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For the Victory at Agincourt 
For the Victory at Agincourt 
Owre kynge went forth to Normandy, With grace and myyt of chivalry; The God for hym wrouyt marvelously, Wherefore Englonde may calle, and cry
 Deo gratias: Deo gratias Anglia redde pro victoria. 
He sette a sege, the sothe for to say, To Harflue toune with ryal aray; That toune he wan, and made a fray, That Fraunce shall rywe tyl domes day.
 Deo gratias, &c. 
Then went owre kynge, with alle his oste, Thorowe Fraunce for all the Frenshe boste; He spared 'for' drede of leste, ne most, Tyl he come to Agincourt coste.
 Deo gratias, &c. 
Than for sothe that knyyt comely In Agincourt feld he fauyt manly Thorow grace of God most myyty He had bothe the felde, and the victory
 Deo gratias, &c. 
Ther dukys, and erlys, lorde and barone, Were take, and slayne, and that wel sone, And some were ledde in to Lundone With joye, and merthe, and grete renone
 Deo gratias, &c. 
Noe gratious God he save owre kynge, His peple, and all his wel wyllynge, Gef him gode lyfe, and gode endynge, That we with merth mowe savely syng
 Deo gratias, &c. [That our plain and martial ancestors could wield their swords much better than their pens, will appear from the following homely rhymes, which were drawn up by some poet laureat of those days to celebrate the immortal victory gained at Agincourt, Oct. 25, 1415. This song 
or hymn is given merely as a curiosity, and is printed from a MS. copy in the Pepys collection, vol. i. folio. It is there accompanied with the musical notes, which are copied on the opposite page.]
 The song celebrates the victory of King Henry V over the Agincourt 1415 which gave England for the first time the upper hand in the War Of Hundred Years. Henry V had neither "good life" nor "good ending" and his early death in 1422 and the subsequent defeat in France started the War Of The Roses. MJ 
[When the news of this great victory arrived in England, the people "were literally mad with joy and triumph," and although Henry V. on his entrance into London after the battle, commanded that no " ditties should be made and sung by minstrels or others" in praise of Agincourt, "for that he would whollie have the praise and thankes altogether given to G
 " A councell brave our King did hold," 
in the Percy Folio MS. (see Hales and Furnivall's edition, vol. ii. 
p. 166).

 2. Agincourt, or the English Bowman's Glory, a spirited ballad quoted in Heywood's King Edward IV., the first stanza of which is as follows

"Agincourt, Agincourt! Know ye not Agincourt? Where English slue and hurt All their French foemen? With our pikes and bills brown, How the French were beat downe, Shot by our bowman." 

3. King Henry V., his Conquest of France, commencing" As our King lay musing on his bed." 

4. The Cambro-Briton's Ballad of Agincourt, by Michael Drayton. 

Besides these ballads there are a poem attributed to Lydgate and Drayton's Battaile of Agincourt. For further information on the subject the reader should see Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas History of the battle, and Hales and Furnivall's edition of the Percy Folio MS. (vol ii. pp. 158 595).
 Dr Rimbault describes the music attached to the present ballad " as the first English regular composition of which we have any remains."] 
Words and notes (in []) from Thomas Percy, Reliques of Ancient English Poetry
 edited by Henry B. Wheatley Tune "AGINCRT1" from Popular Music of the Olden Time, Chappell 
recorded by The Young Tradition on "Galleries" (1968) and by the Silly Sisters (June Tabor & Maddy Prior) on "No More To The Dance" (1988) (verses 1 and 6 only). Ewan MacColl used this song as basis for his "Bring The Summer Home" 
see also "King Henry Fifth's Conquest Of France"