9 things you (probably) didn’t know about henry v and agincourt

7 min read

Teresa Cole shares lesser-known facts about the English king and the against-all-odds battle that secured his legacy

1 NOBODY KNOWS WHEN HENRY V WAS BORN

Henry V was born at Monmouth Castle – but the precise date is up for debate

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Henry V was born at Monmouth Castle, perched high above the River Monnow, but there is no record of his birth – and even the year is uncertain. Some say his birthday was 9 August 1387, but an alternative date is 16 September 1386. The latter comes from a horoscope drawn up for the king and apparently commissioned by him just before the Agincourt campaign in 1415.

However, the French astrologer who drew the horoscope was later accused in Paris of being an English spy, and it is possible the work was just an excuse for the man to come to England and meet with Henry. The king apparently showed no interest in the horoscope afterwards.

A Tudor-era portrait of Henry V. Despite being painted more than a century after his death, he is shown wearing fashions of his lifetime

2 HE ENJOYED A CLOSE BOND WITH RICHARD II

Henry Bolingbroke depicted kneeling before Richard II during the king’s capture at Flint Castle, Wales

When his father, Henry Bolingbroke, was sent into exile in 1398, Henry was placed in the custody of Richard II. But rather than having his rival’s son maimed or put to death, Richard treated the boy with respect: he spent time with him, took him on expedition to Ireland, and even knighted him along the way. And incredibly,

when Richard heard of Bolingbroke’s challenge to the Crown in 1399, he made no threats against him.

It seems that, in return, Henry saw Richard as something of a father figure. After Bolingbroke had taken the throne as Henry IV and asked that his son come and see him in the Palace of Westminster, it is said that Henry instead went to visit Richard in the Tower of London. If accounts from the time are to be believed, only at the king’s insistence did the younger Henry finally go to see his father.

When Henry himself became king in 1413, he demanded that Richard’s body be exhumed from its obscure resting place in Kings Langley, Hertfordshire, and reburied in Westminster Abbey.

3 HIS FIRST BATTLE WAS NEARLY HIS LAST

The teenage Henry V, then Prince of Wales, found himself needing emergency surgery after the battle of Shrewsbury in 1403

Henry’s first major pitched battle (before becoming king) was not against the French, but the English. On 21 July 1403, the 16-year-old Prince of Wales lined up alongside his father to face the

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History Revealed Magazine

28 September 2023

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