1415: Henry V's Year of Glory

by Mortimer, Ian

  The petition went on to request that every hospital – whether of royal foundation or not – might be ‘visited, inspected and administered in the manner and form which seems most appropriate and beneficial to you, in accordance with the intention and purpose of the donors and founders of the same’.

  Henry had assented at the time to this petition, promising that ordinaries would inspect those hospitals which were of royal foundation, and ensure their correct administration, and that they would bear royal commissions to assist them in this work. Eight months had now gone by. So today he commissioned Richard Clifford, bishop of London, ‘to enquire about the foundation, governance and estate of the hospitals within his diocese, and to certify in Chancery those being of royal foundation and patronage, and to make reform of others’.29

  Thursday 10th

  The convocations of Canterbury and York were gatherings of all the higher clergy of the two provinces. Like parliaments, they had the ability to grant or deny the king extra taxation. Also like parliaments, they were loath to be bullied into granting money. Repeated refusals by the convocation of York to grant subsidies to Henry IV in the early years of his reign had led to a crisis in 1405.30 Today, the convocation of York was meeting to discuss granting the king’s request for a further two subsidies.

  It was much the same request as had been put to the convocation of Canterbury the previous October and to parliament in November. However, when the clergy of Canterbury had been asked to grant a subsidy of two tenths and two fifteenths (the equivalent of a 20% tax on the goods and chattels of townsmen and a 13.3% tax on those of country dwellers), the purpose was to facilitate sending an embassy to the council of Constance, to aid the reunification of the Church. Since then, parliament had been asked for a similar subsidy, and had been told that the reason for the taxation was to enable the king to lead an army into France.

  Many of the prelates at York had been at that parliament, so they knew that they were being asked to fund a war of aggression. It was inevitable that there would be some dissent, just as there had been in parliament. They argued for some while in the presence of the archbishop of York, Henry Bowet (who was now in his seventies and confined to a litter). But Bowet was a loyal Lancastrian. He was aware of the reformers outside the Church who in 1404 had called for the confiscation of Church property.31 He was also a firm supporter of Henry’s anti-Lollard legislation, taking a positive stance with regard to the burning of heretics. These were probably crucial factors: Bowet and the other bishops could take the view that they needed to help the king in his military ambitions if they were to continue to look to him to preserve the income and authority of the church.

  Eventually, after ‘much altercation’, the northern prelates agreed.32 They opted to pay the tax, and thereby effectively voted to support Henry’s war.

  *

  Jan Hus of Bohemia was about forty-three years old: a philosopher and a theological lecturer at the University of Prague. A man of deep religious conviction, he had come to lament the idle days of his youth, when he wasted too much time enjoying himself. As he himself admitted, he had played far too much chess and spent too much money on expensive clothes. The catalyst in his life had been the teachings of the great English church reformer John Wycliffe, the inspiration of the Lollards. Like Wycliffe, Hus was appalled at the sale of indulgences – grants of absolution for one’s sins – by the Church. Following Wycliffe, he argued that forgiveness should be sought through repentance and atonement, not through the payment of money. He was also appalled by the idea that the pope could command what men should believe, and what they should say they believed, regardless of how God moved their hearts. Like Luther in the next century, the driving force behind his calls for religious reform was his own personal reformation: his conviction that the orthodox religion of the Church had strayed from the true path, and that he had a duty to set it right again.

  Hus attracted a considerable following in his native Bohemia and in Hungary. He also attracted a number of opponents within the Church. By 1410 the divisions between him and the orthodox theologians at the University of Prague had become deep and verged on hostility. King Wenceslas of Bohemia – Sigismund’s brother – had tried to reconcile Hus and the orthodox lecturers at Prague, but the religious authority of the pope remained a fundamental problem. Orthodox Catholics could not tolerate any challenge to the pope’s position as head of the Church (even though there were three popes at the time). Hus refused to acknowledge that any man, including the pope, was in a greater position of authority than Christ himself, and asserted that a Christian soul might make an appeal directly to Jesus over the pope’s head.

