1415: Henry V's Year of Glory

by Mortimer, Ian

  Henry liked Westminster. The privy palace, the Queen’s Palace nearby (where his stepmother spent some of her time), the Prince’s Palace (where he had lived before his accession), Westminster Hall, the White Hall, the Painted Chamber, the great bell tower, the king’s chapel, St Stephen’s Chapel – these all added up to a suitable base for a king. To the west there was the immense structure of the abbey church, with scaffolding around its still-incomplete west end. From the palace he could directly oversee the offices of government: the chancery and the exchequer. He could call an audience of the most important Londoners at the Guildhall, and be there within half an hour by taking the royal barge down the river. Similarly, he could be rowed to any one of a number of manors up or down the Thames: Windsor Castle, the Tower of London, Queenborough Castle, and the houses of the archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth and Merton. Earlier in his reign he employed William Godeman and his bargemen to row him from Westminster to Sutton, Lambeth, and the royal hunting lodge at Rotherhithe.8 His hunting dogs and birds were not far away, nor were the London markets, where there were goldsmiths, armourers and spicerers. Swans swam up and down the Thames. His tapestries and treasures were around him. He would spend most of the next six months here.

  *

  In Paris it was raining. It had been raining since November. According to the official chronicler at the abbey of St Denis, just to the north of Paris, the four winds did not cease to blow one way or the other from autumn 1414 to spring 1415. It rained consistently and heavily, so that the rivers were flooded. River transportation of merchandise became impossible – the harbour quays and cranes were under water. The rivers were too swollen and fast-flowing, and many roads were impassable. The necessities of life started to disappear from the markets. And the fields were inundated. Wheat stored in granaries became wet and started to rot, or became infested with insects. Even the vines which normally produced good wines started to produce an undrinkable vintage.9

  In such disheartening weather, the duke of Bourbon founded a new military order: the Order of the Prisoner’s Shackle. This consisted of the duke himself and sixteen other men – thirteen knights and three esquires – each of whom undertook to wear the symbol of a prisoner’s chain on his left leg every Sunday for two years. Among the knights were Clignet de Brabant (the admiral of France) and Raoul de Gaucourt. The knights’ shackles were to be made of gold, the esquires’ made of silver. The purpose was to bind them into a fraternity which would meet an equivalent number of knights and esquires who would fight them all on foot with lances, axes, swords and daggers. Although it was not specified that the opposing knights should be English, that was clearly the assumption. A number of multiple fights of the sort envisaged had taken place between the knights of England and France over the years.

  As with all orders of knighthood, there were strict rules. Members of the Order agreed that they would have a painted image of the Virgin Mary in their chapel in Paris. A shackle similar to the one they each wore was to serve as a candle holder; and a candle was to burn in it before the painting of the Virgin all day and night for two years. A sung Mass and a low Mass were to be performed every day. The arms of all the knights were to be displayed in the chapel; if they were successful in meeting an equivalent number of knights in battle, and defeating them, then each man was to have his portrait painted in armour, to hang in the chapel. And, as with all chivalric vows, the knights undertook to maintain the honour of all ladies and women of good birth, and to offer aid to women wherever they found them in need of it.10

  *

  In the moated and high-walled city of Constance, six hundred miles to the south, men were arguing about the price of fish, meat, bread and beds – and almost everything else. Bishops, priests, lords and their servants were gathering in large numbers for the church council that was beginning to get underway there. King Sigismund of Hungary, the Holy Roman Emperor, and his entourage had arrived. So too had Pope John XXIII attended by six hundred men. John had also brought thirty-three cardinals, each of whom had brought dozens of priests, lawyers and servants – a total of 3,056 men.11 The pope’s vice-chancellor, the cardinal bishop of Ostia, had entered the city with eighty-five horses in his train alone, and these all needed stabling, and the riders all needed accommodation.12 Eventually there would be forty-seven archbishops, 145 bishops (with a total of six thousand servants), ninety-three suffragan bishops, and many other secular lords. One burgher of Constance, Ulrich Richental, exuberantly estimated that 72,460 people came to the city.13

