1415: Henry V's Year of Glory

by Mortimer, Ian

  Sunday 24th: Palm Sunday

  Excitement about the end of Lent had been growing for a week now, since the beginning of Passiontide. Today, Palm Sunday, the feeling grew more intense. Holy Week had finally begun. In churches up and down the country, men and women listened to the story of Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem, as it appears in St John’s gospel. In the chapel royal Henry would have watched his clergy bless branches of willow or sallow – palm leaves being unavailable in England. He would have watched as the consecrated bread and wine was placed in a shrine and carried in procession out of the chapel. He and the lords with him would have joined a second procession, holding the branches behind a priest bearing a cross. Each procession would have halted to hear the St Matthew version of the entry of Christ into Jerusalem. After this, the processions merged at the south door of the chapel and listened to a choir of seven boys singing Gloria Laus et Honor. Entering the church again through the west door, the veil over the crucifix was drawn aside while Mass was sung.35

  Not surprisingly, very little official business was enrolled during Holy Week. One of the few items we can associate with the king is his grant today of 40 marks yearly for life to an esquire, John Steward, who had served him since before his accession.36

  *

  In his prison cell, Jan Hus set pen to paper and composed the following letter that he sent to Lord John of Chlum:

  All my guards are leaving already, and I shall have nothing to eat. I do not know what will become of me in prison. Go with the other lords to the emperor, I pray, so he might make some final disposition of me, and so he may not commit sin and shame on my account …

  Noble Lord John go quickly with Lord Wenceslas [of Dubá] and the others to the emperor, for there is danger in delay. It is necessary that you do so at the earliest possible moment …

  I fear that the master of the papal court will carry me away with him in the night, for he will remain today in the monastery. The bishop of Constance sent me the message that he wishes to have no dealings with me. The cardinals have done the same.

  If you love the poor Anser [Lord John’s nickname for Hus] arrange that the emperor give me his own guards or free me from prison this evening.

  Given in prison (O Lord, do not tarry!) on Sunday, towards the evening.

  Monday 25th: Lady Day

  Today was the feast of the Annunciation, or Lady Day: the commemoration of the announcement to the Virgin that she would give birth to Christ. It was also the day on which the year of grace changed. Although 1 January was the day for ‘New Year’ gifts, and 21 March was the day on which the ‘official’ year changed (anno regis, the year of the king’s reign), the year 1415 anno Domini began on 25 March.

  Tuesday 26th

  At Constance the council held a full session without a pope – an unprecedented event. Leadership naturally fell to the emperor, who wore his crown and his imperial state robes for the occasion. A number of the cardinals had left Constance to chase after John XXIII – some to persuade him to return (including Fillastre), some simply to follow him out of loyalty – but those who remained had been reassured by Jean Gerson. They attended the popeless session, giving weight to its declarations.

  Cardinal Zabarella took the role of spokesman. He declared that the council had been rightfully convened at Constance, and the departure of John XXIII in no way nullified it. The council would not dissolve nor leave Constance, even to transfer to another place, until the schism had been brought to an end and the Church reunited. This last clause was emphasised because a notice from the pope had appeared on the door of the cathedral requiring all members of the papal curia to follow him to Schaffhausen.37

  That evening after vespers Cardinal Fillastre and two other cardinals returned to Constance. They bore a promise from John XXIII that he would appoint proctors. He proposed to select eight of the four nations’ thirty-two deputies, and if three of them agreed that he should abdicate, then it would be so. This seemed to be an attempt to circumvent his earlier public agreement to abdicate.

  The emperor was outraged. He declared that he was henceforth at war with the duke of Austria, who had by now also left Constance. The other prelates there urged him to remain calm, for such a war would undoubtedly break up the council, and many would see John XXIII as being justified in fleeing from the city. Sigismund’s anger was not to be soothed easily, however, and he sent word to the duke that a state of war now existed between them.

