The Battle of AgincourtPronunciation: The story of the battle has been retold many times in English, from the fifteenth-century Agincourt song onwards, and the English pronunciation of "Agincourt" is commonly used. Merriam-Webster has a small audio file here and the English Pronouncing Dictionary, ISBN 0 521 81693 9, from the Cambridge University Press offers . The modern tendency, however, is to use pronunciation closer to the original French, as in this interview with Juliet Barker on Meet the Author, here. was an English victory against a larger French army in the Hundred Years" War. The battle occurred on Friday 25 October 1415 (Saint Crispin"s Day)Dates in the fifteenth century are difficult to reconcile with modern calendars: see Barker (2005) pp.226–7 for the way the date of the battle was established, in northern France. Henry V"s victory started a new period in the war, in which he came very close to capturing the throne of France for himself and his heirs. The French king of the time was Charles VI, however he did not command the French army himself as he was incapacitated, instead the French were commanded by Constable Charles d"Albret and various prominent French noblemen of the Armagnac party. The battle is notable for the use of the English longbow, which Henry used in very large numbers, with longbowmen forming the vast majority of his army. The battle was also immortalised by William Shakespeare as the centrepiece of his play Henry V.