The ground was in so bad a condition that no one was disposed to attack. The king of England parleyed with the French, offering to renounce the title of king of France, and to surrender back Harfleur, provided he were given Guienne, with some few convenient additions, Ponthieu, a daughter of the king, and 800,000 crowns. While this parleying between the two armies was going on the English archers were securing their stakes. The two armies formed a strange mutual contrast. On the French side were three enormous squadrons, like so many forests of lances, following each other in lengthened file through the narrow plain; at their head the constable, the princes, the dukes of Orleans, Bar, and Alençon, the counts of Nevers, Eu, Richemont, and Vendôme, a multitude of lords, a dazzling iris of enamelled armour, escutcheons, banners, the horses fantastically disguised in steel and gold. The French, too, had archers, men of the commonalty; but where were they to be placed? Every post was numbered, and no one would give up his own; these men would have been a blot upon so noble an assemblage. There were cannon, but it does not appear that they were made use of; probably there was no place for them either. The English army did not look handsome. The archers had no armour, often no shoes; for headpieces they had sorry caps of boiled leather, or even of willow with a crosspiece of iron; the axes and hatchets stuck in their belts gave them the appearance of carpenters. Many of these good workmen had taken off their breeches, in order to be at their ease and to work the better. It is a strange, incredible, and yet certain fact, that the French army really could not stir either to fight or to fly. The rear alone escaped. At the decisive moment, when old Thomas of Erpingham, having drawn up the English army, threw his truncheon into the air, crying out, “Now strike!” and when the English had replied with a shout from ten thousand throats, the French army, to their great astonishment, still remained motionless. Horses and riders, all appeared enchanted, or dead in their steel cases. The fact was that the big war horses, loaded with their heavy riders and their steel caparisons, had sunk deep in the stiff soil, had become firmly fixed there, and only struggled out to advance slowly a few paces. Such is the acknowledgment of the English chroniclers; a modest acknowledgment, which does honour to their probity.