Davy Gam, Esquire
The Battle of Agincourt took place 600 years ago today. Shakespeare tells the story in Henry V:
His source was this book:
A copy of Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles, published in 1587, is in the Hurd Library. Shakespeare copied the list of the English dead almost word for word:
The last named in both accounts is Davy Gam Esquire. Who was he? In fact he was not English at all, but Welsh. He was Dafydd Gam, a member of a family who had a long tradition of service to the lords of Brecon. Gam is thought to be a nickname, referring to a squint or other defect. His descendants in the male line adopted the anglicised surname Games. Henry Bolingbroke, later Henry IV, acquired the lordship in 1373 and Dafydd entered his service in the 1380s. He was particularly active in the struggle against Owain Glyn Dwr and was captured by the Welsh rebels in 1411. He had to raise a subsidy from the duchy of Lancaster estates to pay the ransom. Four years later he was one of Henry V’s three foot archers at Agincourt and died on the field, 149 years before the poet who was to immortalise him was born.
Christine Penney, Hurd Librarian