  Quite what the English lords at the council thought of all this is not known. But about this time they packed up and set out on the return trip.38 Their role as ambassadors to the emperor had been performed; and the emperor himself was more concerned with his own affairs than those of a distant English king.

  Wednesday 27th

  As Henry knelt at Mass today he listened to the account of the rending of the veil in the Temple of Jerusalem. As the words rang out, so a priest dramatically tore the silk veil away from the crucifix above the rood screen, revealing the sculpture of the crucified Christ.39

  After Mass, Henry made the first of several grants to the priory of the Virgin and St Thomas the Martyr at Newark, Surrey.40 He also temporarily appointed his servant Roger Assent to the office of forester of Cank Forest in Staffordshire.41

  That evening the first of the Tenebrae – the services of shadows – took place in the chapel royal. Twenty-four candles were placed on a large triangular candleframe to the south of the altar, representing the apostles and prophets. As the service progressed that evening, one candle was extinguished as each response was sung until only one was left alight in the vast darkness of the church. The king and other attendants then departed in silence, leaving the one candle burning.42

  Thursday 28th: Maundy Thursday

  Maundy Thursday, the commemoration of the Feast of the Last Supper, had always been important for the English royal family. As long ago as the reign of King John, the king had made presents of money and clothes to thirteen paupers on this day (relating to the number of people present at the Last Supper). Edward II had personally undertaken the pedelavium – the ritual of washing the feet of the paupers who were to receive the gifts – as a demonstration of his humility. Edward III and Richard II had regularly made quite large donations to the poor on this day. But it was Henry IV who had transformed the occasion, for he had a special connection with Maundy Thursday, probably being born on that day. From the age of fifteen he had given a shilling or clothes and shoes to as many poor men as there were years in his age on Maundy Thursday. By the end of the decade, his wife had started to follow his example, and made donations according to the number of years in her age. Henry himself continued these traditions, including the pedelavium and the age-related donations.43

  The practice of the monarch making monetary gifts to poor men and women continues to this day. However, it is not clear that Henry related his Maundy Thursday gift to his age in 1415. Two years earlier he had donated fourpence to each of 3,000 paupers – a total distribution of £50.44 But we can be sure that Henry would have marked the day in a fitting manner, mindful of his father’s example. And at the end of the day he would have again attended a service to hear the Tenebrae sung again in the chapel royal.

  Friday 29th: Good Friday

  In the early part of the previous century on Good Friday the English kings had laid hands on people suffering from scrofula, a form of tuberculosis called the King’s Evil. Imagine a line of several hundred sick men and women, whose necks had swollen like those of pigs, queuing up to see the king. The semi-divine position of kings meant they were supposed to be able to cure this ailment simply by touching. In reality the kings tended not to touch the sufferers themselves but rather to bless a penny that was given to each of them. The practice had fallen temporarily into abeyance in the 1340s, but in its place Edward III had introduced the blessing of cramp rings – medicinal rings that were worn to cure the wearer from epilepsy.45 This was the way in which Henry V displayed his thaumaturgical powers. Although the
1415 account for Good Friday does not survive, the 1413 one reads ‘In money paid to the dean of the chapel for the money paid for the making of medicinal rings 25s’.46 Henry would also have demonstrated his piety by joining the clergy in ‘creeping to the Cross’. Two priests held up a veiled crucifix behind the high altar during the singing of the responses; they then uncovered it and laid it on the third step before the altar. The king and priests then crawled towards it, shoeless – although it is likely that the king was given a comfortable carpet, so the crawling did not hurt his knees.47

  *

  At Schaffhausen the weather was cold and stormy. The trees were swept up in the wind; and the rain lashed down, mingled with sleet and snow. Pope John XXIII, who had been anxious to leave, now set out for Laufenburg, despite the weather. He had heard that the emperor had declared war on the duke of Austria. Such was his consternation that he attended no public religious services on either Maundy Thursday or Good Friday. When he set out in the snow and rain, not a single cardinal followed him. They simply watched him go – heading off into the storm with the duke of Austria and his guards.

