SOURCE: Meron, Theodor. “Agincourt: Prisoners of War, Reprisals, and Necessity.” In Henry's Wars and Shakespeare's Laws: Perspectives on the Law of War in the Later Middle Ages, pp. 154-71. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993.

In the following essay, Meron considers Shakespeare's portrayal of Henry V's order to kill the French prisoners (in Act IV, scene vii) in light of medieval rules and customs of war. The critic concludes that Shakespeare depicted the order as both legal and justified.

The events at Agincourt are comprehensible only if we consider how outnumbered the English forces were and how great their fear must have been. The tension which was felt in the English camp is palpable in the complaint attributed by Shakespeare to Warwick (in the Oxford edition by Wells and Taylor which I am using), or to Westmoreland (in other editions; Westmoreland was not on the Agincourt campaign at all), and in...