1415: Henry V's Year of Glory

by Mortimer, Ian

  The Burgundian ambassadors initially approached the king but he refused to entertain them.6 Henry IV did not like John the Fearless. Nor did he trust him. In 1399 he had sealed a mutual defence agreement with the murdered duke of Orléans, which could have entailed him taking action against John the Fearless.7 Although Orléans turned against Henry IV in 1402, it seems the king of England was no fonder of the duke of Burgundy after this date than he had been before. John had attacked Calais on more than one occasion. Also, the duchess of Orléans was the daughter of the duke of Milan, a personal friend of Henry IV’s from the 1390s.8 And Henry IV had always been much closer to the old duke of Berry, now one of the Armagnac lords, than to the Burgundians.

  Prince Henry had several reasons to listen to the Burgundians. The most obvious was that the safekeeping of Calais was his responsibility, and in that capacity his men already had experience of negotiating with John’s ambassadors. Indeed, they were engaged in negotiations regarding infractions of the truce throughout the first half of 1411.9 Henry could not easily agree to talk to them about a truce in one arena and refuse to entertain the idea of a truce in another. But he probably also had the long-term strategic implications in mind. To refuse to deal with the Burgundians over intervention in the French civil war meant having to deal with the Armagnacs (or losing the opportunity to capitalise on the civil war altogether). If he wanted to play one off against the other – in the hope of encouraging them to bid competitively for his friendship – then he had to parley with both sides.10 And if a full-scale civil war were to break out in France, then an alliance with John the Fearless was an effective way of destabilising the kingdom, forcing the French king to agree to his demands. The ultimate target was the implementation of a peace treaty favourable to England, along the lines of the Treaty of Brétigny, ‘The Great Peace’, agreed between the kings of England and France in 1360, but which the French had torn up in 1369.

  The king’s and the prince’s respective points of view resulted in a compromise. The king would not deal with the Burgundians himself, but he authorised Prince Henry to do so. This was good enough for John the Fearless, who could see outright hostilities coming ever closer, following the capture and torture of one of his officers by the duke of Orléans in January 1411. Orléans wrote to the University of Paris in March that year demanding that Jean Petit’s Justification of the duke of Burgundy should be formally condemned.11 Finally, at the end of July, Orléans sent John a letter in which he declared he would do everything in his power to harm him. With that, the negotiations between the ambassadors of John the Fearless and Prince Henry shifted from being merely precautionary to preparations for war against the Armagnacs.

  The year 1411 saw the nadir of Henry V’s relationship with his father. The exact nature of their mutual suspicions remains unclear, as the English royal family understandably did not want to publicise its own internal divisions. It is possible that problems arose from the prince’s favour to Burgundy. It is also possible that their differences were purely related to the royal finances. It is likely that there was a personality clash between the two men, for they were similar in character in many respects, not the least of which was a distinctly overwhelming pride. Whatever the cause, the plans for armed intervention on behalf of Burgundy were affected. Although the king announced on 14 August 1411 that he would be sailing to Calais on 23 September, and although he issued instructions to the ambassadors going to John the Fearless on 1 September, offering him military aid against the duke of Orléans, he opted out of the expedition with a couple of days to spare.12 On 21 September the king declared he would not be going to France. Instead he summoned a parliament to meet as soon as possible, in early November. So the fleet that sailed in late September was a private one, hired by the Burgundians from the prince of Wales as a mercenary force. It was led by Thomas Fitzalan, earl of Arundel, one of the prince’s closest friends.13

  The reason for the king’s change of mind was not just because he supported the Armagnacs and Prince Henry supported the Burgundians. The king had been happy to issue orders for an army to sail to Calais in support of the Burgundian faction in August and early September, even though he had been in negotiations with the duke of Berry earlier that summer.14 The reason was the relationship between him and his son. The fundamental issue was whether the sick king or the healthy prince should exercise royal power in England. This went far beyond mere foreign policy; there was talk of the prince and Henry Beaufort forcing the king to abdicate.15 So, when Henry IV summoned parliament that autumn, his main objective was the resumption of royal power. This he effected on 30 November with a polite dismissal of the prince’s council.

