Certainly the march to Calais (after the taking of Harfleur) was never exceeded in heroic bravery by any imaginary exploit in romance. The attenuated condition of his army forbad all immediate prosecution of his ambitious aspirations for the French crown; but a direct return to England did not accord with his high and courageous spirit; and, treating the soil of France as if it were his own, he resolved to march to Calais. He professed neither desire nor fear to meet his enemies; and he pursued his march with firm and grave steps, openly declaring to the French heralds the destination of his course. Political objects were suspended, but he secretly wished to raise the chivalric character of his people; and he had numbers and vigour yet remaining to have a joust to the utterance with his enemies. As at Poictiers so at Agincourt, the yeomen divided with the knights of England the glory of the conquest: but the battle of Agincourt was in itself more heroic, for the English themselves were the assailants, instead of, as in the former battle, waiting the attack. Henry's disdain of the wish of having more men from England,--his noble cry, "Banners, advance!" when his few thousands were ranged against all the proud chivalry of France,--his rendering himself conspicuous by his crown, his armour, and his splendid tunic,--his knighting some brave Welsh soldiers, his personal defenders, even as they lay expiring;--these circumstances, vouched for, as they are, by the most faithful chroniclers, apparently belong to the romance rather than to the history of chivalry. After the battle he was as courteous[93] to his noble prisoners as the Black Prince had been on a similar occasion; and there was something very beautiful in his not permitting his battered helmet, with its royal crown, to be exhibited, during the customary show at his public entrance into London.[94] [Sidenote: Commencement of the decline of chivalry.] Henry V. was the last of our chivalric kings. Though he revived the fame of Edward III. and the Black Prince, yet immediately after his reign the glories of English chivalry began to wane. In our subsequent wars in France, indeed, there were among our nobility many knightly spirits,--the Warwicks, the Talbots, the Suffolks, the Salisburys, all worthy to have been the paladins of Charlemagne, the knights of Arthur's Round Table. But they went not with the character of the age; they opposed, rather than reflected it. Chivalry was no longer a national feature in our wars when there was no sovereign to fan the flame. [Sidenote: The civil wars.] [Sidenote: Caxton's lamentation.]