Shakespearian Diarrhoea & The Original Operation Yewtree | Agincourt (Part 2)

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1:03Once more into the breach, dear friends. He's still rock hard. Come on. And this is the Battle of Agincourt. Come on. This is one of your five pillars, as you said. Alar. Alar. This is white guy history. So good it turns me Muslim. That's how good it is. You know that that shit hitting good when you start praying to Allah. Agincourt. You're like that. Agincourt. You're hitting one of these prayers when you're doing that. hitting one of these prays when you're doing that that's that's better than that to be fair you know you know I'm a big muslimophile you are a big islamophile yeah something else that they got better than us for sure that I think this is this goes harder wouldn't you agree I agree

1:39when you're praying that's better than that yeah I agree that's a bit gay another win fair play to you guys also if your wife's kicking off just put her on airplane mode anyway we're dealing with the battle of Agincourt in our last episode we dealt with the context the hundred years war Henry V and the fat tubby French guy we ate our greens for this we've saved the best bit till last 100% let's talk about henry's army okay it's a mixed military system built around men at arms and longbowman yeah yeah ladies pants spare you complete the sentence and as a noble retinue of some knights but nowhere near as many as the french no this is a force of about, now when he leaves England, it's a force of about 8,000, I think.

2:2812,000 at some point. Maybe it's 12,000. Do people join him later? No, maybe you're right. Maybe it is 12,000. 10 to 12,000. Yeah, okay. 13th of August, 1415, he lands in Normandy. It will not be the first time that the Brits land in Normandy and it won't be the last. But also something that was, when I was having a very educated chat with ChatGPT when I wasn't ranking things. Oh, you're learning, you're growing. Yeah, but this is probably the only time England's like a world-class land power necessarily in some ways, in the way that, I mean, there's moments, end of World War I, stuff like even Waterloo. But this is a period where we're primarily a land power this doesn't really before the navy

3:10so that's something that is something yeah no air force at all no no it's always a good reminder to place this this is before planes um plane food definitely exists but planes are not there. Do you like plane food? No, not airplane food. I mean food that is plane. Plane women. Plane women, they're around. That's one of the facts of life. Death taxes and ugly women. Death taxes and munters, that's life. Anyway, Henry's military ordinances forbade prostitutes within three miles of the army he's not a laugh no thank you yeah three miles if you come inside that barrier if you're caught lingering near the camp soliciting you will get a severe public whipping on your first offense but you'll probably like that you sick fuck so uh he's kirsten ring it he is He is. He's doing a ban on busting. A busting ban.

4:06Let's talk about the army, right? So normally you'd have more men at arms. You'd have knights. What is a man at arms? It's a man with a big stick, I think. Or a sword. Or a mace. Like a pikeman type person? It's a heavily armored corps. But these aren't knights. Knights are on horses, right? Knights are on horses. Yeah? Knights are on horses. Yeah. Man at arms is like a guy in... Heavy troop. Heavy army with a big mace or a hammer or something. So normally you'd build the army around that and some knights. But Henry has stacked his ranks with longbowmen because they're much cheaper to maintain. They're paid less. They're like guerrilla terrorists. They are cheaper to maintain. They're paid less.

4:45They're like guerrilla terrorists. They are terrorists. Yeah, they're the Welsh terrorists. The tour de border. Yeah. Right. They're also able to fight at close quarters, the longbowmen. But we should take a diversion on the longbow as a medieval weapon because you're right, this is integral to this story. This is a huge part because Tom Holland says, to be fair to him, Nothing is as gorgeous as a young boy. But he also says also what else did he say what else did he say mainly that yeah but this the longbow is the only other time in english military history that you've had like a military technological advantage the only other time was the ship at the line the way and that was used at trafalgar where it's basically like the technology that was being developed here was far above anyone we were fighting against and basically gave 50 to 100

5:30years of dominance to anyone and the longbowman there was no other coach like this anywhere really because the longbow was like a northern european thing because it's specific trees the u-tree wow yeah operation u-tree operation operation u-tree. Wow. Yeah. Operation U-tree. Operation U-tree. See, it is an English tradition, isn't it? It is. A long English tradition. And look how the West has fallen. Yeah. We used to take U-trees and make them longbows to kill Frenchmen, and now we round up broadcasters, harass them, and put them in jail. And for what? But the longbow, the archer is the very English myth. Even David Beckham's free kick against Greece, Johnny Wilkinson's goal in 2003. This is sort of, in our head,

6:10we view it as the kind of Robin Hood. The Archer is very much how we view ourselves. Stag doos. Axe throwing. Shit. And the Archer with the shit haircut wearing like fucking, I guess like kind of clothes that Charlie would wear on a weekend. They're wearing sort of leather pajamas yeah and they've got a little pointy hat with a feather in it that in in a way is how english people view themselves scrappy upstarts yes that's kind of like goes into the the myth now as well the we should talk about the genuine uh power and skill that it takes to draw a long low back I watched Dan Snow absolutely cooking on Asgore this is Dan Snow's this is him in his like pomp this is what he's a true expert he was going off king

6:57and I was watching him walk can you imagine how big his hog is flaccid let alone standing the power he needs to crank his hog is? Flaccid. Yeah. Let alone standing. The power he needs to crank his hog is the same. Well, he has to be trained from three years old. Exactly. And he has one massive shoulder because of him cranking his hog. Now there's only three people in the world who can do it. Yes. Him, his wife and his dad. What, Peter Snow? Peter Snow had to crank his own hog. Blowback the Fosk. Apparently, right, this is what Dan Snow said, right? Pulling back his hog or the longbow. No, Dan Snow, because he's an incredible educator, but also an entertainer, he makes it very accessible. Yes.

