Editing Battle of Agincourt (section)

===English deployment===
[[File:Map Agincort.svg|thumb|upright=1.6|Plan of the Battle of Agincourt]]
Early on the 25th, Henry deployed his army (approximately 1,500 [[man-at-arms|men-at-arms]] and 7,000 [[English longbow|longbowmen]]) across a {{convert|750|yd|adj=on}} part of the [[defile (geography)|defile]]. The army was divided into three groups, with the right wing led by [[Edward, 2nd Duke of York|Edward, Duke of York]], the centre led by the king himself, and the left wing under the old and experienced Baron [[Thomas Camoys, 1st Baron Camoys|Thomas Camoys]]. The archers were commanded by Sir [[Thomas Erpingham]], another elderly veteran.{{sfn|Sumption|2015|p=454}} It is likely that the English adopted their usual battle line of longbowmen on either flank, with men-at-arms and knights in the centre. They might also have deployed some archers in the centre of the line. The English men-at-arms in plate and mail were placed shoulder to shoulder four deep. The English and Welsh archers on the flanks drove pointed wooden [[archer's stake|stakes]], or palings, into the ground at an angle to force [[cavalry]] to veer off. This use of stakes could have been inspired by the [[Battle of Nicopolis]] of 1396, where forces of the [[Ottoman Empire]] used the tactic against French cavalry.{{efn|The first known use of angled stakes to thwart a mounted charge was at the Battle of Nicopolis, an engagement between European states and Turkish forces in 1396, twenty years before Agincourt. French knights, charging uphill, were unseated from their horses, either because their mounts were injured on the stakes or because they dismounted to uproot the obstacles, and were overpowered. News of the contrivance circulated within Europe and was described in a book of tactics written in 1411 by [[Jean le Maingre|Boucicault]], Marshal of France.{{sfn|Bennett|1994|pp=7, 15–16}} }}

The English made their [[Sacrament of Penance|confessions]] before the battle, as was customary.{{sfn|Curry|2006|p=166}} Henry, worried about the enemy launching surprise raids, and wanting his troops to remain focused, ordered all his men to spend the night before the battle in silence, on pain of having an ear cut off. He told his men that he would rather die in the coming battle than be captured and [[ransom]]ed.{{sfn|Barker|2015|pp=269–270}}

Henry made a speech emphasising the justness of his cause, and reminding his army of previous great defeats the kings of England had inflicted on the French. The [[Duchy of Burgundy|Burgundian]] sources have him concluding the speech by telling his men that the French had boasted that they would cut off two fingers from the right hand of every archer, so that he could never draw a longbow again. Whether this was true is open to question and continues to be debated to this day; however, it seems likely that death was the normal fate of any soldier who could not be ransomed.{{sfn|Barker|2015|p=286}}