  Hus knew how controversial his recitation and development of Wycliffe’s writings were. In the margin of one of Wycliffe’s works he had written ‘Wycliffe, Wycliffe, you will unsettle many a man’s mind!’33 Pope Alexander V had excommunicated him in 1410, and in 1412 a council summoned by John XXIII placed him under the major excommunication.34 This meant that the whole of Prague would suffer an interdict unless the city officials arrested him. So he had gone into voluntary exile, and taken shelter in the various castles of lords who were moved by his words. He looked on his sufferings as like those of Jonah in the whale, or Daniel in the lion’s den – and repeatedly mentioned such necessary trials in his letters. He continued to celebrate Mass as before, and to preach and write letters outlining his views on religion and Wycliffe’s teachings. His sermons were carried across the Holy Roman Empire, and also into England.

  Hus could not bring about a reformation of the whole Church simply by writing and preaching. But he genuinely wanted the Church to discuss its future path with respect to the individual’s direct relationship with Jesus Christ. So when Sigismund promised him a safe conduct if he would come to Constance to discuss his ideas with the council, he decided to accept. In October 1414 he bravely set out in the company of the Bohemian lords, Lord Wenceslas of Dubá and Lord Henry Lacembok, and the latter’s nephew, Lord John of Chlum. With them travelled many of his friends and fervent supporters from Prague. At each city they came to Hus sent out letters declaring that all who opposed his views should come to Constance to discuss them with him.35

  Hus arrived at Constance on 3 November 1414 and lodged with a widow in St Paul’s Street. The next day Henry Lacembok and John of Chlum went to John XXIII to announce that Hus had come willingly to Constance under the emperor’s safe conduct, and to ask that the pope be intolerant of any attempt to molest or interfere with Jan Hus during his stay. The pope gave this assurance, stating that Hus would be safe ‘even if he killed the pope’s own brother’.36 However, Hus’s enemies from Bohemia, especially Stephen Páleč and Michael de Causis, had also arrived. They set about drawing up indictments against him. While they showed their indictments to the cardinals and bishops attending the council, fomenting ill-will towards the Bohemian reformer, Hus was said to have preached to the people and attracted many followers. After three and a half weeks, two bishops were sent by the cardinals of the council to him, at the insistence of Páleč and de Causis. They demanded that he come before the cardinals. John of Chlum was angry at this interference, contrary to the pope’s promise; but Hus willingly agreed to be examined by the cardinals as to any error in his theology. So he attended the convocation at the bishop’s palace.

  The meeting was a trap. The cardinals soon departed, praising Hus’s honest intentions, but leaving him in the palace, which was surrounded by armed guards. John of Chlum left Hus and went to Pope John to accuse him of breaking his oath not to permit any interference with Hus in Constance. But in so doing he achieved nothing but to separate himself physically from Hus, who remained under guard in the palace. A supporter, Peter of Mladoňovice, was able to take Hus his fur coat and breviary that evening – 28 November 1414 – but that same night Hus was moved to a cardinal’s house, and after eight days he was sent to the Dominican monastery situated on an island in the Rhine, and chained up in a round tower there, ‘in a murky and da
rk dungeon in the immediate vicinity of a latrine’.37

  Although John of Chlum petitioned the emperor for Hus’s release, in line with the imperial safe conduct he had been granted, Hus remained in his dungeon.38 But over the course of December 1414, the fumes from the latrine did their work, and he fell ill. He ended up vomiting repeatedly and violently, and suffering from a fever. So grave did his situation appear that his gaoler feared for his life. Worried about accusations of murder if he should die, the pope ordered that he be removed from the dungeon. Today, 10 January, he was moved elsewhere within the monastery – to a cell near the refectory.39

  Thursday 17th

  In trying to ascertain what actually happened in the distant past, account books can be hugely valuable. Chroniclers were often ill-informed, distant, biased, or writing years after the events, sometimes on the basis of misinformation. Similarly, letters from lords are often written in such a way as to conceal intentions rather than reveal them. Even royal letters can be unhelpful; important information was frequently conveyed by word of mouth. But account books were normally drawn up without bias. They were also subject to verification at the time, and often contain lengthy explanations of what the money was used for.

