Most people know that this year is the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt. On 29 October, a Commemorative Service was held at Westminster Abbey, to which the Lord Mayor and Livery Company Masters and Clerks where invited. I am not a triumphalist and was pleasantly surprised to find that the Service wasn’t either.It was impressive: the Queen was represented by the Duke of Kent, the Prologue to Shakespeare’s Henry V was read by Robert Hardy, the Saint Crispin’s Day Speech was performed by Sam Marks (in costume) and a reminder from the Dean of Westminster that, had we prevailed in the war, the capital of the joint kingdom would have been Paris. It also reminded me of how much we rely on Shakespeare in present day idiom, for example ‘…band of brothers….’
A poignant letter from a French soldier in the trenches in 1915 (the 500th anniversary) was read by Pascal Deray, President of a group of communes in Northern France, regretting that the French did not properly honour their fallen.
Henry V was buried in Westminster Abbey alongside his wife Catherine of Valois.
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