is not at all an exaggeration
of the number actually transported from England to Normandy; though,
if by "stout men" we are to understand warriors able to handle the
spear, the bow, the sword, and the battleaxe, we must not reckon them
at more than one-third of that number.

* * * * *

The expedients which Henry found it necessary to adopt for the safe
transportation of this armament, compel us to review, however briefly,
the state and circumstances of English navigation at the period.