1415: Henry V's Year of Glory

by Mortimer, Ian

  Courtenay did not disperse everything straight away. The Crown Henry remained where it was for the time being. So did the Iklington Collar, the gold basins, the Pusan d’Or and everything else except the £800 tabernacle of the duke of Burgundy, which had already been sent to Devon. But on this day, the same day as he took possession of the relics and other valuable religious artefacts, Courtenay began to allocate everything, in line with his royal commission.4 No doubt some lords were very keen to know what exactly they were going to be given – whether a jewel-encrusted belt or the skull of one of the 11,000 Virgins.

  Sunday 2nd

  Henry commissioned one Hankyn Pytman to employ mariners and prepare his ship called the Rude Cog of the Tower ready for action.5 That the ‘red cog’ in question was normally harboured at the Tower suggests it was English – despite the German name of the captain. Few foreign merchants would have brought their ships to England at this stage for fear of them being requisitioned by the king. Considering that ships in English ports were unable to leave, in line with Henry’s instructions of 19 March and 11 April, international trade must have now gone into a serious decline.

  Monday 3rd

  When Henry V had become king, he had dismissed almost all of the senior officers in the royal household. On 21 March 1413, the first day of his reign, he had sacked the old chancellor and treasurer and appointed Henry Beaufort and the earl of Arundel in their places. Two days later he had replaced his father’s steward and keeper of the wardrobe with, respectively, Sir Thomas Erpingham and Sir Thomas More. Within two weeks he had removed the chamberlain and the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, appointing Lord Fitzhugh and John Woodhouse in their respective places. Only one senior officer had remained in post throughout: the keeper of the privy seal. This was John Prophet, who had been appointed by Henry IV in 1406. Now Prophet’s time was up. In his place Henry appointed John Wakeryng, a man who had a long track record in government administration, having been appointed chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster in 1402 and later keeper of the rolls in chancery. Apart from replacing Thomas More with Sir Roger Leche as treasurer of the royal household in late 1413, this was the first significant change to the senior ranks of the household since the start of the reign.

  Other royal business today included Henry’s order for his secretary, John Stone, to be inducted as the dean of St Michael’s le Grand, and a royal pardon to the bishop of Hereford for all his crimes ‘except murders committed after 19 November, provided he be not a counterfeiter of money’.6 Already twice this year Henry had ordered commissions into the counterfeiting of coin; clearly it was a major concern.7

  Henry assigned three Dorset manors, Christchurch, Canford and Poole, as places where the earl of Salisbury’s men were to assemble and wait, ready for the expedition to set sail. This was not just for their convenience. A story appears in one of Thomas Walsingham’s chronicles about Sir John Arundel in 1379. He and his men were planning to sail from Southampton to Gascony, and took shelter in a nunnery because the wind and the tide were against them. In their boredom, the men became drunk and violent; they raped the nuns and stole from the nunnery and a local church.8 Henry, by locating his troops in specific places, was not only providing for his soldiers but was also minimising the threat to communities of a large number of nervous, armed men being located on their doorstep.9

  *

  In Paris, the dauphin called a meeting of the royal council, to assemble in his father’s presence. The royal dukes were all away from the capital. Those who attended included Charles d’Albret; Louis, count of Vendôme; Jean de Werchin, seneschal of Hainault; Raoul de Gaucourt; and Nicholas d’Estouteville, seigneur de Torcy. The business to be discussed was the threat of invasion. A letter was drafted from the council to the constables of the cities and towns in Normandy, ordering them to instruct the nobility and gentry to make ready to resist the English and to ensure they had sufficient armour and equipment, and to keep watch day and night, and to ensure that the walls of towns were repaired.10

  This was not the only council meeting that the dauphin had held. Monstrelet records that the dauphin

  held many councils and recalled the duke of Berry and other lords to Paris, with whom he had several meetings to know how he should act in this matter, for the king was confined by his illness at this time. It was determined that men-at-arms and archers should be assembled in various parts of France ready to march against the English the moment it was known that they had landed; that garrisons should be placed in every town and castle on the coast; and that as much money as possible should be raised with all speed.11

  As yet the duke of Berry had not yet returned. While the dauphin waited for him, he said goodbye to another of his councillors. The count of Vendôme was setting out immediately for England with the other ambassadors to whom Henry had granted safe conducts. Archbishop Boisratier and the others had gone on ahead.12 They were travelling slowly, via Amiens, Montreuil, Boulogne and Calais, taking a full two weeks on their journey to Dover.13 The longer they delayed, the more money and men the dauphin could raise – and the more King Henry’s time would be wasted.

  Tuesday 4th

  Henry commissioned Nicholas Mynot, fletcher, to find twelve more craftsmen to make arrows and bolts, taking whatever timber, feathers, silk and wax they needed for the work.14 Although we have come across many references in 1415 to Henry ordering and paying for bows to be made, this is the first explicit reference to him ordering arrows. This is somewhat surprising, given that modern commentators on longbows frequently talk about archers being able to shoot ten or more arrows per minute. Were all the arrows used by Henry on his expedition made by these twelve men?