7:43He uses his knob as an example he does to make this so so it's not impenetrable yeah let me let me show you something it isn't penetrable is this i can't get it in anything it's too big anyway what it takes the force it takes to pull a long bow back is that is the equivalent of right having your two fingers in a bowling ball and pulling that back now i don I don't know how heavy... Or just standing. Yeah. Now, I don't know how heavy the bowling ball he's talking about. What our listeners will be thinking is, well, what size bowling ball? Because they vary massively between size 1 and size 12. Do I have my bowling ball gloves on? Yeah. Do I have my shoes on? Do I have my shirt on? I work in a bowling alley.

8:18Yeah. Have I eaten the bowling place pizza first? Is that afterwards? It's a slushie after a strike or is it before? I drink isotonic slushies before I end my fight. I bowl a perfect game. I know our listeners work in bowling alleys and they'll be thinking, well, you need to clarify what side the bowling ball is. What colour is it? What's it made out of? Even a light bowling ball, you know, holding it at chest height, have you ever held like a weight there? Like a chest, that's hard standing up. So they're doing this again and again with just two fingers. They're drawing back this force and they're letting arrows go at like 90 miles an hour yeah and the arrow i mean i there was a guy that dan snow was

8:53talking to who you know as all medieval historians uh look you know he had crossed eyes and he spat when he talked sure but he was cooking in his own kind of slivery way about the english arrow not just the bows the arrows he was looking at both end of ends of it simultaneously he was cooking in his own kind of sly way about the English arrow, not just the bows, the arrows. He was looking at both ends of it simultaneously. He was, yeah. He was looking at the tip and the bottom of the arrow. He's been looking at the arrows for too long so he's just like that now. We don't get to say this very often on Oh God What Now but Oh Happy Day. Donald Trump is finally finally punished and how as the Republicans take an absolute

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10:05Making podcasts great again twice weekly with me, Andrew Harrison, and the cream of political nitpickers. Get it now wherever you get your podcasts. He built the first planet-wide media empire. He monetized the paranoia and resentment that led to Donald Trump and Brexit. He ruined his own family in his obsessive quest for money, power and legacy. This is the story of Rupert Murdoch, the real life succession. Join me, Dorian Linsky. And me, Ian Dunst, for season 10 of Origin Story, the show that uses the past to explain the present. That's Origin Story kicking off with a two part special on Rupert Murdoch on all podcast platforms now. The arrow is a weapon. It's a missile at this point. And actually, part of the myth of Agincourt

10:56is that these arrows were piercing armor. They weren't. These are basically bullets. And only a fraction actually pierced, you know, gaps in between the plates or the neck. For horses. Yeah, horses. A lot of them, they're just, it's the sheer blunt force trauma of being hit with a projectile. You're winding them. Basically, you're knocking them about. Yeah. And it's just the consistent being smacked about at 90 miles an hour with a... Because something I always think when you look back at bows and arrows, you always always feel like i don't know how damaging they would actually be because it sort of sticks do you know what i mean yeah but it's got a massive point you think yeah i guess so but these ones i would be terrified how big is a long how big is a long

11:38bow do we know it's like six foot six foot yeah so it. So it's basically this, you know, I'm six three. Yeah. So someone is just, it's pulling me off. We're two long bows. Yeah. Yeah. It's pulling a bowling ball out of my ass. And then I'm, and then, and then you're the bowler. I'm like that. Yeah. And you're pulling a bowling ball out of my ass and then firing it at 90 miles an hour. Yeah. 120 pounds of force. So a heavy bowling ball. so maybe a size 10 or 11 right again to put this into our language our listeners language but right now even like a bodybuilder probably wouldn't be able to pull a long bow because it's such specific muscles right it's not just it's the fact that you've been trained but does that mean i mean our research

12:20phoebe made the joke that this is it's sort of like our listeners who've masturbated with one hand so long that they have one incredibly strong arm. Raph and Adal arms. But then, is that what happens with the longbowmen? Is everyone looking about like they've... They found skeletal remains of the archers where they basically had deformed bodies because they'd been training since childhood. So their left arm bones were thicker and longer than their right. They look like professional gooners. They'd have a gooner's body. Well, no, a gooner's body would be like 10 eyes. Why? So 10 screens. I see, yeah. That's gooning. Yeah. Or would it have the hunter's instincts to be able to quickly process things?

12:54Is that what they say about what hunter eyes are? Yeah, hunter eyes, when it's just like, and ADHD is arguably a hunter response so you can process things really quickly. And that's what gooning is. It's like, you need to be able to see if there's an oncoming danger to see a deer, but instead it's fucking you need to be able to see if there's an oncoming danger to see a deer but instead it's fucking fat latina milf asian gangbang the west has fallen you know now our predatory instincts are just used for gooning is my mum going to open the door yeah I can hear my mum's foot stops dinner's ready fucking mum yeah no the west has fallen but they were since they were they were basically and now you know about more than than i do about this henry or someone henry the second

13:34i think institutes uh it's institutional longbow uh training in the same way that the operation new tree is dealing with institutional paedophilia. Allegedly. Britain's great successes in industries are always when there's a strict, almost civil service-like institutionalisation. Be it the longboat, be it the navy, be it paedophilia of today. And they don't exclude each other. They don't. But these are the great English traditions. If you're going to do something that's world class, it needs to be heavily institutionalized and sophisticatedly organized. Yeah. The paedophilia of Savile and stuff. You watch documentaries on that. Alleged paedophilia of Sir James Savile. That was top down, the way that you know.

14:17There was hush. There was small amounts of gossip. He was promoted for his paedophilia. Yes. He was knighted. It was a meritocracy. It is a meritocracy. This country is still a meritocracy. It's still possible to come from nowhere, Leeds, and be knighted for services to pedophilia. But I digress. Yeah. At some point, Henry II, no, Edward III, who kicks off the Hundred Years' War, he issues legislation in 1363 after the victories at Crecy and Poitiers, saying, able-bodied men must practice archery on Sundays and holidays rather than playing football or handball or cockfighting. Football at this point is the Atherston ball derby. Disabled men must practice on Fridays. Really? Nice. I'm just reading between the lines.

