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Battlefield Detectives
Agincourt's Dark Secrets

7:30pm Sunday, April 10, 2005

In 1415, Henry V led the English into battle against the French. Although the English were outnumbered by at least three to one, they won. Shakespeare made this victory legendary.

Historians have always put this triumph down to the most feared weapon in Europe - England's trump card, the longbow. But new research is beginning to tell quite a different story, in Battlefield Detectives: Agincourt's Dark Secrets, to be screened on Sunday April 10 at 7.30pm.

Experts in geology, crowd dynamics and engineering are piecing together a new picture of what happened in 1415, revealing that what has always been seen as a great English victory turns out to have been more of a catastrophic French failure. Agincourt was, above all, a medieval crowd disaster.

And in a final twist to the tale, Henry V is revealed as being a less than noble leader.

Documentary   Subtitles CC   PG 

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