Battle of Agincourt
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48 free Battle of Agincourt trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
On 25 October 1415, Saint Crispin's Day, a sick and hungry English army trying to reach Calais was cornered in a muddy field in northern France by a much larger French force. By evening the flower of French chivalry lay in heaps in front of the English line, and Henry V went home to a hero's welcome. Agincourt became the most famous English victory of the Hundred Years' War, and Shakespeare made it immortal. These 48 questions cover the campaign and the battle: the failed negotiations and the tennis balls, the siege of Harfleur, the march to the Somme, the 80 percent of Henry's army who were archers, the sharpened stakes, the Constable who drowned in his helmet, Henry's dented crown and the order to kill the prisoners. There are questions on the aftermath too: the dukes and counts who died, the eyewitness chronicles, Anne Curry's argument that the odds were only four to three, the Agincourt Carol, the St Crispin's Day speech and the films by Olivier, Branagh and the one with Timothée Chalamet. Easy questions stick to the king, the date and the longbow; the expert tier asks about heralds, surgeons and Christine de Pizan. Every answer is cited and explained.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Five years after Agincourt, the Treaty of Troyes made Henry V what?
Heir of France
Heir of France, with the regency too, but Henry died in August 1422, seven weeks before the French king he was due to succeed, so he never took the throne himself.
Q 02The Battle of Agincourt was fought on the feast day of which saint?
Crispin
Crispin and Crispinian were martyred shoemakers, the patron saints of cobblers; Shakespeare's Henry promises that their day will never again pass without his men being remembered.
Q 03Agincourt was a battle of which long conflict?
The Hundred Years' War
The Hundred Years' War outlasted its name, running on and off from 1337 to 1453; Agincourt came 78 years in, after half a century of English failure.
Q 04Which wood was preferred for the English longbows that won Agincourt?
Yew
Yew was in such demand for bows that English supplies ran short, and from 1472 the law made ships arriving in English ports carry bowstaves as part of their cargo.
Q 05What kept the French king, Charles VI, from leading his army at Agincourt?
He suffered from psychotic illness
He suffered from psychotic illness: Charles VI had been struck by bouts of madness since 1392 and at times believed he was made of glass, so his princes ran the kingdom and its army.
Q 06Which Constable of France commanded the French army at Agincourt and died there?
Charles d'Albret
Charles d'Albret shared the command with Marshal Boucicaut, but the two professionals could not control the higher-ranking nobles around them, and the Constable was killed in the fighting.
Q 07Alongside the English, archers from which country fought for Henry V at Agincourt?
Wales
Wales sent a company of archers, even though Henry, born at Monmouth, had spent years of his youth commanding the war against Welsh rebels.
Q 08Which two earlier English victories over France are usually named alongside Agincourt?
Crécy and Poitiers
Crécy and Poitiers set the pattern Agincourt repeated: English archers holding a defensive position and shooting down a much larger French army that came at them.
Q 09In Shakespeare's Henry V, what is the Chorus's 'wooden O'?
Theatre
The theatre: a round wooden playhouse could not stage the armies of Agincourt, so the Chorus asks the audience to picture the horses and the thousands of men for themselves.
Q 10Fourteen years after Agincourt, Joan of Arc turned the war against England by lifting which siege?
The Siege of Orléans
The Siege of Orléans was the war's military turning point: its relief in May 1429 ended the run of English success that Agincourt had begun.
Q 11After his victory in 1415, Henry V named the Battle of Agincourt after what?
A nearby castle
A nearby castle: Henry asked a French herald what the fortress in sight was called, and declared that battles should take the name of the nearest stronghold. The castle itself has since vanished.
Q 12The Gesta Henrici Quinti, an English eyewitness account of Agincourt, was probably written by whom?
A royal chaplain
A royal chaplain is the best guess, which is why it is nicknamed the chaplain's life; it was long credited to the monk Thomas Elmham until its modern editors rejected the idea.
Q 13Henry V claimed the French throne through which royal ancestor?
Edward III
Q 21Which leader of Henry V's vanguard was killed at Agincourt?