  Sadly, 1415 is one of the most poorly represented years in all late medieval English royal accounting. No regular household accounts survive. Nor do any chamberlain’s accounts. Even the great wardrobe accounts are short on entries for 1415 (with the notable exception of expenses for the Agincourt campaign). We are left with a very few series of documents from which to determine what the king spent his money on in the early months of 1415. The Issue Rolls are one of our best extant sources.

  The first series of payments recorded on the Issue Rolls for 1415 are those dated 17 January.40 Henry paid his almoner £100 for this term (a period of six months) to make donations on feast days and to distribute 4s per day among the poor. This was a traditional engagement of every monarch, and did not necessarily indicate remarkable piety or generosity.41 Other spiritual and charitable donations included the payment of 25 marks (£16 13s 4d) to the house of Dominican friars at Canterbury, 25 marks to the Franciscan house at Canterbury, £20 to the Dominicans at London, and 25 marks to the Dominicans at Oxford.

  There was a payment of £312 10s made to Sir John Neville, custodian of Carlisle, so he could pay the wages of the men defending the West March against the incursions of the Scots. The duke of York was paid for keeping the town and castle of Berwick and paying the wages of the men guarding the East March (£423 0s 6d). Similar payments were made for the sustenance of Calais. Other payments were of an administrative nature – sending out messengers and letters, for example, to the earl of Arundel (the treasurer), and to the sheriffs of the various counties. The poet Thomas Hoccleve, who worked as an exchequer clerk by day, was reimbursed 26s 8d for red wax obtained by him for the use of the privy seal. A payment was made to Henry’s chamber of 2,000 marks (£1,333 6s 8d), and another of £100; these sums were effectively his personal spending money.

  The most interesting items concern Henry’s military preparations. A payment of £460 was made for a barge from Brittany called the Katherine of Guérande. There was a part payment of £28 owing to a Master William the Gunner for a cannon, paid by agreement with the king himself. Henry also paid £5 13s 4d to William Woodward, the founder, for gunpowder. Although these sums are not large, they alert us to what Henry was doing in the days which are otherwise not recorded above. He was building up his military supplies, as he had been doing since his accession.

  *

  This same day, in the city of Constance, a papal notary in the service of John XXIII drew up two documents in favour of Edmund Mortimer, earl of March. One of them was relatively innocuous: written permission for Mortimer to separate the alien priory of Stoke Clare from its Norman mother church and to turn it into a secular college under his direct patronage, thereby saving its estates from being confiscated by the king. The second document was anything but innocuous. It gave him official permission to marry one of his second cousins. Although it did not name her, the woman in question was Anne Stafford, daughter of the earl of Stafford.42

  As mentioned above, Edmund Mortimer was the great-great-grandson of Edward III through Lionel, Edward III’s second son (whereas Henry V was descended from Edward III’s fourth son). Edmund therefore had a claim to the throne of England which was arguably stronger than Henry’s own. He was also the rightful English claimant to the title of ‘King of France’. Far from benefiting from his illustrious birth, however, Edmund had spent over half his lifetime in prison, confined and guarded by order of Henry’s father. Edmund thus had both the reason and the dynastic right to be a thorn in Henry’s side.

  It goes without saying that Edmund was likely to be unhappy at the way his family had been treated by the Lancastrians. But the reality was even worse, for Edmund’s maternal uncle had been the duke of Surrey, who had lost his life during the Epiphany Rising. Edmund and his younger brother, Roger, had subsequently been kept in close custody at Windsor Castle. After an unsuccessful attempt by Lady Despenser to free them in 1405, the Mortimer boys were guarded even more closely by Sir John Pelham at Pevensey Castle. Things improved for them in 1409 – after ten years of custody – when Henry IV transferred them to Prince Henry’s own protection. This was an inspired move, for it made the eighteen-year-old Edmund dependent on his future king. When Henry succeeded to the throne he released the Mortimer boys, and knighted them.43 But was this enough to secure Edmund’s loyalty? Henry was not sure. In November 1413 he had forced Edmund to seal a recognisance that he would remain loyal, or forfeit the huge sum of 10,000 marks (£6,666 13s 4d).

