(p. 170)
to deeds of arms, nor any unprecedented career of conquest, could
obliterate. The charge of cruelty, however, like some other accusations,
examined at length in these Memoirs, is of comparatively recent
origin; and as in those former instances, so in this, our duty is to
ascertain the facts from the best evidence, and dispassionately to
draw our inference from those facts after an upright scrutiny and
patient weighing of the whole question in all its bearings. Our
abhorrence of the crime may well make us hesitate before we pronounce
judgment against one to whose mercy and chivalrous honour his
contemporaries bore willing and abundant testimony; the enormity of so
dreadful an example compels us, in the name of humanity and of
justice, not to screen the guilty. We may be wisely jealous of the
bias and prejudice which his brilliant talents, and his life of
patriotism and glory, may unconsciously communicate to our minds; we
must be also upon our guard lest an excessive resolution to do
justice, foster imperceptibly a morbid acquiescence in the
condemnation of the accused.

The facts, then, as they are gleaned from those authors who wrote
nearest to the time (two of whom, one French, the other English, were
actually themselves present on the field of battle, and were
eye-witnesses of some portion at least of the circumstances which they
narrate,) seem to have been these, in their order and character.

At the close of one of the most desperate struggles ever recorded (p. 171)
in the annals of ancient or modern warfare, whilst the enemy were in
the act of quitting the field, but had not left it, the English were
employing what remained of their well nigh exhausted strength in
guarding their prisoners, and separating the living from the dead, who
lay upon each other, heaps upon heaps, in one confused and
indiscriminate mass. On a sudden a shout was raised, and reached
Henry, that a fresh reinforcement[134] of the enemy in overwhelming
numbers had attacked the baggage, and were advancing in battle-array
against him. He was himself just released from the furious conflict in
which, at the close of his almost unparalleled personal exertion, he
engaged with the Duke of Alencon, and slew him on the spot. Precisely,
also, at this juncture, the main body of the French who had been
engaged in the battle, and were apparently retreating, were seen to be
collecting in great numbers, and forming themselves into bodies,
through