  As Cardinal Fillastre noted, the pope was now all but a prisoner of the duke. He had escaped one danger for another – potentially far worse.

  *

  Henry sat with his council today, listening to a series of eight petitions. An extant set of minutes records his responses to each one. In one instance, the keeper of the privy seal was ordered to draw up letters to Robert Louvel esquire, acting on information presented in the petition of John Wyse of Pembrokeshire. In another, the case of a Lancastrian servant from Bolingbroke was referred to the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster. Two women who sent their separate grievances to Henry were both curtly told to pursue their cases in the law courts; Henry did not want to intervene.48

  Bishop Courtenay, Bishop Langley, Thomas Beaufort and the rest of the English delegation arrived back in London. In all probability, they went straight to the king and duly reported all that had happened during their time in Paris, including the public show of unity in the French royal family and the oaths sworn over pieces of the True Cross. No doubt Henry was very pleased to hear they had succeeded in their mission to force the French to dig in their heels. Similarly he would not have been greatly troubled by the show of unity between the Burgundians and Armagnacs. Although this has led historians for years to believe that his diplomacy had failed, Henry had in place his own secret agreements with John the Fearless, of which the French royal family was not yet aware.

  In addition, something may have been said concerning an insult to Henry delivered in Paris. Since this has become the stuff of legend, it needs to be mentioned. In Shakespeare’s Henry V, Henry ask the First Ambassador of France, ‘Tell us the Dauphin’s mind’. To which the First Ambassador replies:

  … the prince our master

  Says that you savour too much of your youth;

  And bids you be advis’d there’s naught in France

  That can be with a nimble galliard won; –

  You cannot revel into dukedoms there.

  He therefore sends you, meeter for your spirit,

  This tun of treasure; and, in lieu of this,

  Desires you let the dukedoms that you claim

  Hear no more of you. This the dauphin speaks.

  Henry replies: ‘What treasure, uncle?’

  ‘Tennis balls, my liege,’ says Thomas Beaufort.

  Henry responds carefully:

  We are glad the dauphin is so pleasant with us;

  His present and your pains we thank you for:

  When we have match’d our racquets to these balls,

  We will, in France, by God’s grace play a set

  Shall strike his father’s crown into the hazard.

  Scholars down the years have enjoyed dismissing this story as highly improbable or even impossible. Of course, it goes without saying that it is exceptionally unlikely that the dauphin made remarks about Henry’s youth – as Henry was a grown man of twenty-eight and the dauphin himself only just eighteen. Likewise, it is very unlikely that a tun of tennis balls was actually despatched; the French were desirous of peace. But the ‘tennis balls’ story is evidenced in near-contemporary chronicles. Thomas Elmham, writing before 1418, mentioned it in his Liber Metricus; John Strecche, writing in 1422, also mentioned it, and located the event at Kenilworth. As Strecche had been a canon of St Mary’s Kenilworth and was, at the time of his writing, living in a cell in Rutland that was dependent on Kenilworth, it seems likely that a story about Henry did circulate. Strecche reports that the ambassadors whom Henry sent to France in his second year

  had only a short discussion with the French on this matter [the royal marriage] without reaching any conclusion consistent with the honour or convenience of our king, and so they returned home. For these Frenchmen puffed up with pride and lacking in foresight, hurling mocking words at the ambassadors of the king of England, said foolishly to them that as Henry was but a young man, they would send to him little balls to play with and soft cushions to rest on until he should have grown to a man’s strength. When the king heard these words, he was much moved and troubled in spirit; yet he addressed these short, wise and honest words to those standing around him: ‘If God wills and if my life shall be prolonged with health, in a few months I shall play with such balls in the Frenchmen’s court-yards that they will lose the game eventually, and for their game win but grief. And if they shall sleep too long on their cushions in their chambers, I will awake them, before they wish it, from their slumbers at dawn by beating on their doors.’49

