Editing Battle of Agincourt (section)

===Opening moves===
[[File:Morning of the Battle of Agincourt, 25th October 1415.PNG|thumb|[[John Gilbert (painter)|John Gilbert]]{{spaced ndash}}''The Morning of the Battle of Agincourt'' (1884), [[Guildhall Art Gallery]]]]
On the morning of 25 October, the French were still waiting for additional troops to arrive. The [[Anthony, Duke of Brabant|Duke of Brabant]] (about 2,000 men),{{sfn|Mortimer|2009|p=449}} the [[Louis II of Anjou|Duke of Anjou]] (about 600 men),{{sfn|Mortimer|2009|p=449}} and the [[John VI, Duke of Brittany|Duke of Brittany]] (6,000 men, according to Monstrelet),{{sfn|Mortimer|2009|p=416}} were all marching to join the army.

For three hours after sunrise there was no fighting. Military textbooks of the time stated: "Everywhere and on all occasions that foot soldiers march against their enemy face to face, those who march lose and those who remain standing still and holding firm win."{{sfn|Barker|2015|p=290}} On top of this, the French were expecting thousands of men to join them if they waited. They were blocking Henry's retreat, and were willing to wait for as long as it took. There had been a suggestion that the English would run away rather than give battle when they saw that they would be fighting so many French princes.{{sfn|Barker|2015|p=291}}

Henry's men were already weary from hunger and illness and from their ongoing retreat. Apparently Henry believed his fleeing army would perform better on the defensive, but had to halt the retreat and somehow engage the French before a defensive battle was possible.{{sfn|Mortimer|2009|pp=436–437}} This entailed abandoning his chosen position, in which the longbowmen were defended from cavalry charges by long sharpened wooden stakes set in the ground and pointed towards the French lines. These stakes had to be pulled out of the ground, carried to the army's new position, and reinstalled to defend the English lines.{{sfn|Keegan|1976|pp=90–91}} The use of stakes was an innovation for the English: during the [[Battle of Crécy]], for example, the archers had been instead protected by pits and other obstacles.{{sfn|Bennett|1994}}

The tightness of the terrain also seems to have restricted the planned deployment of the French forces. The French had originally drawn up a battle plan that had archers and crossbowmen in front of their men-at-arms, with a cavalry force at the rear specifically designed to "fall upon the archers, and use their force to break them,"{{sfn|Barker|2015|p=275}} but in the event, the French archers and crossbowmen were deployed ''behind'' and to the sides of the men-at-arms. The French archers seem to have played almost no part, except possibly for an initial volley of arrows at the start of the battle. The cavalry force, which could have devastated the English line if it had attacked while they moved their stakes, charged only ''after'' the initial volley of arrows from the English. It is unclear whether the delay occurred because the French were hoping the English would launch a frontal assault and were surprised when the English instead started shooting from their new defensive position, or whether the French mounted knights instead did not react quickly enough to the English advance. French chroniclers agree that when the mounted charge did come, it did not contain as many men as it should have; Gilles le Bouvier states that some had wandered off to warm themselves and others were walking or feeding their horses.{{sfn|Barker|2015|p=294}}