  In the meantime the earl of Arundel was demonstrating that English archers could still determine the outcome of battles on French soil, just as they had done in the reign of Edward III. On 9 November 1411 a thousand English archers helped John the Fearless win a battle for the bridge at St-Cloud, near Paris, some of them serving in John’s own bodyguard.16 In early 1412 both Armagnacs and Burgundians again sent ambassadors to secure the support of Henry IV, now wholly in charge of the government. John the Fearless’s ambassadors received their safe conducts on 11 January and arrived in England on 1 February. The Armagnac ambassadors were not far behind them, receiving their safe conducts on 6 February. But in reality the king’s resumption of power meant that John the Fearless’s representatives were always going to have a difficult job securing an agreement. In effect they were being used by Henry IV to encourage the Armagnacs to offer greater and greater concessions. The Armagnacs were now officially rebels, so they were in a desperate position. They agreed in principle to the main English objective in France: sovereignty over Gascony. They even agreed that they would fight their fellow Frenchmen to help Henry IV regain his inheritance. John the Fearless’s men realised they could not compete and withdrew from negotiations on 4 March.

  One month later, on 6 April 1412, the agreement between Henry IV and the Armagnac lords was finalised in the Treaty of Bourges. Later that same month the king ordered the enlistment of mariners, again announcing his intention to sail to France in person. On 18 May the treaty was ratified by the Armagnac lords. The English intervention in France was on course once more, but this time it was to march in support of the duke of Orléans, not the duke of Burgundy. Henry IV eventually decided against leading the expedition himself, and passed command to his second son, Thomas of Lancaster, whom he now created duke of Clarence. Thomas would be supported by Edward, duke of York, and Thomas Beaufort, earl of Dorset, together with 1,500 men-at-arms and 4,500 archers.

  The only problem was Prince Henry. A year earlier he had been the master of England, exercising royal power in his father’s name, presiding over the royal council and deciding on foreign policy. Now he had lost power, and with it he had lost face. He continued to oppose his father’s policy of intervention on the side of the Armagnacs, and was forced into swearing an oath with his three brothers to accept and abide by the terms of the Treaty of Bourges on 20 May. The retinue allocated to the prince to proceed into France under his father’s command was small – too small, he felt, for a man of his status and experience. When the king had decided not to lead the expedition in person, the prince had been passed over altogether, in favour of his younger brother. The message was clear: Prince Henry was not trusted by his father.

  The prince was bitterly angry, and left court shortly afterwards. On 17 June he sent a letter listing his grievances. He repeated accusations that he had tried to usurp his father’s throne, denying them outright but thereby drawing attention to their seriousness. Similarly he denied trying to obstruct his father’s campaign in France. That he had to deny such things publicly alerts us to the fact that they were already common knowledge. The rift between him and his father was not closed until a tender reconciliation at Westminster at the end of June 1412, during which the prince begged his father to kill him if he believed him disloyal, holding out a dagger whereby his father might perform the
deed.17 The king, in tears, simply flung the dagger to one side and embraced his son. But even though their personal relationship was thereby restored, the prince remained in the political wilderness for the rest of his father’s life. His only role in government was that of standing by and waiting for the king to die.

  *

  The Treaty of Bourges was illegal. The Armagnac lords had no right to recognise English sovereignty in Gascony or anywhere else; far less could they agree to fight Frenchmen to secure that sovereignty. It amounted to treason on their part, and resulted in the genuine hostility of the king of France. It is hugely ironic that the cause for which they were fighting – revenge for the murder of King Charles’s brother – now led them into conflict with King Charles himself, and actually forced the king and his brother’s murderer into a closer compact.

