BBC R3 - After Agincourt

BBC R3 - Peter Mottley's 'After Agincourt'

Produced by Alfred Bradley

Broadcast November 15, 1988

Coded from tape at 128/44.1

Thanks due to my sister for preserving this one.



Monologue. Bob Hoskins gets right to the heart of Shakespeare's Pistol.



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A mounted knight was the equivalent of a modern day tank. He ruled the battlefield for a thousand years. His nemesis was the longbow.

Today's bow has a pull weight of 50 lbs. The longbow's pull weight was between 120lbs and 150 lbs. It could shoot a yard long arrow

through 6" of oak. A peasant armed with the equivalent of a stinger missile could turn the armoured flower of nobility into meat in seconds.



Any archer who could shoot a squirrel at 100 paces could join the English army and receive a living wage. Henry V's 10,000 man army

had 5,000 archers.



In October 1415, Henry's was army marching through France. They were famished, and suffering from dysentery. They came upon a

French army of between 30,000 and 60,000 men. To the French surprise they offered battle.



The archers were lightly armoured. Many were untrousered (because of dysentery). With their long bows, each man had a either a sword,

axe, dagger, or long-handled hammer for close in work against those floundering in the mud. The French were heavily armoured, many

encumbered with useless two-handed swords.



The English position was up a slope flanked by dense woods. They made an obstacle of long sharpened stakes which they stood behind.



The French cavalry attacked, uphill through thick mud. The archers shot at a rate of twelve arrows a minute. At times the arrows fell so thick

that they rattled against one another in the air. The targets were slow and clumsy. Many were hit in the head. Others drowned face down in

the mud. The English army employed youths to cut the throats of those knights trapped in the mud.



The cavalry was followed by the armoured infantry - pushed forward into the mud and chaos by those on their own side who couldn't see

what was going on. The slaughter was enormous. The dead were in banks six feet high on which the archers had to climb to sight more

targets.



Agincourt. That glorious victory.