15:00I don't know. It was an ableist time. You can't judge them by today's notes so he's got a five to one ratio of longbowmen to men at arms which is unheard of at this point but it's very efficient it's very cheap because obviously he's got to raise taxes to raise this army five thousand longbowmen but also this is sort of at the end of the medieval war era the renaissance is just starting in italy the kind of the middle ages coming to an end and chivalry work the first flickers of my erection are being felt they're being felt right this starts it's rem it's princes in the towers when i started there's yeah it's starting to unfurl and then penis is unfurling no it's still are it's still firmly flattered at this point but there's a bit of REM

15:45and then Reformation hmm yeah M of the 8th hmm it's coming up English Civil War Cromwell and then obviously the Nazis then it's Gaviscon coming and then 9-11 twice in one night yeah yeah Red Roar but this is the end of the medieval warfare that's just about to transition into the Renaissance chivalry works in the medieval way of fighting because you'd have noble knights who run at each other and you kind of get honor but the fact that war is all becoming about projectiles be it cannons archers soon muskets it sort of goes away from the the knights getting on it because it's cowardly but it's more like they yeah it's much more cowardly but also just way less effective to be suicidally brave yes in

16:32a massive helmet basically yes because even the fact that he's got these massive cannons that we'll get onto for harfleur that is a renaissance military technology right that's not i believe this is the first use of canon by an Englishman I think, the teacher of Hartfleur. Let's get on to Hartfleur. So he lands in Normandy. I should be said, we are standing alone at this point. Britain stands alone. Again. As we will again at Dunkirk and we will in Port Stanley and we will again in Port Stanley. Is this Dunkirk rewinded? Is it like Dunkirk done backwards? Chris van Olen does Dunkirk. Oh, he did? Yeah, I guess so. But yes, it's one of many times you'll stand alone. Not in the near future. We will be joining with Hamas to take back

17:22the Falklands from the Israelis, but again, that is not Finn versus the future. Habibi Charles will lead sorry Habibi Charles save the king now 13th of August he lands in Normandy with his army of 10 to 12,000 this is a full-scale invasion at this point so they target the fortified port of Harfleur which nowadays is Le Havre. The siege that follows is much longer and more punishing than Henry had initially thought. He thinks he's going to do this in a jiffy. It's August 1415. This is too late in the year really to be launching such a thing because the winter will be coming. This is before you get the summers that we get now and that go on endlessly. Now you'd say it's probably the best time to invade russia

18:10ever there's ever been because the summer's just gone for ages will climate change finally destroy russia's defense i think it will i think it will and hitler's main problem his main crime is that he's born 100 years too soon is that a crime well it's his main um downfall i think problem, his main crime, is that he's born 100 years too soon. Is that a crime? Well, it's his main downfall, I think. It's his main downfall. If he was born 100 years later, perhaps Barbarossa would have succeeded. Because it's fucking October and it's still 25 degrees. Yeah, easy. Easy. What is it, Charlie? It would take roughly 1,180,000 to 1,570,000 French Stephen Hawking's to defeat King Henry V during his 1415 invasion of Normandy.

18:52Depending on how densely you pack them. Because the brilliant theoretical physicist spends his adult life physically incapacitated, a single Stephen Hawking possesses zero points of raw medieval combat power. Since an infinite amount of zero combat power still equals zero, they cannot defeat an English longbowman. Through conventional tactical warfare. Keep going, keep it going. Therefore, victory can only be achieved by a pure physical mass. Essentially creating a flesh and wheelchair barrier to block or suffocate the English army. Okay. I think you'd have to change your tactics, Ash and Cor, if everyone's Stephen Hawking. Because what have you got that they don't have? Agility and a quick turning circle. Yes. So so you're gonna have to outflank them if you're tactical enough

19:30and you can plan enough you need let's say a third of your Stephen Hawking's in the forest around Agincourt so that once the battle starts you can close in because what you need is a full encirclement that's what's so Yes. So you need hidden Stephen Hawkins, hidden in bushes, hedges. That's why they're all hidden. Right, I see. And then once they're all there, it only works if you have a completely enclosing circle. And then you can't get out because you cannot work your way through 1.5 million Stephen Hawkins. You hear him coming as well. Yeah, but it doesn't matter. Where are you going to go? Yes, Charlie? and it would have taken 12,000 French Roskemps so the Roskemps would have matched them

20:10well that's interesting because the French there's a lot of Roskemps on the battlefield the French have 15 to 20,000 troops at Agincourt so they outnumber the English 3 to 1 so if the French were all Roskemps they would have needed less men did Roskemp serve in the army or did he just act like that uh what was his background he's definitely got ties his father was a police officer i'm getting recognized by a lot more policemen these days oh yeah sort of shows the sort of podcast this is oh i mean genuinely state apparatus if we ever need if we ever needed military backup we're in the arm we're in the army barracks army policeman yeah anything that enforces state violence they're listening to this we're in the army barracks army policeman yeah anything that enforces state

20:45violence they're listening to this they're listening to this absolutely they are we've even got we've probably even got community support nonsense as well yeah anything that maintains status quo through violence yeah um so english forces bombard Harfleur with siege cannons insults not just insults not just not just words sticks and stones they have a massive stone coming out of a cannon is the cannon called the monster the monster and the London no the messenger that's quite Beethoven's brother yeah I got a message for you there's a cannon but what so now I think you're getting two anti-bait Evans brother do you know what I mean do you not think there's any place for it do you think you think you can

21:31never have any so would you just call it the super cannon yeah I prefer super cannon to the messenger bring the messenger in I got a message for these guys spoiler alert it's a massive cannonball gmail yeah yeah something a massive cannonball gmail yeah yeah something like that canon at gmail.com bring get canon at gmail.com out yeah uh can you cc in half blur to this yeah so it's not iron it's massive it's stone yeah the two feet in diameter weighing hundreds of pounds now the problem is is they the walls of harfleur and then there's just loads of rubble which the uh harfleurians can just pick up and chuck back at the english so this siege goes on for a long time weeks i think yeah uh and uh basically the countryside