  The council had been summoned by Pope John XXIII at the emperor’s request. It had two main objectives: the re-unification of the church and ecclesiastical reformation. The first objective arose from the split between the French papacy, based at Avignon, and the Roman papacy, based at Rome. This had divided the Church since 1378. A previous attempt to heal the schism – the council of Pisa in 1409 – had resulted only in the election of a third pope, Alexander V, who had swiftly died and been replaced by John XXIII, one of the worst possible candidates for the post. So now there were three popes – the Pisan pope, John XXIII; the Roman pope, Gregory XII; and the Avignon pope, Benedict XIII. None of them would acknowledge the others. None wanted to give up his own papal title. It had been a diplomatic triumph for the Holy Roman Emperor, Sigismund, to persuade John XXIII to summon the council in the first place.

  On 1 January men were arriving in their hundreds. Sigismund had arrived a week earlier, on Christmas Day, and the townspeople had flocked to see him enter the cathedral in the company of his empress and Duke Rudolph of Saxony. Two days later Duke Ludwig of Bavaria-Heidelberg had arrived. The citizens of Constance marvelled at what was happening; their city was being transformed into the greatest retail centre of the Christian world. Merchants from other towns set up their stalls in courtyards and slept under makeshift shelters or huts. Ulrich Richental estimated that 1,400 traders had come, including shopkeepers, furriers, farriers, shoemakers and spicerers. 1,700 musicians were either present already or on their way. So were seventy-two goldsmiths, sixteen master apothecaries, and seven hundred prostitutes, ‘who hired their own houses or who lay in stables’.14

  Pope John’s advisers were worried about the freedom to speak and to come and go to and from the council. Just yesterday they had heard how Sigismund himself had threatened an agent of the duke of Milan, with whom he was at war. Sigismund had had the agent deported from the city and then yelled at him as he crossed the bridge, ‘You are a spy, here in the service of that rebel against me. If it were not for my reverence for the pope, I would have you hanged! See to it that I do not find you here again!’ On account of this the papal advisers decided that they should ask Sigismund to guarantee their safety, and the safety of all those who attended the council, in case they too incurred his anger for making statements which were not to his satisfaction. They also decided that action should be taken to limit the rapid increases in prices, as more and more men arrived in the city. They wanted to bring charges as quickly as possible against the supposed heretic, Jan Hus, who had been arrested on 28 November ‘for the pernicious doctrine that he professed’. However, they were worried in case some of those who might testify against him would be put off if they feared the actions of the emperor.15

  Fifteen prelates were elected to be a delegation to take these demands to the emperor. They met him today, 1 January, in the town hall of Constance, and expressed their concerns. Sigismund was humbled. He answered that, ever since he had decided on the city of Constance as the venue for the council, it had been his ardent wish to do all he could to facilitate the unification and reform of the Church. He assented that all people could come and go freely, without exception, even those in rebellion against the Holy Roman Empire. With regard to the problem of prices, he decreed that four clergymen and four burghers would be appointed to regulate accommodation in the city. Prices would be set, controlling how much the innkeepers and other burghers of Constance could charge; and ordinances would be drawn up, stipulatin
g (amongst other things) that innkeepers should make sure all bedding was washed once a month.16 As to the third issue, Jan Hus, the emperor ordered that placards in support of him should be torn down. He added that formal accusations of heresy against individuals like Hus could be made at the council, as long as they were made in public.

  *

  The huge gathering at Constance may seem to have had little to do with Henry V, who was at Westminster, six hundred miles away. But it mattered a very great deal to him, for five reasons. Sigismund had written to Henry at the start of his reign, asking that he do all he could to work towards the re-unification of the Church. As a religious man, Henry was keen to be involved.17 He was also no doubt aware that the emperor had written to Henry IV, asking the same thing, and so this represented another opportunity to outdo his father as king.18 Also, the outcome would be of crucial importance for England, as his learned advisers would have told him. In 1046 a similar confusion of three popes (Gregory VI, Benedict IX and Sylvester III) had been sorted out by the then Holy Roman Emperor at the council of Sutri. The council deposed all three popes and elected a new man in their place. If the council of Constance managed to emulate the council of Sutri, then one man would eventually exercise spiritual authority over the whole of Christendom – and with an exceptionally strong mandate. It would be essential for every Christian king to establish a good relationship with such a man as soon after his election as possible.

