A month later, having gathered men and supplies for the forthcoming campaign, the French army, under the command of the Duke of Alençon, set out to capture these positions and the bridges they controlled.

In this battle, the English attempted to employ the same methods used in the victories at Crécy in 1346 and Agincourt in 1415, deploying an army composed predominantly of longbowmen behind a barrier of sharpened stakes driven into the ground to obstruct any attack by cavalry.

[10] Earlier, the longbowmen had inadvertently disclosed their position to French scouts when a lone stag wandered onto a nearby field and the archers raised a hunting cry, not knowing their enemies were already so close.

Opting to not wait for the reinforcements, La Hire, Xaintrailles, Kennedy and their knightly fellows deployed and charged forward, crashing into the English positions from the now exposed flanks.

[11] Historian Juliet Barker suggests Patay was the most disastrous English defeat since the Battle of Baugé in 1421, and one with more significant consequences since they lost over 2,000 dead out of 5,000, while all of their senior commanders were captured apart from Fastolf, the only one who remained mounted.

During the following weeks the French, facing negligible resistance, were able to swiftly regain swathes of territory to the south, east and north of Paris, and to march to Reims, where the Dauphin was crowned as King Charles VII of France on 17 July.