26th October, 1415, France. The screams of the injured still echoed in the ears of Henry as he and his men began to take stock after their battle. It had been a difficult battle – they’d been vastly outnumbered, exhausted from marching and illness, but they had won against their French enemy. Through the use of his longbow-men, and luck – he’d like to think of it as God’s intervention – they had achieved victory. It was as if the Lord himself had imbued them with divine blessing to sweep aside their foes.

In times like these, Henry considered his own position. A devoutly religious man, he considered himself God’s chosen ruler. He had been blessed with divine authority, as had his father before him. Henry Bolingbroke had been gifted the throne by God after King Richard’s downfall, and his son, Henry the Fifth, already dubbed as ‘the warrior king’, was determined to repay his Lord with glory.

The forest where they had camped was quieter now, in the hours before dawn. A few miles away, he imagined the dead being carried away from that muddy battlefield, strewn with discarded weapons and crimson pools which depicted the tale of carnage which the landscape had borne witness to only hours before.

He sighed, gazing into the flames of the nearby bonfire, tiredness creeping up on him, yet his senses remained alert. If he were to assert his claim on the French throne now, after this magnificent victory, he would need to do so quickly. Whilst God was on his side, he knew the French could try to regroup after their disastrous defence. Numbers had proven to not benefit them, against a punishing terrain of heavy mud, clinging to their armour and slowing them, making them an easy target for arrows to strike at.

Henry shook himself from his mental re-enactment of the battle. He had lost good men, but their sacrifice would have lead them into Heaven now on this night, to join the other fallen heroes of their nation. He rose from the ground, renewed hope and faith within him, and entering his royal tent, he knelt at the altar he had created, and began to pray.

“Lord, I offer my thanks for our victory, and hope that you will give me strength to face the trials ahead of us.”

And as he prayed, Henry could have scarcely imagined the impact he would one day have on his kingdom. But that is ancient history now, and a warrior king lies today in an abbey, immortalised in all his divine glory in a marble tomb. A King who fought with faith in his heart, with his army at his side.

Not something you’d see these days…right?