  As the Mortimer claimant to the throne of England, and the rightful heir to the English claim on the throne of France, Edmund’s marriage had always been of great interest to Henry. At the time of his release, when he had still been underage, it was clearly stipulated that Edmund should not marry without the king’s permission. Even though he had now reached adulthood, he must have known that his marriage to Anne Stafford, another descendant of Edward III, would make the king angry. But for the moment no one knew about it. It was just a piece of routine business being conducted by a stranger on the far side of Europe.

  Saturday 19th

  In his cell near the refectory of the monastery, Jan Hus wrote letters to his supporters and friends in Bohemia:

  I entreat you, lying in prison – of which I am not ashamed, for I suffer in hope for the Lord God’s sake – to beseech the Lord God for me that He may remain with me. He has mercifully visited me with a grave illness and again healed me. He has permitted my very determined enemies to attack me – men to whom I had done much good and whom I had loved sincerely. In Him alone I hope and in your prayer, that He will grant me to remain steadfast in His grace unto death. Should He be pleased to take me to Himself now, let His holy will be done; but should He be pleased to return me, likewise let His holy will be done. Surely I have need of great help; yet I know that He will not allow me to bear any suffering or temptation except for my and your benefit, so that being tested and remaining steadfast, we may obtain our great reward.44

  In writing this, Hus revealed that, even though he had come voluntarily to Constance, he knew he might die there. At the same time he clung to the idea that he might yet return to Prague. But things were changing rapidly. Very shortly after writing this letter he sent another to John of Chlum saying that, if the above letter had not yet been sent, ‘hide it and do not send it, for it may cause harm’. He went on to say in the same letter

  I also pray, noble and gracious Lord John, if a hearing is granted me, that the emperor be present and that I am assigned a place near him, so that he may hear and understand me well. I also particularly beg you that you, and Lord Henry Lacembok and Lord Wenceslas of Dubá, and others if possible, be present, so you may hear what the Lord Jesus Christ, my procurator, advocate and most gracious judge, will have me say – so that whether I live or die, yo
u may be true and proper witnesses, and the liars will not be able to say that I denied the truth that I preached.45

  At the end of the letter he added the forlorn plea that, if he was allowed a hearing, he hoped the emperor would prevent him being returned to prison afterwards, so he could take counsel with his friends. He clearly had no idea how much trouble he was in.

  Sunday 20th

  At Westminster, Henry was attending to his invasion plans. Today he commissioned Henry Beaufort, and the duke of York, Sir Thomas Skelton, Sir John Berkeley and William Brocas to make an enquiry into the loss of income and rights from the royal castle of Southampton. Not all of these men would head off to the south coast; the reason for including the names of the chancellor and the duke was to give greater authority to the others. It was an emphatic way of ensuring that local officials complied.

  Southampton was the location where Henry was concentrating his shipbuilding activities. His great ship the Holy Ghost was being refitted there at that moment. Then there was the value of Southampton as a port. There were several places on the south coast from which an army might be transported to France, but none was as convenient as Southampton. Plymouth was the major port for sailing to Gascony, but it was far too remote for most people. London was the most convenient port for the transportation of the stores held at the Tower, but it was not at all suitable to muster a large army in and around the city. Southampton on the other hand was conveniently in the middle of southern England. It had served as the port of embarkation for Edward III’s great expedition of 1346, which Henry seems to have settled on as the blueprint for what he wanted to achieve this year in France. Even better, it was a well-defended, walled town, its defences having been rebuilt by the citizens over the last thirty years. Henry was even planning a gun tower to guard the entrance to the port.46 The adjacent manors were suitable for the encampment of large numbers of men. Royal agents had an established presence in the town. And its mariners were experienced in Channel navigation. It was thus the obvious point from which to launch an invasion. Henry could not allow it to be subject to corrupt officials.