22:18turns into a bog and because it's a port there's all these sort of there's like dead livestock in rivers which is never good never never good not once not once has it been good yeah and so this leads to uh dysentery which sweeps through the camp this is lethal diarrhea this is terminal diarrhea uh so there's no clean running water latrine pits overflow into the marshland where men my latrine pit overflow and slept yeah that's not a saying uh this is glastonbury stuff yes it is glastonbury that's what i was thinking you know when when we before we we did our house up we bought a doer upper as they say and uh it was in such a state when we bought it that the just about before we moved out for the work to happen

23:00that our kitchen ceiling basically collapsed and there was a period of about three days where if you you were you were at the dinner table and you could see the toilet from the dinner table yeah and yeah that's a good i don't think that's good now i'm not trained in feng shui but i think one of the one of the tenants is you don't want to see your wife shitting when you're eating right i think that's probably one of the core principles of feng shui yeah you shouldn't be able to out of sight out of mind yeah i think yeah i think feng shui i can get on board with if it's like well the toilet's over there and that you do not look at the toilet yeah no glass uh glass bottom toilets i agree not it ceases to be feng shui is that feng shui i don't

23:41really understand what feng shui is but I think that's probably a part of it. Anyway, it was quite fun, you know. I was going to go to the toilet for dinner. Oh, for fuck's sake. You're sat at the table. Anyway, it's worse than that. Charlie, what's this? This is my old toilet. Well, that's you. Is this where you used to throw shit into? Yes. Is this the toilet? Seriously. Is that after it's happened? Because it's genuinely the bathroom. This is the toilet, yeah. This is when the roof caved in and the lady from upstairs only fell through so um the english the english are so starving at the siege of harfleur that they start to gorge themselves on unwashed mussels raw oysters unripe apples and grapes uh this is very bad for the bowels uh and they

24:23basically die of food poisoning and I've never had oyster food poisoning but I hear it's by far the worst yeah it's pretty bad have you had it? yeah it's quick quick you feel it as soon as it goes in maybe within like half an hour you're like I know what's coming your arse is yelling yeah get out yeah yeah no it's really bad so they basically die of pooing yeah just to be warned Get out! Get out! Yeah. Yeah, no, it's really bad. So they basically die of pooing. Yeah. Just to be warned, there's an extraordinary amount of diarrhoea in this story. And it's left out of the Shakespeare stuff and the tapestries. Yeah. Where's the diarrhoea in the bio-tapestry? You know? I am petitioning the British Museum.

25:00Yeah, quite easy to do as well. You'd think so. Just brown string. Just some mud on it. Just white mud on it. Dying of diarrhoea. That's too much of a good thing isn't it really um we have to leave we have to leave that one yeah okay you don't have enough time yeah you're right harfleur falls after a month of resistance the 22nd september 14 15 uh this has taken way longer than he thought he rides up to the gates of the fallen city takes off his shoes and walks barefoot through the streets yeah he's a mad he's a mad cunt why does takes off his shoes and walks barefoot through the streets yeah he's a mad cunt why does he take his shoes off because he's just being mad again chivalry England's Japan at this point

25:31he's like a monk he's eating his floor dinner on the floor he's taking his shoes off yeah he shows no mercy though this is classic he rounds up 2000 citizens take their valuables and clothes and expels them to the countryside that sounds like mercy to me however yeah now the podcast I listen to Dan Snow was like, yeah, but all he's doing here is he's just basically saying you don't want to live here because it's a bomb site, so go away. So this is a strategic victory for Henry. He has got a foothold in Normandy as he wanted. However... And that could easily be enough. Well... A lot of his soldiers, because there's so much dysentery, because they've taken a big foothold, they could leave it there basically and also he planned

26:06the training for this was mainly siege warfare yes his this whole campaign apart from Magikor is all about sieges so he'd only really planned to siege to be honest so really he should now go home because he's established and leave a garrison there because he's established a foothold in Normandy with which to do further campaigns so another calo basically yeah however he should do this he should do this because over 2,000 soldiers have died of pooing right a foothold in Normandy with which to do further campaigns. So another Calais, basically. Yeah. However, he should do this because over 2,000 soldiers have died of pooing, right? Without ever striking a blow and another 2,000 are so incapacitated

26:33by diarrhea that they get sent back to England. This is a mess. This is a complete mess. Yeah. What are we pooing? Right? But Henry decides, right, so 4,000 people are lost to pooing yeah right again this is not part of the ashen court myth no right so he's gone down to about 7 000 let's say yeah right 7 000 troops maybe 5 000 6 000 archers yeah something like that so henry because he should turn back basically at this point really you should but he decides to carry on his objective shifts to reaching calais which is english hell at this point which would be a long and dangerous march through hostile territory and i think basically even though he's won at harfleur it's come at such a cost that for him an honorable man it would be a

27:21humiliation to to stop there so this is the same he abandons the cannons as well the whole point was the cannons yeah they were the big new toy yeah he was waiting when he got them on amazon he was waiting he kept asking delivery kept checking when they're coming this is like a new hedge trim yeah he really wants to use them so it's a big deal but chrissy and patio follow the same formula basically at this point which is they sort of trolley dash through the French countryside until the French eventually catch them and that's basically what ends up happening here so the French forces begin to mobilize in response they start destroying bridges and blocking river crossings because to get a map up

27:57in order to get to Calais Henry will have to cross the Somme yep which is a huge river and so he marches up the country, up the coast countryside. So this is World War I territory. And rather than try to go back through Harfleur, or basically the French start destroying crossings all along the Somme. And Henry has decided that he's got eight days of rations in order to get to Calais. But the French keep destroying so many bridges that, and Henry basically has to Calais. But the French keep destroying so many bridges and Henry basically has to march inland. Just keep going inland. Keep going in, further and further inland to try and cross the Somme. The French are on the other side of the river

