All the known copies of this ballad are recent. It is not in Thackeray's list of broadsides, which dates perhaps as late as 1689 (Chappell, The Roxburghe Ballads, I, xxiv-xxvii); and it is not included in the collection of 1723-25, which showed particular favor to historical pieces. In a manuscript index of first lines to a large collection of songs and ballads "formed in 1748," I find, "As our king lay on his bed," and the ballad may probably have first been published in the second quarter of the last century. In a woodcut below the title of a, b, there are two soldiers with G R on the flap of the coat and G on the cap (no doubt in c as well); the date of these broadsides cannot therefore be earlier than the accession of George I, 1714. The broadside is in a popular manner, but has no mark of antiquity. It may, however, represent an older ballad, disfigured by some purveyor for the Aldermary press.
It is probable that the recited versions had their ultimate source in print, and that printed copies were in circulation which, besides the usual slight variations,[foot-note] contained two more stanzas, one after 2 and another after 8, such as are found in h and elsewhere; which stanzas are likely to have formed part of the original matter.
After 2, h (see also g, i, j):
After 8, h (see also g, i, k, m):
g has several stanzas which are due to the hand of some improver.
Another, and much more circumstantial, ballad on Agincourt, written from the chronicles, was current in the seventeenth century. It begins, 'A councell braue [grave] our king did hold,' and may be seen in the Percy Manuscript, p. 241, Hales and Furnivall, II, 166, in The Crown Garland of Golden Roses (with seven stanzas fewer), ed. 1659, p. 65 of the reprint by the Percy Society, vol. xv; Pepys' Ballads, I, 90, No 44; Old Ballads, II, 79; Pills to purge Melancholy, V, 49; etc.
The story of the Tennis-Balis is not mentioned by the French historians, by Walsingham, Titus Livius, or the anonymous biographer of Henry in Cotton Manuscript, Julius E. iv.[foot-note] It occurs, however, in several contemporary writings, as in Elmham's Liber Metricus de Henrico Quinto, cap. xii (Quod filius regis Francorum, in derisum, misit domino regi pilas, quibus valeret cum pueris ludere potius quam pugnare, etc.), Cole, Memorials of Henry the Fifth, 1858, p. 101; but not in Elmham's prose history. So in Capgrave, De illustribus Henricis, with a fertur, ed. Hingeston, 1858, p. 114; but not in Capgrave's chronicle. We might infer, in these two cases, that the tale was thought good enough for verses and good enough for eulogies, though not good enough for history.
Again, in verses of Harleian Manuscript 565, "in a hand of the fifteenth century," the Dolphin says to the English ambassadors:
Henry sends back this message:
But there is a chronicler who has the tale still. Otterbourne writes: Eodem anno [1414], in quadragesima, rege existente apud Kenilworth, Karolus, regis Francorum filius, Delphinus vocatus, misit pilas Parisianas ad ludendum cum pueris. Cui rex Anglorum rescripsit, dicens se in brevi pilas missurum Londoniarum, quibus terreret et confunderet sua tecta.
And once more, the author of an inedited "Chronicle of King Henry the Fifth that was Kyng Henries son," Cotton Manuscript, Claudius A. viii, of the middle of the fifteenth century, fol. 1, back:[foot-note]
And than, the Dolphine of Fraunce aunswered to our embassatours, and said in this maner, 'that the kyng was ouer yong and to tender of age to make any warre ayens hym, and was not lyke yet to be noo good werrioure to doo and to make suche a conquest there vpon hym. And somwhat in scorne and dispite he sente to hym a tonne fulle of tenysballis, be-cause he wolde haue some-what for to play withalle for hym and for his lordis, and that be-came hym better than to mayntayn any werre. And than anone oure lordes that was embassatours token hir leue and comen in to England ayenne, and tolde the kyng and his counceille of the vn-goodly aunswer that they had of the Dolphyn, and of the present the whiche he had sent vnto the kyng. And whan the kyng had hard her wordis, and the answere of the Dolp[h]ynne, he was wondre sore agreued, and righte euelle apayd towarde the Frensshemen, and toward the kyng, and the Dolphynne, and thoughte to auenge hym vpon hem as sone as God wold send hym grace and myghte; and anon lette make tenys-ballis for the Dolp[h]ynne in all the hast that the myghte be made, and they were grete gonne-stones for the Dolp[h]ynne to play wythe-alle.'
The Dolphin, whom two of these writers make talk of Henry as if he were a boy, was himself in his nineteenth year, and the English king more than eight years his senior. "Hume has justly observed," says Sir Harris Nicolas, "that the great offers made by the French monarch, however inferior to Henry's demands, prove that it was his wish rather to appease than exasperate him; and it is almost incredible that, whilst the advisers of Charles evinced so much forbearance, his son should have offered Henry a personal insult... It should be observed, as additional grounds for doubting that the message or gift was sent by the Dauphin, that such an act must have convinced both parties of the hopelessness of a pacific arrangement afterwards, and would, it may be imagined, have equally prevented the French court and Henry from seeking any other means of ending the dispute than by the sword. This, however, was not the case; for even supposing that the offensive communication was made on the occasion of the last, instead ... of that of the first embassy, it is certain that overtures were again sent to Henry whilst he was on his journey to the place of embarkation, and that even when there, he wrote to the French monarch with the object of adjusting his claims without a recourse to arms: " pp. 9, 12 f.
History repeats itself. Darius writes to Alexander as if he were a boy, and sends him, with other things, a ball to play with; and Alexander, in his reply to Darius, turns the tables upon the Persian king by his interpretation of the insolent gifts: Pseudo-Callisthenes, I, 36, ed. Müller, p. 40 f.[foot-note] The parallel is close. It is not inconceivable that the English story is borrowed, but I am not prepared to maintain this.
It does not appear from any testimony external to the ballad that married men or widows' sons had the benefit of an exemption in the levy for France, or that Cheshire, Lancashire, and Derby[foot-note] were particularly called upon to furnish men: st. 9. The Rev. J. Endell Tyler believes the ballad to be unquestionably of ancient origin, "probably written and sung within a very few years of the expedition," "before Henry's death, and just after his marriage;" which granted, this stanza would have a certain interest. But, says Mr. Tyler, "whether there is any foundation at all in fact for the tradition of Henry's resolution to take with him no married man or widow's son, the tradition itself bears such strong testimony to the general estimate of Henry's character for bravery at once and kindness of heart that it would be unpardonable to omit every reference to it," and he has both printed the ballad in the body of his work and placed "that golden stanza" on his title-page.[foot-note] The question of Henry's kindness of heart does not require to be discussed here, but it may be said in passing that there is not quite enough in this ballad to remove the impression which is ordinarily made by his conduct of the siege of Rouen.
The Battle of Agincourt was fought October 25, 1415. It is hardly necessary to say, with reference to the marching to Paris gates, that Henry had the wisdom to evacuate French ground as soon after the battle as convoy to England could be procured.
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