  The third reason why the council of Constance was of concern to Henry was the question of what ‘reform’ of the church would actually involve. Henry had his own programme of religious reform: a list of forty-six points drawn up at his request by the University of Oxford.19 Among other things, he was concerned with the appointment of bishops, the revocation of illegal appropriations of rectories, the control of lax clergymen who evaded punishment after they had been granted exemption by the pope, and control of the sale of local indulgences. The fourth reason for his interest lay in the question of international prestige. Would England be regarded as a nation on its own, alongside France, Italy, Spain and Germany, as it had been at Pisa in 1409? Or would it be subsumed within the mass of ‘German’ states?

  Finally, there was the problem of imposing religious authority, especially with regard to heresy. Jan Hus had been in correspondence with Sir John Oldcastle, Richard Wyche and other English Lollards.20 Religious thinkers in England continued to circulate the teachings of England’s own pre-eminent religious reformer, the late John Wycliffe. Radical ideas such as the pre-eminence of Christ, the unchanged nature of bread and wine in the communion, and the limitations of papal authority were circulated in the form of Wycliffe’s writings across the whole of Christendom. And these ideas continued to be hugely divisive, causing fear in those who saw lords, knights and clerics taking them up in Bohemia and Hungary as well as in England. Henry’s own confessor, Stephen Patrington – who must have had a spiritual outlook in accord with Henry’s own – had bitterly argued against Wycliffe at Oxford. The decisions made at Constance concerning Wycliffe, Hus and other anti-papal reformers would determine whether Henry was justified in burning such men as heretics, or whether he should tolerate them, and perhaps even listen to them.

  As a result of these issues, Henry had appointed a prestigious embassy to the council. They had not yet all arrived at Constance. Thomas Polton had already addressed the council on Henry’s behalf in December, but the majority were still strung out across Northern Europe in their various small travelling groups.21 As it took a month for news to travel from Constance to England, it would be a long time before he knew how his ambassadors were advancing his religious and nationalistic ambitions.

  Wednesday 2nd

  Picture the great lords of France on this day riding through the rain, or being carried in their sedan chairs, in the narrow muddy streets of old Paris. They were due to attend a meeting of the royal council. The king would not be there, but the duke of Orléans would, with his younger brother the count of Vertus. Their great uncle, the seventy-four-year-old duke of Berry, would also be present. So would the dukes of Bourbon and Alençon, and the counts of Eu, La Marche and Vendôme. Other members of the French council included the duke of Berry’s chancellor, Guillaume Boisratier, archbishop of Bourges, and Pierre Fresnel, bishop of Noyon.22

  As can be seen from both the membership of the council and its agenda, it was the Armagnacs who were in control of the government, not Henry’s ally, John the Fearless. Despite John’s best efforts to regain the initiative – including bringing an army to the gates of Paris in February 1414 – he had failed to reassert himself. In the meantime the Armagnacs had enlisted the support of the University of Paris in the formal burning of Jean Petit’s Justification of the duke of Burgundy outside the gates of Notre Dame. They had attacked John’s city of Arras, and had come to an uneasy peace agreement with him there. John had not yet ratified the Peace of Arras, and it was beginning to look as if he had no intention of doing so. So the Armagnacs had declared six days ago that he was an enemy of the king and a traitor to France. All those who supported him were to leave Paris, together with their wives and families – on pain of being pilloried, losing a hand, or having a hole bored in their tongue.23

  In these circumstances, the council’s decision today to agree in principle to an extension of the truce with England was a minor issue. Perhaps the only councillor agitating for war was the belligerent duke of Bourbon. Not only had he founded the Order of the Prisoner’s Shackle the previous day, he was about to lead an expedition against the English in Gascony.