28:33the whole time. They're like, I can't fucking run around. So this means that the march that was meant to take eight days takes 17. They survive by foraging raw turnips, onions, walnuts and wild raw turnips, onions, walnuts, and wild berries. However, Henry, this is an interesting point, he is acting like the King of France. So he is not allowing his troops to rape and pillage. Why is he acting like the King of France? Because he's thinking, I don't want to pillage my own lands because this is my lands. Because he's thinking, I've got a dynastic claim to this. So no raping and pillaging. Also, the soldiers have so much diarrhea that they've made arseless chaps so that they can just, as they walk,

29:14fire bloody diarrhea on the road as they go. Bloody diarrhea? I've got bastard diarrhea up me bastard ass. The West has fallen. This is what chaps were meant to be for. Yeah, this is what I was to meant to be for yeah this is what shitting yourself in French territory you know as we said huge sign of respect in French culture right and now it's for gay cowboys to strut through Soho parading their wares yep but originally the arseless chap was for the archers at Agincourt with diarrhoea I mean this is what Clarkson should be doing just bloody diarrhoea not even thinking about it moving forward looking for a crossing out of heart out of mind what's next don't look back so the French army begins to mobilise

29:54Rouen they have about 15,000 to 20,000 men these numbers as many numbers are are still contested to this day huge scholarly debates about the scale of the victory you actually can't trust any numbers. I don't trust any of them. My bank balance? No. So, crucially, the French army is mainly mounted and foot cavalry supported by crossbowmen. Yeah? And a lot of nobles. And the nobles are so confident and arrogant and French that they're actually thinking oh which one of us is going to get the king which one of us it's so uh you know the hubris they think they're going to win yeah so they're kind of fighting they're all like etonians basically yeah they're french etonians yeah they're sort of squabbling over the spoils of war before the

30:37battle's even been fought yeah right so there's a lot whereas they're up against cross-eyed longbow men from the fucking Midlands. Is my shouldn't it be? Yeah, that sort. Lots of nobles are gagging to be in the front line in order to be there and get glory. Because you want glory. The French are forcing Henry inland and the French keep intercepting him. They keep destroying bridges. But eventually they intercept the part. Henry crosses the Somme at a point called Bethancourt, and then the French start following him, or they intercept. They kind of close him off. And basically these two armies realise they're going to meet in this field between two woods and two villages called Agincourt and Tramacourt.

31:24With a steep hill a steep hill right they they basically set up and this again this is warfare pre-napoleon yeah so it's sort of like um the kickoff yeah you know it's all agreed yeah there's whistles blown but you all lined up before 24th of october 1415 both armies armies are in position near Agincourt. The English are exhausted. They've marched 250 miles in 10 days, 12 days. No pussy either. They've had no pussy because the prostitutes aren't allowed. They've been shitting blood consistently for 10 days. Yeah, there's not been much good stuff from around. And they're hungry because there's no food. They're sick. They're outnumbered. They've been marching for 17 days. 250 miles in 17 days it's also chucking it down because we're into autumn now because the siege took so long

32:11we're into autumn it's raining so and there's no towels so let's get into the geography of agincourt it's a narrow funnel 750 yards wide surrounded by thick woods the geography of Agincourt is very very important when in the last episode I said that the French arguably fucked this this is why because they think we're going to meet on this strip and we've got so many men that we're just going to charge them as cavalry and we'll just overwhelm them with sheer force normally the high ground you would think would be the strong position on the battlefield so that's quite an easy thing to think, right? Well, the French have the high ground. Right, and they're charging down. Yeah, so there's forest on either side that funnel.

32:53It's literally this. It's literally the cheese roll hill. The French are at the top of the cheese roll hill and the English at the bottom. And you see how the cheese roll hill, there's woods on either side? Yeah, this is actually cool. And it funnels the cheese rollers down one thing. There's no cheese. Is this rolling after cheese? Is that what they're doing? Yeah, you know about the cheese roll hill there's woods on either side yeah this is actually cool and it funnels the cheese rollers down one thing there's no cheese literally is this rolling after cheese is that what they're doing yeah you know about the cheese roller I know about the cheese roller I just thought I haven't seen the cheese

33:12they throw one wheel of cheese local cheese yeah and then they throw and then this is crazy look at that technique from the red look at that unbelievable keep going the core strength oh yeah refined refined oh fuck me wow that is an extraordinary run wow Unbelievable. Keep going. The core strength. Yeah. Refined. Whoa. Fuck me. Wow. That is an extraordinary run. Wow. This should be an Olympic sport. Where is the cheese? Where is the man's cheese? Wow. Look, he's shredded as well. Fucking hell. Charlie, you have to do a cheese rolling. You're built for it. You are. You are built for it. If anyone's going to win a cheese roll. When you're bowling, this is how you run in. This is genuinely how you run in.

33:46You run so fast. It is terrifying for the batsman. That's what you're... Fucking hell. As a specimen, you were built... Athletically, you were built to be a cheese roller. Lean, no brain cells. 15 IQ. Leg it. Quick twitch fibres. Brave and stupid. Yeah, there's nothing... Fast and stupid, there's nothing like it. There's nothing like it. No fore fibres. Brave and stupid. Yeah, there's nothing. Fast and stupid is nothing like it. There is nothing like it. No foresight like a dog just running after a ball. Running after cheese. Oh, cheese! Do you like cheese as well, don't you? And this is what the French do. They're running after cheese. They basically are. Basically, someone just chucks a cheese.

