, and by judicious action might have destroyed them, for
they were by far the more numerous,--though most English authorities,
with characteristic "unveracity," grossly exaggerate the inequality of
numbers that really did exist between the two armies. On the night of
the 24th the rain fell heavily, making the ground quite unfit for
the operations of heavy cavalry, in which the strength of the French
consisted, while the English had their incomparable archers, the
worthy predecessors of the English infantry of to-day, one of whom was
calculated to do more efficient service than could have been expected,
as the circumstances of the field were, from ten knights cumbered with
bulky mail. Sir Harris Nicolas, the most candid English historian of the
battle, and who prepared a very useful, but unreadable volume concerning
it, after speaking of the bad arrangements adopted by the French,
proceeds to say,--"The inconveniences under which the French labored
were much increased by the state of the ground, which was not only soft
from heavy rains, but was broken up by their horses during the preceding
night, the weather having obliged the valets and pages to keep them in
motion. Thus the statement of French historians may readily be credited,
that, from the ponderous armor with which the men-at-arms were
enveloped, and the softness of the ground, it was with the utmost
difficulty they could either move or lift their weapons, notwithstanding
their lances had been shortened to enable them to fight closely,--that
the horses at every step sunk so deeply into the mud, that it required
great exertion to extricate them,--and that the narrowness of the place
caused their archers to be so crowded as to prevent them from drawing
their bows." Michelet's description of the day is the best that can be
read, and he tells us, that, when the signal of battle was given by Sir
Thomas Erpingham, the English shouted, but "the French army, to their
great astonishment, remained motionless. Horses and knights appeared to
be enchanted, or struck dead in their armor. The fact was, that their
large battle-steeds, weighed down with their heavy riders and lumbering
caparisons of iron, had all their feet completely sunk in the deep wet
clay; they were fixed there, and could only struggle out to crawl on a
few steps at a walk," Upon this mass of chivalry, all stuck in the mud,
the cloth-yard shafts of the English yeomen fell like hailstones upon
the summer corn.