  John the Fearless acted extraordinarily swiftly. Within a month of the treaty being ratified, he had raised a royal army and led it to Bourges, taking the king with him. On 15 July the duke of Berry surrendered the city to King Charles in person, and on 21 July a royal letter was issued in the king’s name nullifying the treaty that the Armagnac lords had agreed with the king of England. The following day, at Auxerre, the dukes of Berry, Orléans and Bourbon all sealed a copy of this letter, which was sent to Henry IV. John the Fearless also affixed his seal to it. All the great lords promised to abide by the peace of Chartres of 1409.18 The French were again united – at least for the time being.

  Thomas, duke of Clarence, had no way of knowing this before he set sail. He landed at St-Vaast-la-Hougue on 10 August, expecting to be greeted as the leader of an auxiliary force bringing relief to the Armagnacs. Instead he found himself in charge of an invading army. Undaunted, he chose to take on the mantle of aggressor, destroying Armagnac lands in Maine and Anjou as he made his way to Blois. There on 16 September he issued a letter to the French that was tantamount to a refusal to accept the peace. Only a humiliating and costly offer from the Armagnac lords prevented him from continuing to ravage the country. In November, with a safe conduct from the king of France in his possession, he ordered his army to march across France to Gascony. There he would wait, keeping his troops ready for the ‘defence’ of the English province.

  A murder had given way to a civil war, which had resulted in English mercenaries fighting in France. Now a substantial English royal army was established on the borders of France. It was in every way an unstable situation. All it needed was the political will to attack the French, and the two kingdoms would once again be at war.

  Henry IV no longer possessed that political will. On 20 November 1412, probably in accordance with a prophecy that he would die in the Holy Land, he ordered three galleys to be constructed to bear him to his deathbed. He summoned his last parliament, and spent his last Christmas at Eltham, his favourite palace, with his beloved wife, Queen Joan. In January the faithful William Loveney, who had served him since at least 1386, undertook to cut down sufficient trees to make the said galleys.19 But Henry IV never embarked. Parliament assembled in early February, and waited for the king to take the throne, but he was too sick to attend. At the end of the month he lapsed into unconsciousness in Westminster Abbey and was carried through to the Jerusalem Chamber, and laid on a bed in the abbot’s lodging. On waking and being told where he was, he realised that he was now in the place where it had been prophesied he would die. The end came on 20 March, with Queen Joan and his sons Henry and Humphrey at his bedside.

  In France it was said that the prince took the crown from his father’s chamber before the king was dead, and tried it on, only to be told that he should not touch it until it was rightfully his. In a metaphorical sense this was correct; that is what Prince Henry had done in exercising royal power in 1410–11. But now the crown really had passed to him. In Gascony, on hearing the news, his brother Thomas immediately prepared to return to England. In the north of England, his brother John prepared to come south. In Henry V and his three brothers, the political will to fulfil their father’s ambitions – to see a king of England once more lead an English army into France – had arrived.

  Christmas Day 1414

  IT WAS THE second Christmas since his father’s death. Henry V, wearing his full royal robes and his golden crown, was seated on a marble chair beneath a tall silk canopy. He looked along the full length of the palace hall, beyond the gilt-silver goblets and golden plates before him.1 Servants bustled around in their short tunics and coloured hose, serving the hundreds of knights and gentlemen seated on benches at the lower tables. The previous evening they had decked the hall with evergreens: ivy around the doors, and holly within, and they had prepared thousands of candles to burn through Christmas morning. Dozens of silver chandeliers hung from the rafters, adding a golden glow to the winter light of the windows on either side. Now, as the king began to eat, minstrels were playing: the notes of their harps, pipes and tambourines drifted over the hum of the assembly. Faces were bright, looking forward to courses of roast beef, pork and goose in rich sauces – so welcome after the long fast of Advent.2

  Twelve days of festivity lay ahead of them. There would be music, carolling, dancing, play-acting and jokes. One servant would be appointed the Lord of Misrule, to oversee the household games. William, the king’s fool, would perform for the select few. There would be serious events too: the re-enactment of the Nativity, the dole of pennies to paupers, and many more religious services in the king’s presence, in the royal chapel of St Stephen, just a few steps from the hall. Outside the palace, in the cold streets of Westminster and London, people were preparing to carry antlers, carved animal heads and masks in their processions. Later the king would watch mummers dress in outlandish costumes and perform ‘disguising games’. With such celebration and excitement in the air, one might almost say that men’s cares had been laid aside.

