Henry V’s chaplain Thomas Elmham, an eyewitness of the battle of Agincourt, gave us this account of the King in the moments before the fighting began.
William Shakespeare was not alone in dramatising King Henry V’s rousing speech before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. Henry’s chaplain Thomas Elmham (1364-?1427), who was present, also recorded the king’s words to his troops. We join him just as the famous stakes on which the French cavalry would impale themselves have been driven into the muddy ground.