  The fletchers in question would have had to obtain the ash rods, make sure they were not rotten, then cut them, shape them, and smooth them, making sure the shafts were not bent. They would then have needed to trim each shaft to fit inside the socket of its arrowhead, and fix the arrowhead in place with bone glue. They would have needed to trim the shaft to length to suit a standard bow, and give it a nock, and strengthen this nock with a piece of bone. It would then have had to be flighted with goose feathers, and these had to be glued into place and bound tightly with silk. The finished arrow then needed to be laid aside long enough for the glue to set. Apart from this last element, the whole process cannot have taken less than half an hour for each arrow. If you consider that it would also take an experienced blacksmith twenty minutes to make each arrowhead, then every sheaf of twenty-four arrows represented twenty man-hours’ work (not including making the quiver). If Henry was intending to take seven or eight thousand archers with him on his expedition, he would have understood he needed in the region of 130,000 such sheaves – the equivalent of 2,600,000 man-hours’ work.15 Fletching this number of arrows would have taken Nicholas Mynot and his twelve companions more than forty years.16 Henry’s arrows were not all made by twelve men in the two months before the expedition set sail.

  So where did they come from? Henry already had a large store. He kept thousands of bows at the Tower, and no doubt he kept thousands of arrows there too. And the Tower arsenal represented just a fraction of the number of arrows available in England. Edward III’s archery ordinances of 1363, which required men to practice archery every feast day, and to abstain from other sports and games, had two consequences – that archery skills were kept up, and that arrows and bows continued to be produced in large quantities in peacetime as well as war.17 Further legislation in the 1360s made it illegal to export these bows and arrows. On top of this, Glendower’s rebellion had required many more new arrows to be produced, and to a higher standard than before. An Act of 1406 stated that henceforth ‘all the heads for arrows and quarrels shall be well-boiled or brased, and hardened at the points with steel’.18

  From this it can be seen that the majority of Henry’s arrows were not newly made. Old arrow-heads could be re-used many times over, the damaged shafts thrown away and new ones added when necessary. Hence this was probably
the prime purpose of commissioning the fletchers mentioned above: the renovation of old arrows. The bulk of Henry’s arrows were made on a continuous basis throughout the realm; and probably most of them by 1415 were of the new steel-point type, capable of penetrating armour.

  This was not the case in France, where archers were somewhat looked down upon. One of the most common questions asked about the English victories of the Hundred Years War is this: if the longbow was such a significant weapon, why did the French not develop it too? The answer is implicit in the entry above. No other country had such a strong archery tradition – and this applies to the making of bows, the making of arrows, the renewal of old arrows, the legal requirement to practice archery, and a pro-archery popular culture (as reflected in the earliest Robin Hood ballads). And since the real devastation was caused by the massed use of longbows, no other country quite managed to create the killing assemblies that Edward III pioneered. Even though most of the bows were made of Spanish yew, the Castillians never developed a great archery tradition. It was an English idiosyncrasy, arising from the breakdown of law and order in England in the last years of the reign of Edward I and the reign of Edward II. Charles V of France had tried in vain to build up the French longbow and crossbow forces in the 1360s and 1370s; French people saw no reason at that time why they should become archers, nor why they should make so many bows and arrows. And kings of France could not command the men of the autonomous duchies of Burgundy and Brittany to practise archery. The kings of England could command their subjects, and they did. And when they required three million arrows for a campaign, they did not have to wait for them to be made: they simply ordered them to be gathered.19

  Wednesday 5th

  The prelates of the council of Constance gathered in the refectory of the Franciscan friary, preparing for the trial of Jan Hus. Hus himself was not present, still locked in his cell. The prelates ordered the public reading in his absence of the articles of his work that had been found to be heretical. As the heresies were declaimed, the Bohemian and Polish lords in attendance realised that the prelates were still accusing Hus of statements that were not actually made by him, or, if they were, they were being quoted out of context to give them an inflammatory and heretical meaning. They hurriedly sent a message to the emperor to tell him that Hus was being condemned without a fair trial – even though the prelates of the council had promised to deal with him ‘favourably’ and ‘kindly’.20

  As two of the lords ran to Sigismund, the condemnation was read out, quoting from Psalm 50.

  To the sinner then God said: why do you expound my justice? Why do you take my covenant into your mouth? You indeed hate discipline and have cast my words behind you. If you saw a thief, you ran with him; and with adulterers you took your portion. Your mouth abounded in malice and your tongue concocted deceit …

  The emperor listened to Hus’s supporters. He gave curt instructions to two important German lords to go directly to the Franciscan house and inform the prelates gathered there that they should not pass a verdict on Hus without hearing him in person. If Hus stood by his books, and if they were found to contain heretical articles, and if he refused to abjure them, then they could condemn him. But not before.

  The two lords entered the refectory and passed on the emperor’s message. The prelates were not in a position to argue. Had Sigismund wished to enforce the safe conduct he had granted Hus, he could have removed the prisoner from their power. So, reluctantly, they complied. They directed Hus’s friends to choose the books on which Hus was to be judged. Lord John of Chlum and the others chose four to be submitted for inspection, including his principal work, About the Church. And Hus himself was sent for.