  Almost, but not quite. Henry knew his father’s legacy still cast a shadow over many of those present. Men might have said that England now had a young, strong and pious king – but they had said the same about his father fifteen years ago. Everyone in that hall knew what Henry IV had achieved. He had been the greatest tournament fighter the English royal family had ever produced; he had fought a crusade with the Teutonic Knights in Lithuania; he had been on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; he had three times led an army to victory in battle and had taken control of England when Richard II was threatening to become a tyrant. And yet even he had found it impossible to control the kingdom. He had suffered vicious political attacks in almost every parliament he had held. He had survived at least three assassination attempts, three armed insurrections, three other seditious plots, a decade of Welsh revolt, and continual piratical attacks by the French. His reign had been synonymous with rebellion, unease, heresy and doubt. No one could be certain that his son’s reign would be any different.

  Everything came down to the means whereby Henry IV had taken the throne. Whichever way you looked at it, to take the throne was not legally defensible. In 1376, the ageing Edward III had drawn up a settlement in which he made his grandson, Richard II, his heir. According to this document, if Richard died without sons, then John of Gaunt and his son, Henry of Lancaster (the future Henry IV) would become kings in turn. Thus Henry IV had grown up believing he had a right to succeed to the throne. But in 1399 he had deposed Richard – the rightful, anointed king. This was not inheritance; many men held that it was against God’s law. Worse still, Richard apparently drew up his own settlement of the throne prior to his deposition, making not Henry but the duke of York and his sons his rightful heirs.3 Although the old duke had no wish to become king, Richard’s settlement automatically nullified that of Edward III. So Henry IV had been forced to find an arcane and highly dubious legal basis to justify his succession. He took the throne as the male heir of Henry III, who had died more than a century earlier.4 In reality, his succession was due to overwhelming political support and an election in parliament. When that popular support sharply declined in early 1401, and par
liament started to oppose him, the real basis of his kingship was undermined.

  The great problem for Henry IV was that any sign of divine disapproval of his rule could be attributed to his illegal occupation of the throne. In this respect, he was doubly compromised. Not only had he removed the previous king in an unlawful move, he had put forward his own claim to be Richard’s successor in defiance of the dynastic rights of another family descended from Edward III, the Mortimer earls of March. Edmund Mortimer was the great-great-grandson of Edward III through Philippa, only daughter of Lionel, Edward III’s second son. Henry IV was descended from Edward III’s fourth son. Edmund therefore had a claim to the throne which was arguably stronger than that of the Lancastrians. Even though he was descended from Edward III through a woman (Philippa), the common law of England held that a woman could transfer her father’s property and titles to her own heirs if she had no brothers – and Philippa had no siblings at all. So, if the crown of England was a ‘property’, then Henry’s father had broken the law in taking it in 1399, for it should have descended to Edmund. All the opposition that Henry IV had suffered during his reign – from piratical attacks and the harvest failures to rebellions and bad weather – could be blamed on God’s displeasure that the Lancastrians and not the Mortimers were occupying the throne.

  Of course, we do not know what Henry V was thinking at that moment, as he ate, looking at his household over the great gold eagle-topped spice-plate.5 But we can be certain his father’s legacy had not been forgotten. His family’s claim to the throne was tainted – twice over. In fact, one may say it was tainted thrice over, for it was tainted in respect to France too.