The Legend of Agincourt
The Battle of Agincourt, fought in 1415, occupies a special place in English history.
The Battle of Agincourt, in which a smaller English force won a decisive victory against a French army during the Hundred Years War, casts a long shadow; one which reaches across the centuries. Shakespeare’s version of events, which is how we chiefly know of this incident in a long and protracted war, was manipulated to great effect during the Second World War. In 1940 Winston Churchill made conscious reference to Henry V’s speech before the battle, which is found of course in the play Henry V. The line Shakespeare gave the king, ‘we few, we happy few’ was the basis for Churchill’s reference to the RAF, that ‘Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few’. The fighter pilots who took part in the Battle of Britain became known in later years as, ’the few’. Nor was this the only way in which Agincourt entered the public consciousness at that time. In 1944, towards the end of the war, as Britain was about to embark upon the invasion of Europe, it was felt that a boost for morale wouldn’t come amiss. The British government accordingly helped to finance a spectacular, Technicolor film version of Henry V, starring Laurence Olivier in the title role. The film shamelessly evoked the spirit of Agincourt by being dedicated to the, ’Commandos and Airborne Troops of Great Britain the spirit of whose ancestors it has humbly been attempted to recapture’.
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