34:19They go, oh, fromage! And they just run. Yeah. Right. So, rain falls on the eve of Agincourt, which turns the ground into thick mud. We don't get to say this very often on Oh God, What Now? but Oh Happy Day. Donald Trump is finally, finally punished. And how, as the Republicans take an absolute pounding in the US midterms, and voters take the revenge for the shame, greed and horror of Trump's second term. Republicans have now lost control of Congress and a swathe of Trump hangers-on and sycophants have been humiliated. What does it all mean? And what can we expect from an embittered Trump with two years in power and nothing left to lose? We're joined by US political scientist Julia Azari of Marquette University

35:01to make sense of it all. Plus, why Shabana Mahmood's watered-down plans on indefinite leave to remain are still a disgrace. The sad, slow exodus of all your favourites from The Telegraph. And should they rebuild Hitler's holiday home? All that and more on the latest edition of Oh God, What Now? Making podcasts great again twice weekly with me, Andrew Harrison, and the cream of political nitpickers. Get it now wherever you get your podcasts. He built the first planet-wide media empire. He monetized the paranoia and resentment that led to Donald Trump and Brexit. He ruined his own family in his obsessive quest for money, power, and legacy. This is the story of Rupert Murch the real life succession join me dorian

35:46linsky and me ian dunst for season 10 of origin story the show that uses the past to explain the present that's origin story kicking off with a two-part special on rupert murdoch on all podcast platforms now so the soil was plowed was, was freshly ploughed, and it's clay heavy, which means it's been churned into a muddy bog by days of unrelenting rain. Okay. And so the eve of the battle is St. Crispin's Day, I think, or is that the actual day of the fight? I don't know what St. Crispin's Day is. What do you mean? This is a Christian podcast. It's one of our holidays. Is it? As a company, yeah. We will not broadcast on St. Christmas Day is. What do you mean? This is a Christian podcast. It's one of our holidays. Is it?

36:25As a company, yeah. We will not broadcast on St. Christmas Day out of respect. It's St. Crispin's Day. It's St. Crispin's Eve. It's St. Crispin's Eve, for fuck's sake. St. Crispin was a paedophile, question mark? Come on. St. Crispin was not a paedophile. He was a third century Christian martyr. Yeah. The patron saint of cobblers. Yeah? You've got to celebrate St. Christmas Day. St. Timpson's. St. Timpson's Day. Yeah. Well, some of them are paedophiles. Trying to be reintroduced. How many, can you find out how many Timpsons employees? They're good key makers. Sorry? They're good key makers. Well, they've got to get through locks, don't they? Find out how many Timpsons employees are paedophiles, please.

36:59None. Oh, well, Timpsons don't hire paedophiles. No, they will not. Well, that's discrimination. That is discrimination in the workplace. Who hires paedophiles? Can we find, no, discrimination that is discrimination in the workplace who hires paedophiles can we fight no I want to just hire I want to just read no don't who hires paedophiles that's my computer while the company who hires paedophiles and then how to make a job out of a cage yeah paedolinked in while the company is widely widely known for its progressive recruitment program obviously progressivism stops there does does it? Yeah. Right. So we just don't care about these people. 12% of its workforce consists of ex-offenders. I'm an ex-offender.

37:31Not sex offenders. Sorry, not sex offenders. Right. The company explicitly filters out categories of crime. Which crime? Let's find out. Any sort of harming of children or sexual... Grow up. Okay. So sex offenders can't be rehabilitated, apparently. We are on the edge of the biggest battle. We must... Well, this is the biggest battle of my life. It's trying to get Timpsons to reverse their deeply, deeply conservative hiring policy against sex offenders. I'd like my shoes to be re-leathered by a sex offender. Is that too much to ask? Yeah. I'm British. On the eve of St. Crispin's Day, St. Crispin's Eve, how are you celebrating Crispin's eve this year we haven't got time henry v supposedly this is shakespeare's uh take on him

38:13he rallies his outnumbered troops one of them i think it's false staff yeah says oh but if only we had but one of their number or some box. And then Henry V goes, we few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother. And this is a huge... One of the most famous speeches in Shakespeare. Yeah, this is where the miniseries Band of Brothers gets its name because this gets invoked. It gets invoked all the time. Lawrence Olivier. Summer of the Blood. Once more into the breach. Every major tournament. Once more for England, Harry. You get Brian Blester saying stuff like that. Yeah. In 1944, on the eve of D-Day, Laurence Olivier makes Agincourt as a film

38:52to pump everyone up for D-Day. Yeah. Consider me pumped. I'm pumped. Laurence, you did it. You pumped me up. Laurence, you pumped me. Penis pump. Pumper. And this is supposedly a very important speech because it's a very meritocratic, you know, a king dying with his... Yes. You know, if we're going to share the battlefield, then we're brothers. Yeah. Because in many ways, Henry doesn't have a stable claim to the throne. So a huge part of this is to solidify his connection to the English throne. Yes. That's part of what was going into this. Because we few, we happy few, that's the birth of the english underdog yeah spirit this is the start of it yeah you know which we will see again at rorke's drift yeah

39:30yeah apparently from french accounts it was like the english army at night were terrifying because none of them were like there was they were all just praying all night oh they're all akbaring yeah there's no laughter no it's it's just incredible they're just sat disciplined no proceed shitting their arses out Henry didn't sleep all night we get to St Crispin's Day the 25th of October 1415 by dawn both sides are ready to fight they face each other off now at 11am Henry this is unconventional who's obviously he's got less numbers and he's not got cavalry so so he's on the defence. The French are cocky. They're saying you can invade whenever you want. They're not making the first move, the French.

40:10So Henry orders his army to move forward, right? So they all, now they have these wooden stakes, these sharp stakes. They pick them up. All the longbows walk forward, right? And they put their stakes back and suddenly they bring them- Rommel's asparagus. Hey, Rommel's asparagus. They bring the French into range of their longbows walk forward right and they put their stakes back and suddenly they bring Rommel's asparagus hey Rommel's asparagus they bring the French into range of their longbows you gotta they also have some longbows hidden in the woods on either side it must be said rather than relying on long range harassment fire ladies pant change so this is sort of like builders that's long range

40:43harassment cheer up love it might never happen yeah this is actually getting into their face love it, might never happen. Yeah, this is actually getting into their face and going, it might never happen. Seriously. Seriously. Oh, actually, it's about to happen. Henry positions his archers for maximum armour-penetrating impact. Yes, please. Now, one of the myths of Agincourt is that the longbows are fired into the air, but they're not. They're fired straight, flat. It's bullets. It's a hail of bullets. It's not. Yeah. It's a hail of bullets. It's not a ceiling. It's a wall of arrows. Yeah. So they start firing arrows. Is it about, well, just after that, half 11 or something? They fire 1,000 a second.