  Thursday 3rd

  At Westminster, just as in Paris, those in government had to work. It might have been one of the twelve days of Christmas but a king could not ignore all his business for that long. Yesterday Henry had ordered the mayor and sheriffs of London to release all the ships of the county of Holland which had been arrested by royal command in December in reprisal for the arrest in Holland of John de Waghen of Beverley.24 Today he sent orders to his lieutenant in Ireland, John Talbot, to sort out an argument over the inheritance of an estate which had been going on for the last thirty years. The petitioner, John Cruys, had been in wardship and deprived of his inheritance by his guardians. Henry also gave judgment today concerning the denization of a man who had been born in Calais to a Flemish woman and an English father. The man wished to be recognised as an Englishman from now on. Unsurprisingly, Henry agreed.25

  Saturday 5th

  In the cathedral of Notre Dame, in Paris, King Charles sat quietly in an oratory beside the altar, listening to the sermon preached by the chancellor of the cathedral, Jean Gerson. The service was in memory of the late duke of Orléans, and all the council was present. So too were many members of the University of Paris, where Dr Gerson was held in high esteem. Two cardinals were in attendance, and many bishops, priests and knights, as well as a crowd of Parisians. What Gerson said, according to the Burgundian chronicler Enguerrand de Monstrelet, was ‘so strong and bold that many doctors [of theology] and others were astonished thereat’.26 Gerson praised the manners of the deceased duke (despite his many seductions) and his government of the realm (despite his high taxes), and declared that it had been ‘by far better administered than it had ever been since his death’. Monstrelet commented that

  he seemed in this discourse, more desirous of exciting a war against the duke of Burgundy than of appeasing it; for he said he did not recommend the death of the duke of Burgundy, or his destruction, but that he ought to be humiliated, to make him sensible of the wickedness he had committed, and that by a sufficient atonement he might save his soul.

  Gerson went on to say that the burning of Jean Petit’s Justification before the gates of Notre Dame had been a good first step, but more needed to be done. Knowing how controversial this was, he declared he would defend what he had just said about the duke of Burgundy before the whole world. Later that year, he would do just that, at Constance, where he would have to preach to the English and Burgundians,
not just the converted Armagnacs.

  Sunday 6th: the Feast of the Epiphany

  The feast of the Epiphany was the commemoration of the moment when the three Magi came to worship the infant Christ. This was one of the most important days in the Christian calendar. Richard II – who had been born on Epiphany – had always been especially keen to see it celebrated. As Henry had spent some time in Richard’s household, he may well have recalled his unfortunate cousin on this day. If so, he could reflect that he had now reburied Richard in his rightful place, in his tomb in Westminster Abbey. And he had done so with great respect; he had even reused some of the funeral trappings from his own father’s funeral at Richard’s reburial.

  For Henry, as for his subjects, Epiphany started with a special Mass. In many places a gold star of Bethlehem was suspended in the body of the chapel. After the service the king feasted in state again, wearing his royal robes and crown, just as he had on Christmas Day (although the level of expenditure on food and drink was more moderate). Later he would watch ‘disguising games’ or mummings. Epiphany was the most popular occasion for watching such masked plays in the whole year.27

  Tuesday 8th

  The parliament of April 1414 had seen various petitions put forward by the commons. One had concerned the state of the kingdom’s hospitals. These were not medical establishments so much as almshouses: places of refuge for the poor, sick and needy. As the petition stated, the noble kings of England and other lords and ladies

  have founded and built various hospitals in cities, boroughs and various other places in your said kingdom, to which they have given generously of their moveable goods for building them, and generously of their lands and tenements for maintaining there old men and women, leprous men and women, those who have lost their senses and memory, poor pregnant women, and men who have lost their goods and have fallen on hard times, in order to nourish, relieve and refresh them there. Now, however, most gracious lord, a great number of the hospitals within your said kingdom have collapsed, and the goods and profits of the same have been taken away and put to other uses by spiritual men as well as temporal, because of which many men and women have died in great misery through lack of help, livelihood and succour, to the displeasure of God.28