Editing Battle of Agincourt (section)

===Henry executes French prisoners===
Regardless of when the baggage assault happened, at some point after the initial English victory, Henry became alarmed that the French were regrouping for another attack. The ''Gesta Henrici'' places this after the English had overcome the onslaught of the French men-at-arms and the weary English troops were eyeing the French rearguard ("in incomparable number and still fresh").{{sfn|Curry|2000|p=37}} Le Fèvre and Wavrin similarly say that it was signs of the French rearguard regrouping and "marching forward in battle order" which made the English think they were still in danger.{{sfn|Curry|2000|p=163}}

Henry ordered the slaughter of most of the French prisoners, possibly numbering in the thousands. He ordered only the highest-ranked prisoners to be spared, presumably because they were the most likely to fetch a large ransom under the chivalric system of warfare. The prisoners outnumbered their captors; according to most chroniclers, Henry feared that the prisoners would realise their advantage in numbers, rearm themselves with the weapons strewn about the field, and overwhelm the exhausted English forces. Contemporary chroniclers did not criticise Henry for ordering the killing.{{sfn|Barker|2015|pp=305–308}} In his study of the battle John Keegan argued that the main aim was not to actually kill the French prisoners but rather to terrorise them into submission and quell any possibility they might resume the fight, which would probably have caused the uncommitted French reserve forces to join the fray, as well.{{sfn|Keegan|1976|pp=107–112}} Such an event would have posed a risk to the still-outnumbered English and could have easily turned their victory into a mutually destructive defeat, as the English forces were now largely intermingled with the French and would have suffered grievously from the arrows of their own longbowmen had they needed to resume fighting. The English knights refused to assist in the killing of these prisoners due to their belief that it was unchivalrous. Keegan, estimating that only around 200 archers were involved in the task and recognizing the difficulty of killing thousands of prisoners quickly, speculates that relatively few prisoners were actually killed before the French reserves fled the field and Henry rescinded the order.{{sfn|Keegan|1976|p=112}}