41:17Yeah. It's super quick. Yeah. Because there's two ranks. Yeah. It's like volley fire. Yeah. The rates are about a thousand a second so bear in mind they're pulling bowling balls yeah right so I'm being they're blowing my back out to bend me over bowling balling me a thousand in a wall of arrows yeah so also they some of them have such bad diarrhea that they don't want there's no point to soil in their trousers so they've taken their pants and trousers off so they're like winnie the pooing it literally winnie the diarrhea yeah they just got then yeah completely naked from the waist down yeah and also their arrows are all in their shit so they yeah so they're septic they're septics they just have all their arrows just where they're shitting fucking hell so we're firing diarrhea flecked arrows into the french yeah this is

42:10brilliant absolutely brilliant this is but this is where the english when you try and find what is the english because a huge part of these battles is trying to distinguish england from the french because they're kind of the same normal at this point at this point. Yeah, Norman, chivalry, the nobility speak French. So there's no real difference. It's why these key moments is when the England identity starts forming. And it's when we're firing diarrhea arrows that we're like, well, there's something different going on. Diarrhoes. There's something else going on here. And also Charlie, we've said, David Beckham, free kick against Greece, Johnny Wilkinson, 2003. You throwing your shit into the toilet actually is an english tradition

42:49you are following on not knowingly but that that essence is within you that desire to fling poo at a toilet yeah well there you go exactly the same it's actually cool it's actually cool we few we happy few once more onto the breach um it's also french camouflage taking trousers off and shitting everywhere yeah okay blend in boucico the french marshal had expected the english archers to free right so he had planned this sort of flank assault with those mounted knights but they basically are forced into charging before they're ready because these arrows start battering them down they're in range so they rush forward but they get trapped into this knee-deep mud in this bottleneck where their numbers the diarrhea bottleneck it is and so the english archers did not flee and so they just begin

43:42to overwhelm them with just the sheer amount of arrows just constant a thousand a second it's not a thousand a minute it's insane a thousand a second should check a thousand a second I'm pretty sure it's a thousand yeah fucking hell a thousand arrows during peak volleys that's insane yeah so up to 7000 long and again this is it's not about piercing the metal it's the blunt trauma of being in mud, in steel, and being smacked with an arrow. Yeah. And then... It's like it's really windy. Like, really windy. And then to add insult to injury, you're like, are they pooing as well? Are they pooing while they're doing this? Are they enjoying this? What are they doing? Yeah. That's disgusting. So they would plunge their bundles of iron arrowheads

44:24into the mud that they were pooing in and then just yeah a lot of if you do get pierced by but if you're french then you're gonna get basically septicemia yeah sepsis because you've got fucking poo in you yeah there's also the myth of the two yeah two fingers that's where this comes from supposedly because it's the the archers use two fingers to yeah and when the French captured Longbowman they'd chop off these two fingers supposedly that might be a myth but then I don't want to find out it's a myth just accept the story it's a good story Beethoven's brother isn't it still got my fingers so now because the battlefield is flanked by dense woods okay it's a fatal funnel for the French. Ladies and gentlemen, it's a kill zone.

45:07All right. Play the kill zone alarm. Fatal funnel for the French. Is there a better four F words than fatal funnel for French? Fuck yeah. Yeah. The French knights collide with English lines only a few at a time. Sorry. Is this first attack a cavalry charge? Yeah. But the cavalry are not going to impale on the spikes. Horses will always avoid spikes. Waterloo, you know. Same thing as Waterloo. So even though it's a tiny force, they just can't get at them. No. Well, the horses will pull out. They'll pull out. Yeah, they pull out. And also, the horses are getting fucking nailed by arrows. A thousand arrows a second. They get scared of the spikes. They turn and run back. And then trample their own troops.

45:49So there's basically this muddy fucking hillsborough happening where it's like people are getting crushed you see it really well in that chalamet film yeah there's a battle scene in the chalamet film the king where you can just see people are being squeezed because it's just a strong they have this great moment in the chalamet film which is underrated it's not very historically accurate but it's good where one of the characters gets smacked on the head yeah and he takes the helmet off and he's just it's like his head's been caved in and he can't breathe forget about that if you've got a massive metal helmet on and someone bangs it so hard that it's tight and you can't take it off think about how claustrophobic

46:18you'd be on like a mashed helmet and trying to breathe and then you're claustrophobic because basically just people it's like the football game yeah but we're prepared for it because we've been playing that football game for so the french start suffocating in mud that fills their visors they're basically stuck in quicksand essentially the arrows are still coming and the amount of french troops make that even harder for them this doesn't make stronger it makes them weaker because it's just more and more weight being pushed on them. There's no way to escape. No, they can't retreat. Now, supposedly Henry V nearly dies when Sir John, the Duke of Alençon, fights his way straight towards Henry, who's wearing a crown

46:59in his armour, so it's obvious who he is. He knocks Henry off, I i think supposedly cleaves a fragment off the crown and then uh bodyguards swarm him and cut him down before he could strike a second blow and kill the king so how is the king fighting in this so you've got body they always have bodyguards but you're trying to get stuck in yeah how does that work is that he's on his horse fighting right if he gets knocked off there's people to swarm around him and stop him you feel like you just all be aiming at the king though if he's wearing the big i'm the king how probably yeah um so at some point the art this is after a couple of hours the archers have uh completely run out of diarrhea soaked arrows right they transition into melee combat

47:41this is a transition we can all get behind right right and left. Yeah. So they start using big hammers and swords and they then start, I mean, they must be knackered. They've been pulling bowling balls for two years. There's now an attack on Henry's rear, right? Very French stuff, this. They try and sneak round the woods into the English flank and they start attacking the English baggage train. Yes, well, it's more just looting, to be honest. Yeah. But Henry V thinks that it's a second front opening up. Yeah. Panics. And this is probably the most controversial part of his reign almost. He then executes 2,000? No, 200. He executes a lot of French prisoners. And of course, this is like the flower of the French nobility.