Edward, Duke of York
Edward, Duke of York is said to have been crushed to death in the press of bodies rather than cut down, the greatest name among the few English dead.
Q 22Which elderly knight commanded Henry V's archers at Agincourt?
Sir Thomas Erpingham
Sir Thomas Erpingham, a knight 'grown grey with age', rode along the ranks urging the men on, then flung his baton into the air as the signal for battle.
Q 23What defence did Henry V's archers set up in front of them at Agincourt against cavalry?
Sharpened wooden stakes
Edward III, Henry's great-grandfather, had been the first English king to claim France, through his mother Isabella, the sister of a French king who died without a son.
Q 14Before invading, Henry V demanded the unpaid ransom of which captured French king?
John II
John II had been freed to raise his ransom, leaving hostages behind; when one of them, his own son, escaped, he went back to captivity in England of his own accord and died in London.
Q 15Which daughter of Charles VI did Henry V demand as his bride before invading France?
Catherine
Catherine of Valois married Henry in 1420, was widowed two years later and went on to have children with a courtier, Owen Tudor; their grandson took the English throne as Henry VII, the first Tudor king.
Q 16Which French port did Henry V besiege after landing in August 1415?
Harfleur
Harfleur held out far longer than Henry had planned, and sickness in the siege camp cost him so many men that he dropped any wider campaign and turned for home.
Q 17Which English-held port was Henry V marching towards when the French blocked him at Agincourt?
Calais
Calais was where Henry meant to take ship for England after one costly siege, but the French army barred his road and his weakened force had to fight its way through.
Q 18Which river did the French defend in 1415, forcing Henry V far inland to find a crossing?
The Somme
The Somme had its bridges broken and its fords guarded, so Henry had to march far upstream to get across, and the delay let the French army get ahead of him.
Q 19Which disease had weakened Henry V's army by the time it reached Agincourt?
Dysentery
Dysentery swept the English camp during the siege that opened the campaign and marched on with the survivors; seven years later it is thought to have killed Henry himself.
Q 20What lay on both sides of the Agincourt battlefield, stopping the French from surrounding Henry V's army?
Woods
Woods hemmed in the field, so the far larger French army had to attack head-on along a narrow front where its numbers counted for little.
Sharpened wooden stakes, one planted at an angle by each archer, were a trick the English had not used in their earlier victories, and the French horsemen could not ride through them.
Q 24In which church is Henry V, the victor of Agincourt, buried?
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey was being rebuilt in his reign: Henry gave money towards its new nave and, in his will, ordered the chantry chapel that still arches over his tomb.
Q 25Legend traces which rude British gesture to archers taunting the French at Agincourt?
The V-sign
The V-sign supposedly showed that the archers still had their bow fingers. A chronicler does have Henry warn that captured archers would lose fingers, but nothing written at the time mentions the gesture.
Q 26What did a 2005 pay-record study say about Agincourt's armies?
Close in size
Close in size, argued the historian Anne Curry, with only about 12,000 French on the field, where chroniclers had Henry outnumbered several times over; other historians still dispute her count.
Q 27Why was the Duke of Brabant killed at Agincourt rather than ransomed?
His rank went unrecognised
His rank went unrecognised: he had ridden in late and fought in borrowed armour, so the archers who brought him down had no idea he was a duke worth a fortune in ransom, and brother to the Duke of Burgundy.
Q 28What weather before Agincourt left the ploughed battlefield so deadly for armoured French knights?
Heavy rain
Heavy rain in the night turned the newly ploughed clay to deep mud; knights in full plate reached the English line already exhausted, and those knocked down could hardly get up again.
Q 29Why was the French cavalry charge at Agincourt undermanned?
Riders wandered off
Riders wandered off during the long morning wait, some to warm themselves or see to their horses, so only a fraction of the picked force rode at the archers.
Q 30How did Henry V break the long morning stand-off at Agincourt?
Henry advanced to provoke the French
Henry advanced to provoke the French because waiting only helped them: his army was hungry and sick, and they were content to block his road. Moving into bowshot goaded them into attacking.