Build-up to the battle
Henry V launched his August 1415 invasion of Normandy during the long contest for the throne of France between French and English rulers known as the Hundred Years’ War. The seeds of that conflict were sown when the in 1328. Edward III of England was the nearest male relative (his mother, Isabella, was Charles’s sister). Yet the French, hardly keen to be ruled by an Englishmen, chose Philip, Count of Valois, who reigned as Philip VI. Though initially accepting Philip, in 1340 partly in response to Philip’s seizure of English landholdings in Aquitaine.
Edward defeated Philip at the battle of Crécy in August 1346. In 1356 the
captured Philip’s successor, John II, at Poitiers, forcing the French to the negotiating table.
In 1360 the treaty of Brétigny was signed,
French king Charles IV died
Edward declared himself king,
Prince, Edward’s son,
Black
a diplomatic settlement giving Edward huge swathes of south-west France free from French overlordship. But in 1369 the French reneged on this treaty, depriving the English of almost all of those gains.
In 1396 the 10-year- old lord Henry (the future Henry V) accompanied his half- cousin to celebrate the latter’s marriage to the French king’s daughter, a match accompanied by the agreement of a 30-year truce.
After he was crowned in England, Henry chose to end this truce and to invade France. He was the first English king to lead an army to France in person since Edward III in 1359. But Henry also pursued a new approach in the Hundred Years’ War: his aim was conquest. He had engaged his troops for 12 months in order to take Normandy. But after a longer-than-expected siege of his first target, Harfleur, he chose to march quickly to Calais, avoiding battle. The French, however, had other plans, and intercepted him at Agincourt.
King Richard II to Calais