Note 1280 — Chapter XV · THE NORMAN INVASION AND THE CAMPAIGN OF HASTINGS.[1055] (continued 2)

The piety of the English on the night before Azincourt is insisted on in some of our accounts. Take Elmham for instance (479);

“Nox pluvialis ibi plebem sine pane madebat:

Ad Dominum vigiles quique dedere preces.”

So Walsingham, ii. 310, ed. Riley; Monstrelet, vol. i. c. 146, p. 227 b. What the French are chiefly charged with is playing at dice for English ransoms. See Redman, p. 45, ed. Cole. This is the point chiefly brought out by Shakespeare, Henry V, Act iv. Chorus. Compare also the accounts of the night before Lewes, the piety of the patriots and the foul excesses of the royalists. Rishanger, Chron. p. 25; Chron. Lanercost, 75; Political Songs (Camden Soc.), p. 80.