  This can hardly relate to the first embassy Henry despatched in his second year, as that had been warmly welcomed and received such concessions that Henry was forced to send a second. But the second embassy only had a very short meeting with the French royal family, having been kept waiting for several weeks. Henry is very unlikely to have been at Kenilworth on their return – there is no evidence that he was there – but if the story came to Strecche by way of St Mary’s, Kenilworth, and as he was writing seven years later and knew that Henry liked to spend time at Kenilworth as often as he could, it is not impossible that he simply misplaced the event when he came to write it down. And significantly Strecche does not state that tennis balls were actually sent, merely that they were part of the mocking of Henry by the French nobility.

  Thomas Elmham and John Strecche are not the only writers to record that Henry’s ambassadors were insulted. Another anonymous fifteenth-century chronicle in English relates the tennis balls story, saying that the dauphin actually sent the tun of tennis balls, as Shakespeare states; the same story appears in the Brut (which was probably Shakespeare’s source, either directly or indirectly).50 Adam Usk wrote in his chronicle how the ambassadors were ‘treated with derision’.51 And the ageing Thomas Walsingham wrote in his Chronica Meiora, that

  On their return from France the second time, our envoys there, the bishops of Durham and Norwich declared that so far the French had been using trickery. The king was annoyed at this and decided to put a stop to their jokes and to punish those who mocked him in the courts of war, showing them by his deeds and actions how mad they had been to arouse a sleeping dog.52

  As most of these writers were contemporary, it seems that a story about Henry being mocked by the French did circulate at the time. But did the actual mocking take place? No French writer records any insult; and we can be confident that no tun of tennis balls was delivered. Whoever informed Walsingham of the event would have mentioned the delivery if something so extraordinary had taken place. However, something of a mischievous nature probably happened. It may be that no overt insult was intended but some conversation took place that was interpreted as mockery. Perhaps during the royal joust in Paris the conversation turned to Henry’s reluctance to joust, and this led to a mocking question from the French about whether Henry preferred to play tennis. We do not know. But it seems that a throwaway remark of a tricking or mocking nature was amplified
into an insult of suitably grand diplomatic proportions, and this exaggerated response found its way to John Strecche in Rutland, to Thomas Walsingham at St Albans, and to Thomas Elmham at Lenton (Nottinghamshire), as well as to the author of the Brut. Who was responsible? We might blame the ambassadors for the exaggeration – but that would mean they were inciting Henry towards a war that he was clearly determined to start anyway. It seems far more likely that the king himself picked up on something that his ambassadors reported about their brief audience in Paris – something that may have been of minor interest, of no consequence – but which nevertheless deeply injured his pride.

  Saturday 30th

  Holy Saturday saw a plenary session of the council of Constance in the cathedral. It turned out to be one of the most important days in the history of the Catholic Church.53 Those present were now prepared to act on the idea that the council as a whole had greater authority than the pope. They had no choice. A number of papal officials had left Constance to follow John XXIII. Those prelates who remained could either enforce their own superiority over the pope, as both Cardinal Fillastre and Dr Gerson had proposed, or pack up and go home.

  Cardinal Zabarella was deputed to read the following momentous declaration, the first version of the decree known as Sacrosancta. The key passages read as follows:

  First this synod, lawfully assembled in the Holy Spirit, constituting a general council and representing the Catholic Church Militant, has its power directly from Christ, and all persons of whatever rank or dignity, even a pope, are bound to obey it in matters that relate to faith and the ending of the present schism.

  Further our holy lord Pope John XXIII shall not remove or transfer the Roman Curia and the public offices or his or their officials from this city of Constance to another place, nor shall he compel directly or indirectly the persons holding the said offices to follow him without the decision and consent of the holy synod …54