48:26There's so many nobles at this battle. And so normally what you'd do is you'd keep them for ransom. So the knights wouldn't execute the other knights. One, it's not chivalrous, but also I could get so much money for them. But then the kind of Midlands cross-eyed longbowmen are like, yeah, I don't give a fuck. Yeah, I'll chop his head off. So this is sort of a war crime, if you can do such a thing in these days. German's cross-eyed longbowmen are like, yeah, I don't give a fuck. Yeah, I'll chop his head off, easy. So this is sort of a war crime-ish, if you can do such a thing in these days. So there's a third French wave, but it's basically a sort of gasp of an army that's completely fucked.

48:56The English, though stricken with diarrhea, achieve an almost unthinkable triumph. The entire French aristocracy is essentially dead in the field yeah uh they're at the front of the they were at the front they were fighting for the glory that they assumed they were going to get three dukes nine counts 90 barons and over 1500 knights 90 barons 90 barons christ my word um they think english casualties were only about 500 crazy french six thousand six thousand he's basically decapitated the french state in a way yeah or is there more of the which the french love doing yeah so weirdly it's maybe it starts their passion for decapitating the dofan is nowhere near this by the way he's got he's eating somewhere fat pig now the king's cousin edward the

49:43duke of york had died during the battle, so he wanted to return the body to England for a burial. Wait, is this Duke of York, the same Duke of York? The same. It's the same lineage. As Andrew, yeah. What they did was they boiled the Duke's body in a big cauldron. Well, you've got to make a stock, right? Yes. When you do a roast, you've got to boil the bones to make a stock. And the bones are then packed and sent to England. Right. And I guess they probably drank the broth. You've got to. You can't throw that away. are then packed and sent to England. Right. And I guess they probably drank the broth. You got it? You can't throw that away. That's like liquid gold. Yeah. Is that arguably the best bit of the

50:10person to eat? Because it tastes the least human. I wonder what human broth would be like. Human broth, that's an interesting question. Because everything else is like, I mean. If you didn't know it was human. Well, they say that human meat is like, they call it long pork, don't they? So broth, maybe it's like a tonkotsu. Okay. Tonkotsu. Lovely. Tonkotsu. Oh, like a sort of almost... Rich with an egg infused in it. Yeah. Very nice. So there are 4,000 naked corpses because they all get stripped and looted. And this ultimately, this battle, so Henry gets to Calais, goes home, and the Treaty of Toi is signed in may 1420 which basically cements the military victory as this dynastic settlement where he basically is in

50:54charge of uh all of france yeah well he gets uh made heir to the mad king because the mad king but like the the henry Henry goes through Paris as well. Paris is now the territory of England for about 15 years. And there's a chance, there was the Angevue Empire, which is a small part of France, but there's basically a chance for England and France to be one empire. But Henry V dies of dysentery. He poos. He poos to death as well. He poos himself to death. Yeah. In 22, 35. I am now older than Henry V. Right. And he has died of diarrhea. dies of dysentery he poos he poos to death as well he poos himself to death yeah in 22 35 I am now older than Henry V right and he has died of diarrhoea yeah and yet somehow

51:31he gets the Shakespeare play it's apparently it's seen a lot of nerds on the podcast a lot of nerds on podcasts say it's the great medieval what if if he'd lived really could England and France but could it have worked it'd be very hard to do but if anyone could have done it probably nah nah nah nah nah we don't nah we've already got fucking Wales and Ireland we don't need a third toilet yeah basically Henry V dies yeah quite suddenly and it means that his infant son Henry VI inherits this insane unstable empire and he's weak and this is where Joan of Arc starts to come into the story and eventually the French will deploy an annoying teenager and they will take back their toilet their toilet yeah

52:16so that is the story of Agincourt this this myth in the English psyche yeah Charlie what have you learned that diarrhea doesn't have to hold you back you can actually you know you're right it's a very good lesson you can make it work for you because a lot of time when people have diarrhea maybe it's like you don't leave the house you don't go out on holiday but instead cut asses chaps go forward it's the opposite of a modium i guess isn't it yes oh you need a moment to get on with your day no i don't i need give me some scissors give me some scissors. Give me some... I just need scissors and a longbow. Yeah. And I can achieve more than you can. Yeah. He's a bit like the girl at the Hydrox. You're right, Phoebe.

52:51I don't really know that story too well. Are you across that? I vaguely cross it. A woman was competing in a Hydrox event and pooed herself and then kept going because that's what the kind of culture Hydrox imbues. She apologised. And then she said, I should have stopped. But did she want, she won? Yeah. And she gave a medal away because she pooed herself. She poured a Radcliffe to it. Is she British? No, she is Australian. Right, well, there you go. This is when the Brits pooed themselves, but they just kept going. Yeah. Yeah. Because this is the lineage of Clarkson, of Agincourt, of Dunkirk. You know, it's pooing abroad and just getting on with it. It doesn't actually count for much as victory

53:28in the end, long term, but it's more what it counts mythic-wise and the kind of sense of yourself. France is England's toilet and we'd shat all over it and then we left and it's a great story. All right? Very visceral story. That's all for now. On the Patreon this week we'll be doing the history of chivalry and how it's... Why chivalry's dead. It's okay. All right? Very visceral story. That's all for now. On the Patreon this week we'll be doing the history of chivalry. Why chivalry's dead. It's dead now because of me too. Because women killed it. They killed it. They decided to end it. By not being a laugh. Yep. They decided to end it. The idea was that we'll hold the door and prove you're a laugh

53:57but now we can't even hug you anymore. Anyway, I've basically done the episode in that sentence but that's on the Patreon. If not, we'll see you next week. God bless.