  When Hus entered the refectory, his friends tried to follow him but they were barred. Hus stood alone before the prelates. He was asked whether the books they were examining were his. He looked at them, and held them up, and declared them loudly to be his works, and if anyone found error in them he was prepared to amend them accordingly.

  This was his moment of truth, the hearing for which he had risked everything.

  One of the prelates started reading the articles on which Hus had been condemned, concentrating on specific heresies such as whether transubstantiation actually took place or whether the bread of the Holy Sacrament remained mere bread. Hus tried to speak but he was told to remain silent. When he again tried to speak to clarify that a clause had been misquoted, a great many prelates told him to be quiet, and started denouncing him. Hus cannot have failed to realise that there was real anger in the refectory. These men were doing all they could to unite the Church after its disgraceful leadership failure under three failed popes. The Church needed a strong single authority, which would speak to all Christian men on behalf of God. They believed that God would direct them to find that single new unifying voice – and here was this lone Bohemian priest trying to preach a gospel of spiritual anarchy and chaos. Of course they were angry.

  Hus did his best to defend himself, but his attackers were not looking to debate with him. Nor did they wish him to amend his ways. They wanted to condemn him, and force him to admit he was wrong. Enemies like Michael de Causis were calling with the rest of the prelates for Hus’s books to be burned. When Hus tried to explain some of the finer doctrinal points underpinning his books, he was shouted down. When he tried to respond to a difficult question with a difficult answer he was told, ‘Leave off your sophistry. Answer yes or no!’ He began to realise that no one was listening to his arguments. He had been a fool to believe that the council would. So he decided to be silent. Some of his more ardent opponents jeered at him further: ‘Look – he cannot answer! He admits these errors!’

  The meeting came to an end. Clearly, given the sensitivity of his case with regard to his lords and the apparent support of the emperor, the prelates could not condemn him straight away. Instead they adjourned his case until the following Friday. The bishop of Riga was instructed to return Hus to his cell.

  As Hus left the refectory, and passed the lords gathered outside the door, he reached out to them, saying, ‘Do not worry for me.’

  ‘We do not fear,’ they replied, grasping his hand as he was led away.

  ‘I know, I know well,’ he told them.

  The bishop and his guards led him up some steps. At the top he turned and saluted his friends before being walked back to his cell.

  That night he wrote to the lords who had helped him that day. In this respect he was better off than he had been in Gottlieben Castle, where he had been from 30 March to 2 June, and from which he had been unable to send any messages at all.21 He did his best to be optimistic:

  Almighty God today gave me a courageous and stout heart. Two articles are already deleted. I hope however that by the grace of God more will be struck out. Almost all of them shouted at me like the Jews did to Jesus. So far they have not come to the principal point – namely that I should confess that all the articles are contained in my works … The presidents said that I should have another public hearing. They do not wish to hear arguments about the Church.22

  *

  Henry’s most important business today was issuing the warrant for Master Philip Morgan to go to Calais and liaise with Sir William Lisle, acting lieutenant of the town, to prorogue the truce with France.

  Much to Henry’s annoyance, his attempt to hurry the French diplomats by extending the truce only to 8 June had failed. They had disobeyed him, taking their time when he had urged them to hurry. Henry did not like to be disobeyed in this manner, but he had no choice. He could not be seen to be refusing peace initiatives. Morgan and Lisle were thus empowered to extend the truce for as long as they deemed necessary. It took five days for the warrant to reach Calais – presumably carried by Philip Morgan – and they extended the peace to 15 July, probably as a result of verbal instructions given to Morgan today.23

  All the time Henry was putting back the departure date for the expedition. First it had been 8 May, then 24 June, then 1 July, and
now it was possibly as late as 15 July. Surely he could now expect the ambassadors to hurry up and arrive?

  The rest of Henry’s business was a series of grants and petitions. The people of Winchelsea were given authority to reduce the size of their town. Edward I had refounded it on a new site in 1288 – just as the old site slipped beneath the waves of the Sussex coast – and had made sure it was laid out on a grid pattern. More recently the French and Castillians had attacked the town and damaged it; so in 1414 a programme of strengthening the defences had begun. Now, however, the area being enclosed within the defences seemed too large: could the townspeople please enclose a smaller area? Henry, ‘liking such places to be strengthened,’ and considering the important position this port occupied on the south coast, granted their request.24

  Henry granted to Master Richard Dereham, archdeacon of Norfolk, the wardenship of King’s Hall, Cambridge, with his fees and gowns to be paid for by the sheriff of the county.25 Also today he ordered that the people of Northampton be granted a tally acknowledging that they had lent the king £66. He appointed John Hayne to be chief ranger in the forest of Wolmere and Aliceholt, Hants, and granted his servant John Green, keeper of the king’s beds, one third of the tolls for crossing the Tweed.26

  Last but by no means least there was a grant of £20 to his old nurse, Joanna Waring or Waryn, the woman who had suckled him in infancy.27 Along with the gift to Blanche Chalons (on 28 May), it is one of the very few signs of intimacy in 1415 between Henry and female companions. It is interesting that both women’s relationship with Henry was that of looking after him in his youth.